The Foreclosure of America: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Countrywide Home Loans, the Mortgage Crisis, and the Default of the American Dream
From Countrywide’s former Senior VP of Marketing, the first engrossing inside look at Countrywide Home Loans, how the mortgage crisis started-and where it may end.
In July 2004, Adam Michaelson entered “The Vault”-an underground bunker at Countrywide headquarters-for a meeting about a new loan product that would allow borrowers to pay less than their minimum monthly payment. After the “finance jocks” proudly made their case, Michaelson asked one question: “Are you nuts?” Countrywide’s decision-makers believed these new exotic loans were “worth the risk.” The booming housing market would only get bigger, with ever-increasing home values supporting homeowners in a never-ending cycle of borrowing against the virtual value of their homes
Rating: 
(out of 24 reviews)
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Tags: America, American, Countrywide, Crisis, default, Dream, Fall, Foreclosure, home, Inside, Loans, Mortgage, Rise, Story
5 Responses to “The Foreclosure of America: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Countrywide Home Loans, the Mortgage Crisis, and the Default of the American Dream”
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September 9th, 2010 at 1:59 am
Review for The Foreclosure of America: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Countrywide Home Loans, the Mortgage Crisis, and the Default of the American Dream
Rating:
The book is not about Countrywide’s mortgage miscalculation. Rather it’s about Countrywide’s VP of junk mail and online banner ads. Page after page of how he and his “team” decided which type of junk mail envelope would make a nice addition to your trash can.
As a retired Navy officer I was particularly annoyed with the author constantly referring to his military past. He did two years in ROTC!!
Looks like the Countrywide gang found a way to keep selling even after the implosion.
September 9th, 2010 at 2:01 am
Review for The Foreclosure of America: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Countrywide Home Loans, the Mortgage Crisis, and the Default of the American Dream
Rating:
Adam Michaelson’s book is an eye opener, to say the least. I have to compare the book to a major water cooler gossip session, laying bare the motivation (greed), politics (of course) and inner workings of Countrywide from someone who was actually ON the inside. For those of us who’ve watched in horror as this economic disaster has unfolded, the book answers quite a few questions about how the landslide began, and how it evolved into the avelanche that’s wiped out the lives of so many.
The book is written in such a manner as to make the reader feel as though they’re receiving insider trading tips. There are even little excerpts of humor sprinkled liberally throughout the book, which, by the time you run across them, god knows you’ll need the laugh.
Interesting enough that I read it through without stopping.
September 9th, 2010 at 2:22 am
Review for The Foreclosure of America: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Countrywide Home Loans, the Mortgage Crisis, and the Default of the American Dream
Rating:
This book was one of the worst I have read – and I have read quite a few about the housing crisis of the past few years. There was probably about three pages telling a sad story about a woman and her children who lost their house due to their ARM skyrocketing. I believe, a few chapters later, he repeats the same story. The rest of the book is all about the author himself and is very boring. Nothing substantial is in this book about Countrywide. Hence, a rip-off. If you want to read a very good book about the subprime mess including Ameriquest and Countrywide, buy: “Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis.” That book is so good you won’t want to put it down. A must for anyone wanting to read about the housing crisis and crash of 2007.
September 9th, 2010 at 2:40 am
Review for The Foreclosure of America: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Countrywide Home Loans, the Mortgage Crisis, and the Default of the American Dream
Rating:
The author sure writes a lot to tell us so little. On top of that, he comes across as a smarmy, egotistical *sshat more often than not. And enough with the italics, really — the heavy, heavy use of itals nearly made this book almost unreadable. We get it, Adam: you think it’s an important point. It’s better to let your readers make the jump, though. Especially when you have so many damn “important points” on every page.
The cover illo got my attention, but the rest of the book failed to live up to any reasonable expectation of an “expose.”
September 9th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Review for The Foreclosure of America: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Countrywide Home Loans, the Mortgage Crisis, and the Default of the American Dream
Rating:
Adam definitely answered some questions as to how the failure of even a reasonably small percentage of home loans may have directly caused our current recession, and that the worst could be yet to come. He also gave some very good suggestions on how to, if not fix the current mess, perhaps make sure this doesn’t happen the same way again. We’re too good at creating new messes for us to avoid having other recessions, but not having recessions the same exact way would be more beneficial to us in the long run.
My biggest, mostly unanswered, question is: Why did home values go down in the first place? This seemed to be the biggest cause in getting the Recession-Go-Round going, but I didn’t find a very satisfactory answer to why this phenomenon happened. Were lower home values due to Foreclosures, forcing banks to sell-off these homes at fire-sale prices, thus affecting the values of other homes in the area? Not necessarily as, the book contends, those people whose ARM loans reset to higher levels would normally have been able to refinance and get new loans in which to pay their new monthly due-payments. Home values seemed always to trend higher, making applicants that much more assured of getting this refinancing. Were lower home values due to over-building of new homes, outpacing the market for them, forcing the afore-mentioned fire-sale prices? I doubt that. Build it and they will come, especially since, the book contends, it was so easy to get a loan for something that a lot of people would normally find unaffordable like a new house. There was thus no incentive for people to wait on purchasing, which would perhaps make them miss the chances on homes they really liked, for lower prices that would come as a result of being on the market for a long time.
Maybe Adam truly didn’t have an all-encompassing answer for why home values initially declined, or maybe I missed it in the reading, but I was left hanging on this point to where it sometimes became a distraction while reading.
My other criticism is something that a lot of other readers have mentioned. Adam gives perhaps too much autobiographical information. Sure, Adam’s background helps the reader determine that the author has some knowledge in the book’s subject, but I didn’t see the need for so much of it. I’ll admit these autobiographical parts were also some of the most humorous as he had the opportunity to describe the personalities of several corporate lemmings with whom he had the “honor” to work, but a more brief section of Adam Michaelson, Super Genius would have been the better way to go, in my opinion.
Despite these criticisms, I found the book to be quite readable, very interesting, humorous, intelligent, and worth the money (which, in my case, was zero).
See Adam? We can be humorous too.
Now get to work on your next book. This review already cost me $50 in lost productivity!