House Foreclosures
a fact of real estate life

House foreclosures are a fact of "real estate" life. There's no getting around it. There will always be foreclosures.

In the fall of 2002, however the increase in foreclosures is unprecedented in many years. Simultaneously, the residential housing market - overall - is also achieving results that are unprecedented as well.

house foreclosures articles financial intelligence

So there's good news and bad news...

The goods news is that real estate investors never it had it so good - as far as opportunity goes.

The bad news is that more home owners will loose their houses to foreclosure this year than in the past thirty years.

Greed is a key component.

There seems to be a general consensus in public perception that corporate greed is the culprit to many of the economic woes of 2002. And Congress and the media are pointing fingers at all CEO's and corporations as the "BAD GUYS".

Congress shaking their finger at anyone about greed and ethics is a bit ludicrous...

Ah but...

Elections are coming.

The greed that created the rise in foreclosures is the result of many things - including:

both Congress and corporate America's willingness to look the other way in order to achieve "apparent" positive short term results - i.e. economic indicators and quarterly reporting, respectively

the media's participation in painting rosey pictures for many years

the stock market in the 90's created a speculative fever, in a sense, among the general population

the lenders supported it because they make huge money on real estate loans in any type of market

mortgage brokers never had it so good...

real estate brokers and agents really like making commissions on $500K houses better than $100K houses

local governments have had a hay day with continuous property tax increases as the medium market price for houses has climbed steadily over the last ten years

There does seem to be some sign of intelligent life in Congress, however.

The fact that the house foreclosures rate continues to grow presents some significant opportunities for real estate investors and some serious upcoming hurdles for many homeowners and regulators to overcome.

The real cure lies in:

self discipline

financial intelligence

cash flow management

restablishing fiscal responsibility as a social value

put the brakes on increasing taxes

House foreclosures are not going to diminish at this stage of the game.