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]
“And What, a decline in real estate values does not signal the APOCALYPSE. Get a grip.”
No you get one! I know it’s hard to reach the brainwashed masses. Financial System is in TROUBLE! Stop watching CSI. Read the Wall Street Journal, they have some great stories on Real Estate.
BTW My cave is paid off, got real cheap. It’s even has a built in strip club.
The What
Someday this war is gonna end………..
This is Dostoevsky’s Underground Man.
3:12 is a fool.
Thank you.
If you think the What makes more sense than MM, you could consider therapy.
And What, a decline in real estate values does not signal the APOCALYPSE. Get a grip.
Whenever What posts, I picture him writhing in some dark cave like Dostoevsky’s underground man, except What is writhing over mortgages, rather than existential angst.
I never thought i woudl see the day when “The What” makes more sense than Montrose “I have an agenda” Morris
Someday this war will probably end…….
12:27 PM,1:09 PM,copy_gal, Mr. Doran and esp. Montrose Morris,
Finally, more than just your average discussion of “parlor floor kitchen vs. ground floor kitchenâ€, comments from RE brokers transparently trying to boost their listings or rather incoherent (though not always dismissible) rantings from Monsieur Le What.
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Most Sincerely,
FortGreener
PS And here’s something else to chew on:
Where’s mention that a LARGE portion of bankruptcies in the US in recent years have caused by medical bills? [And Congress made it even harder to file for bankruptcy, as you should all know, so let’s not call it “bankruptcy†any longer…maybe just “personal financial failureâ€.] The actual percentage caused by medical bills is debatable but it is NOT negligible. I lived in a country with national healthcare and never heard of anyone there going into poverty due to the cost (or cost-sharing, co-pays, deductibles or what-have-yous) for their medications, surgeries, or other debatably life-supporting therapies prescribed by docs. Back in the Land of Debt though, many who end up in financial failure or on the brink of it, have probably no other resource of real value to tap into except their home…this often occurring in a time of personal trauma/stress. It has been widely studied that people of color and lower income face major illnesses earlier and die younger than their white and relatively wealthier counterparts. In fact, it is said African American men pay into Social Security but collect very little per capita due to mortality as compared to others. People who may not have health insurance and who fall ill before age 65-Medicare eligibility and even people who do have health insurance but have many out-of-pocket costs (both well- and under-insured people) may very well not have enough savings or other cash-convertible resources at hand. Thus, they turn to mortgage brokers if they own a home in this time of real estate value run-ups. And yes, the ads have been everywhere: “Consolidate your debt…come to us for a new mortgage…pay $500/month for a 200K mortgage†and other such horrors. I speak in “inpersonals†but have first-hand experience.
I think people wont have to worry much longer. Our financial system is in big trouble. The Mutant Real Estate Bubble was set up to bring change.To put people in perpetual debt, which they cant repay. You will NEVER pay off you mortgages, I MEAN EVER! This is not a black or white thing, it’s a dumbass thing. Chucky or Joe Six Pack or whatever you call him is FUCKED. You pension plans, 401k’s, savings are in big trouble. 4 Trillion dollars of money wasted in Real Estate and when not if it blows up, you will be left penniless and homeless.
BTW Bring it on Grammar Nazis.
The What
Someday this war WILL end…….
The real estate industry in New York is corrupt and unusually malevolent. If you can’t stand the heat, don’t get too close to the AGA.
Thank you Montrose Morris for your well written posts. You saved me the time from writing it myself and I could not have said it better. My parents and grandparents who came up from the South and the West Indies made off good when they sold their homes in BedStuy and Park Slope and then moved back South and to Barbados. But many of their neoghbors who worked just as hard as they did and who they were no smarter than they were didn’t. My grandparents were blessed to have children and grandchildren who were there to protect them from fraudulent schemes. Very important point that you made, held true in my family. My grandparents had to buy their house all cash in the 1950’s as did most of their neighbors until the mid 1970’s because Bed Stuy was redlined. On the other hand the family that my grnadmother worked for in Bay Ridge placed a small down payment on their home and secured a mortgage for the rest.
Besides which, 1:25, your post implies that ALL someone has to do, is sell. What if you don’t want to sell? What if you have been paying for, and now live mortgage free in your house for the last 40 years, and you want to die in your house? But you need some of that equity that you are entitled to be able to draw on?
Higher income people draw on their equity everyday, and don’t sell. It is possible for even someone on a limited and fixed income to borrow on their equity and be able to pay it back, provided they were sold an above board loan from an honest broker, with terms that they can afford. The problem is that too many of these loans are not honest and above board, hence foreclosure.
The couple you bought your house from are the recipients of well deserved profits from their investment. But they chose to sell, not everyone wants to.
As we speak, I am listening to a radio ad advertising loans to people with bad credit, through refinance. It’s everywhere, including the NYT classical station WQXR. The entire mortgage business needs to be better regulated, and the scum scooped off and discarded. It’s disgraceful.