Yesterday Mortgage Orb published an article by Phil Hall, Editor of Secondary Marketing Executive, recalling VHFA's Sugar Mae program from the early '90s.
"If Sugar Mae wasn't the right idea for its time, then at least it showed willingness to address thorny local issues in a creative manner," Hall writes. "On that point, it deserves to be remembered."
The Rutland Herald published an article this weekend about the recession and its effect on foreclosures in Vermont.
VHFA Policy & Planning Manager Maura Collins and VHFA Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Vermont's Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration Thomas Candon were both quoted in the story.
If we don't focus on building new housing, the nation's headed for a crisis larger than the one we've already seen.
That's the warning made by First Trust Advisors Chief Economist Brian Wesbury in a recent interview with Steve Forbes.
Nationally, "we need 1.5 million houses per year just to keep up with population growth," he says. "And then if you throw in, you know, fires and tear-downs and just worn-out properties, we need 1.6 million or more per year.
Two recent reports suggest loan modification efforts will delay, not prevent, home foreclosures — and those foreclosures will lower home prices for the next several years.
Those conclusions come from studies issued by John Burns Real Estate Consulting Inc. and Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC.
AOL News published an opinion piece yesterday by U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and David Abromowitz, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and partner at Goulston & Storrs in Boston.
"Foreclosures dominate the news," they write, but "there's a larger and more worrisome housing crisis ahead: a looming shortage of affordable rental housing.
"One credible estimate is that over the next 30 years, we may need to add more than 50 million new housing units of all types to meet the demand.
The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus published an opinion piece today by former VHFA Board of Commissioners Chairman Richard White.
In the piece, titled "State conservation board's work is essential," Richard writes, "It is no accident that Vermont ranks last in the country in the rate of foreclosure or that the 2004 study of Vermont's housing nonprofits had high praise for the system that Vermont has built over the last quarter century.
Ludy Biddle, Executive Director of NeighborWorks of Western Vermont in West Rutland, published a piece in this weekend's Rutland Herald explaining the importance of foreclosure counseling.
"Not only are homeowners who receive foreclosure counseling 60 percent more likely to avoid losing their homes," she writes, "they are also more likely to receive a loan modification than homeowners who try to obtain a loan modification on their own, without foreclosure counseling."