Comments on: 461,000 May Foreclosures

By: Taxes + Interest

Taxes + Interest — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:00:51 +0000

[...] around at the state of the U.S. economy at this moment and you (should) learn a vital lesson: overextending on credit is a dreadful [...]

By: Carol Saha

Carol Saha — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:07:06 +0000

I did this, only with a car, not a house. It was repossessed. I knew I couldn’t afford it. I told the dealer I couldn’t afford it. I even called the bank where I got the loan and asked them to not let the loan go thru so I would have to take it back. She said okay and then put it thru. I allowed myself to be pressured into it and kept it for about a year, then it was repossessed. Which was one of the happiest days of my life. No more laying awake at night wondering how I’m going to pay the monthly payment plus all the months I’m behind.
Now I use public transportation and a bike and I walk and I’m just fine.

By: Tracee Sioux

Tracee Sioux — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:50:16 +0000

Big Business – all those lenders – is no child.

They are full grown adults with lots of power and no moral compass. They completely understand what they did. They intentionally did it. And they funnel a lot of money into the government – OUR government – so we will let them keep doing it.

I’m telling you – read about Andrew Kahr – the evil genius many say are behind this shift where he realized lenders can make more money if people DON’T pay than if they do and how he intentionally manipulated those least ABLE to pay with the least knowledge about finances: http://traceesioux.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-saw-satan-on-tv-and-hes-little-dork.html

By: Violet

Violet — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:45:22 +0000

Okay, my comment was harsh. I do have sympathy for anyone losing their dream, and I agree that predatory lenders are awful.

I have a friend who got an adjustable rate mortgage and the loan officers really misrepresented what that meant to get the sale (although the truth was in the contract if she had read it).

But that’s part of the lesson – you have to research and read and do leg work and be your own advocate before you enter into the biggest loan of your life.

I’ve been in the bankruptcy place myself before, and it sucked, but I dealt with it. If there was an easy way out, I never would have learned my lesson. That lesson is why I don’t own a house – I can’t afford it right now, and thanks to my prior misfortunes, I know that.

By: that girl

that girl — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:34:17 +0000

To me it’s asinine that they only stepped in to bail out one child and left the other to learn the hard way.

By: Tracee Sioux

Tracee Sioux — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:02:08 +0000

To be fair – I don’t think borrowers were necessarily “so dumb.” I recently took out a mortgage and the process is so full of red tape, legal jargon, fees up the ying yang, technical financial terms, that it was about 100 pages long.

I literally spend 6 months researching mortgages and understanding how not to screw it up. I spent HOURS in my mortgage brokers office and HOURS more online looking up his answers and how payments are calculated.

If you take the average person and they don’t have any financial background it’s not surprising to me that they got bamboozled on their loans. For one thing, they didn’t understand that the mortgage lender didn’t care if they couldn’t make the payments.

I’m sympathetic to how the average person would not understand the different types of mortgages and loans.

That said, the only solution is that they have to become more educated about it.

By: Violet

Violet — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:40:50 +0000

It seems completely asinine for the government to step in and fix this. It is the equivalent of the parent who steps in and pays off all their irresponsible child’s credit cards. We all know you never learn if someone will clean your mess up for you.

If you are so dumb that you can’t figure out how much of a mortgage you can afford, you probably need a good smack in the face, not a bail out.

By: that girl

that girl — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:14:00 +0000

I’m with you on this one. The mess was caused by both parties. This should be a big wake-up call to people trying to chase the Jones’. Mr. and Mrs. Jones’ house just went back to the bank, they’re sharing a fancy SUV now and they had to go bankrupt on credit card debt. Too many people are not taking the time to understand their debts.

I too am thankful that housing prices are going back down. I am among those that didn’t have a pot to piss in before all this and so we have pretty much not been effected. Maybe now that the bubble has burst we can afford a 2 bedroom in the next few years.