Little foreclosure relief seen from housing bill

here we go again. lost my home to some one who was a bad lender they said they did not want our home but when i called to get help before things really got bad i had them hang upon me and not return my calls . my husband lost his job of twenty four yrs. it was sent over seas. hwe found a job but it did not pay as well i also worked also and we both worked the 2nd job. dont tell me we didnt try. i worked in banking and tryed to get help. they make you feel you are low not paying bills on time . it has been the hardest thing to go through. were can we get help. my house is now setting empty. help us the people who pays taxes. i was taught to work hard for what you get. for that dream. know i am in a night mare. we need help . look for select portfoleo and see how many people have try to fight them . this company has chaned names two or three times they are trying to help the rich people not the working people

As an American who bought at the beginning of the end and did not make a stupid decision to get an ARM why should those that made bad decisions to live beyond their means get a bailout. It is ironic that the people who fueled this BUST are the same people who now are asking for a bailout. YOUR greed made my house cost more and now YOU want a free lunch?? I have lost $85k in equity during the past 15 months. BUT, I make my mortgage payments every month on a house I know is worth less than when I bought it. I am incredibly blessed to be able to make these payments but, when are people going to be held accountable for speculating, living beyond their means and making bad decisions? It is akin to YOU going to Las Vegas losing a bunch of money and then asking the government/me to cover your debts. This includes the greedy lenders and mortgage brokers and relators. Welcome to reality! It is not the governments job to bail YOU out. Maybe Obama Claus will fill your stockings with my tax money to bail YOU out from YOUR responsibility. I have never bore witness to such incompetence and victimization. I hope your teaching your children they too our victims and that the government owes them a living as well. I am sure you are also the same people with an Escalade and a Tahoe in your drive way complaining about the gas prices. Get real. Take responsibility for your actions, live within your means, work hard and maybe, just maybe your life will improve.

Ouch, there's a lot of judgemental folks on the board. A couple of news flashes, not everyone who was given a sub-prime loan or an ARM or who has less than perfect credit is responsible for the crash in the market.

There is plenty of blame to go around and when you really get down to it, you cannot purchase something that a bank does not qualify you to purchase...so what does this mean? The banks, lenders, brokers, agents, etc. all got together and exploited the consumers. They saw that houses probably weren't moving fast enough through traditional requirements (20% down or more and perfect credit) and saw a way to exploit the consumer (under the guise of helping the consumer) by getting them into houses they could not afford for the sake of their own commission. Let's keep it real. Now, I'm not for helping the fools that bought 700K homes on 80K salaries and stated income - unless they had a windfall coming that was a stupid move no matter what bank authorized the loan. But you can't help thinking that with the combination of the artificially inflated homes, on top of the relaxed lending practices - someone was getting paid to look the other way and they did! And now we all suffer.

Btw, I have suffered significantly financially in my past and have slowly rebuilt my credit history. My hardships were due to the fact I was a single-new parent making nothing (around 20k) and basically made some misguided decisions that costs me alot! Picked myself up, finished my undergrad, make very nice money now, bought a new house under the sub-prime market AND I can pay my mortgage on time - even if it were to reset I could afford it...AND I am still suffering because I bought at the end of the boom so my house has lost thousands in value/equity that I haven't even touched yet! AND when I bought it, it was worth 10K more than I spent on it so let's stop the judgement and whining, WE ALL ARE SUFFERING!!

Where was everyone when people were making the easy money flipping these properties just a few years back? Did they give some of this "profit" towards a system that would "protect" them later on? NO! Now we hear of cries and pleas to "save" them from the big bad lender. Come on folks, you can't have it both ways (well, you shouldn't). You take the good with the bad. GROW UP!

There is a little hidden thing in this bill from your friendly democrats.... A NEW TAX! They are burying a 1.5 point tax on all new mortgages in the US. So - when you buy a house... enjoy... more income redistribution from your friendly neighborhood liberal democrats.

