I have my BA in Psychology from a very tough school. I use my degree every day. I'm always thinking about people and their behavior.
For the last year, I have been very worried that the nationwide number of suicides would skyrocket due to foreclosures and loss of retirement funds due to the home-loan-caused economic crash.
I am heartbroken to say this but I am starting to hear stories that confirm my fears.
Case in point: I was talking to a good, hard-working man today whose home is in foreclosure. He owns a small business and his sales have tanked. He's looking for a job but jobs paying more than minimum wage are scarce. He is a good, kind man.
He's getting some legal help and MAY be able to save the house he has owned for 15 years so he is feeling better. Best of luck to him.
He confessed to me that a month ago he was seriously considering suicide.
That made me furious.
Those rotten lying greedy loan officers. I hope they rot in H E dbl toothpicks.
I truly believe there have been thousands of suicides across the country this year due to foreclosures and the stock crash.
The families of these desperate people don't reveal the reason for the suicides and I don't blame them. They want to preserve the reputation of their now-dead loved ones. My heart goes out to them.
The people who murdered themselves are the casualties of our current war of the greedy vs the honest every-day American.
I am comforted to know I refused to notarize loan docs when the borrowers did not fully understand the terms of their loans. Just as I do not notarize docs related to Powers of Attorney and Wills when the signer does not fully understand and agree with all the terms of those docs. I never advise - I only ask questions so I could tell if they understood what they were signing.
Lenders blacklisted me. Loan officers screamed profanity through my phone. I didn't care about those greedy #####. My decision was personal.
But it turned out to be a good business decision: I have zero worries about lawsuits while the Feds are auditing tens of thousands of loan packages nationwide.
I have two words of advice for notaries:
1. Stick to your ethics.
2. Market your notary services to wealthy people.
Wealthy people always make certain they understand what the documents say before they sign. They are the people buying rental and vacation property in this horrible economy. They are also buying luxury cars and boats. (Sales of Rolls Royce cars are up 7% this year from 2007.) Some thirty-something-wealthies are adopting babies.
Market your notary services to wealthy people to help you survive these terrible economic times.
Best of luck to you and your family, LauraV
;)
;)
I agree that people are having a very difficult time; I know the people in the Inland Empire, CA are.
I agree completely with advertising your notary business to wealthy people. A short story about Riverside Ca where I live and the sub-prime market.
I was in the wealthiest neighborhood in Riverside doing some non mortgage notary work for a couple and it dawned on me that I had not been in this neighborhood since 2004 (when rates were going down) except for notary assignments, that had nothing to do with loans.
I mentioned this to the borrower and he said "there aren't any people in trouble here because no one took out those sub-prime loans."
There is 1 zip code that I was doing loan signings (during 2005 - 2007) at least 4-5 per week and I have only done 2 signings there in the last year. Almost everyone there is up side down.
Let's hope the lender's will help more borrowers with modifications, but that is another interesting story!
I have done 5 of these in the last month and not one borrower said one word about it being a modification loan. I noticed when I looked at the loan docs as they were signing.
They have had anywhere from $65,000 to almost $200,000 reduced on their loans.
I don't have any idea how they got these reductions (it's none of my business and I certainly wasn't going to ask.)
This seems to be a different mind set, compared to 2003-04, when people bragged about their low interest rate. 5 signings doesn't mean a hill of beans as a comparison, but, it will be interesting to see how these modifications play out!