[Wild Style]

Those people did that to themselves. As much as I think Bush is a idiot, people can not blame him for their utter stupidity.

Originally Posted by Ten

Are you saying Bush created Credit Nation, steadbonnet?

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-au...track=ntothtml

[firemed]

Originally Posted by Wild Style

Those people did that to themselves. As much as I think Bush is a idiot, people can not blame him for their utter stupidity.

Yeah, It was greed!!! I wanted a space ship but no one had them!

[markas214]

Originally Posted by MrTudo

That's true. You should be able to get anything you want at the price you want without even working for it.

Some of these replies are so off the wall it's not possible to respond.

Wow someone is in great denial. Florida, California, Arizona and a few other states were in a huge bubble. Prices were inflated 300% in some areas in as little as 5 years. The causes were easy credit, creative financing, speculators and a total disconnect from market funamentals and historical price to rent ratios. Sure there are some forclosures and short sales that can be bought for $100k. Those sales will be tomorrows comps and drag down all the other prices in the market. Read the post about the townhomes in the same complex priced from $210-350,000. Which would you buy and if one sold last week for $200k would you want to buy an identical one this week for almost twice as much this week?

SW Florida now has a 4 year supply of homes due to overbuilding by short-sighted developers. I am quite pleased as I plan on buying in a year or two. I am sure I'll pay at least 50% less than those who bought at the peak of the frenzy. A lot of folks are just walking away and leaving the banks take the loss. It's hard to feel sorrow for those who bought over their heads or were foolish enough to believe that prices would rise forever as incomes stayed flat and prices for everything increased as well.

Your mind set is what's off the wall here. Are you perhaps getting killed by the crash of the Florida market?

[Mrs.Bewitched]

All I know is that I am a teacher and hubby is a mailman. Pretty good jobs one would think. Maybe if I was living in TN (like I want to in 5+ years, or in northern GA, like I want to in 5+ years). But here, in SW Fl, Naples area....if I doubled our salaries, we can afford a home (not a condo but a single home) of about $170K. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sure I have seen some listed in surrounding areas of Naples like Bonita or San Carlos Park (bottom of Fort Myers) for around that price, give or take $20K. These are either foreclosures, short sales, or little pieces of crap houses that would need a lot of work and by the time I fixed them up I would have spend triple my salary.

Now, for that money, if I looked elsewhere like the two places I mentioned...or in TX...I would get a MANSHION.

Prices still need to come down for nice homes for hard working career people like me to afford and not go broke. Am I expecting a manshion? No. But, a nice house. That's it. Not a broke down, run down, tiny closet size, OLD home for the price I can afford.

[MrTudo]

It's more expensive in Tenn, sq ft for sq ft now. I looked.

[Wild Style]

Originally Posted by MrTudo

It's more expensive in Tenn, sq ft for sq ft now. I looked.

some parts are expensive but you can still find a TON of homes in Nashville for 190,000. I was there last September and saw it with my own eyes

[LM1]

Originally Posted by bale002

Ever credible Moody's, which rated subprime mortgage paper AAA during the bubble period, released this report.

What a freaking joke that was... and the sad thing was, so many people saw it coming.

The real travesty was the commingling of garbage speculative mortgages with quality, low risk/good credit homeowner mortgages in otherwise viable debt packages that "spread the pain" around to people who were smart enough to stay away from the higher risk debt, but didn't know that it was all being jammed together into the same, traditionally solid, bond instruments.

From Bill Gross @ PIMCO

The woven tangled web of subprimes has claimed more than its share of victims in recent months. Homeowners by the hundreds of thousands, to be sure, but also those that created, packaged, insured, distributed, and ultimately bought what should have been labeled "junk mortgages," but which by a masterstroke of marketing genius were given a more respectable imprimatur. "Skim milk masquerades as cream," warned Gilbert & Sullivan a century ago and sure enough, modern day subprimes packaged into financial conduits with noms de plume such as "SIVs" and "CDOs" pretended to be AAA rated cubes of butter. Financial institutions fell for the charade hook, line, and sinker and now we all suffer the consequences. Defaults are rising, the dollar’s sinking, and good Lord—even Google’s stock price is going down. Something must really be wrong here.

It is. What we are witnessing is essentially the breakdown of our modern day banking system, a complex of levered lending so hard to understand that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August....

More here

http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Feature...O+December.htm

(For those of you who don't know who Bill Gross is- he's probably the best bond trader/analyst in the world.)

[verobeach]

Originally Posted by THX 1138

Prices are dropping but still not enough to be affordable for the average person.

Since when should the 'average person' be guaranteed a house??? Back in the 1970s when we bought our first house for $28,500, my husband and I were living on $30 a week after we deposited our entire paychecks. It took sacrifice years ago and it still takes sacrifice. If the 'average person' is willing to work hard, save, and fore-go, then he/she too will have a house someday.

[LM1]

Originally Posted by verobeach

Since when should the 'average person' be guaranteed a house??? Back in the 1970s when we bought our first house for $28,500, my husband and I were living on $30 a week after we deposited our entire paychecks. It took sacrifice years ago and it still takes sacrifice. If the 'average person' is willing to work hard, save, and fore-go, then he/she too will have a house someday.

Give this person a cigar.
100% correct.

It's amazing what two $9 an hour incomes can achieve when the funds aren't being spent on new car payments, plasma screen TV's, video game consoles, cable television, eating out 3 or 4 times a week, etc, but rather, are being diligently saved or invested... I am completely convinced that the sole barrier in the United States to the middle class is self control and the ability to plan at a 5th grade level.

The problem is, we're the most overly-indulged society on the planet and peoples ability to forsake the pleasures of "now" (that new gold necklace, that new XBOX...) for a better life down the line (a downpayment for a home, a rainy day nest egg...) is seriously diminished- virtually gone.

[Mrs.Bewitched]

Originally Posted by verobeach

Since when should the 'average person' be guaranteed a house??? Back in the 1970s when we bought our first house for $28,500, my husband and I were living on $30 a week after we deposited our entire paychecks. It took sacrifice years ago and it still takes sacrifice. If the 'average person' is willing to work hard, save, and fore-go, then he/she too will have a house someday.

I refuse to make my children live a life where we are scapping to get by weekly just because I bought an absurdly over-priced house. I am your average, moderate income person in a moderate income family. I didn't bust my butt in college and acquire years of student loan to finally get out, get my career and lo and behold, this average person can't get a house because they are overpriced. I know sellers can price whatever they want. I won't be buying them. This is why people like me, a teacher, and my husband-a federal worker, are leaving FL (someday) and going elsewhere. Not to be rich, but to live where us hard working career people can afford a house without scraping to get by. There is only so much you should have to sacrifice.