When Considering California Foreclosures And Their Affect On California Economic Activity
Understanding just how California has been impacted by the rate of California foreclosures might be something of importance to gain as people consider how the Golden State managed to get itself into the real estate-challenged condition that it now is in. Basically, over-exuberance and a failure to realize that no real estate market can rise forever led to California’s current real estate issues.
For around 10 years, from the mid-90s to about 2005, the Golden State had some of the most vigorous and exuberant real estate markets in the country. Prior to 1995, most people everywhere considered that a home would be something one would purchase and then live in for quite some time. As a result, home values remained fairly steady and prices rose at a very measured pace, for the most part.
And this is where the first issue with the increasing rate of CA foreclosures began to show itself; in the fact that home buyers were expecting to take profits from a home not soon after they purchased it. What this means is that they were loading more debt onto the home in the form of second mortgages and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) as well as expecting a large profit from a sale in the future.
During that decade-long increase in property values in California, many buyers were getting into homes and then getting right back out of them within a couple of years and making good profits from doing so. But anybody looking at the market with even a little bit of economic smarts would’ve pointed out that every boom is eventually followed by a bust and this happened, of course, out in California.
Put all of the excessive enthusiasm for California real estate together with the fact that many people were getting into this real estate by purchasing more home than they actually could afford and it’s easy to see how real problems would soon begin to develop. Many people sitting in homes that they’d purchased at low initial monthly payments saw those payments rise and, as a result, any hope of profit disappear.
But that kind of formula (buying more home than could be afforded and taking profits before the monthly payments went up steeply) can only work as long as home prices continue to climb. It was inevitable that a recession would hit and one did in 2007, though California began to experience a softening of the real estate market in late 2005. Many people chose to ignore it, unfortunately.
Once the decline in prices really began to take off after the financial markets basically collapsed in late 2008, a huge number of home owners in California found themselves sitting on properties that were worth far less than what was owed on them. It was inevitable that the rate of CA foreclosures would then begin to start climbing, sometimes steeply, all across state.
As to what the rate of CA foreclosures might mean for California, most would say that a period of decline and a shakeout accompanied by a solution to California’s budget woes and structural defects in its real estate markets is necessary. With so many homes sitting in foreclosure or unsold, California is going to have to work hard to improve itself, which is something most hope it does soon.
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