Bush Touting Home Ownership in Pa.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040315/D81AVEOG0.html

Mar 15, 1:35 PM (ET)

By DEB RIECHMANN

(AP) President Bush jokes with reporters as he departs the White House, Monday, March 15, 2004, for a...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush, hoping to move Pennsylvania to his win column in this year's election, is reaching out to voters in the state by touting record home ownership in America - a bright spot in the economy.

More than 68 percent of Americans own their own homes, and that record high flows seamlessly into Bush's "compassionate conservative" agenda. It's part of his concept of an "ownership society," which promotes the idea of Americans owning their own homes, and owning and managing their own health care and retirement plans, small businesses and the like.

In a trip to Pennsylvania on Monday, his 26th as president, Bush planned to visit with a new homeowner, tour a housing development and participate in a discussion of home ownership at a YMCA in Ardmore, about 10 miles west of Philadelphia.

Bush has been promoting initiatives to close the gap between white and minority home ownership. While more than 75 percent of white Americans owned their own home in the fourth quarter of 2003, according to the Census Bureau, the rate among minority groups was 49 percent or less.

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so early in the campaign. Yes, dumbass, people are buying homes at 5 percent interest rates. Please george, share with us your intellect about why interest rates are so low and thoughtful americans would rather buy than rent. You and rove are quite the pair. While you are at it tell us about your military, criminal, corporate record.

eom

Surge in foreclosures threatens homeowners

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_184482.html

excerpt:

Beasley's robbery is one example of the desperate measures some homeowners take when confronted with the loss of their homes. Officials are bracing themselves for more this year because properties sent to sheriff's sales are on a pace to top the annual record of 4,377, set last year.

In another case, sheriff's Deputy Dan Eisenberg went to evict Joseph Brown, 60, of Beltzhoover, last month. Eisenberg opened the front door and found Brown's body. He had hanged himself from a wooden banister.

"It's not just the blighted homes you think of," said Eisenberg, who does evictions throughout the South Hills. "It's all over."

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, an activist group better known as ACORN, wants to stop the next monthly sheriff's sale, which is set for April 5. ACORN wants more time to lobby state lawmakers for new lending regulations and to help borrowers save their homes, said Maryellen Hayden, ACORN's top organizer in Pittsburgh.

"There is this emergency happening with so many people losing their homes," she said. "We need to find a way to go to a judge and get a moratorium on foreclosures."

...more...

Funny that the record number of homeowners is reported but not the forecolosures and bankruptcies...

graduate from College (according to U. S. News and World Report).

thanks george. Of course its more important to talk about the price of Senator Kerry's haircuts. You are scum george bush.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/q403tab5.html

Not sure where the latest figures are, but it was 67.5 when he took office, and 68.0 in the fourth quarter that year.

You won't see much evidence in this chart, despite extremely low mortagage rates that his policies are responsible for any of this.

It rose 1.5 percent during Clinton's first term, 1.7 in Clinton's second term.

Looks to me like the figure has been bouncing around 68 since fall of 2001.