Spokane7
36°
April 21, 2010 in City
Loan modification lets cancer survivor stay in the house he built
SNAP helped Rob Young work out a deal with his lender after cancer left him unable to keep up with his mortgage payments.
(Full-size photo)
Rob Young, a self-employed building contractor, has lost a great deal in the past few years, but thanks to the Obama administration’s mortgage modification plan, he hasn’t lost his home.
Young’s was one of 331 households turning to Spokane nonprofit SNAP for foreclosure counseling in the first three months of this year, up 25 percent from the same period last year.
In Kootenai County, the Community Action Partnership also has been flooded with calls for foreclosure counseling, said housing director Barbara Leachman. The wait for appointments is two to three weeks, she added.
“The sheer volume is crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Peggy Burrell, housing counseling program coordinator for SNAP.
Last month, 216 homes were foreclosed on in Kootenai County and 107 homes in Spokane County, according to RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure report.
Burrell said the reasons for foreclosure are diverse – unrealistic loans, the housing market collapse, unemployment, health problems.
“Their situations are out of control,” Burrell said of the people who see her and her staff.
SNAP executive director Larry Stuckart said his agency can’t resolve every foreclosure issue with which it is confronted, “but our staff has done an excellent job of saving many homes from foreclosure in Spokane County.”
Young’s home is one that has been saved.
The 63-year-old builder was diagnosed with lung cancer about the same time the U.S. economy entered a recession. The result, Young said, was “a financial train wreck.”
Unable to work while on radiation and chemotherapy, he could only watch as the housing market collapsed. Most of the dozen rental homes he had financed and built were or are being foreclosed on.
Many of his renters, who also were affected by the downturn, packed up and left, owing Young thousands of dollars.
With his cancer in remission, Young has returned to work part time, but still could not make the nearly $1,500 monthly payment on his north Spokane home.
Though he has lived in the home he built himself for 27 years, he has had to refinance it several times.
“Being a builder, you’re always having to leverage something,” Young said.
Recently, a SNAP counselor determined that Young qualified for the federal Making Home Affordable Modification Program, which could help up to 4 million Americans avoid foreclosure by reducing monthly mortgage payments.
Nationwide about 7 million households are behind on mortgage payments.
The program can lower interest rates to as low as 2 percent for five years and gradually increases the interest paid until it reaches a cap, which is equal to today’s current market rate.
The modification can extend the term of a mortgage to 40 years and forebear a portion of the principal mortgage balance in order to achieve a payment equal to 31 percent of the borrower’s monthly household income.
Loans on principal residences only must have originated on or before Jan. 1, 2009, with a principal balance up to $729,750.
Critics of the program say that many borrowers receiving five-year modifications under the plan eventually fall behind on payments anyway.
Young worked with his bank to lower his payment to a more manageable $900 a month.
“I was precarious at best,” Young said of his financial situation when he turned to modification. “I needed something to hang on.” He said his SNAP counselor “made it happen.”
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leekinny on April 21 at 9:15 a.m.
Education is great, but the above is still spam.
This is another instance where Democratic policies are helping us through the GOP and Republican light (DLC) economic disaster.
Oh! and did you hear that GM paid the loan back with interests.
oneanddone on April 21 at 11:10 a.m.
Typical misinformation from social progressives and democrats there leekinny. GM got $52B but paid back only $8B. The rest was converted to stock by the same government that’s about to ruin health care, tax us into oblivion with a VAT, sucks up to countries like Iran, and puts our country in jeopardy by canceling missile defense in eastern Europe. Obama is the absolute worst president since Jimmy and our only prayer is making him a similar one term wonder.
leekinny on April 21 at 3:52 p.m.
Well, I can see there’s no use trying to relate with you; so I won’t.
You see people like the person above are being led by fear into a direction against their own best interest by people who are happy to use them.
The job of right- wing propagandists is to take a spin on the truth, a distortion of it or an outright lie and paint it as the most pro-American or pro-Christian point of view for anyone who loves America to hold. Their very good at playing on peoples prejudices and weaknesses. In other words they are very gifted at getting people to believe what isn’t true with gusto. The sad thing is they have no idea it’s all being used against them and that the propagandists have no love or respect for those who they fool.
It’s absolutely amazing for those of us who have been fortunately immune from this vileness to watch their effect on their mesmerized adherents. The word or phrase of the moment that encapsulates Neocon/tea party ideas or concepts are universally parroted by the blind sheep. There’s no amount of facts, proof or evidence that can deter them from their hypnotic trance.
They are ready and willing to accept something as being green one day, then believe, without a doubt, because they’ve been told, that same thing is orange the next day; convinced it never was green, while it has been, in fact, truly blue all along.
leekinny on April 21 at 4:05 p.m.
GM repays government loan…..
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63K56920100421
5 Overblown Fears About Healthcare Reform…..
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-Overblown-Fears-About-usnews-1662044017.html?x=0
We live in North America; not anywhere near Eastern Europe.
All of the major Iranian nuclear advancements occurred under the Cheney/Bush administration.
misjustice on April 24 at 8:46 a.m.
“There’s no amount of facts, proof or evidence that can deter them from their hypnotic trance.”
How right you are, leekinny; and yet your blogs always offer sources and references should those caught in an hypnotic trance suddenly wake up! Sadly, many will only “believe” what they hear on Faux Noose…over, and over, and over, and over, until they find themselves repeating it verbatim.
One thing that the Cheney administration accomplished - the dumbing down of ‘Merica. W talked to us as if we were 5 year olds, people “liked” him because they could understand him. Likewise, the Quitter on Twitter talks to her crowds as if they are 5 year olds. Sadly, most ‘Mericans can only read at an 8th grade level; so many can not comprehend nuance, or complicated issues such as how Wall Street manipulated the housing market. What they can understand is a bumpersticker snippet or slogan that they “learned” from Faux Noose. And so it goes.
As for Mr. Young, I wish him the best in his health and financial struggles. I am heartened to learn about the federal program that is partnering with local social services to help people in our community stay in their homes.