Thursday, February 17, 2011

Housing Bubble: Winners, Losers and the Aftermath

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/anatomy/foreclosure/
Marketplace has a special report on the housing crisis through the lens of one house that fell into foreclosure. There is an interactive version of the story, and links to audio version and the companion 30-min documentary:
SoCal Connected and the acclaimed public radio show Marketplace have teamed up to take a tough look at the housing market crisis through one Los Angeles home. This special, reported by Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal, traces the property from savvy investment boom to foreclosure bust and back again. We’ll meet the couple who bought the home low in 2002, improved it, and sold it four years later at almost triple the price; the couple who bought high and lost the home to foreclosure; and the couple who bought it this year at a fraction of the price it sold for in 2006.
The story of Lot 354 reflects the lending practices that contributed to the crisis in America’s housing market, how economic forces led to the housing crisis and what the future may hold for both buyers and sellers.