The Great Housing Crash of ‘08
Despite Bank of America buying Countrywide, it’s far from over.
by Jeff Davis
Bank of America recently took over Countrywide Mortgage, the nation’s largest mortgage lending institute, which was in danger of going bankrupt. The stock market has dropped one thousand points in the last month as anxiety over the growing mortgage crisis increases. Our current society, obsessed with outsourcing, has made millions of jobs, which used to be reliable, uncertain, and many white collar employees are failing to pay off their loans along with the unreliable subprime crowd.
While a few thousand jobs at Countrywide may have been spared, the larger problem of millions of shaky loans still exists. The plunge in housing prices means that any defaulted loan will likely cost the lender a lot of money. The building industry will be severely hurt as lending criteria are raised so high that very few will qualify. The Great Housing Crash of ‘08 is on the way. Will you be wiped out by negative equity?
According to Yahoo News: “U.S. homeowners increasingly failed to keep up with their home loan payments in November, as the number of foreclosure filings surged 68 percent nationwide compared with the same month a year ago, according to a mortgage research company. In all, 201,950 foreclosure filings were reported last month, compared with 120,334 in November 2006, Irvine-based RealtyTrac Inc….Last month’s filings fell 10 percent from October’s 224,451. The last time there was a sequential drop in foreclosure filings was between August and September, when they fell 8 percent…The U.S. had one foreclosure filing for every 617 households in November, RealtyTrac said.” (more…)