The unemployment rate held steady at 8.3 percent, which is the lowest level it has reached in three years. If you are one of the 12.8 million people out of work, these numbers serve as little consolation. Still, the steady job growth experienced in the last three months is a sign that the economy is strengthening.

Whenever investors perceive a stronger economy, they seek riskier investments and as a result, mortgage rates tend to rise for a few days.

That hasn’t happened yet and it may not happen this time, since the latest numbers were about what economists had expected.

If rates shoot up, which I doubt, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, you should follow me on Twitter @Polyanad

Gross raised the proportion of U.S. government securities
in Pimco’s $252 billion Total Return Fund to 37 percent of
assets, from 38 percent in January, according to a report on the
company’s website. He raised mortgages to 52 from 50 percent,
the highest level since June 2009. Pimco doesn’t comment
directly on monthly changes in its portfolio holdings.

U.S. government-backed mortgage bonds have returned 0.59
percentage point more than similar-duration Treasuries this
year through yesterday, according to Barclays Capital index
data. Mortgages have gained in part on speculation the Federal
Reserve may expand purchases of the securities as part of its
stimulus measures to keep the economic recovery going.

“We like mortgages at the moment,” Gross, co-chief
investment officer and founder of Newport Beach, California-
based Pimco said today in a radio interview on “Bloomberg
Surveillance” with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt. “‘Mortgages are a
potential source of Fed purchasing going forward.”

In January, Gross raised the fund’s U.S. government and
Treasury holdings to the highest level since July 2010 after
missing a market rally by eliminating the securities from the
portfolio last year.

Fund Assets

The Total Return Fund attracted $835 million of investor
deposits in February as performance rebounded. The new money
marked a second month of assets going into the fund, after three
straight months of redemptions, according to data compiled by
Chicago-based Morningstar Inc. (MORN) Investors pulled about $3 billion
from the fund in the three months ended Dec. 31, bringing
withdrawals last year to $5 billion, Morningstar said.

Gross’s fund has returned 6.34 percent in the past year,
beating 45 percent of its peers, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg. It gained 2.91 percent this year, beating 96 percent
of its peers.

Meanwhile, Treasuries have lost 0.5 percent in 2012 as of
yesterday, compared with a return of 9.8 percent last year, Bank
of America Merrill Lynch’s Treasury Master index shows.

Pimco increased holdings of emerging-market debt to 10
percent in February from 9 percent the previous month and
reduced bonds of non-U.S. developed nations to 7 percent from 11
percent.

Playing Defense

Gross pared the Total Return Fund (PTTRX)’s net cash-and-equivalent
position to negative 31 percent, from negative 35 percent in
January. It can have a so-called negative position by using
derivatives, futures or by shorting.

He recommended last month that investors should embrace a
defensive strategy because of the limits of zero-bound interest
rates and systemic debt risk in global financial markets.

Emphasize income, de-emphasize derivative structures that
are fully valued and be willing to accept returns lower than
historical averages, Gross wrote in his monthly investment
outlook posted on the company’s website on Feb. 28.

“The offensively oriented investment world that we have
grown so used to over the past three decades is being
stonewalled by a zero-bound goal-line stand,” he wrote.
“Investment defense is coming of age.”

Pimco’s government and Treasury debt category includes fund
holdings of U.S. Treasury notes, bonds, futures and inflation-
protected securities.

The firm, a unit of the Munich-based insurer Allianz SE,
managed $1.36 trillion of assets as of Dec. 31.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Susanne Walker in New York at
swalker33@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net

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If you’re considering buying a house with an FHA mortgage and expect the seller to help out with your closing costs, here’s a heads-up: The Federal Housing Administration plans to impose significant restrictions on the amount of money that sellers can contribute at closing in the near future.

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On top of that, the FHA also will be raising its mortgage insurance premiums during the coming weeks, increasing charges for new purchasers across the board.

You might ask, why hit us with additional financial burdens right now, just as housing is showing modest signs of recovery in many areas and the spring buying season is getting underway?

