Please contact your senator/ congressional rep

[Pat Lione]

Contact your state representative and ask to have seller financing de-coupled from the following bills: HR4173 and the ‘Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010′.

Your Call To Action – Make A Difference!

Here is a sample letter:

Dear_________:

I strongly encourage you to assure that no restriction of seller financing is inserted in S3217 or in any bill created in conference committees. This would have a negative impact upon the same consumers that the Anti-Predatory Lending legislation is supposed to be protecting. I am not opposed to the regulation of the mortgage industry as a whole, but only of private property owners who would seek to offer terms of sale of a property for monthly payments in exchange for equity.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Note: – use your own words and experience. In other words, say that you are a Realtor or mortgage broker, or investor, or you inherited a house that you need to sell or that you are a landlord and want to sell but your buyers cannot get bank financing or whatever situation is real to you.

Threats To Private Property Rights

HR 4123 poses the following threats to the security of private property rights, and to the stabilization of the housing markets in many communities:

1.On its face, this legislation appears to merge individual taxpayers who accept installment payments for their equity with banking institutions, mortgage brokers and originators who sell money for a business.
2.When a seller offers to sell their own property to another and accept payment for equity, there is no loan, but rather terms of a sale.
3.Banks lend money that the borrower can then spend as they see fit.
4.In the current market, if there were no seller financing, there may be no financing at all in many communities.
5.Millions of soon-to-be-retirees who have worked a lifetime and prepared for retirement by investing in properties that can be sold in exchange for installment payments providing supplementary income will be negatively impacted by this legislation. The legislation limits individuals to only one transaction every 36 month. Imagine trying to liquidate a large portfolio at this pace.
6.The dramatically increased number of individuals and families who are going through foreclosure may only retain the ability to buy a future home for their family by finding a seller amenable to accepting an installment sale
7.A homeowner who may have sold their previous home with seller terms has now lost their job and is about to fall behind on payments. However, they have a little vacation cabin. In order to sell quickly, the cabin has to be sold on terms to provide enough income to keep the homeowner current on their present homestead. This scenario would run afoul of this legislation as it is currently written.
8.While this legislation regulates large organizations with teams of legal people (consider the contract language that is being used in the resale of foreclosed homes being sold by banks) it puts the individual taxpayer at a tremendous disadvantage on both the selling side as well as the buying side, thereby making homes less accessible to many people.
9.Lastly, many people in the United States live in manufactured housing for which there are basically no loan products available. Once the manufactured home reaches a certain age, although there is still remaining useful life in the home, no loans are available for homeowners. How will these properties be bought or sold if not with a seller accepting installment payments?
Specifically, the language lifted from failed HB 1728 and added to these bills, the former, Section 101, 3, (E) does not include, with respect to a residential mortgage loan, a person, estate or trust that provides mortgage financing for the sale of 1 property in any 36 month period, provided that such loan:

(i) Is fully amortizing

(ii) Is with respect to a sale for which the seller determines in good faith and documents that the buyer has a reasonable ability to repay

(iii) Has a fixed rate or an adjustable rate that is adjustable after 5 or more years, subject to reasonable annual and life-time limitations on interest rate increases, and meets any other criteria the Federal banking agencies may subscribe
Contact your state representative and ask to have seller financing de-coupled from the following bills: HR4173 and the ‘Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010′.

I invite you to follow up with your Senators (before the Senate bill is voted upon) and Congressmen (regarding an amendment should it pass the Senate) with emails, phone calls, letters and personal appointments when they’re back in our home states. The bill, as written, has already passed the House and will soon be voted on by the Senate. We need your support and the support of every property owner you know.

You can locate contact information for your Senator at http://www.Senate.gov and you can find your Congressional Representative at http://house.gov. Remember, we are asking them “to have seller financing de-coupled from the following bills: “HR4173 and the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010.†Contact them today!