| US Civic Groups Demand Subprime Foreclosure Freeze (Update1)
April 5 (Bloomberg) -- A coalition of U.S. civil rights groups asked mortgage lenders to freeze foreclosures for borrowers with weak credit ratings, saying ``reckless'' lending practices to minorities caused their predicament. Lenders, loan servicers and investors in mortgages should agree to a six-month foreclosure moratorium, said a group including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Council of La Raza and the National Fair Housing Alliance in a joint statement yesterday. Political pressure on the government and regulators to intervene has increased as defaults on subprime loans rose to a four-year high and foreclosures on all home loans rose to a record in the last quarter of 2006. As many as 2.4 million Americans may lose their homes because of the collapse of the subprime loan industry, said the Center for Responsible Lending, also part of the coalition, in testimony to Congress last month.
BUSINESS BRIEFS
Lightfleet Corp. has promoted Timothy Witham to director of strategic alliances and appointed Elizabeth Schaedler to director of commercial sales. Based in Camas, the company provides compact computing solutions that deliver system-level performance with low-impact environmental characteristics. Bradley Andersen , a shareholder in the Vancouver law office of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, has been elected board of directors chairman for the Skamania County Economic Development Council. Vancouver resident Paul Winters , president of Winters & Associates Inc., a management-consulting firm, has been appointed to the board of trustees at Evergreen State College. The appointment was made by Gov. Chris Gregoire. Recognition Nutter Corp. has received an award recognizing the company as the safest excavation, road-building and underground utility contractor in Washington.
Bernanke testimony allays subprime fears
Testimony by the two top U.S. economic officials Wednesday raised fresh concerns in financial markets about the deteriorating housing market, despite their view that subprime mortgage problems are "contained." The practices of lenders in the US$1 trillion subprime sector have drawn scrutiny from regulators and law enforcement officials who believe some borrowers have been fraudulently induced to take on more debt than they can handle. While most of the activity has involved civil actions, the No. 6 home builder in the country, Beazer Homes USA Inc., said it has received a request for documents from federal prosecutors in a probe relating to its mortgage business, sending its shares down as much as 11.8 percent. The builder specializes in lower-priced homes, the sector of the market where subprime lending has been most prevalent.
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