September 26, 2007

Who's to blame when situations degenerate?

There are so many articles these days about the increase in foreclosures and the problems people are now facing with their increasing mortgage payments. All these articles point to the greedy mortgage bankers and how they lured innocent home buyers into taking out these risky mortgages. I am waiting for the article that rightly places a good amount of the blame on the stupid home buyer that can't figure out how much home he can afford. Hey, if you're making $50K a year, you can't afford a $500K house. The bankers are stupid for making the loan, and the homeowner is stupid for accepting the loan. Why is it that no one is willing to accept any personal responsibility these days?

Thanks to the B52's for the title quote.

1 comment:

Aynde said...

Amen!!!

Personal responsibility is almost nonexistant these days. It's always someone else's fault.

HOWEVER I do believe that a lot of the home loan debacle comes from an ignorant consumer and extemely pushy sales people.

There's a homebuilder here in Houston that sells affordable homes. They use their own mortgage outfit to finance mostly first time home buyers. When I moved to Houston I looked at buying a home with them but when we got a look at the loan they offered we said not only no but hell no. The sales people pushed and pushed HARD. We're as pigheaded and they are and there was no way we were going to fall into the crazy low/interest only for 2 years then ARM scaryness. We know that after that two years the interest rate would shoot up and we'd be house poor or worse flat broke. We walked away but they kept at us trying to convince us that we really could afford it and we were being difficult. I kid you not. Now think about the average joe who maybe doesn't know much about how the world of home loans and real estate work. THey trust the developers/home sales people to guide them through the proscess and then you get these folks who are there to move inventory so they offer these wacky loans and convince comsumers that that's the way to go! GAH!!

*sorry for the mini rant on your blog!*