From the category archives:

American Nightmare

Senate Blocks Credit Card Interest Rate Freeze Bill

by Moe Bedard

The bankers win, yet again. What, did you think otherwise? Stop, you silly little screwed consumer. No one is in Washington lobbying for your little a$$. So what the hell did you expect to happen? Real help, credit relief and regulation? LOL….  Take your debt medicine and learn your banking history lessons!
I am not saying this stuff [...]

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Homeowners in Their 20’s More Likely to Bail on Underwater Mortgages

by Moe Bedard

“Why would I keep paying on a $250,000 loan?” he asked. “I would not ever buy a house again.” (We tried to follow up with this guy, but his number had been disconnected.)
Statistics don’t exist because no one declares their reasons for walking away, but a handful of papers have suggested that there’s something to [...]

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Foreclosures Will Rise Through 2010

by Moe Bedard

Home foreclosures are likely to keep climbing through all of next year despite stabilizing housing prices in some areas, a major lender group said Thursday as it reported that the level of delinquencies and repossessed homes had jumped to a record.
One in seven U.S. home loans was past due or in foreclosure as of Sept. [...]

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Life After Foreclosure

by Moe Bedard

Van Zalingen said renting might be a smarter choice for some current homeowners.
“Foreclosure isn’t the end of the world. If your payment is unaffordable and your house is worth a lot less than what you owe the bank, consider renting an apartment for less and walking away. You can use that extra money to take [...]

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Steve Dilbert & MFI Miami: In regards to you placing blame on homeowners

by Moe Bedard

Here is an open email discussion with MFI Miami and Steve Dilbert forwarded to me by a very concerned consumer advocate. Her name is Krista Railey and I came to know her when I started writing about Green Credit Solutions. She began sending me emails and we exchanged information about the various scams we know about.
She [...]

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MFI Miami: Are Steve Dilbert & Green Credit Solutions Partners in Loan Modification Crime?

by Moe Bedard

Are MFI-Miami and  Steve Dilbert really a front for illegal loan modification scams?
For years I have volunteered and offered free foreclosure prevention and loan modification information on and off the internet. In doing so I have had many mortgage copy cats, critics and internet haters. Some of these very same people have made it a business to go [...]

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Homeowner: NACA is really not the organization I thought they were

by Moe Bedard

NACA Member & Struggling Homeowner: “NACA will not return my calls, respond to my e-mails and when I go by the office they will not see me. The employees are so unprofessional. They actual sit there and talk to the people like they are kids.”
This is another unsolicited complaint about a non-profit called the Neighborhood [...]

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Main Street to Wall Street: “We want these swine prosecuted!”

by Moe Bedard

Bloomberg - 
Today, he is disgusted when he thinks about “what Wall Street has done to average, honest, tax-paying, no-loopholes citizens,” and says it makes him ill when he considers that Congress is letting taxpayer-assisted financial outfits get rich “without producing anything of real value to our society.”
Haugaard, one of dozens of readers who e-mailed me [...]

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Foreclosures Hitting Blacks and Hispanics Hard

by Moe Bedard

Black and Latinos are at a disproportionate risk in the ongoing foreclosure crisis because they are more likely than whites to have higher-cost mortgage loans and face higher unemployment rates, a report says.
The report from the William C. Velasquez Institute called on the federal government to take steps, including reforming bankruptcy laws and expanding eligibility [...]

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“I’d love to say there is an end in sight, but the end is not near.”

by Moe Bedard

“People are desperately out of work and in danger of losing their homes,” said state Sen. Linda Holmes, D-Aurora. “I’d love to say there is an end in sight, but the end is not near.”
“You can never catch up,” she said. “I’ve been trying to work something out with the mortgage company and they are [...]

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The Faces of Loan Modification

by Moe Bedard

“This went on for months,” she said. “I would return their calls saying I was undergoing a mod. They would say they didn’t know anything about it and to call their loss mitigation department. I would call loss mitigation and they would say that yes, my records showed I was under the three-month period and [...]

