With the nation embattled in housing and credit problems, the government has launched a housing rescue campaign led by the Hope Now coalition. Since June 2007 to February 2008, the total number of troubled mortgages saved from foreclosure has reached 1.2 million.
Although this is good news, Hope Now has also released data for the same period that showed 419,000 troubled owners who lost their homes to foreclosure.
Hope Now coalition is a government-supported coalition of investors, community organizations and lenders whose objectives fall into two categories: loan modification and repayment plan. Out of the 1.2 million mortgages that Hope Now worked out, 848,000 fell under the repayment plan.
For troubled owners, this is generally not helpful and only exacerbates the problem. The coalition should actually consider the fact that most of these borrowers can not really afford their mortgage payments in the first place. Even with loan modifications and repayment plans, majority of them will still struggle to make ends meet.
As a result, many of these borrowers eventually walk away especially since they no longer have any equity left on their homes. Critics of the Rescue effort believe that the administration is touting these data in order to have an excuse to launch a more aggressive rescue campaign.
The Bush administration has always been opposed to the idea of a foreclosure bailout, which will be shouldered by the taxpayers. But the risk of not taking a more aggressive stand is already affecting the national economy. There is much fear about a looming recession considering the weakening dollar and the numerous lenders filing for bankruptcy.
Many real estate experts believe that as many as 2 million foreclosure listings will be recorded for 2008 alone. Such number will surely affect the national economy in a negative manner.
If you are looking for more foreclosure news and information, you should visit MostlyForeclosures.com.
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