{"id":289,"date":"2008-09-23T22:40:30","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T05:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/23\/home-loans-for-illegals-a-personal-aside\/"},"modified":"2008-09-23T23:00:16","modified_gmt":"2008-09-24T06:00:16","slug":"home-loans-for-illegals-a-personal-aside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2008\/09\/23\/home-loans-for-illegals-a-personal-aside\/","title":{"rendered":"Home loans for illegals: a personal aside"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michelle Malkin :: Townhall.com :: Illegal Immigration and the Mortgage Mess<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s no coincidence that most of the areas hardest hit by the foreclosure wave — Loudoun County, Va., California’s Inland Empire, Stockton and San Joaquin Valley, and Las Vegas and Phoenix, for starters — also happen to be some of the nation’s largest illegal alien sanctuaries. Half of the mortgages to Hispanics are subprime (the accursed species of loan to borrowers with the shadiest credit histories). A quarter of all those subprime loans are in default and foreclosure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing.\u00a0 It is both stunning and a bit chilling.<\/p>\n

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While waiting for my current home to be built, about five years ago, I rented in an area of Adelanto California that was quite new, with mostly recently built homes, and largely populated by Hispanics, frequently multiple families per house.\u00a0 Homes for rent were rare in my area, so I felt lucky to find anything I could afford to rent at the time.\u00a0 It was evident that many of the residents of the area were not educated (at least in English), and could not possibly have been working in jobs that paid enough to qualify for the loans on any traditional basis. Some were rented, I suppose, but many were “owned” by the occupants, i.e., they had somehow gotten a loan.\u00a0 At the time, I wondered how they could possibly have afforded the homes, qualified for the loans, etc., knowing what a thorough going over my own finances had gotten, as I qualified for the home that was being built for my family, using a well-known lender, and taking a conventional mortgage with a fixed rate, even with a decent sized down payment.<\/p>\n

I suppose now I know.\u00a0 Those people had been given loans they really couldn’t service, that depended on government incentives for lenders to make ridiculously “barely in the door” loan packages with adjustable rates, low or no down payment, etc., in the foolish assumption that prices would always keep going up.\u00a0 Since many of the Hispanic men in that area worked in construction, during the go-go building boom of five years ago, and must now be out of work (there is almost no new construction these days, around here), or working in lesser paying jobs, I can only assume that they are among the “victims” that some Congress critters want to give money to, as part of the current bail out.<\/p>\n

By the way: having been fooled by the enormous rise in prices into believing that my house had appreciated 50% in just 3 years after I bought it, at first I was disappointed at the large price reductions of recent times.\u00a0 On balance, however, the fact is that my house is STILL worth quite a bit more than I paid for it five years ago, and I am not “top heavy”, because I bought a house I could afford, qualified for a fixed rate mortgage and took it (despite the glittering jewel, fools-gold ARM I was offered, but didn’t trust), and I’m just fine, thank you.<\/p>\n

I’m not claiming to be special here.\u00a0 In this, I am exactly like the HUGE majority of home owners and mortgage payers in the USA, who planned prudently, work hard, and are basically just fine.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet, the minority that can’t keep up, and should never have been offered the opportunity, is taking us all down, at least to the extent that we will all pay for the foolishness of all parties to those transactions, in more than one way, the bailout costs only being the most obvious.<\/p>\n

As Michelle Malkin’s report makes clear, this whole thing was truly a house of cards, set up by politicians who thought economic reality had been permanently suspended.\u00a0 It hasn’t been.\u00a0 And won’t be.<\/p>\n

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