'Homeownership: The Fast Path to PovertyBy Dean Baker,
TruthOut.org.
Housing policy at all levels of government pushed people into homeownership even as it should have been evident that people were buying homes at bubble-inflated prices.
The Commerce Department reported last month that homeownership among African Americans had dropped to 46.7 percent in the third quarter, three full percentage points below its peak level in 2004. This is a remarkably fast decline. In the last three years, the decline in homeownership among African Americans has destroyed almost half the gains in the decade from 1994 to 2004.
The situation is sure to get much worse. The foreclosure rate in the third quarter of 2007 was double the rate of 2006. At the third quarter foreclosure rate, more than 1.5 million families are on a path to lose their home over the course of the year. African Americans will be a disproportionate share of the home losers.
In looking for scapegoats many people have focused on the mortgage and banking industry. Millions of loans were sold to moderate income borrowers with low teaser rates that reset to unaffordable fixed rates after two or three years. Undoubtedly many of the borrowers failed to appreciate the structure of these loans, which virtually guaranteed they would have trouble meeting their mortgage payments.
But deceptive loans were just part of the problem. The bigger problem was that millions of moderate-income families purchased homes at bubble-inflated prices. There was an unprecedented run-up in house prices in the years from 1995 to 2006, with house prices rising by 80 percent after adjusting for inflation. This increase is truly striking because house prices in the United States have typically just moved in step with the overall inflation rate. Over the hundred-year period from 1895 to 1995 there was no increase in inflation adjusted house prices.'
Lees verder: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/67634/
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