Comments

1
Just a note - they're in my neighborhood, Roseway, NOT Parkrose. Parkrose is 2 neighborhoods to the right, on the other side of I-205.
2
These people have taken thousands of dollars, loaned to them by banks, which they agreed to pay back.

Which burden they now want to dump onto someone else.

Who is actually the greedy one here?
3
They've owned it for 25 years. Were they only 5 years away from paying off the loan? If so, dang right they should be eligible to stay and work things out.

But if they took out a huge equity loan and spent the money, or gambled it on investments...?
4
It's a sad story, but it would be difficult to say that every forclosure is unjustified. If there was malfeasance by a bank, that's one thing, but some people make bad choices or are just unlucky. And if one type of contract can be torn up, I suppose they all can be.

I'm all for helping anyone who can be helped to save their home. But without a lot of facts it's difficult to decide who can and should be helped. And who decides? It's a difficult situation all around.

Am I coming across as a right-winger lately? Because I really don't think I am one. I really hope not.
5
Does anyone know why the banks use taxpayer resources (like the sheriff) to auction off their foreclosed homes instead of doing it themselves?
6
@APRILORRAINE: YOU'VE GOT THE STORY A LITTLE BIT WRONG. THE BANK SENDS THE SHERIFFS TO THE HOUSE TO EVICT THE PEOPLE. MUCH IN THE SAME WAY ANYONE WHO'S TRESSASSING ON PROPERTY CAN BE REMOVED BY THE SHERIFF. THE SHERIFF ISN'T ACTUALLY RUNNING THE AUCTIONS AND WHAT NOT.
7
The lack of a single payer health care system in our country is dragging down the property values in our neighborhood. Obamacare could have fixed this situation if it had gone far enough to do some good.
8
I'll bet $1,000 they've done two cash-out refi's in the past decade. If you borrow more money than you can afford to repay, you will lose your collateral. If you deprive lenders of their right of repossession, credit will become much more expensive for everybody and it will dry up for the lowest wage earners.
9
@D: those greedy fuckers, getting cancer to weasel out of paying their mortgage.
10
Foreclosure is done in two ways, either judicially or by private sale. The private sale is more streamlined and requires notices of default, a period of time to cure the default, and then the auction (which is usually done at the courthouse steps). Private sales are not done through the sheriff's office.

Judicial sales, however, are actual lawsuits filed and the sale is ordered as part of the judgment if the foreclosing lender prevails and the sheriff conducts the sale. The sheriff's get fees paid by the foreclosing lender.

In either case, if the property is residential, the first lender only gets to foreclose the property and can't get a judgment for the balance of the debt if the property doesn't sell for as much (this rule sometimes doesn't apply to second mortages or equity lines and things like that and they potentially can get money judgments).

In 99.9% of the cases, the person owes the money and is in default for one reason or another. The hubbub about "robo-signers" and MERS and "fraudulent" foreclosures is kind of beside the point. Yeah, the lenders f'd around and packaged and sold debt, but the fact remains that the debt still exists and the people still owe it and the property is the collateral for that debt. The point about the MERS that lots miss is that it effectively denied counties where such transfers should have been recorded huge amounts of recording fees.

Some court decisions in the state have created doubt as to non-judicial private sales (because under the statutes that govern that simpler process, all transfers of the underlying debt must be recorded at the county level) so lenders have started to file judicial foreclosures, which are more expensive and time consuming and actually will increase the time for recovery of the housing market. The end result is usually going to be the same, because there is no defense of "I can't afford this anymore, so I should get to keep it for free."

The whole mess is complicated in how we got here, and there are bad actors all around (realators, mortgage brokers, investment firms, real estate speculators, borrowers, pretty much everyone involved in the home buying process), with some limited exceptions for folks who played by the rules, didn't continually refinance or purchase beyond their price range, and then defaulted after a life changing event.

So what's a reasonable solution? The bailout and "mortgage modification" process seems to have mucked up things even worse. How do you separate out the folks with legitimate hardships (or do you even separate them out). Should people really get to stay in their property without paying anything
11
@ Reymont +1, though I'll add the quibble that if someone else can take away your home legally, the term "homeowner" is meaningless. In my view, you don't own shit until it's paid off, so you shouldn't get to call yourself a homeowner until that time.

