Unsolicited Property Eval. from Home ownership pres. foundation???

[flower04]

The doorbell rang and I answered it to find someone with a camera and a card for me. He indicated that my spouse had asked for a property appraisal and here was the information. He left.

My spouse DID NOT ask for a propery appraisal and the infomration was from "Home ownership preservation foundation" and the number is fo the HOmeowner's HOPE hotline.

We were late on our 2nd mortgage two months ago (Dec. 08) but it is caught up now, as is our first. Is this something that our mortgage company would solicit since we are filing a 13?

Anyone heard of them?

[StartingOver08]

Home Ownership Preservation Foundation is apparently a front for various lenders...

I found a very interesting article, they appear to be a "non-profit" that was started by the lenders to make it look like they can help homeowners in trouble.

One article is here:

The Homeownership Preservation Foundation [HPF] operates the Hope Hotline. (See HPF website here.) [Don't confuse HPF's hotline with the Hope Now Alliance, more on them here.] The Hope Hotline has been pushed throughout the nation by lenders, media, governments and even by President Bush himself (radio address here) for troubled borrowers to call to get counseling. Interestingly HPF seems to help promote how well the industry is doing, and certainly does not criticize it. (e.g., Mortgage Servicers Set Monthly, Quarterly Records For Helping Homeowners Avoid Foreclosure, MarketWatch, July 30, 2008 here.) They claim their mission is:

To develop innovative solutions for preserving and expanding homeownership by partnering with consumers, policy makers and the mortgage lending industry.



Their board is composed of current employees of Residential Capital LLC, Countrywide [now Bank of America presumably], HUD, Chase, entire list here.) In fact, several are with Residential Capital. Coincidence three are from one lender? Hardly.



The Executive Director, Treasurer and Secretary/Corporate Counsel are employees of GMAC RFC. The services of these three individuals are donated to the organization and no amount is paid by the foundation for these services.

See HPF IRS Form 990-PF, 2004, Footnotes - Statement 5 here.

So who is GMAC RFC besides the parent or whatever of Residential? Just one of the top ten mortgage industry players in the country using different trade names (e.g., Ditech source) that proudly states:

We were one of the first mortgage conduits in the U.S. to focus on buying and securitizing single-family mortgages, with loan balances above the purchasing authority of the government-sponsored enterprises (jumbo mortgages).

We purchased loans in the secondary market from a variety of originators (for example, mortgage bankers) and sold them as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) to fixed-income institutional investors.

GMAC RFC website here. More here.

So the entities that made billions using unregulated securitization resulting in a nationwide foreclosure crisis, and worldwide credit crunch, thought it would make amends by creating this little nonprofit? (It has two paid employees.) Come on.


With only a handful of paid staff, HPF claims to actually perform the counseling in press releases:
The nonprofit Homeownership Preservation Foundation operates a national hot line offering free counseling to help people avoid foreclosure.

Here.

Pretty impressive if they really did it. Of course, they do not counsel anyone themselves, but they spun it. Their hotline merely transfers callers to another counseling agency:). See the link below to actually link to the various websites highlighted in this article:

http://foreclosurebuzz.org/2008/08/06/homeownership-preservation-foundation-formed-funded-run-by-the-industry/