Add me to the list of homeless people in Nevada. I am no longer a homeowner, nor do I know where I will be spending the night next week, next month, next year. I'm just a pink slip away from hanging out at an intersection with sign that says "will work for food" and have no intentions of working.

The good news is that I have been looking at local apartments and rental homes in the area. I do have my job. So it's not like I'm sleeping out in the bone chilling cold. I do plan to have a roof over my head at all times. I have only unloaded a huge problem that I've been carrying for over 5 years when I paid too much for a home.

I've learned a lot about the housing crisis that you wont hear about on the media. All you ever hear about is foreclosures. The problem, at least here in the Las Vegas Valley, is the number of homes that aren't being paid for. I stopped paying my mortgage several months ago. The first month or two, I got a few letters and phone calls from the collections department of my mortgage company. Then they would call every month or so asking me if I was going to pay this month. I asked and begged and pleaded for a loan modification. I even got an attorney to offer them solutions. They would not budge because my income does not fall within the Obama plan for home relief.

I asked them to foreclose and they would not do it because it would add to the list of foreclosed homes and dilute the already weak market. I asked for a short sale and they didn't want to do that either. They pretty much told me that I could just live for free until the economy starts to recover so the prices would go up, and then they would start letting more homes go on the market. I have friends that have not paid their mortgage for over a year and can't even get a live person on the phone to talk to. They want out of their mortgage, they want to move on, but the banks have too many homes on their hands to get rid of. I finally got my attorney to convince them to allow a short sale.

A short sale is where a homeowner sells his home for whatever the market will tolerate. My home went on the market for 115,000 and not a single person even came to look at it. They dropped the price down to 100,000 and still nothing. They dropped the price again to 89,900 and people started to at least look at the house. I got a few offers that were contingent on the bank paying for landscaping, spa repairs, and other requirements, but the bank refused those offers. Finally, a guy offered $75,000 cash, as is. The bank accepted the offer with a little push from the attorney and I sold the house. To put the numbers in perspective, I owed about 280,000 on the house.

This event will not help the already depressed housing market. It will go down as a statistic for when the next home buyer/seller looks at what homes in my neighborhood are selling for. The comps will say the house sold for 75,000. What you wont hear about is that I was never a statistic in the housing crisis. The bank never sent me a default notice, so my mortgage was never in default. The home was not sold as a bank owned home. It was never a foreclosure statistic. The scary part for all of should be that are there thousands and thousands and thousands of homes in this area somewhere along the lines of this same process. The owners are not paying their mortgage, the bank won't do a loan modification, and the owners are just waiting as the bank slowly meters out a few homes at a time as they attempt to stabilize and boost home prices.

I'm not looking for sympathy, concern, or advice for my situation. I have several options at my disposal and I'm even holding an ace in the hole. My point is to create awareness that when you look at the housing crisis, the number of foreclosures is a bank controlled number and does not represent the health of the housing market. There are a ton of homes where people are living for free and there are a ton of vacant homes that the banks are just sitting on.

Thanks, JMT. Interesting post from 1st hand experience. I hope you don't mind a couple of questions.

What neighborhood was your home in?
What was the lawyer's fee?
Was it listed by a RE agent and did he do an accurate comparable before setting the initial selling price or simply set it at the mortgage balance value?

What could/should the lenders be doing to alleviate these problems?

Who should suffer the most financially? The lender or the borrower? And how extensively should the Fed get involved in both cases. (I am not familiar with any plan at present.)

Is there any possible solution in which lenders can avoid an eventual loss?

Do you anticipate a full real estate recovery in LV within the next few years? Two / three / five / ten?

I , myself, cannot forsee Las Vegas of 3 - 4 years ago returning within the next 20 years. This economic disaster has got to be erased from our memories before those good old days reappear. And that means a brand new generation of Las Vegas fans who probably 'ain't' even born yet.

Thanks, JMT.

The home is in Spring Valley.

The lawyer fee was a thousand here and a thousand there, five hundred here and there. Much much less than mortgage payments.

It was a genuine GLVAR realtor with a MLS listing.

IMHO, the system is broke and the banks are not set up to handle the crisis. Instead they using the old duck and cover, then try to stop the bleeding.

What they could do to help (in the case of my bank) is work with the homeowners. Right now, if you don't pay, your file goes to collections. All they want is one more payment. After that, they want one more payment. And so on. When they decide you aren't gonna pay, it goes to loss mitigation. ALL they can do is have you fill out income/expense forms and see if it falls in the federal assist program. If it's not in guidelines of the Obama plan, tough cookies.

