'08 foreclosure rate is on way to a record - "the greatest speculation in the history of housing"

[El Pinko]

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080314/REALESTATE/803140439


'08 foreclosure rate is on way to a record
By Michael Pollick and Aaron Kessler
Foreclosure action in the first two months of 2008 was nearly three times greater than at the same time last year in Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties. The 3,683 legal actions so far this year -- actual lender takeovers, notices of delinquency and other advance warnings of foreclosure -- compares with 1,322 for the first two months of 2007 and about 14,000 for all of 2007, according to data from RealtyTrac, the Irvine, Calif., company that tracks foreclosures nationally.


...


Distressed properties now account for roughly a quarter of all residential transactions, says Mary Howard, president of Lakewood Ranch's Cornerstone Title.


...


Many banks were freely lending during the real estate boom to people without the wherewithal to carry through on their purchases long term. "You're dealing with many people who weren't truly qualified to begin with," Goodkin said. "You had no down payments, you had stretch buying, and we basically had the greatest speculation in the history of housing."

With unprecedented levels of appreciation during the last several years, all was well as long as prices kept going up. But when the music stopped, reality set in. "It was such a distortion, where the appreciation was really artificially created," Goodkin said. "Even now, prices are still well above what most people could afford before."

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

1. Greed is good ????

[Warpy]

2. Only if you're the first person to buy at the start

of a bubble market and the first to cash out when it starts to collapse.

That takes an incredible amount of dumb luck.