Help for Homeowners Facing Foreclosure

November 20, 2008

Everyone seems to agree that flooding the market with empty, foreclosed homes does not help neighborhoods maintain stability – either as a way of living, or regarding the value of homes. Empty homes do nothing for a neighborhood.

Recently some organizations are taking tentative steps to allow homeowners who are defaulting on their mortgage to remain in their homes –at least for the time being.

Fannie and Freddie Mac have announced that they are freezing foreclosure sales until after the new year while they review strategies and the future of their organizations. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. recently announced foreclosure-prevention programs that aim to reduce interest rates, extend repayment schedules and, in the case of Citigroup, reduce loan amounts, to help borrowers keep their homes. But the programs have focused primarily on loans wholly owned by those companies because they feel they have more authority to rework those mortgages.

HSBC is also making more options available to more people. For example, it is contacting customers before their adjustable-rate loans reset to higher rates and freezing the current rate or allowing the borrower to pay a rate below what the new rate would be. The bank also is lowering fixed rates for selected borrowers. All this in an effort to stave of foreclosures.

One way of stabilizing markets where supply exceeds demand is to regulate supply. That way the people who can buy homes can buy from sellers who can’t afford to stay in their current home. But, amazingly enough, new home construction is still going on – even in saturated markets. Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg suggests, only half-jokingly, that the Treasury should impose a moratorium on home building. "It sounds like lunacy, but we have to destroy the housing capital stock to help put a floor under the market," he said.

As of 11/26/09 the Kristy Sokol RePage is ranked at 7,668 with 45 points.
The monthly top RePage owner will receive a cash prize. Help this agent by bookmarking this site and posting it to blogs and other Web pages and encourage others to visit.

Local Information for Jefferson, AL

Latitude: 33.524755 -- Longitude: -86.81274

Other Area Cities: Gardendale Bluff Park Center Point Fairfield Homewood Hoover Hueytown Leeds Mountain Brook Trussville Vestavia Hills Pleasant Grove Fultondale Alabaster Bessemer Birmingham Pelham Irondale Pinson Tarrant City McCalla

Enter our Photo Sweepstakes and Win $200 for your Birmingham photos!

To see random photos for other cities Click Here.

Submit your photos of Birmingham and become eligible to win $200. Click Here for details.

Birmingham has a strong-mayor variant mayor-council form of government, lead by a mayor and a nine-member city council. The current system replaced the previous city commission government in 1962 (primarily as a way to remove Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor from power). By Alabama law, an issue before a city council must be approved by a two-thirds majority vote (Act No. 452, Ala. Acts 1955, as supplemented by Act No. 294, Ala. Acts 1965.). Executive powers are held entirely by the mayor's office. The current mayor of Birmingham is Bernard Kincaid, who was voted into office in 1999. The Birmingham area is home to some of America's best schools. In 2005, the Jefferson County International Baccalaureate School in Irondale, an eastern suburb of Birmingham, was rated as the #1 high school in America by Newsweek, a national publication. Mountain Brook High School placed 250 on the list. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Alabama 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Birmingham	Alabama	United States
Population	242,820	4,447,100	281,421,906
Median age	34.3	35.8	35.3
Median age for Male	31.8	34.4	34
Median age for Female	36.2	37.2	36.5
Households	98,782	1,737,080	105,480,101
Household population	233,968	4,332,380	273,643,273
Average household size	2.37	2.49	2.59
Families	59,287	1,215,968	71,787,347
Average family size	3.09	3.01	3.14
Housing units	111,927	1,963,711	115,904,641
Occupied units	98,782	1,737,080	105,480,101
Vacant units	13,145	226,631	10,424,540

Visit US Census