Mccain Outlines Plan For Battling Foreclosures

June 25th, 2008

McCain outlined his plans for battling foreclosures in the Inland region while attending a fund raising programme at Riverside Convention Center.

McCain is the Republican nominee for the presidential elections. His plans would allow besieged house owners to exchange their unwieldy loans for more manageable ones that would be in tune with the current market value of the properties involved. He acknowledged that this area has been one of the hardest hit by the foreclosure tsunami on top of its woes with the general economic slow down. He is optimistic that his plan, if executed, would help thousands of foreclosure victims. He was speaking to newspersons after the fund raising event and added, “There has got to be some kind of floor so we can start seeing a way out of this housing crisis.”

Riverside together with San Bernardino ranked fifth in the foreclosure positions during May this year among the top metropolitan regions. In Riverside there were 9,024 foreclosure filings in May and in San Bernardino County there were 6,903 foreclosure postings. The numbers include all the different stages of foreclosure from default to auction notice and repossession.

A couple of months ago McCain had released his plan but he had come in for a lot of criticism as the plan would put a lot of constraints on the borrowers. Only those who had taken non-traditional loans after 2005 and who were credit-worthy would qualify for the loans that would be backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Non-traditional loans are those in which the borrower pays only the interest and in which down payment has either been waived or is negligible. But when the honeymoon bonhomie period is over the inevitable happens – monthly payments begin to double or treble.

There were many at the fund raising event, like Jamil Dada, an investment manager who welcomed McCain’s plan hoping that will bring stability to an economy that is being dragged down by the housing crisis. But there were protesters also. A dozen or so got together accusing McCain of failing to offer solutions that will address the problem of foreclosures engulfing the struggling working class who are in any case cowed down by rising food and fuel prices. Among the protesters were members of National Alliance for Human Rights, supporters of Obama and Rep. Ron Paul together with some students.