I was reading that more than 14% of US homeowners with mortgages were either behind in their payments or they were in foreclosure at the end of September – a record high for the 9th quarter in a row.  Wow – 14% – one out of every 6.5 homeowners are having trouble making their payments. 

Some of these have figured out that they are “upside down” in their house and they think that they are better off to stop making payments – throwing good money after bad money and just suffer the consequences.

Some of these people just don’t care about their credit rating and think that they won’t be buying anything.

This is a very alarming statistic regardless of why people are no paying.

The Federal Government needs to figure out why, when and what they can do to help it. 

If you trace back the steps to when real estate values started going south, you can trace it back to $5/gallon gas.  This is when people stopped buying houses.  When people stop buying homes, prices drop – simple supply and demand. 

Saving home values are one of the most important things that can happen in our country – everyone loses when home values drop.  The more home values drop the higher percentage of people going into foreclosure simply because more of them are “upside down”.  We all know that most anyone who purchased a house between 2003 and the present and wants to sell now has a problem.

It would be great if there was a tax credit with no exclusions, 1st home, 2nd home, mountain home, beach home, etc.  All of those markets are hurting.  The credit for first time home buyers has helped that market, but that is only a small percentage of the market.