Nearly 30 percent of US homeowners now “underwater”
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WHILE OBAMA’S BANKSTER DONORS ARE MAKING STAGGERING PROFITS, AND PAYING OUT BILLIONS IN BONUSES AS THEY FORECLOSURE ON AMERICA. OBAMA STANDS THERE WITH HIS FISTS FULL OF BANKSTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND WATCHES THE PILLAGE AS HE DREAMS OF RUNNING FOR A SECOND TERMS WITH EVEN MORE BANKSTER LOOTED MONEY!
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Nearly 30 percent of US homeowners now “underwater”
Total value of homes fell $2 trillion last year
By David Walsh
10 February 2011
Home prices in the US dropped 2.6 percent in the final quarter of 2010, the largest drop since the first three months of 2009, according to Zillow Inc’s quarterly real estate survey. Year over year, home values were down 5.9 percent nationally, and have fallen 27 percent since their peak in June 2006.
The total value of US single-family homes fell a staggering $798 billion in 2010’s fourth quarter, and for the entire year, more than $2 trillion.
The Obama administration has essentially washed its hands of the problems; its HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) has helped a fraction of those in need.
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OBAMA’S CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS DOIN’ GOOD! THEY’RE FORECLOSING ON THE TROOPS, AS THEY NOW OPERATE OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, LIKE HALLIBURTON, AND BIG BUSH SAUDI OIL DID UNDER BUSH – CHENEY!
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THE CULTURE OF CORRUPTION THAT IS BARACK OBAMA, THE BANKSTER PRESIDENT
By Lisa Myers and Sarah Heidarpour
NBC News
updated 1/26/2011 5:49:43 PM ET
JP Morgan & Chase Co.’s admission that it overcharged thousands of American servicemen has triggered investigations by a congressional committee and a federal prosecutor.
As first reported last week by NBC News, the bank admits mistakenly overcharging 4,000 military families for their mortgages, and improperly foreclosing on 14 of them. The actions — which the bank says it deeply regrets -- appear to violate the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a law designed to protect military families from added financial stress while troops are in harm’s way.
Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, says his committee has begun an investigation. “The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act has been in place for decades and I cannot believe that one of the nation’s largest financial institutions appears to be disregarding the protections offered by that law,” he said. “If the allegations are true, this amounts to widespread abuse of our nation’s heroes and their families.” A hearing is planned in early February.
Legal sources tell NBC News that the U.S. attorney for South Carolina, William N. Nettles, also has begun looking into the matter.
“I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation,” Nettles said. “However, this is an issue that we take very seriously.”
The U.S. attorney has power to bring civil suits, in addition to handling criminal matters.
JP Morgan Chase’s admission that it overcharged several thousand military families for their mortgages, is an outgrowth of a lawsuit filed by Marine Capt. Jonathan Rowles. Rowles is the backseat pilot of an F/A 18 Delta fighter jet and has served the nation as a Marine for five years. He and his wife, Julia, say they’ve been battling Chase almost that long.
The dispute apparently caused the bank to review its handling of all mortgages involving active-duty military personnel. Under a law known as the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), active-duty troops generally get their mortgage interest rates lowered to 6 percent and are protected from foreclosure. Chase appears to have repeatedly violated that law, which is designed to Chase appears to have repeatedly violated that law, which is designed to protect troops and their families from financial stress while they’re in harm's way.
A Chase official told NBC News that some 4,000 troops may have been overcharged. What’s more, the bank discovered it improperly foreclosed on the homes of 14 military families.
“We are deeply appreciative of those who fight to protect our country and Chase funds a number of programs that provide benefits to military personnel and veterans, and while any customer mistake is regrettable, we feel particularly badly about the mistakes we made here,” Chase chief communications officer Kristin Lemkau said in a statement to NBC News.
Servicemembers victimized; were you?
She said that Chase was soon to begin mailing a total of about $2 million in refunds to families that may have been overcharged. She says most of the families improperly foreclosed on have gotten or will get their homes back. A bank official described what happened here as “grim,” but emphasized the mistakes were inadvertent, not malicious.
The news comes as millions of Americans are struggling to keep their homes. Banks have come under fire for allegedly improperly foreclosing on homes across the country.
JP Morgan Chase had over $2.14 trillion in total assets as of September, second only to Bank of America Corp., which had $2.34 trillion.
The overcharges may never have come to light but for Rowles, 31, and his wife, Julia.
“It’s been a nightmare. It’s been my living nightmare,” Julia Rowles said of her experience with Chase, in an interview with NBC News in Beaufort, S.C.
The saga began in 2006 when Rowles went on active duty. Under the SCRA, he could get his mortgage interest rate, which was adjustable and rising, lowered to 6 percent.
But Chase took a few months to lower Rowles' rate, and overcharged the family, Rowles says, by as much as $900 a month. In the fall of 2006, Chase finally began charging Rowles the correct 6 percent rate. For the next year or so, everything went relatively smoothly.
Then, two years ago, the Rowles family says, Chase began hitting them with collection calls that escalated to sometimes three a day, claiming they owed as much as $15,000.
