Private equity owns over a million U.S. apartment units. Tenants pay a price when corporate landlords buy their buildings. In some cases, private equity buyers have pushed out lower-income tenants – through rent hikes, eviction threats, and more – to flip buildings into high-rent properties to sell for big profits.
This afternoon, the House Financial Service subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Financial Institutions will hold a hearing entitled, “Ending Debt Traps in the Payday and Small Dollar Credit Industry.”
AFR submitted the below statement to the Senate hearing on Guidance and Supervisory Expectations AFR Submission to Senate Banking Committee April 30th Hearing
Wall Street poured at least $1.9 billion into the political process, the largest-ever amount for a non-presidential year, according to a new report by Americans for Financial Reform. This sum outstrips the total of $1.4 billion, in the 2013-14 election cycle, by 36 percent.
On April 29, 2019, AFR Education Fund and several coalition partners sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) about our concerns with the Office of Inspector General’s April 9, 2019 report regarding the servicing of mortgage loans eventually sold through
The nation’s megabanks are enjoying record profits. But they still aren’t sharing that wealth with their frontline workers. We know they can afford it: they got a $28 billion tax break from the Trump tax law, and they’re paying it to themselves and wealthy shareholders.
Unfortunately, while we believe it would be possible to adopt standards that meet investors’ reasonable expectations under the Commission’s chosen regulatory approach, the regulatory package as currently drafted does not achieve that goal.
On April 18, 2019, AFR’s Language Access Task Force and several organizations sent a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency in support of its efforts to improve language access for Limited English Proficient borrowers. View or download a pdf copy of the letter.
Wall Street private equity funds are continuing to snap up homes to pad their expanding portfolio of rental properties. Institutional investors own nearly a quarter million single-family rental homes. Wall Street landlords often hike rents, avoid repairs, gouge tenants with fees, and are more likely to evict tenants.
Big banks have lobbied for and won massive tax breaks and increased deregulation at a time when they are already making record profits. Ordinary Americans are getting a less safe financial system, and one that is an ever-more-powerful driver of inequality and economic vulnerability. Wall Street CEOs need to be held accountable for abuses by the institutions they run, and the dangerous policies they are pushing, both openly and quietly