Foreclosure Recap – Week #40
This is an interesting tidbit of information from the New York Daily News. It seems that in the investigation of people who have gotten help in restructuring their loan terms, end up missing another payment. It seems that over half of the loans that were checked that had gotten some form of adjustment during the first half of the year have already missed or fallen behind on at least one more payment. In a time when people and lenders are all supposed to be doing what they can to make things work this news comes as a bit of a shock. Although for those that had significant payment adjustments the numbers were not nearly so high.
Even though the number of foreclosures seems to be turning slowly in the other direction, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the damage has been done not just for the next few years but perhaps even the next generation or two of Americans. The Akron Ohio News gives us a story where they look in depth at the effects that the foreclosure crisis is going to have on the children of parents who are facing foreclosure today. The story gives us food for thought as to why the Canadian mortgage system is in a lot better shape than our own.
This next story is not going to do a lot toward fostering good feelings about mortgage attorneys. But it is a story that every homeowner needs to take a moment to read. It tells about how the specialized attorneys are popping up all over trying to make money by saying that they are going to help the mortgage holder lower the payments and modify the loans. They take the money and that is as far as it goes. Most people feel like if they are dealing with a lawyer that they should be in good hands and not have to worry about being taken.
If you are one of the many people in the country that wonder how good a foreclosure can actually be if you purchase it. This story is one that you should take a moment and look over. The people that own this home bought it in foreclosure for $118,000 and by the time they get it all spruced up and all the low carbon footprint upgrades done they figure the circa 1901 brick should have about $300,000 into it. They used a lot of recycled components in it and the article gives people some ideas that perhaps they might enjoy trying out when doing a remodel in their own house whether it is the own they own now or a foreclosure that they buy.
Some people have decided it is time to fight back against the foreclosure, the job loss and the loss of health insurance benefits. The city of Chicago was the recent sight of a rally attended by Unions and Activists that said it is time for the voices of the people to be heard and that we need to take a stand as a people to stop the money being funneled into the banks and not the social services systems in the country. While it is a bit on the extreme side, it is an article that bears a quick reading so you can keep your finger on the pulse of the malcontent in the Americas.
What do people who have been purchasing homes for the bulk of their lives do when faced with foreclosure? The only option they are left with is to rent. With about 1 million homes in foreclosure at the close of the second quarter, according to a Treasury Department report released last week, the American dream is going backwards at bewildering speed for homeowners across the country. Many are finding themselves in the position of having to find a place to rent for the first time in their lives. While nearly all of the people who have been interviewed for this particular article are there for various reasons they almost all say that they will again own a home someday. Parts of this article are uplifting and parts are depressing but it is still worth the time to read.
Florida has some bad news and some good news on the list this month. The bad news is that the foreclosure rate is still one of the highest in the nation with a jump of 25 percent in the third quarter of the year. The good news is that the trend, while still high is slowing by a bit so there is cause for a cautious breath among people that live in the troubled state. While this article is not going to be particularly interesting to anyone other than the folks that live in Florida, it certainly gives us cause to think that maybe the worst is over and things will slow down and ultimately reverse in the somewhat near future.
This one is going to strike a raw nerve in most Americans whether they have been personally touched by the foreclosure crisis or not. It seems that during the Bush administration Federal regulators blocked attempts by state governments to prevent the exact same predatory lending practices that ultimately gave rise to the current lending and mortgage crisis that we are experiencing in the United States today. It seems that a rather obscure agency called the Office of the Currency Comptroller, which has been burdened with making sure that the banks in the country were fiscally sound, invoked an old law from 1863 law to give itself the power to override state laws against predatory lending. The OCC told states that they could not enforce predatory-lending laws, and all banks would be subject only to less-strict federal laws.
This story is good reading if you are a lower income family and looking to pursue the American dream of homeownership. It outlines what plans and strategies are out there for lower income folks who still want to own rather than rent. Good reading though not a lot of new information.
We know that things are bad but exactly how intense is the foreclosure crisis still facing the country today? Well, according to this article it is pretty bad. It seems that by the figures they present that every 13 seconds there is a foreclosure filing in the United States – that is over 4 per minute. That means that if you are an average reader, in the time it has taken you to read just this paragraph to this point two more foreclosures have been filed. That is not only bad it is downright scary for most of us. You can take a moment and go over the depressing news here:
