KELLER WILLIAMS REALTY Spring Hill Foreclosures - The Best Home Buys in Florida Foreclosures Spring Hill Real Estate - Brooksville Homes for Sale

Foreclosures, Stigma Gone, Becoming Chic?

jazklydeocean4 Take a look around. It's as though we are living in totally different times than just a few months ago. Gas prices rose to well over $4.00/gallon and have since receded to between $2.00 and $3.00 in most places. We have witnessed the election of our first black President of the United States. Unemployment and job loss is at record levels. Here in Hernando County Florida the worst in our county's history. And more and more local families in Brooksville and Spring Hill areas of Florida are losing their homes to some sort of distressed property sale or foreclosure.

I was listening to local am radio WWJB with talk show host Bob Haa on Friday morning who was discussing the rising rate of unemployment and job loss which is tops in all of Florida. While the news was not good, what struck me about the report was an interview with a gentleman who had been a professional of some sort and lost his job over a year ago. His severance has run out, as have his unemployment benefits. When asked what is on the horizon for him, he responded… “Well since we haven’t paid our mortgage in so many months, I guess losing the house will be next.”

I have realized that we really are living in different times. There is no shame in losing one's home. Some almost speak of it as being chic. Just a few years ago people still saw a stigma in speaking publicly about the prospect of losing or having lost their home. Socially, when the numbers of people experiencing something grows rapidly and suddenly, fewer people feel the need to conceal their situation. The increasing casualness with which people speak of being foreclosed on should be alarming to all of us… it means that the stigma has been removed because, for so many Floridians along the Nature Coast, their inability to pay their mortgages has been deemed “out of their control”.

Please don’t misinterpret my point… I do realize that the factors leading up to many foreclosures these days are beyond any individual’s control. As a Short Sale and Foreclosure Specialist, I have tremendous compassion for homeowners facing foreclosure and have heard clients share heartbreaking stories that have nearly moved me to tears. But I am concerned with the disappearance of the stigma of foreclosure.

I hope I am wrong, but typically, when the stigma attached to anything negative or bad is removed, it is slow to return, if it ever really does. Why is this bad? Well, now that Foreclosure or homeowners simply “walking” on their mortgage has little, if any, stigma attached, I fear that even once the economy rebounds that people will now view those options as an “easy way out” when money gets tight. They can just blend in with the folks who lost their homes due to factors beyond their control, avoid the stigma that was once associated with foreclosure and we, as taxpayers (and therefore, bank owners) will all pay the cost. For a full foreclosure list and some of the best buys in all of Florida, be sure to look me up or any of our talented agents at Tropic Shores Realty, Hernando County’s market share leader.

Let me hear from you. How do you feel?

Posted By - JAZ Zydenbos - 08/14/2009

Comments:

