Orlando Foreclosure Defense

The man of steel is usually busy fighting off aliens, or Lex Luthor, but recently he showed that he is willing to help out a family facing the loss of their home. Now you might not think that Superman saving a home makes for an exciting story for a comic book, and you would be right. I doubt that even the biggest Superman fan would want to read a comic book about Superman’s legal battle to save a family’s home from foreclosure, its just not compelling.

However it is compelling when it actually does happen. You might be expecting that the last Superman actor, Brandon Routh, helped some poor family after hearing their story, but that’s not the case. Instead the comic book version of Superman came to the family’s aid in the strangest way.

A family living in the South was about to lose their home through foreclosure, it was an inevitability, there was no rich uncle to bail them out nor a technicality that could save them. In the family’s cleaning up of the house to start the process to move out they came across a box of old comic books. In that box they found the holy grail of comics, Action Comics #1, also known as the first appearance of Superman.

All along they had sitting in their basement one of the most valuable pieces of Americana pop art. Recent copies have sold at auction for $1 million to $1.5 million. The comic book graders believe that this family’s copy won’t fetch that amount at auction, but they still believe that it can bring it $250,000 at a minimum.

It’s heartwarming to read good news like this and realize that sometimes little miracles can happen. It also teaches a valuable lesson, don’t through away your kids comics; they could save his house one day.

The foreclosure market is headed toward a devastating scenario, according to the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group. They have cited to disturbing trends in the market including the rise of delinquent mortgages outpacing servicer outreach and loss-mitigation efforts.

Attorney General Rob McKenna said, “programs to help prevent foreclosure are jammed up, while 60 percent of delinquent borrowers aren’t getting any help. Servicers must do more.” Some of the more disturbing findings of the market include: Six of 10 seriously delinquent borrowers are not even involved in loss mitigation efforts, both loss mitigation and foreclosure efforts are backlogged with the average time to complete a loan modification for some servicers is more than six months, and most modifications result in payment reductions but principal reductions are rare.

With these findings the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group has proposed some recommendations to avoid future trouble, including: Servicers should suspend foreclosure proceedings on any loan involved in the loss mitigation process because in some cases homeowners have lost their homes while being told they are being considered for a loan modification, loss mitigation programs must be improved to prioritize principal reduction in areas of significant home price declines, the HAMP program must increase transparency and reduce paperwork in order to reach its potential, and both servicers and the U.S. Treasury should provide better options to keep unemployed homeowners in their homes.

The proposals make good sense and would certainly help the foreclosure industry, the first recommendation in particular would help alleviate many heartaches and confusions. The situation in which a home owner is going through the complex and laboursome process of trying to get a loan modification only to later be foreclosed on is inherently unfair.

Many in this situation are following the instructions of their mortgage holder in an attempt to do the right thing and get a manageable loan modification, they are often assured that this is the way to avoid foreclosure. Being foreclosed on after going through the process of trying to get a loan modification sends the wrong message to millions of people in a similar situation.

It tells those people that there is no point in trying to work things out or being proactive with the mortgage holder, because when the process is over it just ends up being a waste of time. With these suggestions comes the hope that business and an industry changes its ways, these recommendations are a start to hopefully a less painful year than 2009.

Flippers, (not the ones who love your driving), have been both celebrated and despised by the general public. Many feel that flippers are the reason why the housing market went into the tank, while others have applauded them as being shrewd business people. However you may feel about them, there is one couple in south Florida who wants to take them to court.

They are suing the builders of their town home community, they say that it is filled with transients, who party all night, park all over the place, and worse of all have installed unauthorized satellite dishes. (I’ve lived in communities where satellite dishes are banned, and let me tell you, if they find out you have put one up they are hunting you down with a zeal that would make Jack Bauer proud.)

They want to be reimbursed for the purchase price of their home and are also claiming to be suffering from emotional distress, embarrassment, and a loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life.

When the couple originally bought their home in 2004 they paid about $360,000 for it, and it is now valued at $160,000. They feel that part of the reason for the decrease in value is due to the constant flipping of houses in the neighborhood. They claim that perpetual flux that the community was in damaged its reputation, and created an environment in which transient owners would destroy the neighborhood.

Of the 157 lots that were sold in between 2005-2006, 78 were relisted within 18 months. Those numbers certainly support the couples portrayal of a transient neighborhood. The couple claim that the builders had stressed to buyers that they had to stick around for at least 18 months, in order to facilitate a stable community, and are angry that the developer did nothing to prevent this situation from occurring.

The couple say that they feel misled and duped into joining a community of real estate speculators.

