Deregulation was the purported anti serum which would weed out unprofitable banks and punish them for poor lending practices, supposedly preventing them from infecting the entire system. This was done despite the fact that the outcome was inevitable. People in the know new the train was about to come to the end of the track - even when housing values were still inflating. The very organization that should have foreseen this catastrophe, were in fact fueling the process led by Alan Greenspan. In the end, it was sort of like putting the bartender in charge of the breathalyzer.
Owning ones own home was always deemed as a necessary cornerstone in a families efforts to achieve personal wealth. In order to achieve this people relied on the information provided by realtors supposedly looking out for you. For most people, buying a homes is both a tedious and stressful event. Good realtors can provide invaluable help to home buyers but these were hard to find.
No-one really knows how many realtors fall into that category but one thing is for sure: in today's current mortgage foreclosure crisis, there's a sobering lesson for anyone involved in the home ownership business.
It isn't just about getting a buyer into a home - it's also about making sure that that buyer has access to quality credit that isn't going to result in a foreclosure, should the buyer hit one rough bump in the road. Credit Suisse has predicted that roughly 6.5 million homes will go into foreclosure in the next five years. That's a lot of lost dreams. Realtors were guilty of abdicating the morals of their profession and forfeited providing accurate and realistic advice by failing to properly counsel their clients. They should also pay more attention to matching client’s financial ability with a house they can reasonably afford.
That old real estate adage - figure out what you can afford then stretch a bit - shouldn't be the advice that realtors give today's buyers. Today's message should be: buy something that fits your budget, today. Realtors should be providing their clients with better information and not knowingly putting them in a position that will inevitably lead them down the ugly road of foreclosure.
