Stop Foreclosure Now

There are options for homeowners facing foreclosure. Every time you turn on the news, there is more information and reports on the current housing crisis in the United States. Everyday, thousands of are filed across the United States. People are having a difficult time finding potential buyers for there home. Home owners often own more then it is worth, with foreclosures, being sold for pennies on the dollar this creates a major problem for those trying to stop foreclosure now.

The most obvious way to stop foreclosure now is to sell your house. However, finding a buyer may prove to be difficult, your home could sit on the market for several months, all the while you are getting farther and farther behind in your payments. If you are not able to find a buyer, then consider other alternatives.

Consider renting your home out to help make the payments. The recent boom in has forced many people that can no longer quality for a mortgage loan to rent. In most cases, they make enough money to pay the rent

FML Listings
<a href="http://fmlistings.tumblr.com/">FML Listings</a> posts incredulous commentary about outrageously overpriced real estate listings in Toronto. Look at the run-down bungalows -- in North York! -- listed for a million dollars and despair. Canada's <a href="http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/01/26/what-happens-when-canadas-housing-bubble-pops/">housing bubble</a>, on full display. Via <a href="http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/01/30/frustrated-toronto-homebuyer-takes-it-to-the-blogosphere/"><cite>Maclean's</cite></a>.
The Nomad's Ger
A time-lapse video of a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FCXuv6AiAc&feature=youtu.be">Mongolian family assembling a yurt</a> near the Russian border.
Realtorsincars.Tumblr.com
<a href="http://realtorsincars.tumblr.com/">Realtors in Cars</a> is one of the strangest sites I've seen in <a href="http://vreaa.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/realtor-dashcam-gallery/">some time</a>. I have no idea how these agencies got their realtors wedged into their cars, <a href="http://themainlander.com/2011/08/23/vancouver-is-homeownership-becoming-a-far-fetched-dream/">or why.</a>
זו הכלכלה, טמבל
Over the past three weeks, Israel has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14344515">experienced</a> what may perhaps be <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/02/israel-middle-class-uprising">the largest, spontaneous / grass roots social protest of the secular middle class that it has witnessed in decades</a>. Thousands of demonstrators in cities and towns throughout the country <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/73790/house-proud-2/">have been protesting</a> cuts in government funding to health care and education, and massive, exorbitant rises in taxes and <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/themarker/rental-prices-in-tel-aviv-rose-49-in-six-years-says-report-1.376659">housing costs</a> -- and <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/activists-demands-to-israeli-government-lower-taxes-free-education-and-end-to-privatization-1.376613">demanding change</a>. <a href="http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/07/26/3088710/housing-protests-roil-israel-as-tent-cities-pop-up">Tent cities</a> have <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/a-tale-of-two-cities-the-differences-between-tel-aviv-and-jerusalem-s-housing-protests-1.376472">sprung up</a> in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and in public gardens and parks throughout the country. And they may not be going anywhere: polls indicate <a href="http://972mag.com/tent-protest-in-numbers-1522720-11/">Israeli support is "exceptionally high"</a>. Protests and demonstrations are common in Israel, but they are nearly always focused on issues of war and peace. International media outlets <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/israel/?story=/news/feature/2011/08/03/press_israel_protests">don't seem to be paying much attention</a>. In response, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the protestors were a "<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-03/netanyahu-maneuvering-to-stay-atop-israel-s-wave-of-populism-.html">populist wave</a>" and right wing parties have implied the protestors are trying to <a href="http://972mag.com/debunking-claims-of-a-leftist-cabal-behind-tent-city-protests/">topple the government</a>. But now, Netanyahu's base may be <a href="http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=232320">throwing their support</a> behind the protestors. Many of Israel's Orthodox Jewish organizations and leaders<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/netanyahu-housing-protests-are-populist-wave-activists-plan-third-mass-protest-in-tel-aviv-1.376789"></a> <a href="http://www.forward.com/articles/140702/">are remaining silent</a>, although that <a href="http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=232205">seems</a> to <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/dairy-farmers-right-wing-activists-join-israel-housing-protest-1.376803">be changing</a>. From the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/02/israel-middle-class-uprising">Guardian link</a>: <blockquote>"The current uprising has given Israeli liberals a voice again.... But the apolitical character of the protest is being challenged. Netanyahu is already claiming that the protesters are driven by political motivations. His