Solving The Housing Crisis

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It’s hard when a home becomes a house: left with walls, stripped of memories. It’s disheartening when a family becomes a number: left with foreclosure, stripped of dignity. In 2007, over-extended borrowers began to default on their sub-prime mortgages; mortgages that increased as more and more families chased the American dream during the housing boom. The interest rates were “teasingly” low, but more detrimentally, they were variable. When mortgage rates were readjusted, homeowners found that they could no longer pay the upped monthly payments. Such sucked them in to the dizzying downward spin of heightened debt and negative equity. Such sucked them into the foreclosure crisis.

Yet on the other side of the spectrum are the bankers, those who must then face the ramifications of the underwater loans. What do they do about the payments that now come in both late and sporadically, at best? Should the loans be extended to these unreliable borrowers? What of their obligations to the investors and depositors who have trusted them with their life-savings? When all’s said and done, they too, are left paying for sub-prime mortgages. They, too, are hurt by the foreclosure crisis.

Such countering predicaments were outlined above to show the many layers, the many complexities of which we must take into account. Yet in retrospect, it is important to note that both, understandably, lack very much the concept of “trust”. With so much at stake, any solution met must rectify this for both parties.

My first solution to the foreclosure crisis is a modest spin on the standard participation mortgage. The first step taken is crucial to the solution: the bank must refinance the loan. Simplistic, no? Such is already something we’ve considered, w...

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... they need to get back on their feet.

It’s important to note that the solutions made above should be on a person-to-person basis and do not apply to everyone. Yet, if possible, it is to the best interest of all parties to see that these solutions are implemented. For in every city, in every neighborhood, and on every street, there is someone facing foreclosure. If not for the empathy of another’s pain, then look at it in terms of how it’s hurting you. If you’re a neighbor, you’re left with an unsafe, empty neighborhood and a house that’s worth considerably less because of it. If you’re a bank, you’re left owning a house with unpaid mortgages and annual property taxes. If you’re an investor, you see your shares decreasing in value which takes money out of your own pocket. The foreclosure crisis affects everyone, and it’s about time that we realize that.

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