From Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5980M520091009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Government programs to fight the U.S. home foreclosure crisis look increasingly inadequate and should be reworked, expanded and supplemented with new ideas, a congressional watchdog said in a report on Friday.
With a foreclosure filing occurring every 13 seconds, the United States is mired in a housing slump that is destroying billions of dollars in property values and threatening to choke off the economy’s recovery from a stubborn recession.
The foreclosure crisis has moved beyond subprime mortgages into the prime mortgage market, said the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the $700 billion bailout launched under the Bush administration.
“Rising unemployment, generally flat or even falling home prices, and impending mortgage rate resets threaten to cast millions more out of their homes,” according to the report, which focused on the Treasury Department’s efforts to curb foreclosures.
“The panel urges Treasury to reconsider the scope, scalability and permanence of the programs designed to minimize the economic impact of foreclosures, and consider whether new programs or program enhancements could be adopted,” it said.
The government’s other effort to stem foreclosures, the Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, helps homeowners who are current on their mortgages but owe more than their homes are worth, get more affordable loans.
As of September 1, the watchdog report said, HAMP had helped arrange 1,711 permanent mortgage modifications, with an additional 362,348 borrowers in a three-month trial stage. HARP has closed 95,729 mortgage refinancings, it said.
jim, not sure if u take these kinds of request, but i’d like to see u do a video tour on this http://www.redfin.com/CA/Rancho-Santa-Fe/Undisclosed-address-92067/home/4191275
it reminds me of that cautionary rsf lakefront home that sold at auction and needed $2 million to fix.
Doesnt the 8000.00 tax credit actually cost about 40,000.00/home when all is said and done?Why are all the cronies on wall street getting the handouts?I dont think the avg joe has seen any help at all.Congress is acting like they want to help the working man but goldman keeps throwing money at them so they get what they want.The system is broken my friends.Until the american people stand up we are going to have a corrpupt system.
Instead of providing bailouts to banks we should provide incentives for businesses that provide gainful employment.
Let the bad banks fold. Others will take their place. And the banks that replace the current bad banks will be based more on sound business practices and less on lobbying and gov handouts.
That Reuters article is the kind of thing that makes me feel increasingly curmudgeonly. Would it be good if the government enacted policies to:
* Keep food prices high?
* Keep medical costs high?
* Keep housing prices high?
Most people would think it insane if policies were designed to keep food and medical costs high, yet the mainstream media doesn’t question that it’s good to enact policies that keep housing prices high.
“Doesnt the 8000.00 tax credit actually cost about 40,000.00/home when all is said and done?”
That’s per *extra house sold* not per house sold.
Keeping people in their homes doesn’t need to be the same thing as propping up home “values.” People who have kept their mortgages current even though their homes are underwater have proven that they are good repayment prospects, so programs to enable them to refi their full balances (with NO “restructuring”) at lower rates can help them with little or no risk of default and without artificially propping up their home “value.” You could probably do something to help people who have paid faithfully for years but are now in trouble due to job loss or catastrophic illness as well. But for those who just overpaid and overmortgaged, just get on with the foreclosures so the market can bottom and find whatever turns out to be some semblance of normal.
Dwip-The government most certainly does enact policies that keep food prices high. Ever hear of farm subsidies? There you go. Paying farmers not to grow crops certainly keeps prices higher than otherwise.