Some investors in PA still waiting after 20 years.

"The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa. showed how the leadership of Lehigh Valley International Airport followed a risky strategy of buying land around the airport in the mid-1990s. That strategy led to an inverse condemnation and court fight pitting the airport against a group of investors who had hoped to build on the land. Despite using experts that cost the airport as much as $710 an hour, LVIA lost at nearly every turn in court, and now a land deal that could have cost the airport about $8 million is approaching $34 million in total costs." Despite the fact that LVIA has more passenger traffic than before, the court arguments lean toward how long the airport will have to pay back its investors.

The Press of Atlantic City reports that the former governor of New Jersey pressured the CRDA to make a $4 million loan to another state agency. Corzine's administration pressed the agency responsible for reinvesting casino dollars to make the loan, former Executive Director Tom Carver said. The loan helped a Democratic Party contributor and Corzine adviser to buy an affordable housing complex in Elizabeth, Union County. After the Department of Community Affairs couldn't repay the loan, the CRDA forgave nearly all of the debt.

To answer nagging questions about the foreclosure crisis, Jennifer LaFleur of ProPublica and Sanjay Bhatt of The Seattle Times built a database based on a random sample of some 1,200 foreclosure filings from the central county of three metro areas -- Seattle, Phoenix and Baltimore. Their findings challenge some of the conventional wisdom about the foreclosure crisis and reveal regional differences in who got into trouble and why.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune reporter Paige St. John spent the past year investigating Florida’s property insurance crisis. Her work exposed companies that continued to sell policies when they had no way to pay claims and revealed company owners who demanded rate hikes while secretly siphoning profits from their struggling businesses. The series also revealed how insurers and reinsurers manipulated the market to overcharge homeowners and maximize profits, even as those homeowners struggled to pay their rising bills. Her examination of the finances of more than 100 companies led to a Web presentation and mobile app that allows homeowners to judge their insurer’s ability to pay claims.

Reuters correspondent Scot Paltrow reports on Lender Processing Services, a Florida company that handles half of all foreclosures in the United States. A Reuters investigation shows the company’s legal woes are more serious than previously disclosed.  "Public records reveal that the company's LPS Default Solutions unit produced documents of dubious authenticity in far larger quantities than it has disclosed, and over a much longer timespan."

A loophole in state and federal laws has made it easy for some attorneys to take advantage of Illinois residents struggling to keep their homes, according to an investigation by the Chicago Tribune. In 2006, Illinois and other states passed legislation that banned charging upfront fees for loan modifications. But the law doesn't apply to attorneys. As a result, some mortgage rescue firms are circumventing the law by recruiting attorneys to collect upfront fees from consumers. Attorneys have also set up their own shops. They're all capitalizing on the huge number of people looking for help as nearly one in 10 Illinois home mortgage loans were delinquent last month. But instead of negotiating with a lender, some attorneys or the companies they work for just keep the cash and don't complete the job. Homeowners are often unaware until it's too late and their homes are in or near foreclosure. Lawyers are now linked to 30 percent of mortgage foreclosure companies that consumers have filed complaints about to the state attorney general's office, records show.

An investigation by The Dallas Morning News found evidence that Gov. Rick Perry's biggest real estate score was enhanced by a series of professional courtesies, and personal favors from friends, campaign donors, and the head of a Texas family with a rich history of political power-brokering. Together, they may have enriched Perry by almost $500,000, according to an independent real estate appraisal commissioned by The News.

A report by the Huffington Post Investigative fund examines "tax sale" foreclosures.  Amid the economic downturn, they are happening in Baltimore and other cities, where big banks, brokerage houses, and other investors are gaining the right from governments to collect on paltry debts of citizens. Fees and other costs swell, and homeowners who can't make the payments find themselves evicted. The result is hefty profits for the investors, with dire consequences for some communities. In the story, they follow a woman who lost her home - paid off in 1984 - due to an unpaid $362 city water bill.

An investigation by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University (NECIR-BU) shows that regulators in Massachusetts have been slow to discipline problem mortgage brokers and lenders compared to other New England states.  "Between January 1, 2007 and June 1, 2009, The Massachusetts Division of Banks took its most stringent actions against less than 3 per cent of the mortgage brokers/lenders it was supposed to regulate."  Massachusetts has the second highest rate of foreclosures in New England.