The North Carolina Bankruptcy Information Blog

With the blooming beautifully manicured landscapes, fresh-cut lawns and new signs of curb appeal, Spring used to be prime time for home buying. But with all of the hoops that potential homebuyers now have to jump through just to begin the process, tis the season of one in three Americans walking away from the actual home buying experience without an actual mortgage.

According to the financial experts at WalletPop, “Understanding the mortgage process and meeting lenders’ more stringent qualification requirements have become big obstacles for applicants, according to a survey [MortgageMatch.com] conducted. Most recent home buyers – 70% – described the mortgaging process as more difficult than they expected.…

We recently shared a sampling of the Federal Trade Commission’s recent tips for saving your home amid the financial fears of foreclosure. Being proactive, applying for a loan modification, and working directly with your mortgage servicer to for a better financial future in your own home sweet home.

But amid this timely advice for those seeking shelter from those who might otherwise take theirs, it’s worth mentioning news that when banks won’t help a beleaguered borrower modify his or her mortgage, scammers are stepping in to take advantage of these households in need.

According to a new report from Laura Bassett of The Huffington Post, an “elaborate network” of affiliated con artist companies, operating under such names as “Save My Home,” “Save My Home Now,” “Express Modifications” and “Express Home Solutions,” have become very good at making bad promises to average Americans that, in exchange for thousands of dollars, they could, in return, get their paying clients lower monthly mortgage rates 60 to 90 days.…

To commemorate the Federal Trade Commission’s annual National Consumer Protection Week (March 6 – 12, 2011), the FTC is providing a budget-load of handy-dandy information designed to protect your money, your credit, and your overall post-recessionary financial future. So whether you’re rebuilding your economic life post-bankruptcy, or simply trying to speed up your savings, the NCPW blog can yield a wealth of resources exactly at a time when average Americans need a financial infusion, including information about:

• Avoiding foreclosure rescue and other mortgage-related scams;
• Knowing how to spot employment opportunity scams;
• Making the most of your money in the early stages of your career;
• Building and maintaining a budget to improve financial stability;
• Avoiding time-share and credit-card scams offered via text messages; and
• Learning what steps to take to save your home from foreclosure.

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One of the most widespread effects of the current housing market malaise is the “curse” of negative equity. This now ubiquitous occurrence of the real estate reckoning is a product of an underwater universe wherein a good number of houses all across the country are valued as less than what homeowners originally paid for them. And the effects aren’t just being felt in California, Las Vegas and Arizona, but are also drowning homeowners right here in the Deep South.

In fact, according to a new article by The Miami Herald, there have been dark clouds over the Sunshine State’s real estate markets for some time now as house-loads of average Americans face little light at the end of the otherwise tropical tunnel.  For these Floridians, the crash of the housing market is personal.…

Following the worst financial downturn since the Depression of the 1930s, men and women of the middle-class have found themselves profoundly affected by an economic meltdown that’s quickly pushed many into poverty. Widening unemployment paired with shrinking government safety nets means one unexpected and unfortunate incident—a sudden layoff, debilitating injury or illness, a missed mortgage payment—can mean a person’s life is instantly transformed from “happy-go-lucky” to the brink of homelessness or worse.

In fact, according to a new article on the state of the shrinking middle class in America, “As foreclosure and unemployment rates have swelled to epidemic proportions in the past two years, the ranks of the American homeless have grown: the number of homeless families rose 4 percent in 2009, and then 9 percent last year, a pair of new reports show.…

If you’re reading this, odds are you may be suffering through  a tough financial time. Yet, what might make you feel a bit better about your current ordeal is the knowledge that you’re not alone. Millions of average Americans just like you are facing a shared financial circumstance as they struggle to stay afloat in the wake of this decade’s Great Recession—facing foreclosure, job insecurity, and, in some cases, insolvency.

In the series, Our Great Recession 2.0, we’ll delve into some of the more unique stories of this decade’s unprecedented economic downturn, allowing you to see familiar faces and dire places people are going in order to handle our collective financial meltdown head-on.…

Just when you thought it was safe to call it an economic recovery, the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) pointed to a continuing recession with reports last week that personal bankruptcy filings for the month of May 2010 have increased compared with a year ago (May 2009). In this data also reveals figures finding that total bankruptcies dropped slightly in May 2010 versus the previous month of April 2010.

According to the ABI findings, in May 2010, 136,142 personal bankruptcy cases were filed, a nine percent increase from May 2009, when 124,838 cases were filed. May’s total marked a six percent drop from April of this year, when 144,490 cases were filed.…

While millions of struggling Americans still working hard to find meaningful employment might disagree, economists are heartened about prospects for growth this year as industries increasingly report better profits and add new jobs, though they still expect the recovery to remain slow, a new survey shows.

As The Huffington Post reported this week, 70% of those recently surveyed by The National Association for Business Economics believe real Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—the measure of our country’s overall economic output— will “grow by more than two percent this year, up from 61 percent who said the same in January. Twenty-four percent are predicting real GDP will grow by more than 3 percent in 2010, up from 14 percent earlier this year.…

This week, amid groundbreaking health care legislation, many missed the Obama administration’s other big news: a major reworking of its troubled $75 billion foreclosure prevention plan. In an attempt to help those hardest hit by the housing crisis, the newly revamped program targets homeowners who are unemployed or underwater in their mortgages (owing more on their loans than their homes are worth).

While only 170,000 homeowners have completed loan modifications under the President’s plan thus far—out of 1.1 million who began the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program last year—the current effort is designed to help 3 million to 4 million homeowners avoid foreclosure by the end of 2012.…

Brent T. White, a law professor at the University of Arizona, has a provocative new study out, “Underwater and Not Walking Away.” He points out that as many as 32 percent of all homeowners are ‘underwater’ on their mortgages – they owe more money than their houses are worth. The media has produced a series of articles decrying homeowners who simply stop paying on these ‘upside down’ mortgages as irresponsible and even obscene. In fact, White notes, less than three percent of people whose primary residences are foreclosed on are people who could have continued to pay their mortgages. There are no discernible difference in foreclosure rates in places where housing prices have dropped steeply.…