Tag Archives: foreclosure

Posted on

Credit Tightens, But Not by Much

Credit numbers are out for the last quarter of 2014. Here are the highlights from ZeroHedge:

Housing Debt

  • Originations, which we measure as appearances of new mortgage balances on consumer credit reports and which includes refinanced mortgages, increased slightly, to $355 billion, but remain low by historical standards.
  • About 122,000 individuals had a new foreclosure notation added to their credit reports between October 1 and December 31.
  • Mortgage delinquencies improved, with the share of mortgage balances 90 or more days delinquent decreasing slightly; 3.1% of mortgage balances were 90+ days delinquent during 2014Q4, compared to 3.2% in the previous quarter.

Student Loans, Credit Cards, and Auto Loans

  • Outstanding student loan balances reported on credit reports increased to $1.16 trillion (+$31 billion) as of December 31, 2014, representing about $77 billion increase from one year ago.

And the kicker:

  • Student loan delinquency rates worsened in the 4th quarter. About 11.3% of aggregate student loan debt is 90+ days delinquent or in default in 2014Q4, up from 11.1% in the third quarter.
  • Auto loan delinquency rates worsened. The 90+ days delinquency rate is now at 3.5%, up from 3.1% in the previous quarter.

That’s a lot of deliquency. Nearly 1/8 of all student loan debt is 90+ days late. And that debt doesn’t go away.

 

Posted on

Case Study: How to Do Absolutely Everything Wrong with Your Money

If you set out to do the EXACT OPPOSITE of what these people did, you’d be in good shape.

From WaPo:

A decade ago, Comfort and Kofi were at the apex of an astonishing journey they had made from Ghana in 1997, when they had won a visa lottery to come to America. They did not know it at the time, but they were also at the midpoint in their odyssey from American Dream to American Nightmare.

Today, they struggle under nearly $1 million in debt that they will never be able to repay on the 3,292-square-foot, six-bedroom, red-brick Colonial they bought for $617,055 in 2005. The Boatengs have not made a mortgage payment in 2,322 days — more than six years — according to their most recent mortgage statement. Their plight illustrates how some of the people swallowed up by the easy credit era of the previous decade have yet to reemerge years later.