Jeff Tanenbaum on Arise Xchange News
Halstead Property West side agent and respected housing and mortgage expert, Jeffrey Tanenbaum, sits down in an exclusive video interview for Arise Xchange to discuss recent news that Bank of America has agreed to pay a $16-17 Billion settlement over stale mortgages, and what that means for consumers.
A seasoned financial contributor and expert, Tanenbaum reminds us that it is first and foremost important to note the government previously penalized institutions like JP Morgan and CitiBank for a markedly less amount of money with the intent that [they] should be required to share a brunt of the financial crisis and real estate crash of 2008. Arise Xchange Host, Akhtar Khan proposes in response what a lot of others might be thinking, which is why should Bank of America have to pick up the debt for Merrill [Lynch]? Jeff’s rebuttal explains that BofA is part of Merrill’s conglomerate thus some accountability remains, and further states that both contributed significantly to the overfunding, and says “there was never a real control on loans before the crisis, you could get a loan on 150% of the property, and the appraisers were sent out by the banks; Now, consumers who want a loan are required to call a clearing house that arranges for an independent appraisal on the property.” According to Jeff,
“This creates a check and balance on the mortgage situation, as does the credit.There is certain levels of credit that have to be met for a purchaser to afford to get a loan, [and] these were never in place before the crisis, which left many in a foreclosure or short sale situation, or more importantly - their credit was adversely effected and they wound up with nothing – no home, bad credit, and they can’t do anything now.”
What is surely on every consumers mind is exactly how the money is going to be funded, and while it is still too soon to declare with certainty, Tanenbaum forges ahead hopeful that the settlement deal is in fact the end of the road, and will remain confident so long as the money is used to repair the credit situation and is allocated properly to those who lost their homes. He goes on to say that “eventually like everything else, there is a component to that funding that will impact consumers of today and our society as a whole” and perhaps a resolve lies in allocation of fees that will no longer go to the bank, but toward the general population of those who were adversely effected demonstrating the significant uniqueness of the current state of the economy, wherein “one population of consumers will be paying for another population of consumers who unfortunately have gone through the worst situation of their lives - which is losing their home.”
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Thoughts and opinions presented in this video are those of Jeffrey Tanenbaum and do not reflect the official opinions of Halstead Property, LLC.