Irvine Housing Blog |
Big banks foster false hope with lottery-style principal forgiveness Posted: 05 Jul 2011 03:30 AM PDT To give the hopeless a reason not to strategically default, several banks have singled out a few deeply underwater loan owners for principal forgiveness. By spreading news of their magnanimous deeds, they hope the remainder will keep paying.
Irvine Home Address ... 37 LONG Mdw #15 Irvine, CA 92620
Banks have a problem, a riddle they must solve. Twenty-five percent of their borrowers are underwater, and when you factor in second mortgages and sales commissions, more than half can't sell their homes without writing a check for the shortfall. And house prices are still going down. When homeowners have no equity, they are no longer homeowners, they are loan owners. If a loan owner's payments are less than the cost of a comparable rental, they have an incentive to stay and pay, but when the payment exceeds a comparable rental -- and the huge mortgage balances of the bubble make this common -- loan owners have an incentive to keep their money and strategically default on their mortgage. Underwater loan owners have their names on title, and if they keep making payments long enough, amortization may catch them up, and prices may come back, so they may have equity again someday. The more their payments exceed the cost of rental, the further a loan owner is underwater, and the longer they perceive they will have to wait to have equity again, the more likely they are to give up and strategically default. If a loan owner strategically defaults, the lender is forced to make a choice; foreclose on the property when the resale value is worth less than the loan, or allow the loan owner to squat in the property. Neither choice is palatable to the lender. Lenders have responded to these circumstances -- conditions the lenders created through irresponsible lending which inflated the housing bubble -- by using both a carrot and a stick to keep borrowers paying when it is in the best interest of the borrower to strategically default. The stick is the threat of foreclosure, debt collection, reduced access to credit in the future, and an appeal to morality. The specter of consequences to borrowers has been wildly exaggerated, and these circumstances are lessening by the day. The appeal to morality has been steadily eroding as borrowers are coming to realize they have a greater moral responsibility to their families than they have to their lenders. Lenders threats of foreclosure have been neutralized by reports of delinquent mortgage squatters obtaining years of free rent. In fact, instead of being a deterrent to strategic default, the long foreclosure timelines have actually become an inducement. Lenders combat this perception with the use of terrorist tactics. Each month, lenders will randomly select a small number of fresh delinquencies to push through the system as quickly as possible. If some of the herd are executed quickly while others are allowed to squat indefinitely, it creates uncertainty. This uncertainty keeps some paying rather than play Russian roulette. The carrot lenders dangle in front of loan owners comes through rumors of principal reduction windfalls. Like the random executions of freshly delinquent borrowers, a very small number of principal reductions given to loan owners who are doing what lenders want -- making all payments -- provides the lottery-style false hope to motivate the masses. Today's featured article is part of the public relations campaign lenders use to get the word out concerning the principal reduction lottery windfall ostensibly available to loan owners who dutifully make their payments. If someone somewhere got a principal reduction, it could happen to anyone. I hope nobody is holding their breath. Big Banks Easing Terms on Loans Deemed as Risks By DAVID STREITFELD
The ultimate debtors fantasy: money for nothing.
Ms. Giosmas received the gift because Chase probably recognized she was one of the last who didn't strategically default, and based on their analysis, there was a very high probability of her doing so in the future. The likely reduced her balance to a level that reduced their loss from what it would have been if Chase had to foreclose and resell another REO. Plus, they could then get this story written.
Before Chase shaved $150,000 off her mortgage, Ms. Giosmas owed much more on her place than it was worth. It was a fate she shared with a quarter of all homeowners with mortgages across the nation. Being underwater, as it is called, can prevent these owners from moving and taking new jobs, and places the households at greater risk of foreclosure. Giving away free money will not spark a housing recovery. It would however reward those who overborrowed under stupid terms which would encourage imprudent borrowing again in the future. While many homeowners desperately need help to keep their homes and cannot get it, the borrowers getting unsolicited relief from Chase sometimes suspect a trick. Cutting loan balances, even for loans in default, is supposedly so rare that Federal Reserve economists wrote in a paper in March that “we could find no evidence that any lender was actually reducing principal” on mortgages. Principal forgiveness is rare because it is really stupid. Rumors of principal reduction have been used by lenders in the past to get borrowers to contact them to try to work out loan modifications, but lenders don't want to start reducing principal because all of their customers would ask for it. Besides, foreclosure is a superior form of principal reduction because the borrower has consequences for their foolish borrowing.
No, Ms. Giosmas got rewarded for taking out a very foolish loan at the worst possible time. It encourages the worst form of borrower stupidity. Lenders are happy to have this framed as a reward for making payments on time in hopes that others will do the same. They couldn't have scripted her comments any better. Option ARM loans like Ms. Giosmas’s gave borrowers the option of skipping the principal payment and some of the interest payment for an introductory period of several years. The unpaid balances would be added to the body of the loan. I foresee some major write-downs still to come.
These news stories make moral hazard sound like some minor inconvenience when it is the core of the problem. If you give away money, it isn't a loan anymore, it is welfare going to the least deserving.
Good. It should be off the table. Foreclosure and bankruptcy are viable alternatives which provide consequences to the borrower for their behavior. Without consequences, no borrower would exercise any judgment or self control when considering a loan. Loans become free money for the taking. Having an option ARM loan, however, apparently qualifies the borrower for special help. The loans, with their low initial payments and “teaser” interest rates, were immediately popular with buyers who could not afford or did not want to pay the soaring prices on houses. The problem was, eventually the rate would reset or the loan balance would have to be paid in full. “Nightmare Mortgages” they were called in a 2006 BusinessWeek cover piece. Does anyone else see the insanity being encouraged here? This woman believed she was making a wise financial decision using an Option ARM, and the bank is reinforcing this belief by giving her a principal reduction. Borrowers incentives should be to pay down debt to reduce risk for both the lender and the borrower. If borrowers have the mindset to maximize their debt and minimize their payments, that's how Ponzi schemes are born. Our housing market will never find stability under those terms.
Borrowers who borrowed prudently and make their loan payments should be the most outraged by principal reductions. They aren't getting any free money from the banks; however, their foolish neighbors who borrowed irresponsibly are obtaining windfalls. The homeowners getting new loans, however, are quite pleased. In effect, the banks are paying the debt these owners accrued as the housing market plunged. Everyone should take out toxic loans, right? This woman got a principal reduction and actually made money after the sale, all because she took out the worst loan imaginable at the worst possible time and made only the minimum payment. Lenders are telling borrowers they can get free money if they borrow imprudently enough. What impact will that have? The real message lenders are trying to send is aimed at the masses: keep making your payments, and you may also receive free money from the bank. Of course, the odds are about the same as playing the lottery, but as lottery sales attest to, if there is a chance, many will be willing to play. Too late to PonziToday's featured property was purchased on 10/19/2005 for $504,500. The original loan information isn't in my records. However, on 10/23/2007, these owners refinanced with a $480,000 first mortgage, and on 12/6/2007 they obtained a $59,950 HELOC. If they took the HELOC money, they got $30,450 in booty despite buying so close to the peak. They got to squat for about a year. Foreclosure Record Foreclosure Record -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Irvine House Address ... 37 LONG Mdw #15 Irvine, CA 92620 |
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