Unlike virtually every other country, US residential mortgages are effectively no recourse loans.

The housing recession the worst in US history and worsening every day will eventually see house prices fall by more than 20 , with millions of Americans losing their homes.

The Right Weights for Mortgage Risks

Occupy the Mortgage Lenders

So far, the sub prime crisis has had a limited direct impact on Latin America s mortgage markets.

Losses are spreading from sub prime to near prime and prime mortgages, commercial mortgages, and unsecured consumer credit (credit cards, auto loans, student loans).

America s mortgage market remains on life support the government now underwrites more than 90 of all mortgages, and President Barack Obama s administration has not even proposed a new system that would ensure responsible lending at competitive terms.

Mortgage debts, too, must be written down.

House prices probably will fall further, so there will be more foreclosures, and no amount of talking up the market is going to change that.

A true loss would be inflicted on a bank s creditors only if the write off losses on toxic mortgage loans exceeded the bank s equity.

For example, governments could facilitate the write down of mortgages in exchange for a share of any future home price appreciation.

After the subprime crisis erupted, mortgage and consumer debt was paid down by households either with their savings or by default.

Mortgages became more widely available.

Mortgage brokers were happy to get in on the act.

It was called securitized mortgages.

This creates a strong incentive to default, because mortgages in the US are effectively non recourse loans the creditor may take the property if the borrower doesn t pay, but cannot take other assets or a portion of wage income.

The entire sub prime market is largely a decade old innovation the word sub prime did not exist in any language before 1994 built on such things as option adjustable rate mortgages (option ARM s), new kinds of collateralized debt obligations, and structured investment vehicles.

Indeed, the foreclosure rate is increasing.

The problem was not just sub prime mortgages.

The claimant sought from the Court an order of foreclosure.

Moreover, the US housing market appears to be stabilizing....Overall, the US mortgage market has remained resilient, although the sub prime segment has deteriorated a bit more rapidly than had been expected.

a rapid reduction of insolvent households debt burden, preceded by a temporary freeze on all foreclosures

In the US, reviving the credit markets requires stopping the mortgage defaults driven by negative equity.

Unfortunately, there is no program to deal with the defaults and foreclosures caused by high loan to value ratios.

In the US, the protests of 2011 will have a lasting effect only if Occupiers remain organized and continue their work on fighting foreclosures.

But mortgage markets remain underdeveloped in most emerging economies.

What is needed is a quick write down of the value of the mortgages.

In the fourth act, the real estate bubble will burst.

Its members could not agree even on how to define subprime mortgages and calculate how many such mortgages there were in the United States at the time of the crisis.

Thus, although delinquency rates have risen slightly in Mexico since the mortgage market was created in 2003, only about 5 of mortgages are between 31 and 60 days late. Only 2 are between 61 and 90 days late.

The state is an epicenter of the housing bust and the foreclosure crisis.

Around sixty sub prime lenders have already gone bankrupt.

Some limited previous experience with mortgage modifications is not encouraging.

You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you do lend shall bring forth the pledge outside to you.

Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee.

Given the large number of negative equity homeowners, there is a risk that defaults and foreclosures will continue.

Wall Street has polluted the economy with toxic mortgages.

Sub prime mortgages made the American dream come true.

One place to start is the tax deduction for interest payments on home mortgages.

The sub prime crisis has exposed serious problems that we must address.

As a result, one third of all American homeowners with mortgages are already underwater their mortgage debt exceeds the value of the house.

In the old days, when borrowers found it impossible to make their payments, mortgages would be restructured foreclosures were bad for both the borrower and the lender.

Reducing the face value of mortgages and providing the upside in case home prices were to rise in the long run to the creditor banks is another way to convert mortgage debt partly into shareholder equity.

Faulty thinking, in turn, encouraged loose practices by mortgage lenders, and led central banks to take no action against housing bubbles as they developed.

Many banks have already acknowledged their open ended losses in residential mortgages.