Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Homeowners with mortgages of more than $1 million are defaulting at almost twice the U.S. rate and some are turning to so-called short sales to unload properties as stock-market losses and pay cuts squeeze wealthy borrowers. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQED_96QBBkk
So what? their properties have lost close to 50% of their value. If they owe $800K on a million dollar house that has no buyers... They should Pay nothing but a few thousand in legal fees to stall and let them forclose in a year or two. They save $10K each month in mortgage, insurance and taxes... If they stall it out two years they break even on saved cash while living rent free.
That explains why the empty McMasions near me are occupied by "unsuitable" tenants who will soon disappear when a change of ownership takes place into stronger hands.
These things happen when people are encouraged to live above their means with no sense of obligation.
Another amusing situation that so many thought would go one for another 20 years when housing prices could only go up, anyone paying top dollar over the last 5 years for these type of houses weren't thinking. These were the same fools as the ones with the sub prime loans borrowing as much as they could against them to take those month long summer vacations and drive cars they couldn't afford, you know ones that made an extremely low 6 figure salary but literally maxed out everything they had to feel like they were living the lifestyle of some multi, multi millionaire. How anyone thought houses priced at $1M+ were going to sustain these levels because the high end market never feels the recession....... Thats foolish talk, why should anyone look at a house from here on in as an investment that doubles every 10 years, this isn't the way it should be. Housing prices still have ways to fall, the only reason why you are seeing somewhat of a bottoming process in some areas is due to the intervention within the market, take away those hundreds of billions of dollars that preventing some of these houses from going into foreclosure and $8000 tax credits and you would easily see housing drop an additional 25%, housing prices are still overvalued and not only that it will be many long years before anyone who paid top dollar in 2004-2007 to ever see any type of recovery on the price they paid. At least 20 years.
Home prices could resume growth within 7-10 years. Who's to say that the government won't change their immigration policies. If you got 400 million people in U.S. Home prices could double from their peak of 06-07. These $1 m+ mortgage defaults means nothing to the big banks. These parasites will just wait for the next host to buy the property then rinse and repeat.
Not just mexicans, the world is not made up of just canada, us and mexico. If the house drops in value by say 10-15%. And the foreign investor whose fiat currency increased in value compared to US by 15-20%. Then it makes the home with all the fancy amenity a damn good bargain. Not all mexicans are poor by the way.