We're #1
U.S. Foreclosures Rise Sharply in July
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Foreclosure filings rose 9 percent from June to July and surged 93 percent over the same period last year, with Nevada, Georgia and Michigan accounting for the highest foreclosure rates nationwide, a research firm said Tuesday.
"While 43 states experienced year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity, just five states -- California, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Georgia -- accounted for more than half of the nation's total foreclosure filings," said RealtyTrac Chief Executive James J. Saccacio.
Nevada posted the highest foreclosure rate: one filing for every 199 households, or more than three times the national average. It reported 5,116 filings during the month, an increase of 8 percent from June.
Huge surprise. Not. Exactly how long did we think we could continue selling increasingly expensive real estate to buyers increasingly less able to afford it? You didn't need to be an economics major to see this one coming.....the minute lenders began lowering the bar it ought to have been a signal: a last gasp measure to prop up a saturated market and keep their cash cow going. Nevada was a class A example: house flippers were selling houses to house flippers lower in the food chain and it sucks to be plankton.
Prices skyrocketed, families that actually wanted a house just to live in were priced out. Buying a house simply to live in was so 80's. We finally ran out of plankton.
Sorry but Dem candidates pushing for bailouts are not going to impress me, for the most part these loans did not go to low-income families struggling to get their foot in the door. Most of these loans went to middle and higher income people looking to make a profit and/or live above their means. Most of them were really bad at basic math. That's unfortunate but now we're all going to pay as the fallout runs through the rest of the economy. Throw away more money to bail out the people who created this mess? I'm just not feeling it.
4 comments:
I like Trent's analysis. While the sub-prime crisis started the ball rolling it's well beyond that now. For some, predatory lenders took advantage of their need. For others, the foolish belief that real estate would rise indefinitely in a Bushwhacked economy, impelled them to fall prey to their own greed.
If bailouts are coming from the Bush Reich, the beneficiaries will only be those at the top of this Ponzi pyramid.
Exactly. We still have thousands of people on the gulf who lost everything through no fault of their own and some of our own party leadership is talking about a bailout for people with jumbo loans??? That's a talk to the hand moment for me.
The folks from NO's 9th ward got no bailout so do you really believe I can get behind bailing out some pos wannabe-hotshot who took out a 500k loan then borrowed away every penny of his equity to buy a Hummer and a plasma TV?
It doesn't matter what lending policies we set, the core problem is our spending habits.
The core problem is greed, Mama. I feel sorry for the less-well-off who bought to own and got stung badly, but a commentator on Sparrow Chat agreed with you that it is mainly the middle classes with their avarice complexes who are copping it with this one. Like you, I've got no sympathy. The NO 9th Ward is just the same as it was two years ago - untouched.
Looks like we're almost back to those miserable days of yesteryear when the Silverado Savings and Loan, et. al. joined the last big construction bubble. Now, why would various Bushes be around for both?
Worse, at least the S&L's assumed some risk; with some winks and nods,the current loan outfits could sell "the product" to be repackaged by finance outfits with the "risk spread out" repacked, and resold again. The problem now is that no one knows how big the crater might be. The news will likely dribble in one announcement of layoffs at lending institutions after another...Bear Stearns, Capitol One, Countrywide...
Cutting the interest rates for banks won't do squat, because it's not the banks that repackaged all these "deals." That was just Fed political theater for the benefit of the Bushites and their Wall Street allies.
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