Who is facing foreclosure?

[hedgehog]

I've seen a couple of posts discussing the people caught by the sub-prime loans. Some people sympathize, others feel they deserve losing their houses. The problem is that we don't know who these people are. Some of them are the working poor, who took a chance to buy a low priced house in the city instead of renting. Some of them are speculators, who bought a bunch of houses to flip in a heated real estate bubble. Some are people who took advantage of a cheap loan to buy a mini mansion. The common denominator is that all of these people thought that somehow or another they'd come up with the money when the balloon payments hit.


So, does anyone have any facts on the people facing foreclosure?

[lonestarnot]

1. I know of a house flipper who lost his ass. Don't know him personally,

but know of him.

[hedgehog]

See, that's the problem, we've all heard or read lots of anecdotes,

but we don't have any numbers.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

14. For that gentleman...

It is really hard to gin up any sympathy.

[Tansy_Gold]

48. The house I sold 2.5 years ago, foreclosed twice since then.

I sold it five days after listing in Feb. 2006.

Buyer paid full asking price of $340K.
Had no cash down.
$70K second mortgage as "down payment"; brother in CA mortgage business arranged deal.
Borrowed additional cash (amount unknown but estimated at $40-60K.) to remodel: turn garage into 4th BR, add 3rd bath, close in porch, build new 3-car garage, etc.

Foreclosed in late 2007.
Sold at auction January 2008: $252K

Listed -- perhaps by agent-owner -- May 2008 at $196K

Listed -- by same agent/perhaps owner -- August 2008 at $156K, identified on agent's website as "foreclosure" and "needs work." Indicates "equity" at $196K.

None of remodeling done. Some carpetting replaced, some just removed to leave bare concrete slab. Some appliances now disappeared. Additional damage done and left unrepaired due to apparently unfinished remodeling projects.


Location: Buckeye, Arizona

[trueblue2007]

2. We almost lost our home in 2001

in 2000 and 2001 we almost lost our home. Oregon Dept of Vet affairs is heartless and should be shut down. We were treated horribly and the bureaurocrats were incredibly mean to us.

It was only because hubby's dad died and we inherited some money we were able to pay it off. We live in our cruddy little house but IT'S ALL OURS!!!!

I HATE THE LENDING INSTITUTIONS!!!!

[SmileyRose]

6. Veterans are generally treated like filth.

A member of my family had to use the VA for medical care for a number of years. It wasn't just the poor quality medical care, the insane mess of red tape and the long waits for everything. The worst was that the person on the other side of the desk treated patients like absolute shit.

[CrispyQ]

26. We paid our little house off ten years ago.

It has provided us with options you can't imagine when you have a mortgage. We have taken a lot of ridicule from family about our small house & old furniture & old cars. My sis & her husband are living large & when my mother was alive she would shake her head & say to me, "I don't know why you live like this. You could buy a bigger house & nice furniture!" Sis & BIL make $100k a year & live paycheck to paycheck. I guess for them it's ok, but we've done that & living with the fear that one unexpected expense will knock you off track is not the way we want to live. Having your credit cards constantly maxed out is depressing. When mom passed, sis didn't have enough on her credit card to pay for funeral expenses. When I pulled out my check book & took care of it, suddenly, we were not such losers after all.

Years ago I read a local article titled something like "The Millionaire Next Door." It was about people who saved, paid off their house, or own small businesses, who are millionaires, but you wouldn't know it by their life style. They live in smaller houses, drive older cars & are not living large, but they have significant assets. We now have an epidemic of people who live like millionaires but are doing it all on credit.

When Cheney said that deficits don't matter, the media should have asked him if he applies that philosophy to his own finances.

[FightingIrish]

3. I've gotten into the perverse habit of reading the many pages

of foreclosure notices in my local paper. Occasionally I will see a familiar name,but mostly they are unknown to me. I see a lot of married couples who I assume are young and just starting their lives together. I have seen some high rolling developers with multiple foreclosures. My office is on a city park and I see a growing number of "tribes" banded together in the park with obviously nothing to do and probably no place to call home. I have never seen it this grim.

