People ages 45 to 59 are the most likely to refinance, according to Demos, a nonprofit public-policy organization in New York City.
The real estate bubble will eventually burst, says Cary Silvers, vice president of New York City--based GfK NOP, a market-research company that in 2004 gathered information on boomers' attitudes toward refinancing.
Javier Silva of Demos, a New York-based think tank, yesterday opposed any change. Raising the limit would extend a dangerous trend of loosening lending standards to enable consumers to buy homes they can't truly afford, Silva said. "The answer is to find ways to lower home prices, not simply raise debt limits to allow inflated prices to soar even higher," he said.
A proposal to reduce housing costs by relaxing federal lending limits in pricey real estate markets drew a mixture of praise and sharp criticism yesterday from real estate analysts.
Demos's senior research associate and author of A House of Cards: Refinancing the American Dream, Javier Silva, said that, even in the absence of a real estate crash, many families "are facing a financial crisis," partially because they've taken on more mortgage debt.
As more and more people have rushed to be homeowners, they actually own less of their homes than they have in decades...adding another risk factor to the overheated real estate market.
The study revealed some startling results that suggest a college education has become unaffordable to many young adults. For example, more students are taking on debt to finance their college education because of a shift in federal student aid programs. In 1980, the most common form of college funding was federal grants, which amounted to 52 percent of the government's student aid system. Loans followed at 45 percent. But by 2000, loans had risen to 58 percent of the student aid pie while grants dropped to 41 percent.
According to Demos, a New York-based research group, young Americans have the second-highest rate of bankruptcy - topped only by 35- to 44-year-olds. Demos says financial troubles often start when students leave college with credit card debt and student loans that already are unwieldy. According to Nellie Mae, graduates are leaving college with $20,500 in student loans and almost $2,864 in credit card debt.
Whether you want your child to get a credit card or not, he or she will probably get one. About 76 percent of students have them.
