The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

14 February 2008

Bubble, bubble: what's the trouble?

Remember all those foreclosure stories on the news? They're always somewhere else, it seems. RealtyTrac, which monitors foreclosures nationwide, reports that the national foreclosure rate for 2007 was up 80 percent from 2006. Meanwhile:

Oklahoma City's foreclosure rate dropped 15.4 percent in 2007 even with increased filings statewide late in the year, RealtyTrac reported this week.

Tulsa's rate — the percentage of households in foreclosure — fell 3.6 percent last year compared with 2006.

Obviously we're doing something right around here. Mortgage banker Lyne Tracy explains:

She said subprime loans were made here, but not enough for problems with them to set back housing as a whole, as seems to have happened in some places.

Questionable and risky borrowing and lending didn't dominate in Oklahoma, Tracy said, because of lessons learned the hard way in the 1980s, when dicey lending and weak underwriting led to twin crashes, in energy and real estate.

Ah, the Beep Jennings era. Apparently we are capable of learning from our mistakes.

Posted at 8:48 PM to Soonerland