Grim Perspective on Mortgage Crisis in Poor Nabes
Former FT scribe and Bed Stuy resident James Doran has a powerful piece on WNYC this morning about how the combination of lending abuse and outright fraud are combining to hit the borough’s poorer neighborhoods like Bed Stuy and East New York particularly hard. I wish I could say that the worst is over but…
Former FT scribe and Bed Stuy resident James Doran has a powerful piece on WNYC this morning about how the combination of lending abuse and outright fraud are combining to hit the borough’s poorer neighborhoods like Bed Stuy and East New York particularly hard. I wish I could say that the worst is over but the projections for NYC are not good,”says Sarah Ludwig, director of Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP). “What you see is that the foreclosure actions filed are overwhelmingly concentrated in New York’s neighborhoods of color.” Doran reports that the number of mortgage fraud cases on the FBI’s plate quadrupled over the past year. One victim is James LeSure, who’s on the verge of losing the building he’s owned on Bushwich Avenue since 1969. After paying off his mortgage completely, LeSure refinanced a few years ago when, with medical bills starting to pile up, he received a cold-call from a mortgage broker promising to solve all his problems with an expensive ARM that would, the broker said, be refinanced into a fixed-rate loan within a few months. That never happened, and now LeSure is in the process of having his one asset taken away from him. New York Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) did one study of Bed Stuy that “almost every other house on the block had risky loans that were likely to default.” Update: The transcript and audio are now available on the link.
Housing Crisis Hits City Hard [WNYC]
NEDAP: Foreclosure Map [WNYC]
Dear The What,
Please read this info on reverse mortgages, ignoramus. (There are 9 or 10 separate “Chapters” to go through.) FYI, The loan WON’T recast, at least it won’t if its a legitimate reverse mortgage.
And stop calling people “fucktards.” It’s unbecoming of you.
http://www.aarp.org/learntech/personal_finance/Articles/a2003-05-12-homemademoney.html
“Dear The What,
This claim of yours about reverse mortgages is absolute bullshit. You clearly know very little, if anything, about reverse mortgages or how they work…
The reality is that Reverse mortgages probably would have helped a huge majority of the people who we’re talking about here – those that got fucked over with shitty adjustable refi mortgages sold by cretinous slimy ooze bags…
At this point, having read dozens of your posts, I have to say there is usually very little and often NO credibility in anything you claim. (Other than the government sucks and doesn’t care about its citizens and is propping up the economy and wall street to keep the machine humming – I’ll agree with your sentiments there. But really, come on now already. Please tell us something we don’t know…)
Anyway, you are now officially hereby OUTED from me on your ignorance of reverse mortgages and how they work.
You don’t know jack shit about them.
Sorry if that hurts – have a great night…
Posted by: guest at October 23, 2007 10:07 PM
Brownstoner is meaningless. You are all losers.
Posted by: guest at October 23, 2007 10:25 PM
how can someone with “cash in hand” help some these poor victims? I talking buy out not charity.”
If the Reverse Mortgage is more than the value of the house, The loan will recast FUCKTARD!
I bet you done screwed plenty of seniors into this shit. Now go away, never write the words ‘The What’. Do some cold blowing er, cold calling.
The What
Someday this war will end…
“Anyway, you are now officially hereby OUTED from me on your ignorance of reverse mortgages and how they work.
You don’t know jack shit about them.
Sorry if that hurts – have a great night…”
Go blow a baseball bat!
The What
Someday this baseball bat will end!!!!
how can someone with “cash in hand” help some these poor victims? I talking buy out not charity.
Brownstoner is meaningless. You are all losers.
Posted by The What:
Did you know if the value of your house goes down, the “Reverse mortgage” RECAST ITSELF!. Then it turns into a full mortgage that has to be paid back. Reverse mortgages are crack for senior citizens! Do you think Mortgage Brokers and Banks have been honest with senior citizens!!!?? Guess what that is???!!!! More ways to fuck over people.
