BEEP – BEEP – BEEP – BEEP.  NEWS ALERT: FORECLOSURE CRISIS NOT A HOAX... TAYLOR SWIFT CAUGHT WITH...

I lack the HTML literacy to create what I like to call “CNN’s Ribbon of Hysteria” across this blog so a little Plain Text will have to suffice.  This oddity of news chyron gadgetry is sometimes laughable and at other times plain old terrifying, hence the name.  I constantly get the bejeezus scared out of me by the bits and pieces of gloom and doom scrolling across the bottom third of the television screen.  As a slow reader who refers to himself as a “careful reader” (in order to avoid linguistic embarrassment) it feels like playing Speed Pictionary without the pictures.  I might only catch a small part like, …roaming the streets armed…  Wait.  Hold on. Who’s roaming the streets?  Which streets?  My street?  Armed with what?  Free ice cream?  Where?  Wait!  Slow down!  By the time I hit rewind on the DVR the broadcasted street-roamer is already in my living room dismembering me with his blunt hatchet.  My skull is perhaps the thickest in all of foreclosuredom and so the first blow merely stings.  Couldn't he have at least prepared by sharpening the hatchet blade?  Sheesh. With random butchery, it seems good old fashion common courtesy goes right out the window… along with several of my precious digits.  The best I can hope for is to make the local news station's Ribbon of Hysteria.

Foreclosure rarely makes the headlines these days so it’s unlikely the ribbon of terror streaming across my television screen will inform him of this tidbit of information.  Surprisingly, however, the foreclosure crisis managed to make the headlines yesterday in an article published by the New York Times.  The column is as dubious as it is dichotic because to a foreclosee such as myself the news is both timely and untimely.  The feature’s author, David Streitfeld writes,

Unless foreclosure modification efforts begin succeeding on a permanent basis — which many analysts say they think is unlikely — millions more foreclosed homes will come to market.

Gloats When Right is the name I wrote on my nametag today.  If you care to find out why you can go here and read.  I let out a smug sigh as I reflect on several pundits’ misreading of the August 2009 housing report.  I find my conceit so annoying I want to beat my own ass.  Nobody likes a gloater and besides, I'm the idiot in foreclosure in case I didn't notice.  Still, I can't resist reading more info I already know...

“I’ve been pretty bearish on this big ugly pig stuck in the python and this cements my view that home prices are going back down,” said the housing consultant Ivy Zelman.

“I told you so” contributes little if anything to forward progress so I’m peeling that nametag from my breast pocket right now before it gets me into trouble.  I’m also no stranger to the occasional smug metaphor but his ugly pig reference irks me.  If Ivy wants to contribute something constructive to the foreclosure crisis he can start by pulling the ivy from my soon-to-be-foreclosed house.  I’ll be sure to let this housing consultant know there’s a pair of gloves in my garage next to the angle grinder I can’t sell on craigslist so he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty.  Once inside I’ll slam the door shut and lock it so he can experience what it feels like to be an ugly pig stuck in the python.  What exactly is a housing consultant and can I apply for the job now that there’s one less?

As the subprime tide recedes, high-quality prime loans with fixed rates make up the largest share of new foreclosures. A third of the new foreclosures begun in the third quarter were this type of loan, traditionally considered the safest. But without jobs, borrowers usually cannot pay their mortgages.

Who knew gainful employment equals money and money equals the mortgage payment and the mortgage payment equals-- hey, wait a second.  They’re talking about me.  Am I… famous?   No, dummy but your home loan is.  You’re something else entirely: infamous.  While I would never refer to my mortgage as high-quality, it is a fixed rate… sort of.  According to my copious notes taken from initial phone calls to my lender informing them I would be returning my sunglasses as my future is no longer looking so bright, they insisted there was nothing they could do for me.  I would have to call back later when my rate readjusted.  Their version of later is five years down the road in 2014 when they might be in a position to lend me a helping hand.  Today I’d prefer they lend me nothing but a few moving boxes and perhaps the Man With A Van from craigslist when it comes time to pack up my things and leave this house.

“Clearly the results are being driven by changes in employment,” Jay Brinkmann, the association’s chief economist, said in a conference call with reporters.

Now that the stock market is on a slow rise what else could the increase in mortgage delinquencies be driven by?  Pray tell us, Jay.  Could it be a plague of termites?  A nationwide mold spore epidemic?  Narcoleptic homeowners who keep sleeping through their mortgage due date?  Give us something, anything, we don’t already know.  If I were a reporter on that conference call I’d demand my cell phone minutes back and use them to call Midget, a douroucoulis I used to sponsor at the Bronx Zoo.   Midget is a night monkey given an objectionable name by obnoxious zookeepers.  This makes him perpetually grumpy.  Phone calls in the middle of the day to my nocturnal friend have a similar effect.  That’s why I want to get him on the horn.  Collectively his irate screams, growls, hoots and snort grunts will be filled with more savvy than this chief economist’s statement.  [Midget, if you’re reading this, please stop throwing your poo at Willard in the neighboring tree.  He doesn’t think it’s funny.  I know, I know…  Willard has no sense of humor.]

There was one sliver of good news in the survey: the percentage of loans in the very first stage of default — no more than 30 days past due — was down slightly from the second quarter. If that number continues to decline, at least the ranks of the defaulted will have peaked.

Are we really supposed to believe this after being fooled into contentment by the August 2009 Housing Report?  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me thrice… and um… well… I’ll be fooled again.  Furthermore, how did we get to this place wherein we’re cheering for a “slight” decrease in mortgages without bothering to examine the consequences?  If people aren’t defaulting, what are they doing?  Borrowing from their credit cards?  Is there even any credit left? What happens when that credit runs out?  I can tell you from experience, foreclosure is what happens.  If something isn’t done the next great crisis could be of the bankruptcy variety as millions of people stop paying on their high interest credit cards.  

In previous recessions, homeowners who lost their jobs could sell the house and move somewhere with better prospects, or at least a cheaper cost of living. This time around, many of the unemployed are finding that the value of their property is less than they owe. They are stuck.

The discussion missing from the great foreclosure debate and this article is where homeowners will go once the house is gone.  Foreclosure sends the foreclosee’s credit score into the toilet and hence, many prospective landlords do not welcome them with open arms.  To that I say, “Oh contraire mon frère.”  Midget tells me there’s a spacious limb opening up on the tree next door.  When the time comes I’ll hang my limbs from that limb… if I pass the zoo’s credit check.