A few weeks ago, I helped a Kent couple purchase a condominium located in Seattle for their daughter to live in while she attends college at Seattle University. They were prequalifed with their credit union, however the credit union was treating the transaction as if it were an investment property even though the couple (we’ll call them Mr. and Mrs. Kent) were not going to rent the property.

You see most lenders require that a home be located at least 50 miles away before it can qualify as a second home.  The city of Kent is just over 20 miles away from Seattle. Some lenders may even require that a second home meet conditions that one would consider a “vacation” property.

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David Salmela, Minnesota’s best-known architect, is a paradox. Acclaimed, awarded and the subject of a new book, the self-taught Duluth native is also nagged by self-doubt.

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Some 3,162 Latino customers of a Bakersfield-based mortgage bank are getting refund checks for alleged overcharges, the Federal Trade Commission announced Monday.

The checks, sent out last Friday, total $1.5 million. The trade commission says Golden Empire Mortgage Inc., which also goes by GEM Mortgage, illegally charged Latino applicants higher prices for home loans than it charged whites.

“These disparities…are substantial, statistically significant, and cannot be explained by factors related to underwriting risk or credit characteristics of the applicants,” the trade commission alleged in a 2009 lawsuit.

Rick Roper, Golden Empire’s executive vice president, said the refund checks represent the suit’s final chapter.

A settlement agreement finalized last September called for comprehensive changes to Golden Empire’s policies and procedures within specified time frames.

“Those were completed as scheduled,” Roper said.

The company admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement agreement, and Roper said Golden Empire officials as well as the larger mortgage industry look at things differently than the FTC does.

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On Wednesday, Banking giant Bank of America said  it will pay an $8.5 billion settlement to investors who were sold fraudulent mortgage securities prior to the 2008 financial crisis. As a result of the settlement, the bank expects to report a second-quarter net loss of between $8.6 billion and $9.1 billion (or a range of 88 cents to 93 cents per share).

22 Investors to Be Paid in Settlement

Bank of America is expected to pay 22 investors after they claimed they had been misled by securities packages that included numerous mortgages belonging to borrowers who had questionable credit.

While the securities packages were highly rated by credit rating agencies, the investors believe that involved parties knew the packages were not safe investments and the borrowers with questionable credit could possibly default on their mortgages.

BofA was actually not directly involved at the time of the investment purchases, but was later exposed to the securities after the 2008 acquisition of Countrywide Mortgage Corp. The investor

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Wednesday awarded more than $6 million to Seattle-area housing authorities for education and training.

The $3.1 million to the Seattle Housing Authority and $3 million the King County Housing Authority is “seed” funding for development of early childhood education and adult training facilities for public housing residents. Its part of $34 million HUD gave to 10 housing authorities nationwide. “As President Obama has said, if America is to win the future, we need to out-educate the rest of the world,” HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said in a news release. “This funding helps public housing agencies that want to provide these services but lacked the resources. This is a

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