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Warning: Watch for Mold In Empty and Foreclosed Houses

July 13, 2011 By 2 Comments

Many people believe the banks have shown that they are not very good at managing money.  Without the governments (we the taxpayers) help, many of them would be out of business and the high priced executives would be looking for work like 20% of the population.  So it comes as no surprise to most people that a new problem has cropped up in the houses the banks have taken in foreclosure. Mold.  This problem is giving the term Underwater House a whole new meaning.

When you cut off the power and seal a house up, mold creeps in regardless of the climate.  Houses are meant to be lived in, not closed down.  Have you ever had a refrigerator that you just unplugged and let sit with the door closed?  Same thing.

Now the banks have millions of homes that are vacant throughout the country and the homes are simply rotting and deteriorating.  NPR probed this problem in a recent article. 

Please consider:

As Number Of Foreclosed Homes Grows, So Does Mold. 

Here is a quote from the article: 

 "It was the middle of winter. There were  icicles coming out of the windows above the garage, no heat, but it was 80 degrees inside of the house because it was self-composting."

- Ohio Realtor Rebecca Terakedis
 
The banks are going to try to sell these homes to unsuspecting people in the future.  They are going to make them sign a statement that they are buying the house "as is" and these same banks will finance these houses without the requirement to make them livable.  People will move in and either get sick or move out and not pay causing the same house to be foreclosed on.  Again.  This will be a boon for the lawyers who will handle the new batch of lawsuits that will come out of the shoddy work and the short term thinking of the people that run our banking system. 
 
However, there will be opportunity in the future for those that are forward thinking.  It is not here yet but will be.
 
When the housing collapse is complete in 2014 or 2015 and these houses are ready to be sold again. 
 
There will be more need for the following:
 
1. Mortgages that include enough money for work to bring the house back to a livable standard.
2. Estimators that can evaluate and bid on this work.
3. Contractors that can do this work.
4. Sheet rock companies especially.
5. Inspectors that specialize in mold.
6. Water and mold clean up companies.
7. Lawyers to sue the banks
 
This may not be the perfect way to put people back to work.  But as the banks let these houses sit vacant, they are actually creating more work in the future for a wide variety of people.  The problem is, we will be the ones to pay for it. 
 
If you are looking to buy a house that is vacant.  Pay for a thorough and complete home inspection.  If you don't you could be living with toxic mold that you can't see but will affect you for years. 
Filed Under: Banks, Featured, Housing, Life After Foreclosure, The Legal Side Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Remember Rightsizing?

May 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In 1989 a new term hit the vernacular.  Rightsizing.  Remember it?  It is a term that the business community made up to make the process of eliminating tens of thousands of jobs sound better.  The politicians call it spin.  When a country that we are not fond of does it, we call it propaganda.

Do you remember back in that time when businesses realized that they had to cut their costs in order to be competitive?  Some had to do it just to survive.  They did what they had to as a means of survival.  What did Wall Street do as businesses shed expenses?  Read: people.  They rewarded them with higher stock prices and better ratings for their debt.  We may not like it, but from a business perspective, it makes sense. 

So now in today’s world, millions of Americans are in a situation where they need to rightsize their personal finances.   Statistics say that if you are a homeowner and have mortgage on your property, there is a 1 in 3 chance that you owe more on your house than it is worth.   So how do you go about rightsizing your house?  What are you being told?   You are being told that you cannot rightsize without severe penalties.  You are told that you have to go the people you need to rightsize and only utilize the options that are appropriate for them.  You are then told that if you don’t do as they tell you that they will damage your ability to function in the future.  Why are their two sets of rules, one for business and one for us? The truth is that there aren’t. 

When individuals use the rules for business in their personal finances, they typically do better.  So as you look for solutions for your underwater mortgage, ask yourself, what would a business in this situation do?  By the way, every major bank has given property back that was upside down.  They call it returning the asset to its financier.  That is just propaganda. 

If you are serious about getting on with your life and you have the desire to take the most advantageous action available then maybe you should return your asset to its financier.  You won’t find it easy because the banks don’t want you to think that way.  They want you to shut up and keep paying.  So how do you start? 

We are told that we should call the bank and plead for help.  You will be told that you need to be behind on your payments before they can help you.  That is like walking across the field near the end of the game and asking the opposing coach which play to run next.   Then you are told that you have to be behind by 3 touchdowns and they want your playbook too. 

