Topic > ch reduces house prices considerably. The collapse in house prices means that more and more homeowners are saddled with bad mortgages, meaning their homes are worth much less than the original price they bought it for. Homes have already lost an average of 20% of their value, but “most experts predict another decline of at least 15%” (Zuckerman, 2008). Additionally, as homes are abandoned by their owners and left empty due to foreclosure, it decreases the value of the entire neighborhood and not just that home. Falling home prices will obviously hurt consumer collateral, consumer spending, and will ultimately not affect… middle of the paper… defaulting homeowners are the source of this financial crisis. The goal of any bailout is to rebalance the financial system and bring it into balance. The financial system will not be in balance until home prices remain stable or rise, and home prices will fluctuate until the government finds a way to stop the rise in foreclosures. It's pretty obvious that the government isn't doing its best to keep people in their homes, because it doesn't want to use the bailout to recover homeowners' mortgages. If the U.S. government doesn't come up with a plan quickly and home prices don't stop falling, the economy is unlikely to recover. Even though the goal of the bailout bill was to protect against the collapse of the US financial system, the government must understand that the only way to prevent this fire from spreading is to stabilize the housing market.