Press Releases

Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers are the latest corporate casualties in the financial crisis caused by abusive loans from reckless lenders. Even the former chair of the Mortgage Bankers Association now concedes that brokers, lenders and investors "forgot about [their] customers" because "making money and our commission checks were more important." In short, these loans never should have been made...

The preliminary report issued today by Federal Reserve Board on mortgages made in 2007 suggests that troubling lending patterns of years past persisted, with Latino and African-American families continuing to receive a disproportionate share of high-cost, subprime home loans compared with non-Hispanic white families. Though the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) has not finished a full analysis of the information...

Today Martin Eakes, CEO of Self Help and the Center for Responsible Lending, issued the following statement in response to the government's decision to take control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: "Avoiding foreclosures that don't need to happen is our country's best hope for economic recovery. Now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have the full backing of the...

Oakland—AB 1830, the California legislature's strongest piece of legislation designed to rein in the abuses in the mortgage market, passed the Senate today with a 21-16 vote. It must go back to the Assembly for concurrence before being sent to the governor. "The California Legislature has approved a bill with important, though limited, reforms this year," said Paul Leonard, director...

Today the entire staff of the Center for Responsible Lending joins the nation in mourning the passing of Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Rep. Tubbs Jones was a courageous and effective advocate on many vital issues, including predatory lending. She recognized the terrible harm caused by reckless and unethical lending practices, and she stood up for more stringent protections for borrowers...

Today President Bush signed into law a housing bill passed by Congress aimed at stabilizing the shaky housing market. A key part of the housing bill will permit struggling homeowners to refinance their mortgages through the Federal Housing Administration—if their lenders and loan servicers agree. The Congressional Budget Office says this program could possibly help 400,000 homeowners, but because the...

Preventing millions of unnecessary foreclosures is important for all of us: the entire economy and every taxpayer. We're facing the wave of foreclosures today because reckless lenders for years mass-marketed bad loans. By the end of the bubble in 2006, six out of every 10 borrowers who got a subprime mortgages could have qualified for a lower-cost conventional loans. Who...

Consumer Federation of AmericaJean Ann Fox, 928-772-0674 National Consumer Law Center, on behalf of our low income clientsLauren Saunders, 202-452-6252 x105 Center for Responsible LendingKathleen Day, 202-349-1871 As a flood of high-cost and reckless lending saturates our nation, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) took a crucial and targeted step to clean up abusive consumer lending yesterday by introducing a 36 percent...

(Revised July 23, 2008) Today the Federal Reserve helped return the home lending industry to common-sense business practices by issuing new rules for mortgage lenders. We are pleased to see that the Fed has adopted key protections for borrowers who receive subprime loans, including: Addressing the most substantial cause of current foreclosures, lenders must carefully evaluate a borrower's ability to...

While Washington continues to debate how to rein in the risky lending practices that fueled the foreclosure crisis, states are taking action. Earlier this week the North Carolina General Assembly became the first in the nation to ban "yield-spread premiums"—kickbacks that encourage brokers to overcharge—on subprime mortgages. These kickbacks, which brokers received for delivering subprime loans with higher interest rates...