An epidemic of boarded-up homes

[DainBramaged]

WHEN YOU pick up the classifieds in the local paper in Providence, R.I., a phrase jumps out at you: "Legal Notice: Mortgagee's Notice of Sale of Real Estate...Company X by operation in law, dated and recorded in said Land Evidence Records, the conditions of said mortgages having been broken, bounded and described."

Translation: Another family's home has been foreclosed on--and is up for auction.

The number of U.S. home foreclosures rose to record levels at the end of last year, according to the real-estate industry. Some 0.83 percent of mortgage loans were in the foreclosure process in the final three months of the year, up more than 50 percent over the year before. The mortgage delinquency rate was 5.83 percent, the highest in more than 20 years.

Providence has been hit hard. The Providence-New Bedford, Mass., metropolitan area ranked 81st on the list of cities with the highest percentage of foreclosures.

According to the Providence Journal, of the 198 properties that banks repossessed in Providence from July through November of last year, only 20 were resold to new homeowners during the period, according to a report released this week by the state's housing agency, Rhode Island Housing.

http://www.socialistworker.org/2008-1/665/665_11_Providence.shtml


It's just going to get worse. And Booshe won't bail out the home owners.

[Snarkoleptic]

1. Who's to blame?

Boooosh...for screwing the middle class and the USD into the ground.

The Federal Reserve...for lax monitary policy (in hopes of having the housing sector spur the economy)

Wall Street...for their greed in greenlighting a mindbending expansion of exotic products (esp. in subprime and Alt-A)

Bond Rating Firms...who were asleep at the switch and consistently mis-rated CDO's and MBS's as 'investment grade'

Lenders...for responding to Wall Streets open floodgate by reducing underwriting standards to a cursory overview

Investors...for using the lenders easy money to play a risky game of specualtion in real estate

Borrowers...many buyers lied about their income, job history, and intent to occupy the property (Lenders turned a blind eye to this as well)

[YOY]

2. All of the above

From "corrupt and inept" to "caveat emptor". There should have been someone to pull the switch in light of the blazingly obvious.

[DainBramaged]

3. The borrowers are the LAST who should be blamed

To have the chance to own a home is the chance of a lifetime. The GOP bent the rules so the few could profit off the backs of the many, those who weren't deemed credit worthy under normal circumstances, those who would not balk at huge fees and those not smart enough to play the game.

And you left out the greed of the realtors who pushed this bad paper on everyone so that they could reap the commissions.


Reich wingwers all. What a scam. And America swallowed it whole.

[DainBramaged]

4. I guess stories about the Boink-E would have drawn more responses.

:eyes:

[Greyhound]

5. This surprises you?

I've hung out here long enough to see that we are a pretty representative group. Important issues, or items that expose the illusion of opposition, will not be spoken of.

Sorry.

[Greyhound]

6. Sorry, I appear to have killed your thread.

:shrug: