by Marcy Gordon
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Ex-American Home CEO settles with SEC for $2.45MWASHINGTON - The former head of American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. has agreed to pay nearly $2.5 million to settle federal civil charges of accounting fraud and concealing the company's deteriorating finances as the subprime mortgage crisis hit in 2007.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the settlement Tuesday with former American Home Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Strauss, the company's founder.
Charges against the company's former chief financial officer, Stephen Hozie, also accused of accounting fraud and misleading investors, are pending. The SEC also alleged that Strauss, Hozie and former controller Robert Bernstein misled American Home's auditor about the adequacy of the company's reserves against losses on mortgages.
Attorneys representing Strauss, Hozie and Bernstein didn't immediately return telephone calls seeking comment Tuesday afternoon.
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by Michael Corkery
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Tax Credit gives California Builders a lift
California's hard-hit home builders say they're pouring more foundations and hiring more workers this spring, partly because of a state tax credit of as much as $10,000 for buyers of new homes.
Nationally, the Commerce Department said Friday that new-home sales fell 0.6% to an annual rate of 356,000 units in March, a sign the free fall in new-home sales may be over. In the West, home-builder sales rose 15%, likely reflecting a boost from California's new-home credit.
Now, less than two months after the new-home credit became available, some lawmakers in California's financially strapped government are proposing to eliminate the $100 million limit on the total amount of credits that home buyers can tap.
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