If that solution is not of your liking, there are organizations that provide free advice on the subject.  Guess what, most of those organizations get their funding from the banks and the credit card companies.  You are going to an agent of the opposition.  You have lots of options for dealing with your underwater home and not all of them involve giving it back. 

Do whatever you have to do to protect yourself, your family and your financial future.  There are only a handful of places you can go where you can discuss all of the options you have available to you.   Don’t look at some.  Look at all of your options.  Get several opinions then trust your instincts.  There is life on the other side of this and only those who take action will be the winners.  www.financialrevivalgroup.com

Filed Under: Banks, Economy, Housing, Life After Foreclosure, My Credit, My Personal Finance, The Legal Side Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Homeowner’s Guide to the Foreclosure Fairness Act

April 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

WE liked this article so much, that we bought the rights to it and made it an exclusive.  Get it while its HOT!

On Friday, 4/8/2011, the State legislature delivered a bill to the Governor for signature on 04/14/2011 which will significantly change the process of foreclosure in the State of Washington.  The major change is that the legislature has delivered to the homeowners, a statutory right to sit down and talk turkey about modifying the loan that has become the bane of homeowners everywhere.  In 2007, the median net worth of a family in Washington was around $150,000.  Since that time, we have seen the stock market crash and the housing bubble burst, unemployment rise, real wages drop, and interest rates on mortgages climb.  On average, the American Household lost $125,000 by 2009.  When you compare the statistics, we should be plus side, $25,000.  The problem is, that the mortgage that secured the average home, didn’t go anywhere, and the though the median and the averages were in the $150,000 realm of net worth, those buying homes and refinancing in 2007 and earlier, were doing it on 100% loan to value terms and it is unlikely they were near the median in net worth.  Thus the average losses that impacted the portfolio didn’t turn into a mere $25,000 remainder, but left them insolvent and starring at bankruptcy. It is likely, that of the 33% of homeowners that have a mortgage that is underwater in the Puget Sound, your financial situation is sinking but this bill may provide a much needed life saver.
The Foreclosure Fairness Act will provide the homeowner the opportunity to force its banker to the table to discuss the realities of modifying the loan.  Prior to this, homeowners have fussed with lost documentation, forbearance agreements and the actions of a banking industry that border on the criminally negligent. In addition, the bill requires the bank to provide specific information in making a determination of what the best outcome will be based on present values of modification, foreclosure, short sale, deed in lieu, and whatever workouts may otherwise be arranged.  The problem will be getting through the hoops to make that banker sit there and look you in the eye with a mediator looking on and provide you this information.
Previously, the process of nonjudicial foreclosure in Washington was that the owner of your mortgage, the bank, would stop receiving the monthly payment.  In turn, the bank would declare the loan to be in default, and contact a trustee to initiate the nonjudicial foreclosure.  The trustee would send a Notice of Default out no earlier than seventy (70) days after the first missed payment and the home would be auctioned off about 120 days later.  The homeowner would then be forced to move by the twentieth day after the sale.  Thus the whole process would take about seven months or 210 days.
With the changes, the statute imposes on the bank a requirement that it send out a notice a full thirty 30 days before recording the Notice of Default that details your rights in sitting down with the bank.  If you don’t answer that letter, don’t worry, the bank will call you three times by telephone, and then send a certified letter.  Failure to meet that requirement means the bank cannot foreclose.

If you do respond to the letter…. TO ACCESS THE REMAINDER OF THIS ARTICLE, and trust me you want to get the detailed analysis of this statute, PLEASE REGISTER FOR A FREE SEMINAR HERE. Just click on the green “register now” button for either a live event or the webinar, and the article will be emailed to you shortly.

Filed Under: Banks, Economy, Housing, Life After Foreclosure, My Credit, My Personal Finance, The Legal Side Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Wells Fargo playing hardball on short sales. Again!

April 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

All of these banks are so screwed up when it comes to how to deal with the foreclosure mess that they created.  We showed you a post recently about what Bank of America tried to do to another one of our members. 

Here is the link to that post.  More proof! If you trust the banks, they will take your money.

If you think they are organized and have the power of law and public support behind them then you might just be their next target.  They are a mess.  It seems like each department operates completely independantly of other departments in the same bank.  Every time they get a new manager, they try something else to wring what little money that Middle America has left. 

Here is a portion of a short sale agreement that Wells Fargo sent to one of our members.  Notice that Wells wants them to agree that they will pay all of the remaining balance on the 2nd mortgage.  That is not a good deal for anyone except Wells.  Our members are doing much better than that on these types of negotiations. 

