Ireland Plans Bold Measures to Lift Housing
DUBLIN — With its economy still reeling from the housing crash, Ireland is making a bold move to help tens of thousands of struggling homeowners.
The Irish government expects to pass a law this year that could encourage banks to substantially cut the amount that borrowers owe on their mortgages, a step that no major country has been willing to take on a broad scale.
The initiative, which would lower a borrower’s monthly payment, could prevent a tide of foreclosures, an uncertainty that has been hanging over the Irish housing market for years. If it works, the plan could provide a road map for other troubled countries.
Without the proposed law, Laura Crowley, a nurse who lives in a village 30 miles west of Dublin, figures she will lose her home. In 2007, Ms. Crowley and her husband bought a small home for the equivalent of $420,000. But they can no longer afford the $1,400 monthly payment. Her husband, a construction worker, is earning far less and her take-home pay has been cut by the country’s new austerity measures, which include new taxes. “This bill is the only light at the end of the tunnel for us,” she said.
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The good ole USA needs to take note here and do the right thing too! If banks would stop being so greedy and reduce the loans to the current home value those of us in judicial states could pay the mortgage and not Bk as a way out of this mes. The ball is in their court!
Go one step further, and take Iceland’s lead….