Foreclosure rates could affect college students

As costs across the board increase, it isn't just the tuition rates students should worry about. The falling dollar, increased fueling costs, higher costs of living, and airfare costs for out of state students are hitting home as well. However, the mortgage costs and foreclosure rates, currently 900,000 homes nationwide are in foreclosure, will have long lasting effects on a damaged economy as well.

Students entering college and those preparing to graduate should be concerned with the status of the current real estate market for many reasons. Primarily, the prospect that home values will continue to fall and little is being done to stop the predatory lending practices prevalant across the country. Many recent graduates have already been targeted in the last couple of years, and sold homes that they couldn't really afford due to the a-moral propositions put forth by lenders. It is not being staved off by efforts of the Fed, including dropping interest rates. It is not being halted by candidates on the Presidential trail condemning lenders for their dispicable behavior. It is not being curtailed by efforts of the Congress. It continues to escalate and progress across the country.

Many students are already feeling the effects of the current state of the real estate market, as a result of their parents being the victims of the lenders. Many students are now in a position of fighting for funding of their tuition because their parents are in foreclosure or already foreclosed upon and can no longer co-sign their childrens' educational loans. This leaves many students in a predicament, trying to fund their education and not qualifying for loans, many from the very same lenders that created the mortgage that devastated their parents financially.

In some areas, builders are so desperate to unload homes built during the housing boom that they are giving huge discounts. One developer in Arizona recently offered $100,000 off in order to decrease the number of empty homes in their developments.

Recommendation, cool your heels when looking into home purchase right now. It is unsure when the market will recover and it is even more unclear what is going to happen in the lending industry. The rental market is booming and rental housing costs are far below what they were three years ago. Getting a lease-option is another possibility. Lease optioning at this time, however, could be tricky as investors are in the same predicament as many other traditional home owners, and are looking to get their money back on their investment. If the market keeps falling you are likely to end up paying much more than the home is worth by the time your option to buy comes to fruition. Rent for now. Buy later.