Housing Crisis Opportunities

Mistakes are the portals of discovery. ~ James Joyce.

Ah yes, mistakes. We all make them. We hate them–especially their inevitability. But even the most negative of folks know that they don’t leave us where they found us.

So it goes with the Housing Crisis. No matter what your politics, if you are servicer or foreclosure counselor, struggling homeowner or landlord, we can agree that the mortgage and housing markets needed to be repaired.

A recent article in The New York Times made us think about housing system flaws that are coming to the forefront. It discusses how a Catch 22 is sending quite a few widows into untimely foreclosure: these women can’t get help lowering their payments until they are named on the mortgage note…but they can’t add their name until they are current on payments.

No doubt surviving spouses have been battling this issue for years. However, it took the Housing Crisis, the focus on foreclosure, and the sheer number of victims to cause consumer advocacy groups and even some heavy hitters in the mortgage servicing industry to take notice. And change, while perhaps slow to come, is coming. Crisis always leads to opportunity.