Irvine Housing Blog

If you look again at her loan history, I think you will find that not only did she extract $100,000 when obtaining the $800,000 refi, but that loan has a balloon payment and it increased her interest rate about 4 or 5 points.

She is not a victim.  She is greedy and stupid.

Tuscan beauty? I was in Toscana for a few weeks recently and didn’t see any homes that looked like this.

“I poured every penny I had into this house,” Wilcox, a single mother of two, said in a brief interview. ”We just lavished everything we could on this house. This is our ultimate dream home.”

I’m trying to understand the psychology of home buying. This lady claims it was her dream home. Do people really buy their dream home, and then every day for the next 30 years smile and feel an emotional rush when they walk into their home?

I only ask because I get tired of holding on to the same thing too long - jobs, cars, clothes (though I’m still happily married; going on seven years now and not looking to replace my wife). I’m afraid if I was to buy a house the excitement and novelty would wear off quickly, and I’d be looking for a new one after only a few years.

I see friends of mine who are living the American Dream™ and while they’re content with their lives and enjoy their homes, they recognize that they’re debt slaves and can’t easily relocate on short notice.

I don’t think these people are pretenders they put down a half million in cash.

It looks more like they blatantly gamed the system.  Taking more cash out paying the small option arm and then squatting.  Pretenders is the wrong label.  Intelligent people with money but no morals is probably more accurate.

Maybe she could sue the Almighty for not giving her any common sense.

Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury, My Bank’s defenders would certainly want you to believe that I am not entitled to a loan modification, and they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself. But Ladies and Gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider.

This is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now, think about that. That does not make sense!

Why would a Wookiee—an eight foot tall Wookiee—want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!

But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with this case? (calmly) Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!

Look at me, I’m a lawyer defending a major record company, and I’m talkin’ about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense.

And so you have to remember, when you’re in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation… does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.

If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must not acquit!

Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!

To play devil’s advocate, although I disagree with the ends that she is trying to achieve with her lawsuit if the true intent is simply to say that she and other are entitled to loan mods.  However, the lawsuits does bring up some good points that really have nothing to do with her deserving a loan mod and also brings to light some shady bank tactics that have allowed bank executives to take huge bonuses while they should be insolvent. 
  Marilyn Kalfus writes, “EMC has thereby avoided the need to initiate, prosecute and conclude multiple foreclosures … and has avoided the need to liquidate excessive and under-valued real estate inventory … and has artificially bolstered its financial statements, including balance sheets and related SEC filings … by minimizing mandatory reporting of toxic loans, defaulted loans or distressed loans.”
  Once again this proves the existence of shadow inventory. Moreover, I believe that many IHB readers and educated people that understand what is going on would agree that it would be a good thing if banks would just liquidate their excessive under-valued real estate, no longer were able to use mark to fantasy accounting, and accurately reported on their losses. Maybe these attorneys are smarter than we are giving them credit for and they are using this lawsuit to shed light on bad policies.  From what I read, most of their argument did not provide any legal reasons why they should give a loan mod, only complaints about bank policies and practices that are bad and should not be allowed.  If this law suit is successful at making banks change these policies, many banks would probably fail, however, it could also force banks to make loan mod policies more clear, may help to end tax payer bail outs, may force banks to dispose of assets quicker, may help prices come down to market levels, and everyone can move on.  Of course this is the glass is half full way of looking at it.
    Although her main goal may be to force loan mods, if anything productive comes out from this, a more likely scenario based upon what I read will be that it brings many of shady bank tactics to extend, amend, and pretend to light.
  Regarding loan mods, I was at a home that was recently purchased by one of my clients through foreclosure. I knocked on the property next door and the lady that answered was really nice, she had 2 or 3 kids and she had purchased her home a few years ago. She paid $220,000 for a one bedroom apartment and confided in me that she really needed a 2 bedroom place. Her interest rate is 6.25 and when she called for a loan mod they said no. This is clearly a case in which the owner has not been educated, her property is now worth circa ½ that, moreover, for the payment she is making on this property could easily afford a 2 bedroom and live much more comfortably, yet she is concerned about her credit and her only wish is for a loan mod that brings her rate to current market levels when it’s likely that that she will be underwater for more than 10 years. Of course there are no 200% LTV loans that I know of right now so it’s not going to happen. I believe that there is a fundamental problem with financial education in this country and that puts American consumers at risk of being manipulated as so many were during the bubble. For the most part, loan mods that are successful help no one except for the banks and if consumers looking for loan mods were properly educated they would choose to walk away regardless. The fantasy that a loan mod will come about that is a benefit to the consumer in the long run on a massive scale is only a tactic to string people along and transparency and education is the best solution.

