The mortgage industry was running fast and loose. Money was cheap, and was readily available to marginal borrowers. My 18 year old son qualified for an $800,000 mortgage. He was a college student waiting tables part time, but he had a good credit score and was breathing. He didn’t buy but many unqualified buyers did.
Then the foreclosures started, in some parts of the country beginning in 2007. The foreclosure crisis came to a peak in 2010. Approximately 120000 houses were foreclosed upon during September 2010. Since 2004, more than eight million homes have been foreclosed on across the country.
However, the numbers of foreclosures are on a more realistic trends. At the end of 2016 the number of homes throughout the country which are in some stage of the foreclosure process are down to a little over 300,000. In 2010 the number was at 1.4 million homes. We are recovering.
Looking back over the past 10 years we cannot ignore that there is a connection between jobs and home ownership. Jobs drive a healthy economy. When you combine a healthy economy with consumer confidence, this usually leads to people buying homes.
With controls in place to ensure that unbridaled lending will not happen again, the foreclosure crisis of the past 10 years should be behind us.