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Home foreclosure tour a success

Submitted by WWAY on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 4:58pm.READ MORE:
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Saturday's foreclosure tour is helping get foreclosed homes off the market. Over the weekend 65 financially qualified buyers met with a couple of local realtors to tour 13 foreclosed homes in Carolina Beach. Since the tour, 10 people have moved toward buying a home. Realtors expect to have 8 of the 13 foreclosed homes sold within the next few weeks. With each sale, at least 10 local professionals are put to work. "You have a home inspector, a termite inspector, the mortgage company, the underwriters, the processors. So one closing generates a lot of income for other professionals in the market place," said Faye Brock of Century 21. Realtors say the tour was a huge success. Some potential buyers say they want to buy now because many of the homes cost half of what they did in 2005. 30 people want to take the next foreclosure tour through Brunswick County in January.

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Hey, this sounds great! If

Submitted by HouseFlipper (not verified) on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 10:08am.
Hey, this sounds great! If the economy keeps on the way it is going maybe we could get some full sized tour buses to take people around. Someday it will be to the point over half of the houses on any given street are in foreclosure. Great buying opportunities abound! But---who will be left to buy?
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tour

Submitted by Guest555 (not verified) on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 8:37am.
I find this disturbing that instead of trying to help people, families who possibly had children stay in their homes you sales people are paradeing around with buyers making your commission checks. How do you sleep at night? You should be ashamed of yourselves! Even the buyers, how do you feel ggod about taking away from families?
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Lost Equity

Submitted by Tums & Rolaids sandwich (not verified) on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 11:55am.
A few, if not many of these families being foreclosed on are victims of predatory lending practices committed by very deceptive mortgage brokers and closing attorneys. It is no secret that the FBI is looking into a good number of these loans and putting some people in prison. Others being foreclosed on were speculators, much like Senator Boseman that got caught when the market froze and property could not be flipped as it was in the old days. But again, like Sen Boseman these loans were given to people with little to no income (Boseman testified in court her income was $40,000) with interest only loans. These loans weren't meant to be kept for more than a year or two when the ARM adjusted to upwards of 14%. My daughter bought her first house for $175,000 and her payments started out at $1,050/month. Now 4 years later her payments are about $2,000/month at 12% interest. She can't sell her house because no one is buying and if she allows it to go into foreclosure she will lose her equity and all the improvements. She can not refinance because her income is not high enough. They are requring her to have an income of over $50,000 or to find a co-signer. There is more to the foreclosure industry than people who refuse to pay their bills or buyer beware. Some people were sold these mortgages as solutions to problems. Real estate people, mortgage brokers and attorneys all made money off of selling these mortgages.
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I agree with you, when real

Submitted by Guest787878 (not verified) on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 2:33pm.
I agree with you, when real estate agents, mortgage banks, etc. were not making money they come up with all of these "get rich plans" - they don't care about the way things will work out for the consumer, just themselves. Well now we can see where it has caused issues for everyone concerned. Hopefully many lessons will be learned and things can be corrected, I hope that we can do it right this time.
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reply

Submitted by Martha newell (not verified) on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 6:23pm.
How can you not think that selling these houses keep your tax dollars down? Realtors are doing their job. They know if they are not sold, it will only bring down the community. Buying homes provide more tax base to the towns. The banks rid of these houses so they won't be damaged, squatters not move into them and destroy the homes. If these forclosures are not moved, your house will continue to go down down down. Take a course in basic Econ 101. Yes, the realtors are sleeping at night...and you should be thanking them! You should be upset with those that purchased homes that they DID NOT QUALIFY FOR and so stupid about ownerhship. Don't blame the raltors.
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Moral of the story

Submitted by Commonsensenotc... on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 2:28pm.
"If you're too lazy or stupid to read the loan documents, don't sign them." I'll believe the first report of PREDATORY lending as soon as someone shows me a case where a buyer was held at gunpoint and forced to sign the loan document. BTW, by law, any amount obtained at sale of the foreclosed property in excess of the amount of the note (and the additional expenses related to foreclosure) must be credited to the original owner who defaulted. However, if your daughter is upside down, i.e., liable for a note the amount of which exceeds the value of the home at resale, there IS no equity to lose.
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Equity from a courthouse foreclosure sale?

