NEW YORK, July 25, 2007
Home Foreclosures Up 121 Percent
One In 171 U.S. Households Received At Least One Foreclosure Notice In The 2nd Quarter
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Play CBS Video Video New Housing Bill Offers Relief As many homeowners have been forced to face foreclosure, a new housing bill currently working its way through Congress could help in a massive financial rescue effort. Jim Axelrod reports.
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Video Searching For The Best Home Home buyers may think that a bargain price can mean a great investment, but this is not always the case. Kelly Cobiella reports on a website which finds some of the best and worst houses up for sale.
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A home in foreclosure is seen in Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
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News Tools Foreclosure Rates A state-by-state look at foreclosure rates, which were up 81 percent nationwide in 2008.
Nationwide, 739,714 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice during the quarter, or one in every 171 U.S. households, Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. said. That's up 121 percent from the second quarter of 2007.
Soft housing sales, declining home values, tighter lending standards and a sluggish U.S. economy have left strapped homeowners with few options to avoid foreclosure. Many can't find buyers or owe more than their home is worth and can't refinance into an affordable loan.
Foreclosure filings increased year-over-year in all but two states, North Dakota and Alaska.
Nevada, California, Arizona, and Florida continued to clock in the highest foreclosure rates. One in every 43 Nevada households received a filing during the quarter.
Cities in California and Florida accounted for 16 of the worst 20 metro foreclosure rates. Stockton, Calif., had the worst rate, with one in every 25 homes in the town receiving a foreclosure filing. That's nearly seven times the national average.
RealtyTrac monitors default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. Banks took back more than 222,000 properties nationwide in the second quarter, the company said. Bank repossessions accounted for 30 percent of total foreclosure activity, up from 24 percent in the previous quarter.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, projects that by the end of next year, nearly 2.8 million U.S. households will either face foreclosure, turn over their homes to their lender or sell the properties for less than their mortgage's value.
The foreclosure report comes as the Senate is on track to pass a massive housing rescue bill by Saturday.
The bill is the most far-reaching rescue effort since the Great Depression - a $300 billion lifeline for homeowners facing foreclosure and their lenders, reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod. The bill allows homeowners to get out of those killer adjustable rate mortgages and into new fixed-rate loans guaranteed by the government.
It's designed to keep an estimated 400,000 homeowners out of foreclosure and support troubled mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The plan creates a new regulator and tighter controls on the government-sponsored mortgage firms and starts a permanent affordable housing program to be financed by their profits. That fund would be tapped to cover any government losses from the foreclosure rescue.
At a hearing Friday on Capitol Hill, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, reiterated threats to more closely regulate loan servicing companies if they don't modify more home loans to prevent foreclosures. Loan servicing companies, which collect mortgage payments and distribute them to investors, have been criticized by lawmakers and consumer advocates for not doing more to help troubled borrowers.
CBS' Radio's Bob Fuss reports members of Congress say they're getting a lot of complaints from homeowners who say they're unable to get help from their lenders to avoid foreclosures. James Barber of the American Bankers Association insisted they try hard to avoid foreclosure - but one complication is that banks often re-sell mortgage loans to others.
An executive at Bank of America testified some homeowners calling for help reach a call center in India. Rep. Frank said he believes banks want to help homeowners avoid foreclosure but need to make sure all their employees know that is the case, Fuss reports.
Shares of Fannie and Freddie tumbled Friday. Investors remain jittery about the two government-sponsored mortgage companies' ability to raise cash to protect against losses. Fannie's stock fell 74 cents, or 6.2 percent, to $11.28. Freddie shares fell 62 cents, or 7 percent, to $8.19.
©MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More From Real Estate
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 140 CommentsThe joke is on them. Whereas food and gas may be necessary expenses, if retail charges more than we are willing or capable of paying--then the goods just won''t get bought. That''s all. ROTFLMAO
"There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire." (very similar to Moloch, yes?)
"Diodorus (Greek) also relates relatives were forbidden to weep and that when Agathocles defeated Carthage, the Carthaginian nobles believed they had displeased the gods by substituting low-born children for their own children." (sound familiar?)
Plutarch wrote in De Superstitiones 171:
"... the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people."
So this practice wasn''t confined to Mesopotamians (modern-day Iraq), but had similar rituals throughout the Middle East, including Israel.
Not quite, Moloch (or Molek, in Hebrew "Imlk")
was formed as half human, half bull, and also meant "king" (or nowadays "president").
Moloch
by Micha F. Lindemans
"King". The sun god of the Canaanites (Ammonites?) in old Palestine and sometimes associated with the Sumerian Baal, although Moloch (or Molekh) was entirely malevolent. In the 8th-6th century BCE, firstborn children were sacrificed to him by the Israelites in the Valleye of Hinnom, south-east of Jerusalem (see also Gehenna). These sacrifices to the sun god were made to renew the strength of the sun fire. This ritual was probably borrowed from surrounding nations, and was also popular in ancient Carthage.
