March 2009

  • New Regulations for Loan Modification and Refinance

    According to the Treasury, as many as six million families are expected to face foreclosure in the next several years, with millions more struggling to stay current on their payments, and with Friday’s news that unemployment has spiked to 8.1…

  • Finally Touching That Third Rail?

    Rail travel is romanticized so much in our nation’s culture—be it in song, film, or political theater—that it’s easy to forget that we forgot about it a long time ago. We were critical here on Rooflines when Barack Obama and…

  • Making a Profit on the Shards of a Glass Bubble

    You’ve got to give the money-makers credit: when their giant, festering wound of an enterprise was pried open, cleansed with salt and rubbing alcohol, what did they do? They invested in pieces of the scars even before the healing began.…

  • “Ethical Lenders” Employ a Tried and True Method: Long-term, Fixed-rate Loans

    This report from ABC News focuses on Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, a nonprofit and part of a growing list of organizations that embrace the identity of “ethical lender,” working with low-income borrowers amid an unnerving financial crisis. What’s so…

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    Sprawl’s share of US housing starts has declined dramatically, says EPA

    A new report from the US Environmental Protection Agency documents a dramatic shift in the pattern of new development in the nation over the past two decades: Central cities and counties are now claiming a much larger share of overall…

  • MacArthur Foundation Announces Multi-State Affordable Housing Preservation Effort

    The following was released Thursday by the MacArthur Foundation. Seizing the opportunity to make needed long-term investments in the face of a weak economy, 12 states and cities are launching innovative projects to preserve more than 70,000 affordable rental homes.…

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