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Essay about How to Solve the Foreclosure Crisis

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Foreclosed homes have become a menacing commonality in nearly every neighborhood in the United States. These foreclosed properties problems range from unkempt yards, broken doors and windows, as well as becoming dangerous havens for drugs and violent acts of vandalism. In addition, empty foreclosed homes drive down property values of surrounding homes and neighborhoods.

Many of these homes became foreclosures because the buyers could not afford the payments. This inadvertently ruins not only their credit scores, but also ruins the chance of owning a home in the future. This results in crushing families hopes of achieving the American dream of home ownership.

The flip side of this crisis is the affect that these foreclosures are …show more content…

This essay will describe these components in detail to show how they can be the key to solving the foreclosure crisis in America.

Component One
The first component of the solution is addressing the banks’ “toxic assets” that were created by the mortgage banks lending on overvalued property and lending to consumers that could not afford the payments. Underwriters should have prevented more of this; however that was not the case. In the future, banks and lenders will need to be more effective in the approval process that qualifies home buyers. The banks will have the option to participate in this program or not. They will also have the chance to pick and choose which properties will be included, if any.

As a result, the banks will need to take a marginal loss initially so they can recover most of the invested capital. All “toxic assets” will need to be reappraised at the bank’s expense so that the true value of the property can be reestablished. Once they have been reappraised these properties are unloaded by the banks for seventy percent of their current value which will recoup an acceptable amount of capital return to the banks. Taking advantage of this program would allow the banks to recapitalize themselves rather than receiving Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) loans that need to be repaid. (H.R. 1424, 2008) This also frees them of the “toxic assets” and improves their overall profitability and bottom line. Once these assets

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