Submitted by Tums & Rolaids (not verified) on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 6:07pm.
What equity is there in a forced sale on the courthouse steps? Most foreclosed homes go for 75% of value. It is a forced sale, you can't sit on it for 6-12 months waiting for a buyer. And my daughter bought her first home 3 years ago, never missed a payment or was late. Her husband and her both work. They are 28 and 29 yrs old. Their combined net income is $42,000. They have $12,000 in debt, mostly school loans. The loan document was 62 pages. The attorney (who is running for office) never said a word about the loan. My daughter was told that it would be a 30 yr fixed rate. On the day of closing the terms were changed to an ARM. They signed anyway. Were told they could refinance in 2 years with a small penalty. Turned out to be a 50% penalty. As I mentioned they can't refinance. They can't sell the home. And they are stupid to pay $2000 a month for something they could rent for $900 a month. The real equity is in the repairs ($5,000 on roof), new appliances ($3,000) and a new HVAC system ($2,000). Those were paid for by me and my wife on a second mortgage on our home which pinched me and my credit pretty hard. Of course kids being kids, they never said anything about the mess they were in until 3 months ago. The only way out for them is to allow the home to go into foreclosure unless they can somehow hang on until the economy turns around and they can sell it otherwise they have 90 days and they have to find a new place. I asked some people in church to buy it and rent it back to them and so that's a possibility. I even went to my company and asked for help and was told there is no way. This foreclosure problem is effecting good people who think that people are looking out for you when they are actually taking you to the cleaners. These people knew what they were doing. they knew a large majority of their customers would default. The banks knew they could hide the problem and lobby for money from congress, 700 billion. Nobody is lazy, just trusting.
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"They signed anyway."

Submitted by Commonsensenotc... on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 10:33pm.
The prosecution rests, your honor. That's the same as saying, "The snake started rattling, but I decided to pet it anyway." Look at the positive side - they learned an important lesson, and will never "sign anyway" ever again, in any circumstance They have hopefully learned an even more important lesson, and that is when it comes to financial matters, TRUST NO ONE. Get it in writing and READ the writing three times, just to make sure that it really says what you think it says. A LOT of the money exchanging hands in this world is caused by people banking on the fact that you won't read the fine print. They depend upon the, "gotcha!" I learned my lesson a few years ago. AmEx, launching some new card called "Blue" offered me a $25k interest-free, transaction-fee-free convenience check as long as I paid it back in one year. I did, which obviously caused them to become more creative. They offered me another interest-free, transaction-fee-free convenience check for twelve months, which I immediately accepted again. However I skipped reading the fine print. "Hey, the last one worked fine...what could possibly go wrong this time?" Ah, but this time there was a requirement that I use the associated credit card within ninety days or the an APR of 4.99% would attach to the convenience check. Since I only use one credit card, and pay it off every month, I didn't use the AmEx Blue card, and was shocked to see a finance charge appear in the fourth billing month. I called AmEx, found out exactly what happened and paid the balance off immediately. I also canceled the Blue card AND my regular Amex card, which I had had since 1984. So they made $71 dollars in interest and lost a customer for life. Moral? Don't trust anyone and ALWAYS read the fine print. Yes, you may say "Huh?" a dozen times, but no one has ever died from re-reading boring legalese gobble-de-gook a few times. I'll bet that right now, your daughter wishes that they had read the loan documents.... ...and I sincerely hope that everything turns out okay for them.
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Please tell me that you're a troll...

Submitted by Commonsensenotc... on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 9:34am.
...and that you suckered me in really well. Because if you're not, welcome to REAL LIFE, Barney. Here's something you don't seem to understand - credit, whether it's a car loan, personal loan, credit card, or even a mortgage is based upon a requirement to pay the creditor back. If you can't pay the loan back you don't get a free pass. You don't get a free house. If you can't pay the loan back, the creditor has legal rights to protect himself, one of which is foreclosing on your home, kicking your dead-beat butt out, and selling it to someone who WILL pay the loan off. God help this country, if people with your brain are allowed to vote. (Uh....again, if you're a troll, good work.)
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You are the troll

Submitted by Guest787878 (not verified) on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 12:40pm.
I didn't read anything about living in a free house, some people did not use credit to their advantage that is true. Bad Times can also come from a person with major medical problems, it can come from a person losing a job, not everyone is able to save away tons of money, most people live paycheck to paycheck, you don't know that every single person losing a house deserves to. Here is something you need to learn - compassion, humanity, love for one another, with people like you around our world will never change. Oh and by the way, in case you are wondering, I have a good job, a good family and a house - I also volunteer at my son's school and I help out people around me who need it - I don't spend the day commenting on them trying to sound like someone who thinks they have "commonsense".
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I admire your compassion...

