Open rates are very high about 2-3% higher than closed rates. You pay for the convenience of the open feature. Closed rates are much lower and if you know you want to pay it in 1-2 yrs you can get a great 1 yr or 2 yr rate.

Check out the latest rates on our site http://www.easyrate.ca/mortgage-rates Discounts range from 1 % to 2 % for all fixed term mortgages. Even the variable rate is now below prime! Abraham Niyazi - Mortgage Agent - Easyrate.ca 1-866-RATE-708 x 115

Forget the banks, I have never been able to get a good rate from my bank. The personal bankers dont care if you get a mortgage with them, they get paid their salary anyway. Deal with a broker, they have the best rates, and the banks go after their business because they can deal with whoever they want so they get the best rates.

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I have a tempting refinancing offer on my table. i got a refinance offer for my motel business. here is proposed term: 5.25% fixed rate for upto 20 years (no balloon - fixed for all 20 years), no pre-pay penalty, i have option to choose 15 years term or 20 years. the finanace amount is 300k and motel value is $700k. there is no other debt. currently i have my mortgage with local bank with following term: orignated in 2008: interest rate: 7% fixed ; length: 20 years (17 years left), fixed (7% rate is fixed for first 5 years after that bank will reevaluate rate based on market condition at the time of reevaluation); no pre-pay penalty. i bought property for slightly less then 700k. i put 50% down when i bought motel in 2008. it was tought market then and no banks were giving loan so i put higher down payment to get loan with low interest and i wanted conventional loan only - not sba loan. motel is doing great so i am not worried if i have to pay 7% instead of 5.25%. my question is i am curious why lender is offer really low rate of 5.25% that also fixded. what if when economy improves and prime rate is higher then 6%??? is there something fishy?

The commercial lending market has been a real moving target over the last number of years. One of the tougher items to finance in the market during the time period you indicated were hotels, motels, apartment buildings,etc. because there was so much inventory on the market. Also lenders that provide financing for these types of assets will continually enter and exit the market depending on the concentration of these loans , and their performance, in their overall portfolio. If the original mortgage in 2008 was for an acquisition, this would have also been a much riskier loan as the lender would need to consider owner transition risk despite the high down payment. Now a few years later, performance is reconfirmed under new ownership, which can make the opportunity more appealing to a lender. If you have concerns about the lender, then do some back ground checking with BBB and the like. Remember that a mortgage lender has to lock in their own funds before providing to you in order to secure their margin, so if rates change in the future it should not make any difference to the lender as their source of funding should be locked in as well.

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Please read the para first sivs used short-term commercial paper, sold at low interest rates, to buy longer-term mortgage-backed securities and other instruments with higher rates of return. with the seizure of the credit markets, many sivs had trouble selling new commercial paper to replace upcoming obligations on older paper. the collapse in sub-prime mortgages and in the commercial paper that supported them has simply adjusted the value of the principal to make up for the outsized returns that these investors got over the past five years. the money that banks owe on their commercial paper didn’t change. these banks are going to offer more commercial paper to buy mortgage assets; in other words, they are going to borrow more short-term money in order to buy long-term assets from themselves! that is, if they can borrow the money in the first place. one of the casualties in the rout was the commercial paper market; investors are realizing that it backs a lot of lousy mortgage debt, so they are backing away from investing in the commercial paper that backs the mortgages. now - is my understanding right ? borrowed money - the sivs sold short-term commercial paper at low rates of interest – so they borrowed money for a st at a low ir. they did this regularly to keep getting funds. lent money - the banks told the people that we will give you money – mortgage your house at 12 % ir. ( or the banks bought mortgage investments from investors.) the banks took the cheaper loans from cp and invested it in longer term mortgage-backed securities and other instruments with higher rates of return. but when the market collapsed, the value of the house collapsed, borrowers could not pay loans and high ir, and the bank was left with a house which was not worth 25% of the loan they had given. oversized interest rates often mean that the investment is in fact sucking money out of principal. sometimes investors can get away with the gambit for awhile, but eventually somebody pays the bill. secondly, with the seizure of the credit markets, many sivs had trouble selling new commercial paper to replace upcoming obligations on older paper. thirdly, the money that banks owe on their commercial paper didn’t change. sounds like trouble. now the banks have paid rs 100 to the borrower, in return they have a house which is worth rs 20. how do the banks cover the balance rs 70 ? these banks are going to offer more commercial paper ( and take st loans at low ir ) to buy mortgage assets; in other words, they are going to borrow more short-term money at low ir in order to buy long-term assets from themselves! that is, if they can borrow the money in the first place. one of the casualties in the rout was the commercial paper market; investors are realizing that it backs a lot of lousy mortgage debt, so they are backing away from investing in the commercial paper that backs the mortgages.

