Wells Fargo has agreed to a $175 million settlement with the Justice Department on housing discrimination charges. The settlement reflects an effort on the part of the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division to seek some measure of accountability for the pervasive discrimination against African-American and Hispanic borrowers during the housing bubble. But the numbers involved are [...]

Despite the charred landscape that is the current housing market, despite the suffering borne by families all over the country, the last few years have provided a glimmer of hope that people of like circumstances have not turned their backs on each other, that they are working together for progress. And sometimes, they make it. [...]

President Obama’s star-studded fundraiser at George Clooney’s house went off without a hitch. But before the event, about 50 activists with the Campaign for a Fair Settlement, mostly low-income victims of foreclosure or predatory activity by the financial sector, made their appeal to the President in a protest on the motorcade route to the residence, [...]

George Zornick carries a rebuttal from Eric Schneiderman’s team on yesterday’s damaging expose of the securitization fraud working group. Here’s what it has to say: • There are 50 staffers “across the country” working on the RMBS working group (the official title). • DoJ has asked for $55 million for additional staffing. • The five [...]

The Mortgage Bankers Association reports a decrease in mortgage purchase activity last week, but an increase in refinancing activity, led by the new version of HARP, which is now in full swing. “The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 75.2 percent of total applications from 70.5 percent the previous week,” the MBA writes, and [...]

Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, showing no ill effects from a foreclosure fraud settlement that was supposed to penalize them for fraudulent misconduct, both announced robust earnings gains today. Matt Stoller has a good look inside the numbers. But I was intrigued by the fact that both banks attributed stronger mortgage lending numbers for their [...]

We’ve heard stories for the past couple weeks about how banks are more keen to maintain properties in more affluent areas than in minority neighborhoods. Now, one fair housing group is trying to do something about that. The National Fair Housing Alliance filed a federal housing discrimination complaint against Wells Fargo to get the bank [...]

A federal judge in DC swiftly approved the foreclosure fraud settlement yesterday. Actually four of the consent orders with the five largest mortgage servicers were approved Wednesday, but we only learned publicly of the approval of all five settlements yesterday. Some investor groups had talked about challenging the terms of the settlement, but this approval [...]

Here’s another instance of Administration housing policy benefiting banks over people. We’ve been anticipating the rollout of HARP, the Administration’s newly-tweaked refinancing program, which will allow underwater borrowers who are current on their loans to refinance into a lower interest rate. The program was announced last year, but the updating of Fannie Mae and Freddie [...]

An unusual technological quirk has delayed the Administration’s signature program for refinancing mortgages, and now it may lead to it becoming significantly narrowed from the original vision. The President announced a new initiative for HARP, the government’s mass refinancing program, all the way back in October. The idea was that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac [...]

Whatever you think about the foreclosure fraud settlement, its ostensible purpose would be to stop the things that it releases from liability. That’s the exchange: you (banks) pay a penalty and stop the misconduct, and we (government) won’t sue you for the misconduct. You don’t have to like that exchange, but that’s how it’s supposed [...]