Dear President Obama,
Welcome to the desert, I hope you have brought with you a plan for the ages that will help you and your team go down as the “financial saviors” of our generation.
You managed to push a very large stimulus package through that will hopefully help get our economy back on track – or at least on something that resembles a track.
I know that you may find this hard to believe, but when you come to town, the “mainstream media” tries to get out in front of you and “build a story” so they have something to talk about when you are here.
Often times, the story that they are reporting is not the story that is happening – but the story that has already happened.
Please don’t think that reality is represented by whatever is being covered on the evening news. I have seen first hand the “theater” that goes on behind the scenes these last couple of days and it is filled with stories about people who have been foreclosed on (old news) or are in crisis and are currently late on their mortgage payments.
Whatever you see, whatever people are telling you about the “current” foreclosure crisis… I worry it might get worse, possibly far worse than it is now.
The reason I worry?
Most of the people that I speak with every day are not currently late on their mortgage payments but are “about to be”. They are searching for help and information about the ramifications of what will happen if they miss a mortgage payment. Or two. Or what the impact on their credit will be if they do a short sale or a loan modification. Or how long I think that they can stay in their home if they quit making payments.
These people who are about to be late on their mortgage payments so that they can still feed their families are supposed to be the good loans – as in the ones that are not supposed to default.
Is anyone in the news media covering the story of what is so close to happening – so many of what appear to be “good loans” about to go bad?
Not that I have seen.
But America is hurting.
From the inside out.
And I just wanted you to be aware of it, because I am a simple soldier on the front lines speaking with these people every day and I know how to write a blog post.
Good luck – and please be aware that there is a big bulge under the rug in America’s living room.
About the size of an elephant.
Justin
This post was originally posted on Zillow’s Mortgages Unzipped – but I had a request to re-post it here.