Free Republic

Housing: America still has far too many underwater debtors labeled as "homeowners," but Washington can't bear to let them liquidate. Instead, it saddles taxpayers with ever-costlier bailouts. The federal government has tried just about every trick in the book to revive the nation's housing market and forestall a feared tsunami of foreclosures. How well have they worked? The answer depends on how you judge success. If the object is to keep "owners" - really, maxed-out debtors - in their homes, the results have been so-so. But there's another way of framing the issue. What if it would have been better...

Mortgage Defaults Spread As Even 'Safe' Borrowers Falter Jim Wasserman and Dale Kasler Jul. 11, 2009 The mortgage default crisis has an ominous new face. It's your neighbor with a traditional fixed-rate loan. No longer is the real estate bust simply the result of exotic, subprime loans that doubled payments and blew up in homeowners' faces. As the Sacramento economy buckles, even the safest mortgages have become part of a new wave of loan defaults, experts say. With capital-area job losses reaching 45,000 in the past year and unemployment at 11.1 percent, lenders, bankruptcy attorneys and debt counselors all say...