"Saturday, Sundays, middle of the night. It did not matter if it was a holiday," Julia said. “Collection calls at 3 in the
morning. He would state, "I'm in California. I'm stationed here in Miramar. It's 3 in the morning. What are you doing calling me?" "Well, sir, this is an attempt to collect a debt."
She said they threatened to take the house and report the family to a credit agency, even though the Rowles family didn't owe the bank anything and never missed a payment.
The Rowles' records show that while they kept making payments on their mortgage at 6 percent, the bank wrongly had been charging them at rates above 9 or 10 percent. They kept calling the bank to explain there had been a huge mistake but say no one would listen. They say they kept being harassed for money they did not owe.
Fed up, Capt. Rowles got a lawyer and sued Chase, for himself and other members of the military.
"They ought to only have to worry about fighting the fight and keeping alive, not about whether their wives and children aregoing to be put out on the street," said Dick Harpootlian, an attorney for the Rowles family.
The lawsuit is still pending. But a Chase official now tells NBC that Rowles did everything right, and the bank did a lot wrong. (The bank maintains, however, that it previously refunded the initial overcharges of the Rowles family. The couple disputes that.)
"We made mistakes here and we are fixing them," said Chase spokeswoman Lemkau.
"We now have a dedicated team in place devoted to servicing home loans for military personnel —the members of our military deserve nothing less. We welcome the opportunity to talk to Captain Rowles and others who would like to discuss their accounts," she added.
“JP Morgan's treatment of our military personnel is inexcusable," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the senior Republican on the Senate Banking committee. "I expect them to make this right without any further delays.”
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Nearly 30 percent of US homeowners now “underwater”
Total value of homes fell $2 trillion last year
By David Walsh
10 February 2011
Home prices in the US dropped 2.6 percent in the final quarter of 2010, the largest drop since the first three months of 2009, according to Zillow Inc’s quarterly real estate survey. Year over year, home values were down 5.9 percent nationally, and have fallen 27 percent since their peak in June 2006.
The total value of US single-family homes fell a staggering $798 billion in 2010’s fourth quarter, and for the entire year, more than $2 trillion.
The Obama administration has essentially washed its hands of the problems; its HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) has helped a fraction of those in need.
The number of US homeowners “underwater,” i.e., owing more than their homes were worth, at the end of 2010, reports Zillow, jumped to 27 percent, up from 23.2 percent in the third quarter.
Furthermore, the report notes, “The rate of homes selling for a loss reached a new peak in December, with more than one-third (34.1 percent) selling for a loss. The rate of homes sold for a loss has increased steadily for the past six months.”
Some 15.7 million homeowners had negative equity at the end of the fourth quarter, in households home to more than 40 million people.
The massive number of those underwater will “surely lead to higher foreclosure rates soon,” notes CNNMoney, “because being underwater is second only to unaffordable payments in leading to foreclosure, according to Zillow’s chief economist, Stan Humphries.”
The number of those with negative equity swelled in the final quarter in part as a result of the slowdown in foreclosures, due to the scandal surrounding the banks’ use of improper documentation and processes. With the moratorium largely lifted, foreclosures are expected to soar.
Economist Joseph Stiglitz, speaking at a conference in Mauritius February 9, predicted that another 2 million foreclosures would take place in the US in 2011, adding to the 7 million already recorded since the financial meltdown of 2008.
Banks repossessed 1 million homes in 2010, and this year is expected to be bleaker. Approximately 5 million borrowers are at least two months behind in their mortgage payments. Rick Sharga of Realty Trac Inc, which follows foreclosures, estimated that 1.2 million more homes would be repossessed by lenders in 2011.
One in 45 US households received a foreclosure filing in 2010. In Nevada, one in every 11 households received a filing; in Arizona, one in every 17; in Florida, one in every 18.
The Zillow report on fourth quarter housing prices contains some startling figures. Home values continued to decline in 123 out of 132 US metropolitan areas, some four years after the bursting of the housing bubble.
The Detroit metropolitan area, which has been battered by the economic crisis, saw housing prices drop another 7.5 percent in the quarter. Home values were down in Detroit in the fourth quarter of 2010 17.4 percent over the same three-month period a year earlier.
Only the smaller cities of Pueblo, Colorado (23.7 percent), Mobile, Alabama (18.5 percent), and Ocala, Florida (18.2 percent) suffered greater year-over-year declines.
The figures on negative equity are perhaps even more astonishing. Nearly 70 percent of homeowners in Phoenix, Arizona (home to 4.4 million people) are underwater; houses there have lost 53.6 percent of their value from the peak in the summer of 2006. In Orlando, Florida (metropolitan area population 2.1 million), 61.7 percent of homeowners face the same situation; houses there have dropped 54.4 percent in value since their high point.
Of major US cities, Miami residents have experienced the largest drop in prices, 54.8 percent from their peak, although “only” 42.8 percent of homeowners face negative equity. In Sacramento, California, another center of the housing collapse, prices have dropped 47.4 percent since 2006, and 46.8 percent of homeowners are underwater.
