The Atlanta area continues to make it into top 10 lists, coming in number 8 on the Forbes.com list of the 10 worst housing markets in the United States.
According to the report, prices in the housing market in the Atlanta area were last this low in June 2002, and were 12.14 percent lower than the same time last year.
Home-saving experts with the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) say that the thousands of Georgians that have been attending seminars it has been holding around Atlanta could benefit from a program recently announced by President Barack Obama that will help homeowners refinance their mortgages.
Critics say that the plan is too little, too late, and mounting job losses will leave those without a steady income without a way to qualify for new loans aimed at keeping them in their homes.
Richard King, a home-saving specialist in the NACA’s Decatur office told the Atlanta Journal Consitution that “the plan isn’t perfect but it is a good start.”
He went on to say it was the first government effort aimed at helping distresses homeowners.
Lenders participate in the plan announced by the President on a voluntary basis. Housing advocates have said that there is no incentive for lenders to work with homeowners to create a solution that is affordable.
President Obama said that on top of the plan announced to aid homeowners, he wants to see legislation passed that will allow bankrutpcy judges to modify mortgages.
David Kittle, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, a national industry group, is quoted in the Dallas Morning News as saying that his group was “disappointed to see the President endorse bankruptcy as an option to help delinquent borrowers.”
Incentives for lenders that participate are built into the administration’s plan to help homeowners, but there is no punishment if they choose not to negotiate, according to critics of the mortgage lending industry.
“This is the stick part, this isn’t the carrot part,” said Samuel Gerdano, executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute, which studies bankruptcy issues. “The bankruptcy judge is the stick.”