One big reason: Over the last six years, the FHA has been the turnaround champ of residential real estate, offering down payments as low as 3.5% despite the recession and housing bust and growing its market share to 25%-plus from 3%. The program is financing 40% or more of all new-home purchases in some metropolitan areas and is a crucial resource for first-time buyers and moderate-income families, especially minorities. With a maximum loan amount of $729,750 in high-cost areas, it is also a force in some of the country’s most expensive markets — California, Washington, D.C., New York and parts of New England.

But during the same span of rapid growth, the FHA’s insurance fund capital reserves have steadily deteriorated — far below congressionally mandated levels. Delinquencies have been increasing. According to the latest quarterly survey by the Mortgage Bankers Assn., FHA delinquencies rose to 12.4%, compared with a 4.1% average for prime (Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac) conventional fixed-rate mortgages and 6.6% for VA loans.

As a result, the FHA is under the gun — with Congress and within the Obama administration — to get its own house in order, cut insurance claims and rebuild its reserves. The upcoming squeezes on seller contributions and bumps in premiums are steps in this direction.

The seller-contribution cutbacks could be painful, particularly in areas of the country where closing costs and home prices are relatively high.

Here’s what’s involved: Traditionally the FHA has been uniquely generous in allowing home sellers — including builders marketing new construction — to sweeten the pot for purchasers by chipping in money to defray closing costs. The FHA now allows sellers to pay up to 6% of the price of the house toward their buyers’ closing expenses. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, by comparison, cap contributions at 3%. The VA’s ceiling is 4%.

Under newly proposed rules, the FHA cap would drop to the greater of 3% of the home price or $6,000. In sales involving houses priced at $100,000 or less, this wouldn’t change anything ($6,000 equals 6% of $100,000). But on all sales above this threshold, the squeeze would get progressively tighter.

On a $200,000 home, a buyer could today ask the seller to pay for $12,000 of a long list of settlement charges including all prepaid loan expenses, discount points on the loan, interest rate buy-downs and upfront FHA insurance premiums, among others. Under the proposed cutback, the maximum amount would be slashed in half.

On many home transactions, the reductions would force sellers to lower their prices to enable cash-short buyers to get through the closing. In other cases, sales might simply be too far of a stretch for some purchasers.

The proposed cuts are open to public comment through the end of this month but are highly likely to be adopted in much the same form soon afterward. The FHA also is restricting the types of “closing costs” that sellers can pay. Six months’ or a year’s worth of interest payments or homeowner association dues in advance no longer will be permitted — a serious blow to many builders who use these as financial carrots.

Beyond these changes, FHA also plans significant increases in insurance premiums — upfront premiums will rise to 1.75% from 1%, effective April 1, and annual premiums will increase by 0.1% on all loans under $625,000 and 0.35% on mortgage amounts above that, effective June 1.

William McCue, president of McCue Mortgage Co. in New Britain, Conn., which does a sizable percentage of its business with the FHA, said the cumulative effect of all these increases “will not just crowd first-time buyers out of the FHA market, it will prevent them from owning a home that, absent these new costs, would be affordable.”

Bottom line: Nail down your FHA money and seller-contribution negotiations as soon as you can because later looks a lot more expensive.

kenharney@earthlink.net

Distributed by Washington Post Writers Group.

Teaching Financial Literacy On The Back Of A Napkin
A collection of “back of the napkin” sketches by financial planner Carl Richards, who contributes to the New York Times’ Bucks blog and has a gift for explaining big concepts with simple diagrams.

Retirement Roundup
How to save money on day-to-day living so you can put more money away for retirement.

Meet Dave, a 55-year-old who just left the workforce and is blogging about his “retirement journey.” Here, he talks about not making an RRSP contribution for the first time in 22 years.

Wrong About Gold
Warren Buffett badmouthed gold in his recent letter shareholders, and market watcher Dennis Gartman doesn’t much like gold, either. Here’s a rebuttal of their views that includes a graph showing how dramatically gold has outperformed shares of Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway.

Speaking of Berkshire Hathaway, here’s an argument that its shares are under valued.

