Ben Bernanke Quotes

Almost a decade removed from the foreclosure crisis that began in 2008, the nation is facing one of the worst affordable-housing shortages in generations.

I'm telling you that there is no silver bullet to keep home prices from going down or to prevent all foreclosures.

It's time to pull the bandage off America's foreclosure problem. The economy is ready to emerge from its recent dark period, but to make it happen soon we need to speed the resolution of millions of troubled home loans. Six years have passed since the crisis began, yet instead of accelerating, foreclosures have slowed.

Our economy isn't going to recover until the housing market finds its footing.

A decline in the national housing price level would need to be substantial to trigger a significant rise in foreclosures.

What began as a subprime lending problem has spread to other, less risky mortgages and contributed to excess home inventories that have pushed down home prices for responsible homeowners.

I am worried that the collapse of home prices might turn out to be the most severe since the Great Depression.

Indeed, the FHA was born out of the Great Depression, which was also caused in significant part by a foreclosure crisis. Mortgages in the early 1930s were mostly three- to five-year 'bullet' loans, which did not amortize and were due in full at maturity.

Housing works like a trampoline. When it is pushed down far enough and long enough, it will eventually snap upward very powerfully.

We don't have to guess what Mitt Romney would have done if he were president. Because he told us. He said we should let foreclosures - and I quote - 'hit the bottom' so the market could - I quote - 'run its course.'

Housing was ground zero for the Great Recession. Between early 2006 and Obama's inauguration in 2009, average house prices fell by a third across the country. In certain areas, including cities as diverse as Akron, Orlando and Las Vegas, house prices fell by more than half.

President Obama has basically avoided or not done any attempt to intervene in any positive way in the housing market. I think in the financial crisis that's been a shame.

The housing market will get worse before it gets better.

More than a quarter of mortgage borrowers are underwater, and 11 percent of all homes are vacant.

Remnants of the foreclosure crisis linger everywhere.

People aren't as impressed by homes anymore after they saw how they collapsed in price with the financial crisis.

I had begun to worry about the housing market back in 2003, when lenders first resurrected interest-only mortgages, loosening their credit standards to generate a greater volume of loans. Throughout 2004, I had watched as these mortgages were offered to more and more subprime borrowers - those with the weakest credit.

It's not a small thing, it's a pandemic, but economically we should not be in this position that we are this fragile as an industry. We don't go racing for three months and we are on the verge of collapsing, which is amazing.

If in fact the rates go up because the president refuses to budge then he will have to answer for that next year when our economy is not growing. When, unfortunately, people lose their jobs who work at a dental clinic as a medical billing specialist, or the paralegal at a law firm loses their job, or the courier at the law firm loses a job, these are not millionaires and billionaires.

In the wake of the housing debacle in California, more people are buying less expensive homes, making bigger down payments, and staying away from 'creative' and risky financing. It is amazing how fast people learn when they are not insulated from the consequences of their decisions.

We went into a recession in 2008 because of gasoline prices. The bubble burst in housing because people couldn’t pay their mortgages because of $4 a gallon gasoline.

The people who are filing for bankruptcy in increasing numbers every year, it's not the poorest. It's not the people at the economic fringes. It's people who worked hard and played by the rules.

I just want to say that the only thing less popular than putting money into banks is putting money into the auto industry.

Having spent years ruining the housing markets with their interference, leading to a housing meltdown that has taken the whole economy down with it, politicians have now moved on into micro-managing automobile companies and medical care. They are not going to stop unless they get stopped. And that is not going to happen until the voters recognize the fact that political rhetoric is no substitute for competence.

When oil goes over $40 a barrel it's almost impossible for America to do well.