And I’ll never be able to prove this, but I’m al most positive that I could have bankrupted Fannie Mae for a lot less than $1.5 trillion, and I don’t know anything about the mortgage business. In fact, I... (Continue reading)
Retirees and the handicapped experience higher living expenses, including home maintenance, spiraling healthcare costs, utilities, and other expenses associated with age, disability, and/or deteriorating health. That fact progressively reduces their disposable income and ability to make mortgage payments. ... (Continue reading)
While Marc was in office he was a very vocal opponent of Wall Street, and the mortgage servicers who were... and still are... destroying his state with unnecessary and even illegal foreclosures. And since he's left office, he's defended... (Continue reading)
But, it’s hard for me to be happy without thinking about the hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of fathers who while they smile through their day, are also worrying about what will happen tomorrow because they know that, despite... (Continue reading)
A Guest Post by Chicago attorney, Rick Rogers of Rogers Law Group. Rick and I met last year when we attended Max Gardner's Boot Camp in North Carolina last year; we actually shared the Riverview Cabin on Max's ranch... (Continue reading)
I had the privilege of meeting Elizabeth Warren about a month ago when she was in San Diego and here are a few of the things she said to me... I wrote them down at the time so I'd have... (Continue reading)
What the heck is going on around here? We’re now passing around a story about a stupid PR stunt by a lawyer that ended up making Bank of America look REASONABLE? Oh my God, people… listen to me... (Continue reading)
The bankers... yes, the very same bankers who leveraged up on garbage CDOs as if housing prices would never ever go anywhere but up are now supposedly shocked and dismayed that mortgage lending volumes don't seem to be "coming back,"... (Continue reading)
Click the button below... and you'll hear a Mandelman Matters PODCAST... A PODCAST THAT MATTERS, if you will. From start to finish, it's unquestionably MAX GARDNER at his candid best. ... (Continue reading)
And now we have Brother Patrick McHenry attacking in an outrageous fashion the one and only person in America who is trying to stand up for consumers and to protect us from the Banksters who singleâ€handedly brought about the biggest... (Continue reading)
So... in “Pillage,” Nomi Prins explains in terms anyone can understand that factoring in the leverage at 11:1, we're looking at a $140 TRILLION economic problem... yes, you read that correctly... that's trillion, with a 'T'... (Continue reading)
Okay, so Mr. Marques is nothing if not persistent, apparently, and God bless him for that, because this time out… his third time at bat… he hits one out of the park! ... (Continue reading)
In 2014, it will be seven years since the meltdown began in the summer of 2007, and something in the neighborhood of 15 million homes will have been lost to foreclosure. And there’s no reason to believe that foreclosures... (Continue reading)
The findings of the independent reviews will be… sealed… closed to the public… whatever the independent reviews uncover or determine will remain a well-publicized secret. ... (Continue reading)
So, what exactly is the problem here, banker-people? Don’t you have enough homeowners under consideration for a loan modification that you can foreclose on without notice that aren’t active duty military? No one, save a handful of foreclosure... (Continue reading)
Even though the bill was supported by EVERYONE but the banking lobby, it was rejected 36-30 in the Assembly. Even after it was approved by the state Senate and three Assembly committees. This time… no… but thank you... (Continue reading)
Everything’s going just fine. There are no real problems with HAMP or with the servicers who are implementing HAMP. Oh sure, there have been a few challenges, but most of them have been caused by the borrowers who... (Continue reading)
As my readers know, I've never had guest columnists or posted what others have written, but when I read the article that follows, which was written by Max on June 1st of this year, and then found myself reading sections... (Continue reading)
Here it is... the first article I ever wrote for The Niche report magazine. Click the linked title below: Pigs, Puppets & People in Peril. Seems like soooo long ago... ... (Continue reading)
Just to make it interesting… and fun… I’m going to do my best to really paint a picture of the situation, so the reader can feel like he or she is there… in the picture at the time of the... (Continue reading)
Tweet Mandelman Matters Presents: ARE YOU READING THIS STUFF? What am I supposed to do? I read constantly and it’s painful. I figured that maybe by sharing it with you, I would know I wasn’t alone, and it would stop... (Continue reading)
How about if we all write letters to our elected representatives demanding to know the answer to this question, because the answer has the very definite potential to save many billions in unnecessary taxpayer funded expenditures associated with the current... (Continue reading)
