Jesus (Jesse) Gonzalez, RDCPro

Are Liberal Progressive Government policies pushing America toward a Federal takeover of housing?

I know for many of us, this question seems crazy however, make no mistake, Progressive Liberals would love to see America provide housing to each and every person, citizen or not. In fact, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced this idea to America by including, "the right of every family to a decent home" as his 5^th right in his proposed Second Bill of Rights.

So, would it be possible for the Government to just take over the housing industry and, promise everyone a home? It is not only possible, it's happening and it's taking place under the guise of "Housing Recovery" and the instrument which will be used to do the takeover is TARP.

Back in October of 2008, TARP was used to stabilize the financial institutions after their delinquent mortgages they were holding came close to causing these banks to melt down. What many people don't realize is, this meltdown was a direct cause of Government regulation. I don't want to bore you with all the details however, all you need to do is bring up Google and type, Community Reinvestment Act. Read for yourself how the Fed's forced lenders to adopt risky loan practices and allowed community organizations similar to Acorn to dictate to these services how many loans they had to make and to whom they went to. I know that sounds crazy.....and, I am sure I am sounding like a broken record but, these banks and servicers didn't make risky loans because they were greedy, like the media have you believe, they did it because they were mandated to do it.

Why would the government allow citizens to dictate how a bank would give out loans? It's all part of the progressive evolution of this country. It was set into motion by F.D.R. Progressives knew they couldn't revolutionize our country, Americans lover freedom too much however, they knew they could slowly progress us away from our "inadequate" Bill of Rights and Constitution with small steps and Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and the Federal Reserve were all part of the larger picture. To put a chill down your spine, let me give you a quote to further my point.

Franklin Roosevelt said in his radio address to the nation in January 1944.

"This Republic (the United States of America) had its beginning and, grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights - among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however, - as our industrial economy expanded these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness."

You may not have known this was an agenda item on the Progressive left but, let me assure you, it is. It is my opinion, Progressive Liberals are using this Housing Crisis to their advantage. In fact, I am of the opinion that this crisis is engineered by Progressive Liberals. For those of you reading this thinking to yourself, it's not possible, it could never happen, well......have you seen this?

http://banking.senate.gov/public/_files/ChairmansMark31510AYO10306_xmlFinancialReformLegislationBill.pdf

It's a new bill being floated around, pay special attention to Title III, TRANSFER OF POWER TO THE COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY, THE CORPORATION, AND THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS. This bill is laying the groundwork for a true and complete takeover of the financial institutions and likewise, as exemplified with Bank of America, the Government will mandate to banks that they have to "forgive debt" or "lower payments". All that sounds good on its face value but, who do you think is paying for all this "forgiveness" and "lower payments"...........................YOU ARE, THE AMERICAN TAX PAYER.

Now, I do believe that President Obama is a FDR Progressive Liberal. I can give you quotes and examples of this, just let me know if you need them. Because he is a FDR Progressive Liberal, he believes everyone should have a decent home and he is going to use the American Tax Payer to redistribute the wealth of this country through the Progressive Liberal engineered Housing Crisis to make it happen. Did you read what the White House said yesterday? Just in case you missed it, let me tell you.

"The White House plans to announce on Friday that it will require lenders to lower the mortgage payments of some unemployed workers and encourage lenders to eliminate some principal debt of homeowners who owe more than their home is worth, sources familiar with the plan said Thursday."

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/government/update--white-house-announce-housing-aid-friday--sources-493713530/

All of that sounds great till you figure out who is paying for it. Make no mistake, I am all about helping the down and out, let's not forget, I know what it is like to live in a shelter for a year in six months. I know what it's like to have a single parent with 2 jobs and you as the eldest child had to take care of younger sibilings, I know what it's like to live with 5 people in a one room apartment in the worse part of town you can imagine...I know because I have personally been there. In fact, I still have family members that are still living that life and my heart breaks every single day for them but, no matter how hard things get, no matter how bad the outlook appears today, we are Americans, we love Freedom and Liberty and Roosevelt was wrong in 1944 and his Progressive Liberals are wrong today.

