>I take full responsibility for my own situation and the outcome. This pisses me off (not at you! just the sentiment). Every one around you (people you trust

>I take full responsibility for my own situation and the outcome. This pisses me off (not at you! just the sentiment). Every one around you (people you trust and respect) says buy a house before you can't afford it. Your experience is housing prices rising for 10+ years. Nothing in your environment suggests the party is nearing a close. Society creates a system where home ownership becomes not just a way to keep a roof over your head, but an investment. Moreover, it becomes one of the few investments attainable by the middle and lower-middle classes. Mortgage brokers abandon all pretense of due diligence and devolve into a sophisticated scamming machine. They offer financial instruments to people they know cannot fathom the consequences of. They advertise and amplify the societal pressure to get in now before it's too late. You are not a rational super-human. No one is. (Any one who thinks they are just lucky, and humans are awful at understanding luck) I don't blame anyone who signed their name to a ARM one bit. To do so is to completely ignore the intense societal and economic pressures of the time. We used to understand that moneyed interests were not interested in the welfare of every one else. We used to ban snake oil. I don't know what changed. Maybe it was Reagan and Chuck Norris movies.