More Money
Join the 10,000+ people who subscribe to my Facebook personal finance community for talk about investing, retirement, real estate, banking and other financial matters. I’m also on Twitter.

Follow us on Twitter: @globemoney

Editor’s note: If you don’t receive Rob Carrick’s newsletter twice weekly by email, you can sign up to get it for free at The Globe and Mail. All you need to do is register for the site, or if you’ve already registered, log in and go to your profile at the top of the homepage. Once you’re in your profile, look under Newsletters and Alerts and look for the Personal Finance Reader and other newsletters. Other financial newsletters include: Business Ticker, a summary of the day’s top business stories; Berman’s Market Update, a summary of the markets at the open, noon and close; and All-Star Investors, a monthly collection of articles exploring an investing trend or theme.

Dear To Her Credit,
Where can one find local finance courses to improve personal finances? I need to learn how to boost my credit score, find out how much debt I have and figure out how to get out of debt.  — Liza

Dear Liza,
I’m glad you asked! So many people want a quick fix to their finances, but few realize that the only path to a better financial life is to start learning about money — and to keep learning about money for the rest of our lives.

The best way to learn about managing money and debt, however, depends on your personal learning style. Ideally, we would all learn great financial skills from our parents, take personal finance and economics classes in school and be pretty money-savvy by the time we reach adulthood.

In real life, that doesn’t always work out so well. Some of our parents are a better example of how not to handle one’s finances! And if you took a good class in personal finance in school, you were lucky. Many students today seem to graduate with little more knowledge about managing their finances than they had on their first day of school.

It’s never too late to learn, however. If you can study a book and get what you need from it, you’re in luck. Go to the public library and look for a step-by-step personal finance guide, such as Dave Ramsey’s “Total Money Makeover” or “The Complete Personal Finance Handbook” by Teri B. Clark. The advantage of getting a book from the library, aside from the obvious cost savings, is that you have three weeks or so to read the book before it has to go back. Most of us need deadlines, or the best intentions get sidelined after a chapter or two.

Some people need group interaction to learn well and to stay motivated. You can find a personal finance class in your area, perhaps at the community college or at the local library. Many people have done very well with Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University classes, which are held not only at churches, but at community centers, banks and credit unions, and even correctional facilities, according to the website!

If you are in serious financial trouble — for example, if a collection agency is threatening to garnish your wages or you are behind on your house or car payments — a class starting up next month could be too little, too late. I urge you to find a nonprofit agency affiliated with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling or the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies . Counselors at these agencies deal with people in financial trouble every day. They know the laws and what works and what doesn’t. They can look at your whole financial picture and help you not only get through any immediate crisis, but make a plan so it doesn’t happen again. It may not be hand holding, but it’s the closest thing to it.

The federal government also recognizes the importance of financial literacy and has established a central website, MyMoney.gov , that pulls together financial resources and advice from an assortment of agencies.

Don’t overlook our site, either. For the questions you asked, try the articles 8 legitimate ways to improve your credit score and 8 steps to reducing credit card debt . In fact, you can get answers to most debt and credit questions by using the search box in the top right corner.

Learning about finances is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your future. I think it’s an interesting subject, and it’s a lot more fun once you realize you can get in control of your finances and stay there just by making one better financial decision at a time. Good luck, and take care of your credit!

See related: FICO’s 5 factors: The components of a FICO credit score

• It’s never too late to learn about personal finance
• How fast can I make a credit score comeback?
• Laid off, but still liable for ex-employer’s credit card debt

The most valuable asset most people have is their ability to earn an income. This is paramount to your home, your cars and other possessions because your income makes all of these possible.

In the event you lose your income, you need to have considerable savings to survive the 31.2-month average long-term disability.

Fortunately, there is a product that insures your income in the event you become disabled. Disability insurance is, however, less commonly utilized than many of the other protections, such as life insurance, despite the fact that it may be the most important coverage an individual can have. The chances of suffering a disability before retirement age are far greater than dying, yet life insurance sales far outpace disability. According to the Social Security Administration, a 20-year-old worker has a 3-in-10 chance of becoming disabled before retirement age.

