I was reading an article on Yahoo.com about foreclosures and then I began reading the comments people were making about the housing market. MANY are strictly blaming the banks, which I think is wrong. Yes, the banks are at fault, but shouldn't some of these people be to blame as well? When the banks were fudging the applications, why didn't these people speak up and say "hey I think that's illegal."
Granted, yes I would love a million dollar mansion with a gigantic swimming pool, big ass walk in closets which could probably double as rooms themselves, the stainless steel appliances, whirlpool tubs, eco friendly insulation...etc. and all the other stuff they show on HGTV...but if a loan officer were to say "You only qualify for a $200,000 loan. Let's just say you make over $800,000 a year so you can get this home." I'd think something was up and contact the proper authorities.
And then there was this whole "flipping" trend; people would buy a cheap house, remodel it to have all the cool stuff they show on HGTV and then turn around and resell it for a profit within usually 6mos.-1yr. They weren't building any equity and soon EVERYONE and their brother was flipping houses. With the majority of houses having all the latest/trendiest luxuries buyers could pick and choose, making sellers more desperate. The sellers of these houses that had been flipped must not have calculated that remodeling to such a drastic extent would drive their mortgage rates up along with taxes up.
And of course let's not forget the trend of leveraging your house against(TV game show host voice) that brand new car!
Instead of speaking up and contacting the authorities to begin with, people waited until a massive foreclosure crisis to begin complaining and finding a scapegoat. I used to live in central Cali; I saw the housing market rise with all of it's trends. Houses priced at $200,000-$300,000 made leaps to $600,000-$900,000 and then back down in a matter of a few months and then within a few weeks become rental properties.
Now, I know that not EVERYONE joined in on the trends and allowed this to happen and to those of you who have built up equity thank you. You are the real casualties in this mess.
If anyone wishes to see the article go to http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Foreclosures-for-sale-Big-cnnm-2801454840.html It mainly talks about the high foreclosure rates in Las Vegas and other parts of the US where foreclosures are the highest.
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