Massive mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have placed a six-week moratorium on foreclosures, reports indicate. The suspension is intended to give lenders more time to restructure high-risk loans.
Fannie and Freddie back around 43 percent of the nation’s $12 trillion in home mortgages. Both were seized by the federal government in early September after the real estate market caved in, leaving people owing more on their house than it was worth. The time-out will run through Jan. 9. People who are 90 days delinquent on payments they can barely make will be offered new terms, including reduced interest rates for at least five years, and stretching the repayment period by as much as 40 years.
Anything shoring up the mortgage collapse is a positive move for the television industry, since TV relies on the auto industry, and the auto industry relies on equity financing to sell cars. The government gave $700 billion to banks to cover bad mortgage loans, but the money was instead used to buy stock in ailing banks.
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