intent is clear: he wants to delegitimise them and claim that their real goal is to topple his government. This, he hopes, will weaken nationwide support for their demands. On Monday, members of the Likud central committee started to say that the demonstrators are just a bunch of sushi eaters with nargilas (Arab pipes) – ie leftist radicals – and that the media was exaggerating their numbers.... If the Likud and Yisrael Beitenu step up their attack, the protesters will not have any choice but to confront the current coalition in the political arena as well. They will have to say that taxpayers' money in Israel has been spent lavishly in the occupied territories; that billions of shekels go to child support for the ultra-Orthodox, most of whom do not contribute to the economy; that the silent collusion of Israel's governments with the settlers is ruining the country morally, politically and economically. In the end, the call for social justice and the demand to reinstate liberal values in Israel cannot be separated."</blockquote> The New Republic: <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/world/93039/tel-aviv-israel-protests-housing">What Caused the Current Wave of Economic Protests Across Israel?</a>
Charles Hugh Smith on The Housing Bubble
<a href="http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar11/phase-shift-housing3-11.html">Exquisitely Corrupt</a> <a href="http://www.oftwominds.com/">Charles Hugh Smith's</a> <a href="http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug06/post-bubble-symmetry.html">predictions</a> on the housing bubble, from almost five years ago, are proving accurate. <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/51986/Too-good-to-be-true#1326065">Previously.</a>
Let's find as many suckers as we can as fast as we can, because we'll only make more money as more and more shit hits the fan.
<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511?print=true">The People vs. Goldman Sachs</a>. Matt Taibbi's latest magnum opus (<a href="http://www.metafilter.com/tags/MattTaibbi">previous coverage</a>) lays out the full case for federal prosecutions against the Vampire Squid according to Sen. Carl Levin's Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. [Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse <a href="http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2011/PSI_WallStreetCrisis_041311.pdf">650 page pdf</a>].
HUD Interactive Map Tool
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has launched a <a href="http://egis.hud.gov/cpdmaps">new interactive mapping tool</a> for Community Planning and Development agencies, interested agency partners, and the public. The tool shows the locations of several kinds of federally-subsidized housing, including <a href="http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/housing/hsgmulti">HUD Multifamily</a> units, <a href="http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/affordablehousing/training/web/lihtc/basics/">Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)</a> properties, and <a href="http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/rental_assistance/phprog">Public Housing</a> units. It also maps <a href="http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/communitydevelopment/programs/neighborhoodspg/">Neighborhood Stabilization Plan (NSP)</a> target areas, <a href="http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/housing_choice_voucher_program_section_8">Housing Choice (commonly called Section 8)</a> voucher concentration, and other indicators of community health (income level, housing vacancy rate, etc), mostly on a Census tract level. HUD is <a href="http://hudideasinaction.uservoice.com/forums/113313-how-can-hud-make-the-con-plan-more-useful-and-mean">requesting feedback</a> on this interactive mapping tool and other measures, using an online discussion forum called UserVoice. The forum is accessible to HUD employees and the general public, and allows participants to share, discuss, and vote on ideas for HUD to consider as they advance their FY 2010-2015 Strategic Plan. This particular tool is aimed at helping local jurisdictions develop <a href="http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/about/conplan/local/">Consolidated Plans</a> that are more useful for planning and decision-making. Local jurisdictions—cities and counties—that receive HUD funding are required to develop a Consolidated Plan outlining housing needs and priority actions every five years, and these plans influence how local governments spend their federal funding dollars. HUD is considering adding additional data to this map tool, and says that the map data will be updated regularly—though there will be some lag time in rapidly-changing data, such as voucher concentration.
A home is where you make it
Could you live in <a href="http://www.poetichome.com/2010/01/07/artistic-living-in-repurposed-freight-containers/">repurposed freight containers</a>? How about a <a href="http://weburbanist.com/2008/07/13/7-more-examples-recycled-urban-architecture/">pig sty or a water tower</a>? You can really <a href="http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/water_tower_converted_to_a_classy_home.php">fix a water tower up nicely</a>. Folks can live in <a href="http://heralddaily.com/2009/11/11/13-repurposed-dwellings/">all kinds of things</a>, including <a href="http://abduzeedo.com/amazing-cement-factory-loft-ricardo-bofill">an old cement factory</a>. I think the cement factory cries out for furniture made from sea mines.
