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Foreclosures in the Granite State
By Laura Knoy on Wednesday, February 28, 2007.
Open the newspaper and you're bound to see pages and pages of foreclosure listings. In Rockingham County alone there were 253 foreclosures last year, nearly three times as many as in 2004. We'll look at what the factors may be behind the increase, if this is just the tip of the iceberg or a short term trend, and what this means for New Hampshire's housing market and overall economy. Laura's guests are Russ Thibeault, President of Applied Economic Research, a Laconia-based economic and real-estate consultant firm; Jerry Little, President of the New Hampshire Bankers Association, a non-profit trade association representing all the commercial and thrift banks in the state; and Dave Deziel, Spokesman for the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of New Hampshire and Vermont.
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The POUNDING of the middle class has been a big reason for the foreclosures, and my prediction is that they will probably even double.
Reasons include:
Increased Energy costs for the past 2 years. My natural gas billed has increased 49%.
Gasoline - it will probably be over $3.00 by Memorial Day...again.
RAISES for many people have been small, and offset by increased medical costs and co-pays. So some people ended up with no raises but kept the medical coverage.
Huge property tax increases, depending on what town you live in.
Pejorative loan terms, not generally understood by many
mortgagees. (Pages could be written about this tragedy.)
Bottom line: There is no money in many family budgets for the indexing of these floating interest rates that are going up. The credit card situation is also a disaster, with huge interest rates (up to 30%), fees, and other hidden charges sucking away more money from these stretched family budgets. Most people are not keeping up because of the above reasons.
Perhaps the definition of an "adequate education" should include information about credit cards and mortgages. We aren't telling the kids what they really need to know, but relying again on the education for the LAST 100 years.
Considering that 1/3 of the population has an IQ of 95 or less, the mortgage loan situation where someone is always out there to say YES, is a disaster now happening.
The last election was NOT just about the war in Iraq. The natives are restless and will be voting for those who offer solutions to these issues, no matter how elusive some of these promises are and will be. It's generally perceived that Democrats will "help" the middle class.
For many, it is not a pretty picture, and is not being talked about very much because people are too embarrassed to admit that the current situation is disasterous for them, in my view.
Live Free or Die. I agree, but many of our citizens all over this country are going to die in the next 18 months, economically speaking, in my view.
Prediction: Politians will pay big time, so they better get out ahead on this and start paying attention to the facts as they are, not as we would like them to be. Never forget that as a society, we are only as good as the general welfare of our middle class.