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California Rep. Joe Baca has long pushed legislation he said would "open the doors to the American Dream" for first-time home buyers in his largely Hispanic district. For many of them, those doors have slammed shut, quickly and painfully.
Mortgage lenders flooded Mr. Baca's San Bernardino, Calif., district with loans that often didn't require down payments, solid credit ratings or documentation of employment. Now, many of the Hispanics who became homeowners find themselves mired in the national housing mess. Nearly 9,200 families in his district have lost their homes to foreclosure. Foreclosure Crisis Hits Hispanics
Congressional districts with large Hispanic populations often feature heavy nonprime lending. See how different districts break down in terms of prime and nonprime home loans.
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Wrong....it is about lending to foreign nationals who have no business buying homes on American soil.
I know...I was forced to watch it first hand from 2004-2008 when my neighborhood was flooded by foreign nationals from Chihuahua Mexico.
They bought houses.....flew mexican flags from them.....painted them the most obnixious sherbert colors you can imagine......played loud music from their native country at all hours....ignored our driving laws (regis., insurance, and plates). PUH-PLEASE!!!!!
I was blessed to sell my house at full price before the housing bubble burst in this large midwest town and now live far from this national and local problem.
let me guess you checked these peoples citizenship status... and that of all the "hispanics" mentioned in this article!
thats the problem. being hispanic does not mean foreign national, immigrant or illegal. its just means having a spanish surname (and sometimes those dont even consider themselves hispanic)
are you really that ignorant?
so yes, you are
WRONG!!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by amerifree
Wrong....it is about lending to foreign nationals who have no business buying homes on American soil.
I know...I was forced to watch it first hand from 2004-2008 when my neighborhood was flooded by foreign nationals from Chihuahua Mexico.
They bought houses.....flew mexican flags from them.....painted them the most obnixious sherbert colors you can imagine......played loud music from their native country at all hours....ignored our driving laws (regis., insurance, and plates). PUH-PLEASE!!!!!
I was blessed to sell my house at full price before the housing bubble burst in this large midwest town and now live far from this national and local problem.
Don't know if this was posted but it's a great read. Illegals were no doubt a big part of why we are in this mess.
According to your article, these predatory lenders lent to anything with a pulse, illegal or not. But it's a good, detailed story and such a sad tale of naked greed - thanks for posting it! I look forward to lots of indictments and I hope those "low-income housing groups, Hispanic lawmakers, a congressional Hispanic housing initiative, mortgage lenders and brokers, who all were pushing to increase homeownership among Latinos," the Hispanic Congressional Caucus, and NAHREP and the rest will be made to answer for their complicity in this cruelty.
Your article states the sad fact from which all this misery sprang: "For years, immigrants to the U.S. have viewed buying a home as the ultimate benchmark of success."
Interestingly, it makes Freddie Mac look good concerning NINA loans; usually the WSJ has nothing good to say about FM.
Many loans to Hispanic borrowers were based not on actual income histories but on a borrower's 'stated income.' These so-called no-doc loans yielded higher commissions and involved less paperwork.
Another problem was so-called NINA -- no income, no assets -- loans. They were originally intended for self-employed people of means. But Freddie Mac executives worried about abuse, according to documents obtained by Congress. The program 'appears to target borrowers who would have trouble qualifying for a mortgage if their financial position were adequately disclosed,' said a staff memo to Freddie Mac Chairman Richard Syron. 'It appears they are disproportionately targeted toward Hispanics.'
***
"It's very hard to get in front of a train loaded with highly profitable activities and stop it," [said the] chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Board.
Here's a similar, though not as sweeping, story about the collapse of Washington Mutual that illustrates the feeding frenzy among lenders:
On another occasion, Ms. Zaback asked a loan officer for verification of an applicant’s assets. The officer sent a letter from a bank showing a balance of about $150,000 in the borrower’s account, she recalled. But when Ms. Zaback called the bank to confirm, she was told the balance was only $5,000.
The loan officer yelled at her, Ms. Zaback recalled. “She said, ‘We don’t call the bank to verify.’ ”
***
By 2005, the word was out that WaMu would accept applications with a mere statement of the borrower’s income and assets — often with no documentation required — so long as credit scores were adequate, according to Ms. Zaback and other underwriters.
Gerardo Cadima, a Bolivian immigrant who works as an electrician, bought a home in suburban Virginia for $330,000, with no money down. "I said this is too good to be true," he recalls. "I'm 23 years old, with a family, buying my own house."
When work slowed last year, Mr. Cadima ran into trouble on his adjustable-rate mortgage. "The payments were increasing, and the price of the house was starting to drop," he says. "I started to think, is this really worth it?" He stopped making payments and his home was sold at auction for $180,000.
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Yes, it is. Did you read the article?
He got into a house he could not afford. He lost the home and devaluated the home (and surrounding properties) by nearly half.
Gerardo Cadima, a Bolivian immigrant who works as an electrician, bought a home in suburban Virginia for $330,000, with no money down. "I said this is too good to be true," he recalls. "I'm 23 years old, with a family, buying my own house."
When work slowed last year, Mr. Cadima ran into trouble on his adjustable-rate mortgage. "The payments were increasing, and the price of the house was starting to drop," he says. "I started to think, is this really worth it?" He stopped making payments and his home was sold at auction for $180,000.
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Yes, it is. Did you read the article?
He got into a house he could not afford. He lost the home and devaluated the home (and surrounding properties) by nearly half.
The article describes your subject as a Bolivian immigrant, not as a foreign national.
This part of your post is right on target: "He got into a house he could not afford." The theme of the article is indeed the results of unscrupulous lending as it has affected Hispanics. But nowhere does it specify the legal status of any of the buyers and it doesnt discuss immigration.
It certainly is not "about" "foreign nationals who have no business buying homes on American soil."
Last edited by delusianne; 01-06-2009 at 02:12 PM..
Reason: nicer
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