For most people having their home foreclosed on is a violation of their life, it’s not unlike being broken into or personally assaulted. Unlike selling a house, which is a conscious decision you plan for, often look forward to because it can mean a positive change in your life. Our society doesn’t make the trauma any less poignant. Loss is synonymous with defeat and failure, it implies that who ever loses is somehow at fault because they’re weak or somehow flawed in what they do or think. So here you are, average American, and you decide to buy a home. This isn’t just someplace to live, like an apartment, you invest in it, and it becomes part of you and your family. You decorate it inside and out and it becomes an extension of your collective personalities. This is the place you come to relax, a safe haven from the world, it’s like a trusted friend. When you bought the house you and your significant other (if you have one) sat down went over your finances and determined that you could afford it. After all, you’ve got a good job with a solid company and as you gain experience your value as an employee will increase…won’t it? A couple years down the road your wife’s work relocates but she can still get there even though it means more than twice the travel. Neither one of you gets the expected pay raises you were counting on to offset the rising cost of food, gas, property taxes, the list goes on. Then the company you work for does layoffs, or moves over seas or closes altogether. Still, you’re not worried, after all, you’ve got years of experience a great resume, you’ll have another position in no time. Six months later when your unemployment runs out and you’ve sent out a couple hundred resumes you’re really worried. One thing leads to another and you start getting nasty letters from the bill collectors, utilities and worst of all, the mortgage company. You try to talk to people and you get some extra time. But still no job. Now you’re seriously behind, you stop everything you can live without, get rid of the second car, use up your 401K. Still no job. The folks at the mortgage company tell you unless you do something they’re going to foreclose. You ask what you can do and they tell you that your only option is a work out. You need to come up with a large lump sum and make your regular mortgage payment and an additional amount over and above that for a period of time. But you can’t come up with the lump sum and you weren’t able to make a regular mortgage payment, never mind additional money. Agencies that are supposed to be there to help homeowners keep telling you to sell but with the economy and the housing market being the way it is chances are you won’t make a sale before you lose the house. The housing market has collapsed and thousands of homes are on the market either for sale, bank owned or in foreclosure. The people you talk to want to know what happened. Why didn’t you plan better? Why didn’t you have more money saved? Why don’t you have a job? Can't you just borrow from a friend or relative? They have jobs, they have homes, and they can pay their bills. You feel that somehow, you haven’t done everything you could, you’ve failed and these people must be smarter, stronger, better than you.
Guess what? They aren’t. It just hasn’t happened to them.
I don’t know anyone who asks to have the company they work for close or move off shore or burn to the ground.
No one asks to have a family member get ill and use up all their savings on medical treatment.
They don’t ask for skyrocketing costs, stagnant pays, or lack of opportunity.
It’s very easy when you have a job, to tell someone who’s looking for work what they’re doing wrong.
It’s very easy when you have a home to go to, to tell people who are facing homelessness where they failed and to just move on.
It’s very easy when your life hasn’t been turned upside down, to tell a person whose reality has been shattered, that this is really a great opportunity to get a fresh start.
This is a traumatic event; it’s not unlike being the victim of a fire, flood or some other disaster. Some people lose everything, some escape with bits and pieces of their lives. But it isn’t the same. Fires, floods, tornados…people can’t prevent them…people who loses their houses to foreclosure are made to feel like they could have done something but simply chose not to.
Maybe it’s time we choose to change the way we think.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Regarding Anonymous Comments
As of today I will NOT publish any comments from anonymous posters. I'm not ashamed to put my name on what I write. I welcome your views and opinions even if they differ from or go against mine but I don't think it's too much to ask that you put your name on those thoughts so I and others reading them know who you are. If you can't sign your posts then please either keep them to yourself or start your own blog.
Monday, August 18, 2008
In Response to Anonymous
Dear Anonymous
Regarding your response to my last posting...and I apologize for the delay in posting it and this reply as well.
I am obviously neither sophisticated nor a scam artist. If I was I wouldn’t be in this situation. I do at least have the integrity and courage to put my name on what I publish. I AM posting your comments because you are entitled to your opinion and people reading this have a right to know that there are other points of view in the world. I freely admit on the house site and here that my husband and I HAVE made mistakes. I was NOT ‘taken out of bankruptcy’ I had the bankruptcy discharged. By the way we had very little unsecured debt, so we weren’t living in the lap of luxury. The exact amount of money involved in the ‘legitimate program’ was not disclosed and is incorrect. We did have the option of selling our house back in 2005 at which time it was worth quite a bit more and in a much more secure market. By the way, the person who invested in our equity did so by way of an “Uninsured investment” which had no FDIC or bank guaranty of loss and because he or she would be get almost 100% return on their “investment” at the end of those 2 years. We did “Get back on our feet” and tried to ‘finance’ our way out of the “Investment” which, by the way, had we been successful would have seen said investor end up with a tidy profit. BUT, because of the somewhat questionable way the ‘legitimate program’ was managing the title to our property, no bank or finance company would lend us money. The reason being, as we were finally told on our fifth attempt. “No one is going to lend you money on that house…you don’t own it!”
No, I don’t feel ‘sorry’ for the person who "bought a piece of our homes equity." The person knew they were taking a substantial financial risk but with the promise of quick turn over and significant profit which was their temptation. So it seems that they were also suckered in by the ‘legitimate program’ run by people who make their money by pulling in both homeowners in trouble and investors looking for easy money.