In the Bay Area in northern California (home to 7.4 million people), house prices have dropped 31.8 percent since the heady days of the mid-2000s. Zillow’s Humphries expects “a long, flat bottom [in prices] … Most markets will remain in malaise for an extended period of time.” The San Francisco Chronicle goes on: “The reasons? The foreclosure pipeline is still clogged with properties, many homeowners are underwater and unemployment continues apace.”
The situation in South Florida continues to be abysmal. Since their peak in June 2006, home values have declined 54.7 percent in the area, the worst showing among the top 25 markets covered by Zillow. Some 43 percent of homeowners in South Florida (population 5.5 million) owe more on their houses than the latter are currently worth. About 47 percent of those who sold homes in December took a loss.
Confronted with this disaster, which has ruined many lives and devastated entire communities, while effecting an overall drop in the living standards of millions of Americans, the Obama administration has hardly lifted a finger. It continues to make certain that the banks, whose predatory practices helped create the crisis, do not suffer any losses.
Obama’s HAMP program has had virtually no impact on the problem. New data released by Fitch Ratings reveals, “The combined efforts of HAMP and other mortgage loan modification programs have made little more than a dent in the large volume of outstanding distressed loans,” says Fitch’s Managing Director Diane Pendley.
A report recently released by the Special Investigator General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) declared that that HAMP “continues to fall dramatically short of any meaningful standard of success.” When the HAMP initiative was launched, Obama predicted it would aid 3 to 4 million homeowners, only a quarter of those in need. In fact, the program has only resulted in half a million permanent modifications to date.
Of the 1.5 million who managed to hurdle the immense bureaucratic obstacles placed in their path and enroll in the program since spring 2009, some 800,000, or 54 percent, have dropped out.
The failure of HAMP is not accidental. It was a public relations effort by the Obama administration from the start. The administration’s essential premise, that the profits of the banks and other financial institutions could not be cut into, made it impossible to organize a program that would assist ordinary homeowners.
A study on HAMP carried out by investigative journalists at ProPublica is scathing. It points to the level of government connivance with the banks, commenting: “With millions of homeowners still struggling to stay in their homes, the Obama administration’s $75 billion foreclosure prevention program has been weakened, perhaps fatally, by lax oversight and a posture of cooperation—rather than enforcement—with the nation’s biggest banks.”
The study continues: “Despite a dismal showing for the program, rising complaints from homeowners, and repeated threats from officials, the government has levied no penalties against even the most error-prone banks and mortgage servicers. In fact, despite issuing public warnings for more than a year about imposing penalties, the Treasury Department told ProPublica this week they don’t even have the power to punish servicers for wrongfully denying help to homeowners. Instead of toughening the program, Treasury has actually loosened it in the face of industry lobbying.”
ProPublica cites the comments of law professor Alan White of Valparaiso University in Indiana, “Treasury staff are preoccupied with friendly relations with the banks. Sometimes it seems the banks own Treasury.” Indeed they do.
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WHY OBAMA WANTS WILLIAM DAILY…. OPEN BORDERS!
OBAMA HAS INFESTED HIS ADMINISTRATION WITH LA RAZA PARTY MEMBERS TO PUSH FOR AMNESTY, “CHEAP” MEX LABOR IN OUR JOBS TO KEEP HIS CORPORATE PAYMASTERS HAPPY AND GENEROUS, AND HAS TURNED OUR NATION’S SECURITY INTO Dept. Homeland Security = PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIP!
ANYTHING TO KEEP THE HORDES OF ILLEGALS CLIMBING OUR BORDERS!
WILLIAM DAILY IS CLOSELY IDENTIFIED WITH BIG OBAMA DONOR, BANKSTER CRIMINALS J.P. MORGAN!
WHEN OBAMA GETS OUT OF BED, HE MARCHES FOR HIS BANKSTERS AND LA RAZA!
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FROM CREOLE FOLKS
Obama Seeks Brother of "Chicago Mob Boss" for Top White House Post
The roaches and con-artist, fake journalist on cable news are all lying about William Daley being all this and all that, this man is an open borders, down with America, free trade globalist. MSNBC and Gretta "the Scientology" Van Susteren from Fox News are knowingly deceiving the public about D. Issa & his letter to "business owners"=which they made into such a BIG DAM DEAL, but no one says anything whenBarrack Hussein Obama, comes around with all of these shady bankers, hedge fund managers and Wall St. Tycoons, which he puts in his cabinet. All of Obama's meeting with Wall Street asking, "What can I do for you?" is never something covered by Keith Oberman or Rachel Maddow.
(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level administration post, possibly White House chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.
Such a move, which is still under discussion, would bring a Washington veteran -- and someone with strong business ties -- into the administration as Obama sets out an agenda for the second half of his term while dealing with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
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OBAMA’S PAYMASTERS:
Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).
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Barack Obama has collected nearly twice as much money as John McCain
BY DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT
July 1st 2008
Wall Street firms have chipped in more than $9 million to Barack Obama. Zurga/Bloomberg
Wall Street is investing heavily in Barack Obama.
Although the Democratic presidential hopeful has vowed to raise capital gains and corporate taxes, financial industry bigs have contributed almost twice as much to Obama as to GOP rival John McCain, a Daily News analysis of campaign
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