CHESSNOID

The recession will continue to get worse until the housing issue is dealt with and resolved.  The housing bust was the giant domino that put our economy into the worse recession since the Great Depression.  Now that  foreclosures have worsened, both the unemployment rate and homeless population are growing.

I don’t mind the government using taxpayer money if it helps people, but both Bush and Obama’s administrations have squandered money away to help only Corporate America.  It is ridiculous that taxpayer money was and is still being used to pay executive bonuses.

There are so many people affected now by the housing crisis that there is literally someone delinquent on every block of the United States.  If you live in a metro area, than multiple people are struggling to stay in their homes.  There is literally 1 in 7 home loans past due or in foreclosure right now and it will continue to get worse for at least another 2 years.

Los Angeles Times:

One in seven U.S. home loans was past due or in foreclosure as of Sept. 30, putting that quarterly delinquency measure at its highest level since 1972, when the Mortgage Bankers Assn. began reporting it. At the beginning of this year, 1 in 10 loans was past due or in foreclosure.

The continued surge in delinquencies suggests that a recovery in the housing market could be stalled by the worsening job picture as well as by further fallout from the easy-money lending that prevailed during the boom years.

Signals about housing have been decidedly mixed. On the bright side, median home prices appear to have stabilized — for the time being, anyway — in hard-hit areas of California such as the Inland Empire, and have begun to inch up again in San Diego and Orange counties and in San Francisco.

But recent negative indicators, in addition to rising foreclosures, include the home lender group’s report Wednesday that applications for mortgages to buy homes have declined for six straight weeks despite interest rates below 5% on 30-year fixed-rate loans. Also Wednesday, the Commerce Department said the seasonally adjusted rate of housing starts fell more than 10% in October from the previous month.

Overall, 14.41% of all U.S. home loans were in foreclosure or at least 30 days past due at the end of the third quarter — 1 in 7 — and up from 13.16% in the second quarter.

When will the economy recover?  When the housing market recovers.   This is the origin of our country’s economic problems and this is where the solution can be found.  As long as our politicians continue to ignore the real problems, this economy will not fully recover.  Every foreclosure that happens is one more reason to vote out our current politicians at the next election.