Listen to Panel on the Home Foreclosure Crisis

by Jeff Sovern

For those who can't keep up with all the readings to which this blog links, but who want to learn more about the home foreclosure crisis, you can click on this link to the predatory lending page maintained by the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School and scroll down to find an excellent panel discussion that you can download to your computer and MP3 player.  I've been listening to it while driving.  The speakers include Jane Azia, Director of Consumer Protection, New York State Banking Department, Margaret Becker of the Predatory Lending and Foreclosure Prevention Project, Staten Island, New York Legal Services, Professor Ronald Mann of Columbia, and Tam Ormiston, Chief Deputy Attorney General of Iowa.  The moderator is James Tierney, Director of the State Attorney General Program & former Attorney General of Maine. 

But if you do want more reading about the crisis, click here for Times columnist Bob Herbert's moving column in today's paper about one family's loan tragedy.  An excerpt:

One aspect of the so-called mortgage crisis that hasn’t been adequately explored is the extent to which predatory lenders have committed fraud against vulnerable homeowners. They have pushed overpriced loans and outlandish fees on hapless victims who didn’t understand — and could not possibly have met — the terms of the contracts they signed.

In some cases, corporate con artists have deliberately targeted and seized the equity of financially strapped and unsophisticated owners. In some cases, homes have been stolen outright.

This is an issue crying out for a thorough federal investigation.

Comments

[John]

We can go to the lender and ask for the time extension, he will definitely give the time ,he has nothing to do with our property,he wants only his money back this is the best way to get rid of the foreclosure.

[John]

Although it may seem as though the bank would actively want to pursue the foreclosure and get it off the books, so to speak, many large lenders are working on hundreds or thousands of foreclosed properties. Many of the owners will simply give up on the home or be too frightened to ask for more time. The ones that are seriously looking into ways to stop foreclosure, though, will be able to convince the bank that they deserve more time. The bank would willingly offer more time to solve the problem, and it is easy enough to postpone the foreclosure auction. The extra fees and interest will just be added to the balance in the end, anyway, and be counted as an even larger tax deduction for the lender.
http://www.thejohnbeck.tv

[Vicky]

If you are interested in foreclosure property market in California, I have just published a California Home Foreclosure Market Statistics Report at http://realestateandhomes.blogspot.com/2007/09/increasing-number-of-foreclosure.html, that details the availability of foreclosure/distressed properties, home price movements, and housing inventory statistics by the different areas of California. For those who are interested to seek out these properties, this should give you some hints of where to find these properties.

-Vicky
www.movoto.com