Wealthy Bay Area homeowners demand piece of mortgage bailout pie
If it isn’t fraudulent ACORN foreclosure “victims” siphoning off taxpayer funds, it’s well-off home borrowers in Nancy Pelosi’s backyard demanding a piece of the mortgage bailout pie.
Moochers to the left of me, moochers to the far left…
Legislation heading to the floor of the House today would help more Bay Area homeowners qualify for the mortgage relief in President Obama’s housing rescue plan.
After reading an article in Monday’s Chronicle indicating that many people holding the pricy mortgages common to the Bay Area would not be able to take advantage of low-cost refinances, Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, amended a bill scheduled for a House vote.
“After reading your article, I thought, this isn’t going to work for California,” Speier said.
“I’ve drafted an amendment so that rather than being limited to whether the loan was conforming at time of origination, it will be based on (whether it’s conforming at) the time of (modification), which will take the limit up to $729,750 in high-cost areas. This should make more people in the Bay Area eligible.”
Speier’s amendment addresses an aspect of the plan that encourages mortgage services to modify loans to make them more affordable for struggling borrowers. The modifications are supposed to reduce monthly payments to 31 percent of a borrower’s income for five years; they also could include lowering the principal or refinancing the loan.
The amendment says that loan modifications must be available to loans that are “conforming,” meaning those that can be securitized or guaranteed by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. The conforming loan limit was $417,000 until July 1, 2007. About 60 percent of homes purchased in the expensive Bay Area in 2005 and 2006 were bought with higher-cost “jumbo” loans above $417,000; about 30 percent of homes in California were jumbos in those years, according to MDA DataQuick. The limit is now $729,750 in high-cost regions, including most of the Bay Area.
“This puts some parameters around what the Obama administration didn’t articulate in its plan and makes it so an important program for the Bay Area and surrounding counties will be widely available to folks, particularly in those areas where mortgages are very high-cost,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Hammill added that loan modifications might be available for even-larger loans, but this language “protects the conforming loan limit in particular areas, which is vital.”
Pelosi supports the amendment and the bill, which is expected to pass the House.
And if they don’t get what they want, they’ll break the padlocks and whine on Oprah until they do…
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Geeze now we have to bailout millionaires too? What is going to be left for my family?
I have been fortunate to be able to buy into a home (1100 sq ft) here in the Bay Area, though home prices here have been long demented and resulting in a tremendous burden on families.
Funny how the enlightened, progressive leadership here in the Bay Area harped on President Bush and his “uncaring” policies for eight years, yet right in their backyard, where they controlled the power, the housing mess unfolded: first, dementedly rising housing costs and then followed by the bursting of the bubble.
Well, these leaders enjoyed the ride on the upside as rising home prices, assessments, etc. meant more property tax revenues to fund their pet causes.
Now they want all of us to pay for their mistakes.
“From each according to his ability-
To each according to his needs.”
Name the author
Matthew “FREE MONEY!!!” Lesko for Sec of the Treasury!
Why not? I mean, it is free money. Right?
You do realize it’s the wealthy from the Bay Area (and New York and Massachusetts) who bankroll the country, right? We don’t have Alabama to thank for a robust defense budget.
Gee that sounds familiar. Oh, I know, wasn’t that Osama when he was talking to that lowly blue collar plumber guy?
/sarc
What’s the difference between wealthy homeowners getting a piece of the pie and wealthy farming conglomerates getting subsidized for years with funds intended for the smaller family farmer?
The line at the trough is going to get very long!
*Obama… A thousand pardons for a Ted Kennedy slip of the lip.
13 Dollars a week Babble. wow.
You really want to compare the contributions of people from the bay area to the contributions of those from states like Alabama, or Georgia, or South Carolina, or Arkansas?
People from the bay area may pay more taxes per capita than those of many southern states. But those of my part of the country, those inbred hicks those on the left so love to denigrate, pay more per capita in blood than the little pansies in the bay area ever thought about.
It’s me and mine that believe in the inherent nobility of the US Military. It’s me and mine that swear our lives, and more importantly, our honor to defend the greatest nation this planet has ever known. It’s me and mine that stand willing to pay the blood tax so that effete little snobs can sit back and bemoan how rotton (in their minds) this country is.
No, not just people from the south. The military is populated by people from rural areas all over this country. People that were raised with pride in nation. People that believe it is the highest honor to be allowed to serve this nation, even unto death.
