Residents may be illegal, but they're responsible borrowers

Home loans held by illegal immigrants in California and across the nation generally have had fewer delinquencies than similar loans held by U.S. citizens, in part because of stricter lending requirements, according to banks, insurers and Realtors, reports The Times' Anna Gorman.

"Every indication is that their performance is better than the average" mortgage account, said Tim Sandos, president of the National Assn. of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.

More than 12,000 home loans were issued in recent years through a special program that relies on government-issued taxpayer identification numbers instead of Social Security numbers, according to the association. The identification numbers, known as ITINs, were designed for foreign-born residents living legally in the U.S. but are widely acknowledged to be used primarily by illegal immigrants.

Read the rest of the report on how illegal immigrant homeowners compare to U.S citizen homeowners here.

Click here for more on immigration.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Comments

[southoc]

How does a gardener think they can afford a
$600,000 home? If they didn't understand what they were signing then they should not have signed it. Common sense. These people should be held liable for the amount of the loan they signed for.

The agents that sold the home should be prosectued as well.

Don't make excuses for stupidity, there is none.

[Kate]

Hmm. Another article seems to contradict some of this. Perhaps this is more spin than fact.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/382006_salinas07.html

Quote: "Financial guru Julie Stav also has seen a disproportionate amount of Latinos being hit by the crisis in the housing industry. A study by her firm in Los Angeles found that a high percentage of Latinos were among those who received the now-infamous subprime mortgage loans that are causing so many to lose their homes to foreclosures.

In her study, Stav found that 50 percent of the people who were losing their homes did not go to the bank to try to find a solution. That is because many of them got loans from the same person who sold them their house. "We got into loans we didn't understand and signed them with people who couldn't back them up, and we are not dealing with it by contacting banks," they say."

"Most people we spoke to did not understand the concept of adjustable rate mortgages," says Stav. As a result, they did not know why their payments suddenly went from $1,500 a month to $2,300, for example. It is the lack of information on such a complex issue in a language that they can understand that has a lot of Latino families afraid and unaware of how to deal with this financial crisis." End Quote

[GTF]

I'd be willing to bet that Jose Perez has more than one family living in his small condo. This is a condition I see in the area where I live -- Long Beach. Hispanic families typically have more than one wage earning generation living under the same roof. I'm not saying this is wrong, it's just a different culture. Unfortunately, most homes, especially condo's, aren't designed to house that many people...

[cooper]

Another pro illegal imigration, story by the L.A. times, oh excuse me the LAtino Times.

[cooper]

We're selling homes to illegals when thee are millions of homeless American citizens? Thats insane.

[Marlena Christian]

That might to be the case in a normal housing market; however, with the super artifically inflated prices of the past couple of years - illegal immigrants will default on loans because they were in way over their heads - they cannot possible afford to pay for homes costing $300,000 to $600,000

[southoc]

That's bull

Everyhome in San Juan Capistrano that was forclosed upon was in the north part of town was "owned" by illegal immgirants who took out fraudulent lonas. Then they had to be paid to leave the premises by the agents.