Nationwide foreclosures are up over pre- pandemic levels

By Dave Krieger

(BREAKING NEWS/OP-ED –) Attom Data (which supplies information to RealtyTrac®) has released a fairly comprehensive report which indicates that foreclosure starts are up 167% from a year ago! What’s worse is that the average time to foreclose nationwide has decreased 4% from a year ago, which can only mean that the banks and their mortgage loan servicers have become more aggressive in their foreclosure processes.

California, Florida, Texas, Illinois and New York led the pack out of 233 metropolitan statistical areas. Markets seeing a lower decline in foreclosure starts were Tulsa, Kansas City, Birmingham, Minneapolis and Cincinnati. In sum total, 92,634 properties had foreclosure filings, whether it be default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions. Lenders repossessed 10,515 properties from American homeowners during the third quarter of 2022. The reason, according to an Attom Data spokesman, was because borrowers were leveraging their equity and selling their homes and downsizing rather than risking an equity loss due to foreclosure.

> The report is here: Download

ANALYSIS: Now, let’s figure out why there is an uptick in foreclosure activity.

The foregoing figures are only for the third quarter of 2022; thus, we have to factor in similar amounts for the first two quarters and the last quarter, which, taking into consideration the average third quarter numbers, the total figure for the year would be somewhere around 370,000 homes this year. If you look at the rates during the 2009- 2016 foreclosure crisis, which totaled 10.2-million homes seized, the total foreclosure numbers are coming in at around 4.45-million that can be expected over the next 7 years. That’s nearly 50% of the previous total of homes seized during the first foreclosure crisis. And you can bet that BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street (major institutional investors) will be buying these homes up and converting them into rental properties. How’s that for turning this country into a nation of renters? Clouded titles and all.

What has happened to the U.S. economy since the beginning of the decade?

Up until January of 2021, America had it good. We were energy independent. Gas prices were low. Grocery prices were low because the cost of shipping goods to market was lower. The supply chain was functioning at about 50% due to the pandemic but largely because people were too afraid to go to work because of media fearmongering. They would have rather stayed home and lived off the government dole than go back to work, post-pandemic. So, in short, it would appear the “chickens are coming home to roost” (as it were.

When the pandemic actually hit (March 17, 2020), Americans bought into the government’s crap hook, line and sinker. It became impossible for many to go to work and some were able to make arrangements to work from home. Many lost their jobs out of fear they would catch COVID-19 and die and didn’t bother showing up for work. Foolishly, state governments bought into the lies about mask wearing, social distancing, business closures and finally the jabs (delivered by and through the media, which promoted it as a vaccine, when in fact they weren’t). Over 220-million Americans received at least 2 jabs before many in that population either suffered adverse effects or death. I would anticipate that not only did the hospitals get rich (at $300,000-$600,000 per patient) due to government incentives, but Americans who refused the jab due to government mandates lost their jobs and thus, were unable to pay their mortgages. Despite the moratoriums, those days of grace would soon end and the foreclosure mills were all too happy to jump on the foreclosure bandwagon.

Unfortunately for most Americans, they continue to remain ignorant as to the fact that most of their mortgage loans were securitized. One of my associates has been fighting his foreclosure for over 13+ years and when ordered to pay attorney’s fees to the other side’s lawyers, he wrote a specific payment check to the REMIC (an acronym for Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit), which is what accepted all of these securitized loans, allegedly, and also very untimely. Here’s the attorney’s fees check:

Notice anything interesting about how the checks were made out? They have yet to be cashed … because the REMIC is closed and has been since 2007. If this isn’t proof in the pudding, I don’t know what is.

The Court agreed that since the Plaintiff was the REMIC, the check should be made payable to them, for in turn, the REMIC would turn around and pay their customary attorney’s fees for litigation expenses. Unfortunately, one can’t cash a check that has a restrictive endorsement when the payee doesn’t exist.

This is what the bank’s attorneys don’t like … a real smart ass. And I mean he’s smart. He’s done his homework. The attorneys in his case were clearly retained by the mortgage loan servicer, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., who has no contract with the borrower. You see why they’re frustrated with this case? Wells Fargo isn’t the only mortgage loan servicer committing fraud on the courts, filing on behalf of the closed REMIC either.

I am currently working on a California bankruptcy case which has posited similar research results. In that case, the REMIC trust settled with the investors, which means that no one suffered a financial loss and it’s clear the servicer is trying to steal the house from the bankruptcy court. Bankruptcy judges do not like fraud on the court, especially by officers of the court. The only way that this case has a good outcome is if the owners can defeat the motion to lift stay with enough factual information and witnesses to overcome the other side’s objections. Because I managed to conjure up witnesses (an attorney and a former bank lawyer who handled foreclosures for a major financial institution), things might not go well for the other side’s lawyer.

I still do chain of title assessments and consult trial attorneys on foreclosure matters. The foregoing issues are certainly playing into the statistics seen above. But what’s worse, when these people are being served with notice, rather than fight to stay in their homes until they can come up with a Plan B, they just pack up and move, just like they did during the first foreclosure crisis in 2008. And herein lies the rub.

History does indeed repeat itself. Only this time, homeowners may be getting smarter.
For more information, you can visit the Clouded Titles website at CloudedTitles.com.
Please email us through the site if you’d be interested in attending a foreclosure defense workshop later this year.