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Are you an idiot to keep paying your mortgage?
SF Gate ^ | 16 Nov 2008 | Kathleen Pender

Posted on 11/16/2008 11:11:44 AM PST by BGHater

Should you keep paying your mortgage?

If you have significant equity in your home, absolutely.

If you don't, it's getting harder to answer that question, especially when our government keeps giving people who owe more than their homes are worth so many reasons not to pay.

Last week, the government announced a program that will substantially lower payments for many homeowners who have little or no equity, but only if they are at least 90 days delinquent.

Critics say the plan, which applies to loans owned or guaranteed by government wards Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac among others, could encourage people to suspend payments.

But what about the moral obligation to pay off a debt?

Elected officials have been chipping away at that by blaming the foreclosure crisis largely on predatory lenders. In a campaign fact sheet, President-elect Barack Obama says he "recognizes that the real victims in the subprime mortgage crisis are not the lenders, but the millions of borrowers who followed the rules and whose only crime was taking out mortgages that lenders told them they could afford."

Last year, Congress started removing some financial hazards of default when it passed a bill that temporarily waives the income tax on mortgage debt that is canceled when a homeowner is foreclosed upon, sells a home for less than the remaining debt (a short sale) or gets a loan modification that reduces the principal balance.

The tax waiver originally applied only to debt on a primary residence canceled in 2007, 2008 or 2009. Last month, in the bailout bill, Congress extended the waiver until 2013.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: credit; economy; loan; mortgage
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1 posted on 11/16/2008 11:11:44 AM PST by BGHater
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To: PAR35; TigerLikesRooster; bamahead; AndyJackson; Thane_Banquo; nicksaunt; MadLibDisease; ...

The Money, Banking, and Financial Markets Ping List.

"Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations."
—Thomas Jefferson

FR Keywords: moneylist, bankinglist, financelist

Please tag all relevant threads with the aforementioned keywords.

This can be a very high-volume ping list at times.

Ping list jointly pinged by rabscuttle385 and TigerLikesRooster.

To join the ping list:
FReepmail rabscuttle385 with the subject line add  moneylist.
(Stop getting pings by sending the subject line drop moneylist.)


2 posted on 11/16/2008 11:12:45 AM PST by rabscuttle385 ("If this be treason, then make the most of it!" --Patrick Henry)
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To: Uncle Ike; RSmithOpt; jiggyboy; 2banana; Travis McGee; OwenKellogg; 31R1O; Ken H; Gritty; ...
*Ping!*
3 posted on 11/16/2008 11:13:05 AM PST by rabscuttle385 ("If this be treason, then make the most of it!" --Patrick Henry)
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To: BGHater

Penalize the hardworking and reward the slackers


4 posted on 11/16/2008 11:13:42 AM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: BGHater

Apparently.


5 posted on 11/16/2008 11:14:01 AM PST by madison10
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'Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, predicts that many homeowners who have little or no equity will stop paying their mortgage and then reduce their income to get the biggest payment cut possible. They could stop working overtime or, if two spouses work, one could quit. After the modification, they could try to boost their income again.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Schiff says. "People are going to feel like complete morons if they don't participate. The people getting punished are the ones who never made an irresponsible decision to buy a house they couldn't afford."

The government is offering loan servicers $800 for every homeowner they get into the plan.

Schiff predicts that loan agents "will be cold-calling people trying to get them into it. Just like they encouraged people to overstate their income to get a bigger loan in the first place, now they will encourage them to understate their income to qualify for a smaller loan."'

* It makes you wanna cry* That or -self censor-.

6 posted on 11/16/2008 11:16:39 AM PST by BGHater (The GOP, the new DNC.)
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To: BGHater

I have four homes. I pay the payments due every month. My parents taught me that and I’ve always done it that way. When I was younger I did without a lot of things my friends and relatives had, but I paid my bills. It’s the right thing to do and do it as long as you can.


7 posted on 11/16/2008 11:17:12 AM PST by nufsed
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To: BGHater

What mortgage? Saw it coming long time ago.


8 posted on 11/16/2008 11:17:22 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: rabscuttle385

I’ve been wondering the same thing. THe only thing I can come up with is that they’re looking at credit records for a lot more than making loans these days - like getting a job or an apartment.


9 posted on 11/16/2008 11:18:10 AM PST by ichabod1 (You won't know obammunism is here until it puts a boot in your (fat) bottom.)
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To: BGHater

But what about the moral obligation to pay off a debt?
_______________________________________

I think the last collective generation to be taught this is now about to collect social security...


10 posted on 11/16/2008 11:18:14 AM PST by Tennessee Nana
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To: BGHater
No, I'm the idiot who paid off his mortgage early by busting my ass and driving cars with hundreds of thousands of miles on them which I keep running by working on them in my garage. I'm also the idiot who has no credit card debt or who's kids have no student loan debt. Why? Because I pay as I go.

But at least I'm a conservative idiot who walks the talk.

11 posted on 11/16/2008 11:18:27 AM PST by jwalsh07
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To: nufsed

Hey, maybe you can get some of our tax money back. Why don’t you rent three of them out to Section 8 Housing and charge and assload in subsidized rent?


12 posted on 11/16/2008 11:18:34 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: BGHater

Besides, it’s like jumping bail. You’re looking over your shoulder from then on.


13 posted on 11/16/2008 11:18:52 AM PST by ichabod1 (You won't know obammunism is here until it puts a boot in your (fat) bottom.)
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To: BGHater

I don’t have a mortgage payment, guess I’m screwed.


14 posted on 11/16/2008 11:19:08 AM PST by SouthTexas (Remember, it took a Jimmy Carter to bring us a Ronald Reagan!)
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To: BGHater

There was no overstatement of income required when I bought my house. They just qualified me for far more than I could ever have paid. I knocked it down by about 33%.


15 posted on 11/16/2008 11:20:07 AM PST by ichabod1 (You won't know obammunism is here until it puts a boot in your (fat) bottom.)
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To: nufsed

No you have one home and three rental properties.


16 posted on 11/16/2008 11:20:34 AM PST by org.whodat (Conservatives don't vote for Bailouts! Republicans do!)
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To: SouthTexas

Same here. Paid it off last year (yippee!).
But, they’ll get us with increases in property tax in a few years, I’m betting.


17 posted on 11/16/2008 11:21:25 AM PST by ozark hilljilly (Obama lies, the Constitution dies)
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To: ichabod1
Yeah, I've never had a bad debt, and can't imagine getting three months behind on a mortgage payment, barring something like losing a job and not being able to get one while I go through my savings.

Bad stuff happens to people sometimes, but I can't imagine deliberately not paying a debt.

18 posted on 11/16/2008 11:22:57 AM PST by Richard Kimball (We're all criminals. They just haven't figured out what some of us have done yet.)
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To: org.whodat

Thaks for emphasizing th important issues. I’ve lived in all of them at some time or another and my wife paid on one by herself for 12 years before we met. Started with no refigerator because she was squeezing every penny. So we still think of them as homes. Sorry to upset your dictionary.


19 posted on 11/16/2008 11:23:16 AM PST by nufsed
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To: rabscuttle385

I have a better idea.

How about giving the money to those of us who put 20%+ down on a house that was within reason of our income in the form of shares in a REIT. The REIT in turn can go out a purchase the distressed properties and give the current owners an opportunity to “rent-to-own” within 5 years. Whatever profit is made accrues to the REIT investors, the people who made the smart decisions in the first place.

I resent getting charged for others criminality.


20 posted on 11/16/2008 11:23:25 AM PST by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
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