Todays newsday (Brentwood, Wyandanch, Gordon Heights: short sale, real estate, foreclosures)

[okaydorothy]

Did anyone else get this. The front page is all about foreclosures ; and they go on to name a few towns ; Gordon Heights, Wyandanch, Brentwood etc.

Am I the only one that thinks that ; ok, people in these towns had spotty credit, bought probably with zero down, didnt pay a penny in the mortgage and therefore the houses got foreclosured on.

There is a reason why owning a home is the american dream. i always thought that if you worked hard, SAVED up enough money for a downpayment, had good credit you could buy a home of your own. At least that is the way it was.

Then came along the entitlement attitude ; oh we are entitled to own a home. We dont need to save, dont need to pay the mortgage, nothing can happen. There is a reason why people with spotty or bad credit dont get mortgages ; they have had a history of paying pate, not paying and/or bankrupcies.

I didnt see anything about these items at all. Yes I feel for people who have lost jobs, health issues etc. That I can understand.

But not people who obviously wanted the get rich quick scheme ; flipping a house. But then the housing bubble burst and we are all paying for it.

I am so tired of hearing about these kind of people. I am tired of keeping my head above water and seeing others just take advantage of everything.

When will Newsday do an article on the regular Joe trying to live!!

d

[TomMoser]

I'm not so sure that people in the towns you mentioned were flipping. I think that they saw an opportunity to own a home.

Keep in mind that the housing mess is a direct result of the Democraticly controlled congress attempting to socially engineer using the banking system. Banks were mandated under the "Community Reinvestment Act" to lend money in poorer neighborhoods. In order to accomplish this, they needed to lower their underwriting standards. In addition FNMA and Freddie Mac were mandated to purchase lower quality loans.

The net result of all this was that marginal loans were made in marginal communities to financially unsophisticated borrowers.

[Jrprofess]

Originally Posted by TomMoser

I'm not so sure that people in the towns you mentioned were flipping. I think that they saw an opportunity to own a home.

Keep in mind that the housing mess is a direct result of the Democraticly controlled congress attempting to socially engineer using the banking system. Banks were mandated under the "Community Reinvestment Act" to lend money in poorer neighborhoods. In order to accomplish this, they needed to lower their underwriting standards. In addition FNMA and Freddie Mac were mandated to purchase lower quality loans.

The net result of all this was that marginal loans were made in marginal communities to financially unsophisticated borrowers.

And you can toss in the 40-1 leverage request our friend Hank Paulson made when Congress and the White House went Republican in February of 2000 so the investment banks could prime the pump with little capital reserves and take home monster bonuses on financial fiction. A perfect storm of screw-ups from both parties...and now Paulson is helping us through the mess...if you didn't laugh you could cry.

[Jrprofess]

Originally Posted by okaydorothy

Did anyone else get this. The front page is all about foreclosures ; and they go on to name a few towns ; Gordon Heights, Wyandanch, Brentwood etc.

Am I the only one that thinks that ; ok, people in these towns had spotty credit, bought probably with zero down, didnt pay a penny in the mortgage and therefore the houses got foreclosured on.

There is a reason why owning a home is the american dream. i always thought that if you worked hard, SAVED up enough money for a downpayment, had good credit you could buy a home of your own. At least that is the way it was.

Then came along the entitlement attitude ; oh we are entitled to own a home. We dont need to save, dont need to pay the mortgage, nothing can happen. There is a reason why people with spotty or bad credit dont get mortgages ; they have had a history of paying pate, not paying and/or bankrupcies.

I didnt see anything about these items at all. Yes I feel for people who have lost jobs, health issues etc. That I can understand.

But not people who obviously wanted the get rich quick scheme ; flipping a house. But then the housing bubble burst and we are all paying for it.

I am so tired of hearing about these kind of people. I am tired of keeping my head above water and seeing others just take advantage of everything.

When will Newsday do an article on the regular Joe trying to live!!

d

What has begun to anger me, aside from articles about the 22k a year waitress who is sadly not affording her 400k mortgage, is the absence of ANY news agency to begin running an expose on the mortgage brokers. Somebody kept saying (lying in many cases) "sure, we'll lend you this even though it is obvious you can't repay it." Couldn't there be a daily wall of shame update on Newsday for these crooks. I would like to see them asked some hard questions....

[newtoli]

When we bought in 2006 - My credit was ok, but not stellar due to some issues when I was younger (collections on there, that were paid but still affecting my score). My husband is self employed, so I believe we also had to go stated. We pay a higher interest rate due to this.

I guess the difference is, even though the broker was pushing us to fudge the stated income and buy much, much more house than we could afford on an ARM, we refused. We bought a house at 3x annual salary, which was the max we were willing to go. Brokers were offering us loans up to 6x annual salary! We insisted on a fixed rate mortgage as well. I can remember the broker offering us super low payments on an adjustable rate and thinking "Why on Earth would anyone get a loan where their payment could go up!"... the whole point of buying a house (to me) was knowing you'd always have the same payment.

Well, our mortgage has never been late, we pay on time every month, my credit score has improved, and we feel like suckers watching people not pay their mortgages, then get their principal reduced into a lower payment, or get a short sale, or get a refi into a REALLY low rate... while we just keep plugging along. We called our bank to look into a low cost refi, and they told us they couldn't do anything until we were LATE on our mortgage. Unbelievable.

[monack]

The short of it is - those of us who are responsible, pay our bills, but are stuck in the middle are the ones being penalized. My husband and I sold our house 3 years back, and have been renting since then. We amassed a modest amount to put down, and were ready to buy again - but since my husband and I are self employed, we had trouble showing the kind of income needed to buy. Therefore, we have backed away for now, and will continue to wait until the the time is right to buy again.

I was upset for a while - but now realize that I can -still- rent for less money per month than it would cost me to own. So I will mark time.

[TomMoser]

Rental prices are also trending down right now.

[Jrprofess]

Originally Posted by monack

The short of it is - those of us who are responsible, pay our bills, but are stuck in the middle are the ones being penalized. My husband and I sold our house 3 years back, and have been renting since then. We amassed a modest amount to put down, and were ready to buy again - but since my husband and I are self employed, we had trouble showing the kind of income needed to buy. Therefore, we have backed away for now, and will continue to wait until the the time is right to buy again.

I was upset for a while - but now realize that I can -still- rent for less money per month than it would cost me to own. So I will mark time.

You might find this passing of time to continue to be a longer term benefit to you owning a home, given increased savings and the market continuing to trend downward. Good luck to you.

[Walter Greenspan]

Originally Posted by newtoli

We called our bank to look into a low cost refi, and they told us they couldn't do anything until we were LATE on our mortgage. Unbelievable.

A policy supposedly geared to helping the few who have not been able to maintain their mortgages will encourage those who have been maintaining their mortgages to stop doing so, so that they, too, can benefit from a lower cost refi, etc.

Moral hazard, at its worse.

[omigawd]

I would love to see a real investigation into the mortgage brokers, lenders, and real estates who helped get mortgages for people who clearly couldn't afford it. Those "no income verification loans" "liar loans" "no money down and we'll put the closing costs into the loan" and all that other stuff. How insane!! I don't have any sympathy at all for the ones who are in foreclosure now because of this ---- they knew darn well they couldn't truly afford it ---- and I wish the ones who helped them get the loans would get their licenses revoked, get major fines, and never be able to work in any type of real estate or financial jobs again.