One of the truisms, I think, of covering either working class or poor, white and black, is that people have less the built-in defenses. If I went to talk race on the Upper West or Upper East Side, I would have great difficulty getting an honest sentence out of anybody. That’s not to say they’re all racist, but they recognize a third rail and they don’t want to touch it. I came away from Beaver somewhat depressed by the extent to which race still dominated for people, but, on the other hand, with quite a bit of respect for how these working class men and women were wrestling with it. And I came away from the last piece I did there thinking McCain was not going to win in Pennsylvania. And Obama took 49.5 percent of the vote in Beaver, a huge victory for him. If he could hold his own in these counties, and then, of course, run up in the cities, he was going to win the state. And he did. In that sense, doing this fine-grain work in an area did give you this broader view on the macro.
You spoke about the differences between reporting on people in the Upper West Side and people in Beaver County. And you’ve reported a lot on the poor and marginalized. Is there ever the concern about exploitation when dealing with people who are perhaps less media savvy?
The further down the class scale you go, the less sophisticated people are in dealing with the press. They just don’t have the experience; there are exceptions, but as a group they tend to have less defenses and they’re, to some extent, used to speaking plainly. Then, if you go down to the very poor, very often because they’re used to talking to social workers and caseworkers and the like, they’re used to keeping people abreast of their strikingly personal information. I think what you owe people in that situation is just to deal with it honestly. It was interesting in Beaver because these were guys who had grown up in steel mills where a lot of their buddies were black. In some respects they’d had a far more intimate experience of race than most white upper middle class people in New York, which is a strikingly segregated city. They were conflicted in interesting ways. I don’t want to idealize this, though, there were some stone cold racists, it’s all God’s children, at every level. But at its most interesting, there were great complications.
Obama is a complicated character. What was your approach when you sat down with him?
Obama’s a very challenging cat to cover. He’s a writer himself, and a quite perceptive writer. So he tends to look at himself and everything around him with a writer’s eye. And also therefore tends to have defenses up in interesting ways. Interviewing him is a challenge, trying to pull him out of that and get him talking about something.
As often happens, I got him out of that with some luck. I got talking to him about what he reads and was telling me about these different policy tomes. And I said, “Well, yeah, but come on. I’m out here on the campaign trail with you, you’re up even earlier than I am, and I’ve been carrying around this Philip Roth book with me for two months and I’m yet to even crack it.” He actually laughed at that point, and said, “Yeah, you have very little chance to really read. I basically floss my teeth and watch Sports Center.”
I am a Realtor in Pierce County, Washington, and I am attempting to close a short sale on a HUD insured reverse mortgage. As a brief summary, we have an otherwise qualified FHA buyer but Bank of America‘s interpretation of HUD guidelines prevent them from paying typical, ordinary and customary seller and buyer loan costs or, should I suggest that Bank of America is using that as their excuse.
As an example, and there are many others, despite the fact that nearly all closing in Washington State are handled through an independent 3rd party, an escrow or an attorney, Bank of America says HUD guidelines forbid them from paying a closing settlement or escrow fee. They justify their decision by claiming that since Washington Law doesn’t specifically dictate that closings have to occur through an escrow company or an attorney, settlement / escrow fees cannot be considered typical, ordinary or customary. Except for the closing of a FHA repo, in my own 38 years of experience in real estate, I have not had a circumstance where a closing or settlement fee was not paid in some fashion. In the case of the FHA repo, HUD has a specific closer located in Snohomish, Washington, who is under contract with FHA to handle those closings.
The bottom line though, our FHA buyer will likely be unable to complete the purchase because, like a majority of FHA buyers in our jurisdiction, beyond the down payment, the buyer lacks the additional funds to complete the FHA purchase. Bank of America’s contention is, the data we provided concerning what is typical, ordinary and customary in our jurisdiction has been deemed unsatisfactory. Yet, Bank of America continues to be unable to identify for us what exactly would be deemed satisfactory. As Realtors, we have been placed in a no-win situation.
If you would be interesting in discussing this situation further, or would be interested in reviewing the email treat from the beginning of our short sale negotiation, I would be happy to discuss this with you further.
At this point though, my questions include:
1). Is there any recourse against Bank of America?
2). Is it really the intent of HUD to essentially make it impossible for a FHA buyer to purchase a home where it involves the short sale of a HUD insured reverse mortgage? In the case mentioned above, due to Bank of America’s rigid unrealistic interpretation of the HUD guidelines, that is exactly what is happening. Is that really what we want?
3). Is it really the intent of HUD guidelines to allow lenders to put Realtors in a no win situation.
I would be extremely interesting in a response to our situation and my questions.
Respectfully submitted.
Ken Thiemann, Managing Broker
Director, Tacoma/Pierce County Association of Realtors
Windermere RE / Paragon Co.
(253) 370-5626
#1 Posted by Ken Thiemann, CJR on Mon 27 Dec 2010 at 09:18 PM