March 11, 2010 in Business

Business in brief: Foreclosure rate fell in February

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The foreclosure rate in Spokane County plunged in February, by 62 percent from January and 31 percent compared with February 2009.

Only 59 properties were either repurchased by the lender or received a notice of trustee sale, a rate of one per 3,344 properties. The rate for all of Washington, one per 1,046 properties, put the state 33rd among all states and the District of Columbia.

The foreclosure rate also dropped in Kootenai County compared with January, by 30 percent but remained higher than in January 2009.

A total of 177 properties, or one in 340, was subject to a notice of deficiency or trustee sale, or was repurchased by the lender. That was slightly better than the one-per-296 properties for all of Idaho, which ranked seventh among the states and D.C.

Bert Caldwell

BofA backs off on overdraft fees

Los Angeles – Bowing to complaints of fee gouging, Bank of America said Wednesday that starting this summer it would deny transactions for customers using their debit cards if they didn’t have funds in their account to cover the charge.

The statement from the Charlotte, N.C., bank, the top issuer of cards to Americans, means Bank of America joins New York’s giant Citibank in backing off overdraft fees on debit card purchases.

Debit cards allow consumers to access funds in their checking accounts. Consumer advocates had described the overdraft fees as a form of high-interest lending, because a customer could be charged a $35 overdraft fee for a $5 purchase – a fee the banks would recoup automatically the next time the customer made a deposit.

Los Angeles Times

‘Clunkers’ carrot spurred sales

Kansas City, Mo. – Search online for “cash for clunkers,” and here’s one thing you’ll find: stories about its negligible overall impact on the economy.

Wrong, says Maritz Automotive Research Group. The Toledo, Ohio, independent automotive research company recently surveyed participants in last summer’s federal program designed to stimulate new-car sales and get gas-guzzlers off the road. On Tuesday, the company shared its results.

One key finding: 90 percent of those participating in cash for clunkers said they would not otherwise have bought a new car.

According to federal government data, 677,000 purchases were made through cash for clunkers from late July through August. Maritz’s research showed that 542,000 were incremental new car or truck sales, meaning those purchases would not have occurred without the incentives. Previous estimates by industry analysts put the incremental sales figure between 125,000 and 346,000.

McClatchy

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