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.

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Local Information for Phoenix, AZ

Latitude: 33.52837 -- Longitude: -112.0763

Other Area Cities: Sun City Scottsdale Phoenix Paradise Valley Avondale Goodyear Tempe Laveen Glendale Peoria

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Phoenix is the capital of the state of Arizona in the Southwestern United States. It is Arizona's largest city and the Phoenix metropolitan area is the largest metro area in the state, with well over half of the total state population. Phoenix is located in the center of the state, 118 miles (188 km) northwest of Tucson. It is the county seat of Maricopa County. It was incorporated as a city on February 25, 1881 and is called Hoozdo, or "the place is hot", in the Navajo language and Fiinigis in the Western Apache language. Phoenix is the sixth-largest city in the United States based on population. Census reported the Phoenix Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as the fourteenth-largest in the U.S., with a population of 3,251,876. The city's MSA grew to an estimated 3,790,000 by 2004. Between 1990 and 2000, the metropolitan area grew by 34 percent, making it the eighth fastest-growing metropolitan area in the U.S. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Arizona 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Phoenix	Arizona	United States
Population	1,321,045	5,130,632	281,421,906
Median age	30.7	34.2	35.3
Median age for Male	30.1	32.9	34
Median age for Female	31.5	35.5	36.5
Households	465,834	1,901,327	105,480,101
Household population	1,298,577	5,020,782	273,643,273
Average household size	2.79	2.64	2.59
Families	307,243	1,287,367	71,787,347
Average family size	3.39	3.18	3.14
Housing units	495,832	2,189,189	115,904,641
Occupied units	465,834	1,901,327	105,480,101
Vacant units	29,998	287,862	10,424,540

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