An important aspect is the total lack of faith in SIVs, CDOs, and the agencies that purport to rate them. [Quote] Most of these are mortgage-based securitizations, such as CDOs. The reason for the general gun-shyness is because no-one knows what's in them. This point was made last Thursday evening on CNBC, where Thomas Patrick presented a plan to take the performing mortgages out of CDOs and SIVs at par. It was shot down by CNBC reporter Charlie Gasparino on the grounds that performing mortgages may not perform at all in the future. Because no-one knows what's in those securitizations, they're not really buyable. This impression explains why mortgage-rooted CDOs and SIVs are selling way below what their present cash flow indicates, a disparity that Mr. Patrick's plan depends on. [/Quote]

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The political background against which the 2008 us elections took place was hardly a predictable one. (r)senator john mccain of arizona, a decorated war veteran and proven leader ran against the relatively unknown (d) senator barack obama of illinois. one major difference separated these two men: barack obama’s charisma and political savvy. senator john mccain certainly fit the bill to be appointed to the highest office in the world, but he lacked the flair and flamboyance of senator barack obama. while obama was able to rattle off the right words as effortlessly as greased lightning, mccain would fumble and stutter – not through his inability for structured thought and strategic leadership, but rather through his incompetence as a public speaker. obama wooed voters with his dynamic approach. he made use of the internet, public funds and a huge disillusioned base of bush-era fatigued voters. the failed war in iraq – often cited as the legacy of the bush presidency, was usurped by the obama administration for all its worth. voters needed a scapegoat and all bush-era doctrine and foreign policy bore the brunt. it was a case of old-school republican failures vs. an era of democratic liberalism and inflated government. obama promised a rapid de-escalation of the iraq war effort, a focus on education and clean energy, affordable health care, special attention on minority rights and a total break from the past. mccain was blindsided by his own campaign. they painted him as the humble, decorated war hero of yesteryear. mccain has been toted as a self-made man, a leader of men and a qualified candidate for the world’s highest office. but mccain failed to offer what it was that the obama campaign was so successfully promoting – change. americans had long grown tired and distrustful of a war effort that was based on false assumptions. there were no wmd in iraq. it appeared to the public as if bush and cheney were pursuing a personal agenda of the old-school republican think tank: attack iraq, destroy its infrastructure and seek to impose democratic governance through unilateral initiatives. bush was a man of action, not scared to act alone when the world dragged its feet. this proved fatal at some points, especially when america’s actions were deemed illegal and expansionist by parties in the region. bush acted on his threats and he cautioned the world against the rising threat of islamic militancy. the eu and other allies of the united states were war weary and they were reluctant to commit themselves to an unpopular military campaign with no end in sight. britain, a longtime friend of the united states, withdrew its forces followed by other countries. owing to global protests against the war efforts, rising costs in civilian and military casualties and the enormous financial burden entailed, the war rhetoric was losing support at a geometric rate. against this backdrop of declining support for president bush – all-time low approval ratings ensued – barack obama ascended the ranks of the democrat party. he brushed passed hillary clinton who ultimately had nothing but praise for the new candidate. obamania had gripped the world. barack obama was simply unstoppable. he spoke of change, of main street and not wall street, he championed the little man and not the corporate, he spoke effortlessly and plainly of the challenges that americans face on a daily basis. then the achilles heel of the republican campaign struck. the global crisis of late 2008. within a short period of time the housing crisis, mortgages banks, sub-prime lending rates, credit crunch and international insurers and financial/investment houses hit the headlines. it wasn’t good news that was awaiting the world. massive and widespread layoffs and unemployment ensued; corporate bankruptcies by the dozen, home foreclosures, credit drying up and a crisis of unimaginable proportions gripped the global market. fear and panic swept like a raging wildfire through the hearts of americans as first their jobs, then their homes and their families’ livelihoods were at stake. obama was elected to the highest office. mccain was relegated to the annals of history as the man who challenged, but was ultimately defeated by president obama. this was the coup de grace of the obama camp. mccain and his old school republican friends were seen as the enemy by the american people. bush and anyone associated with him was a symbol of failure, of unilateralism, of deceit. the republicans were seen as pro-corporate and against the average working-class american. obama promised tax-cuts to 95% of americans, according to his perception of income brackets. mccain could only cling to obama’s coattails and offer the american public that he would work alongside obama in the new presidency. obama seized on this crisis and presented what appeared like a workable plan to the american people. this came in the form of a massive and unprecedented bailout. hundre

