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Subscribe to RSSEmployers are increasingly stressed about housing problems, based on calls to a major provider of employee assistance programs, sometimes known as EAPs.
ComPsych Corp., among the largest providers of such programs, says that in the first half of this year, for the first time it received more calls about housing woes than childcare needs. That’s a major shift that shows just how big of a problem the housing crisis continues to be, even for working Americans.
ComPsych said calls about moving rose by 14 percent in the first half of the year, as compared to the previous six months. The increase was driven largely by employees dealing with foreclosure or the need to find more affordable housing.
Housing was the No. 1 problem for employees with 10,250 calls, compared with 8,000 calls related to childcare needs, usually the top problem.
A slump in the housing market has been a major factor in the recession and weak economic recovery. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that housing starts grew by 10.5 percent in August from a month earlier, driven largely by increases in condominium and apartment construction. Still, the figures are very weak by historical standards.
Employees are facing other stresses related to the economy as well. ComPsych said it received 4,250 calls about caring for elderly relatives, with many seeking less expensive options. That was a 23 percent increase in that category.
Another 2,500 called the employee assistance lines with health-related questions, up 11 percent over the previous six months. Many were seeking lower-cost options for medical care.
ComPsych serves about 33 million individuals at 13,000 companies worldwide.
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States with a higher population density, such as New Jersey, have higher housing costs because of the scarcity of land, higher real estate taxes and high-paid workers competing for housing in a land-limited market. Coastal states usually have a higher population density.
States with lots of open land, usually interior regions far from coasts, are observed to have lower housing costs. And if there are not a lot of jobs in the region or the average income is low, then housing costs will be low. For retired or elderly persons or disabled individuals living on limited income, it's best to migrate to a low cost interior state where housing costs are lower and land is readily available.
Webberx says: "When we borrow, banks do not lend existing money. They create brand new money in the form of check book money and they demand interest for it!"
As far as I can tell thats a fictional statement. Banks cannot lend money that they do not have on hand from depositors. If you have a savings or checking account, then the bank will lend out the money you deposited. They do not lend all of it and so they have a percentage of the deposits as a reserve. If all the depositors withdrew all of their money at the same time, then the bank would be in trouble and would have to be baled out by the FDIC.
This maybe too little too late, but the feds are bailing out the wrong people. The banks (who made poor decisions in lending the money) got a free hand out. The people who decided to take on a mortgage they couldnt afford got a free handout.
The people who have made fincally responsible choices are the ones being punished. Those who has lost 50 - 60 percent of their homes value with no recourse. If the feds would apply that "bailout" money to the principle balances of mortgages that lost more than 40% of their value, that would stimulate the economy as well as re-invigorate the housing market. The flow of money would still go to the banks so they would have some revenue conming in the door, and the people who made wise choices with thier money would not be punished.
Why is it that we need a super major crisis with the housing problem before anyone wakes up? This has been going on for at least thirty years. They've never cared if low income people could get somewhere to live. It has been economic discrimination. There are groups of people that say, "not in my backyard." Now the housing problem has come to visit those same people. There is something wrong when you work forty hours a week but that does not cover your basic needs.
It is best for you to understand this new age economy. Businesses are raking in record profits by cutting waste, you are waste! The rich keep on spending and so far it appears they have enough dough to spend for themselves as well as you and so again you are waste. Hoses are not selling so builders have stopped building (regardless of published statements) again you are not needed. employers for the most part have sourced the cheapest labor they can find and for those who cannot be replaced your hours are cut so as to not qualify for benefits. yes this new economy is a doozy!
There is a housing surplus in the USA and many unoccupied homes, because families defaulted on balloon mortgages and lost their equity that they had built up. Balloon mortgages are very bad because people get hooked on the easy initial payments. Then after 3 years, the payments go up while the family may have experienced a layoff. Then the family finds themselves "under water" on their mortgage or unable to make payments causing a default.
I was divorced when the housing market was at the peak and home prices were crazy. I wanted to buy a house and a real estate agent was more than willing set me up with a balloon mortgage. But I realized that the whole deal could fold up like a house of cards. I could not see the housing market going on forever with higher and higher prices. Yet that was what many new home buyers and real estate agents were expecting. It was out-of-control speculation.
I chose to rent a small apartment and have been living there for 10 years, saving money. In 2006 I bought a 1696 sqft house in West Virginia for my eventual retirement. I bought it at the top of the housing market for $72,000. The monthy mortgage payment with taxes and insurance is about half of the monthly rent of my small apartment in New Jersey.
If the federal government had an office to aid relocating low-income people to lower cost areas of the country, the people they relocate would benefit and the higher-cost region would experience a slackening of demand for housing, thus causing a reduction of the cost of housing in the previously high-cost region.
I am a licensed Realtor in RI and CT. I have corporations who hire me to show their prospective new employees the area and homes for sale. Like never before, I am repeatedly seeing people who do not want to sell their current home in another state at a loss. Therefore, they buy an inexpensive second home or opt to rent. It's awful. Oh, and they have a dog 80% of the time so their options are reduced even more.
And it seems that what you describe would lead to more unused, unoccupied housing. My oldest son lives in my house in West Virginia because housing costs are so high in New Jersey.
People worried about losing their houses and jobs, who would have ever guessed? These folks need to start spending and quit worrying, the recession is over. Obama's cronies said so. Get with the program folks.
The housing mess originated in the Bush years under Bush government policies. Also, Bush-encouraged illegal aliens were buying up houses competing with American citizens, thus driving up home prices even more. Your view of the world is totally biased. I believe that illegal immigration and housing abuses are bad under any president, but you are blinded to see fault on only one side. Thats why you are fatally biased.
Uh, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that haunted the Bush years was signed by Pres. Clinton in December 2000, just before the new president took office. You can't blame Bush for the last-minute disaster he inherited from Clinton. And it's not so much illegal aliens "buying" houses that inflated demand, but programs that subsidized home purchases for low-income families. Although these loans had a very low rate of default, they put buying power into the hands of so many more people, driving up demand (and thus prices) for small and average size homes. So people who could normally afford a modest home were now competing with subsidized homebuyers, forcing them to pay a lot more for their homes.
Much of the housing "bubble" could have been avoided if President Obama had done one thing: Made it mandatory for lenders to negotiate with homeowners. Since it was voluntary, most of the deals went right out the window. If he had put a task force to work on investigating predatory business lending practices, it could have saved millions of citizens their homes. But the political and financial pressures appeared to be too great for Obama to even consider this. Now only the rich can afford homes.
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How is it that during the inflation of the housing bubble ivy-league level intellectuals, and high-end business school alumni espoused the belief that housing prices would go continuously go up? Is it suspension of reason and logic? Or, is it a case of mass hysteria driven by the desire for ever increasing returns on investments? The middle and lower income classes are culppable also because anyone who was a member of a pension plan or 401(k) wanted to make sure that their financial manager was 'maximizing retyurns'. Well, the way to maximize returns is to take greater risks. Everyone went to the party; with some exceptions.