Foreclosure Wave Bears Down on Immigrants

The Washington Post ^ | March 26, 2007 | Kirstin Downey

[edpc]

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.

[fella]

I guess that these media types just assume that the word illegal is implied in front of the word Immigrants so they just leave it out to save ink and paper.

[GATOR NAVY]

$2400/mo is good money no matter where you live - true, you can't afford a 3000 sqft house, but $2400/mo is nothing to sneeze at.

When I was active duty I was making over twice that but the idea of buying a $410,000 house like the lady in the story never crossed my mind. These people are just plain blind to reality.