Manns Medium

There are many residents who would love to see their city grow and become a more productive and rewarding place to live.  Some used to even advertise how great their city or state was on their license plates but this seems not to be the case anymore whether it is a lack of vision by those in leadership or the unwillingness to try something new since change seems to frighten so many.  Now it should be as plain as the nose on our faces that with each passing day, things change and if we are to ever stay atop what is happening around us at any given time, we too must be willing to change.  We are all quite aware that doing the same thing the exact same way expecting change is the real true definition of insanity and if we are willing to accept that premises then why are we surprised what is accepted as normal these days? Back in the day, homeownership was proof of valid income, a six hundred credit score and a willingness to clean up anything that made loan approval boa...

Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote an article for ProPublica titled “Housing Enforcement Group Sues M&T Bank for Discrimination” and reports within it that “The unusual lawsuit draws on secret videotapes and recordings to argue that the bank’s loan officers discriminated against blacks, Latinos and Asians who applied for mortgages.  One of the nation's largest banks discriminates against black, Latino and Asian homebuyers by offering lesser qualified white borrowers higher loan amounts and using hidden racial criteria in one of its loan programs, according to a lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Manhattan. The suit also accuses the bank of steering homebuyers to certain neighborhoods based on their race or ethnicity.  The lawsuit claims that M&T Bank violated the landmark Fair Housing Act, a 1968 law that sought to end discriminatory lending practices and limit the historic segregation of many of the country's cities. The suit was filed by the Fair Housing Justice Cen...

Well here we go again America, just when we started to see some excellent signs of recovery, a group of some of the dumbest smart people in the world takes the wheel and aims us right back toward that economic cliff that we was once dangling from only a few short years ago. According to an article from the Associated Press “new U.S. rules aimed at getting banks to take on more of the risk when they package and sell mortgage securities are being relaxed with an eye to spurring broader home lending.  Federal regulators have dropped a key requirement: a 20 percent down payment from the borrower if a bank didn't hold at least 5 percent of the mortgage securities tied to those loans on its books.  The long-delayed final rules unveiled Tuesday by six federal agencies include the less stringent condition that borrowers not carry excessive debt relative to their income.  The rules, proposed in stricter form in 2011, were mandated by the overhaul law enacted in the wake of th...

The article by Derek Kravitz of the Associated Press Real Estate Writer titled Gov't orders 14 lenders to reimburse homeowners should have been something celebrated by all who read it except maybe those who took advantage of this economic disaster and homeowners.   It brought a smile to my face and I finally felt relieved that the government had finally stepped up and done something but as with all other things, there are always those who can not see the forest for the trees. The article sited these lenders and servicers by reporting that “the federal government on Wednesday ordered 16 of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders and servicers to reimburse homeowners who were improperly foreclosed upon.   Government regulators also directed the financial firms to hire auditors to determine how many homeowners could have avoided foreclosure in 2009 and 2010.   Citibank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, the nation's four largest banks, were among the financial...