What do you do when you have a mortgage worth more than the property? That is the dilemma facing not only homeowners but their lenders as well. This is what first set off the worldwide economic catastrophe. Borrowers who were otherwise unqualified were sold loans to buy homes they would never be able to afford – since the lenders behind the loans never meant to hold onto them themselves, but rather “repackage” the loans to sell to others who repackage it again in their turn to sell onto others…until finally the pool of buyers dried up as borrowers increasingly defaulted on their loans.
No need to be a real estate professional yourself like Isaac Toussie in order to read the proverbial tea leaves. With all the defaulted mortgages and foreclosed homes, a terrible self-perpetuating cycle set in from which the economy has still not fully recovered. That’s not even to mention the other side of the matter, the fraudulent lenders and cynical gamblers involved!
Indeed, many, many other factors have contributed to the mess, and in a sense no one is entirely blameless. But the subprime angle just outlined is the most popularly understood narrative because it is actually the simplest to comprehend. And so two to three years on, what does the real estate picture look like in the United States?
Bad, very similar to years past. It does matter that interest rates are lower than they’ve ever been. This means that people have to be almost perfect candidates in order to get a home loan. It doesn’t even matter that companies are making more money than ever before, as hiring remains frozen across the board. This means an uncertain jobs outlook that has people afraid to make the sinle most expensive purchase they are likely to make in their entire lives.
So for all the talk about The Great Recession being over, it’s 2011 and no citizen imagines that the immediate future is going to be any different.