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Actor Nicolas Cage Loses 2 Homes to Foreclosure

by Moe Bedard

Even Academy Award winners are suffering from financial woes this recession. Actor Nicolas Cage lost two homes in New Orleans worth a total of $6.8 million in a foreclosure auction Thursday.
Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Bank purchased Cage’s 1140 Royal Street property in the French Quarter appraised at $3.5 million for $2.3 million. The bank, which has [...]

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Trial Modifications Are Criminal

by Moe Bedard

The Obama administration is busy touting the burgeoning success of its mortgage modification program. Unfortunately, it’s a farce: Out of one side of his mouth, the President touts a dedication to the besieged middle class, while from the other, lauds a loan modification program which steals money from struggling homeowners in favor of banks –  [...]

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3 More Loan Modification Attorneys Resign from the California Bar

by Moe Bedard

California Bar – The State Bar’s loan modification task force obtained the resignations of three more California attorneys as a result of misconduct related to their loan modification activities. It also placed another attorney on inactive status, charging his work poses a substantial threat to the public, and has undertaken similar efforts against two other [...]

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Orange County Foreclosure Tsunami: Get the Boats, This is Going to Get Ugly

by Moe Bedard

Just as I predicted over two years ago, the Orange County, California foreclosure tsunami has officially hit the county.  The wave is swallowing OC residents and city blocks by the dozen. 
The LA Times reported yesterday that data from ForeclosureRadar.com indicated that outstanding foreclosure auction notices in Orange County rose to 8,895 at the end of September, the highest [...]

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Video: Surviving After Foreclosure

by Moe Bedard

November 9, 2009 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — Foreclosure is an emotional and financial shock.
Once the shock wears off life does go on. It is possible to recover from foreclosure.
A DuPage County split level has been home for the McCarthys for 10 years. But foreclosure will force them from this five bedroom home into a mobile home.
“I [...]

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All those ’slime bag’ subprime borrowers and deadbeats who walked away

by Moe Bedard

It usually goes like this: At a dinner or party or funeral (seriously), someone learns that I’m in real estate and walks over to chew the fat about the market. They go on and on about “all those ’slime bag’ subprime borrowers and deadbeats who walked away from their houses,” the resulting crash in the [...]

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Unemployment Will Worsen the Foreclosure Crisis

by Moe Bedard

Housing analysts say they have to raise their forecasts on mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures as unemployment creeps up. Despite a rising number of home sales and other positive data, the broad housing market won’t really recover until employment picks up.
“The rise in unemployment rate is an indicator of people’s inability to pay mortgages,” said Mark [...]

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Unemployment and Foreclosure Caused Man to Murder

by Moe Bedard

Jason Rodriguez, accused of killing one and injuring five, ‘is a compilation of the front page of the entire year — unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce,’ his lawyer says.
When people loose everything, sometimes they loose their minds and will do things that make no sense, like murder. This is a trend that will explode over the coming [...]

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Foreclosures crisis caused by investors. And lenders. And politicians. And buyers.

by Moe Bedard

But a St. Petersburg Times analysis of thousands of foreclosures in Hillsborough County, which has one of the highest default rates in Florida, shows individual homeowners are getting too much of the blame.
The truth is that real estate speculators and revenue-hungry local governments bear just as much of the responsibility — and maybe more — [...]

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The Great U.S. Property Robbery Of The 21st Century

by Moe Bedard

Given losses like these, White said he was “perplexed that lenders and their representatives were resisting reducing principal when they modify loans.”
His data shows how rare it is for lenders to reduce principal.
The foreclosure paradox: Foreclosures breed foreclosures. Cutting you a deal to keep you in your home is a win-win-win, the lender would keep [...]

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If they want my home they will get it over my dead body

by Moe Bedard

Submitted by a Homeowner Via Email to Me: I will take further action as necessary to keep my home. If they want my home they will get it over my dead body.
Dear Mr. Marks and Mr. Bedard,
Please feel free to use the attached documents and share the information therein as well as this email to [...]

