First a bit of the history:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/business/states-negotiate-25-billion-deal-for-homeowners.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/business/federal-report-cites-bank-officials-in-foreclosure-surge.html
The National Program for helping homeowners and those foreclosed on
http://www.nationalmortgagesettlement.com/help/#timeline
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120929/BETTERLIFE06/309300002/Two-government-led-actions-offer-hope-help-homeowners-lost-foreclosure-maze
State CA Attorney General on the Mortgage Settlement with the banks
http://oag.ca.gov/nationalmortgagesettlement/faqs
The Making Home Affordable Program
http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov/programs/lower-payments/Pages/hamp.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v72RZQSo9Do&feature=relmfu
http://hofj.org/virtualoffice_files/PR-FORECLOSURE%20TOWN%20HALLS.pdf
Solutions to the foreclosure crisis and underwater homeowners being discussed:
"Counties need to immediately eminent domain ALL securitized loans and foreclosures of securitized loans and stop the banks from more fraudulently foreclosing. If we don’t stop the banks, they will foreclose the rest of the 40,000,000 securitized loans they have left in this country, and everyone and our economy will be ruined.
In the Foreclosure Town Halls, I will explain exactly how the eminent domain of mortgages can be done quickly at the county level strictly for public benefit (not private profit) and immediately halt all foreclosures on every one of those loans.
These loans can then be modified (my suggestion) to 80% loan to market value, with credit given for the original down payment, 2% interest rate, 30 year fixed, payments being made to the county. Allowances can be made (payments deferred) for those that lost jobs until they become employed again.
This will keep owners in their homes, stabilize market values, allow real estate transactions to return to normal, eliminate the tremendous fear of loss pervading our economy. It will provide a tremendous revenue stream for our counties, and combined with a public bank, will provide all the credit for redevelopment, infrastructure, and refinancing the county needs without having to go to private investors.
The vacant foreclosures taken by eminent domain can provide homes for those that lost homes to foreclosure, again with loan terms as mentioned above to these new owners, providing the best restitution possible for the bank theft of their homes.
Foreclosure Town Halls are taking off like wildfire – with 3 firm dates, 13 cities seeking venues and dates, and interest from 5 other states. Get your date scheduled now."
CJ Holmes
Eminent Domain a solution?
http://paper.li/EmDomainDebate/1342319964
What about socializing the banks?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/01/big-finance-pathology-compels-logic?newsfeed=true
The rental alternative
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/realestate/mortgages-the-rental-alternative-to-foreclosure.html?_r=0
Millions now unable to ever own a home as Wall Street plays monopoly with their foreclosed homes
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/realestate/01cov.html?ref=mortgages&_r=0
The latest is that the banks are retaliating by having a law passed that if properties are written down to market, the homeowner has to pay regular income taxes on the written down amount-full well knowing that strapped homeowners do not have the money to pay taxes on money they will never see in cash.
This is to discourage people from seeking to have their mortages written down to market. In addition, the new federal law says that write-downs have to be completed by December 31st, 2012, unless Congress acts to prevent this.
See article below on this:
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20120930/BUSINESS/309300021/Condo-Q-Sellers-face-short-sale-tax-beware-hidden-foreclosure-liens
10/1/12 Banks win critical court case against homeowners
This news: Mass foreclosures now eminent as a court support banks use of MERS see article below
http://www.lvrj.com/news/supreme-court-gives-banks-foreclosure-win-172056761.html
A genuine heroine in the whole mess
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/01/former-fdic-chairman-sheila-bair-dishes-video.html
10/2/12
Changes scheduled to take place in bank mortgage practices today Tuesday October 2, 2012.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/changes-in-mortgage-servicing-to-take-effect/2012/10/01/13b02ada-0bde-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html
What exactly goes on in foreclosures?
The human side: First they lose their home: video
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505103_162-57523544/issue-brief-housing/
Then the rents are so high they can't afford to rent an apartment--this is the nationwide trend
Then the private equity firms and banks swoop in and buy up the underpriced cheap homes by the thousands and then stick us the tax payers with the bill if the home deals go bad, thanks to Freddie and Fanny Mae (this is us our taxpayer money which funds these two agencies) Note the banks and the equity funds don't own the homes they merely manage the property, take the profits and the US tax payer takes all the risk and then the deficit goes up and we the taxpayers have to pay higher taxes on the homes which used to below to us.
This is a deliberate tactic of wall street. They depressed the price of millions of homes, then buy them up cheap and take profits and send all the losses to the tax payers.
That is exactly what happened in the 1929 Great Depression and it is happening again.
