Reader comments
Utah foreclosures up 141%

Well I certainly hope everyone saw this coming. Before the housing boom, Utah was always near the top for foreclosures. Are we to assume that the boom suddenly made Utahn's more fiscally responsible. No, in fact I'm willing to be that by the time this crash fully develops, we will discover that Utah abused the housing boom more than an other state.

The real housing bailout will take place when you folks get realistic about your asking prices and bring them back down around 2004-2005 levels. When that happens, those of us with the money will go ahead and buy your overpriced homes. Until then, we're content to rent and sleep well at night.

Oh this whole credit crisis is a lot more fun to watch when you don't own a depreciating home. Every week housing inventory increases in Salt Lake City and yet the stubborn seller refuses to realize that he's asking too much for his house. Wake up! Utah is not immune to the credit crisis. We are lagging the national trend by 18-24 months. Your home's value will fall at least 30% from it's peak.

I hate to see my friends go through financial hardship, but the markets definitely need to correct themselves. Real estate prices need to drop a little more so that they allow more families to buy a home and eat up some of this excess inventory. This might take a few years, but it will be great for buyers if they can qualify. As for me, prices in California are dropping 3% each month so I'm in no hurry to buy.

More trickle down economics.

Here is something we can all agree to. If Barry Obama was our President none of this would have happened!!!!

We should bring Barry into office six months earlier so he can share his love with each of us with tax increases and more government oversight and bailouts!

This isn't news. I can drive around my neighborhood and the areas close by and see that for myself. That's why I don't understand why there are so many other new townhouses and new homes being built all around this area.

It's been a practical joke for the american people and this housing crisis. What happened to the billions of dollars pumped in to financial institutions to help these homowners from going into foreclosure? What can a home owner do when they try to refinance into a manageable contract when their property titles are being shuffled around to prevent tracking down the title holder? Government should put a freeze on the selling of any property titles facing foreclosure or caught up in the the ARM scandals by financial instutions. Financial companies whine and complain about loses just to get our government to bail them out. They have no intention to help homeowners when they can get all the funds they want from the government. The present occupants of these homes have lost everything with overpriced and inflated valuations and have no equity. However, the financial markets can still shuffle the propertiess and claim loses they themselves generated with falsified appraisals and bait and switch lending. The realtors, builders, and develpers had a hand in it too as their cut is 6%+ of selling/buying price. An incentive to go along with the inflation and corruption. An epidemic of greed.

what does"trickle down economics" have to do with this situation? Oh, I see, because "the rich" got lower tax rates then the Government couldn't afford to come in and bail out struggling speculators eeerrrr....homeowners. Where in the Constitution is the Federal Government allowed to take money from one group of homeowners who are paying their mortgage and give it to someone who bought more home than they could afford?
As if these lending institutions like Zions and Bank of America and Countrywide wanted to see their stock prices slashed. I personally just love seeing my stocks lose 30% of their value... but I don't blame SUPPLY SIDE ECONOMICS .. I blame these moronic lenders who stopped requiring 20% down and income documentation. It's just greed and why would anyone take out a loan when they are going to be financially strapped to make the payments?
I know one thing - they're not making anymore land and at some point prices will start going up again but I don't really care.. I bought my house so I would have a roof over my head ... not to make easy money

What they failed to mention is that Utah and Wyoming are the best two states in Real Estate today. Investors from other states bought in the HOT Utah market. Now they can't pay their own bill's so they are bailing out of their investment properties to foreclosures and bankruptcies. It was the investors from other states that damaged Utah. Now they want out. I am a Realtor and I have been selling homes like crazy, at 95 to 100% of asking price. These homes are in the affordable range of BELOW $250,000. The homes that are suffering are the investment homes of $400,000 or more. The reporter didn't tell you that. We also have about 87,000 people moving to Utah this year. They are buying the affordable homes. Our market today seems to be a repeat of the 70's. Assumable loans are back. St. George is in a cool-off period, banks are refusing to loan on homes in St. George, hence the foreclosure rate there WILL go up because of it. Utah isn't dealing with huge lay-offs, it is negative media that is causing the damage. Buy now or be sorry. It IS a buyers market.

Wait a minute... elsewhere in today's paper, I read that Utah's suburbs are "flourishing"! What's going on?

Mr. Lee, where is your desk relative to Ms. Bulkeley's in the DN's newsroom? Give her a heads up about what you've found in re the whole debt-ridden suburbs thing.

