| Rural homes foreclosed, but not near number of urban, suburban home ...
Foreclosures, which have roiled housing markets across the state and the nation, have had a smaller impact in Pennsylvania's rural communities, where subprime loans were rare and lenders and borrowers work hard to avoid defaults. "Because of the nature of the rural buyer, they tend to be more conservative in how much debt they carry," said Dan Duffy, chief executive officer of United Country Real Estate in Kansas City, Mo., one of the largest rural real estate agencies in the United States. Also, lenders who specialize in serving rural communities keep most of those mortgages on their own books rather than sell them on the secondary market. Thus, they will go to greater lengths to help property owners avoid foreclosure. For the most part, the lenders tend to be small outfits, often nonprofit organizations with relatively few accounts.
Lenders Rethink Home-Equity Loans
Rising delinquencies and falling home prices are putting home-equity lenders and borrowers in a tightening bind. As home values continue to sink, mortgage companies are increasingly walking away from delinquent home-equity loans rather than pushing borrowers into foreclosure. At the same time, some lenders, in an effort to protect against future losses, are looking at scaling back home-equity lines of credit held by certain borrowers who are still making payments. Mortgage companies typically begin sending foreclosure notices when a borrower is more than 90 days behind on payments and can't come up with a plan to resolve the problem. But in many cases, the companies have concluded that they are better off not foreclosing on borrowers who can't make payments on their home-equity loans and other types of second mortgages.
Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Stimulus-Package Stock Plays
If the proposed economic stimulus package gets approved, consumers will be spending some of their tax rebates at retailers, Cramer told viewers of his "Mad Money" TV show on Thursday. Retail stocks trade off of their same-store sales numbers, he explained, and with the comparisons from last year so low, retailers can't help but benefit. In this regard, Cramer likes such retailers as Guess (GES - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), J. Crew (JCG - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Lowe's (LOW - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr). He notes that Liz Claiborne (LIZ - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Jones Apparel (JNY - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) should also do well. And he's still a fan of Costco (COST - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), TJ Maxx (TJX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and even Urban Outfitters (URBN - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) at these levels.
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