Recently while browsing the channels looking for the weather forecasts as those with breathing difficulties can only know, I came across a new ad by the National Association of Realtors promoting home ownership and its benefits and "responsible" financial reform, and as one who has been burned by a home that in the end owned me rather than having really any ownership of it, was more than intrigued by the ad, its representations and tone.
It began by representing how for every home purchased, there are 2 jobs which result, creating millions of jobs for America. But at whose ultimate cost was left out of the equation.
That's right. The homeowners.
I'd say there are a multitude more all paid for by the home purchaser or seller.
First, of course, the realtor.
Due to ever restrictive state laws and provisions, the freedom to list your home and sell your own property through newspaper ads, "for sale" by owner, and other such economical means has been taken over by "the industry."
Add to those also who earn their incomes from the home buying public are the banks, title companies, lawyers, state (all those property taxes collected) and home repair and construction companies in those repairs also now mandated by state law in many states prior to listing a home for sale.
And don't forget the newest leaches on the eventual equity in your home.
The "homeowners association," which also due to state and federal laws are mandated for all new home construction also in most states throughout the nation.
With lien and seizure rights to your property in the event your standards for upkeep and maintenance don't meet theirs, or even one of your neighbors who just might be a realtor looking instead merely for a new listing.
A British law, the "law of servitudes" is being used in order to legitimize these "nonconsensual" contracts on your home and land many times.
Especially in these economic times.
Forget also selling a property "as is" as in the past, leaving the negotiating on the eventual price and repairs then to the buyer and seller.
The market is clearly speaking regarding the "changes" in the mortgage and home buying process that has occurred within the past several decades, and is clearly affecting the realtors and construction industry big time.
As far as the rest of the ad, representations were made insofar as how much wealth Americans have in their homes (ask the recent foreclosed upon "owners" of those properties where their wealth is now, some of whom in many states were not those that bought to flip those homes, but actually to live in them).
That wealth and home that will never be passed down to their children.
Promoting financial reform in the home buying process means confronting and addressing those escalating interest rates and changing terms due to the fact that the mortgage or loan you have today may not be the same next month, or even next week due to the fact that debt is now defined as a negotiable instrument that can be sold on the open market under different terms and conditions once that loan is "assumed" by another bank or mortgage lender.
Or that your loan may not even be based on the U.S. prime and currency, as many of those in the West and Southwest were but based on the British interbank lending rates or LIBOR.
Talk about risk.
I mean in the Southwest in this boomer's experience, this last cycle was the third simply in my lifetime of the most recent boom and bust cycle.
Home sweet home is not the phrase that comes to mind anymore to the many affected during this last one.
And the lesson was not lost on most of those of their posterity and next generation, I guarantee.
Junk fees, higher and higher utility bills and costs of ownership, escalating and changing mortgage terms and conditions, and a risky investment, not home, at best is the new definition.
Showing posts with label homes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homes. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
More Foreclosures, More Economic Disasters To Come
After the earlier reports this week that Bank of America was delaying any more foreclosures on homes pending an investigation into the paperwork surrounding those planned in the "judicial foreclosure" states, it was announced by the AP yesterday that such is not the case and planned to execute on over 10,000 pending foreclosure actions.
Gee, with all that stimulus money which Bank of America received and then used to purchase all that Countrywide debt and paper, I just wonder how much equity those owners have invested in total which Bank of America will be getting, and it does appear that the federal "disclosure" law that simply requires mortgage banks and lenders to disclose the fact that the loan or contract you sign today just may change tomorrow if that note is purchased by another bank or entity is repaying all those lobbying costs those banks used on Capitol Hill the last few years in spades. Over and above all those "bailout" sums.
So what occurred here is that Congress extended credit to Bank of America so that they could then purchase Countrywide, at the taxpayers' expense, which then afforded them the right to foreclose on taxpayer properties which were "at risk," no matter how much equity those owners might have in those homes?
As one who had an original mortgage which was then sold to Countrywide at one point, who then attempted to charge me when I went to refinance for simply providing the payoff figure for the original note, I continue to find it hard to believe that ANY of these banks were "at risk" or bankrupt.
