I’ve never had an ARM. Never had an interest-only. Always put something (usually whatever I netted out of the prior house) down, so always had some equity. Barely made it out of the previous house – sold it in between the first and second big drops… and the house we’re in now is a long-term keeper with some improvement potential.

Still, every month I know the equity is dropping as the value evaporates, and the mortgage payment stays the same.

Depressing, but .. what else to do?

Mew

That was an interesting article. When will the idiots in Congress wake-up to the fact that the Administration is incompetent ?

The Treasury Department publicly maintains that its program is on track. “The program is meeting its intended goal of providing immediate relief to homeowners across the country,” a department spokeswoman, Meg Reilly, wrote in an e-mail message.

But behind the scenes, Treasury officials appear to have concluded that growing numbers of delinquent borrowers simply lack enough income to afford their homes and must be eased out.

And as Obama keeps destroying the small business environment,
growing numbers of delinquent borrowers will simply lack enough income to afford their homes and must be eased out.

without sounding like a ‘hater.’ Perhaps it suffices to say that they behave typically short-sighted in housing matters as they do in everything they touch.

I understand they have now effectively taken over GMAC or are planning to. This could throw another monkey-wrench into the US auto market, far bigger than the dislocation caused by Cas for Clunkers because this will be company-specific.

Eventually, the facts will be so clear that even the NYT will have to get it right most of the time, instead of occasionally. By then, too late to do much more than try to mitigate the damage, which will probably not work either.

San Antonio has one of the best markets in the country which means we suck less than everyone else….Our board of REALTORS has been diligent at keeping the market on a slow and steady growth path while other markets like Austin were going through huge boom and bust swings…but the last several years of Bush’s “Opportunity Society” saw a huge glut of builders coming into San Antonio and buying up every farm and ranch in site to build cookie cutter neighborhoods in. I couldn’t find enough tracts to sell to my Builder/Developer Clients. the Builders had to do an addendum to their contracts forcing buyers to agree not to live in their houses for two years before selling it because prices were rising so fast people were going to the bank to burrow the money on a new construction home and buy the time it was built they’d put it on the market and flip out of the deal with $20,000 profit. This lead to a huge bubble and San Antonio hasn’t even seen it burst yet. Now we’ve got more houses than there are buyers, less money being lent buy the banks, more foreclosures on the books as well as off….and we’re sinking fast.

Obama and the Dems will say any failure (in the unlikely event they admit anything failed) is because the program was too limited and we just need to spend more money to make it right.

And on top of that, 2010 is an election year, so they will do everything in their power to make things appear to be on an upswing by the summer. Screw 2011 – they can worry about it after the elections.

Everything they’ve done, are doing and will do is on purpose to collapse the nation so they can ‘save’ it and “fundamentally transform The United States”.

This is far bigger than one item and as far as real estate goes, yeah, the residential market is hanging on by a mere thread of micro-fiber.

But the commercial real estate market is a timer-already-set nuclear detonation at optimum air burst height.

Everything I’ve heard from people involved on all sides of commercial real estate translates to a one-word event: Titanic.

If you haven’t noticed, commercial real estate construction is basically non-existent compared to even a year ago.

and it seems not too many are. How many areas are the trying to take, or have and each one has its own scape”GOAT” harry, nancy, timsie, janet what a list. His royal Obombness can whack em any o time and make it all better and a bunch of jollydogooders will suck it all up.

what a suckee bunch of dog pile

whrs mu squrrllgun Ma

If/when the market correctshousing prices come down [become "affordable"], right? Some people get foreclosed out of houses they can’t/won’t pay for and banks lose money on bad mortgages [that they maybe shouldn’t have issued in the first place. But there’s been a ton of tax $$ given to banks, so even if they lose money they shouldn’t go bankrupt.

mbecker,

I am writing a short article on the MHA for examiner.com.

My question is if it’s ok to link to a diary in an outside website, for example examiner.com?

More to the point…do members here want random/outside people reading diaries?

I would like to offer a link in the article for people to read some reaction to the NY times article.

thanks

When the housing bubble burst, the government’s response was, “Blow Harder!”

I would say that any idiot could tell you that that would not work but, truthfully, I don’t think the idiots in the White House could.

with OHarrrrrycare if the housing mess trashes out and work is scarce, and money is not available will housing be affordable again? Just asking.

MA load upthu scattur’gun

Came across this headline in the New York Times…

Pirate Cash Suspected Cause of Kenya Property Boom

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Property prices in Nairobi are soaring, and Somali pirates are getting the blame.

“The hike in real estate prices in the Kenyan capital has prompted a public outcry and a government investigation this month into property owned by foreigners. The investigation follows allegations that millions of dollars in ransom money paid to Somali pirates are being invested in Kenya, Somalia’s southern neighbor and East Africa’s largest economy.

Even as housing prices have dropped sharply in the United States, prices in Nairobi have seen two- and three-fold increases the last half decade.”
__________

Unfortunately, we have our own pirates, but they are not helping our economy.

Centered on the headquarters of the NY Times

about the money supply they massively increased to prop up banks and grow government through the phony stimulus bill. Otherwise there will be significant inflation which would hurt distressed borrowers even more as well as new purchasers. And we know what higher interest rates will do to the default rate. Deflation it seems, would wipe out equity. And it seems to me that with the massive bank bailout, they can just bide their time until the housing market collapses and come in and pic up the pieces. They (at least the golden boys) really don’t have to do anything except twiddle with cash until the bottom arrives. Oh, it’s our cash by the way.

Are reducing the number of qualified borrowers to those most likely to pay on the loans (FICA scores of 660 and up).
Those with lower scores either have bad credit (won’t pay on loans) or no credits (don’t take out loans and just pay cash).