Tips On How To Avoid Foreclosure

February 10th, 2009

Susan Jan asked:


Foreclosure occurs when you fail to make your payments and the mortgage company takes legal action to repossess your home or property. Mortgage foreclosure may take place if a homeowner, who has taken out a loan, defaults on the mortgage payments. Through the process of mortgage foreclosure, the lender company can take possession of the defaulted home. In case the value of the home is less than the mortgaged amount, the borrower may have to face the ‘deficiency judgment’ to pay the balance amount. Mortgage foreclosure also has a negative impact on the homeowner’s credit score.

Even though you may be facing mortgage foreclosure does not mean you have to lose the house. There are many ways to stop foreclosure when you are faced with mortgage foreclosure on your home. Some ways to avoid foreclosures include forbearance, loan modification, mortgage refinancing, sale of the property, etc.

It is also important that you save your house from mortgage foreclosure in order to maintain a good credit rating. If you have trouble making your mortgage payments, the first thing you need to do is contact your mortgage company and let them know. Prepare all your financial information such as tax returns, bank statement, etc. and do not abandon the property to avoid mortgage foreclosure. You can even have an option to go for a ‘pre-foreclosure’ sale where you simply sell your home before the bank completes the mortgage foreclosure.

To stop foreclosures, there are several other things that a homeowner can do. Homeowners can try and apply for Special Forbearance to avoid foreclosure. This may lead to a revision of the repayment schedule and in some cases the payment may either be revised or suspended. Your lender is not in the business of taking homes through mortgage foreclosure; they make more money by lending your mortgage payment to other homeowners.

If you are familiar with the foreclosure listings in your area, it will make things easier for you when you discuss with your lenders. Foreclosure listings are the lists of foreclosure homes, with comprehensive information and details geared towards potential buyers interested in buying a foreclosure property. Foreclosure listings provide detailed description on various aspects such as the property details, foreclosure information, neighborhood information, sales history, tax information and also the contact information. To find out more on foreclosure listings, the internet is a good place to learn more on the subject.



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Shouldn’t Naked Short Selling be Made Permanently Illegal?

February 6th, 2009

Zeke Zongerella asked:


dn’t Naked Short Selling Be Made Permanently Illegal?

Does the title make you uneasy? Let me assure you that it has nothing to do with any thing on sex or what is commonly perceived as indecent, however, those stock market players indulging in this practice are certainly being indecent to the rest of us innocent investors. Let me explain. 

To understand naked short selling you need to understand short selling. Let me give you an analogy on short selling. Supposing your neighbour came to you and asked to borrow your ax that you keep in your garden shed and you lend it to him. The first thing he does with the ax is chop your arms off. That would be akin to short selling. In the stock market, a speculator borrows shares of a company from his broker (who lends shares belonging to another of his clients, generally without asking the owner’s permission) and sells it to a buyer with the expectation that the share price of that company would go down in the near future. The seller then, at the appropriate time, buys the shares at the reduced price and returns them to his broker. The broker gets his commission, the speculator his profit and the only loser is the actual owner as the value of his shares has gone down. Neither the speculator nor the broker see any thing wrong in making money at some one else’s expense. What is even more ugly is that this is done by thousands of short sellers and hedge funds working in cohesion to drive down share prices of certain companies purely for their own profit.

Now consider how naked short selling works. Here, the analogy I will use is that of a con man. Your neighbour comes to you and offers an ax for a lower than market price. You agree to buy and strike a deal with him. The only problem here is that he does not have the ax and he has not even contacted any seller. Further, he is now going to go out and offer more of these axes to any body who is willing to buy with out having any source or agreement on purchasing them. Eventually,  the market perceives that there is a far more supply of axes than actual demand and therefore the price of the ax goes down. He then buys it at his leisure and delivers to you or occasionally he may not deliver at all. Speculators and hedge funds, before 17th September 2008, offered shares of companies they had not even bothered to borrow (as traditional short sellers do) or source. The consequence of this was that there were far more shares of certain companies sold than that company had actually issued. Can you imagine what would happen to a company’s share price if millions of non existent shares are sold at ridiculous prices? Yet, until the SEC brought in new rules on the 17th, this was standard practice. To people like me and hopefully you, naked short selling just sounds like a con game - a Ponzi scheme. Companies that were directly affected by these hedge funds and speculators were Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill Lynch and a thousand other less well known names. The wealth of these companies was destroyed for the enrichment of a few. Lehman Brothers, a Fortune 500 company, has disappeared in bankruptcy. The others have merged or have been nationalized by the US.

In spite of the carnage (estimated at $100 billion and 1000 companies by Robert Shapiro, former under secretary for commerce and economic affairs) that has been going on, you will still find economists and columnists telling you that shorting is good for the stock market as it balances the positive bias a poorly performing company may have in absence of shorting. This, to me, sounds like self serving logic as a poorly performing company will lose its share value the moment its quarterly results are announced. It is a matter of just 3 months and you do not need these short selling parasites to tell you that a company is not performing. Sooner rather than later, news of the company will become public as it leaks out from its employees, suppliers and investment houses that track the company.

The SEC has curbed naked short selling only for a month (by forcing naked short selling speculators to deliver the shares with in 3 days of a deal)  and in its own press release has said “That rule takes effect Thursday (17th September) but was adopted on an interim basis and the SEC is seeking public comment on it for 30 days.” Why they cannot permanently outlaw not only naked short selling but also traditional short selling is beyond me. These are destructive stock market activities which put in jeopardy your investment and therefore possibly your childrens’ education and your retirement  - most pension funds hold stock market investments.

In conclusion I would like to say that naked short selling is blatant stock market manipulation perpretated by unscrupulous, greedy and totally ruthless people for their own ends.

I would appreciate it if you would leave any comments on how you feel about naked short selling on my blog at http://moneyinfoblog.wordpress.com/

Zeke



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Daniel Imperato Offers 10-point Peoples Program in Lieu of the Proposed Wall St. Bailout

January 26th, 2009
Joseph Oddo asked:


West Palm Beach, FL – – Former Independent presidential candidate Daniel Imperato speaks out in our second interview about the so-called Washington bailout. Though marginalized and blacked out by the major media, tracing his words from the last three years of campaigning will show just how accurate this international businessman has been.

Long before our elected officials in congress and the administration even recognized the problems, Imperato was offering solutions for Iraq, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, Yemen, relations with China, South America and, of special concern this week, the derivatives market.

Imperato called himself the People’s President 2008, and developed a website using that name. Now he offers a solution to the proposed bailout with specific long-term goals for correcting the economic woes in the global financial sector. Because in his words, “what ails America will eventually effect the rest of the global markets.”

His ten point program for the bailout package begins with an absolute reduction in salary for executives running the operation that receives benefits from the government. Imperato offers his own services to help the country and the government to administer the program at a reasonable rate of compensation. And he challenges other qualified businessmen to do the same. “Let’s put the country first and get out of this fiasco for a fraction of what our elected officials are proposing. We should only earn conservative salaries and bonuses based on success or failure.”

The complete 10-point plan listed below also includes a provision to truly putting the “people of the United States first. In it he calls for buying American, bringing back jobs that were shipped overseas and taxing foreign visitors to raise nearly $3 billion.

Here is the plan:

1.      Reduce salary for executives running any operation receiving benefits from the government.

2.      Audit foreign banks that participate in purchasing/refinancing or distributing mortgage-backed securities and/or derivatives to ensure they are in compliance with US regulations before one penny is allocated to them.

3.      Any foreign bank that breaches US security law, hyper-inflates their balance sheets, or used mortgage-backed securities/derivatives to further enhance their balance sheets then sell off at a discount to create cash-flow should not be entitled to any US taxpayer funds for this bailout.

4.      Banks and financial institutions must immediately recognize old usury laws and stop gouging the American people’s pocketbooks with exorbitant interest rates and fees on credit cards.

5.      Allow American families to buy distressed real estate and homes directly from the banks with the federal government using these proposed set aside funds to provide a fixed mortgage rate of 3% per year. Also allow current mortgage holders to refinance to obtain the 3% rate and extend the mortgage term to 50 years. These provisions will reduce monthly payments and directly help families struggling to meet housing payments as the cost of living increases for food and fuel.

6.      Banks participating in the US program will immediately stop ATM charges, overdraft charges and bad check fees that are related to banks holding people’s money and not making it available from an institution floating the funds for additional interest.

7.      The banks should also eliminate charges for minimum balance requirements and charges related to the number of checks written per month.

8.      America needs to start buying American again. 3% fixed rate for all US made automobiles. That’s those made by the big three Chrysler, GM   and Ford.

9.      Implement a taxing mechanism that would tax US corporations for each and every job they ship overseas. Corporations would have the opportunity to recover taxes paid once jobs are brought back to our soil. Examples of specific job categories include credit card processing, call centers and airline reservation systems.

10.  Charge $25 for each foreign traveler arriving and departing US. Estimated revenue from the approximately 57 million international visitors traveling to the US in 2007 would reach nearly $3 Billion.

Following up on his proposed Imperato offered these words, “Foreign banks need to get in line, not receive any funds to save their failing organizations until US based corporate interests are secure and satisfied with bailout package. Even the amount proposed is not big enough to accommodate foreign interests when it is really designed to protect the people of the United States.

“Since it is supposed to be a republic of the people, then we need a bottom up approach. We start right in consumers’ wallets and give them immediate breaks on the outrageous credit card rates so they can afford the monthly payments and food on their table.

“This package should really be a refund and loan program for home buyers. Having already lost value and most facing rising interest rates, the fixed rate of three percent keep troubled families in their homes and allows more Americans to buy distressed real estate and homes. The people should be buying these homes, not the federal government. Longer mortgage terms also reduce monthly payments and directly helps families handle their basic housing needs while juggling the cost of living increases for food and fuel.

“The 50-year low interest loans have been proven successful by the Japanese where their real estate market is based on a 99-year lease because of the shortage of real estate in the major cities.

“I release this today just as the two major party candidates are preparing to debate. Listen closely to what they offer because neither will suggest points as practical as those I have presented. Exactly why America should have the right to allow major-minor party candidates in the debate. I have independent candidates for both congress and president endorsing my plan. Now if we can just get Administration and federal government advisors to listen, it will be an enormous benefit to the people of the United States.

“Before you bail out the top with blank checks you need to insure the bottom – representing the people – that once we implement these points the people will really and truly put money in their pockets. Financially healthy homeowners protect the economy with cash-flow and maintain the strength of the USA for the people regardless of governments influence.”

Imperato admitted to being guilty when it comes to buying American. “Instead of bailing out the auto industry, they need to work closely with unions and find ways to offer American made cars as inexpensive as possible. The 3% fixed rate for all US made automobiles will put more American made cars on the road and help turnaround the economy in especially hard-hit areas like Michigan.”

Of course in the first debate between the big two party nominees, neither gentleman mentioned any of the points that Mr. Imperato has outlined. The question then remains, why shouldn’t those who succeeded in earning ballot positions on enough state ballots to mathematically earn a winning number of Electoral College votes should be permitted to present their ideas to the American voters over the public airwaves?

Joseph Oddo is a freelance writer and director of Independent America.org advocating for a National Election Reform Platform. E-mail him at usrepublic@aol.com.



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