Posted on 03/25/2007 11:51:19 PM PDT by Types_with_Fist
Immigrants are emerging as among the first victims of a growing wave of home foreclosures in the Washington area as mortgage lending problems multiply locally and across the country.
Nationally, 375,000 high-interest-rate loans were made to Hispanics in 2005, and nearly 73,000 of them are likely to go into foreclosure, said Aracely Paname?o, director of Latino affairs for the Center for Responsible Lending. About 1.1 million homes in the United States are expected to go into foreclosure in the next six years, and many native-born Americans are likely to be stuck with burdensome loans. But immigrants are getting hit first in part because their incomes tend to be lower and many have lost construction jobs.
Homeownership rates among immigrants surged in the first half of the decade, making their prosperity an economic success story. Now it is becoming apparent that many people managed to buy homes in an inflated real estate market by turning to unusual new mortgages only now receiving scrutiny from regulators and legislators. Many of these loans start with attractive low "teaser" rates but feature payments that can suddenly increase.
Unfamiliar with the U.S. mortgage market, unable to speak or read English well and vulnerable to the blandishments of real estate professionals who told them property values always rise, many immigrants are struggling to deal with high mortgage payments as their homes sag in value, making it harder to escape the loans by selling.
Tysons Corner mortgage broker Jose Luis Semidey, who has a popular Spanish-language real estate talk show on Radio Universal, is being deluged with calls from desperate homeowners who are falling behind on their mortgages. The calls started in late 2005 and have steadily risen; he now receives 40 to 50 calls a day from throughout the area.
"I see more coming," Semidey said.
(Excerpt) Read more at kerryfoxlive.com ...
Immigrants?
At first I thought this was from The Onion.
Fear not. The Democrats in Congress are riding to the rescue with $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
Subprime loans cause "global warming", too.
Ahhh, the democratic culture of entitlement. Where nobody is responsible for their own actions.
Ah, yes! Victimization of the underclass...
Well, if they're falling behind in mortgage payments, they can always stuff a few more bodies in there per room, since they seemingly don't mind living that crowded anyway. I wouldn't even be tempted to live with a herd of other people, but I hear that in some places, people are paying not for a room to themselves, but for one shift of sleep's use of a bed. The other two shifts per 24 hours, that bed would be occupied by other people. Way too crowded for me. I need my space.
I like how they point out, "Santos, a legal immigrant." I assume that all of the rest of the immigrants in the story not so identified must therefore be illegal immigrant. Thank you for making it so easy to understand.
Yeah. My first reaction as well. That's the actual title though. I'm guessing much if not most of the problem is with illegals.
People who bought homes they can't afford are victims of their own actions.
I, who can't afford a home, don't want my tax money going to bail them out of a situation they went into willingly.
But what if their actions cause your job to go away? That is to say, if this thing gets bad enough it will definitely impact the entire economy.
By that logic, ANYTHING can "impact the economy", so I guess we should just bail out everyone, and have Washington control our money.
I don't see how 1 million foreclosures will cause my job to go away. And neither do you--you don't even know what my job IS.
Don't worry Bank Of America will bail out the Illegals!
P.S. If my job DID go away, and I had the money I paid in taxes to get me through, I'd be just fine. But I don't have that money, because it's going to bail out these "immigrants" who bought a house they couldn't afford.
I remember fondly the days of having to actually have a down payment, work references, your mothers maiden name and several forms filled out in triplicate....ah, the old days....
I predicted this two years ago. My Spanish is rusty but when I was hearing 'low doc loans' on the local Spanish radio station ....
But then as Apartment rents became reasonable vs. a time share bed, folks who were counting on that income got in trouble.
Oh well, guber'mint got plenty 'o money.
Instead, Azimi, a cashier at Giant who makes $2,400 a month, found herself strapped into a no-down-payment loan with payments of $3,800 a month. She knew it would be impossible to make the payments, but the mortgage broker promised to refinance her loan to make it more affordable. Azimi couldn’t qualify for the refinance, however, so she got a second job to try to cover the costs, borrowed money from her friends and tried unsuccessfully to sell the house. Then one day in November, she collapsed at work, in part because of the stress.
There are so many things wrong with this deal.
1. Why on earth would someone who makes $2,400 per month ever think they could afford a $410,000 home? Even if the loan were interest free, the payment would be $1139 per month for a thirty-year term. And that doesn't include taxes and insurance.
2. What lender in its right mind would ever make a loan in those circumstances?
This lady either got scammed big time, or there's more to her story that she isn't telling. The reporter of this story is either a naive idiot to report this so uncritically or thinks we are stupid enough to swallow it.
There was that claim in NYC awhile back!
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