During the last housing crash, the big banks begged the federal government for help and they received it, but when average Americans ask the big banks for help most of the time the banks show no mercy whatsoever. If you fall behind on your mortgage payments, the big banks have shown that they are willing to be absolutely ruthless. They will change locks in the middle of the night, they will toss disabled veterans and families with children out into the street in the middle of winter, and sometimes once the foreclosure process has begun they will not even allow someone to come forward and offer to pay off the loan if they think that they can make more money by selling the home. The big banks will often string homeowners along for months or even years with loan modification promises, only to drop the hammer on them at the most inopportune time. Over the past several years there has been case after case where mortgage documents have “disappeared”, where big banks have “manufactured” missing documents out of thin air and there have even been cases where big banks have tried to foreclose on homes that do not even have a mortgage. Once in a while, the big banks get a small slap on the wrist, but nobody ever really gets into much trouble for any of this. In fact, the big banks just continue to gain even more market share and even more power. Hopefully when some of these foreclosure horror stories start to become publicized more widely we will start to see some real changes in the marketplace. (Read More...)
Foreclosure
Occupy Wall Street: Mass Economic Riots Are Now Here And America Will Never Be The Same
Is Occupy Wall Street going to represent a major turning point in U.S. history? Over the past several years, many people have been warning that we would see mass economic riots in the United States if the economy continued to get worse. Well, the economic riots are now here and America will never be the same. The Occupy Wall Street protests are starting their third week and now similar protests have sprung up in major cities all over the United States. An increasing number of Americans have totally lost faith in the system and are looking for an outlet for their frustrations. Occupy Wall Street is a spark that has started a fire, but most Americans do not understand where all of this is going. In the years ahead, millions more Americans will lose their jobs, millions more Americans will lose their homes to foreclosure and millions more Americans will find themselves drowning in debt. As the economy continues to decline, millions upon millions of Americans will become even more frustrated. In particular, young Americans are really starting to become angry about the economy and our deeply corrupt financial system. Eventually we are going to see an explosion of anger and frustration on the streets of America that is going to be absolutely unprecedented. Occupy Wall Street is just the beginning. If most Americans could see what is coming next, it would chill them to their cores. (Read More...)
27 Amazing Statistics About The Real Estate Crash That Never Seems To End: More Foreclosures, More Underwater Mortgages And More Home Price Declines
The real estate crash that never seems to end appears to be getting even worse. Home prices continue to go down, the number of underwater mortgages is soaring and the number of foreclosures set an all-time record in 2010. The peak of the housing market was in 2005 and the subprime mortgage crisis erupted in 2008. Shouldn’t things be getting better by now? How many years is this real estate crash going to go on for? Home builders and those that work in the construction industry are deeply suffering because new home sales continue to hover around record lows. Mortgage professionals are having a really hard time because very few people are seeking home loans and many of those that are seeking loans cannot get approved. Real estate agents all over the country are pulling their hair out in frustration and large numbers of them have left the industry completely. The United States has never had such a prolonged real estate slump in the post-World War 2 era. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of indications that the real estate crash is going to get even worse. (Read More...)
Mortgage Investors To Bank Of America: We’re Pissed And We Want Our 47 Billion Dollars Back
Everyone knew that the foreclosure fraud crisis was going to spawn a festival of lawsuits, and now it looks like it is already beginning. The New York Federal Reserve Bank is part of a consortium of eight large institutional investment firms that has launched an effort to force Bank of America to repurchase $47 billion worth of mortgages packaged into bonds by its Countrywide Financial unit. It turns out that most mortgage bond contracts explicitly require the repurchase of loans when the quality of the loans falls short of promises made by the sellers. As most of us know by now, many of these mortgages that were packaged together into “AAA rated” securities were actually a bunch of junk. But this is just the beginning. There are going to be hordes of lawsuits stemming from this crisis and it is going to take years and years for this thing to work through the legal system. All of the big players in the U.S. mortgage industry are going to be paralyzed for an extended period of time by this crisis, and that means that buying a home and achieving the American Dream is going to become a lot harder for millions of Americans. Not only that, if mortgage lending institutions end up being forced to take back gigantic mountains of bad mortgages it could end up sinking a whole lot of them. The implications for the U.S. financial system would be staggering. (Read More...)