Disability insurance replaces your income in the event you become disabled and can no longer work. The trick with disability insurance is understanding what constitutes “no longer being able to work.” If you can stand or even work while sitting, you can surely perform some type of job. Accordingly, you need to ensure that your disability insurance policy protects you for the work you are educated and trained to do.

For this reason, disability insurance is particularly important for highly educated, highly specialized fields, among them doctors, attorneys and engineers. These professions require substantial amounts of expertise to perform their duties. A neurosurgeon with an injury to his or her hands may not be able to perform surgery, but they can flip a burger. Thus, they are not technically precluded from the ability to perform a job.

While this is an extreme example, it highlights the importance of the correct disability insurance coverage being in place for specialized professions.
These professionals need to pay close attention to whether their specialty is contemplated in this definition of disabled. Most policies are written as “Any Occupation” or “Own Occupation.” This nuance determines whether the standard for disability is the ability to perform any job or their own job. This distinction becomes even more important the more specialized the profession.

LOS ANGELES — Banks are foreclosing on America’s churches in record numbers as lenders increasingly lose patience with religious facilities that have defaulted on their mortgages, according to new data.

The surge in church foreclosures represents a new wave of distressed property seizures triggered by the 2008 financial crash, analysts say, with many banks no longer willing to grant struggling religious organizations forbearance.

Since 2010, 270 churches have been sold after defaulting on their loans, with 90 percent of those sales coming after a lender-triggered foreclosure, according to the real estate information company CoStar Group.

In 2011, 138 churches were sold by banks, an annual record, with no sign that these religious foreclosures are abating, according to CoStar. That compares to just 24 sales in 2008 and only a handful in the decade before.

The church foreclosures have hit all denominations across America, black and white, but with small to medium size houses of worship the worst. Most of these institutions have ended up being purchased by other churches.

The highest percentage have occurred in some of the states hardest hit by the home foreclosure crisis: California, Georgia, Florida and Michigan.

“Churches are among the final institutions to get foreclosed upon because banks have not wanted to look like they are being heavy handed with the churches,” said Scott Rolfs, managing director of Religious and Education finance at the investment bank Ziegler.

Church defaults differ from residential foreclosures. Most of the loans in question are not 30-year mortgages but rather commercial loans that typically mature after just five years when the full balance becomes due immediately.

Its common practice for banks to refinance such loans when they come due. But banks have become increasingly reluctant to do that because of pressure from regulators to clean up their balance sheets, said Rolfs.

“A lot of these loans were given when the properties were evaluated at a certain level in 2005 or 2006,” Rolfs said. “Banks have had to reappraise the value of these properties, whether it’s a church or a commercial office building. Values have gone down, so the loans cannot continue in the same form.”

The factors leading to the boom in church foreclosures will sound familiar to many private homeowners evicted from their properties in recent years.

During the property boom, many churches took out additional loans to refurbish or enlarge, often with major lenders or with the Evangelical Christian Credit Union, which was particularly aggressive in lending to religious institutions.

Then after the financial crash, many churchgoers lost their jobs, donations plunged, and often, so did the value of the church building.

Congregations in trouble

Solid Rock Christian Church near Memphis, Tennessee, took out a $2.9 million loan with the Evangelical Christian Credit Union at the beginning of 2008, to construct a new, 2,000 seat, 34,000 square-foot building to house its growing congregation.

In the middle of construction, the economy crashed. The church raided its savings to finish the project, but ended up defaulting on the loan.

The ECCU foreclosed and put the church up for auction.

“We are still fighting this,” a church spokesman told Reuters. “We have filed for bankruptcy to stop this foreclosure and to restructure our debt.”

At the iconic Charles Street African American Episcopal Church in Boston, Massachusetts, churchgoers and clergy accuse the bank of being unwilling to negotiate.

The church is being threatened with foreclosure and a March 22 auction by its lender OneUnited bank, America’s largest black-owned bank.