Especially after that revision of the bankruptcy code which also occurred due to banking lobbying efforts back in 2006 right before this tsunami began which in effect precluded then Americans who were facing bankruptcy from in effect writing off any of their credit card debts or home equity loans without going through the Chapter 13 "reorganization" procedures first (which takes a lawyer now to go through, the procedure is so complex) before filing under Chapter 7.
Almost all protections for debtors in bankruptcy procedures have now been removed, yet we continue to live in a credit based society where even paying off your credit card debt counts against you in the configuration of your credit score.
I mean post 9-11 what did President Bush advise the American people to do?
Go shop.
And what has Mr. Obama done also since taking office?
Advised the jobless and homeless American people to either get re-educated (taking out loans for that re-education), or refinance their homes (and pay even more ultimately for your property using those mortgage counselors with additional closing costs and "new" even more restrictive loans most likely than you originally had).
With Washington and the state legislatures continuing to scratch their heads and wonder why the housing market isn't improving?
Sub-prime loans were not the problem (and most of those loans in the areas most affected were not even sub-prime loans but loans based on the London Interbank Origination Rates, not even the U.S. prime), the terms of those 50 page loans and slight of hand which has occurred post the banking bailout defining mortgages as "paper debt" and not the contracts that they are, is what has increased the foreclosures and bulked up Wall Street once again at the cost of the American homeowners.
And contrary to the "economists" predictions, there are thousands of vacant and empty homes at this point, since this tsunami started in 2006 four years ago, so it isn't a dirth of "inventory" that is depressing the market.
It is the refusal of the American people to buy into a now very "risky" investment since I'm sure that what has occurred this past four years had not been lost on the upcoming homebuying public, and just who was "protected" and who lost their shirts...
And shelter.
The announcement that the 50 Attorneys General that are calling for an investigation into the foreclosure mess right before an election is just oh, so typical and oh, so political once again.
Now four years later? Sort of like closing the barn doors after the horse has escaped, and seems merely another job stimulus for the job security of the legal profession. I mean, who will you need to address such a case if not, once again, the foreclosure lawyers who have made a bundle this past four years and seems that the collection and foreclosure industry is another of those "favored special interests" that has benefited tremendously during this recession.
Depressed and vacant housing, thousands of Americans with black markets on their credit unable to get jobs due to the use of those reports by most of those national and global industries, and a low paid workforce due to all the outsourcing and insourcing which has escalated since the Reagan years.
With such a scenario, just how does Washington expect the economy to revive since it has bankrupted at this point a good segment of the American people, at least the middle class and boomer and World War II generation, at this point?
Social Security COLAs denied based on the fact that the COLA has not increased? Just where is the Department of Labor getting those figures, because the cost of living for those over 55 has definitely increased.
Many now have extended family members living with them. Their medical expenses have exploded due to lack of regulation over the mega health care providers, and for those assisting with college costs for the grandkids even, those costs have gone up.
Food prices have increased, and gas is still higher than it was before this recession began.
Instead, a $250 check is in the mail? Seems the new mentality in Washington has also been borrowed from corporate America.
Not benefits, but annual Washington configured rebates. Just where did they get that figure?
Meanwhile, the president and those running for re-election are running around the country contributing to the carbon emissions in order to bulk up those revenues eventually for the new carbon tax.
I've got news for the Washington, the bankers and economists.
The stock market is no barometer of the economic health of America.
The local unemployment offices, residential neighborhoods, and Main Street USA are.
And just where ARE all these candidates getting all that campaign money for all those ads on TV?
Let me guess. The bankers, or "government" contractors in rebates.
Gee, with all that stimulus money which Bank of America received and then used to purchase all that Countrywide debt and paper, I just wonder how much equity those owners have invested in total which Bank of America will be getting, and it does appear that the federal "disclosure" law that simply requires mortgage banks and lenders to disclose the fact that the loan or contract you sign today just may change tomorrow if that note is purchased by another bank or entity is repaying all those lobbying costs those banks used on Capitol Hill the last few years in spades. Over and above all those "bailout" sums.
