Volumes of foreclosed home for sale in Florida may hurt the campaigns of politicians racing to become governor in 2010.
When Alex Sink, Florida’s chief financial officer, announced her plan of joining the gubernatorial race last week, she immediately became the target of criticisms related to subprime loans, foreclosed home for sale inventories, bailouts and corporate greed. In 1993, Sink became head of NationsBank, which later was acquired by Bank of America. The bank acquired EquiCredit, one of the banks accused of providing high interest rates to low-income borrowers.
The Republican candidate, state Attorney General Bill McCollum, was also criticized for his 20 years of helping the financial services industry as member of the congressional banking committee. In 2001, he moved out of Congress and entered the lobbying profession, with the Mortgage Bankers Association of America as his first major client.
Analysts said the campaigns of Sink and McCollum will be derailed with questions about their possible role in the housing crisis that caused large numbers of foreclosed home for sale properties across Florida.
Ken Thomas, a Miami banking consultant and Wharton School of Business professor, said that both Sink and McCollum represented bankers for a long time and had not done significant efforts to improve the welfare of banking consumers.
Sink however has a ready response to her critics in relation to her banking background - being involved in the management of NationsBank and later of Bank of America from the 1970s to 2000.
Sink explained that she managed only the commercial and retail banking operations of the banks because the mortgage banking operations were handled by separate companies. She said she did not exercise any authority over sub-prime lending that largely caused the high number of foreclosed home for sale properties across Florida.
McCollum also distanced himself from the issue concerning the role of banking in the foreclosure crisis. He said he left Congress before the foreclosure crisis started.
McCollum immediately joined the banking and finance committee when he became state representative in 1980. It was during the 1980s when a lot of bills favorable to banks were enacted, including the offer of interest-only adjustable rate loans, imposition of higher interest rates and the control of individual bankruptcy filings.
Also, over the years, Attorney General McCollum received large amounts of campaign donations from banking and other financial corporations.
Since Sink’s announcement of her campaign plans, Republicans have kept on linking her to predatory lending. They said she had a significant role in the offer of mortgage loans that subsequently caused large numbers of foreclosed home for sale properties across Florida.
John Cutts has been educated in the finer points of the foreclosure market over 5 years.
Notice: In accordance with FTC guidelines, we state that RealEstateProArticles.com has financial relationships with some companies and may be compensated if consumers choose to buy, subscribe or take any action to a product or service via the links on our website. Occasionally, we receive free access to review a product or service. We do not accept compensation in exchange for a positive review. These reviews are strictly the opinions of the author.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.realestateproarticles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites