Mortgages and Personal Responsibility (Builder Lending Article) (2014, foreclosure, buying)

[kelabu]

Bonfire of the homebuilders - BusinessWeek Online - MSNBC.com

What do you guys think about this?

I know there are some seriously scummy people out there trying to take advantage of people, but what happened to taking responsibility for your own actions? I didn't feel sorry for the homeowners in this article because it seemed like they're trying to blame their impatience on someone else instead of showing how these lenders acted unethically without their knowledge.
The first couple bought a new house before selling the old one. How is that the lender's fault? In this market isn't that a cardinal no-no? I have had to live with my mom (ugh) to avoid paying two mortgages. I would have loved to have my shiny new house instead of being 2 years old again, but I am so glad I didn't. It took over 8 months to sell and we probably would have been in foreclosure too if we'd been so impatient. Of course the builders and realtors called saying, 'oh just make it contingent on your sale', but I just said no and the same or similar houses are still there. (and at lower prices)

It seems like they agreed to do some questionable things to get the house and now want to blame the lender when it was clearly disclosed to them in the first place. Where is the problem? Of course I'm not talking about the truly deceptive people out there, just this narrow situation in this article that seems unnecessarily alarmist.

[emjbulls]

I read the article too, but in the hard copy not the online article. The thing that just floored me is these people's income was something like $140k and they were buying a house over $500k. Even without the old mortgage, no one told them to bite off that much.

Personal responsibility is being ignored by a lot of people as a huge contribution to this mortgage mess. Owning a house is not a right, it's a privilege. If you can't afford to own in a given area, rent. It will not kill you.