No, this is not yet another story about how minorities in this society are treated with disdain at every level.
These bullies are the biggest ones on the block; they manipulate our laws, decide if you can get a job or housing, and pick your pocket at every chance.
All those foreclosed homes the banks are sitting on while we experience the largest homeless population since the Great Depression. Guess what? If you do not qualify for a loan with THEIR bank you can not buy the property. It doesn't matter if you pay cash for the home outright. You MUST pre-qualify with the bank that owns the property to purchase the home.
So a poor family can not just save their money up and buy a home without getting ensnared in the credit trap. That is right it is a trap. If you do not use credit to buy things, or get a cell phone with a contract, or buy a car from a dealer on credit, or even have car insurance your credit score will never be high enough to qualify for a loan, rental, or a job. This is the scam that traps poor people in poverty for generations.
And average family here in Oregon found this out the hard way. They were ready to purchase. But guess what? Uber-villian Bank of America said they had to qualify for one of their loans first. Not because these people needed another loan but because BofA, along with other banks, has done such a fabulous job of eviscerating our regulatory agencies that these banks will use this trap to prevent those they will not sell financial vehicles to from purchasing a home.
Bank of America does require all bidders on its foreclosed properties to first be prequalified for loans with the bank's lending department, says bank spokeswoman Kris Yamamoto. It's not an uncommon practice in the industry these days, she says.
"It's just to determine if someone is eligible to finance the property," says Yamamoto, a senior vice president for corporate communications.
If a buyer comes in with a loan prequalification from another lender, she says, "We don't always understand the underwriting guidelines of the other lender."
...Churchill notes that B of A's listing agent for a foreclosed property is supposed to include the "assigned loan officer contact info" for the bank with the Regional Multiple Listing Service, where most Portland-area homes are listed for sale. "Then we pick and choose the loans we want to take on," Churchill states. "If the agents don't have a good conversion rate we replace them."..."That's blatantly illegal," Feathers says. It's saying "if we don't have enough people steering to us, we will fire them."...
...Harris, who also has seen the email, calls it a "blatant violation of RESPA."
I wondered why those homes in Detroit for sale for $1.00 were not being snapped up like grunion on a moonlit beach. Now I know why, they had the caveat that pre-qualification is required for purchase. I could not process that logic, why would anyone need a loan for a property that they could bring in a handful of pennies to purchase? Because the banks are not interested in selling the homes that is why. At least not without getting their cut.