The big news in town is that the American economy is growing. As Obama reported on Monday “Our economy is growing again for the first time in more than a year”. This is good news for a president that has been hard hit by the economy and whose dream public approval ratings have dropped with the economy. However Obama added: “ We cannot sit back and be satisfied given the extraordinarily high unemployment levels that we have seen”.
The U.S unemployment levels are currently at a 26 year high of 10.2 percent. This percentage reflects a 10.2 percent of people that can and want to work that are currently unemployed. For other industrialized countries like France, Germany, Spain or Norway that level is not good but is far from terrible. For countries like France 10.2 is actually close to business as usual. Of course these countries have a completely different economy that allows for or even creates high unemployment levels. The U.S however is not ready or willing to withstand such levels and needs to change for any lasting improvement to occur with mortgages or the economy as a whole.
The current growth in the economy is according to Obama (and his many economy advisors) a result of cost-cutting across the board that has generated a surge in U.S productivity. Unfortunately this increase has not led to hiring, business seemed to be happy to sit on the rise of productivity for now.
The question is if this surge will continue and help the U.S mortgage crisis. Over 1 in 7 homeowners is foreclosing on his home or over 30 days behind on payments. This number will only increase if unemployment does not start to drop.
The latest demographic to join the fascinating statistics of foreclosures is not the typical subprime borrower with bad credit and worse loans. The demographic that is pushing the foreclosures rates is people with great credit scores and prime mortgages that have lost their unemployment. Tackling this issue will be difference between truly jumpstarting the economy or the dying candle that shines the brightest before fading out.
The mortgage crisis, the larger credit crisis and the economy in recession as a whole have crippled the government’s tax revenue. This makes traditional tax rich popular solutions harder and harder to justify and it may no longer be available for the government in their efforts of re-starting the economy.
Cheaper methods are now being looked at. Tax breaks and other incentives are being considered for companies that increase their payrolls. These might prove effective, however if you are in a position to take advantage of the tax incentives now on offer this might be the time to take advantage while they are still available.
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Loan Modifications have become loaded words politically and economically and as things get worse they get much more personal. Nationwide efforts have been made to educate homeowners in their search for the right loan modification for their home before they fall into foreclosure. Unfortunately only a small percentage 16% to around 25% of eligible homeowners (depending who you talk to) get a loan modification trial and even that represents a small percentage of the number of those that actually wanted or needed a loan modification but weren’t eligible.
The fear and anger of losing their home to foreclosure seems to have led 5 homeowners to torture, kidnap and beat two loan modifiers. Weston and Parmelee, two of the five to be arraigned, were, according to prosecutors, undergoing foreclosure on their home when they sought assistance from the victims. They were not happy with the results the loan modifiers were getting and asked for their money back. Weston, Pamelee, Gonzales, Canez and Parker arranged a meeting with the loan modification agents. It seems to be at that meeting that Daniel Weston and Gustavo Canez robbed and tortured the loan modification agents while the other three accused watched, according to prosecutors.
This unfortunate case underlines the desperate situation many find themselves when their home is going through foreclosure.
However this case seems to be a little more complicated. According to, again, the prosecutors, Gonzales, Parker and Parmelee had a standing business arrangement where they would send customers from their real estate business which adds a few question marks to any complaints the assailants might have against the loan modification agents.
We will have to wait for the official hearing but what does seem safe to state is that this case will only highlight more the credit crisis and the loan modification “solution” in general, as well as showing once more the potential for evil humans have.
Another lesson to learn from this case is that you are best dealing with a government paid, that means free for you, agent when you are looking for information and help on your loan modification. Free help is the best help in this case. This is a rather counterintuitive notion for those of us that are used to paying for quality information however in this case paid agents are more likely to be biased and charge us for things we can do ourselves (or with free help) for nothing.
The reason for this is that the government does not want an avalanche of foreclosures on their hands. Unfortunately due to a rise in unemployment this seems to be what the government is going to have to face. However they are willing to spend over 75 billion dollars to avoid to the best of their ability this situation. If you qualify for the loan modification they want you in. Your bank might not want to give you the loan modification because in some cases it really doesn’t seem to make financial sense to them.
So before you torture your local loan modification agent contact the making homes affordable program (HAMP) and see what they can do for you.
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