 

If these people had done what we are all told to do, that is to contact your bank for help, they would think this is the best they could do and would probably sign it.  WRONG MOVE!

Did you notice the bottom where the homeowner agrees not to try to get out of it later? 

Did you also notice where the bank is telling them to pay a lawyer to look it over before they sign it? 

Lot’s of help from Wells Fargo on this one.  They are taking unfair advantage again.  Don’t let them do this to you.

WWW.JOINFRGI.COM

Filed Under: Banks, Economy, Housing, My Credit, My Personal Finance, The Legal Side

Despicable Lies, Delusional Economic Recovery, Hyped Unemployment Numbers…

April 11, 2011 By 1 Comment








I didn’t write this article and I rarely post entire articles by anyone else but after reading this one, I had to pass it on intact.   This is a very well written article that discusses our current economic situation from unemployment to housing.  I agree with Mr. Hirschhorn in that our government and the media are continually lying to us to get us to hang on just a little longer.  That has been their strategy since the beginning for the protection of the big banks and their own politcal influence. This is worth a read.

Despicable Lies, Delusional Economic Recovery, Hyped Unemployment Numbers…


By Joel S. Hirschhorn

Global Research, April 5, 2011
The US government lies.  Sure looks like most Americans gobble up false and misleading information that is nothing less than political propaganda.  Take the highly hyped unemployment number for March, 2011 of 8.8 percent that moved like a tornado through the media and was praised by Democrat politicians and the White House.  As if that number is accurate, as if it fairly describes unemployment.  It does not.  What is called by experts, such as Leo Hindery, as the real unemployment number was actually 17.7 percent, which is remarkably higher.  To appreciate that much higher number is to throw a large bucket of cold water on all the political spin on the economic recovery.The official government unemployment figure has been carefully crafted to intentionally underestimate actual unemployment.  The way the data are collected through a survey of homes intentionally ignores a number of unemployed and underemployed Americans.  The latter includes those who have stopped looking for a job because it has become crystal clear to them that there are no jobs for them, as well as those working part-time when what they really want is a good full time job.

Similarly, Gallup polling which takes into account these other factors found the total number for March up slightly to 20.3 percent of the US workforce.


As if this sham game is not bad enough, what the government also does not reveal with hard information is that most new jobs being created now are low wage ones often without any good benefits.  Another reason to see how delusional the economic recovery is.


To get back to a low unemployment level characteristic of a good economy could take up to ten years.  The federal lie includes 13.5 million unemployed workers but the real number is more like 28.2 million.  That means a lot more hardship and suffering in the fictional recovery than the government wants the public to know about.  The number of real unemployed workers has increased by 11.5 million since the start of the Great Recession, and just since December 2008 by 3.7 million.


The economy must add 13 million private sector jobs over the next three years-360,000 each month-to bring unemployment down to 6 percent.  There is no possible or imaginable way for this to happen.  So real unemployment will remain terrible.


All this plus the fact that real wages have stagnated for many years means that the middle class in the US is in dire shape.  The most important implication of this is that there is no good reason to think that the deeply depressed housing market stands any chance of recovery for many years.  There are not enough people with enough money and financial security to buy even low priced houses.  There simply are too many empty houses and even more coming from millions more foreclosures.  Without a healthy housing market it is inconceivable that a true economic recovery and meaningful growth are possible. 


In other words, contrary to all the blabber from politicians and pundits, the current recovery is largely delusional as far as the vast majority of Americans are concerned.  Of course, the rich Upper Class is doing just fine.  In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth.  The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively hold just 12.8 percent.  As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.
Odds are that you, dear reader, are in the bottom 80 percent, which means you should have the good sense to see how delusional the current economic recovery is and that you should have little hope for doing well in the future.  Remember also that state and local governments facing budget shortfalls will surely layoff many more people and those congressional attempts to address the horrendous national debt and deficit will surely mean cuts in many government programs that many in the bottom 80 percent depend on.


Companies will continue to make huge profits, pay little in taxes and continue to manipulate government policies through lobbying and campaign contributions so that they keep getting away with murder of the middle class.  Corporate bigwigs and Wall Street fat cats will continue to grab incredible amounts of money.  And hardly any of the corporate crooks that have screwed most of us will get prosecuted or jailed, as they should.  Nor will there be any true, badly needed reforms of the financial sector.  Banks will continue to financially rape Americans.


Lies will keep coming from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress as well as President Obama.  Do you want to believe them?  Or can you accept the painful truth about our bleak national condition and stop voting for lying politicians that keep the corporate dictatorship in power?


Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.

Filed Under: Banks, Economy, Housing, Life After Foreclosure, My Credit, My Personal Finance, Preparedness, The Legal Side

60 Minutes story – The next housing shock (crash)

April 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Sorry for the delay in getting this posted.  This is the second story 60 Minutes has done in the past month.  Finally the housing crash is on their radar.  It is about a 12 monute story and is well worth a look. 

The banks and the government will do nothing about any of this until they are convinced that we the people will not allow it to continue.  The only way we will get their attention is to stop feeding the beast.  If we all stopped paying on our underwater houses.  They would fix this problem ricky tic…

If you are ready to fight back on your house, we will show you how and walk you through it.

www.financialrevivalgroup.com

Filed Under: Banks, Economy, Housing, Life After Foreclosure, My Credit, My Personal Finance, Preparedness, The Legal Side

More proof! If you trust the banks, they will take your money.

March 10, 2011 By 1 Comment

As part of our process to help our members stay in their homes free for as long as they can, we encourage some of our members to look into the short sale option.  If you get an offer on your house, the foreclosure process stops until the bank can work through that offer.  Since the banks are so disorganized, we have seen this process take up to a year.  All the while our members are living in their homes for free. 

If you have one loan on the house that you live in, most states will not allow the banks to come after you for any money they lose in a foreclosure.  However those rules don’t apply if you short sale your house.  You have to negotiate any deficiencies with the bank prior to the short sale. 

One of our members has a short sale offer on their home and got the short sale approval letter from Bank of America.  The letter states that the bank reserves the right to come after them for the deficiency (the amount of money the bank will lose on this deal).  The homeowner rejected the approval telling the bank that they could just proceed with the foreclosure.  Within a couple of hours Bank of America issued another letter stating that they would waive the deficiency on the loan. 

Both letters are shown below.  Notice the highlighted portions and the date.  These are both form letters so it was easy for B of A to make the change.  

 

 

 

 

 

Click image to enlarge

 

 

 

 

This is just further proof that the banks (and that is all of them, not just B of A that is show in this example) will use every trick in the book to take advantage of people that don’t know the game.  We see these types of issues not just in short sales and foreclosures, but also in loan modifications and deed in lieu of foreclosures as well.  The bottom line is that the banks will take your money.  

Had our member not been coached in how to deal with this, they told us that they would have just accepted the first letter which would have put them on the hook for another $54,000.  When dealing with your house, don’t cut corners.  In this arena mistakes are expensive.  

www.FinancialRevivalGroup.com

Filed Under: Banks, Economy, Housing, Life After Foreclosure, My Credit, My Personal Finance, The Legal Side Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A “60 Minutes” story that you should see.

March 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I have to admit that for many years I rationalized not getting too upset about the unemployed or the homeless.  I thought that anyone who really wanted to work, could.  That is not the case any longer and I believe that the worst of this is still ahead of us. 

I set my DVR to record off the east coast feed so I get 60 minutes at 4:00 on west coast.  I don’t know why but I really like to watch that first minute of the show where they show the snippits of the 3 stories they are covering this week.   I was puttering around the house yesterday afternoon and turned it on to see what they were talking about this week.  The first expose’ was about what  unemployment and foreclosures have done to kids.   I had to stop, sit down and watch the whole thing.

This story was about people like you and me, those who are willing to work and do whatever it takes to care for their families.   Some of these people went from owning a home to living in their car to living in a cheap motel.  Others were taken in by friends or neighbors and still others had to split up their families to survive.  This story could hit any of us and made me wonder what it is doing for the generations that are coming up.   Needless to say that it touched my heart and pissed me off. 

You should watch this.

Once you watch it, if you react like I have, we cannot allow the media and the government to get us caught up in the petty, childish games our politicians play.  We have to hold them accountable.  If politicians in your state are working on something petty, tell them to work on the economy.  Period! 

Government does not create jobs, but the they can get out of the way of business so that business can create jobs.  Tell your elected officials to figure out what they are going to bring in without raising any more money and spend only that.  This recovery will not be led by government but will be done in spite of it.

Filed Under: Banks, Economy, Housing, Life After Foreclosure, My Credit, My Personal Finance, Preparedness, The Legal Side Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

More propaganda to keep us paying on underwater mortgages.

