Fannie, Freddie, and Banks...oh my!Follow

So, a few weeks ago the all mighty Forclosure Plan was unveiled and the masses rejoiced at the idea of their mortgages being saved! ...or will they?

In October of 2005 when my wife and I married, left and right the advice trickling to us through Ho Hum conversation about how the best thing we could do is invest in buying a home. It was the end all thing to do now that we were an honest family.

"Rates are good!"
"You never lose!"
"Live in there for 2 years and sell for profit, and upgrade!"

Two months later, we found we would be parents. Ecstatic at the news, the only drowning point was that we lived in a (very cool) downtown city apartment, which was very much the crime haven of the area. Not exactly the ideal place to go for a walk with your kid in a stroller, if you get my drift.

So we say to ourselves, "Hey! Everyone said we should, let's go do it!" We figure out how much we can afford, and find a place that's within that payment. A nice little village ranch in a quiet area of a good neighboring town. 2 Bedrooms, 1.5 baths, good construction, etc. Happily, we move in Feb of '06.

Fastforward to June '08. Gas is absurd. Food costs are climbing. Daycare isn't getting any cheaper. Because we both work full time, we were forced to relinquish one of our paid off vehicles due to loan issues (another story all together...I assure you it was an unavoidable dilemma)...so we had a car loan we didn't plan to have. We call the bank, and say "Hey, know what? We might need some help." Their answer? "Sure, let's get some paperwork done."

Fastforward to September '08. Economic crisis is underway. Forclosures are the new "in thing". We checked up regularily over the last few months for an update, to no avail. We're behind two months. We call the bank, and say "Hey, what's going on? Have you reviewed the documents? Our finances? Do you have an answer? We're falling behind!". Their answer? "We're working on that, please be patient. In the meantime, just make sure you don't go 90 days past due and you're fine." Great advice...

Fastfoward to November '08. The very foundation of the US economy is in ruin (or the media paints it that way). Bombs are dropping on Wall Street...bodies flying out windows. Banks are blamed. Brokers are blamed. Everyone in the financial sector is blamed. It's all their fault. But we don't care...we call the bank, and say "Ok, seriously. We're gonna break 90 days now, we've been trying to get help from you since June. We need help now. Either defer payments, or something." Their answer? "Take a break, it's the holidays. Don't pay this month, we'll put you on a 90 day forebearance, and call us before January 1st to resubmit your financials and we'll do the modification." I ask "Are you sure? You want us to deliberately miss a payment?" Their response "Yes! We'll get everything wrapped up at the end of the month."

Fastfoward to a few days after Christmas. I call the bank, and say "Here are our updated financials. I assume this should wrap things up?". Their answer? "Yes, it looks like we have everything we need. I will go ahead and submit this and we'll get in touch with you once the modification is complete."

January 1st rolls around. January 5th. I call January 7th and ask what's going on. "I'm sorry sir, your mortgage has been issued to an attorney's office for foreclosure."

"...Whhhaaaaat...?"

Back to where I started. There's this "Foreclosure" plan that's suppose to give banks incentives to actually perform these modifications now, and to stop stickin' spiked *****'s up their customers pieholes. Are they doing it? No. Absolutely not. Their giving the same BS story. But now it's even more frustrating, cause you get calls from Federal "Hope for Homeowner" Counselors telling you to call your bank and demand the modification. They tell you that you qualify, yet your bank just runs you in circles. What the hell is wrong with these people?

The effect? Left my posh job for a hot, stuffy, boiling cubicle office for better pay and OT. Why? Cause the bank charged me lawyer fee's to pull the mortgage out of the lawyer's office, as well as taking our past due balance with the fee's and turning our mortgage into a bloated mess.

Do I regret buying the house? Nah...I love owning a home. And I'm happy cause my daughter has a house in a good area where she can run around outside and play without having to worry about a drive-by. Best decision I ever made, in my opinion. But when a bank is not just suppose to help, but has been given financial backing specifically to help? They better do what the hell their suppose to. It surprises me that after the last 6 months of economic hoo-haa, that these god damn morons still don't help people out...and in fact are still making it harder for people.

Anyone else have a raw piehole over shit like this?

I worked in a respectable profession as an acoustics engineer, and preferred the job I had due to the flexibility it allowed with an infant daughter and a wife that worked full time. Could I have been paid more? Yes. Was it worth it to jeopardize my job security seeking better pay when I was content? No...not at the time. How could someone justify leaving their job that pays the bills, and allows a flexibility that almost all jobs do not allow? Even you, Smash, can reason with job security in an inflexible job market. No one is so stupid as to leave a job, especially one their good at and enjoy.

It's no surprise I got a higher paying job. A family member who works for a much larger, corporate engineering company had hounded me for about a year. At the time I wasn't interested. I took the job because the bank was inflexible. I did not fuck up. I made the choice to hold on to a secure job to ensure constant income instead of taking my chances getting a new job and facing layoffs a month down the road. At the time, we were just making our payments, and fell behind because of simple emergency home costs to fix things that couldn't be avoided.

But that's ok. Again, I never said the government was to blame. The BANK'S are the ones I'm blaming. They give faulty advice, they string along their customers to take advantage of their consumer base. And when a mortgage exceeds 40% of a homes gross income, I am the intended target, with an absurd rate that took advantage of a newly married couple that was buying their first home. **** happens, we learn from experience.

