In Foreclosure Rate Hits Historic High - washingtonpost.com, I finally see a chart showing how terrible the situation is.
In the 4th quarter of 2006, the forclosure rate was 0.54% - or about 1 in 185.
In the 4th quarter of 2007... things have turned absolutely terrible. Terrible. Homeless families roaming the streets... all because of a rise of loans entering foreclosure.
The rate has gone up 4/100ths of 1%. It went from 0.54% to 0.58%. From 1 in 185 to 1 in 172. This is an insurmountable crisis for our economy. Things have NEVER been this bad before.
Um... no. Not really...
In 1997, the MBA FHA foreclosure rate... was 2.47%. (Chart A, page 21-22.)
The MBA Conventional rate was 1.04%.
Funny how bad things are now, isn't it? Seems to me a drop of almost 80% would be cause for celebration.... but then again, I forget we don't have a Democrat in the White House.
J.
Comments (8)
Well, some numbers are more equal than others. A venter in yesterday's AJC wrote:
'Would someone point out to Monday's Republican math major that Clinton brought the unemployment number down to 5 percent. Bush's 5 percent is on the way up.'
-- I guess.
Posted by F451 | January 16, 2008 10:26 AM
Posted on January 16, 2008 10:26
Neal Boortz gripes about government schools. Think he might have a point, considering some of the 'letters from the readers' the AJC prints? Or the Vents?
J.
Posted by JLawson | January 16, 2008 10:46 PM
Posted on January 16, 2008 22:46
I don't think people need help from the government to be idiots. Individual effort is perfectly sufficient. :)
As for the AJC's letters and Vent entries: They print what they choose to, and who outside the AJC Building knows what the raw input looks like?
Posted by F451 | January 17, 2008 7:50 AM
Posted on January 17, 2008 07:50
That's true - we could be seeing the nuggets of gold they found searching through the slush pile...
J.
Posted by JLawson | January 17, 2008 9:13 PM
Posted on January 17, 2008 21:13
Lets see... bought the place I'm in in 1993, saw it rise to nearly 4x what I paid for it, and now down to just about 2.25x what I paid for it... and got to refinance a couple of years back at a rate my *father* would have envied ("We will never see 6% mortgages again" was his quote... mine was 4.75%) and at a fixed rate. So I have had (in theory) more money to save and do things with just on an income basis. Plus I went from a 30 to a 15 year and almost opted for 10, but cash flow just wouldn't take that. So I've paid down the house faster (plus a bit more on principle here and there), invested more and am *richer* even without selling my house. And I bought the place pretty much at the exact bottom of a housing slump, too.
Plus it is the middle of winter and one of the local sales was an 'estate sale' to *sell* immediately. Probably end up leaving just as the market hits the spring/summer cycle and sales and prices pick up. And with the increased travel time further out, it is now *closer* to DC which means it gains a slight bonus for that and will continue to for a decade. These places were being bought up by working stiffs used to a 45 min drive to DC at best and now sell to upscale low-end executives raising families. Why does this point out that housing sales are local?
And if you bought an ARM: you knew what you were getting into and deserve it if you can't afford the thing now. A 'bailout' of poor thinking idiots is a *reward* to them and a long-term hurt to the economy as they will not learn the error of their ways. Also it won't get as many votes as they expect as the sort of folks buying that stuff also don't vote, by and large... just more breads and circuses done US style.
I really miss the working class character of the place when it was purchased. A cop across the way was *real* nice, as was the cabbie a few doors down. Now it is pure transient land... I'm a fossil still owning this place for so long. Not one, single, neighbor left from when I moved in.
Posted by ajacksonian | January 19, 2008 3:09 PM
Posted on January 19, 2008 15:09
The estate sale could have been the same thing that my folks had last year around this time - people who just couldn't live on their own any more and had to move into assisted living - either close by or across the country - and had to liquidate all assets.
The ARM mortgages - we looked at those when we bought the current house, and decided against. Better to get a mortgage you know won't increase than one one that'll be variable...
J.
Posted by JLawson | January 20, 2008 12:21 AM
Posted on January 20, 2008 00:21
The estate sale was out of town family selling the place after the owner had died... so someone got a bargain. It went for nearly 20% below the value of the previous sale of a similar place (in a townhome complex).
The US suffered far worse in the real estate market and nearly got a couple of insurance companies to boot... on 9/11. $1 trillion down in a few hours, but the economy didn't even move into negative growth in 2001 or 2002.
I've had it with government interfering with legal contracts: either declare the place to be a Socialist Republic and all contracts to be fiction or not. You can't plan for the future in this 'sometimes we are and sometimes we aren't' deal... this is not a monopoly, the folks taking them went in with their eyes open (both lenders and borrowers) and the 'crisis' is hype. If folks want socialism, get it over with and say so... otherwise calm down and let people take their licks as they made poor and often stupid decisions. The economy has handled far worse, and messing with this erodes confidence in the long run, something we do not need.
Posted by ajacksonian | January 20, 2008 7:38 PM
Posted on January 20, 2008 19:38
Your rest - I won't disagee with. The media HAS to have a crisis du jour, and if they don't, they'll make one.
J.
Posted by JLawson | January 20, 2008 8:41 PM
Posted on January 20, 2008 20:41