Housing Foreclosures

This might be a delicate subject with some, but here goes anyway....

What the heck were you thinking?? Now I'm not saying that some people in foreclosure didn't fall on hard times through illness, job loss, or maybe being flim-flammed into thinking that mortgage payment would somehow be affordable when interest rates doubled or tripled. To those people, I am truly sorry that you ended up in these hard times. I sincerely wish you the best, and hope you can somehow find a way out of the housing debacle.

For those who were possibly scammed by lenders or real estate agents into signing documents, who could never have afforded the homes in the first place, and then having income amounts changed, as some newscasts suggest could be the case, my suggestion is "go get 'em" and use every legal avenue available to you along the way. I truly hope justice can be done if any of this has occurred.

But for those that simply bought way over their heads and now want the federal government, meaning me and my fellow taxpayers, to bail you out...not only no, but he** no!

Looking at some local neighborhoods with big dollar homes, I've seen the Mercedes, BMW's and even Lamborghini's in the driveways. People living larger than life on income that couldn't possibly support that lifestyle for a reasonable future. Then the interest rates went up and all of a sudden here's panic. The $6000 a month house payment, $3000 a month payment on the Merz and Lambo, the $1000 a month property tax plus all the credit card payments, not even considering food, fuel, utilities, etc would require an income in excess of $200,000 just to sustain. POOF! The for sale signs went up.

The lucky ones shed the fancy cars and within a few months, a drive through the same neighborhoods saw the same houses with the driveways stocked with Hondas, Toyotas, Chevys and Fords. Others were lucky enough to be able to sell at the very beginning of the foreclosure troubles. For others, though, the for sale signs become weathered and replaced by foreclosure signs, bank sale or short sale signs. Perfectly manicured lawns gave way to less than perfect, although in areas like this, there is no urban decay. People moved out and the homes just sit, waiting for the auction man to do his thing or some cash-laden buyer to make an offer in this now buyers' market.

But why should the government help homeowners keep their homes when they themselves went way over their heads in purchasing them? The answer is they should not! Home ownership is a responsibility, not a right. These people whine and complain like it's the government's fault that they're losing their home. It's not. It's their own fault! They knew the potentials for mortgage rate increases, and in many cases, how much the payments could increase! If they bought a reasonable cost home to begin with that they could afford then, and into the future, and didn't gamble on interest rates remaining low, they would still be living in their home. They took a chance and lost! Simple enough.

If they went to Las Vegas and bet the money on a roulette wheel while staying in the casino's hotel, and lost all their money, the hotel would kick them out. They wouldn't expect the government to bail them out of their loss. So why bail them out of another gamble they made and lost?

Just another example of people not taking responsibility for mistakes they make. If you make a decision, you have to stand by it. If it's a good decision, then you profit from it. If it's a bad decision, you lose from it. But either way, it's your decision. Unless you're mentally unstable and incapable of legally making that decision, you made it and the results are your responsibility. If you were incapable of making that decision, then you wouldn't have signed the papers, and all this wouldn't matter anyway.