Primary Cause Of Foreclosure Now Unemployment

nytimes.com:

The Obama administration's main program to keep distressed homeowners from falling into foreclosure has been aimed at those who took out subprime loans or other risky mortgages during the heady days of the housing boom. But these days, the primary cause of foreclosures is unemployment.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[99er2049er]

09:53 PM on 06/09/2011

I was a 99er until recently when I finally landed a job. The job is unstable, so I don't know how long it will last, but at least I got a job. I lost my home to foreclosure, Fannie Mae bought up the loan and is telling me I have to vacate within a few days or they will begin legal action to evict me. I filed bankruptcy and am in foreclosure, so every renter is asking me for my credit background and most demand good credit.

So I am hoping to find a private home owner who is willing to rent to me if I provide a large security deposit and have a high paying job now. But it's really difficult. And time is running out.

[joni brit]

04:35 PM on 06/07/2011

It's an interesting way to put it, unrestrained and unfettered capitalism, because with the change in our banking laws, the rise of derivitive debt happened so quickly, without the correct banking laws in place, It will happen now, we might have to backtrack a little, but before moving forward we always go back. That's why there is no blame in this situation, a lot of people made a ton of money, and many more lost, but in a few years it will all be straightened out. I just want everyone believing in the land of milk and honey again, because travel the world and the United States still is the land of opportunity -- just right now, 6,000,000 families need their home back and another 9% need their jobs back -- and it will happen. If you see what's happening to the Banking stocks even today, the amount they have dropped, Wells Fargo from 28 to 25, the truth always comes out in our system.

[sonoffestus]

02:57 PM on 06/07/2011

America's race to the bottom will not end until people come together to solve your problems. Your elected leaders work harder at dividing you than uniting you. You're in very serious trouble and yet you keep digging.

I'm sure tax cuts, corporate welfare and a bloated military will help...............yeah right!

[RedRat]

07:53 PM on 06/06/2011

Gee who woulda thunk that unemployment is playing a major role in foreclosures???? WTF. Are these jokers who pass themselves off as economists finally coming to that conclusion!!!!! You know, I don't have a degree in economics but I could have told them that, in point of fact I have been saying that both here at HP and over at the WaPost for some time now. Brilliant.

Lord, with brain power like that, we are in deep, deep doo-doo.

[bigteffie]

06:25 PM on 06/07/2011

$250,000 worth of house + no job = nowhere to live ... is this rocket science or simple math. Even though I have a degree in Business and another in History I could have figured that out in the third grade.

[RedRat]

07:40 PM on 06/07/2011

Amen to that. You really gotta wonder about the brainpower that Obama has around him. If this is the kind of economic thinking (or what passes for thinking) we are in big trouble. What's wrong with these guys, perhaps they have become "too smart for their britches" as many say. Sometimes, things are really quite simple as they look.

[99er2049er]

09:56 PM on 06/09/2011

I do laugh at this article because I never had a problem paying my mortgage or bills when I had a job, it's when I lost a job because of corporate mergers, downsizing, or the recession, that caused me to not be able to make my payments. I used to be able to borrow from my home equity loans and credit cards to cover me inbetween jobs, but the recession changed all that as everyone froze my credit lines. I wasn't prepared for that possibility.

Now I am bankrupt, foreclosed, and being pushed out of my home close to an eviction. And every home owner I try to rent from is asking to run a credit check on me (and wants me to pay for it). Most demand good credit. So this isn't easy to find a place to live.

[RedRat]

01:28 PM on 06/10/2011

You know, it is almost as if these renowned economists that surround Obama, just plain refuse to see the simplicity of the problem and are trying desperately to make it more complex than it really is. Perhaps they ought to take some guidance from their Psychiatric colleagues and be reminded that sometimes a telephone pole is a telephone poll.

The problem is that we have shifted our economy over to a service sector economy, which means far less job security, lower wages. When a business depends on temps and part timers, they have no reason to even remain in one place, there only concern is running the company in any way that maximizes profits, they are constantly looking for a "Gordon Gecko" so that the company founders can get out with a tidy profit. Workers be damned.

Unfortunately, I think home equity loans have been a disaster because they tend to obscure, to those taking them out, how bad this recession/depression really is. Many are/were like you, they used them between jobs. Now the between jobs can pretty much consume your equity limit, if not lower your equity. Equity loans, in "normal times" can be a good thing only under one condition: they contribute to the equity! Using them to tide one over or to buy what would be nice is a disaster waiting to happen.

[USNDC]

05:52 PM on 06/06/2011

Nonsense ... this all part of the brilliantly clever strategy of the smartest President ever !

Don't be fooled into believing that unemployment and foreclosures are bad ... isn't that right Barack ?

F A I L U R E

[bad spelling grammar]

06:15 PM on 06/06/2011

turn off your computor

[HippieChick]

12:50 PM on 06/07/2011

I am quite sure you were every bit as critical when you watched Dubya take our nation with its surplus economy and drive it off an economic cliff into a recessional abyss. You seem so balanced...

[rg27603]

01:41 PM on 06/06/2011

Obama spent his first year and a half trying to get Obamacare passed. He has failed on jobs and his programs to stave off foreclosures have been dismal failures. The stimulus was a disaster. Obama has been a disaster.

[JoeBlough]

02:11 PM on 06/06/2011

One man does not control the American Jobs Market. Nor will House Republicans allow him to even think about it. We must look to Boehner\Cantor to come up with their promised Job Program Bill. Republicans were given the majority vote to fix this.

[RedRat]

07:55 PM on 06/06/2011

I think I can tell you what the Boehner/Cantor bill will be all about: No taxes on all corporations and the wealthiest 2%. That's right, cut all those taxes and raise the taxes on the Middle Class and lower income classes. Then bring back poor houses and debtor prisons and slave labor. Get your mud huts ready folks and pass that bowl of rice.

[PilgrimMom]

02:20 PM on 06/06/2011

The stimulus was not a disaster.

Stimulus money saved thousands of teachers', firemen's, policemen's jobs across the entire US. Without the stimulus the unemployment rate would be above 12% today. It saved and instigated reform in the auto industry.

Quit using Faux sound bites as your only source of research.

[RedRat]

07:59 PM on 06/06/2011

I agree that the stimulus package was not a disaster as many claim. However, its main weakness was that it only preserved existing jobs, staved off unemployment for the time being, or at least as long as that money is around. In some districts and locales, that money is about all spent and now what? It put off the inevitable.

What was needed was money that actually could create jobs that were sustainable. For better or worse, the housing industry is a powerful part of our economy along with the auto industry. But the auto industry will begin hurting once again as more and more people get laid off. If you ain't got the money, you ain't buying cars or houses.

[Joe Padilla]

12:01 AM on 06/07/2011

But it did nothing for me.

[Matt12]

01:41 PM on 06/06/2011

"Disaster Not AvertedThe latest jobs numbers and the very real chance of another Great Depression"

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/89460/jobs-may-umemployment-second-great-depression

[demilieu]

01:35 PM on 06/06/2011

A 'Little help'? Try NO help. What a joke the 'Making Housing Afordable Program' is. A bad joke, that is. As the final waves of UI runs out, more homes will go under.

[JoeBlough]

02:12 PM on 06/06/2011

It's all the House Republicans would allow.

[99er2049er]

09:59 PM on 06/09/2011

I remember when the house republicans held up my unemployment extensions until they could get their greedy tax breaks extended for the rich. Without money, I had to file for bankruptcy. Thanks republicans, you suck so bad and I and millions of others will never vote for your party in our entire lives after the way you treated the American people who are suffering.

[Suzeeq]

12:36 PM on 06/06/2011

Has everyone in Washington got their head in the sand or their fingers in their ears? What is wrong with this government?!@# This decline in unemployment and property values has been going on since 2006 and still they do nothing, still they are incapable of launching any successful programs to help during these dark hours of the 2nd great depression - NOT recession! Still it's all about politics and scoring points instead of government doing their jobs and get this country on it's feet. It is so insane, so unbelievable that all they can think about is themselves. Wake up you hocus pocus government and do something!!! anything!!! just get the job done!!!

[norkas]

12:34 PM on 06/06/2011

Boehner and the other geniuses please show us the jobs so American can keep their homes and others may purchase homes.

Idiots we know you cannot be CEO for America but will CON us for more tax breaks and many more cuts in government related jobs that will cause more foreclosures then what we already have.

Cities and States already are cutting jobs to balance the budget and America is feeling it but Republican Politicians want massive cuts in Government that can cause a economic meltdown.

Yes Republicans want NO oversights of Wall Street and we will pay big time for that as well.

Less and Less taxes for wealthy that the middle-class pays for.

As more people are laid of by excessive government job cuts foreclosures and poverty will increase.

Thank You Republican Politicians for caring about humanity in America !

What a con job

[ErnestineBass]

01:20 PM on 06/06/2011

Just Cons Serving themselves.

