Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comSeveral lawmakers whose districts are drowning in foreclosures are taking unprecedented steps to help people stay in their homes.
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Your article states "that as a body, Congress has failed to come up with a broad fix for the foreclosure crises." Foreclosure is the answer to the crises. End of story.
Irony is a wonderful thing, Maxine Waters is seen in a variety of You Tube videos stating that Fannie and Freddie are liquid on solid ground.
I guess she was completely wrong along with Barney Franks and a few others.
All of whom need to be voted out of office and investigated on thier knowledge of the swaps and derivitives scam that took place in the rebundled loans.
this is so cool..everyone that got the loans is at fault...but the banks that created these loans and allowed them to be sold to the people knowing that they would not work got the bailout...and you folks all agree with it.. So, I guess the banks never make mistakes that should cost them anything...just the ones that get screwed...If they can bailout the banks the people that were sold these loans should also get bailed out...why be one sided with it...unless you think the banks are always right...our government sure thnks so,,,they have been backing them wholehog so far. And since there were no loans available in which to purchase cars..the auto industry got the boot...so much for fairness in the market place. And don't forget, so far I have not heard or elected say they made any mistake in the deregulation of the financial system that started this mess...they got a huge pass on it too.
Can anyone steer me toward some group that could help me challenge the Constitutionality of this assinine scheme to give taxpayer money to individuals?
Nukeman, as a renter, it is very upsetting to me that my tax money is going to be used to pay other people's mortgage! I am sure I am not the only renter who feels this way.
This does seem unconstitutional, and I have written Congressmen and Congresswomen, but all I get is a form letter back that says things like "thank you for supporting our economy, and please send your campaign contributions soon!"
The default rate for "rewritten" mortgages is at about 50% or so. Therefore, my tax money is simply being thrown away by the government, in my opinion.
My congressman has a special number at his office for help, but when I called they told me I needed to work with a HUD-certified specialist. They promised to email me a list of such specialists, but the email never came. I looked up HUD-certified specialists myself and tried to call the 3 in my area. Two of the 3 had "This mailbox is full" or "I'm out of the office until x date [a date more than 2 weeks in the past]." I finally did get a call back from one of them, who listened to my situation and told me I wasn't in deep enough trouble to need help.
Meanwhile I had talked to loan officers at my lender and 2 other lenders, and they all said I can't qualify to refinance because my income is too low, even though I have plenty of equity in my home. I can apply for the Obama "Making Home Affordable" program with my lender, but, as this article says, it's voluntary for lenders. From what I've been able to see on my lender's website, there would be large closing costs and other fees so that it really wouldn't save me any money.
The government needs to get tougher with the lenders who accepted TARP bailout funds and require them to work with their borrowers. The programs currently in place are apparently just window dressing, not true help.
Eve
Well said!
We can't refinance because we have a jumbo and they aren't making loans on anything over $500,000. So we are stuck with the loan we have. Hopefully, we can hang on until we pay the principle down a bit, but you are right about the "window dressing"!
i'm sorry to hear that you're in mortgages you can't afford, but you did it to yourselves. the housing market wasn't going to just continue to go up into perpetuity, you should have stayed within your means. it's not the government's job to fix your problem, it's yours.
uh, sorry, since the beginning of time you have always had to actually 'qualify' for a loan. The fact that you need to re-fi and 'they all said I can't qualify to refinance because my income is too low' isnt the banks problem. You probably should have either (a) gotten a 30 yr fixed or (b) not gotten a mortgage to begin with.
Auzzie - not true , we did did a super-jumbo refi, check around there are plenty of lenders and good rates out there.
I can't even afford to BUY a house in my area. Will my Congressman help me?
I assume so, since my tax money is PAYING the salary of my Congreeman!
Whoo Hoo! Calling now....
You should be able to. Did you not get a memo that said banks are supposed to be able to loan to you even if you can't afford it? Cus if they said no, they are un-american!
Oh wait, they finally woke up and realized it was a bad idea! I guess you missed the opportunity. Sorry Greg.
The government should keep its fat hands out of this mess (unfortunately it won't). The banks who have these toxic loans on their books and those who cannot pay will work it out either through bankruptcy or loan modification. As long as the banks think that a government bailout for their toxic assets is in the offing they will do little or nothing to address the issues. TARP and the PIPP are a sham which are prolonging the problems and actually making them worse. The taxpayers are propping up insolvent banks so that these institutions can hold the hammer over homeowners. Let the free market work - foreclosures are inevitable and so are the bankruptcies that will result. Stop trying to prolong the inevitable will trillions of taxpayer dollars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you mean a real live congressperson will talk to me? one of the commoners. one of the untouchables. i feel so blessed. thank you my prayers are answered!
Call first, before you get too excited. If you get an answer, then you can get excited.
i bitterly resent that i have paid my mortguage every month and now people are getting in trouble and they get a free ride from congress and do not have to pay their mortguage. what a crock of @!$%#. if they can't pay foreclose and maybe they will learn.
instead of being so "bitter"about it, how about just being happy that you can pay your mortgage???
