US foreclosure filings surge 53 percent in June

I have no idea why the banks aren't pursuing alternatives that might actually have a more favorable financial outcome for them. Short sales take forever to get approved and realtors avoid them like the plague. The banks could also restructure these loans so that they get something out of them. They don't need the government to tell them to do that.

Lucid Realty wrote:

I have no idea why the banks aren't pursuing alternatives that might actually have a more favorable financial outcome for them. Short sales take forever to get approved and realtors avoid them like the plague. The banks could also restructure these loans so that they get something out of them. They don't need the government to tell them to do that.

I agree. The banks should try to work something out with the lender to recover some money. I would think they would want to re finance them into a 30 year instead of a 20 year or 40 instead of 30 before forecloser. Of course this is all dependant on the borrowers finacials.

It's not a gov bailout, banks are actually making more money off the interest and the borrower gets to keep the house.

While I agree that the banks should do more to work with people you have to realize a lot of people bit off more then they could chew. They had no business buying houses they really couldn't afford and the banks had no business financing them.

I read about a lady in New York who was making $25,000.00 per year and she was able to buy a $450,000.00 home with a mortgage payment of $4100.00 per month. She had her family living there to help make the payments. When the payment went up ot $4400.00 they could no longer afford it so one family member went back to Mexico, the other moved somewhere cheaper and the lady is facing foreclosure and now lives in a studio apartment.

More doom and gloom reporting... NOTHING stated about if there has been an increase or decrease based on last month or quarter... only that it's up vs. last year. We KNOW that foreclosures are up over last year... the major foreclosure crisis hadn't started yet!

This is going to have such significant long term consequences that it is almost unimaginable. All these people now have destroyed credit, making it impossible for them to buy again. Less buyers mean more unsold homes being reduced in price. That affects the home values around them. More foreclosures mean lower home values, because banks are selling them under market value to get them off their books. More homes sold under market value means appraisals for other homes in the area will report lower values. More homes sitting empty in foreclosure means less tax revenue for the municipalities where the homes are. Its a downward spiral that is going to take at least another 12 to 18 months to hit bottom and start to climb back, if then.

Oh, and a quick comment to Lucid Realty's contention that Realtors are avoiding short sales like the plague. Where have you been? I'm a licensed broker and agents are lining up to take classes in short sales at CAR. My biz partner went yesterday. It is estimated that soon, 40% of all residential sales will be the result of foreclosure. Every agent I know is learning about short sales, is doing them or is planning to. I think your information is outdated.

This means that houses will finally become affordable again for the average family. Why is this a bad thing?

This is BUSH fault, his admin. wanted to say I got more people in houses than Bill Clinton. The only way they could do this is to drop all requirements for buying a house.

But Hey - we got exactly the amount of regulatory oversight of the mortgage industry that we voted to receive. At least we do not have gay marriage, and that was the important issue.

Dave Urbaniak wrote:

This is going to have such significant long term consequences that it is almost unimaginable. All these people now have destroyed credit, making it impossible for them to buy again. Less buyers mean more unsold homes being reduced in price. That affects the home values around them. More foreclosures mean lower home values, because banks are selling them under market value to get them off their books. More homes sold under market value means appraisals for other homes in the area will report lower values. More homes sitting empty in foreclosure means less tax revenue for the municipalities where the homes are. Its a downward spiral that is going to take at least another 12 to 18 months to hit bottom and start to climb back, if then.

But how many houses are really being affected by this? We're talking with small percentages of the total population, not giant percentages. Yes, some places are worse than others, but you don't see even 1/50 houses in foreclosure. That might be one in a neighborhood, or if there is more than one, then there are other neighborhoods without any!

I don't see why there has to be this massive bailout when an overwhelming majority of homes aren't being foreclosed on or are even close to foreclosure!

And I agree that a larger percentage of home sales will be from foreclosed houses... because most people don't just pick up and move on a whim. That means that the vacant houses will be from the people who defaulted on their mortgage by-and-large. Most people buy a house and plan to stay there!

President Shrub hard at work ruining America.

Yeah, yeah, foreclosures are up, housing sucks. Shows you what real estate agents/brokers are worth. They have No effect on a market. Tell us something we are not so aware of already. Although, tell the A..R..S..E..S on wall street, then again they like screwing things up. Then again low stock prices mean higher yields if your playing in the game.

hiyoag wrote:

President Shrub hard at work ruining America.

Clinton rode the Internet bubble Bush would have had, if he would have kept his mouth shut about taxes. The president has little to do with the economy. Talk to global companies about that.

These days the big question when buying a home is whether the value of the house will delcine a faster rate than a new car. No longer can one assume that buying a home is a sure way to increase your net worth over time. Owning a home may be a way to DECREASE one's net worth.

Homes were never and should never be your sure fire way to increase your net worth. Too many people thought that they could buy a house and then flip it in 2-4 years and make a big gain on the sale. One problem out there right now are the 3-5 year ARM loans that people got that are all now resetting. These people figured that they could put their house on the market, sell it quickly, make a hefty profit all before those loans came due. Now, those houses and condos are competing on the market with foreclosures and bank short sales, which are being offered below market value. And stop blaming bush for this and blame people who should have known that a person make $50K a year could not own a house valued at 400K. The mortgage brokers who made these loans should be sent to jail, and realtors who should have known better then to put a person in their dream house when they knew that person would struggle to make payments in a year when their rates reset. And of course the people who were to dumb to read the fine print of their mortgages and figured that they would be able to get a new loan with zero equity in their house.

Get rid of the BMW and quit keeping up with the Joneses. Live within your budget and everything will work out fine.
Gota have! Gota have! I want it!

Interesting headline. An equally accurate one would have been "Less than 1% of US Households receive one foreclosure notice".

Is this the Trib or the Enquirer now?

HUMM wrote:

This is BUSH fault, his admin. wanted to say I got more people in houses than Bill Clinton. The only way they could do this is to drop all requirements for buying a house.

Do you really want the government to decide who should get a mortgage? Look at it this way, most of the people who have mortgages are still making good on them. Many of those people would never have been able to buy a home if there were tighter requirements. In business, there will always be risk; you can't take risks and expect that the government will guarantee that you win. The dot-com bust was not Clinton's fault and the current mortgage crisis is not Bush's fault.

Homeowners living beyond their means and lenders NOT using proper underwritting policies. This match of stupidity should not go unrewarded. The reward is of course is bankrupcy for the stupid borrower and insolvency for the greedy and lazy lender.

Pete wrote:

Interesting headline. An equally accurate one would have been "Less than 1% of US Households receive one foreclosure notice".
Is this the Trib or the Enquirer now?

1% level of foreclosures is unacceptable.