Right As Usual

Few people have to be told that home ownership is no longer an easy ride to financial well-being. The news headlines are filled with gloomy reports of falling home prices and rise in home foreclosures . Think you won't be affected by foreclosure? That's probably what THIS man thought. It's hard to imagine yourself needing to get out from under debt so large that your home ownership could be in jeopardy. Yet, it's not that uncommon, as evidenced by the video of Ed McMahon. What causes the problem? Sometimes it's a mortgage that was beyond the owners ability to pay from the beginning - and, if you've got an interest-only loan, that may well be your situation. Sometimes it's unexpected financial reverses due to change in life circumstances - unemployment, health issues, or divorce. I know - after an auto accident this spring, I found that I was personally liable for all the bills; eventually, the insurance company will make a settlement, but, in the mean...

There's a little-known connection between the sub-prime mortgage problems that have surfaced lately, and the illegal immigration flood. Check out what The Undocumented Blogger has to say about it . Just who are these borrowers that are defaulting on their mortgage loans at a nearly a 50% rate? Leonardo Simpser of the Hispanic National Mortgage Association (NHMA) says that Hispanic first-time buyers constitute the fastest-growing segment of the subprime mortgage market. He also says that many Latinos, especially recent immigrants, have low FICO credit scores or no scores at all and are less creditworthy than they are in reality. HNMA is the creator of the Hispanic Automated Underwriting System (HAUS) which claims to allow lenders to "eliminate the need for time-consuming manual underwriting of such applicants, and allows lenders to underwrite borrowers with no Social Security numbers and multiple income sources."