"Mike Coslo" wrote:

It's not as lucrative as you make it sound, Dwight.
Also, these people are reasonably well off, retiring
with money equivalent to upper middle class or
better. (snip)


I have no idea how lucrative it is. An acquaintance (hard to call this guy
a friend) works for a mortgage company and just loves to talk about the
shady side of that industry. The company he works for (a nation-wide
franchise chain) just switched to more agressive foreclosure practices and,
based on the stories he tells, I most certainly would not want to be a
customer of that company. Of course, this company has always had
questionable (in my opinion) foreclosure practices. He told me years ago
(late 80's, early 90's) that, mainly because of increasing property values,
it was far more profitable to foreclose on older properties than to maintain
the mortgage. As such, the company used every opportunity to foreclose on
those mortgages. Today, according to him, long term mortgage foreclosure
offers the most gain. Therefore, they now actively seek those who have the
greatest possibility of foreclosure years from now, such as the elderly,
those with speading habits that suggest possible credit problems down the
road, and so on. Now, since I don't work in that industry, I have no idea if
this is entirely true or even widespread. But, I've seen enough written
about these types of practices to suggest there is at least some truth to
it.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/