preview

Foreclosure Crisis

Best Essays

Foreclosure Crisis: What Should the Federal Government Do?
The mortgage crisis we are experiencing in the United States today is already ranking as among the most serious economic events since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Hardly a day goes by without a story in the newspaper or on the cable news stations reporting about the increase in the number of foreclosures across the United States. The effects of this crisis have spread across all financial markets, where in the end all of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis. When the housing market collapsed, so did the availability of credit which our economy depends upon. The home mortgage crisis, the financial crisis and overall economic crisis all need to address by the …show more content…

A few years later the market took a turn for the worse, where interest rates were on the rise, and homes were losing their value quickly. Now borrowers that were in these interest only ARM’s needed to refinance these loans because the rates were going up, to a point where the homeowner was not be able to afford the payment. The Federal Reserve tried to stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates during the recession in early 2001, from over 6% in 2000, to a rate just above 1.25% in 2002. These low rates encouraged many Americans to apply for loans for homes that a few years ago they would have not been able to. To encourage the homeownership boom, the Bush administration urged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to allot more money for low-income borrowers so they could buy their own homes. This resulted in the subprime mortgage boom, which lasted from 2001 to 2003. During that time, about 9% of all mortgages were given to sub-prime borrowers. This figure increased dramatically to 19% in 2004, and over the next two years was as high as 21%. The main goal the government should be focusing on is to reduce homeowner’s monthly payments, by enticing lenders to make concessions in interest rates that will make their payment affordable. This plan can keep families in their homes and would decrease the number of foreclosures. Providing a financial rescue plan without requiring

Get Access