I believe his actions are speaking loud and clear. His huge stimulus package was nothing short than an attempt to force the states' to give us some of the power reserved only to them allowing the federal government more control. He has managed to get control over the car industry dictating what they should do and how they should do it. He got publicly angry about the AIG bonuses and created a huge stir so that American citizens terrorized anyone who worked for AIG even if they were innocent. However, he failed to tell you that Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac got over 50 million dollars worth of bonuses. He spent time in Europe making statements about how he was sorry for the United States, praised the Muslims and Germans and was outright disrespectful to our allies. He thumbs his nose at defense and thinks that he can make our enemies play nice. He proposed a three trillion plus budget that will create ungodly amounts of taxes on the American citizen and especially the small business sector so that we will see more an more unemployment and failed businesses. My opinion? Obama's agenda is destruction of Americans freedoms and way of life. He is methodically tearing it down little by little.

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Portugal's government has just fallen in a dispute over austerity proposals. irish bond yields have topped 10 percent for the first time. and the british government has just marked its economic forecast down and its deficit forecast up. what do these events have in common? they're all evidence that slashing spending in the face of high unemployment is a mistake. austerity advocates predicted that spending cuts would bring quick dividends in the form of rising confidence, and that there would be few, if any, adverse effects on growth and jobs; but they were wrong. it's too bad, then, that these days you're not considered serious in washington unless you profess allegiance to the same doctrine that's failing so dismally in europe. it was not always thus. two years ago, faced with soaring unemployment and large budget deficits -- both the consequences of a severe financial crisis -- most advanced-country leaders seemingly understood that the problems had to be tackled in sequence, with an immediate focus on creating jobs combined with a long-run strategy of deficit reduction. why not slash deficits immediately? because tax increases and cuts in government spending would depress economies further, worsening unemployment. and cutting spending in a deeply depressed economy is largely self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms: any savings achieved at the front end are partly offset by lower revenue, as the economy shrinks. so jobs now, deficits later was and is the right strategy. unfortunately, it's a strategy that has been abandoned in the face of phantom risks and delusional hopes. on one side, we're constantly told that if we don't slash spending immediately we'll end up just like greece, unable to borrow except at exorbitant interest rates. on the other, we're told not to worry about the impact of spending cuts on jobs because fiscal austerity will actually create jobs by raising confidence. how's that story working out so far? self-styled deficit hawks have been crying wolf over u.s. interest rates more or less continuously since the financial crisis began to ease, taking every uptick in rates as a sign that markets were turning on america. but the truth is that rates have fluctuated, not with debt fears, but with rising and falling hope for economic recovery. and with full recovery still seeming very distant, rates are lower now than they were two years ago. but couldn't america still end up like greece? yes, of course. if investors decide that we're a banana republic whose politicians can't or won't come to grips with long-term problems, they will indeed stop buying our debt. but that's not a prospect that hinges, one way or another, on whether we punish ourselves with short-run spending cuts. just ask the irish, whose government -- having taken on an unsustainable debt burden by trying to bail out runaway banks -- tried to reassure markets by imposing savage austerity measures on ordinary citizens. the same people urging spending cuts on america cheered. ''ireland offers an admirable lesson in fiscal responsibility,'' declared alan reynolds of the cato institute, who said that the spending cuts had removed fears over irish solvency and predicted rapid economic recovery. that was in june 2009. since then, the interest rate on irish debt has doubled; ireland's unemployment rate now stands at 13.5 percent. and then there's the british experience. like america, britain is still perceived as solvent by financial markets, giving it room to pursue a strategy of jobs first, deficits later. but the government of prime minister david cameron chose instead to move to immediate, unforced austerity, in the belief that private spending would more than make up for the government's pullback. as i like to put it, the cameron plan was based on belief that the confidence fairy would make everything all right. but she hasn't: british growth has stalled, and the government has marked up its deficit projections as a result. which brings me back to what passes for budget debate in washington these days. a serious fiscal plan for america would address the long-run drivers of spending, above all health care costs, and it would almost certainly include some kind of tax increase. but we're not serious: any talk of using medicare funds effectively is met with shrieks of ''death panels,'' and the official g.o.p. position -- barely challenged by democrats -- appears to be that nobody should ever pay higher taxes. instead, all the talk is about short-run spending cuts. in short, we have a political climate in which self-styled deficit hawks want to punish the unemployed even as they oppose any action that would address our long-run budget problems. and here's what we know from experience abroad: the confidence fairy won't save us from the consequences of our folly. ht union buster: we have been in debt for over 100 years, all of a sudden our problems are a result of debt? get real.