Go to Alabama and throw a rock in any direction and you will find ten people willing to lay down their life for this nation. Try the same thing in the bay area and you’ll find ten people willing to tell you how rotton this nation is while they are getting ready for the Folsom Street Fair.
So who is it that really gives more?
Dpt – don’t worry…your bay area leaders won’t have to pay the price. They can still blame it on Bush.
Excellent!
On February 26th, 2009 at 10:44 am, Red State Skeptic said:
You do realize it’s the wealthy from the Bay Area (and New York and Massachusetts) who bankroll the country, right? We don’t have Alabama to thank for a robust defense budget
I normally read the comments on here and it does not do a thing to my blood pressure. However, as a former Army Recruiter in the Great State of Alabama and now a retired soldier living in the Great State of Alabama I could not let Red State Skeptic’s comment go without a reply. You are right RSS, the good people in Alabama pay their fair share of the taxes but most are not as well off as the big city folks. BUT all of the money in the defense budget does not mean a thing if you don’t have the patriotic Americans willing to put their life on the line for the clowns who take advantage of everything America offers yet are not willing to give anything in return. Where do you think most of the men and women who join our Armed Forces come from? You betcha, the South. So, maybe you don’t have the people from Alabama to thank for a robust defense budget, but you sure do have a lot of people in Alabama to thank for their service to your country. I would almost bet you can take the Bay Area, New York and Massachusetts number of recruits last year who joined the military and it still won’t be as many as enlisted from the Great State of Alabama alone.
This socialism shtick is way past pathetic. What sort of country will we have when they are finished printing money?
Those comments about people in the Bay Area not serving in the military are wrong. As long as the Iraq & Afganistan Wars have been fought, there have been men and women enlisting in the military and dying for their country. Do a google search dimbulb and read the obituaries.
JWM
US NAVY
1974-1978
I gave up commenting for Lent, but I had to break it to give a shout out to twofoot sergeantmajorbill. Thanks for kicking RedStatePansie’s smug a-s-s!
Sergeantmajorbill –
Present Arms…Order Arms!
Well done, soldier!
So that’s where I went wrong. I should have borrowed three times as much as I did!
D’oh!!!
Well, it has to be Karl Marx/Frierich Engels because Pres. Obama’s version is
“From each according to his abilities
To each socialist according to his wants.”
I thought it was Joe Biden… didn’t he claim to write that?
/sarc
Y’all know damn well I’m not putting down any red state in the country (I’m a Southerner). I’m saying y’all shouldn’t put down the rich liberals who pay for your defense, your federal law enforcement, your interstates, your Social Security, and your Medicare.
And I know y’all hate the stimulus, but you cannot deny it is an enormous net increase in wealth for your less affluent red states.
Finding it harder and harder to justify paying the mortgage….
Skeptic just told everyone what he thinks of people outside the Bay area, NYC and other wealthy liberal bastions.
There are his people and there are THOSE people.
I don’t pay for it??? Then where is all that tax money going????
Actualy it is a short term gain followed by massive debt. We will all have to pay more taxes for decades to pay for this flash in the pan.
Snork!
Unless this is just sarc I’m guessing you are also arguing that “predatory lenders” went after unsophisticated-yet- wealthy homeowners, who didn’t know what they were getting into and didn’t even read the mortgage document to learn its terms.
More snork!!!
Fix it for you and
I think that’s what you meant, right?
That’s a joke. Right? I mean honestly, we are running down Donner pass in Georgia overdrive towards another great depression and you think that’s going to make people more wealthy?
If you honestly believe that, you’re hopeless.
As for the rest, it’s been pointed out already that all that money does no good at all if there aren’t people willing to stand up and actually defend this nation as opposed to constantly cursing it.
We have fallen down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was NOT a fairy tale-it was prophetic! It gets weirder and weirder.
And became true in the 21st Century.
America I loved, you will be missed.
—
ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS
Should be a convenience store
NOT a Government Agency
RSS said I’m saying y’all shouldn’t put down the rich liberals who pay for your defense, your federal law enforcement, your interstates, your Social Security, and your Medicare.
Would they be the rich libs Obama nominated for his cabinet positions that somehow failed to pay their taxes?
I am a wealthy homeowner living on the western slope of Grizzly Peak in Berkeley California.
