Is buying a foreclosure unethical business activity?

[undeterred]

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. HELL NO! No different than buying a used car. You don't know that the car wasn't repo'ed

DU annoys me with this bias against foreclosed property. I bought one. wasn't like I kicked a family out. They had long since walked away... strategic default I think.

[sufrommich]

4. I imagine it's coming from people who don't have foreclosed

homes in their neighborhoods.Anybody who would prefer streets filled with empty houses has never seen the damage that does to a community.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. Maybe. what are they thinking? If someone loses a house, it should sit empty forever?

omg.

[Codeine]

26. I think they believe it should be given away free.

Preferably to them, of course.

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. unrecced

[sufrommich]

3. No. nt

[izquierdista]

6. It's what happens BEFORE the foreclosure sale

Prior to the sale, a lot of unethical things can happen. Since the sale itself has to follow state prescribed rules, it is for the most part an ethical transaction.

[auntAgonist]

7. No and I don't think 'karma' plays into it. Just for the record. n/t

[undeterred]

9. I was surprised to see that attitude expressed here.

It sort of seems like condemning someone for accepting a kidney from an organ donor.

[REP]

12. Really?

I wasn't surprised; what surprised me is that there wasn't more of it. It's completely unwarranted - the person buying a foreclosed property did nothing to cause the foreclosure, so there's nothing to lay a guilt trip about.

[Motown_Johnny]

8. No, I was foreclosed on and lost my house about 2 years ago.

I hope someone bought it and is living there now, for the sake of the neighborhood.

I can't bring myself to go by and look though.

[auntAgonist]

10. I am sorry to hear that Motown_Johnny. This has happened

to a couple of people I know and it's heartbreaking.

I hope you've found a home for yourself (and family) and that things are better for you now.


sincerely.
aA

[Motown_Johnny]

21. yes things are better, thanks

bought a house on land contract, so I have it 40% paid off in 2 years with 3 years to go.

Cash poor because of putting everything I can into it as quickly as I can but it will be best in the long run.



(no family to worry about unless my dog counts)

[auntAgonist]

34. Your dog certainly does count.

Congrats on the land contract.

Best wishes to you and the pup for a brighter more prosperous future.


:hi: from mid-Michigan.

aA
kesha

[Autumn Colors]

14. +1 -- ditto that

My house is in foreclosure right now. I'm still living in it for the time being. The house next to me has been abandoned for months. The lawn is 3 feet high and there are weeds in the back yard that are probably 4 or 5 feet high. It looks awful and I really hope that my house doesn't sit empty for too long because I can't stand the thought of it ending up like that. :(

[ms.smiler]

20. Autumn Colors - Do you have a MERS mortgage?

If so, please fight the foreclosure. Most present day foreclosures are improper, illegal and wrongful. Many if not most homeowners will win if only they would fight.

[Autumn Colors]

24. Yes, it is a MERS mortgage

I don't have the money for a lawyer to fight it. I'm not "putting away" any money saved by not paying the mortgage these past months. My income is so low now that I barely have enough to make other expenses at this point. I'm going to have to leave here by winter because I definitely won't be able to afford to heat this place.

I know what you're saying, but it's nearly impossible without a lawyer. I actually went for a free consultation with a lawyer who told me that it depends on the judge (CT is a judicial state re foreclosures), but that judges in this state "don't want to hear about it" (regarding "produce the note" type cases). He said that is ESPECIALLY true here in Litchfield County. He said there's a lawyer in N.Y. state who had successfully argued some of these cases and that lawyer also has an office in Fairfield County, Connecticut, but now will not even take on these cases in the State of CT because of this, which tells you something right there. By the way, I called three trusted people to recommend a foreclosure lawyer to me and all three mentioned this same lawyer, which is why I met with him. I knew I wouldn't be able to afford to hire him, but hoped to get some valuable information and guidance out of the meeting, which I did (in terms of how the timeline works in this state, etc).

Normally, I'm a fighter, but I don't have the means to do this. At this point, I need to survive.

[ms.smiler]

35. Foreclosure filings have slowed and so have courts that are

overwhelmed with cases. In my own state now it takes about 2 years just to get a hearing. If you on your own can slow the process at all, please do so. There will be less disruption in your life.

In the neighboring state, the mortgage servicers keep postponing the Sheriff sale dates. The banks have already stolen more homes than they can handle.

I'm so impressed with ordinary Americans who walk into court on their own. I hired an attorney who recently said to me, "oh no, don't send me any more money." Bless that woman. I made a monthly payment which she doesn't want anymore. At this point, she knows she'll make her money from the settlements. From what I've seen, the attorneys who are out to fight the banks, don't expect much from homeowners.

The work she is doing can and I believe will be duplicated by attorneys in other states.

I can't disclose much, but there is sound reason for hope. I am one of many moving forward on a particular new issue. There is a profound vulnerability with an entirely different avenue of attack in an entirely different court of law that will be tested in only a few months. It's the best $150.00 at the court house I ever spent. The suit is only two pages long, double spaced. I think I like my law suits the same as legislation - short and simple. I am confident this approach will succeed.

