Loans

The Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that it was considering curbing tax refund loans offered by tax preparers such as H&R Block Inc. and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. More than 12 million people take out such loans each year to in effect get advances against their refunds, according to a study by consumer groups, which have long criticized the fees on the loans as excessive. The IRS suspects that some preparers may be inflating refunds to increase the size of the loans they make.

Countrywide Financial Corp., stuck with tens of billions of dollars in "alternative" mortgages it can't sell, is pushing customers to refinance into traditional loans that can be easily unloaded by the struggling lender. The home-loan giant seeks to have $12 billion of these exotic loans refinanced into uncontroversial mortgages and has told its sales force to pull out all the stops to get borrowers to go along, internal documents show.

The economic stimulus plan worked out Thursday in Washington would provide nearly a year of cheaper loans for Californians buying or refinancing higher-cost homes, and the news elicited jubilation in the beleaguered housing and mortgage industries.

Beirut Forget getting behind on your payments. Maysa, a 31-year-old accountant, is making payments on her behind. For years the Beirut resident felt uncomfortable with her derriere. She tried dieting, exercise and weight-loss pills, to no avail. Then she discovered that her bank was offering thousands of dollars in loans for nose jobs, breast implants, face-lifts and liposuction.

The Federal Reserve said it became tougher for U.S. companies and consumers to get loans in the last three months, particularly to buy real estate. Most lenders anticipate more delinquencies and losses this year, assuming that "economic activity progresses in line with consensus forecasts," according to the central bank's quarterly survey of senior loan officers released Monday in Washington. The survey, conducted last month through Jan.

More people are applying for home loans, but that doesn't mean they are getting them. In a rare piece of good news for the mortgage industry, applications for home loans rose last week to a nearly four-year high after a sharp drop in interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans. Much of the surge in applications since the start of the year has been from homeowners looking to refinance at lower rates.

Los Angeles' largest nonprofit AIDS services agency is suing to stop the city from foreclosing on a onetime AIDS hospice that was built with a city housing loan and is now being used as offices for HIV case managers. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation opened Linn House, its third hospice, on donated land near West Hollywood in 1995.

Students at Corinthian Colleges and other for-profit learning institutions are getting a painful lesson in credit-crunch economics: Some lenders, including giant Sallie Mae, are turning off the money faucets for less credit-worthy applicants. That means students at these commercial schools who use high-rate private loans to bridge gaps in their tuition costs or who fail to qualify for conventional loans and grants may have a harder time financing their educations.

Jesus Rodriguez knew he was going to come up short on his bills, so on a recent Friday afternoon he took his accustomed trip to a Baldwin Park strip mall. The produce-truck driver walked into a payday lending business nestled alongside a Chinese fast-food joint and a dental office. He wrote out a personal check for $300 and walked out with $255 cash. The 33-year-old Mexican immigrant basically gave away $45 to get the advance, but he said he didn't see a lot of other options.

U.S. mortgage applications jumped by nearly 50% last week as home loan rates fell after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates and took steps to restore bond-market confidence, an industry trade group said Wednesday. An 82% surge in refinancing applications overshadowed a 10.6% rise in home-purchase loan requests, lifting total applications from the previous week, when home-loan demand sank to its lowest since late December. The Mortgage Bankers Assn.'