[firedupdem]

4. I don't really know all the facts but I can say this...I didn't have

a sub prime loan and I didn't have a loan I couldn't afford until my job as well as my husbands went to India. When we could no longer afford our home with our new jobs that paid 1/2 of what our old income was we fought and fought to keep one kid in college and the other one fed! We lost our home and moved out of the state. I hate the MSM talking points about people in sub prime or who got loans they couldn't afford. If there were better opportunities in this country a lot of people wouldn't be in this shape. During the Clinton administration I was turning down jobs left and right! Bonuses were being offered everywhere because jobs were plentiful. This country is fucked up right now in a big way!

[hedgehog]

7. You've brought up an excellent point: I wish I could find the article,

but somewhere I read or heard that Americans were doing just fine with savings and judicious use of credit until wages went stagnant and/or jobs went away. We've gotten into a credit crunch trying to tide ourselves over until things improve!

[InkAddict]

16. Agreed - no job for long enough and no mortgage/lease payments.

Timing was everything 16 jobs; 20 years, slowly draining all assets and resources - a chronically/terminally ill elderly parent who invested little of his earnings poorly cause he thought he'd just drop off in his sleep instead of getting chronically ill; two kids in college (now graduated-time to start loan payments on unstable and low-paying FT work; parental (THAT'S US) IT and tech-related occupations that went overseas. Bye-bye all assets, dreams, confidence, independence!

[Heather MC]

19. Ahh the Clinton Years, I got a job as a web designer after only going to 3 classes

Job hunting was fun back then
Now I have a better chance of shooting a Wolf from a plane than finding a good paying job with benefits

[slackmaster]

5. As someone in the industry I can tell you that nobody tracks that directly

You can get a great deal of information about the properties, transactions, and loans involved, but to say anything meaningful about the people would involve computer modeling, guesswork, and/or merging of datasets that nobody has ever tried to join on a large scale. There are companies that track property data, and companies like Acxiom that have huge amounts of information about people, but linkages between property and people are spotty and unreliable.

The common denominator is that all of these people thought that somehow or another they'd come up with the money when the balloon payments hit.

I think you left out one segment - People who were taken in by deceptive loan originators, some of whom don't understand English well enough to have truly comprehended what they were signing. They are really crime victims.

The fundamental problem I have with "bailouts" at any level is that any conceivable plan is going to end up rewarding some people for making bad decisions.

[hedgehog]

8. People making bad decisions or people making the best of a bad situation?

[slackmaster]

30. All of the above, I think

The thing is, if the government had set and enforced some tough standards for underwriting loans, some of the people now facing foreclosure would never have been able to qualify to buy a home. They'd be renting, living with relatives, etc.

If you give people two choices, one good and one bad, some of them are going to opt for the bad option. Of course no matter what lenders are doing, some people are going to fall on hard times they didn't see coming.

[lonestarnot]

9. Wha?

All in one post you lay claim to knowledge as an insider, state, "The common denominator is that all of these people thought that somehow or another they'd come up with the money when the balloon payments hit," so with your credentials, I guess I am just supposed to believe you? But one thing you state that is very revealing to the situation at hand is that "nobody tracks that directly."

[hedgehog]

17. Actually\, I was the one who suggested that there was a common denominator.

You're correct, that is speculation on my part. I guess I'm just assuming that no one would take out a mortgage and plan on not being able to come up with the money a few years down the road.

[lonestarnot]

And job loss, did you consider that?

[hedgehog]

22. I'm not sure what you mena, but if you're suggesting that some of the people facing foreclosure were

doing fine until the local plant shut down and all the equipment went to China, then I agree with you.

[lonestarnot]

57. Well that is one scenario, but how many jobs have just disappeared because of the spiral down?

I'm talking about those too.

[slackmaster]

27. The "common denominator" statement was quoted from the OP

Not my words. There is certainly a shady element that doesn't fit the "common denominator" - Greedy people who are involved in flipping and such, but I don't believe it was the thread author's intent to focus on them. We all know that some people just had shit happen to them. That's always going to happen.

[Gormy Cuss]

34. HMDA data is the best source for teasing out such information.

You're right that it requires extensive analysis and merging of other data to arrive at good estimates but HMDA data are used extensively to make analyses of home ownership and financing patterns by neighborhood and by other demographics.

