No wonder the Rethugs offered to "help" people with a 4% interest rate on their mortgage

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1461785,CST-FIN-mortgage05.article

2% for some homeowners

MORTGAGES | Deal could allow 30,000 area homeowners to keep properties

March 5, 2009

BY FRANCINE KNOWLES [e-mail]

Homeowners at risk of foreclosure will be able to have their mortgage interest rate reduced to as low as 2 percent and payments spread over as much as 40 years, according to more details of the Obama administration's $75 billion foreclosure prevention plan, released Wednesday.

The plan focuses on homeowners "at risk," such as those under water on their mortgages, limited to those who owe up to 5 percent more than their home's current value. It also targets those suffering serious hardships, decreases in income, increases in expenses, payment shock, and high combined mortgage debt compared to income, the administration said Wednesday.

The plan, which includes financial incentives for lenders and borrowers, has two parts. One would enable 4 million to 5 million homeowners with good payment histories, whose mortgages are with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, to refinance into lower, fixed-rate mortgages. The other would enable 3 million to 4 million borrowers to modify their loans to make them more affordable by reducing their payments to no more than 31 percent of their income, including lowering interest rates to as low as 2 percent.

[MadHound]

1. 2 fucking percent?

Gee, where's my reward for getting a fucked up ARM on an overvalued house? Oh, yeah, that's right, I did the right thing the first time and didn't get an overvalued house and went for the decidedly un-sexy thirty year fixed. And for doing the right thing I get what? Oh, yeah, that's right, I get to see those who did fuck up get some of my tax money to lower their interest rate and stretch out their payment period.

Excuse me, but just how long before I get a bailout?

[Make7]

2. As soon as you lose your job, I'd start filling out forms. ( n/t )

[MadHound]

4. Ah, so in other words I need to be bled dry before I get relief eh?

Doesn't seem like the brightest way to run a railroad.

[Make7]

13. Looks like you should have gotten an ARM on an overvalued house originally.

Then you'd be able to get that low-interest long-term fixed-rate mortgage you are coveting. I'm afraid your original decision may have been ill-advised - just look at the pickle you're in now.

[pnutbutr]

3. Same boat here

Responsibility FTL

[acmavm]

5. Gee, where's mine? We've gone without other necessities just

to make sure the damn house payment gets made. And thanks be to God (non-believers could take the high road, but I'm sure they won't) I still have the damn thing. Unfortunately since the economy took a dump and my hours have been dramatically cut, upkeep is suffering. Not the small stuff, like installing a new toilet, etc. But the big things, like needing new water pipes to the bathroom. And I pray that my furnace and air hold out.

[MadHound]

6. Did you get an ARM on an overvalued house? n/t

[acmavm]

7. Nope. I just watched these overvalued homes fuck the hell out of

my tax valutions. I have a house (a nice one) built in 1910 that is now worth 2.5 times what I paid for it. Unfortunately that's not reality and no one is going to pay me the amount that I'm being taxed on.

And now fucking developers are building tacky condos in my neighborhood (that no one is buying).

[MadHound]

8. Therefore, according to this plan,

Despite your under-employment(sorry to hear about that) you too will have the joy of watching your tax money go to those who picked up ARM's on overvalued houses, and no, you won't get any help.

[acmavm]

10. EXACTLY!

And the fucking idiots here keep telling me I have a 'finished' upstairs. It was an attic but someone but some drywall on the walls and threw down the ugliest 1950s linoleum down on the floor and now I have a mansion.

[Kalyke]

11. You can apply for the city to come out and do a reassessment

on the current worth, fwiw.

Unless you live in an area with no MPC.

[acmavm]

16. OH, I DID. They knocked a whole $2,000 off.

[Kalyke]

9. Nice responses to the thread.

Not.

:eyes:

The responses sound like Republicans!!

The point, as it relates to YOU, is that it keeps your home from being further devalued because others in your neighborhood won't default, be thrown out and leave an uninhabited house to rot, bring pests and create a fire hazard.

Geez!

P.S. I have a 30-year fixed. This won't help me, directly, either.

[pnutbutr]

12. don't think

they can devalue much more. House I sold for $280k in 2005 is now worth $80k.

The devaluation based on comparables that have been foreclosed can't really get much worse.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

15. Appraisers and banks are not supposed to use comparables that come

from distress sales like foreclosures or private sales like a family member selling to a family member because those types of sales distort the price that would be achieved in an open market.

At least those USED to be the rules, but there are now so many foreclosures that they have completely distorted the whole marketplace. Before these bizarre times, a foreclosure here and there scattered throughout an area had negligable effect, but that is not the case now. Although, foreclosure prices often reflect the condition of a vacant and vandalized property and tons of dollars are needed to bring them back up to up to snuff. The house that sells for 80K might need 100K in rehab.

[MadHound]

14. Niiice, don't agree with somebody, label them a Republican

My house wouldn't be getting devalued if it hadn't been for stupid and greedy idiots (both borrowers and lenders) blowing up the housing market due to their own greed and lax morals. Yet we're going to continue to reward them by first continuing to bail out Wall St., and now by rewarding idiotic homebuyers with interest rates nobody else can get, and it's all done on our dime.

Sorry, but I think that the stupid and greedy shouldn't be rewarded.

And no, this doesn't relate to me, since the part of the country that I live in isn't suffering from devaluation since developers didn't overbuild like other places. In fact this bill won't address that problem, that developers overbuilt, so even if everybody stayed in their houses, the value would still drop due to the glut of housing on the market. And with such a glut, honestly, how many people, even with these terms, are going to stay in an upside down house?

[Mojorabbit]

17. And then there

are people like one of my sisters who have always been responsible. Her husband has had his own electrician business for 17 years with several employees. There is no work now and they are about to lose everything. They have been late on their mortgage lately and this program won't help them. They were responsible but like millions of others they have lost their jobs or means of making income.
I don't begrudge any of these people an helping hand. I have a low fixed mortgage but we are doing ok.
It does not bother me a bit. I don't NEED a bailout.

[MadHound]

18. It is people like your sister that I would like to see get the bailout

That's helping out people who did the right thing and still got burned. I have no problem helping them out, yet as you say, this program won't help them. Instead it seems as though we're bent on helping out the greedy and stupid, both on Wall St. and Main St., the ones who got us into this mess to begin with.

Sorry, but that does bother me.

[tjwash]

19. I have 2 mortgages myself.

And I think the mortgage restructuring is a good idea, even though it doesn't affect me.

There are 2 houses right now on my street that have had for sale signs in the front yard for over a year now, without even a nibble on either one. There are also a couple of bank-repossessed condos around the corner that have fallen into disrepair the last year and a half. HOA's are getting slapped around hard by the bank owned ones, because banks will not pay their HOA dues until the units sell (that is actually illegal, but the banks do it anyway).

I would much rather see people get to keep people their houses, and common areas, parking lots, and amenities in condo associations get maintained. It keeps the whole area from becoming depressed in value, and maintained. That way this economic storm can get weathered a bit easier by everyone.

And your right, some of these responses do smack of the old "lazy welfare queens driving Cadillacs and eating filet-mignon with their food stamps" bullshit. Like there is a special form of "busting-ass" that only applies to certain groups of folks or something. :eyes: