US Housing Market Slow to Recover From Collapse in Prices
CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Christopher Cruise.
FAITH LAPIDUS: And I'm Faith Lapidus. This week on our program, we look at the American housing market after the collapse that pulled the economy into a recession. We also talk to experts about their advice for people who still want to buy a home.
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CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: The Great Recession lasted a year and a half. It began in December of two thousand seven. At that time, almost seven in ten Americans owned a home. That was a record high, and it included about sixty percent of blacks and Hispanics. Policies designed to increase home ownership in America included special efforts to help poorer groups in society.
As rates of ownership rose, so did housing prices. They became inflated by too much lending, too much borrowing and risky new ways of financing sales. Banks no longer had to worry about the risk of a home mortgage loan not getting repaid. They could simply sell their loans to investors.
Housing prices reached a high point in two thousand six. The crash that followed spread through the economy. It was a cause of the financial crisis that struck the world in two thousand eight.
FAITH LAPIDUS: Next Monday the Census Bureau releases its latest report on the home ownership rate. Its last report in November showed that the rate had fallen to just under sixty-seven percent, from a high of sixty-nine percent.
RealtyTrac is a company that counts foreclosures, the legal term for bank repossessions. It says over three million Americans have lost their homes this way since two thousand six. And it estimates that three million more foreclosures are yet to come.
RealtyTrac predicts that twenty-eleven will have even more than the record one million foreclosures last year. But it says the number should start to fall next year.
Foreclosure rates have been high in states where prices rose quickly and almost anyone could get a loan. Rick Sharga is a senior vice president at RealtyTrac. He says foreclosure rates are now increasing even in places where home prices did not rise quickly and risky loans were not a problem. These include cities like Boise, Idaho, and Charleston, South Carolina.

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