So what occurred here is that Congress extended credit to Bank of America so that they could then purchase Countrywide, at the taxpayers' expense, which then afforded them the right to foreclose on taxpayer properties which were "at risk," no matter how much equity those owners might have in those homes?
As one who had an original mortgage which was then sold to Countrywide at one point, who then attempted to charge me when I went to refinance for simply providing the payoff figure for the original note, I continue to find it hard to believe that ANY of these banks were "at risk" or bankrupt.
Especially after that revision of the bankruptcy code which also occurred due to banking lobbying efforts back in 2006 right before this tsunami began which in effect precluded then Americans who were facing bankruptcy from in effect writing off any of their credit card debts or home equity loans without going through the Chapter 13 "reorganization" procedures first (which takes a lawyer now to go through, the procedure is so complex) before filing under Chapter 7.
Almost all protections for debtors in bankruptcy procedures have now been removed, yet we continue to live in a credit based society where even paying off your credit card debt counts against you in the configuration of your credit score.
I mean post 9-11 what did President Bush advise the American people to do?
Go shop.
And what has Mr. Obama done also since taking office?
Advised the jobless and homeless American people to either get re-educated (taking out loans for that re-education), or refinance their homes (and pay even more ultimately for your property using those mortgage counselors with additional closing costs and "new" even more restrictive loans most likely than you originally had).
With Washington and the state legislatures continuing to scratch their heads and wonder why the housing market isn't improving?
Sub-prime loans were not the problem (and most of those loans in the areas most affected were not even sub-prime loans but loans based on the London Interbank Origination Rates, not even the U.S. prime), the terms of those 50 page loans and slight of hand which has occurred post the banking bailout defining mortgages as "paper debt" and not the contracts that they are, is what has increased the foreclosures and bulked up Wall Street once again at the cost of the American homeowners.
And contrary to the "economists" predictions, there are thousands of vacant and empty homes at this point, since this tsunami started in 2006 four years ago, so it isn't a dirth of "inventory" that is depressing the market.
It is the refusal of the American people to buy into a now very "risky" investment since I'm sure that what has occurred this past four years had not been lost on the upcoming homebuying public, and just who was "protected" and who lost their shirts...
And shelter.
The announcement that the 50 Attorneys General that are calling for an investigation into the foreclosure mess right before an election is just oh, so typical and oh, so political once again.
Now four years later? Sort of like closing the barn doors after the horse has escaped, and seems merely another job stimulus for the job security of the legal profession. I mean, who will you need to address such a case if not, once again, the foreclosure lawyers who have made a bundle this past four years and seems that the collection and foreclosure industry is another of those "favored special interests" that has benefited tremendously during this recession.
Depressed and vacant housing, thousands of Americans with black markets on their credit unable to get jobs due to the use of those reports by most of those national and global industries, and a low paid workforce due to all the outsourcing and insourcing which has escalated since the Reagan years.
With such a scenario, just how does Washington expect the economy to revive since it has bankrupted at this point a good segment of the American people, at least the middle class and boomer and World War II generation, at this point?
Social Security COLAs denied based on the fact that the COLA has not increased? Just where is the Department of Labor getting those figures, because the cost of living for those over 55 has definitely increased.
Many now have extended family members living with them. Their medical expenses have exploded due to lack of regulation over the mega health care providers, and for those assisting with college costs for the grandkids even, those costs have gone up.
Food prices have increased, and gas is still higher than it was before this recession began.
Instead, a $250 check is in the mail? Seems the new mentality in Washington has also been borrowed from corporate America.
Not benefits, but annual Washington configured rebates. Just where did they get that figure?
Meanwhile, the president and those running for re-election are running around the country contributing to the carbon emissions in order to bulk up those revenues eventually for the new carbon tax.
I've got news for the Washington, the bankers and economists.
The stock market is no barometer of the economic health of America.
The local unemployment offices, residential neighborhoods, and Main Street USA are.
And just where ARE all these candidates getting all that campaign money for all those ads on TV?
Let me guess. The bankers, or "government" contractors in rebates.
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