SocketSite reports that First Republic Bank will no longer knowingly finance “displacement mortgages“. The bank announced that their loan application will now question whether the prospective borrower plans to invoke the Ellis Act to terminate tenancies in the building.
This news follows a protest at the bank’s headquarters in San Francisco this afternoon, where supporters gathered around the remaining occupants of a Coleridge Street property that was withdrawn from the rental market earlier this year, to chastise the bank for writing loans for buildings – like the one on Coleridge Street – that have been Ellis’ed.
