Mortgage Housing Economic Crisis to Get Worse

Those investors who think that the worse of the mortgage, housing, and economic crisis are already behind us should consider the following report.

According to a new report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight the prices of homes sold in the first quarter of 2008 posted a record decline.

Home prices fell 3.1% from the first quarter of 2007, the largest decline in the purchase-only index, which excludes refinancings, since the federal agency began keeping records 17 years ago.

First-quarter prices dropped 1.7% from the fourth quarter, the largest quarterly dip ever.

“It’s not going to be the largest decline on record for long,” said Peter Schiff, president and chief global strategist at Euro Pacific Capital.”Prices are going to keep falling until we get to the equilibrium, which is much, much lower. This is only the beginning.”

April 2008 US Foreclosures Set Record Level

U.S. home foreclosure filings set a new record level high in April, 2008, rising about 65% over the previous year and placing municipalities at risk by cutting into the value of taxed property. The U.S. Foreclosure Market Report was released on May 14,2008 by the RealtyTrac, an online marketplace that tracks foreclosed properties.

There are still many optimists about who seem to think that the worse of the financial crisis is over. Current data suggests otherwise and that foreclosures will continue to increase over the next year to 18 months. It is hard to see the US economy doing well with massive numbers of foreclosures dragging down the value of the entire US housing market.

Great Financial Panic 2008

What financial panic you might say? Hasn’t the recent Fed actions, lead by Helicopter Ben Bernanke, poured enough taxpayer money, pardon me, that is printing press generated US dollars, into the hands of his Wall Street buddies, to ware off any potential panic?

Nope, afraid not. While the government line may be coordinated with the talking heads on MBNC and elsewhere, as to that a crisis and panic has been adverted and that we no longer need to worry, I fear that the truth is that the financial meltdown has barely gotten started as the problems of over leveraging and the necessary deleveraging are still very much with us.