Today in the Wall Street Journal the headline read,"Bailout Bill Fails in House Vote
Amid Defections in Both Parties"Wow, I'm a bit surprised but quite relived. I had serious doubts about whether this Bill would really help the people that the Government claims it would.
Strangely enough I was reading another Article in WSJ " Rescue Includes Steps to Help Borrowers Keep Homes" and felt compelled to write to the author, "RUTH SIMON"
I would like to share this Letter with all here in ActiveRain and ask all you to chime in and give me your views and opinions:
Good Day Ruth Simon,
I just read your Article and enjoyed it immensely!
I was curious about a few things though and I'm in hopes that you could shed some light on them! So far from what I have been reading in the news(mostly for your Paper " WSJ") is that the Gov. is trying desperately to fix a problem that has grown far too big to begin with! Everything seems to be focused on how they can help current Homeowners(AKA) Taxpayers with their Mortgage issues so that they don't fall into a Foreclosure status. Being a Real Estate Agent in South Carolina, I, on a first-hand basis am seeing foreclosure begin to increase at an alarming rate . We as a company, have been involving ourselves more and more in Foreclosure transactions as well as Short Sales. We receive information monthly from our local County about properties that are coming to full foreclosure in order to be bid on at the County steps by anyone(mostly the Banks). The numbers I have seen since April 08 have steadily increased! In April there were 104 properties foreclosed on, in just one month those numbers jumped to 194 , that's an 87% increase within a mere 30 days! The numbers continued to fluctuate over the next three months holding at and around 190. Just recently, we have received the list of properties that will be foreclose on October 6th and that number has increased now to 224, giving us a 115% increase in foreclosed properties since April 08.
Now, considering that our Gov. is apparently working very hard to stem the very concerns that I'm seeing here on the frontline, I hope that they can come to some conclusion sooner than later as I feel that things will most certainly get far worse before they start to get better.
The other concern that has been rattling around in my head is, has the Gov. even begin to consider how to help the mass number of people that have already had their homes foreclosed on??? These Taxpayers are, first off, now Homeless and secondly have had their Credit dramatically scared for up to Ten Years.
As a whole, since 2003 our economy bolstered due to a consistently increasing Housing Market. Here in Myrtle beach we saw properties reach an apex between 2005 and 2006, with Oceanfront properties leading the way in price increases. All of a sudden, everybody is talking about investing in Real Estate. Flipping properties becomes the new National past-time. Networks like The Discovery Channel, Lifetime and Bravo start coming out with "Real Estate Reality Shows". Companies like "Lowes" and "Home Depot" see record sales as ‘Joe Taxpayer' rushes out to buy home improvement products and materials in order to cash-in on their newly acquired Real Estate investment. So, based on the huge shift we see happening in the Housing Market, everybody begins to rush in and take advantage of all this Money ‘Joe Taxpayer' is willing to spend. Builders & Developers start gobbling up Raw Land like it's going out of style so they can build houses and Communities in large numbers in order to feed the demand. During this process Lenders realize that they too can "Bank-in" on the rush as well and such begins the fledgling ‘Predator-Lending' practices that I believe have gotten us the debacle we in today!
From what I can make out so far on this proposed Bill, is ‘Joe Taxpayer' really the one that will be bailed out or will it simply be the large Banks and Lenders that come out clean?
I would love to hear your thoughts and views on the topics I mentioned above.