I worked in a respectable profession as an acoustics engineer, and preferred the job I had due to the flexibility it allowed with an infant daughter and a wife that worked full time.

Great. Don't buy a house you can't afford.


Could I have been paid more? Yes. Was it worth it to jeopardize my job security seeking better pay when I was content? No...not at the time. How could someone justify leaving their job that pays the bills, and allows a flexibility that almost all jobs do not allow? Even you, Smash, can reason with job security in an inflexible job market. No one is so stupid as to leave a job, especially one their good at and enjoy.


No one is as stupid as to buy a house they can't meet the mortgage payment on if gas prices double.


It's no surprise I got a higher paying job. A family member who works for a much larger, corporate engineering company had hounded me for about a year. At the time I wasn't interested. I took the job because the bank was inflexible.

No, fuckstick, you took the job to PAY FOR THE HOUSE YOU PURCHASED. You know, the one you just stopped paying for because you didn't feel like it and hoped that the bank that loaned you the money to purchase it would just decide that you could keep it.



I did not **** up. I made the choice to hold on to a secure job to ensure constant income instead of taking my chances getting a new job and facing layoffs a month down the road. At the time, we were just making our payments, and fell behind because of simple emergency home costs to fix things that couldn't be avoided.

No, you fucked up. It's not arguable. You may not want to deal with the fact that you fucked up, but that's the case. You didn't lose a job through no fault of yours causing you to be late paying your mortgage, you didn't suffer a medical issue that slashed your available income, you bought too much house, realized it and thought "oh, gee, I really enjoy my Wednesday afternoons cruisin the park looking for sailors to blow, so I couldn't possibly consider taking the job that pays more that's readily available to me. I'm a victim of malicious bankers, tra la la."

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But that's ok. Again, I never said the government was to blame.[/b]

That would be because they're not. YOU ARE. YOU ARE TO BLAME. YOUR FAULT. 100% YOUR FAULT. UNDERSTAND??



The BANK'S are the ones I'm blaming. They give faulty advice, they string along their customers to take advantage of their consumer base. And when a mortgage exceeds 40% of a homes gross income, I am the intended target, with an absurd rate that took advantage of a newly married couple that was buying their first home. sh*t happens, we learn from experience.

They're SELLING you something. It's not their job to figure out if you can afford it or not if you stay at the same job for life, it's their job to figure out if you're capable of paying them back over the life of the mortgage. Did you inform that you are a fucking lazy asshole with less sense of responsibility than an eight year old? No? YOUR FAULT THEN.

I'm well aware that there is no point arguing with you, Smash. I hardly take offense to your banter, mainly because you're judging a situation without any knowledge of the individual(s) or the specifics of the situation.

False. You've provided these.

1. Your current job did not provide sufficient income to support your mortgage payment.

2. You could have at any point accepted your new job which does provide sufficient income.

3. You chose not to.

You're an asshole, QED.

1. Wrong

2. Wrong

3. Wrong

Really, well, then this whole thread is pointless because you should have just paid your mortgage! I guess that means the fault really is yours.

Say what?Really then why are you 2 months behind on your payments??

Guess you're NOT paying your mortgage then because if you are 2 months behind on your mortgage payment THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS!

NEVER EVER EVER EVER xinfinate miss a single mortgage payment to pay for something else, don't pay for something else first.

I'll buy that, however considering the circumstances and the banks insistance on a modification pending soon, it seemed correct to simply take their advice. For the record, regardless of my current employment, we are (and would have been) caught up and happily making ends meet without any problem whatsoever, even with the bloated mortgage. The only difference is when my bosses office door is closed, I worry that layoffs are on the table and I finally have enough extra loot to consider renovating the last room of the house (kitchen) over the summer in small stages. The mortgage normalizes in 9 months, so everything is just ducky.

I still think banks exploit the underlying trust of their base of consumers & customers. It's tricky shit, even if you're moving away from a bank/broker you don't trust to get advice/assistance from a new one. The big change I would make would be to use a smaller, community bank over a corporate giant.

Wait! So you had the money to stay current on your mortgage payments, but because the bank told you to get 2 or 3 months behind (or more), you did it?

Um... That's not the bank being sneaky, that's them being smart and you being dumb. See. If you are behind, they get to charge you penalties. If they have a choice between having you pay X amount every month on time, and X amount every month a month or two late, they'll take the latter every single time. And if they can push you into foreclosure, they get more money from you. And if they know that you're good for it, it's safe and "free" money for them.

Again. Don't *ever* take financial advice from someone you owe money to. That's really the first rule to follow here.

So this:



is basically true? You chose to get 2-3 months behind because the bank advised you to do so, even though you could have kept up with the payments. I get that they told you that this would get you some more cash on hand, but I don't see how you could have thought the math added up. The bank did ***** you here, but you bent over and handed them the lube.

Not only is that wrong, it's entirely impossible when they have A) Copies of my tax returns B) Copies of my pay stubs C) Copies of current utility bills D) Financial outline of all Debt-to-Income for the household. And I'm well aware of the concept of the banks ability to do modifications requiring a certain "delinquency". My complaint was that after jumping through all the hoops, they tossed it into forclosure. Did you even read the original post? I thought I explained that part pretty well.