201212.10
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Motivation to Fight the Good Fight

Many beleaguered homeowners struggle to keep their homes so long, they leave no time or good options for themselves other than giving up and walking away in financial exhaustion.   For those who have considered or are presently entertaining a short sale of their home as an alternative to “walking away” (a/k/a foreclosure),  you have to…

201212.07
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If only every state regulated lenders like New York; If only every lender did a better job than Ocwen

The  New York’s Department of Financial Services announced this week that Ocwen Financial was guilty of various regular practices of  non-compliance with recent servicing reforms required of all lenders.   Ocwen apparently initiated way too many “hair trigger” foreclosures even while customers were seeking modifications or permission for short sales.   In the news release from the…

201212.03
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Did Virginia make the top 15 list? Some surprises in the projected list of 15 hardest hit real estate markets over the next 5 years

It might surprise you to learn that over the past 5 years some parts of Northern Virginia have been lumped in with the “sand states”, i.e., those previously booming states with the biggest value bubbles and the hardest value crashes, including California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada.   But rampant TARP money and cronyism seemed to liberate…

201211.21
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Can’t I Just Walk Away?

All “upside down” homeowners have asked this question at some point:  “Can’t I Just Walk Away?   I can’t keep up with my payments anyway, how much worse can it be to abandon the house?”   It is true that in terms of loss of credit, being over three months behind on your mortgage payment is well…

201210.30
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T-7 days until the Election

“home prices nationally were down by 3.7% compared with January 2009, according to the Case-Shiller 20-city index” This is the conclusion of the Wall Street Journal after analyzing the Case-Shiller Index.  From a political point of view you could say that stopping the plunge and bringing the average real estate values back up to nearly…

201210.16
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Homeowner gets $1.61 in mortgage ‘relief’

Some things in life require no comment, like this story on a Bank of America mortgage modification that saved the struggling homeowner $1.61 a month: “Homeowner gets $1.61 in mortgage ‘relief’“ You read that correctly.   One Dollar and 61 cents after months of tax returns, applications, bank statements, W-2’s, etc., copied repeatedly to the lender.