Some people who are in trouble are there because of job loss, especially the male's income in the family (they tend to make more). You should have a little compassion for these people.
Those who got loans that they could not afford, that is another story.
Nobodies getting a free ride except for the mortgage lenders that CAUSED all this misery. I pay my mortgage too, but these poor people who can't are in this mess because they were SWINDLED! GET IT?!? SWIN-DLED! As in "NOT DEALT WITH IN AN HONEST AND ETHICAL MANNER!
I can't believe this. YOUR Government just GAVE half a TRILLION dollars to the banks and lenders who rob and cheat every last one of you, and you're angry at your neighbor. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Do you even HAVE a thought process or are you just as mindless as these big corporations assume you are.
WAKE UP! THINK! That poor guy who's lost his job and can't pay his mortgage isn't your enemy. The A****** at the bank who's taking his home is your enemy. Because if you stumble just once, that guys gonna be after YOU. I give thanks every day because there but for the grace of GOD go I. Show a little compassion, show a little mercy.
Call your congressman??? That's a joke. Mary Bono Mack is too busy shopping for her next husband to worry about people losing their homes. Her homes are secured, all of congress' homes are secured (including McCain's seven homes) and that's all their concerned about except how much they are going to be able to raise their own salaries come January.
I am sure that McCain is not the only member of Congress with multiple homes. It is not the job of government to re-negotiate anyone's mortgage. Gimme a break.
So this Obama's nation; government involvement at every level.
What if your constipated, do you call your Senator for help?
Actually the "FREE MONEY" that the government basically handed over to the banks and mortgage lenders is what gave them the ability to foreclose with impunity on anyone and everyone they wished.
If they had been forced to absorb their own losses (Which incidentally would have destroyed most of the really abusive companies), they would not have been able to short sell the repossessed homes and still have their investment AND profits guaranteed.
No, they probably would have had to renegotiate a lot of these loans so that the homeowners would actually be able to repay them. It would have cut into their profits to be sure, but hey, when you're banking a profit margin that borders on OBSCENE to begin with, I daresay there's more than just a little "Wiggle room."
And that old, "They got themselves into it C*** doesn't cut it with me either. You people who claim that are just mean spirited, uninformed, holier than thou, snobs. We got taken in by Countrywide, and over the last 5 years it's just gotten WORSE. The Contract we got delivered to us (6 weeks late and on the day of my wife's mother's FUNERAL incidentally) had about as much resemblance to the original agreement (Good FAITH offering I believe they call it, HAH!) as a fish has to a bicycle.
1-1/2% higher than agreed interest rate, 1-1/2 points (agreement was NO points) and $6500 missing from the Cash out that was supposed to pay for the deck on the beach side of the house. To call these guys thieves is to give honest thieves a bad name.
And over the last 5 years we've watched our payment go from $975, to $1050 to $1145 to $1245 to the present day $1345 per month. Yeah I know what you're thinking. Well it's our fault for taking out an ARM. Well it's NOT! It's fixed 15 year. And I know what else you're thinking: IT'S OUR FAULT FOR TAKING SUCH A BIG LOAN. Well if you consider a $75,000 loan BIG, then I guess I can buy that (but who do you know that pays $1345 a month on a $75,000 loan?).
It's FRAUD! Plain and simple. These people are THIEVES (but HEY don't take MY word for it, I believe the article was just yesterday about the SEC going after Angelo Mozilla). These people have lied to us, bait and switched us, manipulated the math on us, and run us around time after time when we tried to nail them down and make them deal honestly with us. the attitude we get is: "Pay WHAT we say, when we say, how we say, and there will be no trouble". Well actually YEAH there's gonna be trouble. Because now our attorney is taking this over, and We'll SEE what's what!
As for you people who put it ALL on the homeowners because the lenders didn't do anything wrong...Scr** you too.
I don't put it all on the lenders. I put a lot on the government when it thought everyone should own a home whether they could afford it or not.
How can a fixed rate loan increase payments? Is the increase due to property tax and insurance escrow?
Read my entry below yours. Property taxes, insurance and the cost of living. The loan payment goes up and your spendable income goes down. A perfect storm for financial trouble.
I was one of those people that had a triple A credit rating, did it all by the book until property values went off the cliff and property taxes went to the moon. We lived within our means but with no raises for over three years and inflation our savings took a hit. We tried to refinance but couldn't because of the value loss. Then my husband and I were both laid off and I started to negotiate with my lender. I got nowhere so I did call my Congresswomen and her aide has tried to help but I am still getting a run around from the lender as well as the aide.
You can't categorize everyone in this situation together. We have a 30 year fixed but the interest rate is high. " Solid" citizens need help now too. You have no idea how humiliating it is to be in this situation. I will be damned if I will let them take our home. I will fight and stay on hold for as long as it takes. My lender is Bank of America, which took TARP money and has publicly said it would help homeowners, hasn't. If they had only modified our loan 6 months ago then they would have been getting their monthly payments on time and our credit rating wouldn't be in the toilet. I don't see the advantage of forces us into foreclosure.
