Las Vegas Review-Journal: Housing Woes: U.S. foreclosures at all-time high July 17,2009

Submitted by lusk-admin on Tue, 07/10/2012 - 16:56

Housing Woes: U.S. foreclosures at all-time high
Las Vegas Review Journal
By Dan Levy, Bloomberg News

... Richard Green of USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate says many mortgage borrowers are struggling for two reasons:

Richard Green: "One is their houses are worth less than their mortgage balances because the value of their house has fallen so much in the last couple of years. And second, a lot of them are losing their jobs. We have very high unemployment here in California but even now nationally we are seeing the unemployment rate go beyond what a lot of the forecasters were expecting. So you have people who are under water on their mortgage combined with a bad jobs picture. It's a really toxic combination."

Green told KPCC's Patt Morrison that many lenders also temporarily stopped foreclosure proceedings - and that the moratorium for many homeowners is about to expire...