More lender propaganda, more media lip service, and as Jerry Seinfeld would say, “Yada, yada, yada.”
How can these guys do anything without the proper staffing? How can they truly handle all the loan workouts, and loan modifications that are needed to really increase their anti-foreclosure efforts?
The fact is, they CAN’T!
Think about this ladies and gentleman, please??!!!!!!!!!
Over the last few years there were millions of toxic loans made by hundreds and thousands of lenders, bankers, or brokers. Also, there are hundreds of thousands of loan officers, real estate agents, escrow officers, notaries, title agents, and other real estate professionals that have went out of business and are now bankrupt.
No longer in the business. Gone, kaput, never to come back and now working at Wal Mart. Kapeesh? Got it? Catch my drift? Good!
So, how the hell are we going to fix all these loans and really step up anti-foreclosure efforts if 75% of the people that helped make these loans are now gone? It doesn’t take a mathematician or Albert Einstein to figure out that there is something terribly wrong with the lender, and servicer loss mitigation state of affairs.
In other words they are lying, America. Imagine that………………….
Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and other leading U.S. mortgage lenders agreed to expand efforts to help borrowers avert foreclosure as the Senate prepares to weigh legislation addressing the housing crisis.
The Hope Now Alliance, a group of lenders, loan-servicing companies and counselors, agreed to contact borrowers 60 days or more late on mortgages to lay out options, including loan modification, according to a draft of the agreement obtained by Bloomberg News. The group is scheduled to announce the plan tomorrow in a conference call with reporters.
They also agreed to have enough staffers on hand to manage the volume of calls and loss-mitigation requests from homeowners. They will inform homeowners whether they were approved for help within 45 days of receiving applications.
I spit out my coffee all over my lap top as I read that last paragraph. What a joke that is!
In order to have enough staffers and counselors to handle the wounded homeowners, these lenders and servicers will literally have to hire thousands and thousands of workers to staff their loss mitigation efforts and to backup their hollow words.
They would have to open up special brick and mortar loss mitigation servicing units in new locations to be able to “properly” house these counselors, and handle all the loan workouts that need to be performed in order to make a difference.
Hey, lenders and servicers, I hear Wall Mart and even Home Depot has a wealth of mortgage talent that you all can recruit and pick up for pennies on the dollar from what you used to pay them in the subprime glory years. I’m talking 75-80% off their old $150k years and they will love you for life. You know, the guys and gals you used and abused to make these toxic loans, and then kicked to the curb once you were done profiting from them.
Yeah, those guys and gals. Oh and all these real estate professionals are losing their homes too. Maybe you can give them a great deal on a loan modification?
Another blog post and more, yada, yada, yada……………………………………………….
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Moe,
How about the guys who sold puts on the Equity Tranche of Sub-Prime Loans? The big winner runs a hedge fund that made $12 Billion, (that’s right,$Billion with a “B”) in one year for investors in 2007. Thanks to the now infamous “2/20″ formula that compensates most Hedge funds, (2% off the top as the investor money comes in the door and 20% of all profits from the trade before investor payout)this manager made $3.7 Billion in personal compensation for the year and to sweeten the pot, special tax treatment of 60% of his compensation (called carry profits)allowed him to pay capital gains rates of just 15% in income tax on that 60% of this $3.7 Billion in income for one year. To put this in perspective, that amount of money would pay all 80,000 teachers in New York State for three years, including benefits.
If he made $3.7 Billion and his investors made another $12 Billion, that means the investors who funded the loans, including pension funds, lost the same amount. The amount is the equivalent of 80,000 $150,000.00 homes.
I’m with you on the Walmart thing, I love my new job even though there are no medical benefits and my net pay does not cover the cost of gasoline I spend getting to work, greeting all those happy shoppers at the door gives me a reason to go on living! My family is getting used to our mobile home too. Perhaps I will get promoted to management and we can rent a doublewide in walking distance…
The new Hope Now guidelines are a feel-good measure. They are completely voluntary. Why not pass a law with service-level guarantees that require the lenders to perform to a minimum standard?
