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“We could pay the mortgage company way more than the house is worth and starve to death,” This implies that if the house was worth what they were paying that t
by icefox 16y ago
“We could pay the mortgage company way more than the house is worth and starve to death,”
This implies that if the house was worth what they were paying that they would still starve to death and really they made a bad choice in buying the house in the first place.
"But the couple also refinanced at the height of the market, taking out cash to buy a truck..."
sigh...
- sethg 16y agoFor every unwise borrower there is an unwise lender. My sympathies are more with the borrower, since the lender, as the side that supposedly hired people with financial acumen, bears a majority of the responsibility for assessing risk.
- gsmaverick 16y agoIn this case the problem lies with the political pressure applied by both Bush and Clinton on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue giving out more mortgages.
- MichaelSalib 16y agoA bigger problem is the homeowners mortgage interest deduction. In terms of its stated policy rational, it is a complete joke, but modification let alone elimination remains political suicide.
- tptacek 16y agoThis simplification presumes that there are only two parties with stakes in a residential mortgage. That's not at all true. There are tens of millions of residential mortgages taken out in good faith and held in good standing, and they will absolutely pay in one way or another for the abuse of the system by either lenders or homeowners.