[99er2049er]

10:00 PM on 06/09/2011

Plain and simple, I had no job, so I couldn't pay for my mortgage. Thanks to the democrats, I could at least put food on the table and survive. The republicans wanted me to go homeless. Now I have a job, but have lost my house. But at least I can contribute high taxes again.

[norkas]

12:20 PM on 06/06/2011

Conservatives want much more spending cuts on programs and what they deem down sizing government.

Today Cities are trying to balance their budgets and people are loosing their jobs but Conservatives wants to take far more aggressive actions which will cause perhaps a total economic meltdown.

Democrats and Republicans have different solutions to brings abut a balanced deficit .

The idea over and over again is for a massive reduction in government so wall street , polluters,the food we eat, autos we drive have no oversight.

Republican want lower axes to the point we have very little infrastructure and the middle class will pay the burden for the low taxes of the wealthy.

The conservatives politicians of today do not relate to anything other then selfish greed and a distain for the middle class and poor.

Welcome to the fascist conservative movement.

[ahjuci]

12:05 PM on 06/06/2011

The issue should be JOBS, NOT THE DEFICIT NOR DEBT.

WHERE ARE THE JOBS, Mr. Boehner ?

What happened to your "laserlike focus on jobs" ?

JOBS, NOT THE DEFICIT NOR DEBT.%u201D

[rg27603]

01:44 PM on 06/06/2011

I guess he thought that Pelosi and Reid created so many in their two year reign that he did not need to create anymore. After all, Pelosi and Reid kept telling everyone that the stimulus was creating millions of jobs. LOL.

[99er2049er]

10:05 PM on 06/09/2011

Boehner is too busy helping the millionaires and billionaires get tax breaks, while shutting down medicare.

[forgetdc]

12:02 PM on 06/06/2011

Once you get a few months behind, they system makes it almost impossible to catch up even if you have the money. The foreclosure attorneys just want to keep the process moving forward and rarely want to make a deal that helps the homeowner. Lawyer fees are tacked on to the amount needed to bring the loan current and it is usually thousands of dollars with no itemization of what the costs were for. They will refuse a plan to bring a loan current, refuse a deal for a discounted payoff and then many times the bank ends up losing 50% or more on the liquidation of the property. The banks are foolish to continue using this antiquated process. I saw a transaction fall apart one time because the bank would not take a 10k discount on the seller side. Lawyer said they would make more taking the property back. Then the bank ended up selling the property to the same party for $160,000 less, and they paid legal fees and realtor fees to do it.

[itolduso]

01:25 PM on 06/06/2011

But the banks get to write off the loss.....and taxpayers end up subsidizing the banksters as they throw our neighbors to the street and destroy our communities.....There is no 'shame' when businesses go broke - they simply write off the losses and start up again 'fresh'....It is only the working people - individuals - who are demonized and belittled as 'failures' ..... when, for whatever reason, they find that they have fallen behind and cannot pay..... our society - goaded on by the 'serial loser' hypocrites at the top - insist that the individuals who cannot pay must be made to suffer....they must be destroyed, and left with nothing, as warning to others to never, ever break a contract with a bank or business. Why do we continue to tolerate this?

[99er2049er]

10:07 PM on 06/09/2011

And Fannie Mae who we help out is turning around and giving me just a few days to respond and vacate before they begin eviction process. They won't even rent to me for a short period until I can find a new place to rent. And nobody is wanting to rent to someone with bad credit, a bankruptcy, and a foreclosure on their record.

[demilieu]

01:39 PM on 06/06/2011

In most contracts, as soon as the borrower hits the foreclosure stage, the entire note and all fees & penalties need to be 100% paid off to stop the foreclosure process. I real life, if a person's out of work and misses a payment, and then still doesn't find re-employment, it's unlikely they'll be able to make 2 full payments in the new month. The banks could add it into the note balance, but they usually don't. As for the legal and reality fees with a foreclosure, my understanding is the banks charge these all back to the owner.

[forgetdc]

03:31 PM on 06/06/2011

There is usually a clause that allows them to bring the existing loan current up until an hour before the sherrif sale.

[guveqzero]

10:25 AM on 06/06/2011

The primary cause of foreclosures was the nonsensical belief that inflation was the root of all evil. So rather than devalue property, the money club decided to devalue human beings. When that happened, it was all over for our country.

[iam99]

10:22 AM on 06/06/2011

It has been and is an attack on private property rights, contract law and rule of law.
A severed chain of title had always been forbidden prior to this meltdown.