Homeownership

The Hope for Homeowners Act was designed to allow foreclosed homeowners to keep their homes by drawing up new and more affordable mortgages for qualified applicants. Barney Frank is one of many proclaiming it a failure.

April 22, 2009 - NPR

With housing prices out of reach for many immigrants in the U.S., more and more are investing in houses in their home countries -- and their governments and local lenders are doing all they can to encourage it.

July 7, 2008 - The Boston Globe

Paul Krugman writes that we need to stop conflating owing a home with citizenship.

June 26, 2008 - The New York Times

This week, the Economist’s cover story, "The trouble with the housing market," details the downward-spiraling "subprime" mortgage market and its potential effects on the U.S. economy. The collapsing market certainly poses problems to Wall Street traders and taxpayers in general, but what about the physical toll it's taking on our cities? Abandoned, foreclosed homes now increasingly dot the nation's inner ring suburbs, helping spread neighborhood decline out from inner cities, while developers build more homes farther into the urban periphery.

March 25, 2007 - David Gest

Scrambling to grab that elusive “American Dream” of homeownership, millions plunged into the subprime mortgage market to build wealth through appreciation (if not speculation). Pundits cheered as the ownership rate crept up, lauding the pluck of aspirational minority and immigrant families.There’s a reason it is called subprime, though. Lenders offered a smorgasborg of loan “products,” but the bottom line was that they are all very costly for the borrower – often entailing adjustable-rate surprises in the 30 percent or higher range.

March 5, 2007 - James S. Russell