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 Buford, GA

Latitude: 34.11708 -- Longitude: -83.998535

Other Area Cities: Dacula Auburn Buford Gainesville Cumming Duluth Lawrenceville Suwanee Sugar Hill

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Buford is a city in Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States. In a bid to host the lunch stop on the new Atlanta and Richmond Air Line Railway, they renamed the town after its president, Algernon S. Buford. They won the lucrative stopping point. Buford has grown majorly over the last few years, primarily because of the Mall of Georgia. Buford is located at 34°7'1?N, 83°59'55?W (34.117080, -83.998535)GR1. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 38.3 km² (14.8 mi²). 38.2 km² (14.7 mi²) of it is land and 0.1 km² (0.1 mi²) of it (0.34%) is water. The median income for a household in the city was $38,733, and the median income for a family was $43,100. Males had a median income of $29,458 versus $22,342 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,308. About 7.5% of families and 11.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.2% of those under age 18 and 17.2% of those age 65 or over. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Georgia 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Buford	Georgia	United States
Population	10,668	8,186,453	281,421,906
Median age	32.5	33.4	35.3
Median age for Male	30.6	32.1	34
Median age for Female	34.9	34.6	36.5
Households	3,794	3,006,369	105,480,101
Household population	10,474	7,952,631	273,643,273
Average household size	2.76	2.65	2.59
Families	2,579	2,111,647	71,787,347
Average family size	3.29	3.14	3.14
Housing units	4,044	3,281,737	115,904,641
Occupied units	3,794	3,006,369	105,480,101
Vacant units	250	275,368	10,424,540

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