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10 Fun Facts About the Top 1 Percent From Alternet.com

The Tale of One Brevard Family in Foreclosure

Im standing in the farmers market in Rockledge one day a few months ago talking to some people and as with most conversations between adults in these times, the economy comes up. Each person in turn tells a little about their point of view and some offer a peek into their lives and how those lives have changed due to the recession. Thats when one man says something that makes us all shut up and listen.

I havent paid a house payment in almost 3 years, the man says in a very matter of fact way. The group goes very quite. Each, I imagine, are trying to think what to say, each of us not wanting to offend. Of the group of 5 of us that day, I know this man best of all. I know that he is a hard worker, a proud person and a God fearing, no hand outs, Regan Republican. I am certain that of the group, I am the most shocked. He is neither boasting or Embarrassed about this, it just is a fact.

He goes on to tell us a story that in less insane times would seem made up. He lost his business a few years ago and like so many others in our town, state, country, he made the move that seemed right. He looked for work, reduced spending and tried to get by. Being over 55 and without a higher education, his prospects where dim. He saw an opportunity to start up a small business and used the equity in the family home to get started again.

He paid off all his bills, put some of the cash away to offset any short falls that might come in between start up and income and when about the business of hard work, 7 days a week to try and make it.

In the months that followed he saw the bubble bust and while the new business was making money it was not making enough to cover the 2/28 note once it hit the 25 month and jumped 6 points. The man tried to negotiate a lower payment but the bank would have none of it and started the foreclosure process and thats where the story gets crazy.

Once the bank sent back my payment, they would not take any money from us He tells us, And they still will not take any money and its been almost 3 years now. I ask if they have offered the governments Making Homes Affordable Modification to him and he laughs.

Yes sir, they have sent me paper on that 7 times and 7 times Ive sat there and filled those papers out and sent them back and then I hear nothing for a few weeks. Then theyll call me and ask for the paper work again. I start to shake my head as does the others in this party. The man goes on.

I keep telling them Ive got money to pay now, I can even pay the full monthly amount with that 13% interest rate they slapped me with on the 25^th month and still they will not take any money! He goes on to say that the bank that has the note is the 3^rd one in 3 years and even when he has asked if they could just pay the past due ( which is around 30,000) and start over he gets no action.

So he sits in limbo, not knowing if hell be given a chance to keep the home that he has been able to pay for the last 2 years. The others in the group find this hard to believe as do I. Could it be that the system is so overrun and ill equipped to handle this amount of default that people that could pay something and people that could now pay it all are not allowed to pay anything?

At first blush, it seems impossible. To think that banks would knowingly refuse income on homes in this economic situation is just crazy but when you remember that they got huge sums of money in the bailout to help people stay in there homes it becomes madding.

Over the past 3 years while my friends home sits in limbo - 2.7million homes have been vacated by the owners. Some got the first notice and started moving. Some waited and tried to work with the bank and then had to move, other had no where to go and in the end the local police had to remove them from their homes. I had to know if my friends story was just a mistake or were there more like him out there.

I started by looking for the facts on foreclosures and one fact stood out more than any other. The average default time on foreclosed homes was over 640 days. And there it was- the smoking gun. Almost 23 months from default to foreclosures and what had the banks done to help, how many homes had they used the governments program to save? 700,000 notes had been placed on temporary modification, a number not included in the 2.7 million.

Next I started looking online for stories that were like the one I had just heard and it turns out there are plenty. Some of the people just stayed in the homes and kept talking to the bank, others left and years later the home is still not foreclosed on and still others had an even more unbelievable situation. These people had been in modification when the foreclosure was granted by the courts and they too are still in their homes, post- foreclosure with no set sale date and still sending in paper work and still not being allowed to pay anything. If my friend is in limbo, these last people must be in hell.

One has to wonder how many of those could have paid a lesser amount if only the bank would take it. How many can pay now but are not allowed to? How many in post foreclosure could save stay in their homes? One thing is clear, this is a much bigger mess then any of us can know.

In the mist of stories of strategic foreclosures, allegations of bank feud, bad paper work and lost notes and even recent stay in foreclosures to sort out a small part of this mess, we may have forgotten the people and the toll on our community.

Each house that enters the market, lowers the overall home values, reduces rental dollars and lessens the community.

Every family in limbo hordes money and sits waiting for the other shoe to fall. They do not spend or feed the local economy. Those that have to move, their standard of living is reduced. Others leave the area, reducing the tax base and population of the community.