As an American who bought at the beginning of the end and did not make a stupid decision to get an ARM why should those that made bad decisions to live beyond their means get a bailout. It is ironic that the people who fueled this BUST are the same people who now are asking for a bailout. YOUR greed made my house cost more and now YOU want a free lunch?? I have lost $85k in equity during the past 15 months. BUT, I make my mortgage payments every month on a house I know is worth less than when I bought it. I am incredibly blessed to be able to make these payments but, when are people going to be held accountable for speculating, living beyond their means and making bad decisions? It is akin to YOU going to Las Vegas losing a bunch of money and then asking the government/me to cover your debts. This includes the greedy lenders and mortgage brokers and relators. Welcome to reality! It is not the governments job to bail YOU out. Maybe Obama Claus will fill your stockings with my tax money to bail YOU out from YOUR responsibility. I have never bore witness to such incompetence and victimization. I hope your teaching your children they too our victims and that the government owes them a living as well. I am sure you are also the same people with an Escalade and a Tahoe in your drive way complaining about the gas prices. Get real. Take responsibility for your actions, live within your means, work hard and maybe, just maybe your life will improve.

Eric Steiner, How helpful your comments are. Did you graduate high school, or was it a GED. Possibly welding school from your computer?

I do feel for those who were mislead but most knew they could not afford the house they bought. My first home was just large enough for us and we made do with 1200 sq. feet. It wasn't like the homes people are losing now. In Europe people live in a house that size with 4 people and do just fine. So a lot of people should have bought home they could afford and I know they were on the market.

First of all, why is it the federal government's problem when individuals don't research what they are purchasing? The ignorant individuals that are caught in this mortgage mess because they thought it would be a good idea to purchase a home way out of their price range with an ARM shouldn't be bailed out. Why shouldn't they be accountable for self responsibility? I purchased a home in '05 with a 30 fixed mortgage, if anything the federal government should reward those who are a bit more responsible. I'm tired of all these bailouts, and these people that expect the government to fix their every problem.

Its amazing to me, what I read here is exactly what I in vision is taking place in the house and senate. People pointing fingers and placing blame without the slightest bit of fact. People saying I'm right you're wrong, my way is the best blah,blah,blah...
There are way too many factors involved to pinpoint where the problem stems from. Yes there are people who bought more than they could afford and people who thought they could make a fast buck and people who were lied to by a broker or banker and people stuck in sub-prime loans and even people who lied to the banks and brokers. What about the poor soul who lost their spouse and that income or fell ill? How about the people laid-off/fired who now can't find a job? What we are witnessing right now are the ripple effects from the start of the mortgage meltdown in November/December 2006. The first rock in the lake if you will was the sub-prime lenders. The first ripple from that was lost jobs, people who probably owned homes....now you have one less option for home buyers which means less production for the brokers/bankers (much like a pay cut). Does anyone see where this is going? Now you have the Alt-A lenders closing their doors...see the ripple effect above. Now the problem has compounded...more people out of work, less loan options = less production = less home sold = less money back into the economy and further job loss. Since late 2006 266 major lending institutions have imploded, see more info here: So far we are only talking about 1 segment of the entire industry. We still need to cover the following, tile companies, Realtors, appraisers, new home builders and the entire construction industry! With less production all of these secondary markets have suffered as well. This is the perfect example of you know what rolling downhill. The only problem is that ALL OF US are standing at the bottom of said hill with our mouths wide open! The foreclosure crisis affects every single one of us!
What we need to do is put our heads together and figure out who stop/slow the hemorrhaging because if we don't, this is going to ugly to the tune of biblical proportions!

I appreciate the intents of the government efforts to help with housing issues. However, not everyone fits into the neat little categories that everyone likes to presume. My husband and I ended up in an 11-year custody battle for his children that even DCFS and the court states should never have had to happen and which only ended when the last of his three children turned 18. We were held over a barrel by the court system here in Utah and it cost us approximately $650,000 by the time we were through. We supported 8 children through that and all we could do was keep refinancing our home until it became unrefinanceable and we could no longer afford it, even with me working 18-20 hours a day 7 days a week and my husband working a full-time job. Sadly, we were given promise after promise by lenders at times when we had no option but to refinance, i.e., we qualified for A+ credit, but they would get to the signing and find that they had given us B credit ratings and that we were paying exorbitant amounts in interest. We finally had to file bankruptcy. We thought that was the end of our economic woes.

