Forclosed homes

[Kat817 19]

Yeah, we had the ex wife issue too.....now WE have a lien on HER house!!!!

I AM an ex wife, and would be way to chicken...or smart or something to have pulled these stunts!!!!

Guess my problem, was I shouldn't have married a man with a bad heart....well the valve was bad---but you would be hard pressed to find a better man!!! It DID however put us into some serious financial difficulty with the complications that arose.....

Kat

[libra 13]

First...yay! Glad to hear you're on the right track Susan!

Don't get me started on ex-wives!!! Grrrr, I seriously think I gained most of my weight dealing with her crap!

As for those who think it's so easy to save and prepare for emergencies when you have children...it's not that simple. There's always something new coming up, medical bills, paying for little league, whatever. It's not easy.

It's also not EASY to decide to pick up and move when you start feeling a financial crunch. First of all, the real estate market had tanked over the last few years. Chances are, you won't get back what you paid for your home anyway. And on the emotional level, no one wants to tear their children away from their homes and friends and possibly have to change schools if it can be avoided.

You know, the world has changed and not for the better. There is no longer job security. My dad worked 35 years at the same job. That's pretty much unheard of for my generation. Most jobs do not include pension plans and let's face it...social security doesn't cut it.

All the time and money that's being thrown into this war should be redirected to correct the issues at home. We need help here.

[Shalee04 7]

Don't feel bad. In January 07 we paid $782 for our 4 br, 2 bath house with a pool in CA. Fastforward to July 08. We have been reassessed for our property taxes at $540k. That is a $240k difference in only 18 months. I have no other option except dump it or stay. We are staying for now. Good luck.

I just got the letter yesterday about our reassessed home. We bought in March of 07 at about $435.000 and now they reassessed it at $292.500

Kinda makes one sick just thinking about it.

[ELENATION 0]

I feel like I should clarify. It's not that I don't have sympathy for people, or that I'm living a lavish lifestyle in this financial environment. I'm really grateful I haven't had serious health issues, that I married a man who has and would work a million jobs if that's what it took, and one who didn't have any baggage from prior relationships. I'm grateful that I have a job that is (for now) secure and that if I did lose my job, we have family we can turn to for help. But I worry about our lifestyles and our mentality of entitlement.

If I lost my job- you bet I would be mad. I don't blame you for feeling like a victim to your circumstances, I might feel the same way.

We should all be grateful for the things we have been given, and realize that at ANY time, these things can happen to us, so we need to be prepared.[/quote

I really didn't think your view on this subject was due to lack of sympathy, I appreciate the clarification though.

Even if we don't agree 100% on every aspect of this issue, I will add that I, like you, don't like to blame anyone or circumstances for the negative situations that I encounter in life, I take responsability when I realize that I've made a bad choice and if I happen to face financial problems even when I've made all the right choices, I still choose not to blame the government, or the president, or the war, or my employer or circumstances, I'm aware that those might have been contributing factors, but I try to look at it as an experience that I will learn from and take responsability, then I go forward and don't look back. Placing blame on others or circumstances sort of makes me feel like I'm using excuses or like I'm not holding myself accountable, maybe I'm just beeing a little too hard on myself? I'm not sure, it's hard to explain I guess.... then again, that works for me, I understand that we are all different.

Edited July 17, 2008 by ELENATION

[Kat817 19]

Taking responsibility is fine, I have no problem with that, even respect the attitude. But there are without question times that it is someone elses screw up, not your own. To dig through time until you can find some way to take the blame yourself, seems like a form of self destruction to me!

Take Susans last issue. She made arrangements with the mortgage company, taking responsibility for the situation they found themselves in. Doing the responsible thing by trying to pay for a home they agreed to buy.....

The company couriered papers to her on the 11th of July, and someone had screwed up the paperwork to say it had to be returned and in their office on the same day, the 1th of July.

She had jumped through the hoops and spent hours on the phone, and worked to get the payments made----and because someone else almost ruined it at the end, she is still supposed to just sit down quietly because the first misstep might have in some way been her fault? I don't agree with that at all!!!

My nephew and his fiance have just completed a pre approval process to buy a home. They did the pre approval on his income only because they are not married yet. He has been out of school for just over a year, and with this job for about 6 months. He makes an extra check each week because he uses his own truck to service compressors in the oilfield.

I would guess his annual income if he stays with this job to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 55K without the additional income for the truck usage, which cannot be used in a documented loan.

They had actually found a small home on some property out of town a bit, that the people were asking $199,500.00. He went to get preapproved, seeing if perhaps he might have enough saved to do the down on it. They pre approved him in 3 days with no additional docs or anything for 365K!!!!! He cannot afford a loan of that amount! Luckily he has enough knowledge as well as guidance from family NOT to get in over his head. His brother----if it would have been offered would have been all over it, it would have made him think he could if they said he could. Different personalities!

