I haven't paid really close attention to the sub-prime mortgage issue. Buyers got in over their heads, lenders made risky loans. Old story. It's hard to work up too much sympathy when people have to deal with the consequences of their own choices, but I can work up some for those who are just trying to buy their first house but whose finances took a turn for the worse. I remember how it was, and the market is a lot harder to break into now.
But this pisses me off.
In Granada Hills, Calif., Natalie Brandon is fighting to keep the three-bedroom ranch house she bought in 1985 for $105,000. Mrs. Brandon, 51, does medical billing for doctors; her husband is a dispatcher for a local gas utility. Last year, she got a $625,500 mortgage from Argent, now owned by Citigroup. Her 7.99% interest rate isn't set to rise until next June, but she already is behind on payments.She managed to piss away more than a half million in equity in her house.Over the past five years, she has refinanced her home five times, each time taking out cash and paying prepayment penalties. Last year, all she had to do to refinance was state that she and her husband earned a combined $100,000. She says she used the proceeds to pay off $30,000 owed on her white Lexus.
And owns a frickin' Lexus.
On which she still owed far more than I paid for my car.
Not only have I no sympathy, I'm edging toward actual malice. If I were a Citigroup investor, I'd be fighting the urge to slap her.
Posted by Ken S at December 5, 2007 06:39 AM | TrackBack (0) |This sort of idiocy is why I have little sympathy for the subprime "crisis". That hurts the honest people, and rewards morons like Natalie.
Personally, I'd like to slap the retards that approved the loans. Natalie, I'd just take away her credit cards and Lexus, and make her drive around in a 1970 VW Bug.
On a side rant, why does my mortage company keep on sending me all those deals on refinancing my home loan? I did it once to get a lower FIXED rate, do you think I'm so stupid as to drop a good deal, and piss away my equity for fancy cars and similar crap, like that idiot Natalie Brandon? Jeez! Save some trees, will ya? Stop with the flyers already!
I suppose I should have saved this for the FFOT, but, hey, when you're on a roll, you're on a roll!
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at December 5, 2007 07:51 AMI guess I come from a different background than most of those people. My house is paid off, and I wouldn't DREAM of putting my ownership of it at risk by taking a mortgage out on it (unless it was, for example, to pay for some kind of un-insured surgery a loved one had to have).
Seriously. I have zero sympathy for people who have gotten themselves into this mess. I kind of knew when lending institutions started advertising, "Take out a mortgage so you can have that vacation you always dreamed of!" we were in trouble as a society. You don't take vacations that will take you 15 years to pay off and for which you might lose your home.
I'm really glad that I'm a kid of "depression babies" who grew up in frugal households. I kind of absorbed that frugality and so, have been largely able to avoid going into debt for luxury stuff.
Posted by: ricki at December 5, 2007 10:43 AMNatalie here is among the worst kind of offenders. But even for others, with these lending institutions and the government talking all this talk of bail outs for people who are unable to pay their mortgages...frankly it pisses me off.
I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but the majority of these people should have known going in this was going to be a problem. I know these lenders were fine salesmen, but it seems like a reasonable person should have known that if you take home $2,000 a month, you cannot afford a $500,000 house.
What about those of us who were responsible, lived within our means, and did without things like Lexuses and $500,000 homes? What are we going to get for our trouble?
Oh, higher taxes to help pay for this bail out. Of couse. What was I thinking?
End rant.
Posted by: Maggie May at December 5, 2007 03:22 PMYeah, Maggie, I guess that's what hacks me off the most (the fact that we taxpayers will be bailing them out). Once again the people who play by the long-established rules get screwed over.
Posted by: ricki at December 5, 2007 08:04 PMYou know - it's not Natalie that is going to be bailed out by our taxes. If there was no bailout, she and the legions like her would simply be declaring Chapter 11. Who would lose out by this?
BINGO - the lending corporations! They solicited debtors whose credit and trustworthiness were substandard, and are now threatened with a financial disaster should many of these debtors seek shelter in bankruptcy. They stand to recoup but a slender fraction of what they so unwisely paid out. Further, all this bankruptcy means fewer customers for them to hook on credit down the road. It's a tremendous short AND long term hit.
The scam may have imploded on them, but as long as the gummint buys them out of trouble, it can be said to have worked from their point of view. It's like a celebrity with a wayward child - they pay money to hush up scandals from their criminal mischief, thus guaranteeing more mischief in the future.
A pox on all their over-mortgaged houses.
Posted by: nightfly at December 6, 2007 10:00 AM...I'd be fighting the urge to slap her.
Don't fight it.
Posted by: physics geek at December 6, 2007 01:06 PM