The bank says the church, which was founded in 1818 and played a major role in the anti-slavery movement, has defaulted on a $1.1 million balloon loan that came due in December 2011.

A balloon loan is a long-term loan, often a mortgage, that has a large, or balloon, payment due upon maturity. They often have very low interest payments and require little capital outlay during the life of the loan due to the large end payment.

The church is also involved in separate litigation with OneUnited involving a 2006 loan of $3.6 million that financed the refurbishment of two buildings into a community center.

“We want to refinance and we want to pay. It’s doable, we have the means to do it but we can only do it if they actually sit down and talk to us,” said the Rev. Gregory G. Groover Snr, the church’s pastor.

Ballooning loan

Groover said the church did not default by missing monthly payments, but is in trouble because the loan ballooned.

“We don’t have a million dollars to pay off the loan. I don’t know what church does. The idea of auctioning off a church is senseless,” he said.

Government-owned CMHC insured C$541 billion ($546 billion)
in mortgages as of Sept. 30, an amount equal to 31 percent of
Canada’s annual gross domestic output, as home prices climb and
construction expands. In 2006, when U.S. home prices peaked, the
combined exposure of the government-backed agencies to potential
defaults was slightly more than a third the size of the economy,
according to Bloomberg calculations based on U.S. Federal
Reserve data. Fannie and Freddie were bailed out in 2008.

“If a significant number of homeowners default, CMHC would
have a lot of claims they would have to pay out,” said John
Andrew, real-estate professor at Queen’s University in Kingston,
Ontario. Homes would “sell at greatly discounted prices as
supply exceeds demand,” he said, adding “the risk of this is
significant.”

CMHC has enough capital to remain solvent unless Canada
were to see “multi-year recessionary periods” with
“persistent high unemployment going above 13 percent” and
house prices falling close to 25 percent, the agency said in an
e-mailed response to Bloomberg News. Canada hasn’t approached
CMHC’S worst-case scenario since 1982, when unemployment peaked
at 13.1 percent in December at the end of a six-quarter
recession.

“You can’t rule out the possibility of a significant
correction in Canadian real estate because there is
overvalution, but I just don’t see the catalyst to cause it to
happen in the near term,” said Craig Alexander, chief economist
of Toronto-Dominion Bank. (TD) “I’m not losing any sleep over the
taxpayer liability of CMHC insurance.”

CMHC Chief Risk Officer Pierre Serre said in a telephone
interview it’s “extremely unlikely” economic conditions would
push CMHC into insolvency.

Canadian housing prices have increased 44 percent since
2006, while U.S. prices have fallen 32 percent. Finance Minister
Jim Flaherty, who has acted to try to cool the market three
times since 2008, warned again this week that families should be
careful about taking on debts they won’t be able to afford when
interest rates rise.

Greatest Domestic Threat

The Bank of Canada, which has kept the country’s benchmark
interest rate at 1 percent since September 2010, reiterated
yesterday record household debts represent the greatest domestic
threat to the country’s economic outlook. The central bank
forecasts consumption and housing will account for more than
half of the country’s 2 percent economic growth this year, after
such spending helped lead the economy out of a recession in 2009
ahead of other Group of Seven nations.

CMHC’s estimate of its ability to stay solvent is based on
stress tests it conducted last year using 10,000 economic
scenarios. The probability of insolvency is less than 0.5
percent, the agency said. An increase in unemployment and
decrease in housing prices would be the main driver of insurance
claims against CMHC, followed “much further down” by an
increase in interest rates, Serre said.

Another 1980s-style housing correction can’t be ruled out,
said Finn Poschmann, vice president of research at the Toronto-
based think-tank C.D. Howe Institute. “Everything under the sun
will happen again. It always does,” Poschmann said, adding
CMHC’s stress tests would be more credible if the agency
provided enough data for outsiders to validate the results.

Chances of Decline

There’s a 15 percent chance housing prices will decline 10
percent or more over the next year, according to the median of a
Bloomberg survey of 13 economists last month. CMHC said in a
Feb. 13 report the average price of existing homes will climb
2.7 percent in 2013.