My sister had a house that was very conveniently becoming empty when we had to let our home go through a short sale. Little did we know that she had been planning this for a couple of years knowing that our finances were going downhill. You see, she was an investor and had a property she had lived in for about 3 months while waiting to have her $1 million home built and she couldn't get rid of it and she couldn't rent it "for the mortgage amount," so she was supposedly subsidizing the home while she rented it. She saw an opportunity. It is a beautiful home and it helped us immensely. We could afford the rent until we could qualify for a mortgage of our own in 3 years and I could get around it in my wheelchair. I was still working at home as a medical transcriptionist, but with this move had backed down to working 12-15 hours a day, still 7 days a week. When the 3 years came up on our lease to own a year and a half ago, my sister pulled some very illegal stunts on us. She stopped three different loans that were not in keeping with the legal agreement we had and we ended up paying her more than $100,000 for the home which she has been telling family members for the last 4 years that she just wanted to "give as a gift" so I could have a little better life. It took a year and a half to be able to get a loan that she would let go through and so now we have two mortgages instead of one and they are at such extremely high interest rates and with an ARM (adjustable rate mortgage) that we simply cannot afford it. We have had numerous companies call and say "We can help lower your interest and make your mortgages more affordable for you, but we can't help you until your income goes up by at least $1000 a month."

I then agreed to become the director of a program attached to our city Arts program. About the fifth event we did (we did one or two a month), they moved us from a handicapped accessible park to a non-handicapped accessible park. The lawn had just been mowed and the clippings left on the lawn. I was going down a fairly steep hill in my electric wheelchair (which was extremely old, but had been donated to us after our insurance company turned me down stating that they were sure I would "get better someday") when the front wheel hit a small hole that no one had seen because of the grass clippings left on the lawn. I flew 5 feet through the air before landing. I sustained fractures to my right arm and left foot and leg and had a massive concussion that put me in bed for 16 weeks where I could only wake up for 5-15 minutes at a time, often missing meals, missing my necessary routine medications, etc. The city could have allowed me to receive Worker's Compensation as the director of a committee and events, but they refused. I didn't have the money to sue them. So, I went back to work as quickly as I could (after 16 weeks) and often, even to this day 4 years later, fall asleep at my work.

Over the last 2 years, my health has declined drastically to the point that I can no longer work more than 4 hours a day. My employer has been very gracious, but have threatened to fire me if I can't get my line counts up in the next pay period or two. I am close, but fear the worst. I finally applied for SSI disability, but have been turned down twice now because I "can still work the job trained for." They say that I qualify as long as I can't make more than $940 a month, but even when I grossed only $300 last month, they say I can still work my job. So, now my attorney is trying to expedite a hearing so the judge can see me and see my physical difficulties, a hearing which still could be anywhere from 15 months to 2 years from now, then I have to wait for the disability checks to start coming. I have a rare degenerative disease of the muscles and joints and had the first of many strokes at age 36 when I was 7 months pregnant with our last child 10-1/2 years ago. We are struggling to keep our mortgages and bill payments payments and our utilities paid up, but even with the little bit of help the state programs offer, it is quickly pushing us to the point where we may lose our house if my husband can't find either a better job, a second job which he can do at home as caregiver to me and our children, or his job promotion at WalMart that he has been promised for nearly 3 years now. Apparently he will receive his promotion sometime in September, but right now it is only another in a very long string of promises.

For people like us, there is little the government could do to help us out. Our property values have been dropping like everyone else's until we almost have no equity whatsoever. Our equity will be the only way we can refinance. We aren't running our bills up so high that we can't afford our home, nor did we get into a home we couldn't afford. We are just as dependent on the Federal Government right now as anyone else since they are the only ones who can decide to grant my disability. So, my husband and the two remaining children at home, a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old, we are biting our lips and praying hard for a miracle just like everyone else.