Home values rose in this select area of Alameda county. For some, that was not nearly as lucrative as it was for others. The dividing line between “not losing” and “profiting” was based on economic intelligence.
A little background.
In 1998, prior to the Silicon Valley DotBomb burst, home-buyer bidding wars jacked prices up in this area to the stratosphere, and Berkeley in general.
The frenzy had the home I bought in 1998 was on the market first at $1.2 million, but overpriced it came down to 759K. Too rich for my blood but the view of the Oakland skyline, the Port of Oakland, the Bay Bridge, the North San Francisco shoreling, the City Skyline, The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Angel Island, Tiburon, Sausalito, and Mt Tamalpais, was too beautiful to pass up.
So i did some digging.
The home had been built in 1940 by Bechtel Corporation (back when they were building the base of their now empire) for 25K. Hmmmm. The owners had moved to Cambodia already. I figured the house would sit unoccupied for another year and the market would pass it by.
So i made an offer of 359K. They took it. They made a king’s ransom on a 25K investment.
I bought it right. Appraisal time. House appraised a year ago at $789K. I have put about 2500 bucks into the house in 10 years. We are adding a second story this year, to turn a 3 bedroom 1.5 bath home into a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom home.
Brokers i know who want us to let them sell it for us when we are done see a $1.5 to 1.75 million dollar sale price range….. on what will total out as a $285,000.00 investment over 11 years.
We dont intend to sell. And the mortgage will be paid off in 3 years.
THAT my friends is what “wealthy” homeowner means. Nothing to do with government bailout money. We paid for it. We know what it’s worth because WE paid for it. And we bought it low according to what the place was actually worth—- not based on what we “wanted” or were “looking” for or what we fell in “love with”.
The American Dream is not grounded in reality. Wealth creation is. lil bHo is leading millions of Americans to ruin.
Now, i need to design and install gun turrets for the coming onslaught of food marauders from down in hippie land once Whole Foods goes belly up. (Short their stock— they are selling produce labeled organic— from CHINA! of all places ROFLMAO).
Oy….
Bear1909 out.
Bear…
Good luck getting the proper permits for the gun turrets. Maybe you can tell the board they are mini-observatories used to look for extraterrestial beings we can add to the welfare and Democrat voting rolls. That will ensure the approval.
Actually we had the parapets for the second story permited already. The turrets are made of lightweight steel that we shroud with kevlar and are portable to install in minutes. Of course, they wont be able to withstand RPG’s.
Bear1909
Bear,
Cool! Call if you need backup.
Fixed it for you. None of Obama’s chosen ones seem to pay…
I pay.
Forget the RPG’s dude, there will be a fire and no firemen to stop it! That is how this is gonna end in the ‘bay area’.
Watching the shift of so much power and money to the governments, state and local, cannot end in a ‘nice’ way.
wow Hillsborough eh , must be tough to be nesteled high up on the hill and look down on the rest of us .
How about this jackie , U pay for peoples morgages and leave my wallet alone . Or mark my words your going to help send this country into another revolution.
“Dpt – don’t worry…your bay area leaders won’t have to pay the price. They can still blame it on Bush.”
Yeah, I know. And the voters here will keep on electing Pelosi, Stark, Miller, etc., and their counter-parts in the State legislature too, and the hole will become deeper and deeper.
They obviously didn’t get the Obummer “sacrifice” memo.
RSS: That’s like saying the cancer you just discovered in your body will help you lose those extra pounds in the coming months!
sonofdy,
What does Obama care? As long as it lasts until 2012, he’s set. If it fails, he’ll continue to blame Bush, and with the MSM driving the getaway car, he’s still set.
That’s how fiscal liberals operate. They party with our money and leave the mess for the conservative to clean up. Only now they’ve learned to blame the conservatives for the mess so that they can throw another party even sooner.
“the fire next time”
how true….. let us pray
Hmmm, since the government is spending trillions of dollars that we dont have and is printing money as fast as they can go…
How about we just scrap the whole idea of counterfeiting and lets outsource the printing of ALL the money to the American people.
