Homeowners

Troubled by recent wildfire deaths in Australia, California fire chiefs have put on hold an ambitious new firefighting model that would encourage some homeowners to stay and fight advancing flames. Proposed guidelines for the program could be delayed for months, and perhaps scratched altogether, as California fire officials look closely at what went wrong in Australia, said Bob Roper, vice chairman of Firescope, the statewide fire panel considering the change.

A snapshot of the reeling mortgage industry, released Friday by federal bank regulators, illustrates the challenges the Obama administration faces with its $95-billion plan to help lower mortgage payments for struggling borrowers. In the last three months of 2008, most troubled borrowers were being offered not true modifications but breathers on payments followed by a resumption of the original mortgage terms, or even higher payments.

For a carefree few, choosing a house color is as simple as pointing to paint chips in a contractor's brochure. For Pasadena homeowner Mary Hayden, it was far more arduous. She purchased no fewer than 24 sample quarts on her quest for the perfect three-color palette. The process soon became an exercise in higher math, with more than 500 possible combinations. And that didn't take into account a fourth color for the front door. Painting contractor Richard V.

President Obama, meeting with homeowners at the White House, said the government's efforts to drive down interest rates had fueled a surge in refinancing -- putting money into many homeowners' pockets during the current economic crisis. But almost all the refinancing so far involves borrowers with conventional mortgages who are not in serious financial trouble. The president's own programs for helping troubled homeowners are just beginning to get off the ground.

Policies aimed at easing home loan terms for troubled borrowers may not be as effective in preventing foreclosures as more direct aid to homeowners, Federal Reserve economists have found.

The financial services industry is in trouble over its role in crashing the world economy, but that doesn't mean its lobbyists have lost all their muscle on Capitol Hill. Exhibit A: The Senate delivered a stinging rebuff to President Obama and consumer advocates Thursday by rejecting a measure to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

The roller-coaster ride of the real estate market over the last 15 years has soared higher and plunged deeper for minorities nationwide than it has for whites, according to a study of homeownership released Tuesday. The declines in homeownership among African Americans and U.S.-born Latinos in recent years were especially sharp, according to the study by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center in Washington.

The Los Angeles City Council is poised to vote today on a plan to help distressed homeowners in the northeast San Fernando Valley by putting up city money for "silent second mortgages" that could encourage financial institutions to modify home loans. The pilot program would make available $1 million from the Community Redevelopment Agency to help 20 to 30 homeowners in Pacoima and neighboring communities who are in foreclosure. "If we can make this work . . .

Banks could get incentive payments for allowing borrowers to sell their homes at a loss rather than go through foreclosure under new guidelines issued Thursday for the Obama administration's $75-billion housing plan. The program, known as Making Home Affordable, focuses on paying lenders to modify distressed borrowers' loans so that payments are cheaper. But under this expansion of the program, lenders can also receive incentive payments if the homeowner's loan is not modified.

The Los Angeles County assessor's office announced Monday that it has reduced assessments for 333,000 county homeowners, leading property tax revenue to drop for the first time in recent years. As a result, the county expects to lose about $440 million in property tax revenue, a 1% decrease that county officials had anticipated. "We were worried that it would be a lot higher," L.A. County Assessor Rick Auerbach said.