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Foreclosures crisis caused by investors. And lenders. And politicians. And buyers.
TAMPA
A simple narrative is often used to characterize the foreclosure crisis at the heart of America's Great Recession: While banks are at fault for approving risky loans, people who lived in the homes are as much to blame. Vanity Fair magazine calls American homeowners "infantile'' for living beyond their means. Financial pundits criticize them for splurging on swimming pools and three-car garages. A Treasury secretary takes his shot, accusing home buyers of signing mortgages they could never afford.
But a St. Petersburg Times analysis of thousands of foreclosures in Hillsborough County, which has one of the highest default rates in Florida, shows individual homeowners are getting too much of the blame.
The truth is that real estate speculators and revenue-hungry local governments bear just as much of the responsibility — and maybe more — for the collapse in the housing market.
In Hillsborough, for example, investors and flippers account for almost half of the foreclosures filed from 2007 to 2009. Their purchases greatly inflated home prices, laying the foundation for the bust to come.
And local officials helped them every step of the way.
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.
.
.
.
.
A simple narrative is often used to characterize the foreclosure crisis at the heart of America's Great Recession: While banks are at fault for approving risky loans, people who lived in the homes are as much to blame. Vanity Fair magazine calls American homeowners "infantile'' for living beyond their means. Financial pundits criticize them for splurging on swimming pools and three-car garages. A Treasury secretary takes his shot, accusing home buyers of signing mortgages they could never afford.
But a St. Petersburg Times analysis of thousands of foreclosures in Hillsborough County, which has one of the highest default rates in Florida, shows individual homeowners are getting too much of the blame.
The truth is that real estate speculators and revenue-hungry local governments bear just as much of the responsibility — and maybe more — for the collapse in the housing market.
In Hillsborough, for example, investors and flippers account for almost half of the foreclosures filed from 2007 to 2009. Their purchases greatly inflated home prices, laying the foundation for the bust to come.
And local officials helped them every step of the way.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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