My Thoughts today....

Today I learned that a family member who has a rental property cannot find someone to rent the place. She also learned that thanks to the banks "dumping" properties in her area, and yes although it is soooo much easier to blame the people who left them behind, it is in my opinion primarily the banks fault here. Her home is now worth less than what she owes. Shall I mention here that she has owned the home over ten years. When she and her husband married they kept his home, rented it out and bought their home. When he died suddenly, she kept the rental hoping it would be some kind of income/retirement for her and her children, but that is not what is happening. It has now become a noose around her neck and why? Was it because she speculated? Was it because she lived beyond her means? No, it was neither.  You see banks have to "dump" homes to shed the "toxic loans" they made, from their books so they literally throw homes away for practically nothing. Most of them in such a poor state that it sits there, the grass becomes overgrown,  while the inside trashed and in disrepair. Which in turn, lowers the value of any other home in the area. So my fellow Americans you get to pay not once, not twice, but three times for this fiasco, that the banks and investors, (yeah those guys who all just got BONUSES), let people buy, and get in over their heads with. Are the "people" somewhat responsible, sure, a lot of them are. Many knew they could not afford the house they were buying, but then the real estate agent, mortgage broker, or bank told them house were going up, up, up! Did any of these morons learn about gravity in school? The market? Basic economics? anyone?, anyone at all? Were all of these people right out of high school or on drugs? Surely some of these agents, brokers, bankers had been around long enough, many even longer than me, to know what goes up, inevitably goes down. Chances are as fast as it went up, it will be twice as fast coming down. In my life I have bought three homes. I have seen high interest rates  of 9%  to 14%, even higher if you had poor credit, heck when we had a 7% interest rate we thought we were doing good. You had to have at the very least 10% down and good credit! You could not count your overtime, and in the case of our first two homes, they would not even count my salary! In 1987 when Ford’s was hurting they would not give a "projected" income for Steve, so the bank hesitated at first before finally giving us a loan, and we had 20% down for gosh sakes. I am not that old either, we are not talking 30 - 50 years ago, more like 10-20. When we bought our first home the realtor sat us down, went over what we could afford. It could only be 1/4 of Steven’s monthly gross income. That’s it. Boom! This is what we will show you, in that price range, unless of course you have the difference in cash to put down? No?  So sorry then, we wouldn't want to show you a home you could not afford or get approved for . So now of course the banks are looking to solve their dilemma once more at the taxpayers, and responsible American’s expense. How? Well sure "dumping" the properties looks good on their books, gets rid of the nasty "toxic debt" they created,  but now the neighbor over there next door, the one who pays his bills on time, and took care of his/her home has found out their home is now worth nothing. Why? Well according to the Realtors and BANKS, you have to base your worth on local comp’s, and that means all those "dumped" homes the ones the banks wiped off their books, has now "wiped" your home in with them. Of course those who need to get more for their home, unlike the often totally trashed empty house next to them to pay off their mortgage are S.O.L. To add insult to injury, the same Realtors that sold you that house now tell you, "well you have to compete with the foreclosures or let the bank have it!". Yeah, it’s great how they still manage to ask for 6% of that nothing too, isn't it? Talk about making money on both end. When I read in today's paper that the markets rose due to, let me quote the Detroit News accurately here, " Stocks rally on the good housing, banking news" I ask myself "What the heck are they talking about?" Yet tomorrow it will probably fall once it dawns on all of them,  and they realize that sure they dumped those homes, which in turn may cause others to have to walk away from theirs, because now they cannot get a decent price. Which means it will go back to the bank, who can afford to write it off by, you guessed it,  dumping. Cause heck, it’s not their money right? Thank God, truly, I thank him today for being born in the generation that can still do "basic" math. I can add, subtract and divide without the aid of a calculator. I can see the forest despite the trees, and I know when someone is blowing smoke up my ass.

Hey remember that saying from a while back "If your going to screw me at least introduce yourself" or was it "at least buy me dinner"? Looks like we’re not getting either.