| Ready To Consolidate That Debt?
IF YOU'RE A homeowner saddled with debt (and we're talking about bad, high-interest debt like the kind you pile up on credit cards) then Alan Greenspan has offered you an escape route. How so? Well, while credit-card interest rates have become increasingly immune to Fed rate cuts (with the average fixed-rate credit card now charging 13.5%), home-equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, have fallen below 4.0%. That's one of the lowest rates we've seen since these products first became popular back in the mid-1980s. And better yet, that rate is before you consider the tax break on your interest payments. Indeed, from a pure number-crunching perspective, consolidating high-interest, nondeductible debt into a HELOC or a home-equity loan, or HEL, is a no-brainer. Of course, your home is the collateral for such a loan, and foreclosure could leave you bunking down in Mom's den.
KeyCorp's Commitment to Cleveland Neighborhoods Increases to More Than ...
(CSRwire) KeyCorp announced today that its Retail Banking subsidiary, KeyBank National Association, has signed a third consecutive four-year agreement with the City of Cleveland for local community reinvestment. The latest $400 million commitment increases Key's funding for community reinvestment in Cleveland to more than $1 billion. In Key's previous agreements, it committed more than $580 million between 1992 and 1999. Its actual investment exceeded those commitments by $34 million. The agreement focuses on six major lending areas: home purchase and home improvement loans; consumer lending; small business loans; community development lending; and equity and philanthropic contributions. In many cases, the financial terms will be more favorable than would be possible without the agreement, such as loans for small businesses tied to the prime rate, and a home loan of up to 97 percent of value, plus closing costs.
New alarm: Option-ARM 'liar's loans'
The no-worries lending that inflated the housing bubble is resulting in a flood of soured option-ARM loans, adjustable-rate mortgages that allow borrowers to pay so little every month that their loan balances rise rather than fall, sometimes sharply.
Numbers from industry trackers suggest that these borrowers, most of whom boast respectable and often top-tier credit scores and appear to have substantial incomes and home equity, are starting to create a second tide of defaults for lenders swamped by the meltdown in subprime loans made to people with bad credit or overstretched finances.
Countrywide Financial Corp., the top option-ARM lender, will be hit hard. Already reeling from the subprime mess, Countrywide was rescued from possible bankruptcy this month by Bank of America Corp., which agreed to acquire it for about $4 billion.
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