I think all of us may have seen this story about a women that chained herself to her home in an effort to stave off the foreclosure. It sounded heartbreaking, earth shattering, and was likely to have been a testament to an economy gone south. http://vivirlatino.com/2008/10/28/woman-chains-self-to-home-in-an-effort-to-stop-foreclosure.php The reality however is that this women has done this with 7 properties. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/10/31/moore.chained.foreclosure.kfmb Its becoming more and more clearer to me that the majority of these foreclosures are the result of more greedy, careless, and wreckless people. People that own more than one home. People that have a history of shafting people. I've yet to hear a real sob story that ends up being legitimate, aside from the renters that get screwed in the wake of a fraudsters like this lady. What a sham. Someone should really release a study to find out just what percentage of the homes in foreclosure are the result of this type of unethical bad behavior, vs. those that have truly lost their homes.
Yea, I remember seeing this story on all the news channels earlier this week. Kept trying to tug at heat strings showing the poor lady chained up. But, I believe it was, oh yes I'm going to say it, Foxnews figured it out and basically said they were going to stop running the story. And I agree with you that I think this whole mess was created by greed. Greed from both sides. While I'm sure this mess will hurt a few completely innocent people, I don't have sympathy for those who wanted a house, no matter what the cost was. Can't teach common sense I guess....
It's amazing because I felt sorry for this women. Now I find out, like oh so many out there crying, she's just another one of the people that was part of the problem.
In all fairness I think it was very definitely a multi sided problem. A big part of the problem came from the lending and mortgage brokerage side. Variable rate subprime loans became a source of incredibly easy money for the lenders. You could sell mortgages with very low variable rates with teaser loans. The teaser rates were good for a year or two. That is incredibly temting. The loans didn't require full documentation on borrowers sources of income, credit worthiness etc. how incredibly tempting. I'm going to recall something from about 2003, I think. I met a woman, the g/f of a friend of mine that was working in a mortgage office. The entire office was making money hands over fist. It was easy and it was enormous. I was stunned. I'd worked in real estate for 2 decades. I made a lot of money. It was never easy. Money always tended to flow on a bubble type of phenomena. I've personally never been a variable rate kind of guy. I like tying down a rate. If I can make money off it I want to stick with it. It simply eliminates one of the unknowns going forward. If its my house, I don't have to worry about the rate and monthly payments. I only have to worry about my income stream. If its an investment property, I don't have to worry about the rate. I concentrate on getting good credit worthy tenants, keeping them in the space, trying to get escalations, and managing the property. I don't have to worry about the rate. If rents go down and the rate were to go up I have double the problems. If rents go up....I don't give a horse's arse about rates....I'm already making my money and then some. So I never paid attention to variable rate deals and certainly not the subprimes. But as someone who've brokered a lot of deals, I know to go where the money is. When you find something that works you ride that wave as far and as long as it will take you. I made money that way, as did many of the successful brokers I've known. So, even as there are many that caused this problem with their own investing/speculation recklessness, I'd say very strongly that the industry pushed it, made it easy, encouraged it, oversold it and is every bit as responsible.
I agree that there are multiple facets to the problem, however, in a case like this, she had to know she could not afford 7 homes. And she defaulted after only a couple payments. Something really smells with this lady. This is the type of person someone should be investigating right now.
{/shrugs} she could be a scum cookie! I saw here on tv also. I also felt badly for her. Hmmm....maybe they aughta find her and lock her up to some building and throw away the key
I haven't visited the link, but the way everyone in here seems to be pissing all over this person, let me take a wild guess and say... she isn't white. If I'm wrong, then my opinions of many of the posters on this board needs a "REAL" adjustment.
What in the hell does that mean? What needs an adjustment is your racial and radical beliefs. That was completely uncalled for, and a ridiculous stereotype. I'm further disturbed by the insinuation that the people involved in this thread would only bring this up if the person we anything but white, which is quite presumptuous and totally absurd. I do not see any other way to read the intent of your post. That was just terrible. Not that it makes any difference, but she appears to be white from the video, not that it makes any difference.
I have a problem with stupidity, whether it's black, white, brown, green, or yellow. Here I'll prove it: I have a problem with your post and I have no idea what you look like!