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Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Housing Foreclosures


     Brimingwith research notes the US Housing markets repeats a cycle that first became noticeable in the 1990s.  The Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) was a U.S. government-owned entity  established to liquidate insolvent Savings and Loans (S &Ls) caused by bad and sometimes fraudulent mortgage loans.  There are very few remaining S & Ls today.
http://www.marketplacelists.com/mutual_savings_banks.htm

     During a period from 1989-1996  interest rates at which S & Ls could borrow increased.  The S&Ls could not attract adequate capital from such sources as member deposits. They became insolvent. Rather than admit to insolvency, lax regulatory oversight allowed some S&Ls to invest in highly speculative investment strategies. This had the effect of extending the period where S&Ls were likely technically insolvent.  Fraud in the industry was rampant. Illegal land flips and other criminal activity ruled the day.  

     From the period from 1986-1995,more than half of the nation's Savings and Loans with total assets of more than $500 billion, had failed. By 1999, the crisis cost $160 billion, with taxpayers footing the bill for $132 billion with the S&L industry paying the rest.
This crisis accounted for a large part of the early 1990s budget deficits.  With our current economic crisis and having 26,000,000 Americans unemployed or underemployed, we repeated essentially what happened in the 80’s and 90’s. 

     In the current crisis fraud was unprecedented with sellers, buyers, and financial institutions inflating the price of properties, using straw buyers to purchase properties where they have no intention of making their residence and “no income, no assets” loans and sell of deficient subprime mortgage backed securities nearly wiping out an entire generation of pension plans.
    Although, the housing situation has improved with government bailouts and foreclosure prevention programs for homeowners. According to a HUD In all, more than 10.1 million mortgage modifications and other forms of mortgage assistance arrangements were completed between April 2009 and the end of November 2015.


      More than 2.5 million homeowner assistance actions have taken place through the Making Home Affordable Program, including nearly 1.6 million permanent modifications through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), while the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has offered more than 3.0 million loss mitigation and early delinquency interventions through November. These Administration programs continue to encourage improved standards and processes in the industry, with lenders offering families and individuals more than 4.6 million proprietary modifications through October 2015.

     Now, not only are cities saddled with abandoned property as population diminished particularly in rust belt areas but they are now riddled in every zipcode with foreclosures.  



Codes requiring security and maintenance of properties




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