Submitted by Commonsensenotc... on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 2:39pm.
Now tell me, how does it alter the legal right of a creditor to do what is necessary to recoup his money? Should Wells Fargo say, "Ah, just pay us when you can?" Here's what you fail to grasp - emotions, compassion, humanity, love.....they have NOTHING to do with contract law. If you stop paying your mortgage, the people who lent you the money have a legal right to pursue foreclosure, re-sell the property, and recover as much as they can. Here's something else you likely miss - "the people who lent you that money" are often the millions of shareholders who own stock in the creditor. So Wells Fargo CAN'T say, "Ah, just pay us when you can," because they are legally bound to protect the shareholders' investments. If you fall on hard times you can often renegotiate a longer term at a higher interest rate, though the current credit situation is making that extremely difficult for people without a ton of equity and an immaculate credit score. BTW, I don't CARE what you do, and please don't lose any sleep worrying about what I do.
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Oh believe me you will be

Submitted by Guest787878 (not verified) on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 6:05pm.
Oh believe me you will be the last thing on my mind when I go to sleep. Just appears to me that you like to talk down to people less fortunate than others, as I have seen your posts in other areas. People don't comment to get put down by someone else, they comment to release frustration or on a good story release some happiness. I know that emotions have nothing to do with law, I also know that unfortunately people will sign contracts thinking they can make it, nobody buys a house with the knowledge they can't afford it, they buy it with outlook that they will work as hard as they can to keep it, sometimes things arise that they just can't handle. This is my last response as I know you are not capable of feeling any emotion, I feel sorry for you.
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Toughen up

Submitted by Commonsensenotc... on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 11:01pm.
I fully admit that when it comes to emotions, I make Mister Spock look like a gushing sob-sister. I also understand that people sometimes simply want to gripe. Now try to see where I'm coming from. I believe that the greatest danger facing this country is from people refusing to take responsibility for what happens in their own life. Maybe I'm too cold, too hard, too in your face, but I am a lone voice crying in a wilderness of coddlers and enablers, that YOU are responsible for YOUR life; every single facet of your life. You better be ready for whatever comes along, because every single one of us will face hardships and obstacles. You get over them, you get around them, but somehow you get past them and you continue to march on. In my life I have been dirt poor, rich, poor again, filthy-rich, and now I'm somewhere in the middle. Throughout fifty-six years of that adventure, one thing has held true - the quality of your life is what YOU make it. 94% of the mortgages in this country are being paid on time by people who are managing their lives and finances well. Of the 6% in foreclosure or about to enter foreclosure, over 60% are real estate speculators who got caught with their pants down when the housing values collapsed. That means that in the current "nightmare" (of our own creation) only about two percent of the mortages in this country are resulting in forclosures that actually push families from their homes. Even in those cases, however, those families likely made bad choices. If you lose your home because of a layoff, did you sit on it too long? If you knew that you couldn't make the payments without a regular paycheck, should you have listed it immediately upon losing your job? Medical expenses? Why do you own a home but not have adequate insurance? Would you not have done better by renting somewhere and having good health insurance? My point is very simple. You can't wander aimlessly through life, trusting to luck, hoping, praying, and then finding that you're up to your neck in doo-doo when it hits the fan. You should not make a single major decision in life without having an adequate plan and an adequate fall-back plan. I'm sorry if that message irritates you, but that message is needed more than ever in this country. The polls say that on November 4th we will make the "Oh, don't worry about it. We'll fix all your mistakes" our official policy of how we do business in this country.... ...and once everyone starts to believe that they can fall on their sword consistently with no ramifications or heartache, God help this nation.
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more of the same

Submitted by Guest470 (not verified) on Tue, 10/28/2008 - 9:18am.
Here we go with the liberal minds. Its everybody else who is in the wrong. Not the ones who got in over their head. The salespeople are providing for their families. To bad the ones losing their homes could not figure out how to do that for their own families. People need to stand up and be held responsible for their bad decisions!!!
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Foreclosure tour

Submitted by Joe (not verified) on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 8:19pm.
I'm just curious how i find out somemore information about this local home foreclosure tour? Thanks!
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Call Century 21 Brock

Submitted by Guestamp (not verified) on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 9:05pm.
Call Century 21 Brock
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