To Buy a House, or Not to Buy a House

With the recent housing crises, my family ironically decided to buy a house. For those of us who were unable to buy extremely inflated homes a couple of years ago, this was the perfect time. Think about it, with so many houses under foreclosure, a need for buyers is crucial. A couple of years ago, several families would fight over a single house, now one family can have the choice of several houses. It is ultimately the buyer's market. With house cut down by as several hundred thousand dollars, it would be simply uncanny to not get your hands one of them. And this is what my family did last month.

Constantly hearing the news about the housing crises, gave my family a sense of hope. We realized that, with the amount of houses being confiscated, the banks needed to sell them at a cheaper market. The banks would rather sell the house up to 50 percent of its originalmarket price than pay the property of the full price themselves.

So what was one of the factors that contributed to the housing crises?Sub-prime mortgage. These are "housing loans made at higher-than-normal and adjustable interest rates to borrowers with little or poor credit history or an income that wouldn't typically qualify them for a mortgage--lie at the center of the crisis." Foreclosure People with little or bad credit were tricked by lenders into buying houses with low adjustable interest rates and even no money down. Ironically, these family were unaware that property taxes were going to rise, the APR was going to rise and for some families, their mortgages were going to double. It's been estimated that more than "3 million houses will be foreclosed by the end of 2008." Foreclosure

The housing crash not only effects the families who are having a hard time paying their bills, but a ripple effect is also present. With people not buying houses, construction was down. With people not buying homes, real estates and loan lenders had no jobs. Thus the economy as a whole was effected. Personally, I believe that the government needs to take more action to prevent further foreclosures. The prices of some of these simple homes are more than half a million just because of the housing surge a couple of years ago. Now, they are not even worth 400,000.

"The catastrophic damage could be so widespread that the crisis could reach $600 billion in losses to home owners, Wall Street investors, mortgage companies and banks." Crisis THis is not good for anyone. When real estate goes down, the ripple effect begins. The housing surge was motivated by money hungry corporations, and now they are suffering. And now, families who did not fall under trap have the upper hand.

My family had decided to buy a house a couple of years ago in Hollywood. Everywhere we turned they were asking 500,00-800,000 for a measly 800 square footage home. It was ridiculous. Lenders were promising no down payment, low rates and so forth. But thankfully we did not fall into that trap. We waited and waited, and recently purchased a house in North Hollywood, about 1700 square foot, and the price was unbelievable. So the housing crisis has benefited families like mine who had waited for the perfect time to buy a house. Politosaurus Rex states, "Because the economy is doing so poorly and inflation is on the rise, less families are purchasing homes." While this statement is true, I feel as though, families who want to buy a house now, who were unable to afford the inflated prices would benefit the most. Prices are reasonable now and my family felt it was time to buy one.

But, the condition should not have gotten this far where 600,000 dollars homes are being sold for ridiculous amounts. The government should have adjusted the interest rates for many of these "on the edge of foreclosure" houses. Foreclosure is the worst ultimatum for both lenders and families. So the best solution is to actually prevent that from happening in the first place.