The Foreclosure Echo How the Hardest Hit Have Been Left Out of the Economic Recovery

The Foreclosure Echo tells the story of the ordinary people whose quest for the American dream was crushed in the foreclosure crisis when they were threatened with losing their homes. The authors, Linda E. Fisher and Judith Fox - each with decades of experience defending low-to-moderate-income people from foreclosure and predatory lending practices - have employed a range of legal, economic, and social-science research to document these stories, showing not only how people experienced the crisis, but also how lenders and public institutions failed to protect them. The book also describes the ongoing effects of the crisis - including vacant land and abandoned buildings - and how these conditions have exacerbated the economic plight of millions of people who lost their homes and have increased inequality across the country. This book should be read by anyone who wants to understand the fallout of the last financial crisis and learn what we can do now to avoid another one.

1. The housing crisis; 2. The breakdown of mortgage servicing and loss mitigation; 3. Zombie mortgages and abandoned properties; 4. The benefits and harms of intervention; 5. Rethinking Home: housing post-crisis; 6. Foreclosure or a more sustainable mortgage?; 7. Picking up the pieces and revitalizing neighborhoods; 8. Where do we go from here?; Conclusion; Index.

Describes the ongoing effects of the foreclosure crisis and how these effects have exacerbated the economic plight of millions who lost their homes and also increased inequality across the country. It will be of interest to scholars and students of property and finance law and to those involved in community economic development and housing policy.

Linda E. Fisher is a Professor of Law at the Law School, Seton Hall University, New Jersey. She has published in the areas of subprime lending, mortgage fraud, and civil rights, has testified before the House Financial Services Committee and has presented to the Federal Trade Commission. She has also been a Network Fellow at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard and an American Association of Law Schools Bellow Scholar.
Judith Fox is a Clinical Professor of Law at the Law School, University of Notre Dame, Indiana . She directs the Economic Justice Project, a low-income clinic specializing in predatory lending and mortgage law and has served on a number of committees and task forces including, most recently, the Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Indiana Supreme Court's Coalition for Court Access.