Some Of Your Taxpayer Assets Will Be Sold Off To 'Vulture Funds,' In Case You Were Interested

Jason Linkins
Jason Linkins jason@huffingtonpost.com Become a fan of this reporter

Hey, everybody! Time now to check what's going on with that giant portfolio of foreclosed-upon homes that we, as taxpayers, own. Did you forget that we owned a giant portfolio of foreclosed-upon homes? Because we do. Anyway, the good news is that we may not have this portfolio for much longer. The bad news is that we'll be relieved of it in one of the worst deals possible.

At any rate, Ken Layne points us to some recent news on that front:

The largest transfer of wealth from the public to private sector is about to begin. The federal government will be bulk-selling the massive portfolio of foreclosed homes now owned by HUD, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to private investors -- vulture funds.

These homes, which are now the property of the U.S. government, the U.S. taxpayer, U.S. citizens collectively, are going to be sold to private investor conglomerates at extraordinarily large discounts to real value.

You and I will not be allowed to participate. These investors will come from the private-equity and hedge-fund community, Goldman Sachs and its derivatives, as well as foreign sovereign wealth funds that can bring a billion dollars or more to each transaction.

In the process, these investors will instantaneously become the largest improved real estate owners and landlords in the world. The U.S. taxpayer will get pennies on the dollar for these homes and then be allowed to rent them back at market rates.

See, what's happening is that the Treasury Department, acting in concert with some other federal agencies, has submitted a "Request For Information" about this big pile of sad homes we "won" in the financial inferno of 2008. As the article notes, the point of an RFI is to stage a private sector consultation about the best way forward. However, the private sector interests here have already come up with the plan -- the federal government just has to go through these motions to make whatever comes next technically legal, while hoping that taxpayers don't loudly object. If there's no massive protest, the federal government will proceed to make a bargain-basement offer for this housing portfolio.

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