Hide And Seek

Posted In: Foreclosures, Housing, Mortgages, Politicians, State Government, Subprime, U.S. Government

Kudos to MarketWatch, as I didn’t encounter the following anywhere else in my research today. A congressional report conducted by the Joint Economic Committee said that 2 million subprime-mortgage foreclosures will occur by 2009 if home values continue to decline. The report also estimated that $71 billion in housing wealth will be eliminated, and the states will lose $917 million in property tax revenue. Joint Economic Committee Chairman Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and other lawmakers used the findings as ammunition in their attempts to convince the White House to step up foreclosure prevention counseling, let Fannie Mae buy more loans, and encourage loan servicers to work out modifications with borrowers.

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Back on June 5, I talked about some of the foreclosure projections in my post for that day. To recap:

Based on a survey of the nation’s 100 largest real estate markets, HousingPredictor.com predicts that at least 2 million residential properties will be foreclosed within the next two and a half years. Another study by the Center for Responsible Lending predicts an even worse scenario. This non-profit organization, which focuses on abusive lending practices, is forecasting a total of 2.4 million foreclosures nationwide. The figure exceeds the 2 million homeowners thought to have been created by the housing boom (2 million being the most optimistic estimate).

As you can see, the JEC numbers are not that far off these earlier projections. It is estimated that there are approximately 80 million homeowners in the United States today.

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