[Fluffdaddy]

10. I live in my means. I did NOT buy a house I could NOT afford

Most people have no one but themselves to blame

[Warpy]

20. They don't teach this stuff in school, you know

When I went to buy, an ARM was very aggressively pushed at me, "You can get much more house for your money!" blah blah blah while they never even mentioned the 30 year fixed mortgage. I had to scoop up my paperwork and head for the door to get them to stop talking tommyrot.

People saw they could afford a better house in a better neighborhood for payments they could manage and the motormouthed mortgage salesman never mentioned how much that ARM would cost every month once it reset. Because they were never taught about this stuff, they just didn't know any of it.

That's why they got into trouble, not because they were greedy or stupid. They simply weren't told the whole story about what the risk of landing under a debt they couldn't afford to service was.

I was lucky. My parents taught me a lot of this stuff. If I had normal cornflakes parents, I'd probably have been just as big a sucker for the sales pitch as they were.

[slackmaster]

28. They really should teach it in school!

:argh:

[calimary]

36. We had that pitch made to us by a then-coworker of my husband's.

All he could talk about was "creative financing." The greatest thing since sliced bread and running water and lap-dancers. Kept urging us to get into the speculative real estate market. That was quite awhile ago - maybe 15 years. MAYBE back then... but whatever the case, we were hesitant. You know, that whole "sounds too good to be true" thing. And he kept talking about the balloon payments that would happen after you locked in the lower-than-low rate at the start. But the talk consistently was that - "well, by the time the balloon payment comes due, you'll be making WAY more money than you are now. Won't be a problem at all. Besides, you'll always be able to refinance at that point." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bullshit. If it sounds too good to be true... and all that. We didn't bite. Don't know whatever happened to him, but since it was that long ago, perhaps he got in and got out in time. No idea. We lost track of him over the years, after my husband moved to a different job.

[FirstLight]

37. You know, it IS the predatory lending more than anything...

I got the same pitch for my student loan, which is so far on default I can never reach it!

and i haven't finished my degree, and the local paper has downsized to the point they won't even take me as a frelancer, so the wage I was expecting ius non existent...ad to that that I am single yet again with two more kids ...and it is beyond me to EVER think I will own a home...

[calimary]

43. DAMN. Sorry to hear that.

It's a shame. So many of my friends in radio generally and radio news in particular are out of work. Media consolidation mainly. BASTARDS.

[PassingFair]

44. Nice attitude. With posters like you....

who needs Freepers?

[Blue Diadem]

47. That's just one aspect. People have lost their jobs.

They can't always find another job right away and if they do it may be at a much lower wage. Sure there are people who bought homes they couldn't afford, but I'm betting there are many people across the country who were put into situations beyond their control.

[Warpy]

11. I know the foreclosure notice pages have quadrupled

in the local paper while the help wanted ads have consistently shrunk. Someone mentioned they'd read that 60,000 people were losing their homes every week nationwide and judging by the foreclosures in this smallish city that didn't see a bubble and doesn't have horrible unemployment, I'd say that's probably close to the truth.

Speculators have already been shaken out of this market and now it's families who are losing their homes when someone is unemployed or the ARM goes up just when they're having trouble affording gas and food.

It is one of those statistics that the present administration doesn't want to get out, like the true unemployment numbers or an accurate inflation rate.

[mike_c]

12. I am NOT facing foreclosure....

And I must say I'm not especially pleased to be bailing out the financial industry who used real estate mortgages to fuel the greed fires roaring through the banking system.

I'm not facing foreclosure because I wasn't taken in by the "American dream" deeply enough to become a serf for it. I have NEVER been seriously tempted to sign a mortgage, and thereby agree to pay some banker three or more times the value of a house just so my name might eventually go on the title.

I'm not facing foreclosure because I wasn't tempted by promises of easy financing during the mortgage frenzy a few years ago.

I'm not facing foreclosure because I am smarter than that.

But you know where that leaves me? Renting, like I've rented for the last 50 years or so, without a home of my own, while I watch the government bail out the banks and eventually the other wage slaves who colluded together to get us all into this situation. I get to help pay for that, to the tune of thousands of dollars a year, while my landlord, who's probably going to be a net beneficiary of the bail out in the end, continues to hoover up my wages from the other direction.

