The Recession Of The Housing Bubble

The mortgage crisis of 2007 marked catastrophe for millions of homeowners who suffered from foreclosure and short sales. Most of the problems involving the foreclosing of families’ homes could boil down to risky borrowing and lending. Lenders were pushed to ensure families would be eligible for a loan, when in previous years the same families would have been deemed too high-risk to obtain any kind of loan. With the increase in high-risk families obtaining loans, there was a huge increase in home buyers and subsequently a rapid increase in home prices. As a result, prices peaked and then began falling just as fast as they rose. Soon after families began to default on their mortgages forcing them either into foreclosure or short sales. Who was to blame for the risky lending and borrowing that caused the mortgage meltdown? Many might blame the company Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but in reality the entire system of buying and selling and free market failed home owners and the housing economy.

During the early 2000 's, the United States housing market experienced growth at an unprecedented rate, leading to historical highs in home ownership. This surge in home buying was the result of multiple illusory financial circumstances which reduced the apparent risk of both lending and receiving loans. However, in 2007, when the upward trend in home values could no longer continue and began to reverse itself, homeowners found themselves owing more than the value of their properties, a trend which lent itself to increased defaults and foreclosures, further reducing the value of homes in a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle. The 2008 crash of the near-$7-billion housing industry dragged down the entire U.S. economy, and by extension, the global economy, with it, therefore having a large part in triggering the global recession of 2008-2012.

When the real estate market hit rock bottom, trust was broken between the lenders and

The public was uneducated in how the process worked but seemed not to be bothered because it got them into the house. They don’t want a mortgage, they want a home. A home they can raise a family, build equity, build a life, have a sense of freedom. That “boom” market gave it to them. The lenders probably told them to just sign here for now and we’ll get your mortgage down to where you really want it and in a couple of years and we’ll figure out the rest. When you have no idea that the market would crash as it did, are you prepared? No, because who is thinking that your home is losing value, that people are going to lose their jobs or that the economy would turn into a recession. Not the banks or the public thought that. The perception was that the market was going to go up or stay steady, so the homeowners were going to be able to refinance and get rid of their current payment. People were going to make more money, they were going to get a raise in a couple years at their jobs and everything would be better. So when the homeowners refinanced their loan they would get a fixed rate mortgage for 30 years. But that never happened.

For many years, the idea that ones’ home being the largest investment was said as a complete sentence when in fact, it was only an incomplete sentence. Any duly licensed financial planner would finish that sentence by saying all investments are subject to market conditions, the value that investment could increase or decrease and other similar cautionary statements that their attorneys wrote to protect them. The American public only heard that their home was the largest investment and had never experienced, nor had their parents seen the value of their personal homes drop like they did in the past few years. They had never experienced the financial pain and although only a few years have passed, many have forgotten and are ready to jump right back into homeownership.

The bursting of the housing bubble, known more colloquially as the 2008 mortgage crisis, was preceded by a series of ill-fated circumstances that culminated in what has been considered to be the worst financial downfall since the Great Depression. After experiencing a near-unprecedented increase in housing prices from January 2002 until mid-2006, a phenomenon that was steadily fed by unregulated mortgage practices, the market steadily declined and the prior housing boom subsided as well. When housing prices dropped to about 25 percent below the peak level achieved in 2006 toward the close of 2008, liquidity and capital disappeared from the market.

The family would have to leave the title to their new home with the mortgage holder, this was an upper hand for the opposition. This gave the lender the right to evict the home owner at any point for the smallest violation or missed payment. Given the high monthly payments to home owners they were forced into some of the same practice in the ghettos, to invite numerous people to move in. With little funds after paying the mortgage and living expenses left little money to keep up with property

Many veterans returned to young families anticipating the opportunity to buy a home. The lack of home production during the Great Depression and war created a severe

In the year 2000, the stock market crashed whichshifted thepeople’s money away from the stock market and into the housing market. Many people were buying homes, which led to banks offering more loans, including subprimed loans. Most loans, specifically, subprimed loans began going into default once the credit markets froze in the summer 2007. Things began to deteriorate rapidly. The offering of subprimed loans stopped completely and interest rates for other types of borrowing such as corporate loans and consumer loans rose dramatically. Since the interest rates of loans were so high, home owners were not able to afford to make payments, which caused them to be evicted from their homes. In 2013, the government introduced new laws and

The realtors started to buy property that was just land and started to build apartments and other such multi-family housing. They found with those types of building they could make more money. The problem was that they couldn’t get enough people to fill the apartments. They turned to the government to find the answer.

Lending institutions also saw a change. In the 1990s, the federal government desired more people to own homes in the United States and lenders were urged to make home loans more attainable for a wider consumer base (Melicher & Norton, 2014, p. 168).

In 2005, the market was flooded with a vast array of homes that were all selling at a low price, and this allowed people to buy and sell homes with minimal effort. Banks were being reckless with their lending, not giving enough attention to who they were giving mortgages to, as virtually anybody with a decent credit score could go to a bank and get a mortgage, sometimes without even going to see if the land and ability for development was there. This created a housing bubble in 2006, and would inevitably come back to hurt a wide range of industries, but few were as damaged as the new construction industry.

The housing market crash, which broke out in the United States in 2007, was caused by high risk subprime mortgages. The subprime mortgage crisis resulted in a sudden reduction in money and credit availability from banks and other lending institutions, which was referred to as a “credit crunch.” The “credit crunch” and its effect spread across the United States and further on to other countries across the world. The “credit crunch” caused a collapse in the housing markets, stock markets and major financial institutions across the globe.

Around 2006 the price of houses began to fall substantially fast. “The oversupply of houses and lack of buyers pushed the house prices down until they really plunged in the late 2006 and early 2007” (The Subprime Mortgage Crisis Explained). These actions threw investors into a big dilemma. In the beginning they believed buying the mortgages would bring them a profit, but quickly realized that the mortgages would cost them more financial damage than reselling the homes. “Nationwide, home vales have declined about 16% since the summer of 2006 and experts project that the drop will continue until homes have lost about 25% of their value” (Biroonak, 2008). In other words mortgage homes are “underwater”, that is, the mortgage owed equals or exceeds the value of the house (Biroonak, 2008). Investors and homeowners started to go more in debt trying to pay off their original debts.

According to Wikipedia a housing bubble is a type of economic bubble that occurs periodically in local or global real estate markets. It is characterized by rapid increases in valuations of real property such as housing until they reach unsustainable levels and then decline. Four years into the housing bubble downturn, much of the country remains hopelessly confused about what happened, why it happened and who is to blame. In my research paper I will try and demonstrate what a housing bubble is, some of the reasons for the bubble, was it preventable, how it kept growing, how it burst and how it has affected our economy.