Guess so...
Last week I had sent an email to the Air Force Times asking if they were going to do a story on the housing meltdown and the military.
I am wondering if there is a story in the Military and the Housing Market, especially in regards to Luke and Nellis AFB. Las Vegas and Phoenix have posted some of the largest drops in home prices in the last year. Military members are particularly susceptible to foreclosure, because they are often forced to sell due to a PCS. With a nationwide drop in the housing market predicted, this is going to spread to more and more bases. Here are two references from my blog.Well in the latest issue of the Air Force Times their are four stories on the subject. They are behind subscription walls, but here are some quotes from them.
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Bob Filner (D-CA) on December 19, 2007 introduced a pair of bills to address the needs of veterans during the ongoing subprime mortgage market crisis.
Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, believes the VA loan program needs changes.and this...He wants the maximum VA loan increased to $630,000 and applied to new and refinanced loans. And he wants loan fees, which now range from 1.25 percent to 3.3 percent of the loan value, to be capped at 1 percent.
“The current VA home loan program is irrelevant because fees for the loans are too high and equity requirements are overly restrictive,” Filner said.
He also wants to expand the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act so that National Guard and reserve members called to active duty are protected from foreclosure for up to a year after their mobilization ends — on all mortgages, not just those from the VA.
His proposals are included in bills HR 4883 and HR 4884, introduced Dec. 19.
But some of the states hit hardest by home foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies, such as Georgia, California, Florida and Ohio, have large military populations. And it’s not just subprime loans that are getting people in trouble.and...
Ripple effectsA sailor in San Diego who bought a home for $417,000 two years ago using a loan backed by the Veterans Affairs Department now finds that his home is worth $317,000, said Keith Kaufman, personal financial management program manager for the Fleet and Family Support Center for the Navy’s Southwest Region.
That means the sailor is upside down on his loan — he owes more than the house is worth.
and of course they covered this:
Foreclosures negatively affect a person’s credit rating — which can affect service members’ security clearance and harm their careers, he noted.All points I have mentioned before. Now when is CNN going to pick up on it.
parentalcation: And it starts:
parentalcation: The Military and the Housing Market Prediction
parentalcation: The Housing Bubble and the Military
Labels:
housing bubble,
military,
mortgage
2 comments:
There are a number of options available to members of the military to protect their homes. What the VA should really do is fire Ocwen Financial, the company they brought in to handle foreclosures that has done nothing but make life miserable for veterans. Ocwen "has neglected maintenance, been proven slow to sell houses and charged taxpayers for repairs that weren’t made, a report by the federal Government Accountability Office says. The company, which also handles mortgage payments and foreclosures for commercial lenders, has been criticized for heavy-handed tactics." Report on Ocwen Financial
Interesting, i hope they put in measures to protect our military. I hear they will be increasing the loan limits for most loans if the stimulous package passes the senate.
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