I think the best thing the government can do is to recognize the help their own country needs and put less emphasis on making illegal aliens into legal aliens, quit giving better subsidies and grants, etc., to the nonresident alien sector and concentrate on helping our own country keep from going into total distress. I am a very great believer in helping other people and other countries. I myself served in the Army 23 years ago and have had two sons who served in the Marines. I believe that there are some battles we need to fight and some responsibilities that come with being the biggest and greatest country in the world and being the only truly free nation in the world. However, I believe also that just working to keep our freedom isn't enough. I see the illegal alien/legal alien crisis daily and I see the strain it is putting on the entire country. We had to follow the laws and they should have to as well. We shouldn't give them more money than we grant to our own citizens who pay the taxes. We shouldn't even be debating what the national language will be, it already IS English, has been for centuries now. The government advises those of us who are citizens every day of the week on how to be financially sound and how to keep unnecessary expenditures out of our lives.

After raking in huge profits (for how many years?) why not renegotiate a fair price and have these lenders retroactively pay back what they`ve bilked from these people? Fair being relative to the homeowners involved not the lenders wrapped around Washington D.C. like maggots on a dead carcus!

Since Obama can raise 52 million dollars in one month should help it makes me wonder how many people who really can not afford it gives to his camapign. Sounds like another Tammy Faye Baker plan to me. Just how much does he help people has he really helped in the way of contributions for the needy?

New to the Newsvine and posted before last sentence stated. I just wanted to say that with all the advice the Federal Government is giving us about tightening the belt and dispensing with unnecessary expenditures, shouldn't they be listening to their own advice? I can give them a lot of ideas about how to do that after having worked for the Government for a number of years. I guess sometimes, though, it's a little hard to see what the "little people" are going through when you have it all and don't have the kinds of financial woes that we deal with. I think a lot of them have forgotten where they started out at. Most of them were once in the same place the rest of us are.

P.S. I really appreciate JBDAAD's comment above. I would have my house paid off and could afford one twice the size and with all the amenities needed by a handicapped individual if they paid me back what they have taken from us since my first home purchase in 1992!!!

At some point we have to be honest with ourselves because politicians will not.

Our government is not there to bail us out from our mistakes. Part of living here with all our freedoms, is the freedom to make mistakes and suffer the consequences. How many shows have we all seen on TV where people get ripped off by some con man or scheme. The government is not here to bail you out from that. They are here to put those in jail who conspired in any legal wrong doing. The civil court system is there to try and redress any grievances. The housing mess is no different. And this won't change whichever party is in control of the government.

What the government is and should be in the business of is preventing a melt-down of major financial systems. There was no "bailout" of Bear Stearns stockholders - they lost in some cases 90-95% of their equity. I don't care how the media represents this, it is not a bailout of stockholders and Behr is going out of business, as they should.

With regards to the GSEs, they hold trillions of dollars of mortgages. Without them, the mortgage system as currently structured in this country would collapse. Very few would be able to find financing to buy a home. So the government stepped in, as it should, and reassured the markets that they would provide backup financing IF NEEDED. No taxpayer dollars have been spent. The GSE are as of now well capitalized. In fact I saw this morning that overnight additional capital was raised, some from international sources. The belief at this point is that taxpayer dollars will not be necessary, but confidence needed to be restored. It is too critical to our overall economic system to let the GSEs fail. But, needless to say, the GSE shareholders again, like Behr Sterns, have taken a bath on their investment, as they should.

What we can and should expect from our government is reasonable regulations and controls. The Federal Reserve has just issued new regulations on both mortgage lending and credit cards; those on mortgages are a little late to say the least. We have a right to hold Congress accountable for what they did not do, exercise proper oversight and ask questions of the regulatory agencies during the growth of the housing bubble. Why did our elected officials, especially those representing the high growth areas, not ask how the explosion in prices in their areas could be possible. Were they blinded by all those property taxes that came rolling in??

