Comments on: The Psychology of a Crashing Housing Market: Sending in Your Home Keys Just Got Easier.

By: CathyG

CathyG — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:34:40 +0000

I guess I’m one of the “responsible” ones. In twenty years we’ve bought two homes and had three mortgages - 30 yr fixed, 30 yr fixed, and 15 yr fixed which will be paid off (early) in three years. But I have siblings in Orange and Kern counties and if I learned that they were suckered into one of these “exotic” loans I would advise them to walk in a heartbeat.

The whole financing community came up with a concerted program to vastly enrich themselves by transferring (stealing) wealth directly from the lower and middle classes. See how the owner of Ameriquest, one of the most egregious predatory lenders around, became a multi-billionaire and bought himself a comfortable ambassadorship: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/54/02WT.html All that wealth was amassed from the sweat of how many millions of families hit with excessive fees, higher rates than they could qualify for, no docs, no down, teaser rates, and the list is legion. Under mortgage terms of the last 5 years, people didn’t own their homes - they rented them. Would you think it was immoral for a tenant to find another place to live if their landlord doubled the rent?

Somehow the lenders either failed to notice that they were designing financial products that made walking away the only rational economic choice in a down market or they counted on shame and social stigmatization to keep victims as housing slaves for years to come.

Personally, I think it’s high time that the sheep refuse to be shorn.

By: The CAT

The CAT — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:54:56 +0000

The real root of the issue is the corruption in all areas of our financial markets, Subprime is just a side effect of the real condition. As we can expect, we’ll see the bankers scramble to cover the losses up which is a good thing as it will help speed up the process of destroying our economy. I can’t see another way this level of corruption will end but the only path to salvation is destruction.

By: RonPaul Fan

RonPaul Fan — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:35:13 +0000

People on the 60 minute video.

“I doesn’tz makes any sense. My house paymentz is goingz ups and my house values is goingz downs. I’z could stills makes da payments but what fors.”

This is going to be statement that will be repeated many o time in the next 3 years.

By: Peter T

Peter T — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:08:50 +0000

> In the piece we also hear about people taking out “some equity” before knowingly letting their homes foreclose.

HELOC money is a recourse loan, and the lender should go after the borrower’s income. Tax has to be paid on forgiven HELOC money, and the IRS should go after the borrower’s income. People who “take out” equity before a planned foreclosure should get surprised by the bill.

By: anon

anon — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:43:53 +0000

You obviously don’t know much about the Russian real estate market. It is notoriously difficult to “throw someone out on the street” for non-payment of a mortgage in Russia - one of the key reasons that the mortgage market has been slow to develop there.