Thank goodness they are in the process of passing another stimulus package and are releasing the remainder of the old one. It's great that they are throwing more money at the bad decisions being made by banks. (No not really, that is dripping with sarcasm) The too big to fail argument doesn't fly with most of the people we talk to. The consensus seems to be that the most efficient and effective should ultimately survive. If inefficient, bulky big banks fail...others that are simply better at being banks will rise in their place.
Being in the middle of Jacksonville short sale action, we have seen and heard some really stupid things coming from the same big banks that have had major chunks of change thrown at them. First, we would like to say that we wish everyone could stay in their homes if that is their desire. Second, we think that the tide of Jacksonville foreclosures has to be stopped as much as possible, although we realize that there will always be some. This is reality even in strong, healthy real estate markets. Third, we also understand how the real estate market comes together, and we know that even if you pay all of your bills on time, what is happening in the Jacksonville real estate market IS having a negative effect on your wallet. And if you unexpectedly face a hardship, you might find yourself in the middle of a Jacksonville short sale on your own home. We've seen it happen to many responsible, hardworking people who would never have dreamed this could ever be their reality.
So on to a few bank stupidisms we've heard lately....the stupidism is in bold, our commentary is in italics.
We can't reduce your mortgage payment, you don't make enough money. But we will foreclose on you even though your home is worth $200,000 less and we will be at least $250,000 under after we foreclose on you and keep it on our books for a bit. And no we don't care that if we reduced your payment by $1,000 a month it would take 21 years of taking less to equal the same loss.
We can't delay your foreclosure sale until we approve your short sale package. No, we really don't care that we have had a complete short sale package with an accepted contract for two months and failed to act on it. We still won't delay your foreclosure sale until we've approved it.
No we won't reduce your mortgage payment even though you can prove true hardship. Why would we allow you to send us less money each month than what you owe us? We can keep it as it is and get nothing!
No we don't care if our appraisal is too high and if it was done 6 months ago. We stand by it and our net proceeds are based on that. We don't care if the market has fallen significantly...we demand that the buyer pay the amount based on an appraisal that came in too high even way back then. If not we'll just spend a lot more money and foreclose on you and put it on the market for less than what the buyer is willing to pay today.
We are swamped. We can not get to your file yet. Well we understand that there are homes that have sold for $30,000 less than our contract price recently but we'll get to it when we get to it. No we're not ramping up our loss mitigation and loan modification departments. We would rather acquire another failing bank with more bad loans with the government money we have received.
And here is one related to many or our short sale sellers. Although it is not directly related to the mortgage it is indirectly related as it increases their hardship.
No we won't work with you on your credit card payment even though you lost your job and can't find a new one. Instead will are going to increase your 5.99% interest rate to 30% because you are now high risk to us and you have missed mortgage payments. It doesn't matter if this will force you to quit paying. We will just get a judgment and freeze your checking account so you can't feed your family. We will recover less ultimately than we would in a couple of months had we left your payment alone or worked with you, but we are good with that because we are getting stimulus money.
And we are giving money to these entities allowing them to continue to make stupid decisions. We will continue to add more stupidisms as we encounter them. Feel free to contribute your own!
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