Originally Posted by dklassen

The foreclosure rate started to spiral out of control a couple years ago even before the economy tanked. The housing crises started by people loosing their homes mostly because they bought something they couldn't even come close to paying for.

I'm certainly NOT of money and we are a one income family. We buy what we can afford and don't buy when we can't afford it. When prices are high we wait and save our money. When prices are low we buy.

I saw many people in California living on the ragged edge. Both worked full time, they purchased $700k + homes that were really worth maybe $300k, both drove brand new cars, two or three kids, etc, etc, etc. Living the dream, right? If even one of them lost their job it would be a matter of a month or two before they went under. In my book that's just plain irresponsible and many of those situations directly caused the housing crises.


No matter if the economy is good or bad there will alway be those who play by the rules, work hard, make smart decisions and still get into trouble. That's just life and that will always happen. Those are the people that have my sympathy. In this situation it was just plan stupidity on the part of a lot of buyers that lead to this problem.

Now they are crying for reduced interest rates and even in some cases having the government / bank reduce their total mortgage amount so they can keep their houses.

Hey, where's my freebie mortgage reduction?