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February Foreclosures Up 30% from 2008; Does Obama Own the Crisis Yet?

Joshua Dorkin
1 min read

Almost 291,000 homes across the US received at least one foreclosure-related notice last month, up 6 percent from January, says RealtyTrac.com, a compiler of foreclosure data.

 

The big question in the minds of pundits is when the Obama administration is going to officially own the economic and housing crisis. Fifty days into his administration, the President continues to remind us at every opportunity that he inherited this crisis, and that it is the fault of Bush and anyone other than him. Now that the President has made his Housing plan, his multi-trillion dollar budget, and more bailouts official, isn’t he officially running the show? Isn’t he the one whose policies dictate what is to happen in housing, the stock market, and every other facet of the economy?

My Way News reports “nearly 12 percent of all Americans with a mortgage – a record 5.4 million homeowners – were at least one month late or in foreclosure at the end of last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That’s up from 10 percent at the end of the third quarter, and up from 8 percent at the end of 2007.”

Now that the Obama plans are officially up and running, we should be seeing a slowdown in the foreclosure data, right?

Only time will really show whether these various plans are effective, and we must give it some time, but I have an important question (amongst many others) . . .

Who is in Charge?

I believe that the current President is now fully responsible for what happens under his watch. If his plans don’t work, then he needs to step up and re-work them. If his stimulus isn’t effective, then he should take it back to the drawing board. If the foreclosure plan makes no sense, then man up and do something about it.

I’m tired of the whining and the blame game. If we’re going to blame people, we’re going to have a big list that includes in many ways, practically all Americans, including the President, Congress, Wall Street, Lenders, Agents, Home Owners, and on and on.

Lets focus our energy on ending the housing/foreclosure/economic crisis and stop telling everyone “it wasn’t my fault”, because it was. Most people just don’t care . . . they want to stop living in fear.

Lets do something about that!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.