Saturday, October 11, 2008

Illegal residents but responsible homeowners - Los Angeles Times

Illegal residents but responsible homeowners - Los Angeles Times: "More than 12,000 home loans were issued in recent years through a special program that relies on government-issued taxpayer identification numbers instead of Social Security numbers, according to the association.

The identification numbers, known as ITINs, were designed for foreign-born residents living legally in the U.S. but are widely acknowledged to be used primarily by illegal immigrants.

The real estate association does not keep statistics on foreclosure rates. But it has reported that the delinquency rates for taxpayer identification loans were 1.15% or lower in 2006, compared with about 3.5% for other home loans.

Although illegal immigrants are also feeling the effects of the downturn in the U.S. economy, Sandos and others cite one major factor for the success of taxpayer identification loans: stricter requirements, including larger down payments, pre-purchase counseling and fixed mortgage rates."

---------
So all the requirements that were waived for low income Americans were kept in place for illegal immigrants, and the result is the former are more likely to default than the latter. Dog bites man. Maybe the National Homeownership Initiative wasn't such a good idea?

FOXNews.com - Trillions Disappear in Stock Market, but Where Did Money Go? - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

FOXNews.com - Trillions Disappear in Stock Market, but Where Did Money Go? -: "If you're looking to track down your missing money — figure out who has it now, maybe ask to have it back — you might be disappointed to learn that is was never really money in the first place.

Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale, puts it bluntly: The notion that you lose a pile of money whenever the stock market tanks is a 'fallacy.' He says the price of a stock has never been the same thing as money — it's simply the 'best guess' of what the stock is worth."

---------------------
Oh. It was just potential money. I feel much better now.

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending - New York Times

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending - New York Times: 1999: "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent."