It’s not revenge. It’s a legal and ethical way to preserve one’s financial future when faced with a potentially crippling obligation.

And what about renters? If the bank can’t evict someone from a property they own then what right does a landlord have to evict a tenant that does not pay rent?

Just goes to show that in this country it has become de riguer for the silent, intelligent majority to be punished in order to provide assistance to the stupid, vocal minority. support

All together now -

PEOPLE WHO ARE FORECLOSED BECAUSE THEY CAN’T AFFORD A MORTGAGE RATE RESET ARE NOT HOMELESS.

They CAN still afford the pre-reset mortgage rate, which means they can afford a VERY NICE rental in the same area they have been living.

AND considering that there are so many empty homes right now (for sale), there is no shortage of places for them to move to.

I recently saw a British news video clip reporting on a campsite/motorhome area where “thousands” of victims of the subprime resets are homeless and living in campsites or what-have-you. What utter hogwash! If they are living in campsites, then not only could they not afford a mortgage reset, but they COULD NOT AFFORD THE PRICE OF A BASIC RENTAL, PERIOD!

(2)
Does anybody know if this Philly foreclosure freeze would be limited to only people’s primary residences, or would extend to flipper’s umpteen homes?

Frankly, neither type of mortgage deserves a freeze. BUT it is most obvious that the flippers are the least deserving. If the taxpayer in any way has to subsidize the flippers’ really bad real estate investments, then I suggest to you that there are a bunch of government officials that must quickly be thrown out of their offices.

(3) If Philadelphia is known for Cream Cheese, will it soon be known for Philadelphia Swiss Cheese – A.K.A. the place where mortgage contracts are shot full of holes after-the-fact?

Oh Yes, with this kind of changing the rules halfway through the game, if I had millions of dollars to invest right now, you sure KNOW that Philadelphia would be the LAST place I’d want to be going near.

NVMike – I assume you’re still advocating jingle mail to get revenge on those evil banks who are losing billions, so a foreclosure holiday of indefinite length really shouldn’t make a difference, right?

Igor: Storm (Shouldn’t that be Sh*tstorm?)

It’s an election year, no one should be surprised by this kind of political action.

In the end, a 3, 6, 9 or even 12-month moratorium won’t make a lick of difference in the market. If you can’t afford the house today, chances are overwhelming that you still can’t afford it in 12 months.

Twist, I (and I’m sure many others here) agree completely – foreclosed does NOT equal homeless, this is pure exaggeration in an attempt to get the government to act in favor of the irresponsible, and the rest of us be damned.

And that brings me to my last point – when did willingly going in debt over your head and then refusing to pay make you a victim?! Someone to be protected and sympathized with? The bank is the victim in this scenario, not the borrower who didn’t pay! The neighbors who will be left with a vacant house next door, they are victims! The one person here who ISN’T a victim other than of his own making is the borrower, and this perspective is left out of almost every story in the MSM. If I decide I spent too much on credit cards and it’s going to take me years to pay them off, am I a “victim” of the credit card companies for giving me those loans, should I be able to just stop paying them because those guys should have known better than to lend me money? Where on earth is the morality, the plain old moral judgment in all this, that when you borrow, you are undertaking a responsibility to pay back? And that if you don’t pay back, you are doing wrong? Where is the shame? This is, yet again, a showing of the direction our society has taken – when someone makes a huge bet using the bank’s money and then loses and refuses to pay it back, and they, rather than being judged the thief they are, have the gall to claim they were victimized by the bank that gave them the money they asked for, and the media and its sleeping-sheep listeners lap it up without question. Sad.

You are absolutely correct. This could very well cause on opposite effect and actually increase unemployment (banks/lenders would virtually stop all lending). Also good point on all the empty houses caused by investors/speculators. What a mess!!!

Remember that “foreclosure” and “homeless” are not synonymous. Folks with a good steady job who are in a house they can’t afford will move to a home they can afford. It might be a crummy apartment, but given that rentals are a bargain in many areas- many people could actually be moving into a nicer place.

When the foreclosure is due to unemployment or underemployment, that’s when the big problems happen– those are the folks that can end up in tent cities.

I’ve driven around the Phoenix area and seen a number of homes that were abandoned before the foreclosure process began– many were purchased as investments and never lived in. Moratoriums or delays won’t help these cases much.

I suspect that even the threat of these sorts of actions are enough to further chill a nearly frozen mortgage market.

Just think what it would do to house prices if we all have to pay cash!

I agree, it’s going to be impossible to get a loan on a new house…what about first time home buyers?

This is very interesting…I wonder how many other states and cities will decide to do this?

Guess what your “security” just became worth when you can’t foreclose on the collateral? ZERO.

Even if I had perfect credit and the ability to pay, I’m not sure I’d keep paying if I knew the bank could not foreclose. I mean, I’m an honest guy and don’t have even a single late on my credit, let alone a default, but if the government says it’s ok now, who am I to buck the system? Heck, they’re telling you straight up that making any further payments is being a sucker!

Oh, and guess what the future market for instruments like this will look like if investors think that the U.S. government and its local governments will unilaterally allow borrowers to default on their notes with no consequence (or consequences drastically altered in the borrower’s favor)? Yes, you’ve got it Virginia, that would be “non-existent.”

Here’s a funny scene for you: Imagine in your mind’s eye some guys in a back room at Bear or Merrill, or at one of the buyers like Nomura or the Bank of Japan, trying in all seriousness to value a loan portfolio with the new knowledge that the government has just imposed a moratorium on enforcement of their collateral rights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nojWJ6-XmeQ&eurl=http://filecabi.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17558

The kid is an FB. The rest of us are the helpless parent.

I thought the guy in the video was particularly annoying, as it sounds like he was just trying to take advantage of the situation. He certainly didn’t sound like he was a struggling borrower- he wanted a chance to leverage himself into a lower mortgage.

It would be nice to think that the guy was atypical- but I’m afraid he might have a lot of company.

Bobby the Boob’s got brass
http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=8041764&nav=15MUUi4B

I posted this link on Easter and if anyone else has posted it, it is truly redundant and I apologize.

The banks there will stop writing new notes there so hard and fast that everyone else will realize within a very short period that this is totally unworkable. From here on out, you can only buy a house in Philly if you’re all cash!

Igor’s word: stupid

Housing Wire has learned that the City Council of Philadelphia passed a resolution Thursday afternoon calling for the Sheriff’s Department to immediately suspend all foreclosure sales in the county scheduled for April — essentially imposing a 30-day “pause” on any foreclosures that had been scheduled to be auctioned off during the month (foreclosure sales are held monthly). The resolution also calls for the Sheriff to seek an additional six month moratorium through the courts, according to a private memo released by a local law firm in the Philadelphia area and obtained by HW.

It’s unclear at this time what reaction the Philadelphia Sherriff’s office has to the city’s proposed resolution. Calls for comment were not immediately returned.

Attorneys that spoke with Housing Wire said that they believe the actions of the City Council to be a blatant abuse and violation of existing state law. “These actions, as proposed, will obviously cause a major disruption to the practice of mortgage foreclosure law in Philadelphia County, which handles the largest volume of foreclosures in the State of Pennsylvania,” the memo said.

This is actually similar to legislation being  proposed by the Bush administration, so it will be interesting to see how this goes down.  It sounds like it will end up being a cat fight.