Feb 18 2010

Why the Housing Market Crashed

While the housing bust and tough economy has hit certain states harder than others, everyone is dealing with the hardships from their mistakes and accidents. For a period of a few years, everything was going well with the economy and the housing market was growing at an amazing rate. Many people took advantage of this by buying homes, buying second homes, and jumping into the market with the intention of flipping a home. Their intention was to buy something run down and cheap, fix it up, and sell it quickly at a profit. This worked for a short time, making some people rich. It quickly became a trend and less savvy business people jumped on the bandwagon. As the trend reached its peak, the housing market began to crash. Houses People stopped buying because of job loss, and suddenly many people were left with homes they could not afford. Your modest Texas Home Loan may have ballooned into something with unreasonable monthly payments or your Houston mortgageinvestment on a second house you were intending to flip stuck around far longer than you intended, draining your savings. What was the cause of this devastating crash?

Experts agree several factors played a role, some of them honest mistakes and others malicious actions by lenders and crooks. In some cases, lenders took advantage of lax lending standards and a booming market. They convinced people they could afford unafforable monthly payments. This could be done because payments would balloon over time. A person may buy a home with an affordable mortgage during the first two or three years, but once that introductorty period ended, the rate rose and left them desperate. They may have originally been promised the ability to refinance prior to the rate hike but that never happened. These people were shafted, but they were also foolish enough to trust the lender without due diligence.

Much of the housing boom was fueled by government encouraging lenders to fund loans for people who were high risk. Banks were required to meet lending quotas regardless of risk. Many people were able to get mortgages whether they were able to afford them or not. When the market began to fail, the strain homeowners like this put on the market became even greater. A part of the economy that had just been rolling along at a breakneck pace and then it crashed. While it is tough for anyone to agree on exactly what triggered the housing crash and subsequent poor economy, most will agree irresponsible behavior played a major role.