- bunkster, on 12/16/2008, -3/+5I am sorry, but I cannot feel sorry for those who bought homes seeking to "flip" them, as well as those who bought homes which were obviously more than they could afford. There has always been a set "rule" that one should not spend more than 1/4 of their income on housing. Somewhere in these modern times, that rules has been shoved under the rug!
- northwatuppa, on 12/16/2008, -0/+4Can you feel sorry for the rest of us? These people sank the boat, but we're all in the boat.
- NicoNicoNico, on 12/17/2008, -0/+2I agree with northwatuppa. I bought some property outright (no mortgage for me, my credit burned when I had about $100k in medical bills), then over a year later suddenly found myself in a position where I need cash. Since it's now a secondary property (I had to move in with relatives because of my disability), it can be let go. Yet, with all these foreclosures, I can't sell it. I could lose it to taxes because of this.
- ninjaturtles1, on 12/17/2008, -0/+2Sucks to be you Nico, but there are also people who have been pushed out of the market because we are responsible and don't want to take out a rediculiously huge loan.
Now, we will actually be able to afford housing. I always thought housing was starting to get stupidly over priced, and all my friends and family kept telling me you must buy now, housing will keep going up and up and up, I knew this had to be wrong, so I didn't buy.
- northwatuppa, on 12/16/2008, -0/+4Can you feel sorry for the rest of us? These people sank the boat, but we're all in the boat.
- sprintmarathon, on 12/16/2008, -1/+3Burn baby burn.
- kaelyiesta, on 12/16/2008, -1/+1Agreed. Let housing prices come down to market sustainable levels, then instead of bailing out companies we taxpayers can put our money into affording reasonably priced houses.
- stompk, on 12/16/2008, -0/+3I take it you don't already own a house.
lets take something you DO own and slash ITS value. how does that sound ?
- stompk, on 12/16/2008, -0/+3I take it you don't already own a house.
- kaelyiesta, on 12/16/2008, -1/+1Agreed. Let housing prices come down to market sustainable levels, then instead of bailing out companies we taxpayers can put our money into affording reasonably priced houses.
- northwatuppa, on 12/16/2008, -0/+5Just in case you don't want to scroll through the whole HuffPo article to find the lead paragraph, which is buried in the middle of the article:
fta: The trouble now is that the insanity didn't end with sub-primes. There were two other kinds of exotic mortgages that became popular, called "Alt-A" and "option ARM." The option ARMs, in particular, lured borrowers in with low initial interest rates - so-called teaser rates - sometimes as low as one percent. But after two, three or five years those rates "reset." They went up. And so did the monthly payment. A mortgage of $800 dollars a month could easily jump to $1,500.
Now the Alt-A and option ARM loans made back in the heyday are starting to reset, causing the mortgage payments to go up and homeowners to default.
-AND-
"Well, the sub-prime is, was approaching $1 trillion, the Alt-A is about $1 trillion. And then you have option ARMs on top of that. That's probably another $500 billion to $600 billion on top of that," Tilson says. - Hillsfar, on 12/16/2008, -0/+5What you're seeing on Wall Street is a bear market rally. It may well extend into the weeks after Obama's inauguration. However, things will NOT get significantly better for a good long while. The next wave of home mortgage first resets are coming, this time with Alt-A and Option ARMs. Teaser rates are expiring.
- NicoNicoNico, on 12/17/2008, -1/+1And I get this news just as I was about to sell some property of mine. Joy. I won't be able to let go of it for years, will I?
I hate mortgage lenders. Even those of us without mortgages are suffering.- ninjaturtles1, on 12/17/2008, -0/+2Definitely not a sellers market now. Unless you absolutely have to sell, don't!
- normlsparky, on 12/17/2008, -0/+1Since we already had a Great Depression, what will we call this one?