••can ye pass the acid test?••

ye who enter here be afraid, but do what ye must -- to defeat your fear ye must defy it.

& defeat it ye must, for only then can we begin to realize liberty & justice for all.

time bomb tick tock? nervous tic talk? war on war?

or just a blog crying in the wilderness, trying to make sense of it all, terror-fried by hate radio and FOX, the number of whose name is 666??? (coincidence?)

Monday, April 25, 2011

mr president, isn't it time to freeze foreclosures yet?

from AP via NPR, today:

Many builders are waiting for the glut of foreclosures and other distressed properties to be cleared before stepping up construction. But with 1.2 million foreclosures forecast this year nationwide, according to foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac Inc., a turnaround isn't expected for years.

The seasonally adjusted number of new homes for sale in the United States is the fewest since the summer of 1967.

Builders have struggled to compete with a wave of foreclosures and short sales when a lender agrees to let a borrower sell a home for less than its market value. High unemployment, tight credit and a lingering fear that prices will fall further have also kept people from making home purchases.

Residential construction has all but come to a halt. Building permits, a gauge of future construction, sank in the winter to their lowest level in more than 50 years before recovering somewhat in March. But that improvement was spurred by a more than 28 percent jump in permits granted for apartment and condo buildings. That suggests that builders are confident people are flocking to rentals, not homeownership.

A Jan. 1 state tax-credit deadline to sign a contract on a new-home purchase in California pushed up sales in December and January.

New-home sales rose in most regions of the country. Sales jumped nearly 67 percent in the Northeast, which was hit hard by wintry weather; by almost 26 percent in the West, which saw a surge in buying three months ago because of a Jan. 1 California state tax-credit deadline; and by nearly 13 percent in the Midwest. Sales fell 0.6 percent in the South, which accounts for the nation's biggest home-sale market.

Given the pace of new-home sales, it would take more than 7 months to clear them off the market. Economists say a six-month supply of homes is healthy.

but last october, tho many democrats wanted a freeze, the obama administration agreed with eric cantor in saying a foreclosure moratorium would destabilize the housing market and delay the economic recovery.

that was a flip-flop from what barack obama said as a candidate two years earlier.

looks like it's time for another 180. (i wish!)

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