Interesting article Jay. I am still in possession of my home, for the time being, and current. However I can understand why the stigma is gone. Never before in history has the average consumer had access to information as they do today with the advent of the internet. Consumers are now very much aware that they were drawn in to the false economic boom created by the lenders and I can't help but think the Federal Reserve and the Federal Government was well aware of what was going on. Banks and Lenders were making loans to people they knew full well could not afford the home, so they were putting them into option arms and adjustable rate mortgages, knowing they could afford the initial payment, but would be strapped when that mortgage adjusted. They didn't care though. Why? Because the had that paper sold on the securities market faster than they could write it and before the ink was dry on the documents. The lenders sold the paper, no one acutally HELD a mortgage, and yet here they are trying to collect on documents they don't even own. Interestingly enough, many of the lenders cannot even produce the note, which is required to foreclose, and in various language, actually petition the courts to wave the requirement to produce the note. California and Florida have deemd that Option Arm Mortgages are illegal instruments. They violate every the basic laws that govern mortgages. Adjustable rate mortgages typically fail a Forensic Audit because the TIL is wrong, disclosures weren't made. I recently worked with a gentleman in foreclosure on a condo where the Bank and closing Attorney had not even given him a copy of the documents, which again is required by law. Upon further investigation, the Attorney who acted as the title company, when asked to produce the note, told me they had no idea where it was. Again, a violation of Florida law. A mortgage broker and title company must retain documents on file for five years. When I approached the bank (Bank of America) they replied they didn't have to produce the note. As it turned out, that particular seller didn't want the condo anyhow. He had tried to sell it at no avail since, as we know, the market had droped drastically. We read in the paper constantly of large corporations being foreclosed on, so they declare bankruptcy, restructure their assets, and carry on, business as usual with little or no affect to their credit or bottom line. Banks are about to go under, so they appeal to the Government (which in the end is we, the tax payers) for a bailout, which the Government can't give them quickly enough. CEO's take thier bonus money and excessively high pay checks and carry on, business as usual, and no one feels there should be a stigma there, right? So I can understand fully why the average home owner doesn't care. He's bailed out the bank, with hard earned tax dollars, but they see absolutely no need to bail him out. In fact, they cannot even produce the note to foreclose on him and use pathetic language like the defendant prays the court to waive the requirement to produce the note. I would ask anyone who reads this to go to a court room, deeming that YOU are going to foreclose on someones house and not be able to produce the orginal document. And it must be the original, not a photocopy or a print out of a scanned image in a computer. It is only right that homeowners have had enough. Everyone is bailed out, except them. The Federal Government pats them on the head and does nothing. The so called HAMP program is a joke. It was never translated into law, basically a lot more tax payers dollars spent to draft a law that isn't a law that asks the lenders nicely if they will please work with home owners seeking modifications. Which the banks do filthy tricks in order to fool the home owners. Surely you've seen where the banks will ask the home owner to pay a specific number of months rent so they can work on the modification. They have no intention of modifying anything. They are simply buying time in order to figure out where the heck the note is, if they even can find it, and to placate the buyers that bought those notes and now are expecting payment. So, no, I do not feel anyone should feel a stigma. It's all fair in love and war, right? It's simply not all fair in finance. I am seeing people who have worked and skrimped all their lives, losing their homes due to illness. And then that same home sold for pennies on the dollar to someone else. How does that make any sense? Wouldn't it be more judicious to work with the current owner who has paid you hundreds of thousands of dollars and taken care of your property so well? Yet, this isn't even considered. The lenders prefer to take the property back and resell it again on the market for less than 50% of what is owing. It's no small wonder the stigma is gone. Honest, hard working, salt of the earth people, are being destroyed. It is the lenders and the Government of this good country that should be feeling the stigma. I have one question. Why is it so difficult to get a short sale to close? I've asked that question and since I understand that lenders are only motivated by profit, I then came to the conclusion they must profit more from a foreclosure than a short sale. My question is, since all mortgage instruments are insured by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and Private Mortgage Insurers, if that loan defaults, the first 80% would be covered by Fannie Mae. If it has more than 80% owing, the balance would be covered by PMI. So where does the bank lose money in this scenario? Unless I've got it wrong. But I do recall that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the first to have to be bailed out. That's probably why and they are about ready to collapse again. I enjoyed your article. I understand why you feel it is so terrible that the stigma has vanished. It isn't because foreclosures have become so common. It is more because, I believe, that deep down in their hearts, the average American realizes he's been used. Middle class America is fast disappearing. I'm sure all these people would have loved to have kept their homes and paid their mortgages, but they were put in a position where they couldn't. Their jobs are gone, their income gone, there are no jobs to be had, and the lenders would rather take the house back, collect the insurance money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and resell the house on the open market for pennies. If the lenders have no heart and no conscience, why should the average consumer? If the banks didn't feel any stigma going begging to the government to bail them out, why should the consumers? People who cannot pay, simply cannot pay. Others are making wise business decisions. Banks and Corporations do it all the time, and that seems to be ok. In the end Real Estate is an investment and if that investment isn't paying a return, you dump it right? No one keeps stocks who's prices are dropping like a thermometer in Alaska in January, nor do they keep buying more. In my opinion, Real Estate isn't all that much different, except that people generally live in their investment. Now they're living on the street! That, should put a serious stigma on Governments who allow this to happen and the institutions that perpetrated it all in the first place.

Posted By - Ann - 09/28/2010

These pieces really set a standard in the idnustry.

Posted By - Joyce - 01/20/2012

68EvKE , [url=http://mnosjqtpmycz.com/]mnosjqtpmycz[/url], [link=http://xfvhaylbekli.com/]xfvhaylbekli[/link], http://kkftgxlsekhy.com/

Posted By - dfkesfezp - 01/22/2012

GqdfsV , [url=http://eehobjbbnjur.com/]eehobjbbnjur[/url], [link=http://kaislnxglknh.com/]kaislnxglknh[/link], http://edpfygmxynpn.com/

Posted By - btvsverfkoh - 01/24/2012

Leave a Comment
Name
Email

View By Category
Real Estate (7)