Beldin - ignoring current evidence to incorrectly use a 90 year old precedent is a very weak argument. 1. The panic of 1920-21 was largely caused by exactly what this question asks about - a sharp drop in government spending at the end of WW1 2. While the monetary value of US national output fell, there was actually not a significant drop in output or productivity. The recession therefore was entirely a monetary function and did not really represent a drop in output. The economy remained at close to maximum plant output throughout the recession (in fact in many areas the return of the troops from WW1 saw it actually increase even as prices were falling). 3. The cause of this deflation was the sudden surge in the labor market due to the return of 2 million US troops - representing the second largest single year increase in the civilian labor force of all time. This resulted in a marked drop in wages and so prices. 4. The Federal Reserve failed to implement an expansionary monetary policy until mid 1921. In July 1921 when interest rates were sharply reduced (ie exactly what the Fed is doing now and Conservatives are complaining about) - the recession ended and the economy's monetary value began to grow again. For these three reasons the causes and nature of the 1921 panic can in no way be compared to the current situation.

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I have a credit card with juniper. i had 7.99% i have paid this card on time and more than owed for a year. juniper sent me checks recently so that i can transfer other higher interest rate accounts to them. i can continue to have a low interest rate on all my debt. i made a mistake 2 months ago on my online banking and sent out the wrong amount. i was a few dollars short of minimum due. this caused a late fee which caused an over limit fee, which caused my interest rate to jump form 7.99% to 18%... i called and explained that i made a mistake, this was my first time, and i asked for them to waive the fees and give me back my 7.99%. juniper waived one fee and not the other and left my interest rate at 18 something. the next month i made a payment minimum plus $30. then i see that they raised my 18% to 24.24% i called and asked them why. juniper agent said prime rate went up. this is so unfair. its over one mistake and now my monthly payment went up from $88 to $151 dollars a month i cant do this. so now i have to stop paying and my good credit is going to be ruined. i just went on ssd cause i have r.a. and have very limited funds. i don't know what to do except maybe take them to court. i want to pay my debt but at a lower monthly payment. they dont want to help me all they offer me is some insurance i have to pay for incase i lose my job or i get sick lol i tell them its to late it already happend i got sick and lost my job and they offer no other help. do i have a chance of winning if i take them to court or should i wait till they take me to court? thanks

It sounds like you defaulted by being late and overlimit. I'm sorry to say this, but you will not win in court on that. If you can't afford to pay the higher amount, then I recommend you calling them and ask them if they can work out a re-payment program for you if you agree to close the account. If they agree to do that, you won't be able to use the card, but you can pay it off at a payment you can afford.....and still keep your good credit . If they won't work something out with you directly, then you may need to look into debt management/cccs. There are a couple like novadebt and take charge america you can look up online. You can also look into a local cccs. Whatever you do don't use a debt settlement company. They will charge you a lot of money and ruin your credit in the end. Good luck with your situation.

