A couple who returned a few months back to their mortgaged property in the Bay Area, after having spent a short vacation at Fort Bliss of Texas, have ceased unpacking even now as the situation is still very dicey in their area. Whenever they have tried to contact their lender for a modification in the loan amount the negotiation has been terminated. These hapless families with a frustratingly one-sided lender response have nothing better to do now than wait for the interest rates to come down, or face foreclosure.

Nicklaus Skaggs, an army official who is to be redeployed to Iraq, leaving his family behind, would have been at a worse situation sticking to his mortgaged property in the Bay Area. He retires from the army after he is able to return from Iraq and then he hopes to buy a new house in Louisville in Kentucky. That being his hometown he also feels secure with their property rates. He even wishes to pursue alternate courses in the form of a bachelor’s degree, followed up with an MBA.

However, he can leave behind his family at ease, with a residence that does not pay for house expenses much. After abandoning their loaned property due to the ever increasing mortgage, the family has been relatively pressure-free. After being released from the eight-month old foreclosure process, they are now finally free to make arrangements for a small-scale rented apartment. They even look forward to saving up for the down payment for a new home in Kentucky. As many people have got completely swept off with the foreclosure tide, they really look to this as a positive aspect in their lives for having tided over this foreclosure wave gracefully. Nevertheless, they hope that lenders extend some grace to people like them who have been almost readily submerged under the financial crisis.

Skaggs finds this to be the best financial situation with doing what is right for the family as being pragmatic enough in every possible way considering the current situation. He in fact doesn’t care about being judged in trying to save his family from this crisis. He does not want to lose any further money for paying some mortgage amount to save something that would eventually drown in the longer run.

Meanwhile, foreclosure rates near around Bay Area face tremendous variations. While cities like San Francisco have relatively lesser number of foreclosed properties, there are those in Contra Costa and Solano that have counties lying under heavy blows received from repeated foreclosures.

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Many loan modifications have indeed worked for the benefit of the public, leaving a dent in the financial state of many banks and lending institutions. Up until now, there has been loan modifications that have helped in freezing the interest rates or repayment issues in arrears. However, there have also been benefits occurring too. Recently in a speech, Ben Bernanke, the chairman of Federal Reserve, has urged lenders to reduce their mortgage amounts. This way, many homeowners would have the chance to stick to their properties and avoid foreclosure. At least this way there are fair enough chances that more homeowners would pay their loans in time and there would not be such a crash in the local economy.

The principal reduction rates would come with restoring economic stability and vitality, particularly in those areas which are still under the shock and spell of receiving several blows of foreclosed properties. A much more effective means of avoiding properties lying delinquently would come with these steps. As expected by Berananke, this would be a seriously positive step in favor of an all rounded economic balance.

From their study, the Skaggs’s have looked into the other side of the real estate situation. They have checked online with bloggers who are also facing this problem, and have found that there is a massive vitriol for those who walk-away smoothly, instead of paying up in time. These non-payments are huge sites of irresponsibility and are not taken in a good way by those who are still struggling to maintain their properties by making both ends of their lives meet. Those who have always regarded paying bills in time find this a whole deal of foolishness and irrationality.

Though people have complained all-round on having received poor advice regarding the real estate and foreclosure situation before they made the property deal, they also find that with their current situation it is still not worthwhile to consider getting away at the last leg of the venture. These “fighters”, no wonder find resentment with what they see in some of the weaker neighbors getting away and that too without any penalty.

However, often even these fighters find themselves in a limbo like situation, having tried to make their payments till the very end, and yet not finding adequate measures that can help secure their current situation. They find themselves living in unpacked boxes with their mortgages soaring higher than before, and expect to be thrown out anytime or face foreclosure.

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Foreclosure has claimed one more victim. This time it is US baseball star Jose Canseco, who lost his mansion in California on Thursday. He is also one of the first few celebrities who have admitted to being part of the foreclosure crisis publicly. He has had two divorces and has also been booked a few times by the police for violence.

One of the most prolific baseball stars in the country, Jose Canseco, 43, retired in 2001 from the major leagues after a successful career in the game. His house was located in Encino, a Los Angeles suburb and was over 7,300 square feet in size. It seems that he still owed the lending bank more than $2.5 million on the mortgage of the house after the TV show procured documents showing the same.

When talking to ‘Inside Edition’, Jose Canseco said “I’ve been out of the game for about eight or nine years and obviously this issue with the foreclosure on my home. I do have a judgment on my home and it to me is very strange because it didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else,” he said.

Jose Canseco denied that there was any emotion attached to the whole foreclosure issue regarding the house, but was sympathetic towards the millions of Americans who have lost their homes and become a part of the foreclosure statistic in recent times. He also sympathized with people who were about to lose their houses because they could not handle the increase in mortgage payments due to a hike in interest rates.

