Bailout...

[coldnight]

So, we, as a collective nation now hold or will soon hold mortgages of houses which are worth a great deal less than the mortgage valuations

Comments

[farmleaf]

Speaking of this, I recently read an article in which the author, quite seriously, decried that "soon, the only people who can get mortgages are those who can afford them". It would have been funny except that he was serious and was complaining about housing prices being beyond the reach of lower income people; a noble complaint. Thing is, if you can't afford a mortgage any other way than to get an interest-only or a sub-prime mortgage, you have no business buying a house (just my opinion but then again, I'm considered rich even though I had to work hard and claw my way to where I am now, and one way I did that was to sacrifice what I wanted by refusing to overextend myself to buy stuff I couldn't afford

[coldnight]

I didn't mean they went INTO the mortgage with no intention of paying, only that some people are so very trapped by the ARM, they can't afford the payments so they are skipping out to some other housing and the houses are abandoned.

There was a bit I saw on the news about retirees in Florida mowing the lawns of abandoned houses so the neighborhood wouldn't get filled with crack houses and such. Sad stuff.

[farmleaf]

*nod* I understood. I think if given the ability to resume payments, folks who've defaulted would likely go back to paying for their houses. I do think it is kind of sad that this has come to pass, though.

I hear you with mowing the lawns of abandoned homes. There's one next to my house so we put the sheep out there periodically so they can mow the pasture over there. I don't mow their yard because I'm not going to waste precious gas on it and there are no fences to keep the sheep in.

[coldnight]

There is the whole issue of real estate speculation such as "flip this house" bullcrap... many of those places are not primary residents and thus vacant...