Somehow we all lost sight of that important old saying, if it sounds like it is too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

I am the most naive person in this mortgage mess and because of this have been too trusting of my mortgage company and the mortgage broker that got us the loan in the first place. Can anyone advice me on where to go or who to talk to. I have a balloon loan and ARM that are both for 3 yrs. I bought my home in 2006. I have the balloon payment that is going to be due already set-up in a CD. I am under the assumption that at that time I will then only have the ARM to deal with that I can refinance. OK so am I being too confident of how things will work? I would like to try to refinance the 3yr ARM before the three years but the mortgage company has a penalty attached to early pay off but does anyone think I would be better off doing so? I am afraid that by the time the 3yrs is up I will not be able to because of all the newer stricter rules to get a mortgage and I see them getting more tough.

'Bills' that are passed rarely serve as immediate help for individuals.
If we owe a company or business or finance institution money, our responsibility is to the entity who loaned us the money; the government can not intervene and pay citizens the money when citizens have signed the documents/approved the terms and conditions of the loans. Borrowing money to buy things has always been a private venture-between a company/corporation and an individual.The government should not give homeowners money.
In foreclosure, obviously banks/lending institutions are the ones absorbing monetary loss, *not* homeowners in trouble. The government's sole purpose is not to indulge individuals with endless funds...no matter what we get ourselves into. I know this sounds ugly, but....The government's job is to manage us (common citizens) in a way that is 'fair' to all; not just a benefit to some. And, the government's primary role in all of this *is* to ensure that banks/lending institutions *can* go forward.
Personally, I do not like the $4 billion in slush fund money (if approved) for communities to enact fixing up homes that are vacant. Too much room for corruption. Wave some federal funds in the eyes of city government? Every brother-in-law imaginable will emerge to say they want the contract, completed the work...when they actually didn't.
Home ownership has always been a private enterprise. Buying property or not is strictly our personal decision. We are not a former Soviet nation whereby the government owns all property and we merely pay 'rent'. Our government can not be our conscience (if we buy something with terms that are exhorbitant, just because we didn't understand or read what we were signing).

I find it sad that when I brought the foreclosure problems to my Congressman's attention (in a town hall meeting), he said if the government tried to do anything to help the "possible" problem, the mortgage companies would go to immediate foreclosure to cover their butts.

This was in 2001 or 2002, a few years later the mortgage companies are wanting help and they get it. It shows you where the politicians are in debt to (no pun intended).

I have yet to see any reporting on help for "homeowners" that shows what kinds of homeowners would be helped and how. Lose your home? Oh my!!! Some reporting shows that in states with high foreclosure rates up to 40% were investors. Will the bill discussed in this article help investors? I don't think it should, or at least not under the tear stained headline about people losing their homes. How about people who put nothing or next to nothing down? They have paid tax deductible interest and property taxes for a few years instead of rent. They "lose their home" and they are back where they started, in a rental. I am not so sympathetic to them. If we want to help them that is a policy discussion about encouraging homeownership, not a reaction to "people losing their homes".

The government completely abdicated its responsibility to manage the lending market during the boom. A lot of money was being made and when that happens the government stays out. Borrowers were absolutely victimized. We should consider what they lost however. The home that they couldn't afford anyway? For many people who bought a home they could afford, and have paid their mortgage for years, and built up a lot of equity, "losing their home" is a tragedy. But many of the subprime borrowers just have lived in a home they could not afford, they put nothing down (or borrowed the down payment on a second mortgage), and now they are losing it.

Poor analysis from the press. Just a lot of shouting and notice that the real money goes to someone who can profit from it.

It isnt the governments job to bail out people who bought more house than they could afford. Hardship happens. We have an adjustable rate myge which is due to reset this year but we still stayed within an affordable price range when we bought the house. Has anyone ever heard of the Great Depression?? Most people who are having homes forelcosed on can still afford to eat and probably rent so get over it. we are a blessed nation! We have more at our poorest than most of the rest of the world!

