Next Year Could Foreclose the Nation

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December 26, 2007 (LPAC) -- The implosion of the housing bubble guarantees that 2008 will be more horrific than 2007. The worsening will come from an upsurge in the number of Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) reset to higher interest rates during the January to June period, the inaction-to-date by Congress, and the hyperinflationary effects of the money-pumping by private central banks.

Leading inflection points of the ongoing housing crash in 2007, and projections for 2008:

** Prices of existing U.S. single-family homes tumbled 6.7% during October of 2007, compared to October of 2006, the tenth straight month of decline, according to data released today by Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Composite Index for 10 of America's largest cities. The October price index fall exceeded even the previous record 6.3% decline recorded in April 1991. As well, Case-Shiller publishes a composite home price index for 20 American cities. Eleven of the cited cities experienced during October, the biggest monthly price decline since the 1929-32 depression, spearheaded by Miami, - 12.4%; Tampa, -11.8%; Detroit, -11.2%; San Diego, -11.1%.

** Fannie Mae, one of the two U.S. secondary mortgage market giants, which had pumped out optimistic predictions earlier this year, now predicts over the course of 2008, that prices for existing homes, will fall an additional 4.5%, and sales for existing homes will plummet an additional 12%. That would be in addition to the plunge in home sales this year, which have been down 20.7%, comparing October of this year, to October of last year.

** Lehman Brothers investment bank analysts project that approximately 1 million home mortgage loans will be thrust into default in 2008, compared to 300,000 this year. However, all this must be put in perspective: reality will outstrip even the most dire projections being made now.