"The Homeowner Bill of Rights is the most massive change in the last 100 years of real estate law..."HousingWire
Buying a home is something embedded in the American economic DNA. Purchasing a home is the biggest financial decision most households will make in their entire lives. In the past the act of buying a home was more of a ritualistic rite of passage; you scrimp and save for the down payment, you purchase a home where your family will set roots, and eventually you will aim for that mortgage burning party. The entire process was accelerated in the last decade to create a perpetual churn. A mortgage was merely a temporary tool in the non-stop property ladder progression to the top. The equation did not leave room for falling home prices or a weakened economy. So we are left with a battle for the soul of US housing. Do we go back to more tested ways of a boring housing market where banks actually verify financials or do we juice up the machine again? The only issue is that the market no longer believes in the new way of financing housing and the government now has to step in to soften the withdrawal with loans such as FHA insured products. Yogi Berra once said it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. But the past is set in granite stone. What will the future look like for the American housing market?Read it at Dr. Housing Bubble
Here are some of the reasons to oppose a settlement:1. There have been virtually no investigations, and the Administration has engaged in cover-ups rather than trying to get to the bottom of the mortgage mess
2. The big argument made in favor of the deal, that it will help borrowers, is patently false. Remember, Countrywide entered into a deal with attorney generals just like this, where they agreed to do mods in return for a settlement on abuses. Guess what? They didn’t do the mods.To add insult to injury, they actually abused homeowners who should have gotten mods. Nevada AG is suing Countrywide now over its failure to comply with the terms of its settlement. And even if some mods miraculously did get done, the settlement is designed to have banks hit a dollar amount. That means they will focus on the biggest loans, which means any relief will go to a comparatively small number of people in (originally) big ticket houses.
3. The Administration has only one chance to get this right. Now you might argue that Team Obama has no intention of getting the mortgage mess right, but the tectonic plates suddenly seem to be moving in elite circles. The Fed realizes that housing is a BIG problem and has even started making noise about it. Yet Obama is moving forward with a plan cooked up in late 2010 that is completely out of whack with the urgency and severity of the problem. Note that this settlement will NOT stop private actions, such as borrowers fighting foreclosures. And we will continue to banks refuse to take losses and drag out foreclosures to maximize fees. That will lead to continued pressure on housing prices in many markets as buyers stay on the sidelines, fearful of buying before a large shadow inventory clears.
California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris will no longer take part in a national foreclosure probe of some of the nation's biggest banks, which are accused of pervasive misconduct in dealing with troubled homeowners.Harris removed herself from talks by a coalition of state attorneys general and federal agencies investigating abusive foreclosure practices because the nation's five largest mortgage servicers were not offering California homeowners relief commensurate to what people in the state had suffered, Harris told The Times on Friday.The big banks were also demanding to be granted overly broad immunity from legal claims that could potentially derail further investigations into Wall Street's role in the mortgage meltdown, Harris said.“It has been a process of negotiating and sitting at a table in good faith, but ultimately I have decided that we have to go our own course and take an independent path. And that decision is because we need to bring relief to Californians that is equal to the pain California experienced, and what is being negotiated now is insufficient," Harris told The Times in an interview.Harris delivered the news in a letter sent Friday to Iowa Atty. Gen. Tom Miller, who has been leading the 50-state coalition.