Also…I’m not the only person in Massachusetts who was involved in this ‘legitimate program.’ There were many others who lost their houses when the ‘legitimate program’ sold them and got not only the amount owed to the ‘investor’ (Who in these cases made their 100% profit) but a tidy profit from the sale for themselves. There is and was no “big payday” for us. All we wanted was to get the title to the house back and to warn people about becoming involved with such “legitimate programs” unless they are aware of ALL of the terms of the programs. The “legitimate program” we were involved with WAS determined by the State Attorney General to be in violation of MGL 940 CMR 25.00.
Our house isn’t a huge, hundreds of thousands of dollars house. It’s a small house in a working class neighborhood with a city lot worth less than $100K in this market. In other words a little old house on about 1/10th of an acre of land, actually 50ft x 90ft plot of land. As to hard working people, my husband and I are. He’s been working at the same factory for over 12 years. I worked my way up the ladder at my last job and have been working since I was 14. I never expected to be out of work this long. I never expected to be out of work period. I even followed the advice of the DET and went back to school but since I finished classes in December of 2007 have not found a position yet. I’ve at least had interviews but no job yet. Yes, we’ve made bad choices; one of them was becoming involved with this ‘legitimate program.’ We have to take responsibility for signing papers that we didn’t fully comprehend. (Then again all the attorneys we spoke to including the ones who finally got our title back, couldn’t understand them either and said they seem to have been written to be intentionally confusing and misleading) That mistake taught us a hard lesson. Ah…but can’t the same be said for our investor? Did they not knowingly take a risk by investing? Isn’t our investor also responsible for his or her own reality which he or she CHOSE to create? Are they any more deserving of sympathy because of their involvement? They did lose money on this one investment…but isn’t that the point of high risk investment? Taking a risk on something with the potential of above market yield? They did lose some money; and we can still lose our home unless we manage to change our situation, even if that means asking others for help. We don’t want anyone’s sympathy, we don’t want a free ride, we want what any self respecting individual does, an opportunity.
Yes, with any luck the REAL truth will come out, if someone has the guts to say something…and Karma usually has very little to do with it.
Regarding your response to my last posting...and I apologize for the delay in posting it and this reply as well.
I am obviously neither sophisticated nor a scam artist. If I was I wouldn’t be in this situation. I do at least have the integrity and courage to put my name on what I publish. I AM posting your comments because you are entitled to your opinion and people reading this have a right to know that there are other points of view in the world. I freely admit on the house site and here that my husband and I HAVE made mistakes. I was NOT ‘taken out of bankruptcy’ I had the bankruptcy discharged. By the way we had very little unsecured debt, so we weren’t living in the lap of luxury. The exact amount of money involved in the ‘legitimate program’ was not disclosed and is incorrect. We did have the option of selling our house back in 2005 at which time it was worth quite a bit more and in a much more secure market. By the way, the person who invested in our equity did so by way of an “Uninsured investment” which had no FDIC or bank guaranty of loss and because he or she would be get almost 100% return on their “investment” at the end of those 2 years. We did “Get back on our feet” and tried to ‘finance’ our way out of the “Investment” which, by the way, had we been successful would have seen said investor end up with a tidy profit. BUT, because of the somewhat questionable way the ‘legitimate program’ was managing the title to our property, no bank or finance company would lend us money. The reason being, as we were finally told on our fifth attempt. “No one is going to lend you money on that house…you don’t own it!”
No, I don’t feel ‘sorry’ for the person who "bought a piece of our homes equity." The person knew they were taking a substantial financial risk but with the promise of quick turn over and significant profit which was their temptation. So it seems that they were also suckered in by the ‘legitimate program’ run by people who make their money by pulling in both homeowners in trouble and investors looking for easy money.
Also…I’m not the only person in Massachusetts who was involved in this ‘legitimate program.’ There were many others who lost their houses when the ‘legitimate program’ sold them and got not only the amount owed to the ‘investor’ (Who in these cases made their 100% profit) but a tidy profit from the sale for themselves. There is and was no “big payday” for us. All we wanted was to get the title to the house back and to warn people about becoming involved with such “legitimate programs” unless they are aware of ALL of the terms of the programs. The “legitimate program” we were involved with WAS determined by the State Attorney General to be in violation of MGL 940 CMR 25.00.
Our house isn’t a huge, hundreds of thousands of dollars house. It’s a small house in a working class neighborhood with a city lot worth less than $100K in this market. In other words a little old house on about 1/10th of an acre of land, actually 50ft x 90ft plot of land. As to hard working people, my husband and I are. He’s been working at the same factory for over 12 years. I worked my way up the ladder at my last job and have been working since I was 14. I never expected to be out of work this long. I never expected to be out of work period. I even followed the advice of the DET and went back to school but since I finished classes in December of 2007 have not found a position yet. I’ve at least had interviews but no job yet. Yes, we’ve made bad choices; one of them was becoming involved with this ‘legitimate program.’ We have to take responsibility for signing papers that we didn’t fully comprehend. (Then again all the attorneys we spoke to including the ones who finally got our title back, couldn’t understand them either and said they seem to have been written to be intentionally confusing and misleading) That mistake taught us a hard lesson. Ah…but can’t the same be said for our investor? Did they not knowingly take a risk by investing? Isn’t our investor also responsible for his or her own reality which he or she CHOSE to create? Are they any more deserving of sympathy because of their involvement? They did lose money on this one investment…but isn’t that the point of high risk investment? Taking a risk on something with the potential of above market yield? They did lose some money; and we can still lose our home unless we manage to change our situation, even if that means asking others for help. We don’t want anyone’s sympathy, we don’t want a free ride, we want what any self respecting individual does, an opportunity.
Yes, with any luck the REAL truth will come out, if someone has the guts to say something…and Karma usually has very little to do with it.
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