This is a continuation of Foreclosure Ripoff, Part I and Foreclosure Ripoff, Part II. You can read the rest of the story by following those links.
So the mortgage brokers, aided by the Realtors, began the fraud when they concocted information about income/assets and value of property on the individual loan applications. I know my mortgage broker fudged a few things, and at that he was more honest than most. He had a special appraiser that he used, and he told me that it was to my benefit- a too high appraisal, and my property taxes would be too high, too low and I wouldn’t get the loan. Wouldn’t you know, the appraisal was EXACTLY the agreed upon sale price for the house.
As a result, the mortgage brokers made thousands on each sale, billions as an industry.
Then the banks made billions when they originated the loans and then sold them to Wall Street Brokers. The asking price was usually about 102.5% of the loan amount. That means that a $200,000 loan was sold for about $205,000- usually within a few weeks of being written.
Wall street then sold them as mortgage backed securities to various funds around the world. These REITs made billions.
Then investors like myself, with their retirement money tied up in mutual funds, 401K funds, and retirement accounts that were professionally managed and heavily invested in these REITs see the value of their investments nosedive. As a result, my employer is going to cut retirement in half in the near future, meaning that I will soon have to make a decision to retire and look for another job, or face the prospect of having a much reduced retirement package in my later years. (The current math shows that if I retire now, I will make the same in retirement as if I stay another 10 years,)
The big investors got bailed out with tax money from my future, and the future of my children and grandchildren. Where is my bailout? To make it worse, the very banks and institutions that caused all of this are being paid by the government to fix the very problem that they created.
Then when it comes time to foreclose, the banks have lost the paperwork, so they simply forge and create new paperwork, and take your home.
The double whammy here is that my 401K is worth about 40% of what it was in 2007, and the triple whammy is that my home is worth about 40% of what I owe on it.
Doing the math, it is impossible for me to retire EVER under those circumstances. I will have to work until the day I die. There is only one way out-
Continued yet again