Bank of America just gave ME attitude!!

Originally posted by elevatedone
Perhaps I'm biased.

I work in the financial / credit world.

That's it, no more stars for you... ever!

Now if I can just figure out how to take back the other two.

To the OP:

I almost ended up in the same predicament. I was renting a nice house for a decent price that I had remodeled, back in 2005. I had been there 5 years. I really wanted to own the home since I had so much of my own time and money invested into making it a great place to be.

When the owner decided to sell, they gave me the first chance, and offered to take $25,000 off the asking price. Even with the discount, it still came out to almost $500,000.00 and was still well within the average home price for that house in that area.

That's when I decided to do a little more research into the home prices close to me. I think I used zillow.com, and explored my neighborhood. Back then you didn't have to register or anything, just type in an address, not sure about now...haven't looked in 4+ years.

Once you typed in an address, you got a birds-eye view of the houses in the neighborhood and info on when they were last sold, for how much etc. That's when I discovered the "graph of doom".

What it showed was the average price of homes in my area over the last three years, which had a steady incline. Then I clicked on the "ten year" link and almost fell over.
(yes, I almost fell over even though I was sitting down) What previously looked like a ramp now looked like an EKG caught in the middle of a heartbeat. The home prices had gone up in my area 30% in the previous 3 years!

I took a piece of paper, using it as a straight edge on my monitor and came to the conclusion that the home I wanted to purchase shouldn't be worth more than about 360,000.00 should the market correct itself.

I then realized something was seriously wrong. Nobody I knew had their wages increase in such a fashion, and certainly not mine. There was no way that this kind of increase could continue and I wanted to find out why this was happening.

The more I found out, the more that 10 year graph looked like an earthquake than an EKG. Even some of my own friends were in houses they shouldn't have been able to afford. (not saying you fall in this category, just generalizing)

Ever since the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913, time after time after time, bubbles get created and then they burst. As much as I wanted that house, there was no way I was going to be a victim of this one.

As bad as I feel for the OP, the truth is, all the tools were there to easily discover that the home you were buying should in no way be worth what they were asking...period. Anyone who bought a home between 2002 and 2005 probably feels the same way you do, or worse, and the bankers are laughing their asses off because they kept all that money they were supposed to inject back into the economy.

The thought also crossed my mind that I'd eventually be out-priced and never be able to afford the home I wanted, the way prices kept rising, and almost got suckered into it out of fear. Thankfully, in my case, it was just too damn obvious. All you had to do was look.

Hope it works out for ya,

Peace

reply to post by silent thunder


This video explains everything-

video

i feel your pain OP. i didn't read one single post here, so what ever. sorry.
banks to me have been the most worthless piece of crap ever invented.
i first felt the sting when i was in college.

my father was kind enough to loan me 10k to go to school on. that was for rent, art supplies, and living so i could do my 8 hours of homework every night.

i did my homework every night and graduate top of my class, -- best portfolio and highest grade point. i lived on nothing to get by, but i made it work.

while i was in school, my poor car broke down and i went to the bank -- WHILE i had 10k in the bank and asked for a loan to fix my car - $300 bucks...

they wanted me to take out a CD for $300 bucks and would not loan me the money...
i was appalled. i had THAT much liquid assets (which was a lot for the early 90's) and they wouldn't budge...

ever since, i've understood that they are totally worthless. they made a lot of money on MY money, but wouldn't help a client out.

iv'e never relied on them since. they can all suck an egg.
the tiny percentage rate you get in your account is their justification that THEY are helping you? hahahahaha.

F that.

reply to post by silent thunder


I am no expert on the subject, but here is the act:
Cummunity Reinvestment Act
It looks like some folks downplay the role this had in the current situation.

I'm sorry, but why should banks become guarantors of your purchasing decisions?

Just askin'

So, for the last month, I've been checking my house value estimate on zilow once a week.

Up until this week, my house was depreciating at about $500 a week.

Today, I looked at it, and it has gone down over $1000 since last week.

Ok, well....I wish I had known about zillow BEFORE I bought my house.
Instead, like an idiot, I relied on my real estate agent to tell me the truth about the neighborhood, house values, etc...

Never trust anyone who works on commission.

Lesson learned.



[edit on 8-9-2009 by nikiano]

[edit on 8-9-2009 by nikiano]

Ditto. I live in the SF Bay area. I could buy the house I'm renting, if I wanted to pay twice my rent for the mortgage payment and was willing to risk losing my savings as a down payment. I saw the zillow and altosresearch graphs and knew better.

Had I been just a little wiser I wouldn't have put the money from the houses I sold in 2006 into stocks. Wish I knew about ATS back then.

Originally posted by loam
I'm sorry, but why should banks become guarantors of your purchasing decisions?

