Posted on 09/23/2010 9:46:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
Where to start...
I was able to pull up stakes and move to Kentucky specifically because I rented. I gave my landlord 3 weeks notice and I was done.
And the median income in an area is reduced by a high percentage of citizens owning their homes. The reason is simple: People who own their own home generally limit their search for work to their local economy - even in good times. A person who rents has much more freedom to look anywhere and just move to where the good jobs exist.
Oh, and I paid $1600 a month rent on a home valued at $525k. And to really drill it in, when I left the house it was valued at about $360k. But all it cost me for four years was $1600 a month. A relative pittance.
Who can even own a home?? maybe a so called native American! The rest just rent from the Marxist government.
You are right abut the starter homes.My Mom sold real estate for over 30 years.Starting in about the mid 90’s the young couples started to want the home they grew up in and not starter homes anymore.It seems the younger generation has never been taught about waiting for things and earning them?
Huh? It's unjust to have to honor your mortgage contract? I stopped reading right there.
>>It’s unjust to have to honor your mortgage contract?<<
Mailing in the keys IS honoring your contract.
But I agree about the poor use of the word “unjust”.
I am very sorry for those who find themselves in this predicament. I guess too many people have no valid common sense. I warned my daughter that 2006 was not the time to buy because I knew what was surely coming, having been a real estate broker for over 30 years, retired. Even she did not heed my warning, and her husband took out an interest only loan!!! I about lost it when I found that out! Bright as they are, they have no sense when it comes to money.
Zuckerman you idiot, it ain't 'free'.
Well, I guess we are lucky. Our home is worth almost twice what we paid for it in 1990, and paid it off almost two years ago. We did NOT buy more than we could afford as a single earner household.
“”The pressure to meet mortgage payments on homes that have lost value has been especially shocking—and unjust—for the millions of unemployed..”
Meeting a contractual obligation is Unjust? Who Knew?
Fannie and Freddie were just fine (and served a very useful and boring function) until the social engineers got ahold of them
All mirages must vanish.
“One could be very frugal and responsible and still be 100k underwater on their house in these times. If you painfully sacrificed and saved to put a 20% down payment on a house in 05 or 06, you could easily be in this situation. It would have taken a lot of economic awareness and market smarts to have been wise enough to hold off buying.”
Really? I don’t consider myself particularly wise or prescient (although apparently a lot more so than many people) and I could see this coming at that time. When homes had appreciated by 50% to 100% in just a few years, all the signs of a bubble with a correction to come were there for anyone with a functioning brain and a realistic outlook to see. I understand the desire of many people to get into a house of their own, and to take advantage of what seemed like an ever-rising market - but those were emotional reasons to buy, and when it comes to money there’s no substitute for a rational approach.
Case in point, I am going through a nasty divorce and I now have to refinance the house we built 6 years ago. We are ~$23K upside down on it based on the current appraisal, but I don't have much choice as it is on acreage that I owned and paid for before the marriage that is actually increasing in value due to the location and I am determined not to sell that property. Plus the central air went up in smoke the week after he left and I ended up replacing it which cost me a bundle and of course, I am having to eat that cost in the divorce settlement. The only upside is I was able to negotiate to bring the interest rate down and therefore the payments, so that it will fit easily within my budget without his income.
Fortunately, I was responsible enough to never let our budget exceed my income as I was concerned about things like him losing his job, which he conveniently did. The worst part is after he abandoned me physically and financially the day after I got home from hip replacement surgery (fortunately I also had disability insurance at work), moved in with his girlfriend and is admittedly staying on unemployment so he can claim "poverty" in the divorce, he is now bragging to everyone that he is "giving" me the house...ummm no, I don't think so.
Ouch!...a financial pain made worse by knowing that mom was right.
NO, that's NOT part of the problem. It's nowhere near the problem - I mean, how many people watch HGTV? C'mon. Plus, HGTV shows other types of homes as well; regular homes, apts., condos, duplex, etc. So, HGTV has nothing to do with this problem. Just my opinion.
Nonsense. Here's my former house on Zillow. The dollar sign is where I sold it.
And I am NO financial genius, if you saw the rest of my portfolio you'd be convinced of that.
When I saw people with $75K incomes buying houses in my neighborhood for close to half a mil, I knew it was time to head for the door.
No rational person could have thought that the housing boom of 2002-05 was permanent. There were a lot of crooks that kept saying it was though, and a lot of fools who listened to them.
Right. I hear you. Unemployment is our fault. Gee thanks.
I can’t hire myself, can I? Where on earth do you work that you can make such statements?
Individuals should make the same clearheaded decision, provided that they don't try to have their cake and eat it too by staying in the property after they stop making payments.
Sounds like my young neighbors. In their early 20s, custom built home with 3 bedrooms, three baths only it’s a tiny home but has all the nice stuff you’d imagine.
She had to get a job just to buy groceries.
No one told them how to plan for a house, how to pay for a house or how to most importantly, SAVE for a house.
3 different loans on the house, can barely feed themselves. But they have a brand new home !
We shake our head. They talk of selling in 5 years.
Seriously, they cannot afford that house.
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