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South Korea announced steps Thursday to bolster its sagging property market, including easing restrictions imposed on some districts of the capital. Seoul in 2003 restricted mortgage loan-to-value ratios to 40 percent and banned buyers from spending more than 40 percent of their income on repayments in three southern Seoul areas seen as most attractive to speculators. From now on, the same rules will apply citywide, with buyers able to borrow up to 50 percent of a property's value and spend up to 50 percent of their income on repayments. House prices in the Seoul metropolitan area have been falling for 10 successive months, with the latest April reading showing a 0.3 percent month-on-month decline. The government said it would also cut taxes on capital gains from property in the three districts, and would offer low-interest loans to a wider range of potential home-buyers in the capital. "We're rolling back excessive regulations adopted back in the early 2000s when the property market was overheating," the land ministry said in a statement. "Despite an increase in home supply... transactions in the housing sector are shrinking, while new apartment sales are also sluggish, hit by (economic) uncertainties."

owers may conceal obligations, such as mortgage loans on other properties or newly acquired credit card debt, to reduce the amount of monthly debt declared on the loan application. This omission of liabilities artificially lowers the debt-to-income ratio, which is a key underwriting criterion used to determine eligibility for most mortgage loans. It is considered fraud because it allows the borrower to qualify for a loan which otherwise would not have been granted, or to qualify for a bigger loan than what would have been granted had the borrower's true debt been disclosed. Fraud for profit: A complex scheme involving multiple parties, including mortgage lending professionals, in a financially motivated attempt to defraud the lender of large sums of money. Fraud for profit schemes frequently include a straw borrower whose credit report is used, a dishonest appraiser who intentionally and significantly overstates the value of the subject property, a dishonest settlement agent who might prepare two sets of HUD settlement statements or makes disbursements from loan proceeds which are not disclosed on the settlement statement, and a property owner, all in a coordinated attempt to obtain an inappropriately large loan. The parties involved share the ill-gotten gains and the mortgage eventually goes into default. In other cases, naive "investors" are lured into the scheme with the organizer's promise that the home will be repaired, repairs and/or renovations will be made, tenants will located, rents will be collected, mortgage payments made and profits will be split upon sale of the property, all without the active participation of the straw buyer. Once the loan is closed, the organizer disappears, no repairs are made nor renters found, and the "investor" is liable for paying the mortgage on a property that is not worth what is owed, leaving the "investor" financially ruined. If undetected, a bank may lend hundreds of thousands of dollars against a property that is act

Mortgage fraud is crime in which the intent is to materially misrepresent or omit information on a mortgage loan application to obtain a loan or to obtain a larger loan than would have been obtained had the lender or borrower known the truth. In United States federal courts, mortgage fraud is prosecuted as wire fraud, bank fraud, mail fraud and money laundering, with penalties of up to thirty years imprisonment.As the incidence of mortgage fraud has risen over the past few years, states have also begun to enact their own penalties for mortgage fraud. Mortgage fraud is not to be confused with predatory mortgage lending, which occurs when a consumer is misled or deceived by agents of the lender. However, predatory lending practices often co-exist with mortgage fraud. Types Occupancy fraud: This occurs where the borrower wishes to obtain a mortgage to acquire an investment property, but states on the loan application that the borrower will occupy the property as the primary residence or as a second home. If undetected, the borrower typically obtains a lower interest rate than was warranted. Because lenders typically charge a higher interest rate for non-owner-occupied properties, which historically have higher delinquency rates, the lender receives insufficient return on capital and is over-exposed to loss relative to what was expected in the transaction. In addition, lenders allow larger loans on owner-occupied homes compared to loans for investment properties. When occupancy fraud occurs, it is likely that taxes on gains are not paid, resulting in additional fraud. It is considered fraud because the borrower has materially misprepresented the risk to the lender to obtain more favorable loan terms. Income fraud: This occurs when a borrower overstates his/her income to qualify for a mortgage or for a larger loan amount. This was most often seen with so-called "stated income" mortgage loans (popularly referred to as "liar loans"), where the borrower, or a l

South Korea announced steps Thursday to bolster its sagging property market, including easing restrictions imposed on some districts of the capital. Seoul in 2003 restricted mortgage loan-to-value ratios to 40 percent and banned buyers from spending more than 40 percent of their income on repayments in three southern Seoul areas seen as most attractive to speculators. From now on, the same rules will apply citywide, with buyers able to borrow up to 50 percent of a property's value and spend up to 50 percent of their income on repayments. House prices in the Seoul metropolitan area have been falling for 10 successive months, with the latest April reading showing a 0.3 percent month-on-month decline. The government said it would also cut taxes on capital gains from property in the three districts, and would offer low-interest loans to a wider range of potential home-buyers in the capital. "We're rolling back excessive regulations adopted back in the early 2000s when the property market was overheating," the land ministry said in a statement. "Despite an increase in home supply... transactions in the housing sector are shrinking, while new apartment sales are also sluggish, hit by (economic) uncertainties."