Rather, you're in the 10/15/20/30 year process of buying a home. Let's call those "homepurchasers."
12
I'll also add that our society could easily afford to re-order its priorities so that people who get sick don't have to go bankrupt or lose their homes to avoid sickness and death. It's kind of disgusting that we don't, and that we're in fact ideologically hostile to that idea.

Anyway, I'm extremely sympathetic to Ms. Austin on that point, but like Reymont, I'd like to know a bit about her mortgage-related debt history and her bank's conduct before offering unreserved support.

I continue to be astounded by people who are shocked to learn that a commercial bank doesn't always have the community's best interests in mind, EVEN WHEN THEY SAY SO ON THEIR WEBSITE.
13
"But if they took out a huge equity loan and spent the money, or gambled it on investments...? "

Kinda like the big banks do with the Federal Reserve...
14
@ SPK, don't be cynical - they use that money to lobby against new regulations that might restrain them from causing another global recession.
15
If this couple took out a second mortgage to pay mounting medical debt due to their cancers, shame on you for negative comments. How would you feel if in their same situation? Think cancer, medical debt and bankruptcy can't happen to you? If we had a system that removed profit from basic medical care, perhaps they wouldn't have such an overwhelming debt. They need to own their responsibilities, no question - but government and the insurance industry need to own theirs too.
16
This should be a protest about healthcare costs, not banks foreclosures. One is a product of the other, at least according to Mrs. Austin.

As others have mentioned, if they've been in that home for 25 years, they've either taken out equity or are getting the royal screwjob just 5 years away from paying off the deed. Knowing how buckwild everyone went a few years ago vis-a-vi home equity loans and a assuming a home purchased in Parkrose (or Roseway) 25 years ago probably sold for $60k. I'm guessing it's the former, but that's just a guess.
17
Hold on to the home.

They probably have paid for it by this point and then some.

And even if they didn't, who cares? The banks wouldn't hesitate to keep fleecing them for money, and these people are supposed to step quietly down and let their lives be destroyed so some fat fuck's son can get a new Ferrari this year and impress everyone at his private school.

And then what would the banks do with one of millions of houses that they over-built? Let it rot and sink into the ground where the family is on the street somewhere? Fuck that. Do we need more abandoned houses?
18
I wouldn't even go so far as to lose sympathy for them if they re-fi'd in the past 10 years. So what? Plenty of people made a rational decision to refinance their homes (perhaps taking money out for completely worthwhile actions, like paying for a child's college tuition, for example), believing that given their employment situation they'd be able to make payments well into the future, only to have the situation change in an unforseeable way (loss of job, illness, etc.). My wife and I have a very reasonable mortgage payment, and are living well within our means, but would be totally fucked if we both got cancer or lost our jobs. As others have said, the real crime is that people in this country risk bankruptcy or worse if they happen to get really sick.
19
We don't even really know if the cause of this was medical bills.
20
@frankie: Well, that can't have helped. Still, it sounds like they probably took out equity loans at some point:

"She said they had taken on more debt than they should have, but that the bank had enabled and even encouraged it."

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.s…
21
I wonder how long it typically takes to reach the state they are in? I've heard it takes over a year before they can actually boot you out.
That 'taking more debt out than they should have' and then 'doing nothing' sound awfully suspicous.
Man, I know how cynical I sound, but...
Still, I wish we had single-payer health care regardless.
All it takes is one health disaster and the doctors got your home from you.
22
I'm sorry, it's so ludicrous , this belief that people have in medical bills and college tuition. as if they were inevitable. 1) in Portland, you can get free or half price or easily financed medical from both the big providers, Legacy and Providence. Both were originally started by the Catholic and Lutheran churches basically. They have a heart. 2) anywhere in the usa, you can get a good college education without the expensive frills, by going to community college 2 years first, then a 4 year college for a bachelors degree. most of it paid by pell, if your kid is not living with you or if you are low income; or guaranteed student loans, which have super easy repayment, grace periods, forbearance, refinance, and deferments. NO ONE has to shell out borrowed money to pay their kid's college tuition unless they simply haven't looked into the matter diligently. If your kid has to wait a couple years before college, so what- they can take a break from school like most 18 years olds need anyway. To work, experience life, etc. Then if they've lived away from home long enough, they will qualify for Pell etc as NOT a dependent of the parents.
3) ever hear of bankruptcy? beats the hell out of foreclosure. Dump those bills, keep your home. make payment arrangements with the medical people. if they won't, then you are in the wrong doctor's offices.

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