“Although there were a lot of discussions in the public
domain about a house-price bubble, I must say clear evidence is
lacking to support those conclusions,” said Mathieu Laberge,
CMHC’s deputy chief economist, in a telephone interview.

Unlike the U.S., Canada avoided having to directly inject
public money into the country’s financial institutions during
the financial crisis. In September 2008, the U.S. took control
of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have since received more
than $180 billion in government funds. Freddie Mac said today it
will ask for $146 million more in aid to cover its deficit at
the end of last year.

As Canada’s housing market has boomed, CMHC’s balance sheet
has grown to record levels. In 1982, CMHC insured C$29.1 billion
of mortgages, equal to 7.7 percent of the country’s output, less
than one-quarter of today’s proportion. The agency’s total
assets have increased from C$8.9 billion in 1991 to C$294
billion at the end of September.

Greater Scrutiny

This growth has put CMHC under greater scrutiny. In a
December report, International Monetary Fund staff called on the
federal government to review the agency’s governance and
oversight, and assess whether the agency needs to do more to
protect itself against housing market risks.

CMHC was established in 1946 to address a housing shortage
at the end of the Second World War. It began insuring mortgages
in 1954, the agency says, partly to encourage private lenders to
play a bigger role in mortgage underwriting.

In the late 1970s, claims on CMHC insurance rose sharply
following losses on programs to insure homes and rental units
for low-income individuals. The rise in claims created a C$786
million actuarial deficit in the agency’s insurance fund by
1984, a hole it filled partly by borrowing from the government.

By insuring mortgages against default, CMHC says it helps
lenders keep mortgage rates low. The agency also buys mortgage-
backed securities from financial institutions, which it says
lowers funding costs for banks and other lenders.

Mortgage Insurance

In Canada, federally regulated financial institutions must
obtain insurance on mortgages where the downpayment is less than
20 percent of the purchase price. While CMHC insures these
loans, 73 percent of its coverage is on mortgages that have
loan-to-value ratios of less than 80 percent, which are often
securitized by Canada’s largest banks.

The agency controls about 70 percent of Canada’s mortgage-
insurance market. The rest is held by private insurers such as
Genworth MI Canada Inc. (MIC) and Canada Guaranty Mortgage Insurance
Co.

Since 2001, CMHC has funded its purchases of mortgage-
backed securities by issuing Canada Mortgage Bonds, which are
backed by the Canadian government and share its top credit
rating. CMHC issued more bonds last year than any provincial
government, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The
agency’s guarantees on Canada Mortgage Bonds and mortgage-backed
securities have risen to C$334 billion from C$8.4 billion in
1991.

Canada Housing Trust

Bonds issued by Canada Housing Trust, CMHC’s financing arm,
have lost 0.3 percent this year through yesterday, according to
Bank of America Merrill Lynch data. That compares with losses of
0.4 percent for federal government bonds, and gains of 0.9
percent for global government bonds. Housing Trust bonds made 6
percent last year, versus 9.6 percent for Canadian governments
and 6.1 percent for global sovereign debt.

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions
(OSFI), the country’s banking regulator, doesn’t formally
oversee CMHC. Still, the agency says it holds more than twice
the level of capital OSFI requires private mortgage insurers to
hold.

“If you look at Canada’s ability to pay relative to most
of its peers in the G-7 and the rest of the world, it’s pretty
darn good,” said Marc Rouleau, Montreal-based vice president of
fixed income at Standard Life Investments, which manages C$31.5
billion in assets in Canada. “Canada’s one of the few remaining
sovereign AAAs out there.”

Little ‘Subprime’

CMHC points to several differences between the U.S. and
Canadian home-finance systems. The “subprime” loan market
didn’t take hold in Canada like it did in the U.S., the agency
says, and so it isn’t exposed to such risky loans, as Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac were.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-controlled
companies that buy mortgages and repackage them as bonds.
Pressure to enhance short-term returns for shareholders was one
of the factors that led Fannie and Freddie to buy risky
mortgages, according to a panel set up by Congress to look into
the causes of the crisis.