The insurance fraud in Changwon uncovered by the Financial Supervisory Service is both shocking and disturbing. It involved as many as 1,361 people, mostly residents of the South Gyeongsang Province city, who either posed as fake patients or exaggerated their illnesses. Collectively, they claimed 9.5 billion won from 33 insurance companies between 2007 and 2011. At the center of the scam ― the largest ever in terms of the number of people involved ― were three unconscionable hospitals in the city, which recruited fake patients systematically in cahoots with insurance brokers and solicitors. They did this to increase revenue and ease their financial distress. The main ploy used by the hospitals was to share a patient, meaning they would arrange for a patient to check in the three hospitals alternately for a different disease. For this, they faked his illnesses and prepared false documents. For close cooperation, they shared patient information among themselves. This scheme helped patients pocket more insurance money. They all purchased multiple private health insurance policies before hospitalization. On average they received some 7 million won per person. In one example, a man in his 50s was hospitalized for a total of 564 days over three years, collecting 95 million won in insurance. The Changwon case followed a similar one that took place in Taebaek last November, involving more than 400 people in the declining mining town in Gangwon Province. They got a total of 14 billion won in insurance payments. As with the Changwon scam, three financially distressed hospitals in the city played a central role. The two cases suggest that insurance fraud is a fairly common occurrence in Korea. According to the FSS, the number of insurance-related crimes has surged in recent years. Last year alone, more than 70,000 people were caught for insurance scams, with the amount of false claims they filed reaching 423 billion won. Yet the figure represented just the tip of the

Two U.S. housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Thursday announced huge losses in the fourth quarter of last year, fresh evidence of the still struggling U.S. property market. Fannie Mae registered a net loss of 2.1 billion U.S. dollars in the fourth quarter last year, and requested an additional 2.6 billion dollars in federal aid, the Washington-based company said Thursday in a statement. Freddie Mac posted a net loss of more than 1.7 billion dollars in the same period, and asked for an additional 500 million dollars in federal aid, according to a statement released by the company on Thursday. The Obama administration earlier this month unveiled a report to Congress on reforming the U.S. housing finance market, aiming to wind down the two government-sponsored enterprises, while giving the private sector a bigger say on the multi-trillion-dollar market. The two companies played a major role in the run-up to the severe financial crisis. The U.S. government stepped in to take over Fannie and Freddie in September 2008 and cost U.S. taxpayers multi-billion dollars, which has drawn criticism from various sectors.

Two U.S. housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Thursday announced huge losses in the fourth quarter of last year, fresh evidence of the still struggling U.S. property market. Fannie Mae registered a net loss of 2.1 billion U.S. dollars in the fourth quarter last year, and requested an additional 2.6 billion dollars in federal aid, the Washington-based company said Thursday in a statement. Freddie Mac posted a net loss of more than 1.7 billion dollars in the same period, and asked for an additional 500 million dollars in federal aid, according to a statement released by the company on Thursday. The Obama administration earlier this month unveiled a report to Congress on reforming the U.S. housing finance market, aiming to wind down the two government-sponsored enterprises, while giving the private sector a bigger say on the multi-trillion-dollar market. The two companies played a major role in the run-up to the severe financial crisis. The U.S. government stepped in to take over Fannie and Freddie in September 2008 and cost U.S. taxpayers multi-billion dollars, which has drawn criticism from various sectors. see more : http://newscenter.springhillgrouphome.com/

