“The longer I’m in foreclosure, the better,” she said.

[Luvchefmic]

You know, we pay the mortgage every month and I think "yeah, we can live here another month!". I often feel guilty because we are sort of paycheck to paycheck still and I feel I should be more responsible. How do these people who aren't paying their bills sleep at night?

They obviously don't give a damn...but you & I and so many others here that posted are in the same boat...sort of like tap dancing on a razor blade isn't it ?

 

[tomthebarncat]

You know, we pay the mortgage every month and I think "yeah, we can live here another month!". I often feel guilty because we are sort of paycheck to paycheck still and I feel I should be more responsible. How do these people who aren't paying their bills sleep at night?

they don't sleep they are financial vampires who are out shopping at the we never close Wal-Mart!!!! losers in every sense of the word. I often wonder who raises these kinds of people. When did owning a home become a right not a privilege?

 

[mamacatnv]

Is anyone besides me wondering when Bicker is going to drop the bomb on all our arguments & reasonings?

 

[Eeyores Butterfly]

ITA ...



... I've read about people tearing appliances, lighting fixtures, plumbing, HVAC units, copper piping, etc. out of their foreclosed homes before they finally vacate the property, leaving it in total disarray ... even though it totally disgusts me that banks are actually paying people to leave the property peacefully, I guess I can reluctantly understand why the banks may be doing this ... broken system? ... yes indeed ... ...


ITA ...

This reminds me of what happened in our district when we took over several KC schools. Our district took over some schools that were on the border and really falling apart. From what I understand, they did not automatically rehire the teachers, but invited them to reapply. At one school, only one teacher reapplied (she got it) and the rest were pissed because they were not just rehired. Apparently they completely trashed the school. The teachers had kids stuffing things like paper down the pipes, painting the walls, etc. Same mind set. I heard there were a lot of problems with discipline in that school at the beginning of the year because the kids had been told how horrible the new staff would be.

Articles like this piss me off. I bought a home last year to take advantage of the new home owner's credit. My family helped me research and I made sure to buy a home I could afford and make that I got a fixed rate mortgage- even if it meant a little higher interest rate. To hear that people just stop paying and use that money to party is hard. It's one thing if you are in a situation PPs described where you have lost your job and are scraping just to put food on the table, it's quite another when you do this because it is convenient.

 

[Luvchefmic]

deleted by me ..I don't think my sense of humor needs to be here...too hot a topic

sorry

 

[Carly_Roach]

I agree. The people we've known who have walked away from homes didn't do so lightly. One family that we know well tried everything, and all it amounted to was throwing away thousands of dollars trying to catch up missed payments for the bank to tell them it wasn't enough. Unless they could requalify for their loan (after several job losses, which made their employment history and credit rating both insufficient to do so) there was no way to avoid foreclosure. When the sale notice is posted on the door and you're looking at your child knowing that honoring your obligation to the bank will leave you with no way to scrape together a deposit for a new place to live, you choose the path that doesn't see your family homeless or your child's possessions thrown out on the lawn.

I think that we, living in Michigan, have seen a lot more of real life than the sensationalism that the rest of the country is seeing in the papers. Most of the people I know of who walked away from their houses did so last year when the banks said they would work with people, but didn't really. Lots of run-arounds, sending and re-sending in paperwork, phone calls where you were on hold for an hour only to be told to call again in two weeks, etc.

People have the idea that 60% of the housing market is a bunch of deadbeats living above their means. Based on what I'm seeing here in Michigan, I think that number is probably closer to 5%. Most, if not all, of the people I know (or have heard about) losing or lost their homes were people who had been in them for several years and then one or both spouses were laid off or had their companies fold.

Unemployment is $1,300 a month at the top of the range, which in many cases will maybe cover the mortgage but won't cover anything else. And THAT's if you made more than $30K per year. People who made under that got less in unemployment. It was infuriating to read judgmental posts here about how people should pay for health insurance at $600 a month because it was irresponsible to not carry insurance. Obviously, it was a choice between giving half of your monthly money to the health insurance companies or put food on the table for your family. The mortgage? Forget about it!

No flames here either. One thing we must remember is that a lot of times these articles are meant to show the absolutely "worse" traits because that's what sells. Sort of like the network news, it's more profitable to show the "lead and steel stories, (gunshot and knife murders) than the "local" interest stories.

There are thousands of hardworking americans who are on the ropes and just as many if not more who are 1 step away from disaster.

Hold to hope!

Absolutely. Unfortunately, people only read the headlines and worst case scenario articles, then go around telling anyone who will listen that their property values are going down because just about everyone who's lost their home is a deadbeat who treated their home like an ATM machine. #1 - it simply isn't true and #2 it's a small minority of people who actually did that.

Most people who've lost their homes were people who sacrificed for years doing everything they could to keep their homes. But that reality doesn't sell in this day of 5 second sound bytes or 500 word news-ertainment blurbs.

 

[bicker]

But that reality doesn't sell in this day of 5 second sound bytes or 500 word news-ertainment blurbs.

Keep that in mind, for future reference. It applies to everything.

 

[Anjelica]

I guess it depends upon where you live as well to whether you get folks like the one in this article vs. though who were truly "killed" and tried to work it out (i.e. Michigan). In my region the only folks I know of personally who walked away from their homes were ones that were completely and 100% irresponsible. A person I knew moved to Phoenix and as she was having the movers pack up her stuff said "If the house doesn't sell in 6 months we will just let it go to foreclosure". This is AFTER they bought a $350,000 house in Phoenix.

I have a few friends in Phoenix as well as my sister. They personally know many folks who again were financially irresponsible and continued that lifestyle even after they were in trouble. Many folks down there walked away from their homes with the attitudes that "not our fault that the housing market crashed".