When I shake open the NYT of a morning, delighting in the fresh creases, scanning what's above the line, and what's below, it's doggone rare for me to start the day by reading the business section.
Good thing that I read the free, online version -- where this alluring headline jumped off the computer screen and down my throat. I *despise* these people with a passion, apparently. Who knew? Which people, exactly? Well, I have tended to cast the net wide.
Okay, so it took pastoral counseling and several exorcisms for me to be able to wish well all the folks who took out ridiculous, unaffordable mortgages, thinking... thinking? Thinking what? I've never gotten a good handle on what these people were thinking, if they were thinking at all.
Good thing that I read the free, online version -- where this alluring headline jumped off the computer screen and down my throat. I *despise* these people with a passion, apparently. Who knew? Which people, exactly? Well, I have tended to cast the net wide.
Okay, so it took pastoral counseling and several exorcisms for me to be able to wish well all the folks who took out ridiculous, unaffordable mortgages, thinking... thinking? Thinking what? I've never gotten a good handle on what these people were thinking, if they were thinking at all.
The Fredster is more open than I am in laying the primary blame at the feet of The Scuzbags who brokered all those fraudulent mortgages. I mean, if they hadn't come along, we never would have found out about the various lacunae threatening to bring down our entire economy, as well as negatively impacting global financial health. Right?
I have fond memories of my investment account...
Chhhoooooooooooooooo!
Still, after having my head do a few 360s, and spewing what might have been creamed peas, I came to accept that good people do stupid things, and I managed to be truly glad that they were being assisted in keeping their homes and reestablishing their credit. (Yes, even as we struggle to make the payments on Our Manor, Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé -- not that we claim ownership, no -- we simply have lost touch with Captain Haddock, last seen at Bongi's place). The Captain mortgaged The Manor to fund his latest swashbuckling adventures on the High Seas, and to keep him in his cups. We're positive that he'll be sending us some money very soon.
Chhhoooooooooooooooo!
Still, after having my head do a few 360s, and spewing what might have been creamed peas, I came to accept that good people do stupid things, and I managed to be truly glad that they were being assisted in keeping their homes and reestablishing their credit. (Yes, even as we struggle to make the payments on Our Manor, Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé -- not that we claim ownership, no -- we simply have lost touch with Captain Haddock, last seen at Bongi's place). The Captain mortgaged The Manor to fund his latest swashbuckling adventures on the High Seas, and to keep him in his cups. We're positive that he'll be sending us some money very soon.
Back to the lesson of gladness. I don't mean to beat you over the head with it, I mean to beat myself over the head with it! Because I have a hard time, sadly, being glad that someone else is being helped, when I am not. That's an embarrassing admission. The first thing to realize? It's not about you, it's about someone else, and this someone else is in need.
Still, I had hoped that this would be game over and lesson learned, and that we'd not see such financial irresponsibility again, at least not on such a scale.
Cashing In, Again, on Risky Mortgages
By PETER S. GOODMAN
Published: July 19, 2009
LOS ANGELES — From the ninth floor of a downtown office building on Wilshire Boulevard, Jack Soussana delivered staggering numbers of mortgages to homeowners during the real estate boom, amassing a fortune.
By Mr. Soussana’s own account, his customers fared less happily. He specialized in the exotic mortgages that have proved most prone to sliding into foreclosure, leaving many now scrambling to save their homes.
Yet the dangers assailing Mr. Soussana’s clients have yielded fresh business for him: Late last year, he and his team — ensconced in the same office where they used to broker mortgages — began working for a loan modification company. For fees reaching $3,495, with most of the money collected upfront, they promised to negotiate with lenders to lower payments on the now-delinquent mortgages they and their counterparts had sprinkled liberally across Southern California.
“We just changed the script and changed the product we were selling,” said Mr. Soussana, who ran the Los Angeles sales office of Federal Loan Modification Law Center. The new script: You got a raw deal, and “Now, we’re able to help you out because we understand your lender.”
Mr. Soussana’s partners at FedMod, as the company is known, were also products of the formerly lucrative world of high-risk lending. The managing partner, Nabile Anz, known as Bill, previously co-owned Mortgage Link, a California subprime lender, now defunct, that once sold $30 million worth of loans a month.
Jeffrey Broughton, one of FedMod’s initial partners, served as director of business development at Pacific First Mortgage, a lender that extended so-called Alt-A mortgages for borrowers with tarnished credit for Countrywide Financial, which lost billions of dollars on bad mortgages before being rescued in an acquisition.
FedMod is but one example of how many of the same people who dispensed risky mortgages during the real estate bubble have reconstituted themselves into a new industry focused on selling loan modifications.
Despite making promises of relief to homeowners desperate to keep their homes, FedMod and other profit making loan modification firms often fail to deliver, according to a New York Times investigation based on interviews with scores of former employees and customers, more than 650 complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau, and documents filed by the Federal Trade Commission in a lawsuit against the company...
Read the rest here. I think there will be more to come.
Cashing In, Again, on Risky Mortgages
By PETER S. GOODMAN
Published: July 19, 2009
LOS ANGELES — From the ninth floor of a downtown office building on Wilshire Boulevard, Jack Soussana delivered staggering numbers of mortgages to homeowners during the real estate boom, amassing a fortune.
By Mr. Soussana’s own account, his customers fared less happily. He specialized in the exotic mortgages that have proved most prone to sliding into foreclosure, leaving many now scrambling to save their homes.
Yet the dangers assailing Mr. Soussana’s clients have yielded fresh business for him: Late last year, he and his team — ensconced in the same office where they used to broker mortgages — began working for a loan modification company. For fees reaching $3,495, with most of the money collected upfront, they promised to negotiate with lenders to lower payments on the now-delinquent mortgages they and their counterparts had sprinkled liberally across Southern California.
“We just changed the script and changed the product we were selling,” said Mr. Soussana, who ran the Los Angeles sales office of Federal Loan Modification Law Center. The new script: You got a raw deal, and “Now, we’re able to help you out because we understand your lender.”
Mr. Soussana’s partners at FedMod, as the company is known, were also products of the formerly lucrative world of high-risk lending. The managing partner, Nabile Anz, known as Bill, previously co-owned Mortgage Link, a California subprime lender, now defunct, that once sold $30 million worth of loans a month.
Jeffrey Broughton, one of FedMod’s initial partners, served as director of business development at Pacific First Mortgage, a lender that extended so-called Alt-A mortgages for borrowers with tarnished credit for Countrywide Financial, which lost billions of dollars on bad mortgages before being rescued in an acquisition.
FedMod is but one example of how many of the same people who dispensed risky mortgages during the real estate bubble have reconstituted themselves into a new industry focused on selling loan modifications.
Despite making promises of relief to homeowners desperate to keep their homes, FedMod and other profit making loan modification firms often fail to deliver, according to a New York Times investigation based on interviews with scores of former employees and customers, more than 650 complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau, and documents filed by the Federal Trade Commission in a lawsuit against the company...
Read the rest here. I think there will be more to come.
