Activists want foreclosure moratorium

[little lady]

Housing activists say families that have mortgages with questionable terms should be given six months to work out deals.
April 4 2007: 1:33 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Housing activists say most families with high-risk mortgages whose terms are questionable should not be kicked out of their homes when they are delinquent on payments. A coalition of groups Wednesday urged lenders to adopt a six-month moratorium on foreclosures to provide time to work something out.

“The debt is forcing people to take second jobs, sell family possessions, and rent out a second room,” said Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

Video More video

CNNMoney.com’s Allen Wastler discusses lender New Century’s bankruptcy and possible sale of Chrysler. (April 3)
Play video

The problem hits the subprime mortgage market, where people pay more for their home loans because the prime market considers them to be higher risks than other borrowers. Activists told a Wednesday news conference lenders are misleading many borrowers, who are surprised and unable to pay when expensive terms of the loan kick in.

“It is not a surprise that so many homeowners are facing foreclosure when you take a look at the loan terms,” Josh Nassar of the Center for Responsible Lending told reporters. “People are qualified generally just to pay for the initial rate, not the adjusted rate, which includes a payment shock of well over 30 percent.”

When your lender goes bankrupt
His group estimates that about 20 percent of the sub-prime loans made in the past two years will go into default and result in families losing their houses.

Among demographic groups, African-American and Latino homeowners hold a large proportion of the sub-prime mortgages.

They were initially developed for people having trouble qualifying for a home loan, but unscrupulous lenders have teamed with real estate agents to put people beyond their means, according to Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza.

“In many cases these loans were never a good fit,” she said. “We have been warning that Latinos were getting bad loans. It should not be a revelation, but it has taken families being taken out of their homes to shed light on this issue.”

Members of the coalition, which also includes the NAACP, acknowledged in response to a question that no lenders have committed to a moratorium on foreclosures. But Henderson, with the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, vowed to pressure the industry to throw out questionable mortgages in favor of repayment terms that homeowners can sustain.

“We have resources to generate pressure,” he said, such as “the use of civil rights law, consumer laws, congressional pressure, and grass-roots advocacy.”

Subprime lender New Century Financial Corp. (Charts) filed for bankruptcy protection Monday. Other lenders affected by the subprime troubles include Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. (Charts), Fremont General Corp. (Charts), Countrywide Financial Corp. (Charts) and Wells Fargo (Charts

[LookoutBelow]

When pigs fly…..

[RottedOak]

I don’t doubt that some people got ripped off on their mortgage, but many just failed to do their own due diligence. And comments like this one really irk me: “The debt is forcing people to take second jobs, sell family possessions, and rent out a second room.” OH NO! People have to work hard and take on boarders to afford more home than they should have bought in the first place! What kind of over privileged snot makes a comment like that?

[Diego Mamani]

The foreclosure moratorium would be OK by me, provided these activists make the principal and interest payments for the length of the said moratorium.

Geez… do they think that money grows in trees? Lenders are not charities and they have a duty to work in the best interests of their shareholders/owners. If the activists want to practice charity, that’s fine, as long as they do it with their own money.

[bob007]

why are these minority groups licking the asses of the liberal elite in the Democratic party ? Especially when the environmental types have run up the cost of housing in California ?

[rankandfile]

I wasn’t going to say too much about the potential housing crisis until I heard that a majority of the victims were Hispanic and African minorities. How dare the establishment take advantage of these poor, helpless minority groups!

I think we need some pre-election year legislation from Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama that will help to rally the minority base against their viscous white Jewish, er, I mean oppressive lenders! – [as said in my best Hillary Clinton Southern accent] – Power to the Rainbow Push Coalition! If all else fails, at least Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will have some billable work for the next few months.

rankandfile

[little lady]

I do feel that the less educated folks who fell into this category should be helped.

However, I can’t believe that this will bail out everyone. The lenders can refinance, reorganize, whatever they want. This may help the situation a little, so the bust is less severe. They will never be able to make someone who makes 30k able to pay for a 460k loan. This just happened to a neighbor of mine and they can’t give the house away for 409k /1800 square feet………ttfn

[kicksavedave]

I have the perfect way to help these poor, beleagered debtors out of this mess that everyone else except for themselves has created. Its simple… the relief they should get is, they won’t be thrown in jail for mortgage fraud. Beyond that, get the heck out of that house which you can’t afford, and go back to renting, like you did for the past 15 years. Work those two jobs, take on a roomate, and save up some money, and do things they way the rest of the world does. I see people all the time working two jobs, living ten to a house, saving every penny, just to start a business, so that some day they can afford to buy a nice house and live the American Dream. My wife works two jobs, her second one is an hour away, just so we can try to save for a down payment for when the pricing returns to sanity levels. These idiots thought they found a shortcut, didn’t they? There are no shortcuts to good old fashioned hard work, is there?

Seriously, I have a hard time figuring out who’s more to blame for these situations. The mortgage companies and brokers who obviously sold mortgages to unqualified buyers that they KNEW would not be able to afford them… or the people who actually purchased these houses that they KNEW they couldn’t afford. I refuse to accept the “I didn’t know” excuse! It’s BS!

This is nothing more than a gamble gone bad, and now some schmucks want to bail them out. I say, heck no!

[smfj]

I’ve said many times that I’ll be p*&sed off if the government bails out the morons who have gotten themselves into debt that’s way over their heads. It’s just not fair to those of us who’ve worked hard to save money and live within our means.

That being said… The Charlotte Observer did an excellent series on the high foreclosure rate there, which I read with interest, not only because I am a Piggington, but I am moving there in exactly one week.

In Charlotte, the majority of homes facing foreclosure, it appears, are the on the lower-end pricing wise – in the $100k range. My first thought was, how do you go into foreclosure on a $100k house? But reading on, I realized that a lot of these people worked close-to-minimum-wage jobs (minimum wage is much lower in NC, by the way), and had been convinced by realtors and mortgage brokers that they couldn’t afford not to buy into the “American Dream.” And that’s not really fair either.

But how do you decide who’s a moron who, as RottedOak said, “failed to do their own due diligence” and who are, as littlelady described, “less educated folks”? There’s probably a thin line, and therefore it’s tough to help the latter without helping the former.

I’m a strong believer in taking responsibility for one’s actions, pretty much a fiscal conservative, and never thought I would say something like this. But there is some social responsibility to those that have been flat-out wronged. And by that, I mean not a total bail out, as no one learns anything from that, but a six-month moratorium on foreclosures for home owners actually living in their homes and of a certain income level, would be reasonable. My guess is that a lot of these people would be willing to work to keep their homes, as opposed to investors willing to walk away from the loan and move on to the next get-rich-quick scheme.

[hipmatt]

Seriously, I have a hard time figuring out who's more to blame for these situations. The mortgage companies and brokers who obviously sold mortgages to unqualified buyers that they KNEW would not be able to afford them… or the people who actually purchased these houses that they KNEW they couldn't afford. I refuse to accept the "I didn't know" excuse! It's BS!

I fully agree!!! And any problems that arise from this should be placed on their shoulders alone, NOT the taxpayers or any type of gov.

 

[Author]

Posts