Not-for-Profit

While CMHC also holds mortgage-backed securities, its main
business is insuring home loans against the risk of default.
It’s a not-for-profit corporation fully owned by the federal
government.

Amid concerns about the country’s housing market, Flaherty
may be preparing to further rein in CMHC. In his budget last
year, Flaherty gave himself the authority to charge CMHC to
compensate for the risks posed by its insurance book.

The government may also soon need to decide whether to
raise the C$600-billion limit CMHC has on the amount of mortgage
insurance it is allowed to issue. The corporation said Jan. 31
it has been rationing insurance for lenders.

“We think we’re going to be able manage within the
limit,” Serre said.

CMHC reports to the country’s Parliament through Human
Resources Minister Diane Finley. A spokeswoman for Finley,
Alyson Queen, said CMHC is operating within its insurance
limits, and declined to comment on the agency’s risk management
and oversight.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Andrew Mayeda in Ottawa at
amayeda@bloomberg.net;
Greg Quinn in Ottawa at
gquinn1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
David Scanlan at
dscanlan@bloomberg.net

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The move will help the bank reduce the amount of penalties it owes to the government’s Housing Urban Development agency by $850 million.

Those penalties were ntry to resolve investigations into abusive home lending and fraudulent foreclosure practices.

About 11 million American households are “underwater” on their mortgages, meaning they owe more than their homes are worth. The settlement with five mortgage lenders is expected reduce loans for only about 1 million of those homeowners and send checks to others who were improperly foreclosed upon.

Of the five major lenders, Bank of America’s penalties were the highest: $11.8 billion.

The settlement closed one painful chapter of the financial crisis, when home values sank and millions edged toward foreclosure. Lender abuses exacerbated the crisis. Many companies processed foreclosures without verifying documents. Some employees signed papers they hadn’t read or used fake signatures to speed foreclosures, a practice known as robo-signing.

In the fall of 2010, Bank of America along with other large lenders temporarily halted foreclosures because of the furor over robo-signed documents.

Details of Bank of America’s and other mortgage lenders’ plans to help homeowners as part of the settlement will be contained in court documents expected to be filed Friday.

Korina Sanchez delivers an exclusive one-on-one interview with internationally acclaimed personal finance guru Suze Orman, who will give Filipinos advice on how to better manage their money in Up Close and Personal with Suze Orman: A Korina Sanchez Interview this Friday (March 9) at 7 p.m., on ANC, the ABS-CBN News Channel.

The best-selling author and Emmy-winning host of the top-rating CNBC program The Suze Orman Show will not only teach ANC viewers financial responsibility but will also do what she does best–inspire–as she shares her rags-to-riches story with Korina.

Aside from the special interview, Korina will also appear in another exclusive for ANC. As the formerly military-controlled Myanmar embarks on a path to democracy for the first time in 50 years, the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) takes Filipinos inside the Southeast Asian nation’s political developments in a special documentary, “ANC Presents: Myanmar Opens to the World,” airing next Friday (March 16) at 7 p.m.

She led the first and only TV news crew from the Philippines that was allowed to enter Myanmar for her documentary that bares democracy icon and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s hopes for the Philippines’ current administration and insights on former President Corazon Aquino’s legacy.

Since the release of Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi from house arrest in 2010, staggering administrative reforms have been carried out by the new civilian government, including the emancipation of political prisoners and relieving media censorship.

Learn more about the resource-rich country also known as Burma, its people, its government leaders, and get a rare glimpse of the city of Naypyitaw, Myanmar’s new capital that was previously closed to tourists.

For financial advice and tips, tune in to Up Close and Personal with Suze Orman: A Korina Sanchez Interview this Friday (March 9), 7 p.m. on ANC (SkyCable Channel 27) with replay at 10:30 p.m., and weekend replays on Saturday (March 10), 10 a.m., and Sunday (March 11). Catch ANC Presents: Myanmar Opens to the World next Friday (March 16), 7 p.m., also on ANC.

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