HOW FAR FROM HOUSTON? David Streitfeld tracks down the foreclosure on a $75,000 Denmark, Maine, house that sparked the recent robo-signing crisis: “Mr. Cox realized almost immediately that Mrs. Bradbury’s foreclosure file did not look right. The documents from the lender, GMAC Mortgage, were approved by an employee whose title was ‘limited signing officer,’ an indication to the lawyer that his knowledge of the case was effectively nonexistent. . . . Fannie Mae and GMAC, which serviced the loan for Fannie, have now most likely spent more to dislodge Mrs. Bradbury than her house is worth. Yet for all their efforts, they are not only losing this case, but also potentially laying the groundwork for foreclosure challenges nationwide.” [NY Times; previously on Swamplot]
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What crisis!!! Pay your mortgage!! The banks don’t want your house. The would much rather have the interest rate than the asset. People pay your bills!!!!!!! And quit looking for a bail out!
If it weren’t going to cost everyone so much money, this would be hilarious. Loan servicers are getting in trouble for robo-signing forclosures on delinquent borrowers, but Congress can robo-sign Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, etc. without reading any of them. USA! USA!
If you read the article carefully, you’d note that the loan servicer is majority-owned by the government, so your comparison isn’t the one you think it is. Plus, how is this going to cost us money? Delaying the flow of foreclosures will likely help property values by stemming the oversupply of distressed properties.
More fraud from the banksters.
They sliced and diced all those sub-prime mortgages for securitization and now nobody knows who holds title to what.
Brilliant!
LOL Andrew although GMAC is owned by the government, it isn’t the only one under scrutiny for this. And to the extent that they are a government body, it actually strengthens the criticism of Congress’ robo-signing.
Anything that prevents the market from clearing will cost most people money (okay, probably not “EVERYONE”) by making the market far less efficient. The longer this drags out, the more (not less, as you assert), housing inventory will be out there because it prevents transactions clearing the inventory of homes people decided to stop paying for. Buyers will be smart enough to know this inventory is still out there waiting to crush prices when it is eventually cleared, and so those buyers will pay less today even though the foreclosure properties aren’t being marketed currently. And although I think one positive that will eventually come out of this is a modernization of our title recording procedures, the uncertainty this creates along the way can only depress prices and liquidity.
Keeping properties off the market is just more of the same kind of can-kicking that keeps the housing market crippled (how’d that fake demand from the tax credit work out?)
This is a good time to put in some ridiculous short sale offers and the banks would rather take that then wait 6 more months for a foreclosure. I was able to pickup an investment property appraised (today’s price) at $112K for $60k on a short sale.
really sucks these banks were careless/stupid enough to break the law like this, but the real problem is these properties (with a few exceptions) do need to go into foreclosure or the market is screwed. this also puts a huge liability on the banks which in turn means the taxpayers will be footing the bill if the ball drops.