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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (5273)	9/12/2002 9:06:39 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Take special note of Chart #7 in the FDIC report. " The Widening Gap between Home Price and Income Growth Has Raised Some Concern " In spite of declining interest rates, this is the underlying real estate "bubble problem". As the FDIC dryly notes, " Given that home price bubbles have occurred in the past, most notably in Texas, California, and the Northeast during the 1980s, and that their ultimate deflation resulted in significant negative fallout for these areas' economies and insured institutions ... ." fdic.gov

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (5273)	9/12/2002 9:56:59 PM
From: nextrade!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Twenty-one percent of undergraduates owe between $3,000 and $7,000, a 61 percent increase over last year New US program turns students' debt sagas into cautionary tales csmonitor.com By Noel C. Paul Crystal Brooks stores her lone credit card inside a tiny case in her desk drawer. She tries to keep it out of sight and mind. "I don't use it, I don't like it," says Ms. Brooks, a junior at Northeastern University in Boston. The reason for her distaste: She owes $1,500 on her account, largely resulting from an 18 percent interest rate. Brooks's story of financial growing pains is typical among college undergraduates, and the US government hopes students will learn its lessons firsthand. This fall, a number of students like Brooks are sharing their debt horror stories with their collegiate peers. The new effort represents consumer advocates' latest attempt to address what has become a financial crisis among the next generation of consumers. "Project Credit Smarts 2002," sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission, will share with incoming students the testimonies of peers, dramatic skits about debt, and the admonitions of regulators in an effort to reverse statistics that show a rapid increase in credit-card debt among young adults. According to national student-loan provider Nellie Mae: • The average credit-card balance for college students last year was $2,327. • Twenty-one percent of undergraduates owe between $3,000 and $7,000, a 61 percent increase over last year. • The average undergraduate keeps more than four credit cards in his or her wallet. Officials with the FTC and participating universities in the Boston area point to high-pressure tactics of credit-card firms to help explain the soaring debt. Many set up tables on campus, luring students with free apparel and music. Universities often enable card issuers to send offers for cards to students' homes by providing them with lists of students' names and addresses. Other students are simply overzealous spenders. According to Shirley LaBrande, whose daughter, Lily, accumulated more than $3,000 in credit-card debt at Northeastern University over the past two years, her daughter did not need to be goaded into spending. "I wasn't surprised that this happened," says Ms. LaBrande, of Sanford, Maine. "Some people just have to learn the hard way."

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (5273)	9/13/2002 11:33:46 AM
From: MulhollandDrive	Respond to of 306849

sort of like the fat fast food consumers...i wonder if we will see the appearance of lender liability as foreclosures rise.... atimes.com >>>Lender liability is embodied in common and statutory law covering a broad spectrum of claims surrounding predatory lending. It is a key concept in environmental-cleanup litigation. If a lender knowingly lends to a borrower who is obviously unable to make reasonable beneficial gain from the use of the funds, or causes the borrower to assume responsibilities that are obviously beyond the borrower's capacity, the lender not only risks losing the loan without recourse but is also liable for the financial damage to the borrower caused by such loans. For example, if a bank lends to a trust client who is a minor, or someone who had no business experience, to start a risky business that resulted in the loss not only of the loan but of the client trust account, the bank may well be required by the court to make whole the client. In the United States, although predatory lending is not defined by federal law, and various states define abusive lending differently, it usually involves practices that strip equity away from a homeowner, or equity from a company, or condemn the debtor into perpetual indenture. Predatory or abusive lending practices can include making a loan to a borrower without regard to the borrower's ability to repay, repeatedly refinancing a loan within a short period of time and charging high points and fees with each refinance, charging excessive rates and fees to a borrower who qualifies for lower rates and/or fees offered by the lender, or imposing new unjustifiably harsh terms for rolling over existing debt. Predation breaks the links between an economy's aggregate resource endowment and aggregate consumption and between the interpersonal distribution of endowments and the interpersonal distribution of consumption. The choice by some to be predators decreases aggregate consumption, both because the predators' resources are wasted and because producers sacrifice production by allocating resources to guarding against predators. Much of welfare economics is based on the concept of Pareto Optimum, which asserts that resources are optimally distributed when an individual cannot move into a better position without putting someone else into a worse position. In an unjust global society, the Pareto Optimum will perpetuate injustice. <<<