| Lenders giving Latino market more attention
(04-01) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Five years ago, the Latino home-buying market was largely an invisible one. Now, it is not just a so-called "emerging" segment of the housing market, it is a market unto itself. But it's one that still needs to be reckoned with. Back then, many Latinos had the capacity to become owners, but the mortgage business didn't see them. Some wannabe owners didn't speak English, so they had no idea what the home-buying process was all about. Others didn't participate in the American banking system, so they had not established the all-important credit histories lenders required to determine if they were creditworthy. Now a fair number of lenders are finally reaching out to Hispanics. But Latinos still face the same barriers to ownership. Many continue to be penalized for dealing in cash rather than checks and credit cards.
Has the Housing Crisis Finally Arrived?
Mortgage defaults are soaring, subprime mortgage lenders are dropping like flies, and investors are fleeing the housing market.
Panic is sweeping the subprime mortgage sector and threatening to move up the food chain to larger integrated banks, after the bankruptcy of 22 lenders over the last two months.
The real panic began in February when Britain's largest bank by market value, hsbc, announced that it had fired the head of its North American operations after its bad-mortgage-related debt rose to $6.8 billion and that it was setting aside a total of $10.5 billion to cover U. S. bad home loans.
The fear then intensified when New Century Financial, the second biggest subprime lender in America, failed. The crash seemed to catch almost everyone by surprise, including banking giant Goldman Sachs, which had extended New Century Financial's line of credit, set to expire on February 15, to May 14 even after New Century Financial warned that it would have to restate its financial filings for the first three quarters of 2006.
Everything in the garden is lovely. It's just a shame about the house
Ben Bernanke says he's not too worried about the chaos that has erupted in America's wobbly 'sub-prime' mortgage market. Overstretched buyers may be losing their homes, scores of gung-ho lenders may be going bust, and prices may be plunging in prime real-estate hotspots, but the central banker can take a sweeping view - and, so far, Bernanke reckons the problem is 'largely contained'. He may soon be forced to change his mind. An alarming study by Ivy Zelman at Credit Suisse suggests sub-prime is only the tip of a very nasty iceberg. .
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