US Tackles Negative Equity Head On – Ireland and the UK should follow this lead. It’s not often that we look across the pond and complement our American cousins however we must give them credit for tackling the Negative Equity Crisis that persists in the US ….at long last .
Being trapped in Negative Equity is a lonely and challenging situation , yet it is important to remember that you are not in fact alone. Millions of homes around the world bear the burden of crushing negative equity, and for home-owners it seems an insurmountable challenge.
While the governments in the UK and Ireland have remained deafeningly silent on the issue other attempts have begun around the world to tackle the problem head on. The Federal Housing Finance Agency in the United States has announced measures to reduce the balances of mortgages which are greater than the value of the Properties they’re secured to.
This has been mainly aimed at mortgages held with two of the global financial crisis’ biggest causalities, Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac. The idea behind eradicating this Negative Equity is that it will act as a catalyst which will stimulate the once fiery property markets of the US.
Many are calling the move too little, too late however as the scheme will only target 33,000 Negative Equity Homes while the scale of the problem in the US is estimated to effect almost 6 million homeowners. With hundreds of thousands of homes trapped in Negative Equity across Ireland and the UK it is now time that the respective governments step up to the plate and tackle the issue head on. Economic growth in regions such as the North West of England and Northern Ireland has been very definitely stunted by the anchor of Negative Equity and it is clear that this is having a real world impact on the hundreds of thousands facing the unprecedented problem.