What they need is someone who can talk to me AND have the authority to modify my mortgage. If they were to have offered me to refinance for 150,000 at the going rate, I would have jumped on it. I would have taken it at the listing price of 115, 100, or 89 too. They don't have anyone that can negotiate that.

My house sold for 75,000. With real estate commission and fees, the bank got about 67,000. Take away several months that I didn't pay them a 2,000 mortgage, and that doesn't leave the bank with much.

I don't know if the bank had the loan insured or what. All of these homes can't be tax writeoffs. The bank could easily have ended up with much more than what they got. The only benefit I see is that it is one less home that won't go into foreclosure and wont add to the empty home flood.

If anyone understands this better, I'm interested.

A couple of years ago there was a documentary on MSNBC (I think) called House Of Cards. It explained a lot about the housing crisis, CDOs, etc. You can probably find it on line. It was very interesting. My particular bank "claims" they did not sell my loan and keeps everything in house. Until I know for sure, which may take a whole year or more, my attorney is on stand by.

As the documentary brings to light, we were way overdue for a market correction. It was only a matter of time. It could have happened a few years sooner or many years later. The fact that finally happened makes me think that the housing market will only correct to where it should be based on other economic situations. And whatever that point is, it will be far less than it's peak of insanity. Therefore some people will remember the past and claim that the market did not fully recover because they don't realize where it should have been.

Let me make this simple to see if I understand this correctly. I do this because I think that you are right and that the back (lender) is wrong.

I'll reduce the figures in the hope of making it more understandable.

Let's say that you purchased 'your home' for $220.

You put $20 down and the bank 'financed' the balance of $200.

A few months later you found yourself unable to make the monthly mortgage payment.

But you would have been able to make that payment if the lender had allowed you to refinance at $150 at the then present interest rate.

This means that they lender would have taken an immediate (present time) $50 loss (or close to that figure) ..... which would have not been a problem if you and the lender could have come to some sort of agreement to recover that $50 much later in the future when and if the house did sell.

This would have allowed you to remain in "your home" and the lender would have a 'lien" against the property in the amount of $50 in addition to the balance owed on the loan.

But due to the fact that no help was offered or available, they foreclosed and sold the house for some figure less than $100 which means that they took a loss of $100+ instead of helping you out and thereby lose less over time.

It may not be that simple but it does appear that the lenders are somewhat less than intelligent and foreclosed as if to give you a 'spanking' for your failure to abide with the original mortgage.

A few years back I was asked to purchase property in Hawaii but I explained that I would have difficulty obtaining a mortgage to purchase that property. But a real estate agent told me that I would not have to qualify to purchase that property if I made a 20% down payment. As long as I was able to make that down payment, the banks could care less about the monthly income I would need to make those monthly mortgage payment.

The more I listened, the dumber it sounded, but everyone jumped in with their 20% downs and started buying real estate.

That was the initial forth-telling of what was soon to follow.

And many of those who purchased homes got hit hard and lost them.

It was a no-brainer from the start and the lenders in my personal opinion were the culprits who initiated it.

Those lenders should be jumping in with two feet running to help home owners who are in similar situations as JMT .... and maybe some are but I have no idea what the Fed policy is regarding this foreclosure situation.

JMT, can you provide a simple explanation of what that Fed policy may be? Or simply refer me to the web site that explains it in detail?

Thanks, Will800

Another question, JMT!

JMT, has there been any statistics published on the number of lost home owners who may be presently living in those storm drains under the city of Las Vegas? And also those living along the curbs just a bit north of Downtown Fremont Street?

And is there any government official out there in NV who actually gives a darn and is sticking his neck out to help and solve this situation?

I'm definitely not the kind of guy who refuses to help other countries in need of US assistance, but I think it's time to start thinking about helping ourselves before rushing out to help others.

Does that make me far right or far left on the political scale?

I have not seen any Federal projects that addressed my situation.

As for the storm drain people, may I suggest a book called Beneath The Neon. There were a bunch of curb people in a little tent city on Foremaster Lane, close to the Catholic charity outlet. They were displaced as the city tried to clean up the cultural corridor. There is a huge drain opening in front of the Biltmore Bungalows. There are lots and lots of homeless people there. Recent rains may have thinned them out a little. It is the main outlet between the underground and the Catholic's freebies.

I don't think you are far left or right. Both sides can't stand people who are independent thinkers.

Sorry to hear you had to go through that, JMT.