Real Crisis - Real Estate, Taxes and the Mortgage Crisis

By George Evers


Are we missing the outrage for being sold down the river by a band of numbskulls in the mortgage crisis? Even our choice for presidential candidates show heavily embedded lobby and financial interests for a Marxist socialist solution or a watered down free market solution. Both are sleepwalking in lobby money and favoritism.

Unqualified buyers were encouraged into home mortgages, the root cause for the financial meltdown. Our financial subprime woes started with Jimmy Carter who, though well meaning, dumb-headedly enacted legislation to encourage loans to people who were bad credit risks. Buying a home and paying property taxes was sold as the ultimate dream for financial happiness and prosperity. His administration began distancing itself from conservative lending and accounting principles.

Along came Bill Clinton who put extra penalties in the law by chastising mortgage and investment companies that did not extend credit to people who were bad credit risks. He put them into houses they couldn't afford let alone deal with the property taxes. A further deregulating and credit risk was encouraged by mortgage companies; those that didn't comply to lose lending practices were hampered from expanding their footprint in the community.

Who bought these counterfeit high risk loans? Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. They, furthermore, became a source for sending political contributions to politicians encouraging this bad credit homeownership cancer to keep growing. Mortgage company lobbies' threw hundreds of millions of dollars to politicians' greed in order to perpetuate this circus even as residents of high-foreclosure neighborhoods suffered additional pain from high property taxes.

To insure these bad mortgages, AIG and other insurance companies evaluated the risk and sold insurance to cover these mortgages in case of default. Their leverage was set at a 12 to 1 ratio. They too threw millions of dollars into legislator's coffers and asked for and got the permission to raise their leverage to a 30 to 1 ratio. This dramatically increased their risk as well as spectacurlary increased their short term profits.

Federal Reserve economists put their stamp of approval on this financial gimmickry and allowed this charade to continue. Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and other kindred socialist leaning organizations further aided in twisting banks to make even more fraudulent loans.

SEC Chairman, Banking Committee Chairman, The House Finance Chief and scores of public official's rubber stamped this cancer because of the easy lobby money directed at them. Greed for lobby money tempers sound judgment it seems. The only way to end this type of self perpetuating system is to put anyone who accepts lobby money into prison and banish them from government service.

A balloon full of hot air eventually has to crash. Instead of letting the markets sort this out, bailout is the new mantra. The global credit boom is OVER. Throwing out 700 billion dollar band aids laden with lobby inspired pork on the issue is meaningless. There is little the Fed or Congress can do to change it. Thanks to the weasels the Emperor has no clothes. The danger of ignoring economic realities is how we ended in this financial crisis. Where is the outrage?

The other news: Lower real estate prices has many towns raising tax rates to compensate for lower assessments. If you compare your home's value to comparative values of recently sold homes there is a good chance you qualify for a property tax appeal. At least, you should investigate whether you have a case.

A property tax consulting business coarse from PropertyTaxConsult.com provide a legitimate way to equalize assessments, especially to those overcharged. Statistics show that an error rate of 40 to 60% prevails, and as a property tax consultant, you can work as a force for good.




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