It's the scariest thing to have been so secure in something for years and then one day it's ripped away from you.
My family's home went into foreclosure this past September. When my dad told me that he wanted to file for bankruptcy and get out of the house, I cried for days. I had to leave behind the only house I knew and move on to something else.
I can't begin to describe the fear of sitting in school everyday wondering if when I got home, I'd have a home. Or wondering if it would it be shut down.
Losing your home is a common situation these days. "One in every 516 homes received a foreclosure filing in April. The combination of weak housing sales, falling home values, tighter mortgage lending criteria and a slowing U.S. economy has left financially strapped homeowners with fewer options to avoid foreclosure. Many can’t find buyers or owe more than their home is worth and can’t get refinanced into an affordable loan." (MSN: Foreclosure Filings Continued to Climb In April)
This was exactly my family's problem. No matter how hard my dad tried, we could no afford to pay off our mortage rate every month; they expected us to pay $2,000 a month. On top of that, we had bills to pay, including my tuition for school, and we had to buy food. We had no choice but to leave our house.
My dad talked to a lawyer who encouraged us to just leave; find a house to buy or rent and not even try to save our house. We took his advice and moved, but we can not fully abandon the house until the goverment/bank kicks us out.
My dad was talking to our old neighbors about this issue. He told my dad that he checked the value on his house last year and this year and between that time, his house value decreased by $40,000. Now, my old neighborhood was known for being rich. Not Beverly Hills Rich, but very upscale. Because of the current economic crisis, a house near me sold for $220,000!
Something needs to be done about this. Far too many people are losing their homes. "More than 1 million home foreclosures are forecast for 2008. More than 54,500 properties were repossessed by lenders nationwide in April." (MSN: Foreclosure Filings Continued to Climb In April)
Maybe We Can Live In A Cardboard Box
By pkubik08 - Posted on May 14th, 2008
Tagged: economic crisis
• economy
• foreclosures
• money
• Broad prosperity
• Effective government
• Better future
No matter how hard my dad tried, we could no afford to pay off our mortage rate every month; they expected us to pay $2,000 a month.
How did this situation happen? Did your Dad not know how much the mortgage payment was going to be when he signed the loan? Did he lose his job? Did your family live beyond its means?
I don't know your family's situation but I do know mine. I don't have a lot left after I finish paying my bills and particularly after I pay my daughter's tuition. But everytime somebody talks about the government spending money for this, that or some other cause (like mortgage bailouts) it means my taxes are going to up either now, or in the future or the government is going to print money and devalue my savings and income. Your family made a mistake and now I am being
askedforced to bear the consequences.Again I don't know your faimily's situation but in the vast majority of cases in the current mortgage crisis, the people who are in trouble made bad financial decisions and in a lot of cases filled out fraudulent loan applications. Their financial mistakes were many and they incuded: signing adjustable rate loans that they should have known that they could not afford the higher payments when the interest rates reset higher. They were speculating that home prices were going up and they were hoping for a large profit which they had no intention of sharing with me but they now want me to share in the loss now that their speculation has gone sour. They lived livestyles beyond their means and cashed all the equity out of their homes and even a minor correction in housing prices left them with upside-down mortgages.
I feel bad for everyone who is suffering hard economic times. But I don't think it is my or other taxpayers' problem to bail people out when they make financial blunders. Their pain is somebody else's gain because as housing prices fall, people who could not previously afford homes will be able to buy one. The market in total works to everybody's benefit and will only continue to do so if the government refrains from interferring with the private contract which your family willingly entered into with a bank. It is not the government's place to confiscate my money and give it to somebody who made a financial mistake.
IYour family made a mistake and now I am being
askedforced to bear the consequences.I never said it was the government's fault. And I'm so sorry that my family cause you any incovience.
Everyone is going through this crisis, not just my family. And yeah you don't know my family's financial situation and to be honest it's none of your business how we got into the mess we're in. It's also really inconsiderate of you to diss them by saying that because of our mistake, you're going to suffer. We're suffering a lot more than you are.