Moloch was represented as a huge bronze statue with the head of a bull. The statue was hollow, and inside there burned a fire which colored the Moloch a glowing red. Children were placed on the hands of the statue. Through an ingenious system the hands were raised to the mouth (as if Moloch were eating) and the children fell into the fire where they were consumed by the flames. The people gathered before the Moloch were dancing on the sounds of flutes and tambourines to drown out the screams of the victims.
According to some sources, the Moloch in the Old Testament is not a god, but a specific form of sacrifice.
Posted by minnick8
I think he was referring to the fact that most Americans are now poorer as a result of Republican policies. Many (not all) Republicans believed their Parties policies would have the opposite effect. This delusional thinking indicates a serious break with reality.
Who needs all that space to accumulate junk they don''t need? It''s likely a couple with maybe one or two kids who had to have 6 bedrooms and 5 full baths.
Real estate in my area is going up because the McMansions are downsizing.
Let the shares of Fanney and Freddie drop to zero and nationalize the system etirely instead of it being a pseudo-private corporation.
The Macs have worked for 70 years. It was not until the slow dismantling of regulation that started in 1980 and culminated in the Phil Gramm ''''let them roam free'''' deregulation that the system imploded (as predicted). This is not a problem of socialism, this is not a ''''liberal'''' problem, this is a Class issue. It is Gilded Era ''''Free Market'''' Elites vs the rest of us and it is a war that has been raging since the dawn of civilization. When the Elites win, the rest of us lose.
Posted by curse914 at 11:55 AM : Jul 26, 2008
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Thank you for this information. From what I''ve learned it is accurate.
170 out of every 171 homes is NOT in foreclosure, yet this is a crisis? Huh....
Posted by cg37102006 at 11:46 PM
Where did this come from?
Posted by skyk
What was it about your shopping trip with your wife that would have emphasized mental problems in the Republican Party?
At that point, buyers are not existant even if the houses are saleable. Wouldn''t it be more economical to work with current owners to stay in their houses rather than forcing them out and leaving the houses vulnerable to theft and vandalism? I''ve even heard of houses being destroyed by the evicted previous owners.
Posted by nextGenMan
You could write the same thing about the lefty libs.
Posted by cg37102006 at 11:46 PM : Jul 25, 2008
Someone has got to explain to me why Republican''''s insist on trying to make people believe this whole thing is in their minds. I went with the wife shopping yesterday and I have news for you Republican''''s the ONLY mental problems anyone has in this nation lies in YOUR party!!
Posted by skyk at 08:15 AM : Jul 26, 2008
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As I said before, its out of desperation. Everything they''ve done has grown into Failure. Iraq. Afghanistan. The Economy. Their "morals and values" fall from Grace.
Failure.
And they are so prideful that they can''t admit they are failures. So they cling to anything, even the utterly ridiculous, to try and save face.
Posted by cg37102006 at 11:46 PM : Jul 25, 2008
Someone has got to explain to me why Republican''s insist on trying to make people believe this whole thing is in their minds. I went with the wife shopping yesterday and I have news for you Republican''s the ONLY mental problems anyone has in this nation lies in YOUR party!!
Just ripe for picking by the GOP bandits.
Just ripe for picking by the GOP bandits.
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
Posted by Humanavance at 04:56 AM : Jul 26, 2008
Right. We have become our own worst enemies.
Under your loving care America has become financially, morally and spiritually bankrupt.
Heck of a good job!
The Fed''s SOP is to make healthy banks take over failing banks, those healthy banks are then considered insolvent, and taken over by other healthy banks, which are then declared insolvent, and so on and so on.
The goal here is to reduce the number of banks. Treasury does not like dealing with more than 5 or 6 big monopoly banks. They don''t want hundreds of small banks. The don''t want millionaires with 10 million in cash spreading it around so it''s all insured under the FDIC''s depositors insurance. They don''t want to have to hire hundreds of regulators to police things. They don''t want to call a secret conference with 50 bankers and have one of them leak their shenanigans to the press. They like a small handful of banks who if there is a problem, they can just pick up the phone and make a few phone calls and have it taken care of, quietly, and secretly.
As for the poor mortgage holders, well just assume that anyone who bought a home between 2005 and 2007 is going to end up defaulting. The rest of us who bought in beforehand, don''t care. Those of us who never bought are jumping for joy. The folks who got screwed will just declare bankruptcy, and 7 years from now will have a clean credit record and be ready to get back in the game. Crisis over.
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