Homeownership is not a right, it is a privilege, an honor, an accomplishment, you have to work hard to own a home. In fact, because homeownership has been so easy for so many, I walk into homes that have been abandoned and abused because the homeowners didn't care or couldn't afford the maintenance on the home, either way.....it's wrong!

In an effort to disclose, let me first tell you that I am not a Bankruptcy Attorney....or any other type of Attorney for that matter. This blog is not to be interpreted as legal advice because, it's not. For legal advice you need to speak to a law professional. This blog is just my opinion and should be consider as nothing more.

In my opinion, the concept that Bankruptcy guarantees homeowners a stop to foreclosure is a myth! Let me explain why I have this opinion.

First off a creditor, your bank, can petition the court to remove the stay you received as protection from creditors when you filed for bankruptcy protection. In many cases, the moment the bank learns you filed for protection, they run to the court and ask for the stay to be lifted.

So, why would a court ever agree to this course of action suggested by the bank?

A simply reply, is because the bank has the right to ask and have their request considered fairly among the evidence provided to the court.

It also depends greatly on what type of bankruptcy protection you are under, if it's Chapter 7.....most likely the bank's request to lift the stay will be granted and that's because Chapter 7 bankruptcy isn't designed to protect you from foreclosure, sad but true. If you want a much better chance at protecting the home from foreclosure, you may want to consider Chapter 13 which puts you on a repayment plan and allows you to pay off your debts over time and therefore, gives homeowners a better chance of protecting the home however, either way....nothing is guaranteed.

Now, just because the bank request the stay to be lifted, it doesn't necessarily always mean it will be. The truth of the matter is, your Attorney will have arguments to the court, on your behalf, to keep the protection in place but, even then, nothing is guaranteed.

My point is, just because the bank request the stay to be lifted and just because your Attorney is going to argue against it, nothing and, I do mean nothing ever guarantees you will be able to stop foreclosure. It simply boils down to a variety of conditions such as, hardship, skill of the Attorney and the willingness of the court. Unfortunately, many times the homeowners' walk away wishing they never started the process from the beginning.

Ultimately all bankruptcy protection does is buy you some time. You will ultimately still find yourself across the table negotiating with you lender trying to save your home. Only this time, you are also having to pay Attorney fees.

A Short Sale may be a better option.

Regardless of your opinions on the necessity of the bank bailouts aka TARP, let us all agree they haven't worked. I am not sure any other industry knows this better than ours, the default industry because, we still see the direct effects of frozen credit markets, the shadow inventory and bank failures throughout this country.

At the quarterly report of the Special Inspector General's office, Neil Barfosky warned our country in a report to Congress that TARP only made things worse because ultimately it never addressed the underlying problems that created the financial crisis from the start. Think of it like this, let's say you break your leg and you are rushed to the Emergency Room for treatment. You get the x-ray and the diagnosis is, your leg is broke. The doctor prescribes some really good pain medicine and says, "Take 2 of these and call me in the morning" however, he never re-sets the leg or even puts it in a brace or cast. In other words, the doctor is just covering up the pain hoping you won't notice your leg still looks like the golden arches outside your local McDonalds. The worse part of this whole story is, instead of raising hell and getting a new doctor, one that can fix the problem, you end up riding a wheel chair out of the ER, a leg contorted like a Chineese Acrobat smiling and saying, "The pain medicine is necessary to prevent amputation; it will help me walk again". Ok, so.....the story is a bit absurd however, it really is what we did as a country, oh wait a minute, I forgot to add this part of the story.

So, it's 2 weeks later.....all you have been doing is popping pain pills left and right and, in fact, the pain seems to be getting worse. You start to notice you can't feel anything in your pinky toe so, it scares you and you go back to the Emergency Room but, this time you go to a different hospital because, deep down inside you're not to sure that other doctor knew what he was doing.

The new doctor is dismayed, shocked, stunned, repulsed and even angry at what the ignorant, incompetent, doctor did to you. He goes on to tell you, that now, the bone has started healing, in the shape of an arch and to fix the problem, they will have to re-brake it, do surgery to fix nerve and vessel damage and potentially, you could loose the leg due to infection setting in. The doctor explains to you that the broke leg was never "fixed" and now the damage has had time to fester and cause more damage than originally. So, the cure is going to be worse than if it was all handled correctly the first time.