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Im british. i dont think everyone really understands the situation right now. but being an economics student, perhaps i can offer some light. almost daily, a bank is crashing, selling itself for next to nothing, shares tumbling, or going bust. who cares? i hear you say. you should care. ... if banks lose cash, they cannot trade. they lend eachother money, profiting through international lending because they make interest on loans. banks need to get loans from other banks, so they have capital(money) to give to us public people as mortgages and loans. when banks are trading well, its competitive, and this means interbanking interest rates are low. this in turn means loans and mortgages to the public are competitive with low rates, because there is plenty of competition and money around. the competition gave people confidence to give massive loans, 110% mortgages, to people who probably couldnt pay it off, or needed to default a few times to enable repayment eventually - which didnt seem a problem 3years ago. but then, the sub-prime market crashed. it turned out people couldnt repay all these 100 and 110% mortgages. this meant the banks in the us had less money (repayments of mortgage) coming in, so they had less to trade with (as descibed above). the lack of trading meant competition, or availability of bank loans pushed up interest rates on trades between banks. gradually banks traded less, hoping for better rates that have not come.... its gotten so bad, that banks have had no money left, and cannot afford the loans from other banks, so they have gone bust. all because people couldnt repay mortgages and subprime loans, which shouldnt have been approved in the first place (so in some ways the banks reap what they sow!) but the biggest problem for us, is when a bank crashes and busts, the public loses its money. anything you had in that bank that was not government underwritten, is lost. your left broke. but you still owe the administrators of the bank, the mortgage loan they gave you so you could buy your house. businesses haveloans and mortgages on buildings. when banks go down, or issues higher rates, businesses struggle to repay, and have to make people redundant. stocks and shares fall because the companies and banks start to struggle. with all the above in mind, i think bush is being brave, doing the right thing. if the us does not guarentee a writedown of all the 'bad debt' through buying it, which would give the banks money to trade again, the spiral will increase. confidence will dive, and we'l see more mortgages default, people losing their homes, losing money in their bank accounts, losing their jobs as business and banks crash. its a massive decision. but the right one, and i dont think people who say is 'stupid' have an arguement. sure, the public has to pay perhaps 2% tax increase on various income percentages to repay the government tax bailout. but surely this is better than the crash described above, and the consequential fall the us economy. do you not realise, the value of the dollar would dive if this doesnt happen. for americans to go abroard or import products, the price will tripple or more. china and asia will become far more economically powerful, meaning america has less muscle. all your food thats imported, will be more expensive, as will your fuel, clothes made abroard. you need this bail out. even home made produce will be more expensive because of the increase in interest rates businesses will owe banks. but this decision will bring everything (potentially if confidence allows) back down to earth. mccain wants this to be stopped. that effectively destroys your economy... with banks crashing daily (like last night), and knockon effects in europe, im thankful bush ahs the balls to do this. i think people who talk bush down need an education and need to take a look at the bigger issues and potential disaster at stake.

Very insightful, I believe your words.with one exception, about McCain.McCain had the foresight to address this problem some time back as did G.Bush(Whom I still support),but was not listened to. Now Mack wants to get a deal that doesn't lose more of the peoples assets to giveaway progress, and I believe feels as I do that those who can't afford to pay their debt should not be rewarded for their lousy business acumen, and C.E.O's should not profit from the peoples bail out money.The issue must be countered to save more than a business, that we all agree on, but not at added expense to those who do pay their loans, and have foresight into their future abilities.

