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House Market Crisis

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Granting Homeowners Their Dreams Part of the American Dream that someday one can own a house, live with their family, farm, and “live off the fatta the lan'”(Steinbeck, pg. 15) as Lennie believed in Of Mice and Men or simply have a house to live with your family. What makes this dream so popular is the idea that all people, no matter who you are, have the opportunity to achieve that dream in America. It is the life that many dream of and search for like Antonia in Willa Cather’s My Antonia. Antonia was an immigrant woman living in the Nebraska prairie. However, an American Dream doesn’t stop at the acquisition of a house, it is one’s own dreams and progress with success. In that sense, everyone is the same and works towards that one goal. The struggle is inevitable, but help is available to bring people one step closer to their dreams by becoming homeowners. Through the help of lending agencies who help anyone despite their credit and are even willing to turn a blind eye to important factors. Not only were lending agencies blind to see important things, but homeowners as well. Many of them were given the opportunity to buy their dream homes, but through bad mortgage deals with tricks that eventually led them to defaults. To prevent another housing crisis like it occurred in 2008, lending agencies must only offer homeowners mortgages that have fixed interest rates so that homeowners know what their interest rates always are to prevent defaulting while having a just system.
If lending agencies had not given uncreditworthy homeowners adjustable rate mortgages, then the house market crisis of 2008 would have been prevented. What made these homeowners truly uncreditworthy was the fact that they had “Thin-file FICO scores”(Lewis, Pg. 100) which meant homeowners hadn’t done much borrowing and what they did borrow they paid back because it wasn’t anything nearly as much or significant as what they were asking for a house. This would allow a “Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000… to borrow three-quarters of a million dollars.”(Lewis, Pg. 100) The only way to make the interest rates and monthly rates affordable to these homeowners was by making the initial interest rates substantially lower than the interest rates of fixed interest rate mortgages. These were referred as the teaser rates because after years of really low interest, the interest rates would suddenly rise to rates higher than that of the fixed interest mortgage all because of the belief that “The borrowers would be just as likely to make payments when the interest rate loans went from 12% as when it was 8%” (169). These were adjustable rate mortgages lead to the pools of defaults. As a result of these new high interest rates, homeowners could no longer afford to pay their monthly dues. After all this “home borrowers either defaulted or; if their home price had risen, refinanced.” (Lewis, Pg. 169) However, that never happened and homeowners began defaulting all over America. From February of 2007 to the end of the year default pools went from 15.6% to 37.7%. Consequently, all the insurance investment banks sold on the subprime bonds were valuable. Then many investment banks began to go bankrupt because they leveraged their bets assuming thin-file homeowners would never default because of the refinancing option. Meanwhile dreams had been shattered and investment banks had placed the wrong bets, all of which could have been prevented if the adjustable rate mortgage had not been used and the setting of teaser rates never happened.
For such reasons, to prevent another housing crisis like the one that occurred in 2008, lending agencies must only offer homeowners mortgages that have fixed interest rates so that homeowners know what their interest rates always are to prevent defaulting while having a just system. There are two kinds of mortgages available and “with the 30-year fixed-rate as the predominant instrument”(Dana, Pg. 1) mortgages would be more “transparent instruments.”(Dana, Pg. 1) The reason being the interest rate is set once the homeowner take outs the loan and the interest rate remains constant. This will ultimately “reduce the flood of defaults and foreclosures”(Sachs, Pg. 4) due to the fact that homeowners will know what they will be paying monthly. The default rates in America should decrease to where they were before the crisis. They will be able to pay the interest they accept. Default is unlikely unless the homeowner suffers some financial strain and but still lenders can work with them to refinance the interest rates to land in a better state. Everything would be straightforward and nothing would be hidden from the homeowner. This transaction will allow homeowners to actually be creditworthy of the homes they buy because that one interest rate they can pay monthly is the same one they’re going to pay forever. Homeowners would financially be capable of taking out a three-quarter of a million dollar loan.
However, another program such as the Obama’s Home Affordable Modification Program can be another solution to preventing another house market crisis like that of 2008. This program serves the purpose of lowering a homeowner’s “ monthly mortgage payments in order to make them more affordable and sustainable for the long-term.”. This is crucial in that it will help those homeowners who are at risk of defaulting ultimately saving the market from the widespread of defaults. If there are more houses available in the market, then the house prices are subject to decline and homeowners will no longer want to pay mortgage on house valued at $750 thousand if it is worth $250 thousand less. Those who can’t receive help would like and some who can’t afford to pay their mortgage can’t because they simply don’t deserve the house they can’t pay for. As an example, the Mexican immigrant who makes $14,000 a year and has a mortgage on a $750,000 house shouldn’t receive help for something that they regularly can’t pay for. Others worked hard for their houses and earned it. Thin-file homeowners are being cheated their way to the American Dream with an end that leaves no one to win.
In the beginning lending agencies sold homeowners fake dreams because despite the outcome, lenders were still going to make money. In the end, homeowners were given back their dreams by the government despite what was just or not. Uncreditworthy homeowners ended up being the true winners because they still had the house they were always dreaming of whether or not they deserved it. Although the fact that the mortgage owners were being ripped off millions of dollars to accommodate homeowners who fell victim to lending agencies scheme. However, there were more losers than winners. It simply could have been the other way around if homeowners were offered fixed rate mortgages instead of adjustable rate mortgages. Today the difficulty of acquiring a home for everyone in the United States seems as a dream that can be possible but the outcomes of living and stepping on your own property can be devastating and leave homeowners with nothing but defaults instead of the American Dreams accomplished.

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