"This tower is a perfect example of anarchy."
Squatters on the Skyline: "Facing a mounting housing shortage, squatters have transformed an abandoned skyscraper in downtown Caracas into a <a href="http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/03/01/world/100000000672239/squatters-on-the-skyline.html">makeshift home for more than 2,500 people</a>." [SLNYTVP]
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
<blockquote>"Completed in 1954, the 33 11-story buildings of the Pruitt-Igoe housing development was built as an attempt to address the housing crisis the poor faced in St Louis, Missouri. Only twenty years later, at 3pm on the 16th of March, 1972, the buildings were leveled, declared unfit for habitation because of unsafe and unsanitary conditions, coupled with rampant crime. The story of Pruitt-Igoe is a tragic urban fable, a complicated and loaded story of ambition, hubris and failure." <a href="http://www.magicalurbanism.com/?p=2868">(src)</a></blockquote> <a href="http://www.pruitt-igoe.com/">"The Pruitt-Igoe Myth"</a> is a documentary directed by Chad Freidrichs that dives into the complex history of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt–Igoe">famed</a> <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/pruitt-igoe-housing-project-st-louis-missouri-1956-1976">housing project</a> (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7RwwkNzF68">YouTube</a> or <a href="http://vimeo.com/18356414">Vimeo</a> trailer). RustWire has <a href="http://rustwire.com/2011/02/16/tackling-the-pruitt-igoe-myth/">an interesting interview</a> with the documentary's creator. More information from <a href="http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/12620/pruitt-igoe-myth/">Architizer</a>, <a href="http://awopbopaloobop.blogspot.com/2010/10/pruitt-igoe-myth.html">Homo Ludens</a>, and <a href="http://www.magicalurbanism.com/?p=2868">Magical Urbanism</a>. Be sure to check out the collection of pictures from the area and from the documentary in the creators' <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pruitt-igoe/">Flickr stream</a>. [via <a href="http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=103734_0_24_15_C17">Archinect</a> and <a href="http://projects.metafilter.com/2923/The-PruittIgoe-Myth-an-Urban-History">Mefi Projects</a>] <a href="http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/PruittIgoe.html">Why they Built the Pruitt-Igoe Project.</a> <a href="http://tjrhino1.umsl.edu/whmc/view.php?description_get=Pruitt+Igoe">Photographs of Pruitt-Igoe residents and the surrounding neighborhood from the University of Missouri-St. Louis</a>. A few of you might recognize the buildings from the movie Koyaanisqatsi (along with the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOEDsZbR6jE">well-known Philip Glass song</a>). Bonus: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=738WpY2_JV8">On-the-ground footage of one of the buildings being destroyed.</a>
The Dead Weight of Debt
<a href="http://www.theworld.ae/">"The World"</a>, an <a href="http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/24/the-world-sinks-slipping-sands-of-time-hit-dubais-mega-development/">ambitious real estate project</a> <a href="http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/01/27/dubai-world-shies-away-from-media-limelight/">conceived</a> at the <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/business/property/dispute-over-the-state-of-the-world">height</a> of the <a href="http://io9.com/5742569/are-dubais-artificial-islands-sinking-into-the-sea">real estate boom</a>, is <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/dubai/8271643/The-World-is-sinking-Dubai-islands-falling-into-the-sea.html">sinking back into the sea</a>. <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/85557/Dubai-The-World-in-Peril">Also</a> <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/40942/Manufactured-Beachfront-Paradises">discussed</a> previously on the Blue.
Smith Tower Living
462 feet above Seattle, a family has transformed the top of the Smith Tower into their rather <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/garden/21who.html?_r=1">fantastic residence</a>. Slideshow <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/10/20/garden/21WHOss.html">here</a>. A separate <a href="http://seattle.metblogs.com/2006/01/23/penthouse-light/">firsthand account of the space</a> explains why no one but the rare caretaker lived there until recently: <blockquote>When the Smith Tower was built in 1914, the 37th floor was designed as an apartment for a caretaker, hidden underneath a cast-iron tank holding 10,000 gallons of water. In the 1990s, during a major renovation of the Smith Tower, the tank was drained and removed, and the apartment turned into a two-story penthouse.</blockquote>
Mountains beyond mountains
Earlier this week, Toxie, NPR's cutest toxic asset <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/09/23/130079590/toxie-s-dead">died</a>. One of the mortgages bundled into this asset was an investment property in Bradenton, Florida, which, like many Florida homes, has never been occupied or served as anything other than a financial instrument. Boston.com's Big Picture recently took <a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/09/human_landscapes_in_sw_florida.html">a look from above</a> at the effects that this (and previous) housing bubbles have had on the development of Florida's cities and landscapes. How do you design a city that nobody plans to live in? (<a href="http://www.metafilter.com/96038/Death-To-Toxie">Previously</a>)
Stripping Down the House
Before they foreclose on your house why don't you get back at the bastards by <a href="http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2009/02/07/news/local_news/doc498e7101415bd940026850.txt">stripping</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/business/economy/23stripped.html">the</a> <a href="http://www.startribune.com/local/102699004.html">place</a>. There are <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/CatherineReagor/61734">consequences</a>. "Lawyers who represent people facing foreclosure advise them that whatever's nailed down generally stays with the house."
It is the map that engenders the territory
<a href="http://www.radicalcartography.net/">Radical Cartography</a> has made a lot more maps since <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/46676/Radical-Cartography">greasy_skillet posted it in 2005</a>, including maps showing housing prices and segregation of all kinds in <a href="http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?manhattan-heights">New York</a>, <a href="http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagorail">Chicago</a>, <a href="http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?DCrace">DC</a> and elsewhere,<a href="http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?manhattan-heights"> counties named for Presidents</a>, <a href="http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?stars">the night sky</a>, <a href="http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?crops">the US in agriculture</a>, <a href="http://www.radicalcartography.net/wandering.html">the US as projected to other spots on the globe</a>, and a <a href="http://www.radicalcartography.net/atlas.html">physical atlas of the world</a>.
"It's awfully small..." "I'd say it's awfully.. cozy!"
<a href="http://www.thatvideosite.com/video/tour_of_a_house_thats_less_than_100_square_feet">Tour of a house that's less than 100 square feet.</a> [slv]
Happy 115th, Mr Fuller!
<a href="http://architecture.about.com/od/greatarchitects/p/fuller.htm">When he was 32</a>, his life seemed hopeless. He was bankrupt and without a job. He was grief stricken over the death of his first child and he had a wife and a newborn to support. Drinking heavily, he contemplated suicide. Instead, he decided decided that his life was not his to throw away: it belonged to the universe. Buckminster Fuller embarked on "an experiment to discover what the little, penniless, unknown individual might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity." If the architect, author, designer, inventor, and futurist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller">Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller</a> were still alive, he would be 115 years old today. Though he died in 1983, his legacy grows on through <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-938394498520786588#">recordings of his ideas</a> and <a href="http://www.bfi.org/">the Buckminster Fuller Institute</a>. Bucky did not arise from nothing on his 32nd birthday, but came from <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/221902/R-Buckminster-Fuller">a long line of New England Nonconformists</a>, including his great-aunt <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Fuller">Margaret Fuller</a>, an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement, who is credited with <a href="http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/fuller/woman1.html">writing the first major feminist work in the United States</a>. In 1917 Fuller married Anne Hewlett, daughter of James Monroe Hewlett, an architect who had created a modular compressed fiber-block building material. Fuller himself supervised the erection of several hundred houses, but the construction company encountered financial