Idaho Business Review IBR

There’s a new mortgage option for first time homebuyers in Idaho. The Idaho Housing and Finance Association (IHFA) has just launched the Affordable Advantage Loan, through its IdaMortgage program. According to IHFA’s President and Executive Director Gerald Hunter, “It offers ...

Demand for businesses to buy increased since the first of 2010, but still-tight financing and fresh-in-mind valuations from more prosperous times continue to stall deals. Lending is loosening a bit, and though few financial indicators changed heading into 2010, people ...

Hoku Corp., a clean energy products and services company, has entered into a $20 million credit agreement with the New York branch of China Merchants Bank Co., the sixth-largest commercial bank by assets in China. The proceeds will be used ...

Idaho businesses have had nearly a year to tap into $135 million in potential financing for new commercial development under a federal stimulus program that ends this year, but only two companies in the state have so far been able ...

USDA Rural Development on April 30 exhausted its $1.5 billion in American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funding targeted for its Business and Industry loan guarantee program. The economic-stimulus money enabled the agency to increase its loan backing from 80 percent ...

Marion, Andrew and Benjamin Swensen, owners of Swensen’s Magic Markets, have been selected as the U.S. Small Business Administration‘s 2010 Idaho Jeffrey Butland Family-Owned Business of the Year, the SBA Boise District Office said in a release. Swensen’s Magic Markets ...

The Idaho Small Business Development Center received a second year of funding for an energy audit program, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced April 30. The grant is $125,000 The university-based center based at Boise State University uses student teams ...

U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, on April 26 voted against a motion to proceed to Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s financial reform bill. Dodd, D-Conn., presented Senate Bill 3217. The ...

Incidents of residential mortgage fraud increased last year, with the number of mortgage fraud reports among loans made in 2009 grew 7 percent, a smaller increase than the 26 percent jump seen the previous year, according to a study released ...

Boise investment adviser Michael “Mac” McReynolds, with Rathbone McReynolds & Daly of Wells Fargo Advisors, said he’s still hearing concerns about the stock market even as it heads toward the pre-crash levels of 2008-09. Concerns about presidential administration involvement and ...