A few cups of freshly French-pressed morning joe and a perusal of the day’s news headlines is what I need to take my mind off this estrangement that’s developed between my lender and me.  The first headline I stumble upon reveals a discovery of water on the moon.  Good thing I chose not to harass the automated voice system at Bank of America with obscene phone calls.  Humans didn’t discover that water, computers did and don’t think for a second they didn’t already know it was there.  The all-knowing mainframe only recently chose to let its faithful anthropoid servants at NASA in on the secret who then let their lowly servants, the media, in on it who then divulged it to the rest of us lowly humans.  

The next headline staring me in the face is a New York Times article about the FHA.  Should I read it?  Isn’t this like asking a friend about your ex-lover’s alleged new lover?  As I mentioned earlier, there isn’t a great deal of dignity left in this defaulting homeowner so I can’t resist grabbing a little flour from the rumor mill.  The article starts off by saying:

The Federal Housing Administration, the government agency whose loan-insurance programs have become a crucial source of support for the housing market, said on Thursday that its cash reserves had dwindled significantly in the last year as more borrowers defaulted on their mortgages.

My lender is going to drop the FHA like the paramour hot potato they are because apparently they’re overcooked and bear no semblance to a meal ticket.  I knew it wasn’t the abs. 

As recently as a few weeks ago, the F.H.A. had said that even under the bleakest economic forecast, its cash cushion would quickly recover. On Thursday, it abandoned that position. “There is a real risk. Nobody has a crystal ball,” Shaun Donovan, secretary of housing and urban development, said in an interview. “We recognize there is a possibility that the reserves go below zero and stay there.”

Now that is one big dictum if I’ve ever seen one.  Now I see what my lender saw in the FHA.  It takes serious cajones to stare brazenly in the face of a zero balance sheet and shrug it off.  I should know, I've watched the zero on my balance sheet fall into the negative for months now.  The process has made me feel so unattractive I can no longer make out with myself in the mirror let alone shrug it off. 

That is not a situation the agency considers likely. In line with many analysts, the agency expects the housing market to turn down again over the next nine months and then to recover. Under this projection, foreclosures would be manageable and the reserves would quickly grow.

Um… is it just me or are they late to the game of betting on a housing bubble?  Homeowners facing foreclosure from falling property values like myself tried this years ago… and failed.  That’s partly how this foreclosure mess got started. 

The F.H.A.’s annual audit was scheduled for release last week, but was mysteriously delayed at the last minute. On Thursday, as it released the document, the agency explained that it wanted its auditors to include more negative forecasts as a way of understanding the worst-case risk.

This is no “mystery”.  That’s just the way HAL 9000 works as evidenced by the "recent" discovery of celestial water.  I finally understand my lender’s tryst with the FHA.  Who could possibly resist the sexiness of a government agency governed by a Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic Computer?  I can’t provide an intense, algorithmic experience to Bank of America so they went outside our bedroom to find it.  Believe me, I tried.  I really did.  The faxing of a 46-page document for their loan modification application for weeks and weeks proves it. [You can read about the tale here if you like]  I just have to face the facts:  My lender thinks I'm no good in bed.   

The F.H.A. says it is insuring loans to more financially secure buyers with higher credit scores. The average credit score of new borrowers, it said, is 693, compared with 633 two years ago. 

In a sense, the agency is bulking up and giving as many loans as it can to qualified buyers as a way to diminish the relative size of the pool of problem loans. It guaranteed more than $360 billion in mortgages in the last year, four times the amount of 2007.

Critics say this is only increasing the size of the ultimate peril.

The FHA is so sultry with their risky behavior it makes me want to date this bad boy government entity.  If it weren’t for my crappy credit score from delinquent mortgage payments that make me look like a juvenile delinquent I might have a shot.

I must admit I feel kind of bad for my lender.  They're probably heartbroken with today’s news.  Sure they were going to dump me on November 25th with the foreclosure of my house at a public auction but I’m not the kind of person who takes pleasure in another's pain.  I’m the kind of person who takes pleasure in his own pain as I’ve chosen to stay in this abusive relationship far too long.  Those days are over starting today.  I will dump them before they dump me. "You can’t fire me, I quit!” is my new modus operandi.  13 days remain to find the best way to announce splitsville to my lender.  I’ll start by demystifying the mystery surrounding the short sale…  that is if HAL will let me.