Press Releases

The Center for Responsible Lending and the Financial Services Roundtable today asked Congress to extend the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, which is set to expire at year's end. "This tax law has bi-partisan support and is critical to helping homeowners and communities struggling with the ongoing foreclosure crisis," the two organizations said in joint letters to House and Senate...

Statement of CRL President Mike Calhoun on today's report by HUD on the FHA's financial status FHA has played a critical role during the housing crisis and the economic downturn. It provided credit to families who otherwise would not have been able to buy homes. This has helped new home owners, but also helped stabilize neighborhoods and communities and boost...

Foreclosures across the United States have drained nearly $2 trillion in property value from surrounding households, more than half of it from African-American and Latino homeowners, a new study from the Center for Responsible Lending finds. The report, "Collateral Damage: The Spillover Costs of Foreclosures," updates CRL's research on the economic harm that homeowners suffer by living near foreclosed properties—the...

Statement of CRL President Mike Calhoun about the complaint filed yesterday by the Residential Mortgage-backed Securities Working Group, a task force that was formed in January by the Justice Department: "The complaint filed against Bear Stearns, now owned by JPMorgan Chase, is a welcome step in an ongoing investigation of Wall Street investment banking activities leading up to the financial...

The latest Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) survey shows positive trends in the housing market, with delinquencies and foreclosures down from last year. However, the millions of foreclosures still ahead will continue to erode communities and slow economic recovery. The need for aggressive and fair loan modifications remains as strong as ever. In addition, policymakers will sabotage growth and recovery if...

Restoring the US housing market is critical to our nation's economic recovery. That is why we are disappointed with the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) announcement today that it will not permit targeted forgiveness of loan principal balances for struggling homeowners. This decision means that principal reductions are not an option for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans even when...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Financial reforms enacted in response the financial meltdown remain popular with Americans likely to vote in 2012, a new opinion poll by Lake Research Partners shows. The poll was commissioned by AARP, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). Saturday (July 21, 2012) marks the...

The recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the Independent Foreclosure Review (IFR) process reveals serious flaws that threaten to undermine the program's success. The IFR is intended to compensate borrowers for mistakes their mortgage servicers made in the foreclosure process. The report critiques the public outreach that has been conducted for the IFR, under which federal banking regulators have...

Today's Department of Justice fair lending settlement with Wells Fargo Bank is welcome news, and highlights the benefits of new mortgage rules to combat predatory lending. The DOJ settlement of $175 million settles charges that Wells Fargo steered about 4,000 African-American and Hispanic families into higher-cost subprime mortgages while white borrowers with similar qualifications received safer, cheaper prime loans. DOJ...

Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the California Foreclosure Reduction Act today inLos Angeles. The bills, AB 278 and SB 900, are designed to reduce unnecessary foreclosures in the state and were critical pieces of Attorney General Kamala Harris' Homeowner Bill of Rights. "These common-sense protections have had an uphill battle to the governor's desk," said Paul Leonard, California Director...