What caused our present financial crisis? Bad mortgages that turned sour, which were followed by a huge wave of foreclosures.

 

If you are one of those who have been badly affected by what has happened to our economy, it’s time to take inventory of your financial position. How safe are you and how strong are your long term resources? No one can say with any certainty when things will begin to improve and even when they do, how long it will take for us to get back to the levels of prosperity of years past. Maybe we should not reach those levels – at least not in the same form. Perhaps what we had was built on quicksand. It would be a mistake to repeat the same process all over again. And this does not apply only to banks and Wall Street. It applies to individuals too. It’s time to look at long-term security, no matter what the short term problems may be.

 

Suffolk County and other prosperous regions in and around New York are seeing a rise in the number of people who are contacting them. These people may not be in any immediate danger of either foreclosure or bankruptcy, but they are engaging in long term planning and are factoring in these possibilities, so that they are prepared for any eventualities.

 

Being realistic about the problem of foreclosures makes sense. Despite the government’s well-intentioned promises to find ways of protecting the homeowner, the realities are that nothing much is happening or can be expected to in the immediate future. For example –the Bush Administration’s Hope for Homeowners program promised last year to shield 400,000 families from foreclosure. The actual results as of last February were a mere 25.

 

Understanding bankruptcy and foreclosure process is critical to long term planning. Bankruptcy is not the end of the road – there’s quite a bit of protection for retirement and some other forms of savings. Getting the right advice well in advance and modifying financial plans to take into account various scenarios is the key to long-term financial security.

 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 7:52 am and is filed under Budgets & Financial Management, Economy & Politics, Financial Market. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.