If you are looking to fall down the rabbit hole of foreclosure defense, here are some places to add to your bookmark bar:
Listservs
HAMP Enforcement Google Group--Sarah Parady and Rebekah Cook-Mack serve up a hot mess of strategies to help homeowners qualify for Home Affordable Modification Program loans and to use HAMP as a sword and a shield in court.
NACA Foreclosure Listserv--the National Association of Consumer Advocates' active and expert-laden listserv. Ask a question, get a quick answer or fifty. Gotta be a NACA member to participate in the listserv.
Websites
NCLC Studies--the National Consumer Law Center does great reports. Witness: Why Servicers Foreclose When They Should Modify, And Other Mysteries of Servicer Behavior. The full list of special reports should keep you busy for a while!
Max Gardner--a bankruptcy ninja in North Carolina, Max's blog has a good mix of general housing/foreclosure news and highly-specific litigation aids like this one.
Credit Slips--a high-level and useful blog from law professors and practitioners about credit and finance.
Calculated Risk--a blog about housing and the economy. Beautiful graphs.
Books
I'm one of those guys that thinks that the answers to everything are in a book somewhere, so when I started at Legal Aid Society I read Financial Shock: A 360 Degree Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Crisis by Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody's. It helped me get a quick lay of the land and understand the relationships between all the mortgage players: the Federal Reserve, originators, brokers, servicers, securitized trusts, Wall Street, and homeowners.
Listservs
HAMP Enforcement Google Group--Sarah Parady and Rebekah Cook-Mack serve up a hot mess of strategies to help homeowners qualify for Home Affordable Modification Program loans and to use HAMP as a sword and a shield in court.
NACA Foreclosure Listserv--the National Association of Consumer Advocates' active and expert-laden listserv. Ask a question, get a quick answer or fifty. Gotta be a NACA member to participate in the listserv.
Websites
NCLC Studies--the National Consumer Law Center does great reports. Witness: Why Servicers Foreclose When They Should Modify, And Other Mysteries of Servicer Behavior. The full list of special reports should keep you busy for a while!
Max Gardner--a bankruptcy ninja in North Carolina, Max's blog has a good mix of general housing/foreclosure news and highly-specific litigation aids like this one.
Credit Slips--a high-level and useful blog from law professors and practitioners about credit and finance.
Calculated Risk--a blog about housing and the economy. Beautiful graphs.
Books
I'm one of those guys that thinks that the answers to everything are in a book somewhere, so when I started at Legal Aid Society I read Financial Shock: A 360 Degree Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Crisis by Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody's. It helped me get a quick lay of the land and understand the relationships between all the mortgage players: the Federal Reserve, originators, brokers, servicers, securitized trusts, Wall Street, and homeowners.