Time marches on and still no resolution to the problems of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac customers. While all around us, mortgages that were written as Conventional loans have been modified, principle and interest. The man in charge of these agencies, a Bush era appointee named Ed DeMarco, doesn't feel like we all deserve his consideration. I don't know if this person has thought about the emotional cost his obstruction is causing, I don't know if he cares. His rich handlers want to hold onto their money, of course, while Americans stay in stagnant loans, stagnant homes and stagnant situations with no hope of ever getting out of them. I have been looking on line for cheap properties, in hopes of finding a place to move to that maybe we can pay for before we retire. Certainly not this house, I owe more on it than I will ever be able to pay, more than ten years of increasing values will ever overtake. I love to read comments from snarky people online about how we, the 11 million of us that are upside down, are all takers and leaches. I figure there were another 11 or 12 million people who have already lost their houses, people who got in over their heads, were qualified by by mortgage brokers for houses they should have never have been looking at. Those are the houses already sitting on the market. Now let's take a look at who is buying those nice repos, usually priced well below the current market. Well, there are the investors, looking for a bunch of rentals. There are individuals who happen to be in a good position now to acquire a home. There are people who have had to sell in another city, now free to scoop up something but probably not able to get much out of their old house. Lots of variations here. Now, who has a house for sale? Not me, why bother to try? What about the people who bought from, let's say, 2000-2004. They paid a fair price and they have been paying their payments, towing the line for all these years. Now they want to take advantage of the great, low prices all around. Can they sell their houses and "move on up" to something new? They aren't the bad guys, they did everything right but they can't get much for their houses, too many foreclosures on the block, prices too low. What about the fools who bought from 2004 to 2008? Needed a house; the market was high, but fear that it would get higher drove people to carry on and secure someplace to live. Maybe they had transferred or maybe promoted, need to move into a new place. You go where you need to go, you pay the price that is current and you hope you'll be able to sell it someday if you have to move again. Then, the bubble broke and we were all messed up. I bought my house in 2006 and it is worth half what I paid for it. All the years of owning it will never bring it back up to anywhere near the price I paid.Not to mention the fact that most people buy a house to amass some wealth, some savings that occurs as you pay it down. I could pay on this for 20 years and have very little to show for it. So what do I do? I was qualified for it, I had a good job, as did my spouse, and I had no way of knowing that the economy would be falling apart when it did. All this being said, I don't want to be a victim. What angers me is the fact that the banks here in America are sitting on great big piles of money and they don't want to reverse the trend of their greed and carelessness. None, not one, of them has even been questioned about how this came about and how they all seem to have landed on their feet so nicely. The only financial person to have been tried and sent to jail is Bernie Madoff. Why? Because he ripped off wealthy people. That just reeks of mendacity and I think that something should be done about it. I keep thinking they are trying to run out the statute of limitations before any government official takes notice of all this. Yes, I am a bit bitter but I am so afraid to just turn it over to the bank. What if Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae change the rules the day after I give up? The whole thing would then become some kind of macabre episode in my life. The banks are ok, good news! The regular folks, not so much so because there are so many aspects of this scenario where we are have been hurt. Not just financially, emotionally as well. If I walk away from my house of 6 years, all of my carefully tended landscape will die, all of the things we have done to make our house a home will be wasted. The banks, as if to stick to a new set of owners, specifically mandate that no one can water the property, even after it is under contract. The arrogance that the banks have risen to is frightening. Despite the fact that circumstances have all conspired to mess things up, there would still be a sense of personal failure. Let's add that feeling to the reality of what this horrible economy has done to the average person and it really is an emotional struggle to stay above it all.
This is political, it is very political. The Congressional creeps in power in Washington need to face up to the bankers and resolve this. One fell swoop by the government would completely clean up the sluggish housing market. This is what is making our economy so ugly. If the housing market was free to adjust to normal, jobs would open up and things would be better all over.
Since this is one of my most viewed posts, I thought I would maybe add some more to it. The man that wrote it really hit the nail on the head. Foreclosure Review Sample Letter
Comments