What if there had been $50 billion to spend on helping homeowners avoid foreclosure. That would be more than we've spent to-date on foreclosure prevention. ... (Continue reading)
Again it's time for my annual holiday poem. I started writing it in 2007... it's a "year-in-review," read to the rhythm of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. ... (Continue reading)
You don’t need to keep re-setting a sale date every month... unless you want to absolutely ruin someone’s credit report until it’s beyond recognition. It should show one sale date/Notice of Sale, and then a postponement as he awaited... (Continue reading)
Shouldn’t Facebook have a big WARNING label on it telling people about their webcams being on even when not in use... and the risks associated with posting personal information and family photos on their pages? Here's what happened to... (Continue reading)
I don't believe that the GOP wants to win the upcoming election. Oh, they want to hold onto their majority in the House, but beyond that I think they like having a democrat to blame.... (Continue reading)
Personally, I would rather see VW forced to pay the $18 billion to the people who bought their poison spewing cars... and they could give the EPA let’s say... $100,000. That’s more than the agency deserves for doing such... (Continue reading)
It’s unconscionable that the loan modification process be allowed to go on as is. The latest SIGTARP Report to Congress makes it clear that servicers need to be made better, or it is likely that HAMP will be with... (Continue reading)
"Kissing Persuasive Lips" is the story of a former banker, Mick Lord, who cashed out when he sold his bank, but after losing his wife to a tragic accident, is finding out the hard way that there are quite a... (Continue reading)
In the tradition of John Grisham, Dale Wiley’s new novella, Kissing Persuasive Lips, introduces anti-bankster hero, Mick Lord. It's a thriller everyone who reads Mandelman Matters will want to read.... (Continue reading)
Have we lost 10 million homes to foreclosure yet? Does anyone even care?... (Continue reading)
The foreclosure crisis is not getting better, as many would have you believe… in fact, it’s getting worse once again… as its done many times over the last 6 years. ... (Continue reading)
There are three ways to increase the equity in a home you own. Two are within a homeowner's control and one is not. And if you're over 62, for heaven's sake, downsize and hold onto your cash for... (Continue reading)
Servicers were cited for failing to respond to borrower requests for loan modifications, not making a good-faith effort to prevent foreclosures and not having systems in place to track progress.... (Continue reading)
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently conducted a focus group at which they showed reverse mortgage ads, concluding the ads are misleading... but, so what? ... (Continue reading)
HAMP is guaranteed to do no more than it has done to-date, and that new defaults and re-defaults will continue to perpetuate the crisis, causing millions more Americans to lose homes unnecessarily.... (Continue reading)
RealtyTrac just reported that, “bank repossessions hit a 27-month high in April at 45,168, up 50% from a year earlier.” Uh oh... that doesn't sound like it's over, does it?... (Continue reading)
I just turned 54 and the event caused me to consider what's changed about my thinking and my life since turning the big 5-0. Is it just me, or am I not alone?... (Continue reading)
Tweet I’m fed up with, essentially everything. First of all, we live in a country that, politically speaking, is so comically deadlocked as to be incapable of doing anything. We’re like a quadriplegic, completely paralyzed from the neck down, pretending... (Continue reading)
A Bank of America analyst has published a report predicting the U.S. housing market will experience “three straight years of “modest” declines starting in 2017.... (Continue reading)
If you have a second that’s underwater, the Supreme Court has ruled that there’s no more getting out of it through bankruptcy. ... (Continue reading)
The point is… if the HECM reverse mortgage for purchase makes sense for you then there are some major advantages to using it during your retirement years. If it doesn’t, then don’t do it. But, know the facts... (Continue reading)
New home sales are down. They're only a small part of the much larger housing market, but their numbers are important to the U.S. economy in terms of job creation along with being a strong indicator of builder confidence... (Continue reading)
The FHFA has announced that it has extended Fannie and Freddie's participation in the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) and the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) for an additional year, until the end of 2016.... (Continue reading)
Thank you to my DOERS who DID SOMETHING to let Wells Fargo know how they felt about what was about to happen to Linda Normand. And thank you to Wells Fargo for DOING the RIGHT THING for Linda... (Continue reading)
I don’t know why the bank wants to evict a 72 year-old woman with advanced Alzheimer’s. I don’t know why there aren’t laws to prevent such a thing from happening. ... (Continue reading)
Why wouldn’t every homeowner demand Wells Fargo be severely punished for disregarding a legal settlement, and for allowing people to lose homes unnecessarily?... (Continue reading)
Fair Isaac, the FICO score company, announced that they're introducing a new higher score to get people borrowing again. But will we fall for it this time?... (Continue reading)
Here lies the body of Mary Lee; tried to modify her loan when she was 33. For over five years she fought to keep her sanity; didn’t tell a soul as a matter of vanity. ... (Continue reading)
Tweet A class action law suit filed against Saxon Mortgage Services/Morgan Stanley alleged that the servicer improperly denied thousands of California homeowners loan modifications through the federal Home Affordable Modification Plan (HAMP), and as a result, some lost their homes... (Continue reading)
Over the last few weeks I’ve learned that we’re a country that actually doesn’t care about people in their 80s that run into financial difficulties. In fact… and as incredible as it may seem, WE EVICT THEM.... (Continue reading)
Tweet Well, finally, (at least as far as I’m concerned) the American Journal of Public Health has published the results of a comprehensive study on foreclosure- and eviction-related suicide, which it should come as little surprise, shows has more than... (Continue reading)
Nothing else does what a reverse mortgage does. There’s no real alternative because any other type of home equity loan would require you to make monthly payments, and you can’t retire with high monthly payments or you could end up... (Continue reading)
Home sales volume and home prices in Southern California are falling… precipitously. As in… both volume and prices are going down. There are two things I would add to this fact: 1. It’s not just happening here. 2. It... (Continue reading)
Maybe the mainstream media has simply gotten tired of the foreclosure crisis. It’s not like they’ve ever had a particularly good handle on what’s going on in real life when it come to foreclosures and loan modifications in general.... (Continue reading)
Yet another example of shoddy reporting on reverse mortgages. Some of what Bennett writes is correct, but much of it is slanted and the rest is just plain wrong.... (Continue reading)
Are Republicans monumentally insensitive and inconceivably delusional about loan modifications, as their statements might lead many to conclude? Or are Republicans right about HAMP?... (Continue reading)
Yes... usually, I post my annual political and social year-in-review poem (read to "Twas the Night Before Christmas") on the actual night before Christmas, but although I wrote it on December 24th... here I am posting it on January 18th.... (Continue reading)