difficulties in 1927 and Fuller was forced out. With the earlier death of his daughter in 1922, and now faced with caring for his wife and a newborn child, It was then that Buckminster Fuller set a goal of making a difference in the world at large. Though he had no official degree (he entered Harvard on a legacy, but was expelled twice - <a href="http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/fuller.html">the first time for consorting with a dance troupe</a>), Bucky started designing systems to address real-world needs and demands with the minimum amount of resources, often in very unconventional ways. One series of efforts started in 1927, with the design of the <a href="http://www.bfi.org/about-bucky/buckys-big-ideas/dymaxion-world/dymaxion-house">Dymaxion house</a>. Dymaxion was a combination of three of Bucky's favorite words: DY (dynamic), MAX (maximum), and ION (tension). <a href="http://www.thirteen.org/bucky/house.html">The first (and only) model was built until 1946</a>, in Wichita, Kansas. It was supposed to cost about $6,500 in 1946, approximately the cost of a high-end automobile. Though it survived a near-miss with a tornado in 1964, the home was later abandoned. It was taken apart in 1992 and over the next eight years, <a href="http://www.hfmgv.org/museum/dymaxion.aspx">Henry Ford Museum staff researched the house</a>, and cleaned and restored its 3,000 components. On October 24, 2001, <a href="http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/dymaxion/index.html">the restoration complete and the Dymaxion House was opened to the public</a>. The Dymaxion line of creations also includes the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_Map">Dymaxion map</a> and the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlLZE23EJKs">Dymaxion car</a> (wobbly YT video, featuring Amelia Earhart amongst others). The Dymaxion map was called the Air-Ocean World by Fuller, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=rG__1rhIzE0C&lpg=PA124&ots=ZAk9xgYfTt&dq=%22World%20Town%20Plan%22%20fuller&pg=PA124#v=onepage&q&f=false">based on an early effort to optimize air travel</a> based on small connecting flights instead of long trips. The resulting map was <a href="http://www.genekeyes.com/FULLER/BF-5-1954.html">a fairly accurate representation of the world</a>, though the earlier <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_J.S._Cahill">Bernard J.S. Cahill</a> <a href="http://www.genekeyes.com/CAHILL-LMW/LMW-2.html">butterfly map</a> is considered more accurate. The Dymaxion car was <a href="http://www.washedashore.com/projects/dymax/chronology.html">another brainchild of 1927 that was refined for years</a>. <a href="http://synchronofile.com/?p=329">Three cars were produced</a>, though <a href="http://www.maxmatic.com/Dymaxion/dymaxion2.htm">only one is known to remain</a>. One was ill-fated, surviving a fatal accident and being restored, only to be accidentally destroyed in a fire, and a second is lost and considered scrapped. Other items from Fuller with the Dymaxion name include his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep">polyphasic sleep</a> schedule, which he called <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774680,00.html">Dymaxion sleep, as detailed in this 1943 Time magazine article</a>, and the compendium of Fuller's lifetime of work, notes and associated recordings that is known as the <a href="http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/fuller/about.html">Dymaxion Chronofile</a>. In one of his <a href="http://www.westnet.com/~crywalt/inventions/invtotal.html">last (lengthy, thought-provoking) public writings</a>, Bucky noted that the "Chronofile" consisted of 750 12" x 10" x 5" volumes in 1981. <a href="http://www.bfi.org/about-us/bfi-history">Originally the Fuller Archives were curated by the Buckminster Fuller Institution</a>, and in 1999 the Fuller archives were transferred to the <a href="http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/spc/fuller/index.html">Stanford University Libraries</a>, where they are housed today. There is a lot of material online, including some fantastic audio, and though it is freely accessible, it requires you sign up for a password. If you're looking for more material, check the <a href="http://www.buckminster.info/">Buckminster Fuller Virtual Institute</a>. Warning: heavy use of dated HTML, but <a href="http://www.buckminster.info/Biblio/1-Bibliography-TOC.htm">the bibliography and itinerary is worth checking out</a>. Bucky Fuller was not only a scientific mind, but also an artistic one. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/arts/design/19nogu.html">He is cited as a vague or possibly indirect influence on Warhol</a>, through his painting of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romany_Marie">Romany Marie</a>'s restaurant with shiny aluminum paint. That act inspired <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isamu_Noguchi">Isamu Noguchi</a> (<a href="http://lisawallerrogers.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/dorothy-hale-and-the-dymaxion-car/">seen here</a> in a Dymanxion car</a>, next to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hale">Dorothy Hale</a>) to paint his own studio silver, before <a href="http://www.warholstars.org/chron/factory63n7.html">Warhol's Factory space turned silver</a>.
Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror. I await your answer.