The first one talks about the problems original lenders have to prove their right to foreclose.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100307/COLUMNIST/3071071?Title=Lyons-Documents-insufficient-in-foreclosure-case

The second one talks about a short sale program that will pay homeowners to sell at a loss.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/business/08short.html?sudsredirect=true

Enjoy!

It sure is great to be rich. There are so many perks and privileges one gets when they have millions in their bank accounts. They get to buy things that aren’t for sale, they can afford to take vacations from their vacations, and they get to afford lavish homes that make Xanadu look like a paupers hut. Yes, the rich and famous get to live a wonderfully privileged life that affords them the luxury to do wonderful things more often than normal folks, and that includes defaulting.

One would think that the rate of defaults for the wealthy would be much lower than that of normal folks, but you would be wrong. There is new data from First American Core Logic, which has a database that covers 80% of the home loan market. This database includes 1,700 mortgages that have balances of $4 million or more, and of those loans 14.8% of them are 90 days or more overdue at the end of January. All other loans sit at 8.7% of being overdue.

The reasons for their defaults are no different from the reasons why normal people are defaulting, money problems. Incomes for many of the wealthy have gone down considerably because of either bad investments or reductions in pay at top positions. Additionally, many wealthy home owners are facing situations similar to normal homeowners, in that their home is worth less than the loan they are paying back.

Now I am not one to take schadenfreude from the situation many of the wealthy are finding themselves in these days, but their situation does present a frightening example of the severity of the current economic crisis.

The housing crisis is a multifaceted monster and one of the biggest facets is negative equity. Simply put, negative equity occurs when the value of an asset (a home) used to secure a loan is less than the outstanding balance on the loan. The common term for people finding themselves in this particular situation is being “underwater.” Those homeowners with negative equity are faced with an aggravating situation in which they are paying back their loan for property that no longer has the value that it had when the loan was created. Many will say to themselves “whats the point”, why should I keep paying for something that in some cases has lost up to half of its value.

As this line of thinking became more wide spread the housing crisis exploded and fueled a combustible environment. Recent numbers are now clearing up the picture as to how bad things have gotten, they show that in 2009 a quarter of all home owners owed more on their mortgage than their home was worth. The future looks grim for home owners who have lost half of the value of their home because it would take ten years at 5% growth to get back to the initial value. The more troubling developments is that there are many people who can afford their loans but are now strategically defaulting on the loan. “People who are vastly underwater will look at what they’re paying compared to what they can rent, and those people are throwing their keys back,” says Daniel Alpert, managing director at Westwood Capital. The numbers from 2009 to 2008 have doubled of those people who have strategically defaulted reaching almost 600,000. The negative equity problem is also hampering our economy in that homeowners dont have an equity in their home to borrow against and use that to invest in other areas whether it be opening up their own business or using it for home improvement.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp is currently working on a plan to help those homeowners who are in severe negative equity situations by reducing their mortgage balance. Borrowers would be eligible for a reduction in their mortgage balances if they kept up their payments on the mortgage over a long period. The only down side to the proposed program is that it would only effect mortgages from failed banks which is currently only one percent of outstanding mortgages.

Even if you are aware that the price of a home has dropped an average of twenty percent, nationally, since the mid-2006 peak it still may shock you that Florida is included in one of the top four states with mortgage foreclosures and that these states alone make up over 60 percent of total mortgage foreclosures in the nation. In October 2008, there were over 3000 new foreclosure filings in Orange County alone.

If you are one of the many homeowners in Orange and Seminole counties facing the possibility of a mortgage foreclosure you should be aware that there are options available for you. Understandably, the mere thought of the word “foreclosure” invokes thoughts of fear, feelings of desperation and all loss of hope in the minds of many. But the reality is, because the mortgage foreclosure process is so poorly understood, many people are too afraid to explore possible alternatives. That is why it is a good idea to consult with a mortgage foreclosure defense attorney to determine a course of action that could possibly save your home.

The worst thing to do when facing foreclosure is nothing. Experienced mortgage foreclosure defense attorneys will evaluate your situation on a case by case basis, allowing you to mount a solid defense against predatory lenders , problems with the loan itself or missing promissory notes.

Aside from simply defending your case in court, mortgage foreclosure defense attorneys can help you assess possible mortgage foreclosure alternatives and may be able to keep you in your home for several months during foreclosure proceedings. It is important to know that while filing for bankruptcy may be helpful for some, it does not have to be the only hope for all.

Florida forclosures by the nubmers: http://www.realtytrac.com/states/Florida.html