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There are some painfully slow propaganda vidoes out there blaming the housing crisis on the community investment act changes that occurred in the 1990's. part of what makes them ridiculous is that most of 'cra activity' ended before the crisis, precisely becuase bush administration reduced cra rules. also, half of banks doing sub prime loans aren't covered by the cra. i quote from gordon's article: "janet yellen, president of the san francisco federal reserve, offers the killer statistic: independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by cra, made high-priced loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts. with this in mind, yellen specifically rejects the "tendency to conflate the current problems in the sub-prime market with cra-motivated lending.? cra, yellen says, "has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households." i quoted robert gordon quoting yellen, two liberals, but the latter is impeccable when it comes to economics. she publishes in peer reviewed papers in the most prestigious of economics journals. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles ?article=did_liberals_cause_the_sub prime_crisis uh, musicman, and all you other intelligent people, why do you ignore yellen's article? your replies are quite complex, but you seem to ignore the fundamental point.

Clinton forced the regulation change and under threat of a lawsuit made Freddy issue the higher risk loans while claiming to be helping more people to own homes (who now have gone bankrupt for the most part)

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Wall street bankers were accused of "redlining" loans for mortgages by only giving loans to people who's credit and income assured that they could pay them back....washington drafted the community redevelopment act in 1977 to stop this and they went full force with it in 1993 to make banks set aside a least a certain number of loans to lower credit scores and lower income levels and tracked them by giving banks credits towards annual cra goals...this practice became known as drafting "subprime" mortgages....then in 1998 (under clinton) fannie mae and freddie max began securitizing these loans by cutting them up and selling them as bonds which infected the financial system...the original community reinvestment act was a democrat tool for re-election when they announced that they were going to make sure that anyone could qualify for a home loan..... this was all back in the 90's...i was offered a sub prime loan in 1998 but passed on it and went with a relatively high fixed rate loan on a condo.... now that the roof has falllen in the writers of the act chris dodd henry waxman and it's proponents barney frank...are all on the panel that is calling the wall street's bankers...irresponsible predators who destroyed the economy. so when washington is blaming wall street for foolish business practices...does anyone really know the back story that these wall street bankers didn't even want to give out these loans in the first place and they had to to reach federal cra mandates? how the hell are they getting away with this and how the heck are people not putting the pieces together?

These banks would not have loaned the way they did if the government had not told them do so. ie; Fannie and Freddy. and the C.R.A. community reinvestment act. What we are seeing is the after math of what happens when the big bad government pokes its nose in the private sector. Dems cry out racism and unfairness to the "working man". Just like when they raised the tax on gasoline and then blamed the oil companies. My friends , socialism does not and has not ever worked. We will all see here shortly. Less government = Big Liberty. always has, always will.