Jose Canseco added “I decided to just let it go, but in most cases and most families, they have nowhere else to go.” There was no mention about where Jose Canseco was living at this time – a sad time for one of the first few US Major League baseball players who admitted to using steroids in his 2005 book “Juiced”. He admitted to having lost a lot of his money to his two divorces, which he said reportedly cost him around $7-8 million, leaving him with very little disposable income.

This expose follows statistics released by RealtyTrac this week that foreclosure filings have gone up by 23% in this quarter of 2008 compared to the previous quarter and have more than doubled from last year.

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A proposal for a six month suspension on foreclosures has been made by some lawmakers as the numbers of people unable to pay their mortgages are increasing. Three bills have been introduced with the purpose of providing relief to the mortgage climate and the proposal for moratorium is among them. According to the second bill the tenants would be able to live in the foreclosed houses for another year.

The final bill would enable the homeowners to challenge their foreclosures at court. This law is the same in another 29 states like Connecticut, Maine, Florida, etc. Specific categories of subprime loans would attract a moratorium of six months on foreclosures. This category covers loans which have been approved without finding out whether the borrowers can actually repay them. During the standstill period, the homeowner would be negotiating terms with the lenders to come to an affordable monthly payment and he would continue to pay his loan.

According to a spokeswoman from the administrative department, foreclosures of around 600 properties across the state became delayed since the passing of the law. Since the volume of foreclosures is steadily increasing and the real estate market is facing a low, the numbers of empty homes are also increasing. In Lawrence more than 800 homes are facing foreclosure and it’s the nation’s third highest number. William Lantigua, a representative from Lawrence said that all the three measures taken by the bills were essential for bringing about stability to the Lawrence real estate market. The huge numbers of vacant homes were attracting vandals and thieves. Anthony Verga, a representative from Gloucester district said that it is unfair to throw the tenants out as the entire neighborhood is destabilized. He supports moratorium as it would give people a chance to negotiate and come to an agreement.

In 2007, Essex County had faced a hike of 65 percent in the rate of foreclosure while in Cape Ann, the hike was 47 percent. The foreclosure crisis was triggered off by the increase in the interest rates of subprime loans. These loans had adjustable rates and when the rates increased, people were unable to afford it. Since the real estate market was facing a low, the homeowners could not get rid of the problem by selling off their properties as the loans amounted to more than the property’s value. Tucker, a Democrat who is the chair of the Legislature’s Housing Committee, said that she would rather face the risk of foreclosure than lose lenders, scared away by moratorium. Lenders were essential as the credit was needed so that people were able to buy homes.

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If the current turmoil caused by the current foreclosure levels was not enough, here is some more potentially devastating news coming your way in the California real estate market. Soon to be released by DataQuick Information Systems, a new report is supposed to show a further rise in foreclosure activity in Southern California, with more homes going under the hammer over the coming few months.

Almost 40% of all homes sales are already foreclosed homes in March, and this trend is set to continue for some time largely due to further resets in home loans that are expected mid-2008. According to research done by Pew Charitable Trusts, which is essentially a non-profit organization looking to make policy changes in public policy, this increase in foreclosure activity is likely to continue for some time, and they are expecting one foreclosed home for every thirty-three homes in the country by 2009. If this seems shocking, then the rates in Southern California are expected to be even worse with one home in every twenty oing under the hammer.

Interestingly, the report also shows that people who are paying their mortgages on time are also likely to suffer due to further fall in property prices largely caused by excessive real estate inventory as a direct result of foreclosed homes. The report foretells a $107.2 billion fall in the sale of homes along with the tax base of the state by 2009 end. This makes it roughly $14,282 fall for every homeowner on an average.

Kil Huh of the Pew Trust says “At this point, given how severe the crisis is … we’re focused on the community effects that might take place.”, while Heather Peters, who chairs the Governor’s Task Force on Non-Traditional Mortgages wants to try and help people keep their homes as far as possible. She adds “There are a lot of people who were able to qualify and make their payments at the initial interest rates but could not afford the resets, and it’s better to keep those people in their homes.”

Further notes from the report mention that the high foreclosure rate is due to sub-prime loans, and almost a quarter of all of between 2005-2006 were all from this category. 64% of these borrowers are going to feel the foreclosure pinch at some time.

If you think the scene is bad in California, then Nevada is even worse off with one in every eleven homes likely to face foreclosure, adds the report. Arizona is the state with a home out of every eighteen homes likely to end in foreclosure. The state with the lowest foreclosure rate is expected to be North Dakota, which is likely to have one home in every 165 homes foreclosed.

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At Maryland, many homeowners are now being faced with the scourge of foreclosures that are spreading like a plague across the nation. The legislation has now aimed at helping them to rise above the tide of the overpowering foreclosure rates. A House Committee has been set for full-fledged action to take place. This has been one of the set priorities in O’Malley’s administration.

One of the administrative bills as approved of the Environmental Matters Committee, as mentioned before the time of the foreclosures to take place, took from 15 days to about four months to get activated. Another of those resourceful measures that were beginning to be adopted in combating mortgage fraudulence took months to be activated. But finally, the charges for forgery and any sort of crime involved with foreclosures can land a person in jail for up to 10 years’ of imprisonment, or a fine of $5,000, or both.

The legislation enjoys a broad-spectrum support system from some Republican law makers, who have objected to the mindless provisions that allow fraudulent practices in mortgage bills. This would allow particular victims of a suspect practice to sue their lawyers without adequate reason, and can even allow them to do punitive acts of various kinds.

A third administrative bill again, passed at cracking down the accelerating rate of foreclosures, as approved by the panel earlier, is expected to be active soon by the full House. The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee got out a similar sort of bills by Friday having cleared the way for the actions to take place in the Senate.

Del. Maggie L. McIntosh, a Democrat from Baltimore, is also the chairperson of the House panel. She has stated that the bills need extra protection in the form of greater benefit of Maryland’s homeowners so that they can cope with the avoidance of foreclosures in future.

As foreclosures have needlessly skyrocketed across the entire county as soon as the housing market slumped, many a homeowner failed to meet their requisite payments. They have been falling back on monthly payments as interest rates have gone up further and further more. The interest rate set up for mortgages that carry adjustable-rates have also increased as well.

Some of the homeowners in trouble had taken out their “sub-prime” loans even though they have just been pushed to take on greater credit risks with higher-risk borrowers having even lower income rates and lowly credit histories.

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In an unexpected development last Tuesday, property statistics company Realty Trac reported that foreclosure filings for the month of March 2008 have actually gone up by 57% compared to the same period last year.

Painting an exceedingly grim picture for the near future, this report showed that more and more people are not being able to keep up with their mortgage payments despite continued measures by the government to stem this flow of foreclosures that are haunting the country today. The report shows that there has been a foreclosure filing for one home in every 538 homes in the country.

The hardest hit states were California, Nevada and Florida, and over 234,000 houses were up for foreclosure last month in March. Due to mortgage loans being reset to even higher interest rates on adjustable-rate loans, making monthly payments on the same mortgage has gone up, causing foreclosures to increase even more. According to Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac, this trend is expected to continue, with the rate of foreclosures set to climb further due to ARM resets set to continue till late this spring. Loss in property values and unemployment are also expected to add to this problem.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com states that “We could argue this is the worst housing downturn ever. Negative equity and unemployment are the driving factors. Things are getting worse, not better.”

A good case in point would be Wayne Willsey of Crestview, Fla. Wayne works at the local power company, and is looking at a possible foreclosure. This is largely due to a reset on his ARM loan which has increased his monthly mortgage payment from an affordable $2,100 to a whopping $4,000! Wayne adds “I keep praying; it’s really hurt the family bad. I’m 55, and it’s hard to start all over again.”

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research adds that “This isn’t a sub-prime problem. The underlying issue is housing prices are falling. It’s going to get worse. Sub-prime (foreclosures) may have peaked and will start to trail off. In terms of the rest of the market, we’re just beginning.”

A massive problem has also been the falling real estate prices. There are many homeowners who are finding that it doesn’t make any sense to continue making payments for a home that is worth a lot less than what they paid for it. In a few cases, it has been seen that it is a lot easier just to walk out on your mortgage than continuing to pay a higher price at very high interest rates.

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The lawmakers of New Jersey are trying to improve the situation created by rising foreclosures. In order to achieve this end, a six-month suspension is being imposed on the defaulters of subprime loans. This will create a new subprime loan fund that will enable people to hold on to their homes.

Those who are facing foreclosure can buy some more time. This legislation was carried out on Tuesday and it would help the people facing subprime loan crisis due to low incomes. A number of people are unable to pay mortgages, as the low rates of interest tend to adjust higher, thus creating problems. Senator Ronald Rice has estimated that this year, around 16,500 homeowners from the state of New Jersey with subprime loans would go into foreclosure. He comments that the number of families losing their houses due to foreclosure was way too many.