Funny how the story about Hope Now coming out literally one day after they were caught red-handed lying their a$$es off about the actual number of people they’ve actually “helped”. They were pushing 1.2 million as the number but uh oh……
Hope Now was found to have actually only “helped” out 167k people of which only 35k were mortgage mods. Hope Now immediately shot back saying that the Comptroller only reviewed 40% of their books so the number was off. Fine, if you take Hope Now’s word that those numbers reflect only 40% of what they’ve done, you now have the whopping and impressive number of “helped” up to 417k of which only 87k were mortgage mods. Wow!! By the way, how exactely did Hope Now “help” the 330k people that didn’t get mods? A pep talk maybe?
Hey Hope Now YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE “HELPED” 1.2 MILLION PEOPLE YOU NITWITS!! YOU JUST ADMITTED THAT YOU HAVE BEEN SYSTEMATICALLY LYING YOUR ASSES OFF!! No it’s not surprising that we’ve been lied to. It’s the fact that not one person is holding these criminals responsible for their lies. This organization has been widely held-up as the shining star of “hope” for millions of financially destroyed families, and nary a word is mentioned of the fraud. We’re watching our country be “equity stripped” right in front of our worn faces, and we can not even rally more than a few American citizens to help STOP this insanity. We’re doomed if we don’t fight back people.
A long time ago there were real men. The kind of men that would unsheath their sword and run through the person who would dare to destroy his family’s well-being. Where are the real men and women willing to stand up for their family and their country and stop this insanity? Where are the protests in the street? Where are the boycotts? Where is the outrage?
it seems most of these organizations are just PR campaigns…I have called to get some more information on how they are able to help and I do not get the impression they are helping many homeowners.
I get the sense most of what is going on with all these potential mods/workouts is a sort of “sit in limbo” approach until the congress passes whatever bail out program they finally agree on getting to signature.
Once the banks/servicers/investors know what their incentive is from the government, i suspect more workouts will begin to happen.
I agree it seems there is not enough noise being made to get the wheels moving in the right direction.
I had suggested a national day of default…
we organise a large scale default on our mortgages and deliver the keys back to the banks or on the steps of congress…nice thought but would lose steam since it would take 3 months to get to that point…..
Actually we could start now and be ready by November.
Well re:Hope Now.. I called Hope Now in November 2007 and was told to default so I would qualify for some advocacy for a loan modification. The same story happened in January 2008. I called in April 2008 and go a whole new senario. The represenative actually explained what Hope Now is and how they can provide support and advocacy to homeowners who want to retain their homes even if they are current. He took my updated financials and sent them to my lender.. Did they help? I don’t know. For me it was just one more “hoop” I felt was out there.
Good luck RJ..
let us know what hope now will actually now do …..
Good luck RJ -
Gator that is the spirit !!!!
read your post on Jun 18th, 2008 at 1:20 am
- I understood completely you train of thought.
I guess for now the banks & the gov’t are playing the waiting game to see who gives in first. I don’t know??? maybe the feds are in huge investigations, maybe everyone is waiting for the elections to be over in November – whatever the case we can not sit & wait – we need to fight, negotiate, whatever we can to save our livelyhoods and our homes.
Unfortunately, their efforts at helping people stay in their homes is just to offer the same things that they have always offered: collect money from the borrower, move missed payments to the end of the loan, offer deeds-in-lieu and little else. There are no new options for borrowers.
If you find yourself in a tight situation, look five months down the road. Do you expect something to change that will save your house such as a new job or a big raise? If not, consider getting out now because the banks only care about collecting money – all of their money.
Noah@ShortOnChange.com
http://www.ShortOnChange.com
The take over of WaMu and payments going to Wachovia
I borrowed money from my home equity line of credit to make payments to Wachovia which were never received and the money never found and was charged a late fee. Where did the money go?