Keeping the Homeownership Dream Alive
With foreclosures at an all-time high, lawmakers are working to help people keep their homes.
By Heather Morton
September 2007
Long touted as the American dream, homeownership is at its highest ever. But with rising interest rates and the growing number of houses in foreclosure, owning a home may be some people’s worst nightmare.
Buying a home can be a confusing, complicated transaction—and cost a lot of money. If consumers don’t understand the process, make poor financial choices, or are misled by unscrupulous actors, they can end up with a home and a loan that are difficult to afford.
Nearly 5 percent of all outstanding residential mortgage payments were late in the first quarter of 2007, which isn’t a lot more than the first quarter of 2006, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Delinquency Survey. But what has increased is the percentage of homeowners who have received a foreclosure notice. That number is the highest it’s ever been since the banker’s group started doing the survey in 1953.
The Center for Responsible Lending predicts that one out of five subprime mortgages originated in the past two years will end in foreclosure. But even though foreclosures are increasing in some segments of the mortgage market, they have not yet reached the crisis stage, according to the Center for Statistical Research.
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