Mortgage Report Rattles Markets
Dow Down 2% On a Big Rise In Delinquencies

A national survey showing that a soaring number of homeowners failed to make their mortgage payments in the last quarter of 2006 rattled lawmakers in Washington and the markets in New York yesterday, as the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 2 percent, or nearly 243 points.

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Loan turmoil closes doors for buyers
Mortgage terms are tightening as more sub-prime borrowers default and lenders reel.

ShaRon Lewis is facing a 50% hike in the payment on her adjustable-rate mortgage next month. This week, she discovered she can't qualify for a new loan with payments that she could afford. And although she's willing to sell the West Hills home she's owned for two years, she has been told it won't fetch what she paid for it. "I have to laugh to keep from bawling," the 30-something Lewis said. Her situation is becoming increasingly common across the country amid the implosion of the business of sub-prime mortgages — loans for people with less-than-perfect credit or no credit histories. Many would-be home buyers, and homeowners who want to refinance, are finding that virtually overnight their status has changed: They no longer are eligible for the kind of easy-credit loans that helped millions of people join the ranks of property owners during the housing boom.

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  thanks to Politics in the Zeros

Top investor sees U.S. property crash

Commodities investment guru Jim Rogers stepped into the U.S. subprime fray on Wednesday, predicting a real estate crash that would trigger defaults and spread contagion to emerging markets. "You can't believe how bad it's going to get before it gets any better," the prominent U.S. fund manager told Reuters by telephone from New York. "It's going to be a disaster for many people who don't have a clue about what happens when a real estate bubble pops.

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  thanks to Drudge Report

Velkomin to the United States of Foreclosure

The stock market is about to crash. The only question is whether it will quickly drop down the elevator shaft or follow the jerky flight-path of a man pushed down a stairwell. Either way, the outcome will be the same; stocks will nose-dive, the dollar will plummet, and the bruised US economy will be splattered on the canvas like George Foreman in Rumble in the Jungle. Troubles in the sub-prime market have just begun to materialize and already 38 main sub prime lenders have gone kaput. Foreclosures have reached a 37 year high, and an estimated 2 million homeowners will be put out on the street in the next few years. And that’s just for starters.

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