Does the California Foreclosures Crisis Spell Recession?
Most California residents are feeling the weight of tighter lending guidelines as well as sluggish real estate market condition. Coupled with rising interest rates and negative appreciation values, many home owners are forced to give up their homes to foreclosure. Ever since foreclosures rate soared, California remains to be among the states with the highest foreclosure homes rate. In fact, the number of California foreclosure homes has soared by approximately 800 percent since last year.
In the beginning, the high foreclosures rate was being blamed not only on the subprime market but also on real estate speculators. During the last housing boom, lenders took advantage of borrowers with poor credit rating and offered them adjustable rate mortgages. These mortgages naturally ballooned after the interest rates re-set according to the terms of the ARM. Unfortunately, many owners could not afford their monthly mortgage payments any longer.
Right now, the foreclosures crisis is also affecting owners with good credit ratings, also making them lose their home to foreclosure. As the sluggish market drove down home prices, many owners lost whatever equity they have on their homes. This, of course, creates the perfect foundation for a market crash. Only now, the difference is significant. In 1996, market crashed due to high unemployment rates brought about by defense budget cutbacks. Today, the market may be experiencing a similar phenomenon although one can blame it on aggressive lenders.
Because of this significant difference, it is not surprising that many expert realtors are waiting for how events will turn out in the end. In situations like this, people can only hope that the errors made in the past that resulted to the large inventory of California foreclosure homes will be corrected. Real estate foreclosures expert like E-ForeclosureSearch.com help matters by offering professional assistance to both sellers and buyers of forclosure homes in California.