Posted on 12/05/2008 9:58:18 AM PST by AngieGal
A record one in 10 American homeowners with a mortgage were either at least a month behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of September as the source of housing market pressure shifted to the crumbling U.S. economy.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday the percentage of loans at least a month overdue or in foreclosure was up from 9.2 percent in the April-June quarter, and up from 7.3 percent a year earlier.
Distress in the home loan market started about two years ago as increasing numbers of adjustable-rate loans reset to higher interest rates. But the latest wave of delinquencies is coming from the surge in unemployment.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Give it a few months and it will be 3 in 10.
How many are illegals?
As the mortgage crisis turned into a global financial meltdown, it was revealed that Obama and other senators and congressmen encouraged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the huge semi-governmental secondary market for mortgages – to facilitate dicey loans to minorities with bad credit in a massive affirmative action mission. Somehow McCain, who was on record complaining about the excesses at Fannie and Freddie, got left holding Obama’s bag. And the rest is . . . well, history.
Repeal the CRA! The CRA caused the current mortgage crisis.
R’s and D’s are both responsible on this one. Not only the Rats.
9.2% is an astounding number. Throw in higher unemployment numbers through 2009 and coming ARM resets and we have the Rx for an ongoing banking crisis that won’t end anytime soon.
it would seem that those adjustable rates should now be resetting downward. No mention one way or the other of that.
‘homeowners with a mortgage’
Weird. So they ‘own’ the home but are late on the payment?
Gazing over the scarred ground and casualties littering the landscape of this just recently vibrant economy, you have to ask - how did this happen? We know massive confiscatory and patently corrupt affirmative action by Congress forced the bad mortgage loans. And what about the ensuing global collapse? The criminals sitting in congress who brought down the economy are actually identifiable, but no one will seek to punish them - ever.
I wonder how many of the latest delinquencies are due to the expectation of gvt help?
Why keep current if going delinquent means you might get gvt $?
SOME people actually OWN their own homes....i.e. have no mortgage....
Not a very diverse economy is it?
It's a canard.
This has been building for years and the Govt’s won't let the markets correct itself so we will be punished later when it bursts even larger.
.Com bubble-Housing bubble-Money bubble.
Headline exaggeration. It’s up to one in 9 from one in 14.
Or, a 26% increase doesn’t sound so alarming, either.
A depression is on the way, by all the accounts of everything that is happening in the financial sphere...
NYTs
Published: September 11, 2003
By STEPHEN LABATON
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
...
...
Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.
"These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."
Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.
"I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing," Mr. Watt said.
Homeownership
Homeownership is central to the American dream, and Republicans want to make it a reality for everyone. That starts with access to capital for entrepreneurs and access to credit for consumers. Both have improved immensely in the past four years, resulting in record levels of homeownership. For the first time, more than half of all minorities own their home.
We support the President's goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families by the end of the decade. Since President Bush announced his initiative in 2002, an additional 1.6 million minorities have become homeowners. The Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program helps low-income families purchase a home. The most significant barrier to homeownership is the down payment. We support efforts to reduce that barrier, like the American Dream Downpayment Act and Zero Downpayment Mortgages. The President and Congress have taken action to provide counseling and education to help first-time homebuyers navigate the process of buying a home. The Administration has also taken steps to alert people to the dangers of predatory lending, in an effort to help Americans maintain a positive credit history.
And how many are not actually "homeowners," but investors and house flippers?
That’s precisely why the headline is false. Though it fluctuates year-to-year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics usually gives a number of 40% for homeowners with no mortgage. One in 10 is bad, of course, but when it’s only out of 60% it’s not nearly as bad.
Honest reporting hasn’t caught on in the U.S., though.
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