Walk Aways

[Ryan Salo]

A house a couple down from me had a moving truck out in front today. I had not seen any for sale sign and I knew they owned the house so I stopped by to see what was up. I found out that they are moving to another house in Lakewood and that they were going to rent. I asked them if they sold their house or if they were going to rent it out and he said, no I'm going to let the bank have it, like it was no big deal.

I am so sick of people with no respect of others. He is willing to let the house fall apart and sit empty and ruin a neighborhood because he is too lazy to try.

He then had the audacity to say it was because he was in an ARM and the payment went up too much.

The government getting involved with these folks with ARMS is causing a major shift in peoples mindset. They are being told that contracts don't mean anything and that they were probably taken advantage of in the beginning so they just walk. Not even an attempt to short sell or anything.

Not only is it now more socially acceptable to be irresponsible it also doesn't hurt your credit as much as it used to. People that just walk can more than likely buy another house in 3-4 years with NO MONEY DOWN!

The responsible homeowners need to make sure we are doing everything that we can.

I am calling my neighbor tomorrow and asking him if I can try to help him short sell it and negotiate a settlement with his lender, if he refuses I am going to call the lender directly. I am not sure what I can do but I am going to try. We can't let a minority of folks continue to hurt the rest of us.

If anyone has any other ideas I sure would like to hear them. We need to work together or this fad of house walking will become greater.

[sharon kinsella]

Gee Ryan - Haven't you been following the mainstream media on this?

Apparently the lenders on a lot of the ARMS are not willing to negotiate. They don't care that someone taking home $2,000.00 a month might have been able to make a $750.00 a month payment but not a $1,250.00 a month payment.

I'm not pulling these figures out of thin air. I've seen this happen with two people that I know. They did try to negotiate with the lender and were turned away.

Not everyone knows the ins and outs of the banking and mortgage system. We've talked on this board, many times, about how some unsuspecting people were duped by unscrupulous brokers. I know that you deny that these people exist, but we're not talking about Santa Claus here, were talking about snake oil salesmen. I have met these salesmen. I have seen them operate, and I now I see the fallout.

Instead of being ticked off at the former homeowner, maybe you should be ticked off at an industry that has run out of control and made it more difficult for upstanding brokers to operate. Blaming the victim for the car accident is a backward stance. You need to be more global in you thinking.

[Ryan Salo]

Maybe the homeowner should have put a for sale sign out in April when his furnace broke and he knew he was just going to walk.

So the homeowner has no responsibility to try to get out from under the debt?

So what if he can't afford the new payment, he knew they were coming months/years ago and decided to stop paying and pocket the money then walk.

Would you have done the same thing Sharon? If so I would be very disappointed. I would expect more from you.

[Bryan Schwegler]

So Sharon, are you saying that none of these people should take personal responsibility? That all of this is the industry's fault?

I will say there are some people who were ripped off. But there are others who were just uneducated and should have read what they were signing. And there were yet others who were greedy.

To those who just didn't take the time to read or understand what they were signing, I'm of the camp that believes the government shouldn't have to legislate to protect people from their own ignorance.

All types of people caused this problem.

To be honest, I think most of this was caused by Americans once again spending beyond their means. This is just another symptom like credit card debt and upside down car loans...albeit bigger.

I would venture to say based on all I read, that the majority of people with problems were not caused by unscrupulous lenders.

As for your assertion that banks won't negotiate, I'm sorry, but you need to stop basing that off of what was going on months ago. Read the stories anywhere today, banks are negotiating more and more. And then there is this "bailout" that was just passed that will help banks negotiate even more.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Maybe the homeowner should have put a for sale sign out in April when his furnace broke and he knew he was just going to walk.

So the homeowner has no responsibility to try to get out from under the debt?

So what if he can't afford the new payment, he knew they were coming months/years ago and decided to stop paying and pocket the money then walk.

Would you have done the same thing Sharon? If so I would be very disappointed. I would expect more from you.

Ryan

I feel your pain, and think you are right, they should have realized it.

HOWEVER, we will see more and more of this in the coming months. About three months ago on Kramer's Mad Money, he was saying that if you bought a house, especially on the east or west coast in the past 7 years, you might as well grab your possessions, that fit in the car that is paid for and leave.

Property values falling, loans, on homes worth 2/3rds of what they were worth at the time of the loans, changing rates etc, will drive you out of that home before you pay it off anyway. Might as well get the good rental now, instead of losing out on that too.

We are headed to the big shake out, jobs, savings, investments, stocks, even the stuff in your attic. What do you do when you owe more than it is worth? This will be a very real scenario in the next couple years.

FWIW

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[Bret Callentine]

Blaming the victim for the car accident is a backward stance. You need to be more global in you thinking.

This is like being the victim in a car accident when you don't have a license and should never have been on the road in the first place.

since when did a house become a disposable commodity?

and where in the Constitution does it suggest that the government is liable for a lack of personal responsibility?

[Bryan Schwegler]

Maybe the homeowner should have put a for sale sign out in April when his furnace broke and he knew he was just going to walk.

So the homeowner has no responsibility to try to get out from under the debt?

So what if he can't afford the new payment, he knew they were coming months/years ago and decided to stop paying and pocket the money then walk.

Would you have done the same thing Sharon? If so I would be very disappointed. I would expect more from you.

Ryan

I feel your pain, and think you are right, they should have realized it.

HOWEVER, we will see more and more of this in the coming months. About three months ago on Kramer's Mad Money, he was saying that if you bought a house, especially on the east or west coast in the past 7 years, you might as well grab your possessions, that fit in the car that is paid for and leave.

Property values falling, loans, on homes worth 2/3rds of what they were worth at the time of the loans, changing rates etc, will drive you out of that home before you pay it off anyway. Might as well get the good rental now, instead of losing out on that too.

We are headed to the big shake out, jobs, savings, investments, stocks, even the stuff in your attic. What do you do when you owe more than it is worth? This will be a very real scenario in the next couple years.

FWIW

.

Jim, I completely agree. It's unfortunate that this "perfect storm" of economic factors is going to end up causing pain for alot of people.

[Steve Hoffert]

Maybe the homeowner should have put a for sale sign out in April when his furnace broke and he knew he was just going to walk.

So the homeowner has no responsibility to try to get out from under the debt?

So what if he can't afford the new payment, he knew they were coming months/years ago and decided to stop paying and pocket the money then walk.

Would you have done the same thing Sharon? If so I would be very disappointed. I would expect more from you.

Although I agree a person should attempt to resolve their problems, usury presents an ethical dilemma in my mind. In a fractional banking system, lenders loan what they do not have. As an example of this, there could be a run on any bank if only 10% of the people withdrew their money.

So the lender and borrower share the responsibility, for the lenders themselves are borrowing from another and so on. It truly is a big ponzi scheme. Which, if done by an individual, would be illegal but done by "an institution" is perfectly fine.

The ethical and moral issue is in the origination of the loan and the terms and conditions of interest. Most people do not read the entire contents of a contract nor would they understand it if they had. Many people also don't know that by signing a document without specifically reserving your rights (per UCC 1-207 "Without Prejudice") you may have lost any judicial recourse you might have had for entering an unfair contract.

Loan originators do not care that you have signed your life away. They are the front men for the usury industry. The religious world has deliberated this point for thousands of years and finally succumbed to greed. Maybe they needed a loan for their churches and new the suckers would make the payment with their tithe.

Anyhow the uneducated consumer dumbed down by the pathetic education system ceaselessly buys things they don't need with money they don't have paying interest on money that doesn't exist borrowed from people who don't care.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Jim, I completely agree. It's unfortunate that this "perfect storm" of economic factors is going to end up causing pain for alot of people.

Bryan

I agree with Steve on this. It is the perfect storm because it was man made with the outcome known the day it began. This is not some strange moment in economic history, this is the cycle.

Get people investing, get people playing the market, get people over extending themselves, then cause the crash. At the bottom buy what you want, and let the rest fall apart.

One number that has always intrigued me is before the Great Corporate Grab, also known as the Great Depression, Joe Kennedy was worth just under a million dollars, 5 years later $15 million.

What bothers me most and you can see talk of this the day the deck went live, is that this is the worst shake down ever. Not only do they want the property, businesses of value, they have America going into their attics looking for rare art, silver, anything that might look good on the investor's mantle.

This, is going to get really ugly. In the past we always had a manufacturing base to pull us out. That is gone, and maybe so are many other people.

I was in London six months after the "pole tax" put 18% of Brits out of their homes. Families sleeping in door way after door way. The city and churches delivering them a gray gruel at night which would end up in the streets. The government finally came around about 6 years after many lost their homes and savings forever. Redistribution of wealth on a grand scale.

