Senators or others who had kicked the can down the road on foreclosures face the grim reality that foreclosures continue apace, as reported by RealtyTrac today. And while the Treasury Secretary seemed to find some importance in the pace peaking, that hardly seems relevant to policy options that even Dems set aside.
Analyst Meridith Whitney tells CNBC this morning that home prices are headed still lower, with high probability... I suspect the flow of foreclosed properties to the market will be managed to avoid anything precipitous, but the supply of homes ought to at least keep a lid on prices, if it doesn't push them down further, in the regions most affected, including the national political-lynchpins, like Florida.
Arianna writes:
It's important to remember that many of the people losing their homes now are not people with crazy sub-prime mortgages or who took out massive loans they couldn't afford. They are hard working, middle class Americans who have lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet.
It's equally important to remember that these are the same banks that used bailout money -- our money -- to hire lobbyists to kill legislation in the Senate this spring that would have saved over a million-and-a-half people from losing their homes.
It's really astonishing that the collective suffering caused by Wall Street excesses has not generated more political pressure.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Foreclosures Continue Apace
It's hard to hear stories like these and not be outraged that, as a country, we have given trillions of dollars to save banks like Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo that are now turning around and refusing to modify mortgages, so that at least people with children can stay in their homes.