This is random, but has anyone ever heard of “The Irvine Oracle?”

Apparently BofA/recontrust has been publishing a ton of NOD’s/NTS’ in there. I have other means to pull up auctions, but call me old fashioned, I like reading through these.

To set expectations, I’m one who believes most law schools should be closed or consolidated, with the remaining lawyers trapped and put down in some humane way as we do with all vermin.

This lawsuit will be won only when they are passing out free shaved ice cones in hades. It would be nice however (IMHO) to penalize someone, anyone for the foreclosure delaying tactics known as “loan modifications”. These programs were mere show trials that were put on to distract the weak minded until the banks could ramp up their foreclosure efforts. The sooner the general public realizes that mods were part of the extend and pretend mentality with the end point being a knock on the door by the sheriff to boot you from the property the better.

If the bankers got us into this wreck, leveraging off of feeble thinking and greed, why are we expecting to be lead into prosperity by this same bunch post bail out? I don’t know about you, but I’ve got my pitchfork and torch at the ready, waiting for the masses to boil over. A blizzard of lawsuits won’t change anyones behavior, but perhaps a touch of revolution will.

My .02c

Soylent Green Is People.

Nice premium on this one.
Trustee sale flipper pays $1.485M at auction in July, lists for $1.849M

Yikes… My conservative bone is twitching.  I won’t be caught ever holding a 1.4M dollar piece of RE with hopes of getting 1.8M in this market. 

Hopefully this is a fund owned property who can stomach the months of waiting to break-even. 

The ‘high-end’ is just now begining to weaken.  I expect it to accelerate for lots of reasons. 

Tell me why - anyone - why now is the time to buy a piece of RE at 1.4M (personal home) when we will have a decade or more of flat prices or declining RE prices?

Yikes!

BD

Saw this and thought of IR.

It makes me so angry that people like her are trying to gain the system! Buyers knew what they were getting themselves into, now they are making us tax payers pay for their greediness. 

We own a property that we have rented out but we are not trying to get a loan modification.  We decided to rent our primary residence and wait the market out.  If you are able to buy a home then you know the terms of the mortgage and must be responsible if the market goes up or down.  Lets say you bought a bunch of stocks and they go down, you can’t ask for that money back!

“If you are able to buy a home then you know the terms of the mortgage and must be responsible if the market goes up or down.”

No!  The lender must be responsible for discerning whether a potential loan owner will be responsible during times of distress.  If the lender deems them a risk, the cost of the loan increases to compensate for the risk.

We need a system where the lenders return to being prudent again.  Such a system can only exist if there is only very minimal government involvement.

This lawsuit is a good thing and if she were to win it would be a great thing.  Really.  I’m serious here.

Think of it from the banks perspective.  A successful outcome (against the banks) would mean that by even mentioning, implying, etc. the possibility of a loan mod it would somehow obligate them to actually mod the existing, bad loan.

If so, the reasonable response would be that all mod’s would stop.  Immediately. 

Foreclosures would increase and the markets would start to clear.  This would do wonders in helping buyers with price discovery and sooner (then later) normalcy would return to the markets.

Interesting how she put more time into trying to uncover a legal justification for her case than in performing financial planning and asset management to make the home purchase.

Basically she and many other women want the government to be their husband or their daddy.

This is the main reason why women vote Dem.

~Misstrial (who is not a member of The Little Girls Club)