housing crisis

The Financial Times reported that Bank of America Corp plans to decrease its $850 billion portfolio of troubled home loans by about half within the following three years. However, the company spokespersons failed to detail what exactly the company would do to achieve this goal.

The company suffered hard times due to the housing crisis and the purchase of Countrywide Financial. Last month, Bank of America posted an unexpectedly sharp drop in first-quarter profit as higher expenses from delayed home foreclosures weighed on its mortgage business.

 Despite some signs that the worst of the U.S. residential housing crisis may be over, many wealthy homeowners are still being squeezed by the combination of weak home prices and the stock market crash.

"I think for wealthy homeowners it will get worse before it gets better," said Dennis Hedlund, founder of iEmergent, a forecaster for mortgage and real estate companies.