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Sewer Rats: A By Product of Foreclosures

by Moe Bedard

American cities are on the verge of a rat invasion, warns small-mammal biologist and self-described “rat pack” member Dale Kaukeinen (in college “all the good animals were taken,” he says) in a new study. And redemption, it turns out, is both personal and political.
“The problem of rats is just a symptom of a declining and [...]

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Michigan Foreclosures Were Illegal

by Moe Bedard

Detroit — Tens of thousands of Wayne County foreclosures — and potentially hundreds of thousands across the state — are unlawful because sheriffs did not follow state law when they conducted foreclosure auctions, an attorney said Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Bloomfield Hills attorney Paul Nicoletti filed a proposed class-action suit in federal court seeking to set aside [...]

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Realty Trac Accused of Deceptive Advertising

by Moe Bedard

Realty Trac is Accused of Bait and Switch With Monthly Foreclosure Service
Maria Casanova, an assistant professor of economics at UCLA, toyed with the idea earlier this year of buying a foreclosed property near the Westwood campus. She signed up for a prominent listing service called RealtyTrac.
Casanova, 31, canceled her subscription not long after. Yet a [...]

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Homeowners Walking Away Becoming More Common

by Moe Bedard

“I’m walking away from my house,” says Sakson, 57, who stopped making payments about six months ago on her home in Pennington, N.J. “The bank can have it.”
What Sakson did is called a strategic default, or a voluntary foreclosure, and it’s fast becoming a major challenge to the government’s $75 billion effort to keep distressed [...]

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Banks & Collection Agencies Go After Foreclosed Homeowners

by Moe Bedard

“I thought this was finally over, but it’s one of these things where there’s no end in sight,” said Lane, a 65-year-old biotech executive who fell on hard times after losing his job and coming down with cancer.
Massachusetts homeowners who’ve lost properties to the state’s foreclosure crisis are finding that their troubles don’t necessarily end [...]

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Video: A Trip in Loan Modification Hell

by Moe Bedard

Sometimes loan modifications can be a real pain, others believe that trying to get a loan modification is a form of hell on earth. This video shows you why they lose faxes constantly and who is really in charge of the banks.
Watch this video and decide for yourself.

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Unemployed and Trying to Save the American Dream

by Moe Bedard

SPRINGDALE — Homeowners who lose their jobs and collect unemployment income now have a better chance to modify their mortgages, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
Until recently, unemployment income was not utilized when calculating a loan modification, leaving distressed homeowners with few options.
Because income is the basis for mortgage modification or loan qualification, unless a [...]

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Desperate Americans Flood Emergency Help Hot Lines

by Moe Bedard

She can feel what the callers on the other end of the line are feeling. Recently it’s been tearing, gripping, throat-tightening.
Giselle Sanchez and 12 other call center operators spend all day answering questions about where to find help. Sometimes it’s help with the rent. Other times it’s help steering away from suicide.
These call-takers are the [...]

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More Details on Loan Modification Beating and Torture

by Moe Bedard

More disturbing details are  coming out in regards to the  beating, torture and robbery of two loan modification agents. Apparently the victims and the suspects were actually doing business together in a loan modification referral scheme that involved some California Realtors.

This is actually quite common in California for licensed real estate agents to be involved in some type of [...]

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Fed Says Recession Almost Over and Unemployment to Continue. Huh?

by Moe Bedard

The U.S. housing market faces a “difficult” return to normal because government-sponsored enterprises own or guarantee most mortgage lending while alternative sources have disappeared, said an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
“Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae now own or guarantee an overwhelming share of originations,” bank senior economist John Krainer [...]

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Man Fights Chase Mortgage After Wifes Death

by Moe Bedard

Little said he mailed paperwork to JP Morgan Chase seeking a loan modification, but that the bank said he did not qualify. He will be three months behind on his payments in November.
Chase officials said they could not discuss Little’s case specifically because of privacy laws, but that the bank has sent him more papers [...]

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Debtors Revolt: The Banks Do Not Care!

by Moe Bedard

The debtors revolt is gaining steam as the few lenders left in our country send out millions of letters raising the rates on their clients credit cards. Many of these people are now following Ann Minch’s lead and telling their credit card companies to take their cards and shove them where the sun don’t shine.
While this is a [...]

