The family residence is the backbone of the American economy, the most valuable and enduring asset for those who have achieved a financial foothold. Yet today record numbers of households confront foreclosure. In the next year it is estimated that over two million Americans will lose their homes and almost two billion dollars of wealth will disappear in the process. How did the traditional "American Dream" morph into a nightmare for so many? Real estate attorney and educator Shari B. Olefson, a recognized expert in the current mortgage crisis and its effects on homeowners, explains how America slipped to the edge of this dangerous stagnation-recession precipice. In plain language that is easily understandable to the average person, she clarifies legal and financial terminology and describes how our country’s mortgage system really works. Utilizing real-life lender and borrower interviews, she exposes its intrinsic flaws and often discriminatory practices, from the mortgage application process to the securitization of bundled mortgages by large investment firms. She also provides evidence to show the government’s and Wall Street’s roles in both causing and solving the problem. Above all, Olefson offers expert tips, tools, and resources to help you: • Choose a mortgage professional and understand what’s motivating him or her • Decide what mortgage product fits best and when to refinance • Get the best fees, interest rate, and service • Create your own solutions for navigating the credit crunch • Know what to do when you can’t afford your mortgage • Protect your home if you are at risk of foreclosure • Understand how to proceed if you are already in foreclosure • Capitalize on emerging opportunities and avoid the scams and mortgage fraud • Prepare for coming changes Foreclosure Nation demystifies the real estate bubble and the subprime mortgage crises that followed. With bold, clear visuals like inventory, absorption, and price trend graphs, Olefson pinpoints exactly when and why experts are predicting a recovery. She also cites statistics that strongly suggest the number of foreclosures will surge in the fall of 2008 and again in 2009, with increased reverberations felt throughout the US and global economies. Foreclosure Nation will prove indispensable to explaining what is happening and guiding readers through. Whether you are planning on buying your first home, struggling to meet your current mortgage payments, facing foreclosure, or wondering how your investments will be affected, this comprehensive book will assuage the fear of the unknown, empowering you to make wise choices and protect your most valuable assets.

The author of The Whiskey Rebellion “dig[s] beneath history’s surface and note[s] both the populist and anti-populist dimensions of the nation’s founding” (Library Journal). Recent movements such as the Tea Party and anti-tax “constitutional conservatism” lay claim to the finance and taxation ideas of America’s founders, but how much do we really know about the dramatic clashes over finance and economics that marked the founding of America? Dissenting from both right-wing claims and certain liberal preconceptions, Founding Finance brings to life the violent conflicts over economics, class, and finance that played directly, and in many ways ironically, into the hardball politics of forming the nation and ratifying the Constitution—conflicts that still continue to affect our politics, legislation, and debate today. Mixing lively narrative with fresh views of America’s founders, William Hogeland offers a new perspective on America’s economic infancy: foreclosure crises that make our current one look mild; investment bubbles in land and securities that drove rich men to high-risk borrowing and mad displays of ostentation before dropping them into debtors’ prisons; depressions longer and deeper than the great one of the twentieth century; crony mercantilism, war profiteering, and government corruption that undermine any nostalgia for a virtuous early republic; and predatory lending of scarce cash at exorbitant, unregulated rates, which forced people into bankruptcy, landlessness, and working in the factories and on the commercial farms of their creditors. This story exposes and corrects a perpetual historical denial—by movements across the political spectrum—of America’s all-important founding economic clashes, a denial that weakens and cheapens public discourse on American finance just when we need it most.

This empowering handbook is designed to educate distressed homeowners about their options in the foreclosure process by giving valuable insight into what steps to take, who to talk to, and what to say.

Foreclosure happens when the bank or the lender sells or repossesses a property used in the mortgage loan, or a deed of trust, in which the owner fails to comply with his or agreement with the bank or lender. It is always important for the borrower to know the terms and conditions of the mortgage loan. Knowing information like interest rates, deadlines of payment, and other agreements and conditions between the lender and the borrower helps to avoid the risk of foreclosing the property to the lender.