The housing crash of 2008/2009 was one of the biggest financial disasters in American history. Approximately 6 million homes have been foreclosed on by lenders in just the last three years alone as millions of American families watched their hopes for achieving the American Dream go up in smoke. Since early 2008, approximately 60 million U.S. homes have lost a combined 5 trillion dollars in value. It has been an unmitigated disaster for homeowners, lenders, home builders, real estate agents and construction workers. Now approximately one out of every four U.S. homeowners are “underwater” on their mortgages. That means that they owe more money than their homes are worth. If that wasn’t bad enough, it is estimated that by June of this year approximately 5.1 million American homeowners will own a home valued below 75 percent of what is owed. Can you imagine owing $400,000 on a home that is only worth $300,000? That is where millions of American families find themselves now. In some areas of the U.S., the housing market is so bad that it is almost comical. In California, one bank demolished 16 nearly completed homes because it was cheaper to knock them down than to finish building them. The worst part is that by all indications, the housing crash is far from over. In fact, a massive “second wave” of mortgage defaults is on the way over the next three years that could potentially deliver a knock out blow to the U.S. economy.
Over the next two years alone, approximately 360,000 home loans are scheduled to “reset” nationwide. When these loans do reset, the mortgage payments will increase by an average of $1,000 per month.
Can you afford a $1,000 increase to your mortgage payment?
This is the kind of thing that we saw during the “first wave” of mortgage defaults in 2007 and 2008. That first wave of foreclosures was one of the primary causes of the biggest financial crisis in recent American history.
Now a second wave of mortgage defaults in on the way and there is simply no way that it is going to be able to be avoided. A huge mountain of mortgages is scheduled to reset starting in 2010, and once those mortgage payments increase substantially there are once again going to be millions of Americans who simply cannot pay their mortgages.
The chart below reveals just how bad the second wave of adjustable rate mortgages is likely to be over the next several years. As you can see, we are on the edge of another huge mess….
