NorCalUrban

See the entire article here. Menlo Park's City Council tonight will consider an innovative approach to preventing foreclosure for struggling homeowners - but one that comes with a big up-front price tag for the city. "To me, the most important thing is to keep people in their homes and not disrupt families, not take kids out of school," said Councilman Andy Cohen. "This is the only program on the horizon that does that." The Foreclosure Prevention Program targets owner-occupied homes with mortgages more than 90 days past due. Program administrators would approach the bank that holds the defaulting mortgage and ask it to sell the mortgage at the home's current fair market value - the same amount the bank would receive if the home went through foreclosure, but with fewer expenses and less time and trouble for the bank, said David Shapiro, CEO of the EARN Group, a Los Gatos company that develops real estate financing tools. A local community bank would then ref...

Editorial in the Almanac: "Quick Action Needed." See the article here. If you know one of the Menlo Park city council or government leaders, please reach out and indicate your support for NCUD and other's efforts.

As I mentioned in my post about about my 'blogcation' we've been working diligently on a shared equity or 'third sector' housing solution for our community. This has occupied much of my mental bandwidth, along with the important curriculum development project for our youth program, Future Profits. We're beginning to see some light. On April 24th the city of Menlo Park will vote on a proposal for funding for our housing project. If approved, we will have the funding to save around ten homes and families from foreclosure. This will happen through an investment of public funds as an equity partner and a write down of the current (underwater) mortgage by the lender to a level where, with the public funds, will place the homeowner in a fair mortgage with a payment they can afford. However, the homeowner will give up some of their future appreciation by which the city will be paid back it's funds. We're also looking at a similar project with private funding....