We are pretty close to selling, but a light rail station will open in 2009 that’s just a couple blocks away. How much influence do these things have?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

I just heard that Countrywide laid off a bunch of people at their Bothell location yesterday. Sounds like they were working only on purchased, telemarketing leads and laid off these folks a couple of days before they were due their bonuses.

That was one of my first ever blog posts. Pretty cheesey set up in hindisight, but a lot of the detail is what we are talking about today. I remember in my Inman Podcast saying I just started railing the minute I starting blogging, not really knowing who the heck I was trying to get to hear me.

The faster we turn this around and get the industry back on the right track, the better off everyone will be. Clearly we can’t just all sit around waiting for the government to fix it.

But wait…no…maybe we should change all the contracts into nonsensical crap…that’s a much better way to spend our time right now, isn’t it? All because of a case called Bull. Very appropo, don’t you think?

We had been talking, teaching, and writing about the predatory lending problems for EIGHT YEARS. Nobody listens when the market is on it’s way up, uP, UP!

The gift I see is an opportunity to:

1) define predatory lending and create a new federal law designed to halt this practice.

Today the Mortgage Banker’s Assoc released a report on mortgage fraud where they are STILL not willing to define predatory lending.
Why? because then they’d have to stop doing it.

Predatory lending is not going away unless we do something at the federal level. This entire crisis is an opportunity to DO SOMETHING.

2) Set the bar higher.

For LOs and also for real estate agents. Once people such as underperforming LOs and agents exit the industry, I believe the subprime meltdown is an opportunity to raise standards. If we don’t, as soon as the market turn, they will all come right back, and you and I will be blogging about this again 10 years from now.

We can’t help the hundreds of thousands who end up in foreclosure. Social services are in place to help the most destitute. The rest will become renters again. LOs and Realtors who aren’t producing will enter jobs in other service sectors. Realtors/LOs with a client base will adjust and weather the storm. Good folks like Rhonda’s sister and others that I know who have lost their job will become re-employed. Most everyone will recover.

Too many people being hurt by all this to call it a gift. I was freaking out about it since day one, till I played the if you can’t beat em join em game I think I was in Seattle about 30 days when I started calling the Predatory Lending hotline. Was told all was honky dorey. A whole lot of “everyone’s doing it”. I feel so very badly for so many people, that I just can’t call it a gift.

But don’t cry for me Argentina Come hell or high water, I clearly did not enter into anything blindly, be it business or personal.

At my age, a wild ride can be a good thing. Keeps you young

Appraisers do it. Home Inspectors do it. If everyone had to pay for everything up front, maybe they’d be more aware of their odds of making it to the end before stepping into the ring.

That’s what Earnest Money is supposed to be for, but it’s lost it’s edge with everyone expecting to get it back regardless.

I’m not sure what Kayleigh decided to do, but I did invite her back to share her decision with us! Thanks for pointing out that reform can come from many directions now, not just with lending.

This whole subprime meltdown is a gift to the industry. The majority don’t see it as a gift just yet, but I think you might!

Sure, I would plan for that. Appraisal bills, credit reporting agencies, and so forth. If there’s a trend of not being paid, third party vendors have a history of asking to be paid up front or they cut off that client.

Title insurance companies, while not likely to charge an up front cancellation “deposit,” may be more likely to charge for more of their information services such as mortgage leads.