March 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In another puff piece to try to beef up the sinking real estate market, Fannie Mae released a recent poll that said that only 19% of underwater homeowners would seriously consider strategically defaulting on their homes.  They said this figure is down from 25″% in 2010.   I notice the spin in these articles and we hope that you do too.

In 2010 it is estimated that over 30% (approx 300,000) foreclosures were strategic in nature.  That means that the homeowner made a financial decision to stop paying on their toxic mortgage.  In our experience in coaching underwater homeowners, we find that higher income people make the decision earlier on that their real estate is a loser and will continue to drag them down.  Once this judgment is made, they want to seperate themselves from it right away.  We are now seeing this strategy moving down the income chain.  As we move down the chain, we find that middle class working people will not consider giving their home back until they have exhausted most or all of thier other resources first.  Until they are about out of money, they won’t consider giving the property back. 

We believe that the polltakers can manipulate the results of a poll.  Is that what has happened here, we don’t know.  What we do know is that people will consider things they hadn’t before when the need arises.  The media has been trying to convince us that if we hold in just a few more months, we will get through this.  This is another example of that strategy on their part.

When it comes down to keeping an underwater home or walking away in order to get a fresh start, most everyone will walk away at some point.  When the reality hits “Working America”, the numbers will go up until the banks and the government deal with the real issue of negative equity.

For the housing wire article reporting on the Fannie Mae poll, please consider: Fewer distressed borrowers consider defaulting on mortgage debt

Filed Under: Banks, Economy, Housing, Life After Foreclosure, My Credit, My Personal Finance, The Legal Side Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

8 to 10 million homeowners will give their houses back voluntarily.

February 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The question is, will they take advantage of this huge opportunity?

The official estimates are that 27% of the nations homes that have a mortgage on them are underwater.  Those homeowners owe more on their home than it is worth.  If you add in the additional costs associated with selling the property this number jumps to well over 30%.  In the Seattle area 34% are underwater and in Minneapolis, over 42% of homeowners with a mortgage are underwater.  Again adding in the selling costs on those markets will make the numbers much higher.

The current statistics (which we believe are understated like the unemployment rate) say that there are about 15 million homeowners that owe more on their homes than they are worth.  The government and the banks are concerned because in 2010 just over 1 million homes were foreclosed and over 300,000 of those were people who deliberately stopped paying on their homes and let them go through to foreclosure.   These people are called strategic defaulters.  I am one of them.  Do we need a nickname?  How about the strategic defaulter conquistadors or conquerors.  Or how about the bravehearts?  If you have an idea for me on that, let me know.  Anyway, back to the topic…

So far the banks have taken about 4 million homes since this mess started.  We are predicting that the final number will be about 20 million.  We are also predicting that the number of strategic defaulters will ultimately push to between 40 and 50% of this number.  So if 8 million people are going to make the financial decision to give their houses back, the question for these people should be…

“How do I do it with the most benefit for me and my family?”

If you decide to become a Braveheart, ( I just love the movie, but let’s find a name that resonates) and give your house back, you are going up against a ruthless bunch.  The bankers caused this mess and yet they are using the laws and getting them changed when it suits them to come after you. 

What most people don’t know is that there are a whole bunch of protections in place to make sure you get a fair shake.  The problem is that most people don’t know about them.  The information is spread out it a wide variety of areas.  You have to know where to look, how to disect the information and then how to apply it as you go up against the banks.  We are told to call the bank first and they will guide you through the process.  This strategy is insane.  You cannot go to the banks who only want your money and ask them to take your bad asset back and give you a break at the same time.  They won’t do it.  However, you can force them to do it if you know how.

Here are just a few examples…

You can force the banks not to call you and if they do, they have to pay you $1,000 per phone call?

They have to evaluate you for a loan modification before they can foreclose?   Do you know how to stretch this out?

Do you know how to use a short sale to stay in your house for months longer for free?

Some homeowners are entitled to get paid to move once the process is complete? 

Some banks and their trustees make errors on most of their paperwork.  If it is brought to their attention, they have to start over.

You have a lot of tools at your disposal if you know how to use them.  At the Financial Revival Group, that is what we do.   We understand the rules and the laws that the banks have to follow and we coach you through the process of using every advantage that you are legally entitled to.  

You may not be considering giving your house back right now, but chances are high that at some point you will think about it.   Keep following out blogs and our website.  We will show you how to put thousands of dollars in your pocket and open the doors to life after your underwater house.

www.FinancialRevivalGroup.com

Filed Under: Banks, Economy, Housing, Life After Foreclosure, My Credit, My Personal Finance, The Legal Side Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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