The national housing market is shrouded in uncertainty. But in California, there are glimmers of stability.
The last home of the Grateful Dead's lead singer is on the market. The expansive Mediterranean, found in the hills north of San Francisco, is going for a cool $4 million.
The worst is over for the housing market -- at least according to Wall Street.
The foreclosure crisis has entered a new phase: The number of properties entering the foreclosure process has dropped, and now nearly matches the number of repossessions.
Nearly half of all Americans who claimed the first-time homebuyer tax credit on their 2009 tax returns will have to repay the government.
The government has bailed out Wall Street firms, giant banks, creditors of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- and is trying to bail out people who've defaulted or are about to default on their mortgages. But let's say you're a hardworking family that has done nothing wrong except buy a home when the housing bubble was at its peak a few years ago. Your mortgage is now way underwater, but you're still making payments because you want to stay in your home -- and you're actually honorable. You're paying for everyone else's bailout, but because you have no equity in your house, you can't refinance to take advantage of the ultra-low mortgage rates that Uncle Sam's bailout strategy has produced. To use the technical term, you're being screwed.
Categories: Economy, Interest Rates, Mortgage's, Refinance Tags: bailout, Creditors, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac, freddie mac, Giant Banks, Housing Bubble, Low Mortgage, mortgage rates, Mortgage's, Uncle Sam, Wall Street, Wall Street Firms
For the growing number of struggling homeowners in this country, more help is on the way. Additional aid from the federal government will begin making its way to them next month -- one program would help qualified homeowners refinance their mortgages after seeing their property values fall below the amount they owe, and the other includes another round of funding to help the unemployed or underemployed with their payments.
