Foreclosures Increase in Military Communities Nationwide
June 12th, 2008 by 
admin
New statistics show that areas of the country near military bases or that house a significant population of military families are seeing very high rates of foreclosure. The Joint Economic Committee released a report today detailing that the average foreclosure rate around the 24 biggest military bases in the country is significantly higher than the national average for the nation, which worries many legislators and military officials. Usually the Veteran Affairs, or VA, department seeks to provide military families with low cost loans, but some are speculating that many families may have been lured by the draw of sub-prime loans with very low initial costs in recent years and foregone the VA department mortgage loans completely.
The average rate of foreclosure in the 24 areas surveyed was also found to have increased by nearly 80% from 2007 to 2008, sparking concerns that this trend could continue. Many are worried that an unpopular war and the burdens many military families already have to bear could make this issue of supreme importance in coming years, as people feel the government should be doing something to aid its soldiers in their home mortgage woes.
Posted in HUD Foreclosures, Real Estate Foreclosures | 
June 12th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Sub prime? Don’t shift the blame away from the VA - lending over 100% to cover closing costs - when folks are reassigned, they haven’t had enough appreciation in a year or two or three to cover the cost of selling. I look at foreclosures daily in one of these markets - lots and lots of VA loans being foreclosed. In my market, telling the difference between a sub-prime and a VA loan is easy - sub-prime has two loans at 80% and 20% of the purchase, VA has one loan at 103% - 105% of the purchase price. It doesn’t even make sense to bid on a foreclosed VA house at auction - no equity. So then Ocwen can sit on them forever, imho making things worse. If the VA wants to provide a benefit for soldiers, and they should, they should have a better way out than foreclosure if they’re going to make these kinds of loans.