The insurance fraud in Changwon uncovered by the Financial Supervisory Service is both shocking and disturbing. It involved as many as 1,361 people, mostly residents of the South Gyeongsang Province city, who either posed as fake patients or exaggerated their illnesses. Collectively, they claimed 9.5 billion won from 33 insurance companies between 2007 and 2011. At the center of the scam ― the largest ever in terms of the number of people involved ― were three unconscionable hospitals in the city, which recruited fake patients systematically in cahoots with insurance brokers and solicitors. They did this to increase revenue and ease their financial distress. The main ploy used by the hospitals was to share a patient, meaning they would arrange for a patient to check in the three hospitals alternately for a different disease. For this, they faked his illnesses and prepared false documents. For close cooperation, they shared patient information among themselves. This scheme helped patients pocket more insurance money. They all purchased multiple private health insurance policies before hospitalization. On average they received some 7 million won per person. In one example, a man in his 50s was hospitalized for a total of 564 days over three years, collecting 95 million won in insurance. The Changwon case followed a similar one that took place in Taebaek last November, involving more than 400 people in the declining mining town in Gangwon Province. They got a total of 14 billion won in insurance payments. As with the Changwon scam, three financially distressed hospitals in the city played a central role. The two cases suggest that insurance fraud is a fairly common occurrence in Korea. According to the FSS, the number of insurance-related crimes has surged in recent years. Last year alone, more than 70,000 people were caught for insurance scams, with the amount of false claims they filed reaching 423 billion won. Yet the figure represented just the tip of the

Springhill Group Home is a housing finance company with the principal goal of achieving a social requirement of motivating home ownership by offering long-term finance to households. Springhill Group Home has turned the idea of housing finance in Springhill into a world-class business venture with outstanding reputation for dependability, honesty and outstanding services.

SEOUL, July 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea plans to ease mortgage lending limits and take other measures in a bid to tackle the housing market slump and spur domestic demand, the presidential office said Sunday. The plan, which came after a government-private meeting, calls for relaxing the so-called debt-to-income (DTI) ratio, which serves as a major tool to control housing loans by tying the maximum amount of money that home buyers can borrow to their income levels. The current ceiling is 40-60 percent in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province, the nation's most populous region. "We will maintain the basic principle of DTI and plan to complement irrational parts (of the system) for those who actually want to buy houses," Kim Dae-ki, the chief presidential economic advisor, said at a briefing, without elaborating. The growing number of people who can't afford to make payments on their home loans emerged as a major concern as policymakers brace for an economic slowdown in the wake of the eurozone debt crisis. During the meeting, which lasted nearly 10 hours through midnight, officials and industry experts agreed to a set of measures aimed at spurring foreign investment and tax support for small and medium companies as well as eased regulations on building new hotels and resorts, participants said. As a way to spur domestic demand, the government officials and businessmen agreed to encourage employees to use up their vacations during the summer, they said. Kim said the finance ministry will hold a meeting on Monday with related agencies to prepare follow-up measures aimed at boosting domestic demand in Asia's fourth-largest economy. The stimulus plan comes as South Korea's economy has been losing steam in the face of the eurozone debt crisis and a global economic slump that have made a dent in exports, the main driver of its growth. In the second quarter, Asia's fourth-largest economy is estimated to have grown a

News Center - Springhill Group Home Loans | Briefs..... - thenews.com.pk» http://springhillgrouphome.tumblr.com/day/2012/09/18/ Business digest http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-3-132475-Briefs China paper hints at anti-Japan sanctions   BEIJING: The mouthpiece of China's Communist Party warned on Monday that Japan's economy could suffer for up to 20 years if Beijing chose to impose sanctions over an escalating territorial row.   Anti-Japanese protests have been held across China in recent days over a dispute on a group of small islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries but controlled by Tokyo.   The row intensified last week when the Japanese government bought three of the islands, effectively nationalising them, and China responded by sending patrol ships into the waters around them.   Trade sanctions between Asia's two biggest economies could cast a pall over growth on the continent, which major Western countries are counting on to drive recovery from the global slowdown.   A commentary in the People's Daily newspaper said the Japanese economy has already experienced two lost decades from the 1990s and was suffering further weakness in the aftermath of the world financial crisis and 2011 earthquake.   Digital news offering aims at high ground   WASHINGTON: It seems like a terrible time to be launching a news operation.But there are opportunities and niches, and the new digital media launch called Quartz from Atlantic Media Company seeks to exploit them.   Quartz is set to launch in the coming weeks as a "100 percent digital" news operation covering "the most important themes of the new global economy," said editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney.   Quartz has been recruiting a small number of veteran journalists for an overall news staff of around 25 people. The operation will feature tablet and mobile displays as well as a desktop website, qz.com.   "There is an opportunity to do great journalism on a digital platfo