Why the banking lobby starts to look downright puny next to millions of American homeowners all shouting at the same time… “Congress better take note! We intend to use our VOTE!” Yep, after that the foreclosure crisis would... (Continue reading)
It would be one thing if the story of Tom Ramirez and Mario Loria at Washington Mutual’s Loan Processing Center was nothing more than the story of two rogue mortgage bankers who gamed the system and got away with millions... (Continue reading)
If your report says you don’t qualify for HAMP, then you won’t have to go down a path that requires you to make months of trial payments only to find your home in foreclosure anyway. At least you’ll know... (Continue reading)
In other words, unless you applied for a loan modification related to an apartment building or something like that, you can’t be cancelled before the end of January.... (Continue reading)
Click the button below NOW. There is literally NO TIME TO SPARE... You don't even need to know your representative's name. All you need to know is your own name, address, phone and zip code. The letter... (Continue reading)
I absolutely assure you that you will not be seeing or hearing anything you've seen or heard before. It's original thinking from Mandelman Matters, and it's based on a year of in-depth research into everything related to the foreclosure... (Continue reading)
So far this year, while most Americans have seemingly been preoccupied with other things, the banking lobby has managed to have its way with every single piece of legislation our legislature has considered or ultimately passed. ... (Continue reading)
There’s no question now, but that the Bar is going to have to fix up their own glass house before their going to be allowed to collect dues from their members, and since they’ve been spending so much of their... (Continue reading)
All in all, I wanted to list REC because I've heard from quite a few people that its become hard to tell who you can trust in the Phoenix area, and when you need a loan modification, the last thing... (Continue reading)
I have to say that I was not originally in favor of SB 94's provisions on advance fees, as I saw the language and what I thought to be the original intent as being harmful to homeowners as I saw... (Continue reading)
They declined to participate. Am I the only one that feels like a 5 year-old just told me he or she wasn’t going to take a bath as requested? Oh really? Get in the damn tub now…... (Continue reading)
First of all… I’m sure the house-sitting Wells executive that hosted parties throughout the summer never invited anyone from Wells Fargo… or B of A… or Chase, IndyMac, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I’m sure most of the exec’s friends are... (Continue reading)
What I find most worth noticing is that this past week, the National Association for Business Economics reported that almost half the economists surveyed believed the Fed’s policy to be inflationary. Yet the fact is, not only is the... (Continue reading)
Extending unsecured credit to homeowners that are already struggling to pay their bills, and then having to sue them in order to collect simply isn't a business model that attorneys, or anyone else for that matter, are likely to embrace.... (Continue reading)
It was the worst of times… it was the worst of times. Okay, so go ahead… tell me your story… Homeowners #1 – The Smiths We bought our home in 2002 for $700,000. By 2005 it appraised for $1.1 million. We... (Continue reading)
So, the Federal Reserve said: “Okay, we’re sorry,” and released the information. What? It could happen. It didn’t, of course, but it could… maybe… someday. In real life, the Fed is preparing an appeal. ... (Continue reading)
“It is now widely understood that the current economic situation originated primarily in the largely unregulated non-bank sector. Banks watched as mortgage brokers and others made loans to consumers that a good banker just would not make and they... (Continue reading)
Of course, today Attorney General Cuomo has crossed over to the other side and is looking to play a very different role in the foreclosure crisis. Today, he’s going after mortgage brokers, rating agencies, loan modification firms, Fannie, Freddie…... (Continue reading)
So, now a federal bankruptcy judge in Phoenix, Judge Randolph Haines, has ordered that a top Wells Fargo executive must come and testify about the bank's loan modification policies. ... (Continue reading)
What we’re apparently missing is the “spirit of innovation” and according to the president, we have to recapture it. I knew this was going to end up being our fault somehow. Okay, who was supposed to be watching... (Continue reading)
HR600 is about "Seller Assisted Down Payments," which is a euphemism for a scheme that enables people who cannot save enough money to make a down payment, to qualify for FHA insured mortgages. ... (Continue reading)
Beth Jacobson says that she and fellow loan officers at Wells Fargo Bank systematically singled out blacks in and around Baltimore in order to sell them high-interest sub-prime mortgages, whether they would have qualified for prime loans or not. ... (Continue reading)
President Barack Obama traveled to Mesa Arizona this week to tell the country about his Homeowner Affordability & Stability Plan to fix the housing market. I didn't watch his speech. I didn't listen to it on the radio. I didn't... (Continue reading)