Guess what's happening in the rental market? Landlords are getting whatever they want - and will continue to do so until rent is equal to or higher than home payments.

For all of those doom and gloom folks - please ignore this but this market WILL INCREASE!!! Just wait until the lag time catches up with all the inflation on gas prices. Seriously, if you think you're home is going down 10% - you're crazy.

Inflation, inflation, inflation. It's happening everywhere! When the population starts increasing again, jobs start popping up again, homes will ABSOLUTELY follow. And when they try and build homes, the materials that they need will be too expensive to keep prices down.

Besides, like somebody once said: THEY AREN'T MAKING ANYMORE LAND.

This whole situation illustrates why all of the "free market" advocates are so misguided. The foreclosure rate is a direct function of the lack of regulatory oversight on the lending industry. Easy money generated by risky lending practices drove up the price of houses, and allowed many unqualified buyers to get into homes they couldn't afford. Maybe when Obama gets elected, we will get back to a more responsive, and responsible, federal government.

Bushs economics SPEND SPEND SPEND then DROP, PLOP and the bucket is empty but for the BUSHs

There is no recession.
That is just lie made up by liberals.
Everything is just fine and dandy.

Yeah, I wondered how it was possible for so many people to get into the 300-400k houses. They are all over Utah from St. George to Logan.

How in many peoples wildest imaginations did they think they could afford houses that expensive? Yes, the lenders are part of the blame, but financially uneducated buyers is probably the bigger problem. When I went thru HS in UT finance was not required. There was one elective personal finance course offered.

Maybe we don't need financial education, we can just rely on a feeling to let us know if we are making wise financial choices... and we wonder why there are so many cases of financial fraud and bankruptcies in Utah.

Need for a fact check here.

If Utah foreclosures are well below the national norm (1 in 600 homes in foreclosure in Utah vs. 1 in 500 nationally) then how is the state 10th in terms of rate of forclosure. Several statistical outliers would need to be in place on the top end of the scale for this to be fact which is highly unlikely in this realm.

One of the two stated statistics is likely erroneous. Sitting well below the national average in foreclosures likely ranks the state in the 30's in terms of rate of foreclosure.

Utah seems to have more than her share of financial problems.

For years Utah has been at the top or near the top of bankruptcies and now, foreclosures.

Use of anti depressants is high in this state as well.

How could this be in a state like ours??

Possible explanations:

1) Low wages

2) High charitable giving

3) Large families

4) High expectations with regards to lifestyle, conduct, etc.

Possible remedies:

1) Move out of state if you want higher wages--eventually employers will have to become competitive

2) Pay on net or "increase/surplus" instead of gross (after vital expenses)--just a thought, if can be done

3) 2-4 kids is still "multiplying and replenishing" the earth, we don't live on the frontier anymore

4)Don't compare yourself to others, be happy with simple things

Well, that was politically incorrect I'm sure but I think it would help.

The comment about trickle down economics is so lame it is laughable. The problem in the mortgage crisis can be summed up in one word - GREED. It was greed by the realtors and local mortgage bankers who were complicit in helping to promulgate fraudulent applications. It was greed on the buyers who purchased homes they knew they could not really afford and in many cases went along with fraudulent applications. It was greed by the home owner who refinanced and took money out of his house to buy toys they felt they had to have. It was greed by the financial institutions who offered such mortgages knowing that in the end many of the buyers would fail.

The new rules that require buyers to qualify at the highest rate the note could go to and to fully document income will be a welcome relief in the housing market. This idea that everyone should buys a house is one of the myths that led to this total collapse of the housing market.

I wonder who forsaw this coming? I told those in the housing market to wait and you will have a field day at "Re-po's", well its starting soon. I had said WE were waiting, but the right deal came AT THE RIGHT TIME in Roy, seller paid ALL the closing COSTS and MORE! We ended up in 1950 sq ft home + 2 car attached garage for about $160,00 when all was said and done. Put your line in the water, but don't be in a hurry to reel the line in! If you want to buy a house interest rates are going to head up soon, so keep that in mind, that will cost you thousands over the life of a full 40 year mortgage so bear that in mind. Enjoy the shopping experience it's a lot of fun and don't show your hand.

Welcome to GOP and Bush America. Keep supporting the Greedy Old Party.

This is ANOTHER reason not to like KUTV's Dave Fox - He got off lightly for his part in the housing scheme. I never can watch him anymore without thinking of it!