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We're on Track to Foreclose on One Million Homes This Year
As the data has suggested for some time, we're doing well with our plan to put a million people out of their homes this year. "One of every 78 U.S. housing units, or 1.28% of the total, was subject to at least one foreclosure filing in the first six months of the year. That's a total of 1.65 million properties." By the way, how correlated are unemployment and foreclosure rates? Math explains: quite.
Wall Street is hiring, I hear. And paying big bonuses.
Does the one-millionth foreclosure get some sort of prize? Like a tent for when the tenants move to their Hooverville?
The bank air-cannons confetti into your face and a single balloon drifts down from the ceiling labeled "one millionth fuckup".
OK, but what's the "be less stupid" response really — aside from the great writing, which is greatly great (I'm serious), is the point of the site to rack up page views to see how funny the commentariat can be about our collective paralysis?
I'm not saying "mommy tell me what to do," I'm just saying there was a great post a few months back about having learned to feel helpless, and trying to unlearn it.
Depends on who you ask. For example, some economists would say this is part of the healing process, getting America back to a better balance where home ownership is not a right and renting regains its proper place in a healthy economy that is more mobile and can move to where the jobs are (instead of being trapped for 30+ years in one place). Meanhwile, other would probably say this is one further step in Marx's cycle of capitalist class empowerment and proletariat impoverishment. So….
Measly and Meager Me believes dissemination of this information in and of itself is critical to forward movement.
Plus I hope that someone offering a feeble wisecrack helps ease pain and/or inspire further thought, and, sometime, action.
But, yeah. I see how it could inspire further cynicism, as well. Fight on.
Catharsis or Schadenfreude, whichever you prefer.
Actually, in hindsight we now know that the homeownership bubble was another step in Marx's cycle of capitalist class empowerment and proleteriat impoverishment.
It's a buyer's market!
So GTFO, moochers – and take that stinky gubmint cheese with you!
The Raccoons have great credit and tons of buyers' leverage right now.
I hear they also have an excellent credit union!
But I think their not-for-profit status is in jeopardy, depending how you define 'world domination.'
Their rating is REAL good! They make a lot of deposits!
Sometimes I watch "Property Virgins" on HGTV and feel like I'm watching Act I of a tragedy.
As a dude who does not yet own a house, I am excited to see home prices falling! Someone write a post about me and my forward-looking joy.
Me too Deep. My dream is someday I will be able to afford a home that is not in the ghetto.
I am so fucking jealous at the moment. Where I'm live, $1.1 million will get you a bungalow within biking distance of downtown. My parents just visited Florida and bought 3(!) houses for $170,000. 3(!!!).
Note: I am currently 7000 km away from aforementioned real estate.
I'm with you, Mindpowered. Living in LA is not good for one's real estate dreams.
At this rate I might be able to afford a 10×10 studio for .5mill in New York!
Hi! Don't buy shit you can't afford.
Socialist.
Godless Communist Heathen.
Stop flirting with me.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Alex, just because there are 1 million homes foreclosed, it does not follow that 100% of them are occupied by the borrower. So, it's a bit of stretch to claim that we're going to "put a million people out of their home this year." (not to mention the math doesn't work out if 1 million FAMIILIES are kicked out of their home that would be closer to 2.5 million people).
But then again, this is just a blog and not a "real" newspaper, so who cares about all those annoying copy editor conversations you might have in a "newsroom".
Well, "Choire" could defend the value of inexact figures in terse link-posts, etc. But my stance is this: you ain't a man in the U.S. of A if ya don't own land. Other members of the "FAMIILIES" are wage slaves or leeches, not people. Smooches!
P.S. Good point. I know you're not a cranky troll… the bait was just too tantalizing for me to pass up.
America was built on a cycle of real estate bubbles. Every region has its history of boom-to-bust towns, or towns that never actually came into existence, though rubes back east paid good money for lots in what was sure to be the Next Big Thing, only to see their money vanish along with the town when the bubble burst.
Twenty years from now, we'll be hearing the old chestnuts, "Real estate only goes up!" and "Buy now before you're priced out forever!" while real estate mania pushes the prices beyond reality once again.
We never learn.