Houston is a jumbo city in Texas State and it is the seat of Harris County. Houston is also the focal point of Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan zone. The question now arises why news about Houston home foreclosures are attracting headlines. The economy of Houston is industry based and centred on energy, manufacturing, technology and aeronautics. It is a gamma city and leads in manufacture of tools required in the oil industry. The Port of Houston – ranking first in the country, has added to its importance. Yet Houston home foreclosures are causing headaches – even more than that caused by the recurring problem of flooding. Houston is on the gulf coastal plain and the city came up marshy forestland or prairie. On this terrain, prosperity has brought in its wake an urban sprawl. Houses have come up willy-nilly trying to reach the skies. But what goes up has to come down. Today the rising number of Houston home foreclosures seems to bring down the housing boom to its knees.
Houston home foreclosures are not isolated from what is happening in the rest of the country. A foreclosure tsunami is raging with concentrations varying from region to region. Houston home foreclosure numbers rose with predatory lending. Recently the law has been taking a tough stand. A drama on Houston home foreclosures played out in Harris County Court. Lately the court has been handling fraud related cases connected to Houston home foreclosures. US Attorney General Don DeGabrielle says priority is given to these mortgage fraud cases and in-depth investigations are being carried on. The criminal defense bar (the same group who represented Enron defendants) is now busy with mortgage fraud clients all connected with Houston home foreclosures. The convicted are being awarded severe sentences – more than that given to the Enron group. In Harris county courts three people sentenced in fraud related to Houston home foreclosures have been awarded 25 years in jail. Another was given a 40-year sentence.
It is hoped that stern legal steps will check the Houston home foreclosures from degenerating further. If the offenders had been nabbed earlier the number of Houston home foreclosures would not have reached such peaks. The people are furious for such false or straw-buyers being allowed to thrive for so long. With Houston home foreclosures marching on it seems it is soon going to become the foreclosure capital of the world. Prominent sociologists and economists want that young people set up their homes in their own houses. But unless the trend of foreclosures is reversed this is not going to happen. Till now Houston is one of the few cities in the world where a working class man owns a house.
Defense attorney John Parras feels that too much is being made – it is a drop in the mortgage market ocean. His argument is that the borrower too had his or her share in contributing to the rising waves of Houston foreclosure homes. It was an attitude of something-for-nothing that has led to the landslide of Houston foreclosure homes.