16 New Records That The American Economy Has Set During The Past 12 Months – And They Are All Bad
Over the past twelve months, the U.S. economy has continued to come apart like a 20 dollar suit. During that time it seems like more bad economic news has been coming out nearly every single day. Instead of getting better, the problems facing the U.S. economy only seem to be multiplying. The U.S. government and the U.S. financial system continue to absolutely drown in debt. Factories, jobs and massive amounts of wealth continue to fly out of the United States every month at an astounding pace. Meanwhile, the number of Americans enrolled in anti-poverty programs continues to shatter records and the U.S. housing industry continues to set records for futility. The truth is that less Americans are living the American Dream today than were living it twelve months ago. The U.S. economy is in a serious state of decline, and it is time for all of us to wake up and admit the truth. (Read More...)
Bank Of America, JPMorgan Chase And GMAC Suspend Foreclosures Due To Serious Concerns About Foreclosure Procedures
In an absolutely stunning development, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and GMAC Mortgage have all suspended foreclosures in many U.S. states due to serious concerns about foreclosure procedures. There has been an absolutely massive tsunami of foreclosures in recent years and it turns out that mortgage company officials dealing with foreclosure paperwork have not always taken the time to process each foreclosure properly. Things have gotten so bad that a number of U.S. states have actually opened up official investigations that are looking into some of these foreclosure practices. But what did everyone expect? There has been such a dramatic surge in foreclosures over the past several years that it was almost inevitable that shortcuts would start to be taken. Back in 2005, there were only about 100,000 home repossessions in the United States. Last year there were about 1 million home repossessions in the U.S. and RealtyTrac is projecting that there will be a record 1.2 million home repossessions this year. Needless to say, this has created a paperwork headache for mortgage companies of unprecedented magnitude. (Read More...)
Living In Fear
Can you feel the rising fear in America today? It has gotten to the point where it is almost palpable. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and fear what is going to happen when their unemployment benefits run out. Millions of others fear what would happen if they lose the job that they still have. A rapidly growing number of Americans are getting behind on their mortgage payments and fear that they might lose their homes to foreclosure. Still others are looking retirement directly in the eye and are realizing that they aren’t going to have enough money to make it. So why all the fear? Well, over the past several decades an increasing number of Americans have come to define their lives by the amount of stuff that they have accumulated and the amount of money in their bank accounts. For these Americans, living the American Dream is dependent on these material possessions. So what happens when these material possessions are threatened? What you get is millions upon millions of Americans living in fear. (Read More...)
15 Signs That The U.S. Housing Market Is Headed For Complete And Total Collapse
The U.S. housing market is dying. You will only hear hints of this on the mainstream news and from the politicians in Washington D.C., but as statistic after statistic continues to roll in, the reality of what is happening is becoming very difficult to deny. Up until the end of April, the giant tax credit that the U.S. government was bribing home buyers with helped stabilize the real estate market, but now that the tax credit has expired the decline of the U.S. housing market has resumed. Mortgage defaults continue to set new records. Foreclosures continue to set new records. Home repossessions by banks continue to set new records. The number of homes being constructed and the number of Americans applying for home loans is at stunningly low levels. For decades, owning a home has been touted as the very heart of “the American Dream”, but today that dream is out of reach for an increasing number of Americans. Why? It is because there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone. Without a jobs recovery, there simply is not going to be a housing recovery. Unfortunately, as the U.S. economy continues to come apart like a 20 dollar suit, even more Americans are going to lose their jobs and the U.S. housing industry will continue to experience a very painful decline. (Read More...)