I bet the public can print our way out of this mess cheaper than the government can! Then we can let the Secret Service focus on protection details rather than treasury issues. Its win-win-win all the way around.
sergeantmajorbill said: I would almost bet you can take the Bay Area, New York and Massachusetts number of recruits last year who joined the military and it still won’t be as many as enlisted from the Great State of Alabama alone. So are you saying that because you think that more people from the South enlist, that there fore the people from NY, Mass and Frisco who enlist aren’t as good as the Southern recruits? One lib makes a stupid comment about the rich paying for everything and bang, time to slam all Nyers. This is getting real old. You are doing the same tired crap that libs do. It doesn’t matter where you are from. If you are serving this country. Now flame away.
Beware and prepared folks it’s getting closer to the 2nd American Revolution.
Like all coup’s and revolt’s of any kind, after the injustice builds for so long it only takes one igniting moment to get it started.
If you’ve got a 700K mortgage that you can’t make, you don’t need a bailout you need to downsize. And if you’re whining that the house isn’t worth what you paid for it two years ago, you overpaid and you can consider the difference btwn what you paid and what it’s worth your stupid tax and a lesson learned.
Jim maybe you need to slow down there some, I don’t see where sergentmajorbill said anything like that at all…possibly you misunderstood him. I see him saying the country and military are getting more support from the south than those mentioned states, has nothing to do with the enlisted from those states being any less dedicated to the cause of the country.
I like to think of it as tuition. Well of course I’m not upside down on a mortgage either…
Your probably right. So if I offeneded any one sorry. It’s bad enough hearing the Lib loons here in NYC tell me that they “pay” taxes. Like I and my friends who are blue collar don’t. Then I hear from so many who paint all NYers as libs. Bad enough we have the big O as Pres.
Can we please not get into pissing contests about which state/area of the country is more patriotic than the next? Not only is juvenile, but each area has its heroes and its lunatics. The Bay Area is not politically monolithic, even though it may seem that way–even to those of us who live here.
Hey, Bear, we’re practically neighbors! I live just up north of you on I-80. And I know several folks who are comfortable handling firearms.
Not everyone who bought a house here for $750K is a millionaire. Many were just anxious to get into a house because it was a “sure thing” investment. Some used the equity of their home to live the good life. And some used their equity to finance college educations for their children. How rampant was the insanity? Not too far from me, homes built on the site of a dismantled oil refinery started at $500K back in 2002-2003. I thought the buyers were insane then; when pre-collapse prices reached $800K-1M, I knew they were!
JimC214 – I did not take offense at anything you said. I will just give you an example of what I am talking about. I was an Army Recruiter in Alabama for 3 years. Contrary to what the Army will tell you, recruiters do have quota’s. The Army will tell you it is an “objective” but you better not miss your “objective” too often. In the rural area where I recruited my monthly objective one month was 5 male high school diploma graduates. I had reason that month to call a recruiter in New York City. His objective that month was 1 person- did not matter if the person was a high school graduate, a drop out, a prior service or a female. He could not believe my objective. He said he was lucky if he could find 5 male high school diploma graduates a year to enlist. And yes, the pr0pensity to enlist in the service is higher in the South then anywhere else in the country. Ask any recruiter. And by the way, I was born in New Jersey so I am a damn Yankee. I was drafted in 1964 and found out real fast that if I ever got out of the military I would have to go to work for a living. I had a job that I actually enjoyed doing every day. That lasted for 25 years and when the day came when it was not fun any longer I put my retirement papers in. I tell everyone that I impersonated a soldier for 25 years and they just kept promoting me. I still stand by what I say – I did not denigrate anyone for enlisting no matter where they are from – I just said that the South contributes more recruits than any other part of the nation.
On February 26th, 2009 at 3:49 pm, March Hare said:
Can we please not get into pissing contests about which state/area of the country is more patriotic than the next? Not only is juvenile, but each area has its heroes and its lunatics. The Bay Area is not politically monolithic, even though it may seem that way–even to those of us who live here.
I don’t blame you – if I lived in California, especially the San Francisco area, (think ROTC) I would not want to get into a pissing contest about being patriotic either. And if the shoe fits, wear it!
It’s OK Michelle because when The Imitation Christ hits them with the higher taxes to pay for UNIVERAL healthcare they won’t be able to afford the new loan and will have to rent eventually anyway….I bet all you liberal tools are just THRILLED with your Messiah now….I guess you all will have to vote for him in 2012 from the GUTTER!
Sorry ‘victims’of the mortgage crisis…
YOUR mortgage is not MY problem