Moritoriums help slow the rates of market over saturation and give families more time.
Probably it would help if there is federal reform hinging on bankruptcy court flexibility to rewrite terms and conditions of overreaching mortgages. That is needed, however, those courts always have substantial workout flexibility.
But bankruptcy lawyers want substantial retainers up front before they will take a client or file. If you can afford a bankruptcy you probably could afford clearing a payment arrearage, and vice versa.
When a home's current and likely future market value does not exceed the mortgage debt, or when the monthly payment's been upgraded beyond a family's ability to pay because of an ARM adjustment, (that is what adjustable in "adjustable rate mortgage" means), then on a non-recourse mortgage [the lender going for the home, as security, only, without pursuit of any personal liability for a deficiency on foreclosing if the sale yields less than the debt] the homeowner has no economic incentive to stay, and is better off taking a hike.
For nationwide and community housing stability, that's not good. Vacant homes attracting vandals, etc., and for community stability and the happiness of most members of the public it is not good, so there is reason to want reform.
The Minnesota legislature is not in session, so presently it can do nothing until back in session. Then it can impose moratoriums and lengthen foreclosure times, but if there is to be a nationwide coordinated policy to fix the mortgage crisis favorably for those on mortgages, the relief would have to be congressional.
The will there so far has been absent.
Also, the current president is not using any "bully pulpit" goodwill in that direction. You can only "bully" so much, and then resistance builds, and this current president has been anything but a "bully" over policy promises he made during the campaign when his healthcare promise was, "I want everyone who likes the health insurance arrangements in place to keep that if they want it, and if they would rather have the coverage I have as a Rep. or Senator, they can have that instead."
For now, that seems to have been pure BS, given his apparent public readiness to abandon the "public option" he in campaigning described.
Moreover, it looks like false promising given how he's not said boo about cutting Medicare by letting there be no COLA when consumer costs indices go up, and to allow the cut from some options to increase against the static ceiling; the latter being far from his "if you like what you have you can keep it" rhetoric.
These things, along with single payer being "off the table" despite clear majorities in polls of the public liking and desiring that single-payer be installed, is why progressives can say, "You lied," much as Joe Wilson did during the speech, but the progressives can speak that way with justification.
All that is a prelude to the latest online Strib report on Minnesota's foreclosure status:
Minnesota foreclosures highest in the region
By BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune - update: Sept. 21, 2009 - 8:59 AM
Even as home foreclosures dropped slightly in Minnesota from July to August, the state's rate remains the highest in the Upper Midwest.
According to RealtyTrac, an online real estate tracking service, the 3,688 foreclosures reported in Minnesota during August represented the 21st highest rated in the nation.
While that's more than 70 percent higher than a year earlier, it represents a decline of nearly 11 percent from a month earlier.
By comparison, Wisconsin's foreclosure rate was the nation's 22nd highest, Iowa's was 41st, South Dakota's was 44th and North Dakota's was 49th.
The Dakotas both enjoyed big month-to-month declines in foreclosures, while the rate jumped in both Wisconsin and Iowa, the firm reported.
The July-to-August easing of the foreclosure crisis that occurred in the region represented better news than occurred nationwide, RealtyTrac reported.
Nationwide, more than 358,000 foreclosure-related filings were recorded in August, meaning one in 357 U.S. homes received a filing, according to the firm. That number, up 18 percent from a year ago, includes default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions.
In Minnesota, the number of foreclosures has more than quadrupled since 2005, to just over 26,200 last year, according to HousingLink, a nonprofit research agency. For the first half of this year, 11,089 were reported -- although a foreclosure moratorium by many large lenders this spring could be holding that number down.
Being the regional leader, in some things, is undesirable. This is such an instance.