It's a Nice House...
 Church this week started just like any other service. A nice welcome, a few songs, and then our pastor asked for prayer requests. One guy, about 60 just says "yeah, pray for me, they're gonna take my house, it's a nice house, I've been there 11 years. You can get it cheap..." I live in Las Vegas, Nevada and I belong to a church that has a lot of members from Michigan. The two states with the highest unemployment in the nation, Michigan and Nevada. Thousands of people living with upside down mortgages, no more unemployment benefits, lack of work, and facing foreclosure. "They're gonna take my house..." I can't get the words out of my head, because my heart is still breaking. |
posted by Dave Miller at 6:05 PM
Comments on "It's a Nice House..."
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Name: Soapboxgod said ... (6:11 AM) :
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TAO said ... (6:22 AM) :
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Name: Soapboxgod said ... (6:44 AM) :
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Tim said ... (8:39 AM) :
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TAO said ... (8:53 AM) :
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Name: Soapboxgod said ... (9:16 AM) :
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Steroids Blog said ... (4:38 AM) :
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dmarks said ... (2:53 AM) :
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Bloviating Zeppelin said ... (3:30 PM) :
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Dave Miller said ... (2:19 PM) :
post a commentAn unfortunate scenario indeed. However, let's be clear on this factual point. Until someone has fulfilled their debt obligation, the property is not technically "yours".
Soapboxgod is right...
But that does not take away from the point that a man bought a house back 11 years ago, worked hard, made his monthly payments and due to no fault of his own he is losing his home and the value of his labor that 11 years of mortgage payments represents.
He was not the cause for the fact that now his home is 'cheap' but rather the greed of Wall Street...
He is obivously not one of those deadbeats that got a loan they could not live up to....
He is just a victim of circumstances outside of his control and he did not cause the current situation but he will pay for it dearly.
He did not benefit from hyper growth in the real estate market nor did he benefit from the Credit default swaps...but he will pay for them and he will pay to keep the beneficiaries of CDS in business.
I think all Wall Street Executives should have their salaries and bonuses garnished to create a fund to bail out those who were hurt by their actions...
The flip side to that argument is to recognize that while individuals have had their property grossly devalued, so too did similar individuals have their property grossly OVERvalued.
Not entirely nor exclusively mind you but, it is to an extent a zero sum game here.
Suppose it was not your first home purchase. Suppose you sold your overvalued home and came out with a pretty good sum of money (more than you'd have otherwise come out with had the housing market not been improperly manipulated or inflated). You're no doubt feeling pretty good about the sale of your home thereafter no?
No suppose you purchase another home towards the top of the market and that property eventually decreases in its value.
Largely what has been lost was something that was fabricated in the first place.
I have been in my home for 14 years. In a couple more years it will be the longest time I have ever lived in the same place. We moved out of my boyhood home when I was 15. Fortunately, I am not "underwater", and I think my house is worth a little more than I paid for it, but I have put lots of money into it by replacing carpet, flooring, windows, siding, roof, etc. I don't really think of it as an "investment".
I have been lucky to buy low, but if I had to sell now I'd make no real profit at all. I guess I'll just keep sending in the payment and in 7 years I'll owe nothing.
First off Soapy...you assume that this individual sold a house and benefited from the sale and then sold this current house.
This individual did neither...thus there is no zero sum game...he is losing.
But inregards to your theory...
I have been in my home nearly 20 years and the value of my home has remained the same...because the increase in value cannot be gained until I sell and since I have not sold the value of my home is exactly what I paid for it in 1990. On paper it is worth about 3 times what I paid for it, even in todays market...but that is paper value which is not real until I sell....
For me to then go and sell my home and buy a replacement I would then actually have to pay more than what I would sell my house for...
Thus I would never sell....I am dying in this house and someone can inherit all the value they can from this house...
Actually Chairman, I assumed nothing of this individual. In fact I stated that the issue was not entirely nor exclusively limited to that scenario.
American banks made mortgages too easy to get and yet the rest of the world suffers the fallout.
Steroids: And this happened due to the policy of US government agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which encouraged banks to do this. Government agencies whose tops employees made tens of millions of dollars in yearly salaries for the "great job" they were doing.
These agencies are still around....
Fortunately or unfortunately, I saw this coming years ago. For a time at my job, I had the opportunity to work much overtime. I never turned down a shift for, literally, years. I have to admit that I was lucky enough, however, to purchase a home in 1993 way before things turned upside down. I stashed tens of thousands of dollars in the bank, worked my butt off, didn't take vacations or spend much except bare essentials. I did that from roughly 1994 on. I was able to pay off my house last month. I paid off my cars. I never took on credit card debt that I couldn't pay off every month. I have one credit card. I focused like -- I noticed -- no one around me did. I suffered and scrimped and did without for 16 straight years. With the end goal of doing this one day.
I'm no genius; in fact I'm a financial dolt. But I don't understand why so many people didn't or couldn't just put their heads down and pull the plow. I don't make a 6-figure income; I just decided to persevere.
BZ
great points bz...
but as you are aware, apparently you are in the minority...