Rice is sponsoring the legislation, which is being carried out with Bonnie Watson Coleman, the Assembly Majority Leader. He feels that there should be government involvement as it would ensure that the borrowers would not face bankruptcy. According to the plan, there would be a six-month suspension on the defaulters of subprime loans so that the borrowers could get some time to come up with some kind of a solution. A fresh fund would be created which would provide the people with loans and they would receive counseling to guide them as to how to hold on to their respective homes. The lenders would be charged a fee of $2,000 per subprime foreclosure. The fund would also benefit from the $1 million that it would acquire from the New Jersey Housing & Mortgage Finance Agency. The plan also entails that the people who have lost their homes will be allowed to continue staying there as tenants paying regular rents until such time that the property is acquired and occupied by someone.

It is estimated by Watchdog group New Jersey Citizen Action that one in every five subprime loans in New Jersey would go in for default by the end of the year 2009. Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Citizen Action says that it is very common to purchase a mortgage where there is one-in-five chance that soon the family would be out in the street and not in their house.

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Foreclosures are continuing to rise and people are getting hit harder than ever. Cindy Harnasch, title officer at First American Title says that in February alone, First American Title handled over 35 foreclosures in Coeur d’Alene. She stated that one woman lost about 15 properties just with First American and more through other title companies. Those who have bought up properties just for rental purposes are severely hit.

First American Title and Pioneer Title are performing most of the foreclosures for homes which are contracted to trustees to sell off. Most of the foreclosures are from outside the area and very few local ones. It seems that the out of area lenders depended on the reports not in tune with the market and have overvalued properties and have over lent funds.

Now those who have purchased such properties are not in a position to make payments post the readjustment of home loan rates. Shani Snyder of Pioneer Title says that many investors blindly followed realtors who gave initial attractive offers and later fell prey to the ballooning interest rates.

Though many early investors have made quick sales for a good deal , sources claim that there may be some evidence of insider trading to drive up the prices. They are yet to ascertain this for sure. It seems like new deeds were drawn up to facilitate buyers apply for new loans.

Snyder also says that many foreclosure cases are belonging to young people who were tired of waiting to get a good deal and fell in for adjustable home loans. They are now in no position to repay. It looks like they got in without realizing the repercussions.

Snyder also says that investors had no understanding of the North Idaho foreclosures market when they made their investments and now are in grave need to hold on to their properties. Many are encouraged to file for bankruptcy, she says but also adds that its only a temporary solution.

Even Snyder says that her property worth $379,000 had devalued by over $60,000 in the area. People making distress sales are also adding to the devaluation of surrounding properties in many nieghbourhoods. She says that the self employed home buyers are the most hit as the slow economy has made it increasingly difficult for them to make repayments. More so, the interest rates have also suddenly shot up, landing a lot of real estate investors on the brink of losing their homes.

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The White House has recently sought to veto a bill that would enable to follow up recent economic accelerations in foreclosures. The package deals in keeping the upsurge of foreclosures in check.

The Democrats of the Senate had hoped to start on the housing bill on Tuesday. The main action has however been postponed until later this week. However, it is a promise from the Democrats that the deferment will not take as long as the Republics had taken with the Iraq issue.

The housing bill statements would aim to change the bankruptcy laws allowing judges to cut back upon interest rates for the troubled borrowers. The mortgage rates are also being made to be kept lower for these troubles loaners. A massive amount of $4 billion would be given to communities that would enable them to make purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed real estate properties. The disclosure of subprime mortgage amounts on loan would be given on loans so that the very distressed loaners would not be surprised by a major payment increase.

However, the proclamation made by the White House is that the $4 billion purchase of foreclosed amounts as claimed sounds like a more expensive venture than the outcomes it is worth. It also estimates a bailout of many lenders as well as speculator on this ground. However the necessary aid that would go for the constantly pressurized homeowners would come, is expected to be next to nothing!

It is amidst all this speculation that the White House is only allowing a few borrowers to rewrite their mortgage contracts effectively. The leading moneylenders have been ordered to tighten their standards along with increasing their interest rates. The White House has declared both provisions for a slow recovery of the housing sectors.

The Democratic measure would also contain a support system stripped from the Senate’s very own version of the instigating bill to initiate the mortgage revenue bonds as well as add a flexible structure to help the homeowners to refinance the subprime loans. This has been done mainly with the focus of allowing homebuilders and other money-losing business to claim beck the taxes they had previously paid.

The bankruptcy measure also goes on a similar vein allowing the clearance of a House committee that is in exact contradiction to the lenders and many of the Republicans.

The Mortgage Bank Association also takes on a canonical stance against the usual measure. It states that it would hurt borrowers who would urgently need a relief from the mortgage by imposing on them higher interest rates that would come down with nothing but a greater risk with down payments at the offset. This could even mean courting an impending bankruptcy.

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