Every home that sits vacant and un-kept is a drained on local governments and a danger to others. Also, vacant home invite swatter, vandals and fire and other hazard (in our area un-kept pools are a haven for bugs and a drowning danger)

Banks that refuse to collect payments and can not sell foreclosed homes will make no money. This will reduce the money supply and increase banking cost that will have to be paid by the consumer when the bail cash is gone. Best case - higher banking fees, worst case- no loans!

The end economic and social impact of millions of empty homes and displaced families may be too high and deep for us to even grasp. The latest numbers from the center for ethical lending give little hope. They estimate another 5.3 million homes are in danger of foreclosure in the next 24-36 months.

With Florida being number 4 in the country for foreclosures we will see a good share of this next wave.

And all the while, banks are loosing paper work, dragging there feet and refusing payments from those who can pay, while putting people on the streets. It make one wonder when there will be a return to any type of reasonable behavior.

When will the banks come to understand an age old adage half a loaf is better then none?

Perhaps it will happen when their bail-out money runs out.

For those in foreclosure limbo, it can not come soon enough!

RHH. Editor, BNN

HEADLINES........

Past headlines & Stories

Will the Double dip in the recession hit Brevard ?

Everywhere you look, you see article after article warning about the second dip in the recession. The idea is that while we think the bottom has been hit and now there is nowhere to go but up we hit bottom again. This can be brought on by many factors, including more home foreclosures and more job lost (just to name a few). Fear of Cape lay offs fuel this notion with their estimates of 1/3 fewer employees at the shuttles end. Yet we forget that by 2011 almost 1/3 of those now employed will be eligible for retirement. Still overall the past 2 years have seen some scary numbers;

County unemployment rates reached a 20-year high of 12.3 in Jan. of this year.

That was up from 8.9 just one year ago. City by city - Melbourne 10.6, Palm bay 11.7 and Titusville topping the bunch at 12.4 as of June this year. To find anything close to those numbers you have to go back to January of 92.

Next is the housing issue.

Monthly foreclosures exceeded 746 from January 2009 through October. Maximum monthly home sales were less than 584 during that time frame, creating an accumulating backlog of unsold homes. And a total of 25,600 filings of foreclosure rolled into the courthouses of Brevard from 2007 to march of this year.

That is in addition to nearly 44,943 new houses built from 2000 through 2009- enough to house 112,000 people. However, only 60,000 people moved into the county, leaving the remaining homes vacant and helping to precipitate bursting the housing bubble.

The median drop in home prices was 50% from 2005 to 2008, from $248,700 to $125,200. New building permits dropped from an all time high in 2005 of 7321 that year to 883 in 2009, a 29-year low.

In the home

In 2010, almost 60,000 people in the country were receiving food stamps and the following were below the poverty line

• Families - 6.80%
• Total population - 9.50%
• Under age 18 - 13.00%
• Age 65 or older - 6.50%

And bankruptcy was up from 3.87 per 1000 in people 2000 to 5.26 in 2009.

With such numbers the thought that we might be in for another shoe falling is enough for many to lose sleep over, however we have seen some movement to the right direction.

Unemployment, while still very high, has dropped from 12.3 in January to 11.6 in June of this year. And while even in the highest unemployment rates in 09Forbes ranked the county 18th our of 100 MSAs and first out of 8 metros in Florida for affordable housing, and short commute times and other factors. Also, Kiplinger.com, rated Brevard as one of the five best places to retire based on cost of living, weather, doctors, low crime rate, taxes and recreation.

At the end 2008, tourists spent $2.89 billion in the county. This is distributed in several categories: lodging $839 million, eating and drinking $509 million, Kennedy Space Center $597 million, Retail sales $450 million, entertainment $120 million, and Port Canaveral $109 million.

Also there were still over 168,500 private sector jobs in the county in 2009. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted the following workers in Brevard along with average annual pay ($): Retail 25,900 ($23,361), Manufacturing 21,700 ($65,521), Local government 20,100 ($42,517) and Hospitality 19,600 ($15,857). The largest local employer is Brevard Public schools with 9,500 of whom 5,000 are teachers.

In May 2009, the Palm Bay-Melbourne area was ranked as the #8 tech center in the United States by Bizjournals. It overcame its low number of total high-tech companies and jobs by having a high number of jobs per high tech company (#4) and high tech jobs compared to total private-sector jobs.

Lastly, as we found in our retail report, while some businesses have been lost, others are spring up. And even in the slow economy, hope is alive and well. Perhaps there will be another dip but perhaps not here. One has to factor in that our community is very different from others around the county. We have retired persons moving here each day of the year, tourists still traveling to the best beaches in the world and a highly skilled work force that has faced changes and disasters before and come out on top. In the end, no one can predict if we will face another dip before things really do turn upwards but our odds maybe better then most.

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