A vote on HR 1106 was delayed Thursday as conservative Democrats tried to reduce the number of mortgages impacted by the legislation. When I looked at the composition of the Blue Dog Democrats and The New Democrat Coalition, I’m amazed at the number of Northern California Congressmen in those groups.
These Northern and Central California Representatives [...]
Posts from ‘February, 2009’
Democrats waivering on mortgage modification
Vote in House of Representatives Postponed
A group of middle of the road Democrats joined the Republicans today in blocking the scheduled vote on the Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act of 2009. More debate is, apparently, needed, so the vote has been put off until Tuesday, March 3. Hopefully the bill will pass the House then.
California Adopts Moratorium On Home Foreclosures
Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures. That’s great news for families struggling to keep their homes, but does it do enough?
A close examination of the law shows there are some significant loop holes for mortgage companies. They don’t have to comply with the moratorium if they are offering modifications to [...]
We Need To Stop Foreclosures NOW!
There is a new foreclosure in the United States every 13 seconds according to a report by the Center for Responsible Lending. That number is staggering. So is the number of families that have lost their home since January 1, 2009 alone (365,000 and growing).
The Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act is the [...]
Speak up now for a solution to foreclosures
The Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act is expected to come to the floor of the House as early as Wednesday February 25th. The bill will give bankruptcy judges the same power to modify mortages on family homes as they now have for vacation homes, apartment buildings, and commercial property.
The bill would give [...]
Why we need judicial mortgage modification
He was a little old man, standing alone before the bankruptcy judge in Oakland yesterday. The lender on his home sought the judge’s permission to foreclose on his house.
He told the judge that he had been working with the lender on a loan modification since September and had just gotten papers to complete in January. [...]
Troubled loans are often refinances
The emotional opposition to efforts to keep individual families in their homes through government intervention talks about homeowners who bought more house than they could afford.
My experience, as a bankruptcy specialist, is that far more of the troubled loans I see are refinances. These are people who “bought” the idea that equity in their home [...]
Obama Speech: Help For Homeowners
President Obama made a nice speech yesterday in Arizonian. He spoke about the mortgage crisis and the need to help homeowner. And he identified a new plan to do that.
The ideas presented focus on encouraging lenders to modify mortgages. It sounded, to some extent, like the same old rhetoric: “the mortgage companies can voluntary work [...]
Mortgage modification won’t increase cost of home loans
Opponents to legislation to allow bankruptcy judges to modify home mortgages scream that such a prospect would raise the cost of everyone’s home loans in the future. If contract isn’t sacrosanct, they argue, lenders will have to raise the interest rate to cover the risk. Pretty scary stuff, if true.
But the claim is wrong on [...]
Why we should care about those in foreclosure
One of the arguments against judicially supervised mortgage modification is that we should not “reward” those who took loans they cannot now afford. We should not rescue borrowers who overbought, goes the charge.
I see both policy arguments and personal observations for why we should care, and act, to make it possible for some of those [...]