Boomer, being forced into foreclosure by the lender such as B of A is a benefit to the lender, they only care about us when we are a borrowing customer they can bury in high interest debt. Foreclosure gets the investor off the back of the lender meaning that the investor can't sue to the lender as in the case of loan modifications. When a bank takes back a property in foreclosure and resells it the money they get in the sale is pure profit and they don't have any responsibility to the investor in the chain. Remember, when they foreclose, all bets are of for all in the chain so the banks is protecting their sorry buts in a way. I am not siding with the banks, only trying to explain.
Pamela,
I understand the profit side of foreclosure to the bank but in the current market our home could sit here for a year or more and fall into disrepair, pipes burst, be vandalizes etc. During that period the taxes still have to be paid. Then when they find a buyer they will get a fraction of the low amount that it is worth right now. How can that be beneficial when they could have had my monthly payments all along and be getting money from the government to subsidize the modification on top of that? Financially I would have done the modification and be thrilled to get the monthly check from a homeowner and not have to worry about another derelict house .
Boomer 58
The government forced mortgage companies to create loan programs for people who had no business owning homes. I work for a major mortgage company. Many of the people we were forced to give mortgages to sounded too stupid to gas up their own cars, much less own a home. They bought a dump and then called to say "We bought a house from you people and now the heater don't work." We didn't sell them the house; we were forced to give them the money to buy it from the seller. Now we're forced to lower the standards yet again to help those (mostly) who shouldn't have been approved to begin with. This will be a downward spiral until Obama the almighty comes up with another plan. MANY of the loans that are in foreclosure were not primary residences, as the emdia likes to reprot.. They were 2nd homes, vacations, investment properties. The media likes to say XX families lost their homes this month. NOT TRUE. Dig around and find out how many foreclosures are actually primary residences. Overall, the number of foreclosures is low compared to how many mortgages are out there. More sobbing from people who think they're entitled and their enablers.
Interesting that I don't see anyone on here blaming the high mortgage payments on property tax increases. You just blame the lenders. If you have a fixed rate mortgage, teh only increase can be from higher taxes. Since the lender collects that tax money in most cases, you're crying about your payments going up. Start complaining equally about property taxes.
I doubt that I'm any smarter than the rest of you but we made sure we had one year's living expenses put aside before we bought a house. (10.125% in 1989) Please don't give me creit for coining the phrase "saving for a rainy day".
Boomer, you say your interest rate is too high. Not high enough to keep you from buying the house. I'm sorry that you are in this situation but why is it someone else's fault. Why did you lose your job? Foreign competition? Trickle down from the poorly run car industry? I don't hear anyone complaining about other causes of this problem.
BTW, why in the world would a mortgage company want a house instead of the payment. When the lender sells the foreclosed property the selling price rarely meets the obligation. Ever heard of short sales? The people who are being foreclosed on had no or little equity in the house at the time of purchase. With property values declining, how can you possibly think that the lender makes any money?
Linny63,
The property taxes were moderate when we purchased our home. Two years later they decided to build a new high school. Not something we could have known about nor the enormous rate of inflation and our employers not giving us raises for 3 1/2 years, gas prices over $4 a gallon, fuel oil going up and up and groceries and illness that was unexpected to me. We had savings but the tsunami of events did that in faster than I could make deposits. Then add both of us getting laid off and wham!
I do agree with you about the lender making money from us being foreclosed on. A house on the next street was foreclosed on 1 1/2 years ago. It sat there for a year and property values have declined 40% or more just in the last 7-8 months. It was finally purchased and had to be gutted from lack of care. Sounds like a losing proposition to me. As I said, even unemployed we could have been making modified payments every month instead of the unending nightmare of trying to deal with these people on the phone. I can't even talk to someone face to face. If the economy is to turn around the housing crisis has to be stopped and the lenders have to step up and follow the Presidents plan to modify home loans so people can retain their homes, pay their taxes and get on with their lives.
Lenders and Govt regulators were at fault. Lenders would loan out based upon the initial teaser rate payment, knowing that when the interest rates went up to their normal rate, the buyer couldn't afford the payment and meet certain grading guidelines and debt/income ratios. Government knew about it and did nothing. Heck the only two industries doing well were the housing and BIG OIL. It was great, everyone was sucking instant money out of their houses via refinancing or home equity loans to stimulate a failing economy and pay for $4.50/gallon gas. But then the loan industry failed (wonder why) and the economy tanked. Through it all the only winner has been Big Oil.
This looked like a problem that was going to be solved when the D's took office, but for some reason the D's want to focus on Big Business and let the average joe be washed away down the drain. Don't get me wrong - the R's would have opened the drain up and pushed people down if it would help Big Business.
Time to change the motto frrom "government for the people" to "government for Big Business".