Pay special attention to that last line, "The cure is going to be worse than if it was all handled correctly the first time."..............this line is very important because, we were all told by our leaders in Washington that the financial crisis would have been another Great Depression, double digit unemployment (oh wait, we have that now), bankers jumping from their windows (haven't heard of this yet) and soup kitchens with lines three blocks down (maybe sooner than I thought). So, if that is what we averted by simply taking pain pills (TARP) and now it's potentially worse than before because the problems were never fixed.........................AAGGHHHH! ARMAGEDDON!?!?

Well, I don't know if it will be Armageddon but, as I have always maintained, TARP was never a fix.....it was just a pain pill and, it seems our leadership in Washington is now a prescription drug addict with a couple TRILLIONS dollar habit and is looking for their next fix!

Make no mistake America, we did this to ourselves......go all the way back and Google the Community Reinvestment Act, see how Barney Frank and the GSE's screwed this country so bad that now we poo sideways. Make no mistake, plenty of blame to go around. Democrats are the only party guilty of this. Progressivism is the problem, this idea we can move beyond our Constitution, this concept of wealth re-distribution but, I digress.

Here is the reality. We never fixed the problems with the banks, all we did is momentarily stop the pain. Now, the pain pills are loosing their effectiveness and either we go and get better pain pills or we head into surgery, re-brake, re -re-set and fix the problem once and for all however, I have one question to ask you....just one.

ARE YOU SURE THE DOCTORS WE HAVE ADDRESSING THE BREAK ARE UP TO THE JOB?

You may re-post this blog as long as you give me the credit for writting it.

Thanks for reading.

1. Unemployment: Until people have the income to afford their mortgages, we will not see a recovery in the housing market. I believe a direct correlation exist between unemployment and mortgage defaults, the higher unemployment gets the more defaults we will see. This ultimately leads to more inventory and of course, lower home prices.
2. Tightening Credit Standards: The harder it gets for people to obtain the necessary credit to purchase a home the slower it will take to reduce the inventory we have. Make no mistake, I don't believe in loosening credit standards for the sake of it but, it's a fact that if people can't get credit, inventory won't reduce quickly and therefore slowing if not halting a housing recovery.
3. Artificial Government Inventory Control: In other words, arbitrary influence by the Government to keep unworthy homeowners in their homes at all cost. Make no mistake, this is housing inventory control in the most negative way. I have GSE Investor loan reinstatements after foreclosure on my desk right now where Fannie / Freddie is offering to reinstate a homeowners loan where they will consider unemployment benefits as income........seriously!
4. Energy Prices: Did you realize that you are paying .86 cents more for gas this week than you were this same week last year? Most likely you haven't noticed because we have all been pre-occupied with the nations job losses, underwear bombers, Massachusetts election, and Washington bleeding red ink. You may not have actively noticed it but, if energy prices continue to rise people will have less discretionary spending and that pulls buyers out of the market and couple this with Great Depression level unemployment and we end up with more housing inventory.
5. Risk of Hyperinflation: As the US currency continues to looses value against it's competitors we find ourselves having no other choice but to increase inflation. If the Government continues to spend / make money with less and less value people refuse to hold onto the Dollar and start to move their assets into other currencies or metals and therefore an uncontrollable rise of inflation begins.

Hermitage Tennessee Housing Statistic Report

January 10, 2010

For December 1 - 31, 2009

Of these 35 homes, they accounted for $6,737,627 in listings and 6,578,475 in closings for a 98% List to Sale Ratio. In other words, In Hermitage, homeowners are getting 98% of their list price on average.

10 out of the 35 or 28.57% of the homes sold were Foreclosures or Short. To look at this another way, that means, Hermitage had closed $1,879,470.31in default homes in December '09, almost a third of the closings were distressed homes.

The lowest sale was $55,000.00 MLS # 1118224 located at 405 Rockwood Dr.

The highest sale was $399,985.00 MLS # 1095196 located at 4721 Medalist Circle Lot 111.

The subdivisions Hermitage Hills and Hermitage Meadows had the most closings with 3 each.