Why is this all about you?
Well you made it about them by blogging about it for one. Yes, it is a sad story... but he is right. You know how much your mortgage is when you sign all the papers. So to not be able to pay the mortgage is something that should never happen... unless living beyond means. And I hate to say this, but if you are a college student, I would have quit paying your tuition and told you to get a job long before I would have stopped paying for my house.
You said everyone is going through this crisis, well that simply isn't true. I am not experiencing any difficulty paying my mortgage... Also technically it isn't a diss to say the truth, that because of poor planning of millions of American's the rest of us do suffer. Who do you think picks up the slack? Why do you think mortgage rates go up? Because they have to cover their losses on situations just like yours.
Jeanna Marie
I'm really very sorry to hear that.
America's economy is going down because of Ethonol and the war.
It's like, prices are going up but salaries aren't so many people are not going to have enough money to pay for their daily needs. And what does that remind you of?
(Great Depression)
I know that most people always like to say that war ruins the economy, this however is not true. Wars make money. They always have. They create production. Trust me, stuff for our war, is not made in Japan like everything else in this country. Stuff for the war is made right here on US soil.
Yes, your point on prices increasing is true, and that is due to gasoline, but trust me, we are far from the great depression... that's a little dramatic isn't it? Let me know when you get your half a pound of pork rationing and half a stick of butter for the week, and then you have room to speak of the Great Depression.
Jeanna Marie
How exactly are we making money off the war when we are in debt paying for the war?
We are borrowing money from China to pay for the war so I've heard.
And about the Great Depression, I meant that I would not be suprised if it would be like that in some number of years. Like 50-100.
Money going up on prices and people not earning any more money to pay for it is part of the background of the Great Depression. You didn't need to be rude.
I hope your family situation gets better.
How little you actually pay attention to reality and how quick you are to jump on a bandwagon and say whatever it is that the media is telling you to say. All they show you is the money spent... but not always where it is being spent. War pumps money back into our economy. We build our airplanes, we build our tanks, we build or harnesses and weapons that go to fix and repair the damaged artilery in Iraq. That stuff is all made on US soil. I can tell you that because the last 10 years I have been working for the Department of Defense. So yes, we may spend a trillion dollars on war... but when two F-16 acft cost 50 million a piece... and all of it is produced in the U.S. that money is going right back into our pockets. How many people do you think it takes to build an aircraft? How many does it take to put together a missle. How many engineers does it take to keep us on the leading edge of technology?
Now not only on that side of the fence, but look at what we are doing for the Iraqi people. The children that have been saved. Do you realize what their country was doing to them before? Raping daughters in front of fathers and then tourturing them slowly to death. Making father's rape their daughters, gang banging wives, shotting babies like target practice.
It is also funny that you want to say prices go up but people are not earning more. Where do you get the info to back that? Starting wages at Mc Donalds are $8.00 and up... there are so few that actually even make minimum wage anymore. It's not the prices that are going up, it is the greed factor. It is the fact that everyone is imaptiant and puts so much on credit that they can't afford food anymore. Greed is what is causing people to not be able to afford their lifestyles. Just like the person that originated this blog... their parents going into foreclosure and yet still paying their kids tuition... that is not a priority. Education isn't for everyone, and if need be figure out a way to provide for yourself. Let your parents save their house. Stop waiting for America to step in and save you. This country gives us the chance at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit... that means we can chase it not that it is given out to everyone standing in line waiting for a hand out.
It wouldn't be about me if you were not advocating a government bailout.
But as soon as you start saying "something needs to be done about this" you are making it my business because I am going to be the one who has to pay for that "something".
You are also setting a dangerous precedent where everytime sombody makes a bad investment or a financial mistake the government is supposed to bail them out. (But of course the taxpayers don't get to share in the profits when they make a good investment.)
Actually everybody is not going through this crisis. It is a small percentage of our population. Another sector of our population is benefitting from this
crisismarket adjustment because houses are coming back down to levels where they can afford them.