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The american dream turns into a debtor's nightmare a sad, but common, tale starts with alleged predatory lending, intensifies with impossibly high payments and usually ends in foreclosure. by jennifer delson and and christopher goffard, los angeles times staff writers october 8, 2007 soledad aviles dreamed for years of owning a home, with a plot of land where he could grow corn and chiles as he did in his native mexico. so he felt blessed last year when he learned he could buy a three-bedroom, single-story stucco house on west la verne avenue in santa ana. referred to a local loan broker by a trusted friend, he borrowed the entire purchase price of $615,000 from washington mutual at a high interest rate typical of sub-prime loans. the monthly payment, as he says he understood it, would be $3,600 -- steep for a glass cutter who made $9 an hour -- but aviles counted on his wife and three of his six daughters, who also worked low-paying jobs, to contribute. "we took out our pencils, figured out our take-home pay and figured out that if we all pitched in, it would work," said aviles, 54, a stoop-shouldered, soft-spoken man with a sixth-grade education from mexico. relying on the broker's word, he signed loan documents written in english, a language he neither speaks nor reads, aviles said. he was shocked to learn afterward that the monthly payment would not be $3,600, but $4,800 -- a price that forced him to rent out bedrooms, the garage and an enclosed porch while he and his wife slept on the couch. he fed his family with food from friends and corn he grew. aviles says he was not aware that the february 2006 loan application he signed dramatically exaggerated his family's income. the application lists him as the owner of a landscaping business with a $7,400 monthly income. his 27-year-old daughter marlene, who earns $9 an hour in a noodle factory, appears as the owner of a housecleaning company who makes $5,700 a month. the application lists their yearly income as $157,000, when, according to aviles, it was really closer to $60,000. now, five months behind on his payments, aviles is scrambling to sell the house before the bank forecloses. desperately ill from kidney disease and unable to work for the last year, he sits dejectedly at the dining room table, wondering when the bank will kick him out. aviles' situation is hardly unique. add his name to the ever-expanding list of casualties in the nationwide sub-prime mortgage debacle, his experience echoing that of thousands who bought homes in recent years only to find themselves in a sagging market saddled with payments they cannot make. but amid the storm of foreclosures, his story illustrates the special vulnerabilities of first-generation immigrants in places like predominantly latino santa ana, where city leaders have identified about 800 sub-prime borrowers facing the potential loss of their homes. "we think this is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of the breadth and depth," said steve harding, santa ana's deputy city manager. apart from the language barrier, he said, many first-generation immigrants might have been especially vulnerable to sub-prime lending because they avoided checking accounts and credit cards, which prevented them from qualifying for regular loans. the city has teamed with the fair housing council of orange county to offer free foreclosure prevention workshops, hoping to teach people to avoid predatory lenders and find help as they face the loss of their homes. the fair housing council said the number of people seeking help over mortgage woes, many of them latinos living in anaheim and santa ana, has soared. the group typically receives 15 to 20 complaints annually, but in september of this year the group received more than 20. the state department of real estate, nonprofits and the mexican consulate also have reported a rise in mortgage complaints, many of them from homeowners saying they signed documents they didn't understand. across the state, many cases are landing in court. kerstin arusha, a directing attorney at the nonprofit law foundation of silicon valley, said that spanish speakers, along with the elderly, "seem to be hardest hit by both sub-prime lending and predatory lending. there are many borrowers out there that were misled about the terms of the loan." the law foundation is suing a broker, real estate agent and lender in federal court on behalf of nine santa clara county families, many of whom speak only spanish, contending they were lured into mortgages they didn't understand. the lawsuit alleges that the broker inflated incomes on loan applications, misrepresented the terms of the loans and stuck clients with higher payments than they had been promised. the victims "thought they saw the promise of the american dream, and instead they ended up with a nightmare," arusha said. "i think they were seen as easy targets for predatory lenders who could sell them a bill of goods without giving them disclosures in a language they understand." the law foundation is handling 10 other cases involving predatory lending, half of them for latino clients, arusha said. but in orange county, the district attorney's office has not reported an increase in prosecutions for fraudulent lending. elizabeth henderson, a prosecutor in the county's fraud unit, said many such crimes go unreported in immigrant communities because of a distrust of law enforcement and confusion over what had occurred. "they're not really sure what they were promised, so they don't know if they were cheated," she said. sitting in his santa ana home, waiting for the bank to kick him out or for his kidney to kill him, aviles did not hesitate to characterize what had happened to him: "they used me, nothing more." he was led astray, he said, by a man he had considered a dear friend, carlos lares. they used to work in a factory together. he said lares showed him about a dozen homes, including the one he bought, and offered to arrange a mortgage. state records show lares lacks the real estate license required to show homes. in an interview with the times, lares denied showing homes and said he merely took aviles to the office where he works, century 21 south coast. he declined to comment further. his business card lists him as a "team service associate." part of me does feel bad for him, but he was stupid to think he could even make payments o $3600 a month, when he and his wife only make $9.00 an hour. we should not have to bail him out or bail out others like them. this article is the start of letting the taxpayer bail these people out of their situations. screw the people who made educated choices. """jesus, mary and joseph.....a $600k house? $9/hr income. you must be kidding me. what was this man thinking in any language??? """" lol that is the going rate in this part of the country. what is sad....... the majority of santa ana is a dump...... it is an illegals haven...... it is little tj

Jesus, Mary and Joseph.....a $600K house? $9/hr income. You must be kidding me. What was this man thinking in ANY language??? WTF????????????????