gofer articles

What’s to be done when you owe more on the house than what it’s worth? Such is the quandry in which owners and lenders of mortgages have been stuck. This is what first set off the worldwide economic catastrophe. Those that were not qualified under norm conditions still managed to secure loans for property that they ordinarily would never have been able to purchase in the first place because the original lenders had always planned on reselling those loans onward — risking nothing themselves.

You don’t have to be an industry insider such as Isaac Toussie to see the writing on the wall about this one. As the number of loans defaulted, foreclosed homes began flooding the market, depressing prices and making even more mortgages worth more than the homes they were taken out to purchase, compounding the dilemma. That’s not even to mention the other side of the matter, the fraudulent lenders and cynical gamblers involved!

In fact, it is arguable that everyone has had a hand in contributing to the problem we’re now all faced with. But the subprime angle just outlined is the most popularly understood narrative because it is actually the simplest to comprehend. Nevertheless, just how do things appear after all these years?

As bleak as ever. It does matter that interest rates are lower than they’ve ever been. This means that people have to be almost perfect candidates in order to get a home loan. It doesn’t even matter that companies are making more money than ever before, as hiring remains frozen across the board. The upshot is that folks are too scared to bother investing in a home right now, preferring to rent instead for a change.

So for all the talk about The Great Recession being over, it’s 2011 and no citizen imagines that the immediate future is going to be any different.