Archive for the ‘mortgage’ tag
The Third Wave Foreclosure Crisis
Foreclosures haven’t abated; if anything, they continue to pick up steam. They vary significantly by region - hotspots like Phoenix and Detroit are facing true epidemics. Other locations - like parts of NYC, for example - seem to be mostly bypassing the worst of things.
Yet now we’re facing what some economists are calling the third [...]
20% of Houses Underwater
The WSJ reports this morning that now over 20% of houses in this country are underwater - that is, the owners owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth:
The increase in the number of such “underwater” borrowers comes amid signs that falling prices are making homes more affordable for first-time buyers and others [...]
Real Estate Sales Continue to Fall
Housing prices continued their descent - both housing resales and overall prices declined in January. None of this is unexpected - especially as the stimulus plan, which contains a number of tax provisions directed at homeowners, was at that point still a plan, and not a law.
Here are the raw numbers: home resales were [...]
More than a stimulus
The stimulus bill wasn’t quite enough. There had been criticism that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act didn’t address the heart of the current crisis - falling housing prices. Now we know why: yesterday President Obama unveiled a $275 billion plan dedicated to this very cause.
Currently, one in ten houses are in some stage of [...]
Underwater Mortgage Watch
Yesterday I wrote about my new appreciation for being underwater on your mortgage. Mark Cuban, a wildly successful entrepreneur, was thinking along the same lines and wrote this excellent post. He makes a number of points, but first tackles the difference between the “Buy and Hold” strategy for stocks versus your home:
I think “Buy and Hold” [...]
Underwater Mortgages
Underwater mortgages are easy to understand: they occur when a homeowner owes more on their house than what they could get if they sold the house. That is, the outstanding mortgage is greater than their home value.
But they are very interesting and consequential phenomenon, especially considering a large number of those who are underwater on their houses put [...]