Just askin'

what are banks for?
hiding your money?
love you loam.

Quite honestly, if the OP's house has lost half of it's value, and they still owe tons on it, the smart thing to do is walk away from it. The trick is to purchase a new home before you walk away from the prior home. I've seen it done numerous times, it's can be done, even now. Sure it dings your credit, but you get out of a no win situation, move into a different, sometimes better home that is worth more than your current home.

What's the difference if you have a bad credit score if you don't use credit anymore? That should be everyone's goal, get off the credit addiction. You can settle with credit card companies for 30 cents on the dollar or less if you want to.

Originally posted by pavil
Quite honestly, if the OP's house has lost half of it's value, and they still owe tons on it, the smart thing to do is walk away from it. The trick is to purchase a new home before you walk away from the prior home. I've seen it done numerous times, it's can be done, even now. Sure it dings your credit, but you get out of a no win situation, move into a different, sometimes better home that is worth more than your current home.

What's the difference if you have a bad credit score if you don't use credit anymore? That should be everyone's goal, get off the credit addiction. You can settle with credit card companies for 30 cents on the dollar or less if you want to.

No lending institution will give someone a mortgage for another house, when they are so backwards on a 1st, or in his case, 1st and 2nd mortgages. The best thing to do is keep paying the mortgage. Eventually the house will be worth what is owed. This greed mentality and lack of personal responsibility is what caused the downturn.

what a bunch of goody two shoes! you people really don't know what time it is do you? this crap you see going on every where across the country
isn't just a bunched up bit of random crap happenings.
take off the rose colored glasses and look at things
in their true light. this is all being done to the american people by
design.
this is just the beginning.

first of all, youi don't just go walking away.you quit making those payments. keep working and socking as much money away that you
can while you fight them in court when they try to get you out. don't miss one court date. you should be able to stay there close to a yr for free
before you get notice of the date the Marshall will be there to evict you.

so make sure you're all rolled up and out of there a couple days before
he comes to put the locks on. this is the important part so don't forget.
make sure you have 1 bag of mortar mix at the house w/ you on the day
you're going to bail.
half bag for every toilet in the house.flush three times as you poor.
when you leave ,the house will be absolutly worthless.
no visible damage. house is all cool from the outside so you're cool.
but no one can ever live there again.
they will have to tear the whole thing down. and even bust out the foundation. tell me they don't have it come in.

as for neighbors, when you leave ,they won't be your neighbors anymore.

[edit on 9-9-2009 by randyvs]

reply to post by nikiano


I am incredulous that you are even complaining about your situation when there are plenty of people out there who are far worse off . Remember you haven't lost your home and you are still making your mortgage payments without difficulty . You gambled on the property market and lost get over it already !

No bank is going to refinance loan to match your house current value because they would lose money , nor should the American tax payer have to folk out the difference just so you and others can make a profit later on . I won't excuse any poor service you received but at most you can expect after making such a request is to get laughed out of court in a polite manner .

Originally posted by loam
I'm sorry, but why should banks become guarantors of your purchasing decisions?

Just askin'

Maybe you missed it, but the whole point of the "bank bailout" was to give our hard-earned tax money to the banks, so they could stabilze the housing crisis. The government knew that if the banks didn't start modifying loans, people who had good loans would start to default at some point.

This is now that point....lots of us with good loans are now walking away because now our home values have now taken a dive because of all the foreclosures. This is what the 700 billion-2 trillion dollars was supposed to prevent....but it did not, because the banks didn't modify the original bad loans. They did not stabilize the housing crisis.

They modified very, very few loans.....they pretty much just sat on the money.

So, now it's affecting people like me....who took out good loans, but bought at the height of the market.

Pretty soon, it will start to affect those who bought 10 years ago...then 20 years ago.

Because they didn't modify the loans like they were supposed to do...the rest of us are suffering. And pretty soon, those of you who are telling me I just made a bad decision to buy when I did.....and to just suck it up, well your property values are going to start suffering, too.

Then, the entire US economy could get even worse than it is now.

THAT was my point.

it's not about my house. It's about the attitude of the banks. They don't feel they need to modify loans....but the more they sit on the bailout money, the worse the situation gets.





[edit on 9-9-2009 by nikiano]

[edit on 9-9-2009 by nikiano]

[edit on 9-9-2009 by nikiano]

Originally posted by xpert11
reply to post by nikiano

 

I am incredulous that you are even complaining about your situation when there are plenty of people out there who are far worse off .

Yes, I know that there are lots of people much worse off than I am. Which is why I kept paying every month, for the last 3-4 years, thanking God that I was one of the "lucky ones."

Then my house dropped to half of what it was worth, my neighbors could't rent out their places, my neighborhood is full of foreclosures, and my house is not worth squat.