Mortgage financing giant Fannie Mae <a href="http://www.fanniemae.com/newsreleases/2010/5071.jhtml">announces</a> policy changes designed to encourage borrowers to "work with their servicers and pursue alternatives to foreclosure"...and threatens borrowers with new penalties for strategic default. From the Fannie Mae press release: <blockquote>Defaulting borrowers who walk-away and had the capacity to pay or did not complete a workout alternative in good faith will be ineligible for a new Fannie Mae-backed mortgage loan for a period of seven years from the date of foreclosure. Borrowers who have extenuating circumstances may be eligible for new loan in a shorter timeframe. ... Fannie Mae will also take legal action to recoup the outstanding mortgage debt from borrowers who strategically default on their loans in jurisdictions that allow for deficiency judgments. In an announcement next month, the company will be instructing its servicers to monitor delinquent loans facing foreclosure and put forth recommendations for cases that warrant the pursuit of deficiency judgments.</blockquote> "We're taking these steps to highlight the importance of working with your servicer," said Terence Edwards, executive vice president for credit portfolio management. "Walking away from a mortgage is bad for borrowers and bad for communities and our approach is meant to deter the disturbing trend toward strategic defaulting. On the flip side, borrowers facing hardship who make a good faith effort to resolve their situation with their servicer will preserve the option to be considered for a future Fannie Mae loan in a shorter period of time." Meanwhile, a recent study (<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2010/06/28/study-nearly-one-in-five-mortgage-defaults-are-strategic/">summarized by the Wall Street Journal</a>) suggests that nearly 1 in 5 mortgage defaults through the first half of 2009 were strategic. From the <a href="http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/analysts-question-a-threat-by-fannie/?scp=1&sq=fannie&st=cse">New York Times</a>: <blockquote>-Fannie and its sister company, Freddie Mac, control 30 million mortgages, providing liquidity to the housing market. They have been under government conservatorship since September 2008; the ultimate cost of the rescue to taxpayers might hit $400 billion. -About a quarter of homeowners with mortgages, or about 11 million households, owe more than their home is worth, and are potentially vulnerable to a strategic default -[Fannie Mae]’s delinquency rate, traditionally about 0.5 percent of its portfolio, began sharply ascending in mid-2007. At the beginning of this year, it leveled off at 5.5 percent.</blockquote>
Crack shack or mansion?
<a href="http://www.crackshackormansion.com/">Crack shack or mansion?</a> <a href="http://www.theprovince.com/health/Frustrated+couple+crack+shack+quiz+targets+million+dollar+Vancouver+homes/2911132/story.html">Frustrated couple's crack-shack quiz targets million-dollar Vancouver homes:</a> Can you tell the difference between a million-dollar Vancouver property and a crack shack? Vancouver teacher Petr Pospisil bets you can’t — or at least will struggle to do so. Distraught over the city’s exorbitant real-estate prices, Pospisil and his girlfriend Ola Rogula, a lab tech at the University of B.C., came up this week with Crack Shack or Mansion? — a cheeky online quiz that challenges users to differentiate between alleged drug houses and million-dollar homes. <a href="http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=ff7fd1e0-f52e-4de7-af5b-6117dc6cded5">Vancouver is the most unaffordable city in Canada for housing, and ranks 15th worst in the world</a>
Purchase risky debt on a massive scale and then place a bet that the debt will fail!
<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/04/americandream.html">Betting Against the American Dream</a>. In 2005, just as Wall Street started to get cold feet about the housing market, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar">Magnetar </a>hedge fund helped create a new wave of billion-dollar mortgage-backed securities, pushed bankers to include riskier sub-prime mortgages, and then shorted the securities, making millions when the bubble finally burst. Traders on both sides of the deals pocketed enormous fees even if their banks went under when the securities failed. <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/90976/The-2010-Pulitzer-Prize-winners-have-been-announced">Pulitzer Prize-winning </a><a href="http://www.propublica.org/feature/all-the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble">ProPublica</a>, <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job">This American Life</a>, and NPR's <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/04/how_one_hedge_fund_got_rich_of.html">Planet Money </a>track down some of the big winners in the housing/financial crisis. No time to read or listen? It seemed so much like a scheme from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063462/">The Producers</a>, they even recorded <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/04/americandream.html">a show tune to explain it all</a>. (<a href="http://www.metafilter.com/71576/The-Giant-Pool-of-Mone">Previously</a>, <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/75419/There-will-be-enormous-enormous-losses">2</a>, <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/79069/The-Failure-of-the-Business-Press">3</a>)
I should be doing my taxes
New York Magazine has crunched the numbers, Park Slope has taken the title of <a href="http://nymag.com/realestate/neighborhoods/2010/65374/">most livable neighborhood of New York</a>. Applying a 12 point metric <a href="http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/03/frequently-asked-questions-last-revised.html">Nate Silver</a> has ranked the top 50. Don't wanna do the heavy lifting yourself? Try the handy <a href="http://nymag.com/realestate/neighborhoods/2010/65355/">livability calculator</a>.