I am so sick of bailing people out in this country. Sure, I have emphathy for anyone going through foreclosure, but face it-these issues started way before gas and food went up. Most of these folks knew they had crappy credit to begin with, and many of these people bought expensive, show off houses they KNEW they could not afford, ARM or not. If you are old enough to buy a house, you need to be able to be mature enough to accept the loss and move on. Gas is almsot 5 bucks a gallon, we pay for welfare benefits, healthcare, housing, etc, and we can no longer afford to throw the middle class on the welfare rolls. Sorry, if your neighbor's tax dollars are "saving" your overpriced McMansion, you are a welfare recipient. Learn you lesson like our grandparents did-accept the consequences, rebuild your life, live somewhere you can afford, and never make the same dumb mistake in the future. Goverenment "equality" programs through HUd have helped create this disaster. Everyone should own a home, it is their "right" regardless of credit and income.

I was just reading through the comments above and some of them really make me wonder about how we got to this point. . . .I mean REALLY how we got to this point. I agree that there are a whole lot more of the "keep up with the Jones's" types out there who spend and spend and spend and then expect to be bailed out. I agree that there are also a whole lot of people out there -- like my sister, lenders, etc. -- who have taken advantage of other people, but I think that the whole picture isn't one little sector of any of this. It takes all of us, even those of use who don't have a way to do much other than share our oppinions as a way to stand up to it all. It's nice to enter our opinions here and hope that the "right people" will see them, but what do we do outside of this? We need to hit up our politicians, push them until they do what is right for a change. If we can see ways to help our neighbors, why don't we take the time to get to know them -- no matter what their religion, etc. (I could quote the Declaration of Independence here, but I won't) -- and help each other. That fo rone would keep costs down, us helping each other. Unfortunately, in a world where you can't trust better than half of your own family, how are you supposed to trust your neighbor? And lastly, remember before you hit your politician up to quit "bailing out the banks, etc." that your money and mine and everyone else's is gone bye-bye the minute they stop bailing them out. Those of us who are lucky enough to have any type of savings or IRA or anything else in a bank (ours amounts to about $100 after months and months of saving) will be lost with the end of that bank! There are answers, but we can't do like the government does and wait until things are too far gone and then take emergency measures that we haven't thought through quickly enough to see the pitfalls and the holes in the road that are going to dump our "fix" right down the toilet, too.

I view this legislation as pandering to those who were not smart enough to understand what they were getting into by overspending on a home or people of the "I want it and I want it now!" crowd. In either case, it is irresponsibility on the part of the buyer. Certainly there was a lot of shady lending going on, again by people whose greed trumped their morals.

When we bought our first home we didn't let the realtor talk us into something we knew we could not afford, and we paid 20% up front. What ever happened to plain old common sense?

I feel for some people who bought within their means but maybe had the bad luck of falling ill or losing their job, and I think they should be the first ones to receive help. But I don't feel any remorse for those who thought they were going to turn nothing into a fortune. The old adage, "We make our money the hard way, we earn it" still applies.

i think giving out community grants would be a great way to encourage the community to help rebuild its self. More people without jobs would be able to find work even if they were doing it on their own as projects to make some extra cash... so in the end the grants would be beneficial not only to the housing market due to the fact that these houses will be bought but it will help the people with out jobs get an opportunity to generate an income so they dont also lose thier house. And hes an awesome idea anything that bush decides on in the next few months we should do the total opposite of maybe then will his decisions be a little bit more useful... i cant believe that man can still stand proud in front of this country id be pretty ashamed of myself if i were in his shoes

Our economy (capitalism) is based on the law of supply and demand. For the government to bail out the housing industry to keep home values were they are at now defeats the very idea of capitalism. We should allow home price to fall. If they fall then they were price too high and people who purchased them made a poor choice.

They should be more focus on energy problems in this country. The energy companies are really monopolies that the idea of supply and demand does not apply.

Also, the individuals in government position need to rethink their position. The idea of using your home for collateral to make purchases doesn't make sense and has to be rethought by the government. People should realize that by using their home to make a purchase is like selling off their most precious possession.