Here is an example of what I mean:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-02/fannie-mae-chicago-foreclosures-sell-for-11-8-million.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505103_162-57523544/issue-brief-housing/
10/3/12
The decimation of the middle class is not an accident, but deliberate.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11893-the-betrayal-of-americas-middle-class-was-a-choice-not-an-accident-an-interview-with-authors-donald-barlett-and-james-steele
10/8/12
QE3, the Federal Reserve, Foreclosures and Eminent Domain--What can be done?
http://solari.com/articles/quantitative_easing/
Other quotes and ideas from CJ.Holmes
"This week, CJ Holmes of Home Owners for Justice will discuss Eminent domain and its place in mortgage reform and anti-foreclosure actions. Let's Invite homeowners, activists, and anyone interested in identifying the people who have brought their problems and deceptive practices into our neighborhoods.
COMMENTS FROM CJ’S PRESENTATION ON 10/2 to Occupy Bernal, San Francisco:
“At last Tuesday evening’s Educational Workgroup program, real estate broker CJ Holmes asserted that as of sometime in early 2013, our foreclosure fighting techniques will be obsolete. According to her--and you are encouraged to visit her homeowners for justice website
www.hofj.org, the banking cartel will have largely insulated themselves from any inhibitions permissible to forestall foreclosures related to securitized mortgages.
Securitized mortgages, remember, are the mortgages no longer held intact by a single lender, but have instead been divided into pieces of investment debt. You might think of it as something like a mutual fund. What stock do you own when you own a mutual fund? A little bit of a lot of different businesses. The point here, which CJ made, is that with securitized mortgages there is no “there” to talk to about mortgages. The mortgage is broken up into literally hundreds even thousands of investors.
What the banks have done, according to CJ, is off-shore and anonymize the broker of these fractured mortgages. What that means is that any complaint which might currently have weight with a bank or investment firm will have no weight with a telephone operator in India employed by a blind corporation based in Malaysia. In short, there will be no bank and its officers for us to assail during the foreclosure process. PERIOD. No John Stumpf. No Nationstar. Nobody will be home. And the foreclosure avalanche will commence, according to CJ.
Is she right? I don’t know. But her recommendation is that we prepare for this possibility by acquainting County Supervisors (who oversee land title matters throughout the U.S.) with this possibility, and prep those Supervisors regarding the option of THE COUNTY EMINENT DOMAINING THE TROUBLED SECURITIZED MORTGAGES AND DEMANDING PROOF OF TITLE. CJ argues that since clear title cannot be produced (because it has been atomized into hundreds of investment shards) the
county could take possession of these loans for free and reissue modified loans to the families otherwise in foreclosure. Combined with the establishment of a public bank, this could create a powerhouse of wealth for the people.
There’s more to the model CJ has put forward, but all I will supply here is a taste. A public bank receiving moderate interest on a ton of real estate will generate enough public revenue to reduce onerous taxes on working class incomes AND MAINTAIN public programs.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/booming-banks-say-consumers-may-not-see-lower-mortgage-rates/2012/10/12/21b86456-1473-11e2-bf18-a8a596df4bee_story.html
1/8/13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/what-the-85b-foreclosure-deal-means-for-borrowers/2013/01/08/afac1bd6-5929-11e2-beee-6e38f5215402_story.html
1/17/13
Do the new rules of mortgage foreclosures really help the homeowner?
http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/17/mortgage-rules-foreclosure/
http://www.communitynewspapers.com/coralgables/what-to-expect-for-underwater-mortgages-in-2013-principal-balance-reductions-and-foreclosure-trials/
http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/01162013_foreclosures_realty_trac.asp
Best site on foreclosures:
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2292674/events/1775359
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/leading-edge-legal-advice-everyday-matters/2013/jun/16/when-mandatory-arbitration-replaces-litigation-con/
banks reniging on mortgage settlement
http://ecreditdaily.com/2013/06/mortgage-settlement-banks-dualtracking-foreclosures/
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/leading-edge-legal-advice-everyday-matters/2013/jun/16/when-mandatory-arbitration-replaces-litigation-con/
6/17/13
Banks trying to follow debtors to the grave
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/lenders-seek-court-actions-against-homeowners-years-after-foreclosure/2013/06/15/3c6a04ce-96fc-11e2-b68f-dc5c4b47e519_story.html
6/19/13
Former bank employees sue Bank of America claiming they were told to like about foreclosing on homes
http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/06/former_bank_of_america_employe.html
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/check_out_the_full_bank_of_america_whistleblower_details_affidavits/singleton/
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/17586-to-rescue-local-economies-cities-seize-underwater-mortgages-through-eminent-domain-read-more-to-rescue-local-economies-cities-seize-underwater-mortgages-through-eminent-domain
