An important figure to watch in the HAMP program is the percent of trial modifications that have become permanent. The HAMP program starts out participants in three-to five-month trial modifications, and if they submit all the necessary paperwork and...
Failure to disclose interest rates, adequately supervise third party loan arrangers acting as agents of national banks, and maintain sufficient capital-these are the same criticisms my organization and others lobbed at the mortgage industry long before its collapse. These...
Illinois has currently has about 150,000 units of manufactured homes, representing about 3 percent of the state’s housing stock. Of those, over half were built prior to 1980. More than 2 million Americans, often elderly and people with disabilities,...
These numbers are particularly distressing because the increase in bankruptcies likely hits women, particularly single mothers, the hardest. The fastest growing group filing for bankruptcy is women filing alone; between 1981 and 1999, that number grew by 800%. In 2005,...
By David Newville January 22, 2010 As the tax season begins in earnest, the Woodstock Institute, a nonprofit community development group based in Chicago, released a timely report that analyzes the use of refund anticipation loans (RALs) in Illinois....
By Natalie Moore January 21, 2010 A new study shows that Illinois taxpayers who borrow from their projected tax return pay high fees. People like Refund Anticipation Loans, or RALs, because it lets them get their expected tax...
By Sandra Guy January 20, 2010 Rhonda Jones remembers racing to a neighborhood tax preparer to get her federal income-tax refund in just five days — for fees ranging from $300 to $500. Only after Jones saw a flier...
These high-cost, short-term loans secured by a taxpayer’s projected tax refund are arranged by for-profit tax preparers in partnership with large banks as a quick alternative to receiving a refund directly from the IRS through a paper check or...
divertedopportunities_dec2009_duda-buitrago-smithreport_0.pdf Geoff Smith, Sarah Duda, and Katie Buitrago This report found that high-cost refund anticipation loans (RALs), which allow borrowers to receive their expected tax refund in one to three days, cost Illinoisans more than $114 million in 2006,...
With the stock market up and bonuses flowing again, things are looking better for some Wall Street firms and employees. Wall Street interests are continuing to pour millions of dollars into blocking financial reform efforts. Some may be lulled...