Play Houses
<a href="http://tomorrowmuseum.com/2008/06/13/the-worlds-strangest-housing-communities-2/">The World's Strangest Housing Communities.</a> Brazilian dystopia, mysterious Midgetville, mock California in China, deserted Taiwan futureland and Indian utopia [also Paulville - 100% Ron Paul Supporters].
Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion?
<a href="http://www.acorn.org/">ACORN</a>, the low-income community grassroots organisation, is <a href="http://www.racewire.org/archives/2010/03/acorn_folds.html">set to close by April 1st</a>, citing "a series of well-orchestrated, relentless, well-funded, right-wing attacks that are unprecedented since the McCarthy era". Meanwhile the New York Times has issued a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/23/new-york-times-issues-cor_n_509275.html">correction</a> on the stories which led to the 87-3 vote to remove ACORN's Federal funding (<a href="http://www.metafilter.com/85090/ACORN-under-fire">previously</a>), admiting that "while footage shot away from the offices shows one activist, James O'Keefe, in a flamboyant pimp costume, there is no indication that he was wearing the costume while talking to the Acorn workers."
Bankrupt on Selling
Tishman Speyer Properties is <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703415804575023483097973538.html">defaulting</a> on its $5.4 billion, high profile acquisition of the enormous Stuyvesant Town apartment complex in Manhattan, resulting in million in losses for investors and possibly <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125547827547583747.html">"signaling the beginning of what is expected to be a wave of commercial-property failures".</a> The failure is the result of an aggressive business model designed to "push moderate income tenants out and replace them with well-heeled renters willing to pay rents at a much higher price" a practice referred to as <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-jones/predatory-equity_b_289172.html">Predatory Equity.</a> The same approach has been attempted <a href="http://www.save-ml.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=200">elsewhere</a> in the city such as the Riverton Apartment complex in Harlem where long term profits were expected "if they can achieve that high rate of turnover – displacing half of Riverton’s low- to moderate-income tenants in a five-year period"
Oh, Five of Them, Actually
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez23-2009dec23,0,6520136.column">The Edge, AKA David Evans, wants to build a little comppound in Malibu,</a> on "the most prominent landform along the coast between Topanga Canyon Boulevard and the Ventura County line." <a href="http://www.leavesinthewind.com/WELCOME/tabid/63/Default.aspx">"In bringing together the very best environmental, architectural and design principles, the owners have sought to create homes that will both set new standards and withstand the test of time,"</a> Evans says on the website he created as part of his lobbying effort to move this project through. (Turn your sound on for the video.) "Unfortunately, it is impossible to construct the five homes strung over a mile of ridgeline and 7,800 feet of water main without resulting in unavoidable significant adverse visual and ecological impacts," writes Ronald P. Schafer, the President of the quasi-public <a href="http://smmc.ca.gov/">Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.</a> A number of local residents are wondering how building 5 houses on a high ridgeline this close to the ocean could be considered the "right thing to do" by someone with such a progressive cred. The <a href="http://www.malibutimes.com/">Malibu Times.</a> puts us right on this. <a href="http://www.malibutimes.com/articles/2009/12/16/news/news5.txt">"However, U2 is known mostly for human rights issues and not environmental causes." </a>

and are good quality prospects for renting your home too.

There are options available to you to stop foreclosure now, unfortunately many home owners wait too long before they look for a solution. Don't ignore the late notices you are receiving on your home mortgage. Time is not usually on your side during a foreclosure, however there are some options available that do not require a lot of time and may help you stop foreclosure, even if it is last minute.

Contact the lender that holds your mortgage, or an attorney or professional that specializes in foreclosure and ask them for information on how you can stop the foreclosure. Never give up, you can get help.