Nashville Business Journal:

Countrywide Financial Corp., which is being acquired by Bank of America Corp., reports a first-quarter net loss of $893 million, or $1.60 per diluted share.

The report says their provision for bad loans increased 888% to $1.5 billion. Yikes!

Existing home sales decline:

Sales of existing homes fell in March as a severe slump in housing showed no signs of abating. The median price of a home fell compared with the price a year ago.

According to the report, sales were off 19.3% as compared to a year ago, and median prices were off 7.7%.

Carlton Towers, a 127-unit apartment building that's located at the corner of Sutherland Avenue and Forest Park Boulevard in Bearden.
...
will be renamed 414 Forest Park - will likely aim for a young-ish audience,

...Existing tenants will get a chance to stay in the building, but they'll have to dig into their wallets.

Taylor said average rents currently average about $690 a month, not including utilities, but will jump to around $830 a month after the renovations are completed.

There are many elderly people that live in Carlton Towers. How many of them will be able to cough up the approx. 20% rent increase? The location is perfect for them since it is centrally located with sidewalks and easy access to grocery stores, drug stores, etc. I am not sure this change is something to be boasting. I know, I know, free market! Wouldn't it have been nice if the owners allowed for attrition based on normal turnover? Who? What? The greatest generation? Nah.

Five Points to get energy-efficient homes

"Housing is not affordable if just the mortgage is affordable," said Madeline Rogero, director of the city's Community Development Division. "You have to look at the utility bills."

Good for the Knox Housing Partnership. This should be the standard for all publicly funded affordable housing development.

A HUD review of Knox County Community Development Block Grant and other programs requested by Mayor Mike Ragsdale in August has been completed and a report of HUD's findings has been submitted to the mayor's office.

The report "commends the county for employing a knowledgeable staff and for a commitment to carrying out worthwhile activities," and also commended the County "for good programmatic monitoring of sub recipients."

The report did, however, find actionable issues involving:

• Possible conflicts of interest relating to the CDBG program

• Problems with KCCD and Knox County PBA employees time sheets used to allocate administrative costs among programs

• Failure to include a "reversion of asset" related to a subrecipient agreement with the Tennessee Conference of Community Development

Other areas of concern included:

• Lack of progress in the HOME affordable housing program and "inconsistency of the PBA to provide consistent and experienced management of the Knox County Rehabilitation Program"

• Problems with subrecipient management procedures involving program and financial management monitoring

• Concerns regarding separation of duties and having proper checks and balances in place

A total of $33,454 in questioned funding was disallowed, and another $840,000 is under further review. HUD's summary letter of findings can be found here.

The mayor's office says they are taking steps to address these issues. The HUD report noted that Knox County officials did not appear to have "adequate knowledge of the CDBG and HOME conflict of interest requirement" and that they would review the county's response in relation to the disallowed funding.

The mayor's office has prepared the requested conflict of interest documentation, a copy of which can be found here.