$700 B Bailout

[mheisig]

Originally Posted by firstdown

It not at hard to figure out. Too many people had loans which they should not have ever had and they could not afford them. When the housing market was doing so great people with mortgage issues or payments too high could just sell their home at a profit and walk away. Now when the sh&* hits the fan they cannot sell their home in a soft market and the trouble begins. Back before the mid 90's about the only way people lost their homes was do to a loss of a job. Now days people are just loosing their homes and still have the same income as they did when they purchased them. Now its going to get much tougher to buy a home and hopefully we do not repeat this again.

Exactly.

The pattern for decades has been you may a substantial down payment on a house (20% at least). Generations before us you waited to buy a house and you put a big chunk down. All of a sudden people get greedy, want more house than they can afford, and we end up with shit like 5/1 ARMs and interest-only mortgages. People somehow feel entitled to the house of their dreams at the age of 25 and figure, "Screw down payments, screw paying the principle and all that, this is the NEW generation! We're living the American dream!"

If people weren't so damned greedy and impatient (the lenders and the borrowers) we wouldn't be in this mess.

1) Don't buy more house than you can afford.
2) That means that you can afford the house now AND 5 years from now.