US President Barack Obama unveiled a plan Wednesday to keep between 7 and 9 million homeowners out of foreclosure, using 75 billion dollars to stabilize a housing market at the heart of the country's deepening recession, according to dpa. The Obama administration will offer aid to homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages, relax rules on mortgage refinancing and help neighbourhoods raise property values by renovating already foreclosed properties. The plans would also aim to lower mortgage rates to encourage new home buyers to enter the market. The new measures are designed to stem a record rate of foreclosures - more than 3 million in 2008 - that has undermined housing prices, cost financial institutions hundreds of billions of dollars and brought the availability of new credit in the US economy to a virtual halt. The crisis quickly spread across the globe. Banks around the world that took on US mortgage-backed securities, especially in Europe, have also cut lending and been threatened with bankruptcy. "In the end, all of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis. And all of us will end up paying an even steeper price if we allow this crisis to deepen," Obama said in Phoenix, Arizona, one of the areas worst hit by falling home prices. Obama's home foreclosure support is the latest component of the incoming administration's plan to address what could be the most serious recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Obama signed a record 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus package on Tuesday. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week promised to inject as much as 2 trillion dollars in public and private financing into banks to stabilize the financial sector.