The What
Someday this war will end……..
Posted by: guest at October 23, 2007 3:55 PM
Dear The What,
This claim of yours about reverse mortgages is absolute bullshit. You clearly know very little, if anything, about reverse mortgages or how they work…
The reality is that Reverse mortgages probably would have helped a huge majority of the people who we’re talking about here – those that got fucked over with shitty adjustable refi mortgages sold by cretinous slimy ooze bags…
At this point, having read dozens of your posts, I have to say there is usually very little and often NO credibility in anything you claim. (Other than the government sucks and doesn’t care about its citizens and is propping up the economy and wall street to keep the machine humming – I’ll agree with your sentiments there. But really, come on now already. Please tell us something we don’t know…)
Anyway, you are now officially hereby OUTED from me on your ignorance of reverse mortgages and how they work.
You don’t know jack shit about them.
Sorry if that hurts – have a great night…
6:44,
Fact:
Average American wage has been stagnant for the past 5-8 years, barely keeping up with inflation. Doesn’t that count for something?
Fact:
Average Chinese income has doubled in the past 5-8 years, adjusted for inflation and expected to double again in the next 5 years.
Dollar has been plunging…meaning avg Americans can afford less and less at Walmart and Target with the same income that they had 5-6 years ago. The Chinese workers are demanding more and more pay each pasting day and, foods, commodities, oil, etc. are all UP like CRAZY! Inflation is coming BIG TIME!
6:44…Simply put: Foreclosures are up. The thread is based on the reports that have recently come out and James Doran’s article/transcript. Sure, some of us are still floating along, but for a lot of people, these are really hard times. Things may not be collapsing for you, but they have been for large segments of the population. In fact, an argument could be made that standards of living have been slipping since Reagan came in.
Some of us are aware that most of the US food banks recently celebrated their 25th anniversary…all at the same time. This is because they were all started at the same time thanks to wonderful Reagan social cuts. Now, worse than ever, the stress on these food banks’ resources has flown off the charts. So, yes, 6:44, for the bourgeois among us (and I’m a bouge, too, grammar snobbery and all), it’s hard to sense what is going on for “the other half”.
Not knowing the average age of the readers of this blog, I have a feeling that many were not adults in the 80’s so they may not have been aware/noticed any difference or felt the impact from that huge numbers of residents and patients from long-term care facilities for the mentally and psychologically challenged who were dumped out on the streets as Federal funding was slashed and facilities were forced to close. Homelessness soared. There was a feeling of social tragedy: another run-up in the real estate and stock markets while the poor kept getting poorer and the middle class started on that long slide into night. Nothing much new twenty years later…
Ever wonder why commercial free PBS is chock full of commercials? Thank the beginning of cuts which started in the 80’s. That’s just a light example…worse hit are all the social programs and non-profits that have been hit with a double whammy of government cuts and then private monies trying to fill an ever expanding need. That’s why you can what SUV ads one after the other on PBS. In the 70’s there was NO commercial advertising. Heck, PBS is getting to be like AMC was before it started cutting into movies with commercials…just had them before and after.
Social programs have never made it back to where they were but have only been hacked away at more. Many vibrant aspects and the (apparent) stability of the US I grew up in have disappeared.
Then again, given all the cyclical layoffs, downsizing, etc. all lot of the post-boomer set of bouges like myself and the boomlets are experiencing a more unstable, less well-paid environment as that our parents may have enjoyed. It’s hard to realize that it wasn’t like this for the past generation. The studies are there. Today we can expect to be jostled between many jobs and even fields during our working careers. This does not help with “vesting†in pensions, etc. and when you look at poorer people, they are having even harder times in this current state of job insecurity.
Yes, 6:24 PM,
I laughed at my clause-and-effect too when I reread my post…once it was already up on the blog…whoops! But thanks for noticing…thank goodness there are still some close readers out there.
FortGreener