Obama And Homeowners

April 9. 2009

"Video: Obama Offers Way for Homeowners to Save Bucks" - The Associated Press

In a bid to help homeowners in America, president Barack Obama has introduced new incentives, to aid in staving off foreclosure. However, some banks are still a major reason why foreclosure rates are so high in America and continue to climb.

Some banks are not doing much to help homeowners and this shall continue to undermine what the administration is attempting to do in this sector. Things are getting more and more out of control.

For example, some banks are barring financially distressed homeowners from renting their homes to others, to pay the mortgage, even when the property is in what is referred to as pre-foreclosure.

This happened to my neighbors, a hard working, responsible American family and as a result, they may lose their home they have put so much into over the years, even renovating it.

They, like many others, are not deadbeats, but some fail to grasp what happened during Bush's presidency, especially the final two years.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle

Due to Bush's poor economic policies, aggressiveness in escalating the costly war in Iraq, whilst ignoring the U.S. economy, with millions of ever ballooning mortgages, among other things, prices shot up in America, rendering the country unaffordable to many citizens.

People have not recovered from the horrible surge in gas and food prices, that usurped much of their budgets, causing their mortgages to fall behind.

The trouble was especially compounded for millions of people with balloon mortgages, that mysteriously went up over night by 50%-100%, making once manageable payments, financially unreachable.

For example, foreclosure rates were next to nothing in the middle class town I've lived for the past 10 years. Now, half the homes on many blocks are in foreclosure and it is something locals notice and lament, as these are one's neighbors that successfully maintained their homes and mortgages they worked hard to preserve for years, prior to this crisis. This is a pattern repeating itself all over America, as something has gone terribly wrong. 

Once again, some banks are not working with homeowners and if the administration fails to correct this, their efforts shall be in vain.

Mortgage delinquencies soar in the U.S.

Tue Apr 7, 2009 3:55pm EDT - NEW YORK (Reuters) - More U.S. consumers are falling behind on their mortgages, an indication that the housing market has yet to hit bottom, a top credit bureau executive told Reuters.

Dann Adams, president of U.S. Information Systems for Equifax Inc, reported that 7 percent of homeowners with mortgages were at least 30 days late on their loans in February, an increase of more than 50 percent from a year earlier.

He also said 39.8 percent of subprime borrowers were at least 30 days behind on their home mortgage loans, up 23.7 percent from last year.

"I'm trying to find optimism in these numbers, but I'm pretty hard pressed to do that," Adams said, despite a recent burst of relatively positive news that has fueled hope that the U.S. housing market has turned a corner.

http://www.reuters.com