The rich may get richer, but not always.

It also seems that the rich or near-rich have overextended themselves in the housing markets. Housing problems have definitely moved up into higher value homes.

From Michael David White comes the following:

A quiet revolution has hit wealthy neighborhoods: financial failure. The 90-day delinquency rate on home loans worth over a million dollars hit a high in February at 13.3 percent, much higher than the overall rate of 8.6 percent.

Financial failure on large-balance mortgages and high-end properties is 50 percent higher than the national average – and the national average delinquency-rate is at record highs (High-end Homeowners Falling Into Foreclosure Trap. 5/8/2010. CNBC). Given that cure rates are approximately zero percent at 90-days of delinquency (and I mean that literally), one of eight borrowers in expensive homes is dead-and-gone. This is not a trickle. This is a flood of “product” – houses that owners or banks must sell.

Read the full article here