So, yes, there are many, many people much worse off than I am.

But that does not excuse the fact that the banks are not doing what they were supposed to do with the hundreds of billions to trillions of money....of MY tax money, and yours....that had been given to them.

If they just wanted us to suck it up, then they shouldn't have given billions of dollars to the banks and asked them to start lending.

So fine, forget about me...


I just want to know.... where did all that money REALLY go, if the banks aren't lending it out?






[edit on 9-9-2009 by nikiano]

reply to post by stevegmu


I beg to differ, I have seen this done. As long as you are current, have good credit, and money for a down payment, you can do what I described. Banks don't care how much the value of the house has gone down, they just care that you have been paying on it. As long as you have a good track record, you can purchase a new home they walk away from the previous one. You may not like the ethics of it, but it can and has been done.

reply to post by nikiano


Here's where it went-
link

reply to post by nikiano


I hate to wake you from your slumber and bring you into reality but the bailouts were never about helping anyone other then failed business executives waltz off into the sunset with massive Golden Handshakes . At any rate bailing out those home owners who ran into trouble would only deny those who couldn't afford a home in the previous market to buy one in the long run .

Cheers xpert11 .

Right now, as we all know, the banks are sitting on a ton of money. The chart below shows how extreme the injection has been. (My apologies to those of you who have seen this in another thread I posted in this morning. Look how cute the little dotcom lurch seems in comparison!):

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3f0c1cd603cc.png[/atsimg]

But very little of that is making its way into the general economy or going to homeowners (the OP's original gripe). It should be obvious to anyone looking at that chart that if they were to suddenly release all that cash willy-nilly, it would cause instant hyperinflation. So I see one of 2 scenarios playing out.

1) The money gets released slowly, in drips and drabs. We will pass through a period where it seems like there is a real recovery, because suddenly there is more more money floating around, home prices stop falling and may even rise. The mainstream media will have a field day, people like the OP will see their houses rise in value again, everyone will feel great...for a while. Then they will overshoot the mark and we will experience strong inflation if not hyperinflation. Mortgage holders and other debtors will be out of the debt-ditch, but their houses really won't be worth that much in real terms because of the inflation. This is probably the best-case scenario for current debtors, even though not perfect. The resulting inflation, however, will cause interest rates to skyrocket, putting a lock on further debt-based expansion of the economy. Not to mention choking off the use of the dollar as a "global reserve currency" -- something foreigners are already backing away from because they can smell it coming.

2) The money never makes it out of the banks. The banks and the few people who control them become a kind of permanenet aristocracy with literally unimaginable wealth, while everyone else suffers from deflation.

I think the big banks and financiers would like #2, but I think #1 is more likely.

[edit on 9/9/09 by silent thunder]

reply to post by pavil

You may not like the ethics of it, but it can and has been done.

oh don't worry about the mans ethics. i'm sure if he forgets
them or if he misplaces them.
i'm sure the bank will be right there, johnny on the spot to remind him.

They were trumping up the numbers all along. Talk about FRAUD!

the trechery knows no bounds.
the wifees union insurance company sent a man out . got tired of them calling . so i finally said ya ok. send one out here.
he drove from about 50 miles away to get here.
let him go all the way threw this big production.
answered his questionares. basically trying to sell us a better policy then one comes threw the union. totally let the guy trap me.
even picked the policy filled out the papers all of it. cracken jokes, even the wife was havin fun.
she even thought we were buyin a better policy. hell of deal!
then the guy says all i need is your card and we are finished.
wife got it out before i did. uh, we don't use credit cards.
i said no way do i play that game. he's all, "no problem if i can
just get your account NO. " bank account? "yes" i shook my head no
and told him. the only way i would ever have anything to do w/ a bank,
is if i were going to rob one. poor guy stood there frozen. so i just turned n
went out in the garage and had a smoke.
when i came back inside he was gone. the wife said he couldn't get out of here fast enough. said he was pretty shaken, but that wasn't my
intentions at all . he should have laughed when i said that.


[edit on 9-9-2009 by randyvs]

Last year I closed my account with Bank of America. I went to the bank to do this. I was given a printed paper showing that my account was closed.

Four months later I received a notice from Bank of America that I owed charges and late fees for my non-account.

I went to the bank with this "statement" that had been sent.

When I got LOUD one of the counselors took me into a private room and closed the door. He admitted the bank had made a mistake and would correct it.

It seemed the bank personnel who closed out my account deliberately left a penny in the account.

After some research, I found out they had been doing this to thousands of customers. Why?

As long as there is still a penny in the account, it appears as an active valid account to show their stockholders!!!!

They were trumping up the numbers all along. Talk about FRAUD!