Household HSBC Watch

Do you think HSBC’s fun and games with subprime and predatory lending will not impact you? Do you think that you were never involved and thus you will experience no negative effects of HSBC’s careless lending? Do you think it will not efect your family if HSBC Finance sells a predatory loan to one of your neighbors? Your logic is totally incorrect. Consider the value of your home, and the ability to sell your home. Granted, home prices are falling. That is not our point. The evil comes from foreclosures competing with regular home sales, making it more difficult to sell your home. Every realtor or appraiser runs a comparative market analysis, thus evaluating the selling price of homes in your area. That may drive down the value of your home even more.

Foreclosures add to inventory and crowd out regular sales, Michelle Meyer and Ethan Harris, economists at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, wrote in a report yesterday. Foreclosures will account for 30 percent of national home sales this year as 1.2 million foreclosed single-family homes will eventually enter the market, they said. They estimate foreclosed properties, which typically sell for about 20 percent less than other homes, will depress home prices nationally by 6 percent.