I do agree with Ryan, in that is it the reponsibility of the government to protect those who made bad decisions based on greed? Do I have to pay the mortgage for the guy on W130, who has a two bedroom house worth $89,000 but a new H2 in the driveway? Or more to the point, should we partner with the very agencies that have allowed this to happen?

Bad news, USA is going third world, good new, we are all going together.

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[sharon kinsella]

Okay - so let's see if I've got this right.

If a person does not understand what is happening to them it is their fault.
If an unscrupulous person takes advantage of someones naivete and trust it is the fault of the naive person.

If a person has dreams and aspirations, just like everyone else, sees an opportunity to fulfill those dreams, is fast talked into signing things they don't understand, it is their fault.

Ryan- Go back and read about when Jesus threw the money lenders out of temple.

Bryan - Read up on hedge funds and why the stock market failed at the beginning of the depression.

There are things that both of you know that I don't. There are things that I know that you don't. Are you culpable because you don't understand the things that I do? Am I culpable because I don't understand the things that you do?

Ryan - No I wouldn't do that - but - I understand the process and would know how to get out of it. But I sure as heck couldn't find an alternator on a car.

Bryan - Once again you have hopped on a bandwagon to chase me down.
Call off the hunt, it's getting old and tired and probably obvious to others.

Some people don't really understand how to do research, how to gain access to information, who to ask to get help - believe it or not.

You may want to blame people for making mistakes. I don't think that's right. Just my twisted way of looking at the world I guess.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Okay - so let's see if I've got this right.

If a person does not understand what is happening to them it is their fault.
If an unscrupulous person takes advantage of someones naivete and trust it is the fault of the naive person.

If a person has dreams and aspirations, just like everyone else, sees an opportunity to fulfill those dreams, is fast talked into signing things they don't understand, it is their fault.

...

Some people don't really understand how to do research, how to gain access to information, who to ask to get help - believe it or not.

You may want to blame people for making mistakes. I don't think that's right. Just my twisted way of looking at the world I guess.

Sharon

In the end people should not jump out of airplanes, without understanding how a parachute works.

As it pains me that so many people have been conned, fooled, lied to and played. However, I cannot watch out for each one of them.

I think some of it is the dumbing down of America as Steve suggests. The one I always point to... The disclaimer on a bag of peanuts, "This bad may contain peanuts, and peanut by products..."

It kills me, but at some point we must all accept responsibility.


.

[Stephen Eisel]

The end is near... I agree with Jim O'Bryan..



Jim, this cannot be a good day for you..

[sharon kinsella]

Not if it kills us Jim.

[Jim O'Bryan]

The end is near... I agree with Jim O'Bryan..



Jim, this cannot be a good day for you..

Stephen

To be honest, it is just another day. Some up, some down, some just days. I look at all discussions as just that. Sometimes we learn sometimes we do not.

In the end, it is the end.


Sharon

Here is where we differ on so many of these discussions. We owe it to ourselves to help those that have been wronged. We owe it to ourselves to help those falling through the cracks in the system. We must always err on the side of humanity and compassion. TO A POINT.

I use the lifeboat metaphor. You can not save anyone with a sinking over crowded lifeboat. Do we save twenty, just to lose them and the one still in the water?

I know many people that went nuts in the last fiver ten years living way beyond their means. When they went to get the SUV, did they stop and feed the poor? Did they stop to make sure their neighbors were OK. I have to think a majority never even thought of that.

As the legendary table dancer, you of all people must know, at the end of the night, the band has to be paid.


.

[Bryan Schwegler]

If a person does not understand what is happening to them it is their fault.
If an unscrupulous person takes advantage of someones naivete and trust it is the fault of the naive person.

There is a difference between being taken advantage of by unscrupulous lenders (small percentage btw) and people just not educating themselves on what they're signing.

Bryan - Read up on hedge funds and why the stock market failed at the beginning of the depression.

Sharon, I have a 4.0 currently as I work towards my MBA. I think I know about these things, no need to read up further. But thank you.

There are things that both of you know that I don't. There are things that I know that you don't. Are you culpable because you don't understand the things that I do? Am I culpable because I don't understand the things that you do?

Before I make a decision to jump in and do something, I educate myself. I bought my first house this April. I spent alot of time researching mortgages, the process, etc so I would understand what I was getting myself into.

Some people don't really understand how to do research, how to gain access to information, who to ask to get help - believe it or not.

So should the government legislate to protect them from their own ignorance? I think not. Every community has a public library. Not knowing how to research is not an acceptable excuse considering there's an entire staff in every community willing to help you do it.