It turns out that investors are amenable to loan modifications when they are on the borrowing side.

A Boston real estate firm got out of a $2.7 billion loan this week after it couldn’t make payments on a portfolio of office buildings in Seattle and Washington, DC. Beacon Capital, an international real estate investment group based in Boston, has been unable to service the debt on a large commercial real estate deal.

Beacon bought a portfolio of office buildings in Seattle and Washington, DC. The 2007 deal was (more…)

This video does a good job of making the mortgage crisis relatively easy to understand.

It skips a few important players in the process – notably the GSEs – but it has a nice pace. I’m glad that it included some reference to the role that the ratings agencies played in the debacle.

Time is running out for H&R Block to resolve its impasse with HSBC, USA.

One commenter on an investment board said that Block has 10 days, more or less, to settle its dispute with HSBC.  Block said the same thing on October 15th, in their filing against HSBC, USA:

Absent performance by HSBC during the next two months, Block will not be able to offer these products” during the 2011 tax season….Block’s inability to offer these (more…)

Jackson Hewitt says that it will now be able to offer more refund anticipation loans in its stores, thanks to a new agreement with Republic Bancorp of Kentucky (RBCAA).

This is the second news event that will put more settlement products into the hands of JTX. Yesterday, Jackson Hewitt announced a multi-year partnership with Minnesota CDFI University (more…)

A spate of good news makes it clear that Jackson Hewitt (JTX) will live to see another tax season.

This morning, Jackson Hewitt shares are up another 35 percent. That adds to their mid-twenty percent gains yesterday.

Today, the good news follows an earnings report that is being interpreted as positive, even though Jackson Hewitt reported a quarterly loss of sixty cents per share. That is a mammoth loss for a (more…)