Disorder in the Industry
I’ll admit it… I looked up “Kerfuffle” when Tennessee blogger used it in his headline “Real Estate Kerfuffle in Key West.” Disorder. Commotion. Disruption. He links to another site called Rock Trueblood’s Watchworld and a post about DEBT becoming the next four letter word.
In the case of my current landlord (soon to be ex-landlord) this Realtor took my $1600 I paid for rent since December 2008 and never made another mortgage payment. In May 2009 (last month) I got the obligatory knock on the door from a Monroe County sheriff telling me the place I was renting was being foreclosed upon. Last words from the sheriff, so help me, were like the words of last year’s sheriff: “Don’t worry about moving out immediately. We have so many foreclosures clogging up the courthouse that we won’t be getting around to formally taking this place away from your landlord for another six months.”
The writer goes on to explain about three other squatters who haven’t made mortgage payments in months (to get the lender to negotiate) and years (they can’t produce the note to prove the new mortgage company actually owns it).
A friend of mine went 8 months without making a house payment. They got some phone calls but never a foreclosure notice. They’re caught up - thanks to some family help - but it’s astonishing to me that they were able to live in their house that long without making a payment.
The same company that didn’t foreclose on them is the final decision-maker in a short-sale I’m working with - I’m on the buyer’s side. They don’t want to accept the short-sale offer which would cost them about $10,000. They have said they’d prefer to foreclose …. which would cost them about $62,000 minimum.
I have no sympathy for these mortgage companies, but feel a certain degree of anger and frustration that as a taxpayer I’m helping them out of the mess they’re in when this is how they make decisions.
