Stop Blaming the Homeowners

[bytor2112]

Originally Posted by Just_A_Guy

FWIW, just Saturday I was talking to a guy who has been trying to refinance his house. The loan officer told him he'd have a better chance of doing so if he got behind 2 or 3 months on his current loan first.

That's ridiculous.

??? Where is the duct tape???

[Palerider]

Originally Posted by Just_A_Guy

FWIW, just Saturday I was talking to a guy who has been trying to refinance his house. The loan officer told him he'd have a better chance of doing so if he got behind 2 or 3 months on his current loan first.

That's ridiculous.

Is this a Great Country or what????

[Just_A_Guy]

Originally Posted by Just_A_Guy

FWIW, just Saturday I was talking to a guy who has been trying to refinance his house. The loan officer told him he'd have a better chance of doing so if he got behind 2 or 3 months on his current loan first.

That's ridiculous.

Just wanted to point out that this is apparently an ongoing thing. I just today talked to a client whose loan officer suggested he do the exact same thing. But his application was denied anyways, and now he's facing foreclosure.

A bit of free legal advice: Don't be stupid generally. And specifically, don't default on your mortgage if you can afford to pay it--no matter what your loan officer, or Uncle Sam, assures you the "reward" will be in the future.

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by Just_A_Guy

. . . or Uncle Sam, assures you the "reward" will be in the future.

I assume you're talking about Obama's "Making Home Affordable" program, as that is, essentially, Uncle Sam. If you're not, just ignore the following.

To qualify for assistance from "Making Home Affordable," you must be current on your mortgage payments.

Making Home Affordable - Home Affordable Refinance or Modification

Edited to add eligibility requirements:

Making Home Affordable eligibility requirements:

1. You are the owner occupant of a one to four unit home,
2. The loan on your property is owned or securitized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
3. At the time you apply, you are current on your mortgage payments (current means that you haven’t been more than 30-days late on your mortgage payment in the last 12 months or, if you have had the loan for less than 12 months, you have never missed a payment),
4. You believe that the amount you owe on your first mortgage is about the same or slightly less than the current value of your house,
5. You have income sufficient to support the new mortgage payments, and
6. The refinance improves the long term affordability or stability of your loan.

Elphaba

[MorningStar]

I think both are to blame, but ultimately, the homeowner has to take responsibility for the choice they made. Only you have full access to your budget and you can't allow a company to tell you how much you can afford. We have had companies tell us we can afford much larger payments than we could cover in reality. They don't ask for every single bill you have or charitable contributions. If you buy a house you can't afford thinking that you will be OK because it's going to go up in value soon, that's not something you can count on.

An investment involves risk. If the possible risk of the house declining would ruin you, then you shouldn't be buying the house. We got fed so much baloney about how the house would go up 7% in a year and how it was just going to keep going up and up and up, but we knew that couldn't be. It couldn't continue at the rate it was around here because costs were increasing and salaries weren't. We were told just to get an interest only loan and then we could sell the house for a profit in 5-7 years and certainly by then my husband would have a raise.

It would have been easy to fool ourselves and think, "Of course we'll get a raise! Yes, we can do this!" We had one expensive medical problem after another, he switched to a job that ended up being bad for us, the health insurance was switched to a $3000 deductible one, then he got a $800 per month pay cut, and now that he changed jobs, he has received another pay cut. If we had purchased a house like we were being pushed to do, we would be so screwed right now.

I also get tired of the lie that mortgage payments never go up like rent does. Um, what about property tax? That can get pretty steep. This is one of the biggest financial investments you'll ever make and I don't understand why more people don't take classes on it. I refused to buy a house with my husband until we took classes and that was what gave us a slap back into reality. We couldn't afford a house and if we did buy one just because a lender was dumb enough to give us one, we would be one financial disaster away from foreclosure. Another benefit of state sponsored classes is that they have programs to help first time homebuyers. Most people don't take advantage of those (and they're free in my state) and figure they don't qualify. We could make up to $90,000 a year and still qualify.

Banks aren't a charity. They want to make money. Of course they would do something shady if given the opportunity. They too were counting on property values going up, so if a family foreclosed, no loss for them because they could just sell it for a profit. Shame on them for doing that, but you just can't trust people when it comes to money.

Also, families can live in safe areas and rent. It's easy to justify buying something you can't really afford. For years I thought we deserved a house and we just couldn't continue to live in an apartment. Now I have 4 healthy, happy children in a two bedroom apartment. We are really hoping for the blessing of a house still, but we've learned that home ownership is not a must.

[MorningStar]

Originally Posted by RachelleDrew

The families living on each side of us are losing their homes. My family is not, which is strange since we make far less than they do. By far less, I mean we make like 40 thousand a year and they make over 100 thousand a year.

Now how is it that we figured out to save our money and buy a house in cash instead of letting the bank get our hands behind our backs? We refuse to get loans and gamble with credit, yet we have to pay for their house anyway? Why didn't they sell their fancy vehicles if they knew they were having trouble making their house payments? Why didn't they disconnect the satellite television? Why didn't they pull their kids out of expensive private school? Why, why why?

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you don't have the money, you SHOULDN'T BUY IT.

I feel no pity for most people who lost their homes. It's one thing if you were truly doing everything in your power to save yourself from the situation, but for every five have-nots I will meet fifteen will-nots.

The lenders and the borrowers share equal blame in this one, and I shall continue to blame them. Although I don't so much care myself, because I actually *ahem* own my house, not the bank.

The lame thing about fancy new cars is that they decrease in value so dramatically, when you do try to sell, you owe more than it's worth. This is why I will never buy a brand new car. A friend of mine thought she just had to have a brand new van and found the payments were too high. They ended up selling it, but still owed over $4000, which they took out of their 401K. What a dumb waste of money.

[Palerider]

Originally Posted by jadams_4040

It was 8 years of letting big business run this country unbrideled; to me it just seems awfully funny how myself along with millions of others; {
across the world} saw this coming 7 years ago; the little working family in this country could only be robbed so much; then there is no more; this is what happened to our economy; big business, {with bush supporting them} simply do not understand that there big profits come from people working and buying products; not from cheating every last dime out of the downtrodden and little person whom scrapes by in this world; they have the mentality of; "well; if we give more money to big business; then big business hires more workers"." It simply does not work this way! the worker needs the money to be able to support the big business; they take everything from us;... they fail too; I think an awfull lot of them have figured this out as of late; but unfortunately there are still some whom just dont get it and probably never will. Thank God we now have someone in the white house whom has the guts to stop kissing A## and is actually keeping his campaign promises to the average american citizen.

since you knwo so much about the last 8 yrs....try to look up which politicians were all hollering about the Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac loans.....then look who did nothing about it....
Obama not @#$ kisser.....LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by Palerider

@#$ kisser....

I have just reported you for swearing!

For shame Pale. For shame.

Elph

PS: Can I swear about Bush too? :=)

[Palerider]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

I have just reported you for swearing!

For shame Pale. For shame.

Elph

PS: Can I swear about Bush too? :=)

you have so many times there are not enough books to contain all the swear words you used.......LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hemidakota]

If it was not for the media downplaying an alarming problem, we would be facing a national crisis. 1 out of 398 owners foreclosed on their homes.