Home foreclosure rate stays high

[UpInArms]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/021404dnbusforeclosures.7a992.html

(free registration required)

excerpt:

During the first quarter of 2004, 7,970 residential foreclosure postings were recorded in the Dallas- Fort Worth area, an increase of 20 percent, according to statistics released this week by Foreclosure Listing Service.

In last year's first quarter, home foreclosures were up more than 75 percent.

<snip>

First-quarter home foreclosure postings grew by the largest amount in Dallas County, up 24 percent. They were up 18 percent in Tarrant County and 17 percent in Denton County.

...more...

[mhr]

1. The Dallas Economy Was Devastated By The Telecom Implosion

Many of those folks are slowly giving up the ghost.

One estimate is that 112,000 people were downsized from telecom in North Dallas between 2001 and 2002.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

2. Same way all the way across the country. Disastrous economics.

[murielm99]

3. It is the same all across the country.

I live in a rural community, in Northern Illinois, where we have only a weekly paper. I have noticed in the last few months that they have been adding extra pages to the legal section to accomodate all the foreclosure notices. This is usually a very stable area, too.

Many of our local plants are closing. Sometimes, those factories employed most of the people in a rural community who were non-farmers. Some counties around here are consolidating school districts and closing schools because there is no money to support them. They are losing their tax bases, and people are leaving the area.

[Lindsay]

4. But...but...

The government sez the economy is booming!

(Or can't those fools tell the difference between a boom and a bust?)

[LibDemAlways]

5. I work in an office that processes homeowners

insurance and see escrow documents every day. In order to buy overpriced homes in California people are taking out huge mortgages. Even at low interest rates, the monthly payments have to be astronomical. Why the banks approve these loans in the first place is a mystery. It's no mystery at all that the foreclosure rate is so high -- a serious illness, family emergency, job loss -- and those colossal mortgage payments become impossible to meet. What's going to make the problem even worse in the future is that when interest rates rise, home prices will fall and a whole lot of people are going to end up owing way more than their homes are worth. Then the foreclosure rate will go through the roof.

[jburton]

6. But this is GOOD news!

See, entrepeneurs can buy these foreclosed properties at a bargain price, then become absentee landlords for the people who used to own their own homes but now have to pay rent.

It creates jobs, don't you see?

Welcome to the Bush* American Dream.