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Main Street’s Animosity Towards Banks Increasing

by Moe Bedard

The bankers were criticized yesterday by U.S. Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, who told protesters more regulation of the financial services industry is required.
“We need to ensure that the robber barons that are responsible for this recession don’t get away with creating it and then declaring themselves a dividend,” Durbin [...]

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NACA Employee: Did you know that NACA’s employees are abused?

by Moe Bedard

Submitted unsolicited to LoanWorkout.org by a NACA Employee – Sure NACA can help restructure your home loan and they maybe able to stop a foreclosure or auction. Huh! you should here some of the horror stories for the 10’s of thousand who don’t get help?
Oh and the employee’s include some people who are not qualified [...]

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$500 Homes in Detroit Not Selling: What’s next, free homes?

by Moe Bedard

When foreclosed homes do not sell at auction, the aucioneers lower the price to entice potential home bidders. When the price goes as low as it can go, do they then just give these unsalebale homes away?
My prediction in the next two years is that certain areas of the country such as Detroit, Michigan will actually give homes away to qualified [...]

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Nevada Loan Modification Companies Still Think it’s the Wild, Wild West

by Moe Bedard

What if you had a home modification law that everyone ignored? In its 2009 legislative session the State of Nevada passed a law requiring loan modification companies to be licensed. The law, which recently took effect, not only required a license but the companies were also required to post a $75,000 surety bond. It seemed [...]

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Will Main Street Recover?

by Moe Bedard

Meanwhile, back on Main Street U.S.A., the picture is drastically different. Unemployment has doubled in a year, to 9.8% in September, and there are about six unemployed Americans for every job opening. Home foreclosure-related filings—including default notices, foreclosure auctions, and bank repossessions—are on pace to reach about 3.5 million this year, up from more than [...]

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Lack of Good Lawyers Adding to the Foreclosure Crisis

by Moe Bedard

Unlike similar legal fields such as bankruptcy, foreclosure is rarely a full-time practice and is often handled by real estate attorneys or legal aid services agencies. Still, more than 3 million property foreclosures were filed in the U.S. last year; South Florida is expected to see more than 150,000 this year compared to fewer than [...]

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Real California Unemployment Rate at 19.6%

by Moe Bedard

Beyond the marginally attached, who are included in U-5, involuntary part-time workers are included in U-6. The larger the difference between U-6 and U-5, then, the higher the incidence of underemployment. Oregon and California posted the largest gaps between their U-6 and U-5 rates, +7.8 and +7.6 percentage points, respectively. These two states also had [...]

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Homeowner Continues to Live Payment Free for One Year

by Moe Bedard

It’s been almost a year since Horatio Bernard effectively lost his Baltimore row house to foreclosure and roughly 15 months since he last made a payment on his primary mortgage.
And yet to his amazement and those following his story, Bernard continues living in the home with his ailing mother without any sign of an eviction [...]

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Bailed out bankers live like kings as the people on Main Street live like slaves

by Moe Bedard

Perks keep rolling at rescued banks – From jets to country club fees, CEOs’ fringe benefits rose 4 percent last year
Meanwhile on Main Street, many of the good people are losing their homes, jobs and families. Too depressed to think logically and too beat down to fight back in court, many are defeated mentally and [...]

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Wall Street outrage continues

by Moe Bedard

PRESIDENT OBAMA is far too absent of outrage over Wall Street’s continued abuses. As a candidate, he railed against its “greed and irresponsibility.’’ He had more to say in his first month in the White House, after finding out that Wall Street firms were still paying $18.4 billion in bonuses despite bringing America to its [...]

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Foreclosures lead to more homelessness

by Moe Bedard

Foreclosure does not come out of nowhere. Homeowners facing foreclosure always know at least several months in advance that their time is up. When these individuals realize that their home will be foreclosed on, they should begin making other arrangements. They should be seeking out rentals that they can afford or trying to get friends [...]

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