Mortgage Crisis

For many students about to graduate from four year colleges and universities, the idea of a mortgage crisis is but a vague notion.  These young women and men will not, in all likelihood, have the opportunity to pursue a mortgage loan anyway, because they graduate already buried under mountains of debt for college loans.  This is very bad news for the housing market that is already struggling to recover from years of recession.  Where will all these recent graduates find gainful ...

Sandra T., who has asked that her full name not be published, contributed this article about her own experience during the mortgage crisis in the United States:

In 2004, my three children aged 4, 6, and 12 and I were living in public housing.  The area was ridden with crime, and although the free rent was nice, especially since their father wasn’t paying child support and I was unemployed, but staying in that negative environment with my kids was no longer ...

Everyone wants a top of the line credit score — especially the score known as FICO, the one banks and other lenders must consider when deciding what kinds of interest rates you qualify for, and indeed whether you are credit worthy at all.  For many, the FICO score is a mysterious calculation that seems out of reach and beyond understanding.  Here are the factors that go into determining one’s FICO score:

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Are you thinking about buying a home in the next 6 months?  If so, you’re among an elite group of people who managed to resist the lure of first time home buyer’s tax credits the Obama administration briefly launched during its first crashed wave of economic stimulus spending — which means that a) you probably didn’t get trapped in a house with a mortgage you couldn’t really afford, and b) you now have a buyer’s market and many great deals and mortgage ...

The International Monetary Fund’s Global Financial Stability Report is traditionally very conservative in its assessment of the world’s economic status. The most recent report was released on September 21, and warns that the world economy is quickly entering a “danger zone.”  A group of protestors, assembled under the banner of “Occupy Wall Street” have had enough, and are actively protesting the corruption that seems rampant in the mortgage industry and trading. The IMF has downgraded its estimate for global growth from ...

Several top economists and finance ...

This infographic gives an excellent overview of the mortgage crisis in the United States of America.  It shows you the subprime mortgages in 2007, which is now 4 years ago.  These were the criminally negligent acts that contributed to the financial downfall of the US, and ultimately its decreased credit rating by Standard and Poor’s last week. The United States is now facing serious trouble worldwide due to the downgrade from a AAA rating to a AA+ by the ...

In yet another sign of worsening economic times that are sure to have a direct impact on the housing markets and mortgage foreclosures in the United States, officials at Standard & Poor’s decided last week to proceed with downgrading the credit ratings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac along with several other agencies linked to long-term U.S. debt.  Some speculate that Standard and Poor’s is itself corrupt, and has been falsely inflating the credit rating for the United States for ...