As Foreclosures sour the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) continues to broaden and promote more risky loans.
In the face of souring foreclosures and blistering criticism  of risky creative mortgages, NAHB promotes the self-serving method to continue selling houses... In recent years, consumers have been flocking to such non-traditional mortgage products as interest-only loans, where the borrower does not pay down the principal. Other popular home loans include payment-option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) that allow buyers to decide how much to pay each month, including a low-cost choice that provides the option of paying neither the principal nor the full interest...With the share of the overall ARM market now at a record 40%, Mozilo said lenders need to play a bigger role in educating the consumer on the advantages and risks of non-traditional loan products, while stressing that there is “no evidence to show these are unsound loans.”

Higher Interest Rates And A Weakening Real Estate Market Are Driving Home Foreclosures Through The Roof Homebuyers with adjustable rate mortgages faced payments they couldn't afford. Those forced to sell couldn't find buyers and hundreds defaulted on their loans. Now the place leads the nation in foreclosures – 1 in every 168 households. That's 700 percent higher than the national average. "Almost overnight it's like somebody turned the lights off,"...Things are so bad in Colorado that the state just set up a first-of-its-kind foreclosure help hotline. It got 1,400 calls on the first day.

Avoiding mortgage crisis is a priority
Lenders have to help distressed borrowers find a way to dig out, and all the participants, including home builders, have to reform their business -- or someone else will do it for them. The pressure is already building. In a Senate hearing last week, regulators criticized the recent wave of exotic loans that are squeezing many homeowners and will soon hit thousands more...The problem has been evident in Texas for a while. Foreclosures have been rising at double-digit rates for four years, and unlike other parts of the country, home values haven't appreciated enough to bail out borrowers.

Legislators want to make public the names of those linked to loans
Trying to halt record numbers of home foreclosures, legislators want to make public the names of mortgage brokers, appraisers and other professionals connected to each mortgage loan. N.C. Commissioner of Banks Joseph Smith told a special legislative committee on Tuesday that his office needs the names of mortgage brokers and other loan originators to investigate mortgage fraud and resulting home loan foreclosure.

Mortgage crunch
People who finance their homes with ARMs may not realize the risks involved and often find themselves in serious financial situations as a result.

PR Web: The Housing Bubble Gets Ready To Burst
The two largest culprits are homebuilders/mortgage firms that forced real estate appraisers to come up with inflated valuations and the second culprit are teaser rate, adjustable rate mortgage products that are now starting to adjust beyond many homeowners ability to make the payment. The victims are or will be our nation's homeowners, our nation's pension funds and ultimately the U.S. Taxpayer in a Katrina type bail out...the combination of blackmailing real estate appraisers into inflated valuations combined with insane mortgage products creates the perfect storm for a real estate disaster that could be our nations most costly real estate melt down in history.

Foreclosures haunt homeowners
Nearly 850 Bexar County residents lost their homes to foreclosure Tuesday, the third-highest monthly total in more than a decade. Foreclosed homes go up for public auction the first Tuesday of each month outside the Bexar County Courthouse. The slew of foreclosures is reminiscent of the late 1980s when oil busted and the San Antonio real estate market crashed.

Fraudulent FHA loans breaking brokers
Statewide, the FHA reports 337 claims against its insurance fund on Colorado home loans issued in the past two years. One-fourth were originated by just four small Denver-area firms: Primero LLC, Alliance Mortgage Capital Inc., International Lending Solutions Inc. and Creative Mortgage Inc.

FHA program key in surge of foreclosures
A key factor in the state's record-setting wave of foreclosures, critics say, is an FHA program that allows people to borrow more than their houses are worth with little or no money down. Created to extend the dream of homeownership to first-time buyers, the so-called FHA gift program instead has led to rampant foreclosures. Nearly 6,000 FHA loans have wound up in foreclosure in Colorado in the past two years, and during that time the program allowed more than 25 percent of FHA buyers to use gifts as down payments.