Case-Shiller Shows U.S. Home Prices Hit Fresh Lows In February

A closely-watched gauge of U.S. home prices stumbled again in February, with the S&P/Case-Shiller home price indices making fresh cycle lows in its 10- and 20-city measures.

Nine of the major metropolitan areas in the report were down again in February, according to the data out Tuesday morning – Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Las Vegas, New York, Portland, Seattle and Tampa – dropping to their lowest levels of the post-crisis era.

On a year-over-year basis Atlanta was by far the worst-performing market, with home prices diving 17.3%, the city’s worst decline in the 20-year history of the index.  Read the full article here

Inside the foreclosure factory, they're working overtime

In a quiet office in downtown Charlotte, N.C., dozens of Wells Fargo’s foreclosure foot soldiers sit in cubicles cranking out documents the bank relies on to seize its share of the thousands of homes lost to foreclosure every week.

They stare at computer screens and prepare sworn affidavits that are used by lenders in courts across the country to seize homes. Paid $30,700 to start, these legal process specialists, the title that goes with the job, swear an oath under penalty of perjury that they're corporate vice presidents. They're peppered with e-mails from managers to meet daily quotas of at least 10 or 11 files day.

If they fall short, they face Read the full article here

Flood of foreclosures to hit the housing market

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The golden age for foreclosure squatters may soon be coming to an end now that the $26 billion mortgage settlement has been approved.

The settlement, agreed to by the nation's five largest mortgage lenders, is expected to speed up the foreclosure process by providing stricter guidelines for the banks to follow when repossessing homes.

The banks involved include Read the full article here

Court Halts Alleged Fake Debt Collector Calls from India, Grants FTC Request to Stop Defendants Who Posed as Law Enforcers

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- California-based Defendant Ran Phantom Debt Collection Scheme from His Home, FTC Alleges

In response to charges from the Federal Trade Commission, a U.S. district court has halted an operation that the agency alleges collected phantom payday loan debts that consumers either didn't owe to the defendants or didn't owe at all. The defendants' scheme involved more than 2.7 million calls to at least 600,000 different phone numbers nationwide, according to the FTC. In less than two years, they fraudulently collected more than $5.2 million from consumers, many of whom were strapped for cash and thought the money they were paying would be applied to loans they owed, according to FTC documents filed with the court.  Read the full article here

New Site to Calculate Potential Student Loan Debt

By KIMBERLY HEFLING and KRISTI EATON Associated Press

Link to article: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/site-calculate-potential-student-loan-debt-16117001#.T4X1kFFYvWc

Want to calculate how much you could owe in student loans after graduating from a particular college? A new government website provides tools to help with the math.

The site, by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is in the testing phase, but already includes information from 7,500 colleges and universities.

Users can plug in details such as grant and scholarship offers to compare what they might owe after attending different schools. The site also offers information on graduation and student loan default rates.

A "military benefit calculator" function allows the nation's more than 2 million Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to determine what they could owe after using their GI Bill benefits.

It can be found at http://www.consumerfinance.gov/payingforcollege/costcomparison.

The site is the latest effort by the federal government to make colleges and universities more open about costs.

A separate Education Department web site — http://collegecost.ed.gov — also addresses college cost, with information such as the rate of tuition increases at colleges.

"Choosing a school is a big responsibility — one that is too often made difficult by an inability to determine the impact of student loan debt," said Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, at a news conference in Sioux Falls, S.D., with Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., and a gathering of local high school students.

The bureau says student loan debt has reached $1 trillion, surpassing credit card and auto-loan debt. Graduates owe on average about $25,000.

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Hefling reported from Washington.