Thursday, March 6, 2008

Don't Listen to Donald

If you've defaulted on your mortgage payments, the Donald says "Don’t leave your house. Work with your bank. If you have to, fight the bank. Figure out a way to make a deal."

Why this is s an idea that makes a lot of sense in theory, bankruptcy attorney Kevin Chern doesn't believe this advice is realistic:
While Trump is cheerfully suggesting that it's easier to work things out than you might imagine, an NPR headline tells us that the Federal Reserve Chairman is urging banks to help borrowers more. And the California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC) has just released a report tellingly titled The Growing Chasm Between Words and Deeds. That study was based on the reported experiences of mortgage counseling agencies during December of 2007—a time during which podiums and news reports across the country were littered with positive statements about the great strides lenders were making toward working effectively with borrowers.

Those agencies reported both foreclosures and short sales as "very common" outcomes during that period, and indicated that the concessions lenders were willing to make were often so short-term as to merely forestall the inevitable.

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