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Interesting Read on Forclosures From the NYT

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    Posted: June/09/2010 at 07:56

For Some Homeowners in Foreclosure, a Rent-Free Approach - NYTimes.com 6/2/10 2:50 PM

May 31, 2010

Owners Stop Paying Mortgages, and Stop

Fretting

By DAVID STREITFELD

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For Alex Pemberton and Susan Reboyras, foreclosure is becoming a way of life — something they did not want but are in no hurry to get out of.

Foreclosure has allowed them to stabilize the family business. Go to Outback occasionally for a steak. Take their gas-guzzling airboat out for the weekend. Visit the Hard Rock Casino.

“Instead of the house dragging us down, it’s become a life raft,” said Mr. Pemberton, who stopped paying the mortgage on their house here last summer. “It’s really been a blessing.”

A growing number of the people whose homes are in foreclosure are refusing to slink away in shame. They are fashioning a sort of homemade mortgage modification, one that brings their payments all the way down to zero. They use the money they save to get back on their feet or just get by.

This type of modification does not beg for a lender’s permission but is delivered as an ultimatum: Force me out if you can. Any moral qualms are overshadowed by a conviction that the banks created the crisis by snookering homeowners with loans that got them in over their heads.

“I tried to explain my situation to the lender, but they wouldn’t help,” said Mr. Pemberton’s mother, Wendy Pemberton, herself in foreclosure on a small house a few blocks away from her son’s. She stopped paying her mortgage two years ago after a bout with lung cancer. “They’re all crooks.”

Foreclosure procedures have been initiated against 1.7 million of the nation’s households. The pace of resolving these problem loans is slow and getting slower because of legal challenges, foreclosure moratoriums, government pressure to offer modifications and the inability of the lenders to cope with so many souring mortgages.

The average borrower in foreclosure has been delinquent for 438 days before actually being evicted, up from 251 days in January 2008, according to LPS Applied Analytics.

While there are no firm figures on how many households are following the Pemberton-Reboyras path of passive resistance, real estate agents and other experts say the number of overextended borrowers taking the “free rent” approach is on the rise.

There is no question, though, that for some borrowers in default, foreclosure is only a theoretical threat for a long time.

More than 650,000 households had not paid in 18 months, LPS calculated earlier this year. With 19 percent of those homes, the lender had not even begun to take action to repossess the property — double the rate of a year earlier.

In some states, including California and Texas, lenders can pursue foreclosures outside of the courts. With the lender in control, the pace can be brisk. But in Florida, New York and 19 other states, judicial foreclosure is the rule, which slows the process  substantially.

In Pinellas and Pasco counties, which include St. Petersburg and the suburbs to the north, there are 34,000 open foreclosure cases, said J. Thomas McGrady, chief judge of the Pinellas-Pasco Circuit. Ten years ago, the average was about 4,000. “The volume is killing us,” Judge McGrady said.

Mr. Pemberton and Ms. Reboyras decided to stop paying because their business, which restores attics that have been invaded by pests, was on the verge of failing. Scrambling to get by, their credit already shot, they had little to lose. “We could pay the mortgage company way more than the house is worth and starve to death,”

said Mr. Pemberton, 43. “Or we could pay ourselves so our business could sustain us and people who work for us over a long period of time. It may sound very horrible, but it comes down to a self-preservation thing.”

They used the $1,837 a month that they were not paying their lender to publicize A Plus Restorations, first with print ads, then local television. Word apparently got around, because the business is recovering.

The couple owe $280,000 on the house, where they live with Ms. Reboyras’s two daughters, their two dogs and a very round pet raccoon named Roxanne. The house is worth less than half that “If they took the house from us, that’s all they would end up getting for it anyway,” said Ms. Reboyras, 46.

One reason the house is worth so much less than the debt is because of the real estate crash. But the couple also refinanced at the height of the market, taking out cash to buy a truck they used as a contest prize for their hired animal trappers.

It was a stupid move by their lender, according to Mr. Pemberton. “They went outside their own guidelines on debt to income,” he said. “And when they did, they put themselves in jeopardy.”

His mother, Wendy Pemberton, who has been cutting hair at the same barber shop for 30 years, has been in default since spring 2008. Mrs. Pemberton, 68, refinanced several times during the boom but says she benefited only once, when she got enough money for a new roof. The other times, she said, unscrupulous salesmen promised her lower rates but simply charged her high fees.

Even without the burden of paying $938 a month for her decaying house, Mrs. Pemberton is having a tough time. Most of her customers are senior citizens who pay only $8 for a cut, and they are spacing out their visits. “The longer I’m in foreclosure, the better,” she said.

In Florida, the average property spends 518 days in foreclosure, second only to New York’s 561 days. Defense attorneys stress they can keep this number high.

Both generations of Pembertons have hired a local lawyer, Mark P. Stopa. He sends out letters — 1,700 in a recent week — to Floridians who have had a foreclosure suit filed against them by a lender.

"Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be" - Abraham Lincoln
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 300S&W Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June/09/2010 at 08:02
 F*n'  slackers!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote SVT_Tactical Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June/09/2010 at 08:07
you got that right E!
"Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be" - Abraham Lincoln
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bigdaddy0381 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June/09/2010 at 08:14

I bet they are paying there car notes. It’s basically the same thing. a 40,000 car drove off the lot drops to 30,000 when the tail lights get out of sight of the dealer. Then you have interest of what ever so the car you bought cost you 65,000 but only worth 30,000 but they make the note every month on the car but let the house note go. What a bunch of Donkeys!!  I would rather have a house not than a car note. We make it a priority to not have any notes at all. I'm luck to have a wife who is in the banking world who knows how to save and spend. So if it works out like we/she plans it I’ll be debt free with the house paid off by the time I'm 40. Life is good if you work and take care of your responsibilities. Honestly, if I was not sick or unable to pay my bills it would drive me nuts knowing I couldn’t fulfill my side of the deal. I guess I was raised different than most now days.

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Edited by Bigdaddy0381 - June/09/2010 at 08:21
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote SVT_Tactical Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June/09/2010 at 08:16
its a heck of a lot easier to repo a car than forclose on a house for sure.
"Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be" - Abraham Lincoln
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 300S&W Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June/09/2010 at 08:21
  COMIN' THROUGH A**HOLES!!!
 
   
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote supertool73 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June/09/2010 at 10:10
I have repo'ed more cars and stuff this last 6 months than in the last 7 years here.  It is sad everyone is struggling so much.  
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Same here ST.  This past month in just our district, 6 branches, we repo'ed 15 cars all together.  That doesn't include 3 that we had to charge off cause they have left teh country with them, two in Canada and one to Mexico......  We've never had more than 5 a year up until 2009
"Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be" - Abraham Lincoln
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