I know they tried to get him into a loan more than he could handle----too many people work on commision in the field. Most may be honest, but there are without a doubt unscrupulous ones out there, and luring young kids who are starting out could make them some serious money, to hell with the kids themselves. It is sad.....but true!

Kat

[ELENATION 0]

Kat, I believe you are right, like I said above, I think I am "a little" too hard on me when I convince myself that I'm 100% fully accountable for everything under every circumstance . Beacause you are right, we cannot be responsible for other people's irresponsabilities or mistakes, or crimes, etc...I think because my late teens and early twenties were some financially irresponsible years for me, yes...most of the times my fault..., it's probably a reason why I feel this way now, so I set standards for myself that are a bit too strict/harsh..., and I try to make myself solely responsible for absolutely everything (financially), I agree that is not necessarily the right thing to do and I may need to make some adjustments on this issue, for my own sake.., trust me, I'm not so strict regarding everything else or other people...:biggrin2: and I don't advise anyone to be like me either...

I think Susan handled her situation perfectly, there is nothing more she could've done, she took full responsability when she was supposed to, and there is nothing she could've done different to prevent the problem, things happened that were just out of her control and other people made mistakes too, not her fault. Actually it made me mad and frustrated when I read Susan's post, it was a very unfair situation for her, and I also got upset when I read the initial thread by the OP, I found it unsympathetic, I know she explained later that she didn't mean it in that way, so it's cool.

Your nephew's situation is another example of how unscrupulously some companies and people operate.... at his age I would've bought a more expensive house and I would've screwed up big time, and sure enough I would've blamed myself later, I mean, that would've been my bad choice really, and maybe the same thing with your nephew, but he is lucky he has guidance and knowledge and no one is going to take advantage of him. Good for him!

Edited July 17, 2008 by ELENATION

[Fanny Adams 7]

Susan- that's highly offensive for you to assume you know that nothing in my life has happened that wasn't planned for.

I'm not saying we should all carry crystal balls, although it would be nice... I'm saying every choice we make has a consequence. Whether we know it upfront or not.

If someone calls someone they don't know, they made a choice. If a fraud person calls you asking for account information pretending to be your bank and you give it to them, you're making a choice to do that. I think it's MORE naive to think that the world is full of roses and that we should all pat ourselves on the back for doing such a good job, yet our job is on the line and our house is being foreclosed. I would say preparing for the worst even during the BEST of times isn't being naive, it's being careful and conservative. I could've bought a house on an ARM or had too high a payment, or made too little a down payment, or bought a house with not enough resources to fall back on, but I knew (as we all should have) that by making that CHOICE I am at the risk of the payment going up and not being able to afford it either because I make too little or because I could lose my job. Very few people who are in the mortgage mess, in my opinion, are so because of something greater than themselves. They took on too much house, with too high a payment, or with not enough savings or resrouces to fall back on. The majority, IMO, are there because they had classic American syndrome- buying things we can't afford so we can drive like the Joneses, have a house like the Jackson's, have cell phones and cable like our kid's friends have.

Choices and responsibility. We are accountable. I bet you don't hear that often from a "young and naive" person.

The way you put it, the only safe and conservative way to get big ticket items like a house is to save up and pay cash for them or to try to buy a house where you could still afford the repayments when living on a disability pension or similar. Seriously, who lives like that? There are some things where risk is inevitable and responsible people take care to limit their choices in those things so as to minimise the risk (eg insurance, savings), but it is impossible to elimimate them altogether and still have anything like a reasonable lifestyle. For those people who have taken all reasonable precautions and have had their lives crash and burn due to things beyond their control, like the housing market tanking at an unforeseen rate, I have the utmost sympathy.

I don't know if that is what you intended, but your comments come across as saying that anyone who has gone into a mortgage at all has been foolishly irresponsible and deserves whatever happens - and I'm not surprised that people are finding that attitude offensive.

[Gracey 7]

I don't know if that is what you intended, but your comments come across as saying that anyone who has gone into a mortgage at all has been foolishly irresponsible and deserves whatever happens - and I'm not surprised that people are finding that attitude offensive.

Especially when the best way to accumulate wealth is by owning a home. As we've seen with a couple posters, the market definitely has tanked IN THE SHORT RUN. Thankfully I love my house and have no plans to move so I'm blessed to not to have to make any big fin'l decisions re: real estate right now.

I saw an online news article by a financial professional that stated that he didn't think that as many banks would fail as they did in the 90's. I remembered the S&L scandal (that a Bush brother was involved in, btw) from the 80's but I didn't even remember banks failing in the 90's. As any of us that have lived more than a minute know, the market goes up and the market comes back down to adjust itself.

I liken these troubling times to the idea that in order to appreciate the good in our lives, we must also struggle with and live through the bad. (No I don't mean to sound pollyannish.) I hope everything stablizes soon; this is a daunting time. Whew.