Please hang on as long as possible. It would be a shame to move out of your home only to move back in later.

As you might suspect, it's true, MERS is a sham. ;-)

[tammywammy]

11. I purchased a foreclosed home 4 years ago.

I didn't think it was unethical then, nor do I now. It had sat on the market for over 6 months empty when I purchased it.

[Shagbark Hickory]

13. I sure would like to hear the perspective from someone who thinks it is unethical.

[Raine]

15. Absolutely not, it's not like the person who

buys it had anything to do with how or why it got forclosed on.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. Absolutely no.

I bought a foreclosed duplex back in 1990 at the end of a housing market crash here, and it was the best move I ever made. I got the property for a low price (the current value is well over twice what I paid for it) and my renter pays most of my mortgage and is still getting a really good deal in today's rental market.

I have no regrets at all. This place had been empty for a year and needed some work. We have made it beautiful.


ed. The irony is that the reason I bought a house in the first place was because my landlady got foreclosed on and I had to move. Because of my income, I could only qualify for a duplex where someone else would be helping me pay the monthly mortgage. It was serendipity.

[bemildred]

17. No. nt

[cordelia]

18. Not in the least.

[Shagbark Hickory]

19. I would like to make my vote conditional.

As long as the house isn't flipped, jacked up in price for a profit it's fine.

Otherwise it is unethical. But we're in a society that encourages such behavior.

[pintobean]

23. Why would that matter?

Banks aren't into marketing. They just unload foreclosed properties for as little loss as possible. Flippers just take the profits that the banks leave on the table.

[Shagbark Hickory]

25. It matters because I believe housing, like healthcare and education, should be non-profit.

Everytime it goes up in price so someone can make a profit by marketing it (usually by putting it on the mls), there are fewer people that can afford it. This is how we got into a bubble situation to begin with.

[NNN0LHI]

28. Problem wasn't that prices went up. Problem was that wages didn't go up

http://www.pri.org/business/giant-pool-of-money.html

"The problem was that even though housing prices were going through the roof, people weren't making any more money. From 2000 to 2007, the median household income stayed flat. And so the more prices rose, the more tenuous the whole thing became. No matter how lax lending standards got, no matter how many exotic mortgage products were created to shoehorn people into homes they couldn't possibly afford, no matter what the mortgage machine tried, the people just couldn't swing it. By late 2006, the average home cost nearly four times what the average family made. Historically it was between two and three times. And mortgage lenders noticed something that they'd almost never seen before. People would close on a house, sign all the mortgage papers, and then default on their very first payment. No loss of a job, no medical emergency, they were underwater before they even started. And although no one could really hear it, that was probably the moment when one of the biggest speculative bubbles in American history popped."

[Shagbark Hickory]

30. Be that as it may, people still have to live somewhere and if their wages don't go up & housing DUZ

Then you have a problem. People borrowed more money with bad loans and were told they could afford it when they couldn't
Housing should be at the cost of replacement plus labor. The rate of appreciation should be controlled by the government so that it doesn't get out of hand and there should be restrictions on how many homes a person can own in the same area.

These may sound like radical ideas but we have some seriously big problems with housing, homelessness and wasteful sprawling development.

[pintobean]

31. Thank you for your answer.

I disagree, but appreciate your opinion and the manner in which you expressed it.
:-)

[Shagbark Hickory]

32. You're welcome.

:beer:

[rox63]

22. The housing market will never stabilize until the foreclosures get bought up

and are taken out of the market. There is a glut of foreclosures out there, and it keeps driving down property values, causing even more foreclosures. Until those houses get bought up, values will keep dropping.

[bigwillq]

27. No (nt)

[dems_rightnow]

29. Is having sex after you're divorced cheating?

Same thing.

[Iggo]

33. It's just like buying a guitar at the pawn shop. (n/t)

[HillWilliam]

36. I bought a foreclosed home a little over 4 years ago

with my partner, DUer HillbillyBob. It had lain vacant for a little over three years. We *needed* a home of our own (been through homelessness before and at the whim of property-flipping landlords as renters since). Since the original owners had long-since hit the road (each wanted to stick the other with it during a nasty divorce), we had no qualms in picking it up to love and make our own.

[ms.smiler]

37. I don’t see an ethical or moral problem with purchasing a foreclosed

property, just an important legal problem. To the best of my knowledge, information and belief, if there is a MERS Satisfaction of Mortgage or MERS Assignment of Mortgage in the Title history, there is a cloud on the property Title.

It is entirely possible, that one day a previous owner will file suit to regain their property. Both previous owners and the new property owners will have cause to sue both banks and MERS for fraud.

I just hope it works out well for everyone. I wouldn’t want to see people fighting over the same property. Considering damages and settlements though, there might not be that many fights as those homeowners wonder where to build their dream home.

Sarah Palin's Arizona Home Purchase Clouded By Foreclosure Fraud, Analysis Finds

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/10/sarah-palin-arizona-home-foreclosure-fraud_n_875186.html

MERS has bigger problems though than a few assorted robo-signers.