Foreclosure bill: How does it make sense?

koodoos to you ND very well said... I would rep you but I am confused as to what way you want the rep

 

Holy Crap though.. that took me a while to read

 

i happily accept negative rep

 

ND,
Very well said. Most people don't understand that a house is basically a liability until it is paid for, and even afterwards it remains a semi-liability because it needs constant repairs. It is not- as seen during the bubble- strictly an investment.

If you look at the annual appreciation charts from 1890-1997, the chart looks like a very stable line that very gradually goes up 1-4% a year on average. In 1997 a lot of things happened, such as the passage of the legislation that you mentioned that enabled more people to qualify for loans. But prior to this, as far back as the early 80's, banks began to sell packages of mortgages upstream to investment banks whom would have these insured by companies like AIG, and so on. With this system in place and the addition of easier access to loans, that's when you started seeing 10,20,30% annual appreciation.

The bottom line is that we will see a return to the 1890-1997 chart and homes will go back to being what they have always been: A place to live that incidentally over 30-40 years becomes worth more in step with inflation, basically making it a hedge against inflation.

 

yeah, that was basically my point. if you "invest" in a home that you plan on staying at for a long period of time, it's almost unheard of for it to lose value over 20, 30 or 40 years. Although i have seen houses that have depreciated more than appreciate due to home owners neglect. but thinking you can turn around and make money whenever you want is not smart.

 

greed +money + irresponsibility + lack of control = the mess we're in.

 

Chairwoman of FDIC just said that it is most likely they will be out of money by the end of the year.. so I wouldn't keep your spare (laugh) money in the bank

 

Homeownership in itself is a fallacy in this country anyways. True you can pay it off, live in it 30-40years or more and think you have your bases covered but miss a tax payment on the house and property to the good ol' gubment and see who owns the house. Technically all anyone does in this country is rents/leases homes and property from the government. Elected criminals is all they are.

 

Yeah.. isn't that a croc!

 

which is why we find ourselves at the brink of a civil war

 

I have no faith in society or the government. I don't follow it, I don't like to read about ...and when I do, I just get more aggravated and stop reading about it.

People / society (in general) don't have a clue about how to manage their own money, how to be and stay 'financially stable', how to keep some savings aside in case something happens, how to decide for themselves what's right or wrong in terms of financials. But instead - the government /banks have been deciding who can or can't afford a home.
That's great....a dream come true for some folks who otherwise couldn't afford a home. But only to find out, they've bit off more than they can chew?

All this makes me think of a co-worker whom filed for bankruptcy - TWICE!!!!
How the hell is it possible for anyone to put themselves into a position to file for bankruptcy a second time? Shouldn't there be laws in place that prevent these people from doing it all over again????

Ok...there are legitimate people out there that lost their jobs and can't support themselves or their mortgage. I can understand that. But my mind wanders and thinks about all those people in the world whom have a really nice house, nice car, but can barely pay their bills or mortgage on time. Who's fault was it to allow these people a mortgage?

Society - where are our priorities?
Government - tempting us to go againest our priorities

(sorry, off the wall thoughts....venting in general)

 

What drives me crazy is the idiots that bought their homes for a really good price years back and when the housing market was at it's peak refinanced their $250,000 home for the inflated value of 5,6 or even $700,000. They put in huge pools bought Escalades or Hummers with huge billet wheels, they bought boats and motor homes. Now their house is worth $200,000 and they can't make the huge payments. None of their crap is worth anything now and we have to bail them out.

 

+1

 

Good post. Subprime mortgages were created by Democrats to get votes. Period.

Find me a $1MM house on Lake Keowee for $460K and I might buy it.

 

hell, if i had the money i would have bought it. the place was gorgeous. it had a 2 slip dock and an iron spiral staircase to some little lookout room on top and stone and marble kitchen. it was awesome

 

Here in Florida we've seen our home values drop by 45% in the last three years. We refinanced our house 18 months ago with what we thought was lots of equity left in order to renovate and remodel it. The values have fallen so much ($10,500 in the last thirty days according to Zillow.com) that we are soon to be upside down.

We plan on living in this house into retirement (we're in our 50's) and will continue to pay the mortgage. That doesn't change the fact that we are paying for something we no longer have.

I was laid off in February (they fire the old farts first) and can keep going for a while but eventually I'll run out of money. We took a 15 year mortgage to pay it down by the time we retire but I could not convert it to a thirty year mortgage to get the payment amount lowered because of the drastic fall in home prices.

Even in these circumstances I believe that the federal government should concentrate on getting the economy going again instead of propping up my mortgage. If the economy is functioning there is work for those of use that are unumployed and if we can work we can pay our mortgage.

Best of luck to all of you.