I'm angry about it. I did the SMART thing and learned to live within my means, but that just makes me a better resource to squeeze when the idiots who helped get us into this mess have been wrung dry.

Anyone who thinks they deserve a mortgage bailout because they were stupid enough to sign a contract they could never realistically pay off can be thankful that liberals like me believe in social responsibility for the disadvantaged-- and that includes the terminally stupid, because that liberal philosophy is the only thing that keeps me from being even more bitter about all this.

[CrispyQ]

41. Well said.

I think most of us who have lived within our means are pretty pissed off about this. I lay most of the blame on the financial industry, but there is plenty of blame to go around. I don't accept the argument that homeowners who were ignorant of how their loan worked are not as guilty as the flippers. If you don't understand something, particularly a legal document that is going to impact your personal economy, then holy shit, educate yourself before you sign on the dotted line.

[hedgehog]

50. My husband and I have a mortgage on a very modest house

because housing prices here in Upstate NY are depressed (or unaffected by the bubble depending on your POV). We've refinanced several times, and hope to pay off our mortgage in 5 years. If we could have had this interest rate when we first bought the place, we could have paid off the mortgage 10 years ago AND sent the kids to college without taking our any loans!


Now consider where we'd be if my husband had taken a job transfer to Tampa 20 some years ago. We'd be paying off a much higher mortgage for the same house AND we'd be facing recently raised insurance premiums due to the increased risk of hurricanes. Toss in a burst real estate bubble and we'd be paying off a mortgage for more than our house would be worth!


So, we're taking out student loans now because interest rates were so high 20 years ago, but we should be OK. If my husband had taken a different career path, we'd be in real trouble.

[mnhtnbb]

13. I have a friend who was foreclosed on in Michigan about 2 years ago.

Her husband got sick, went on disability. My friend was laid off from her job and it took her
almost a year to find another one and by then they were behind on house payments. They were forced to move to a rental while the house sat vacant/for sale. They did lose the house (it didn't sell). About a year ago, hubby found a job in Las Vegas and they moved.
They had to leave family in Michigan in order to go where there was work.

I haven't heard from her in awhile, so I don't know if she's working. She joined a union
in Vegas and was hoping to do production work for conventions/trade shows.

[tjwash]

15. Oh yeah...I rented to a couple of folks that lost their homes.

One was solid, and got caught up in the mess and was going through chapter 11. I still have them as tenants.

The other was a degenerate spender that, in the 6 months I rented to them, maxed out all their credit cards on frivolous junk, bought 2 huge freaking cars with no money down, and never once came up with their rent on time or when they did, never had the full amount when it was due. We opted not to renew their lease.

So it's both ends of the spectrum that got nailed on this.

[hedgehog]

21. Which goes directly to my point; if you think that it's just

plain luck that you aren't in that situation, you have some sympathy for those involved. If you figure that everyone who lost a house is a profligate fool, you think they deserve to be out on the street.

[aikoaiko]

18. I don't know anyone who is in foreclosure.

:shrug:

[flvegan]

23. I can give you a good response as to Florida.

Foreclosures are still at record levels here in Florida, and is among the leading states in the nation.

Some are due to flippers and other "investors" walking away from a non-primary residence. They're "dumping stock" and cutting their losses. The short sale route is becoming very popular.

Most foreclosures, though are on middle class families that experienced one of a few different issues in the recent past...

1. Residents that within the past couple years, faced with out of control taxes and insurance, could no longer afford those three big bills on the year. Insurance has been an incredible problem, with rates doubling and tripling, or being dropped altogether forcing folks to go with Citizens (the state run, highest rate ins in the state).

2. Job losses, disability. Nothing much to add there, as we know about this problem across the country. Florida has an almost obscene backlog of disability claims, and folks are losing their homes because of the delay.

3. This is the big one. Jill and Joe Average. Middle class, hard working folks. Two jobs, two kids. They bought a house in the last 2-5 years with an ARM loan. With less than perfect credit, they got a loan with an affordable fixed rate for the first 2-5 years, at 7-9% interest with the idea to reestablish their credit with this loan and refinance at the time of reset (the reset being prime plus points...lots of them). The way the market looked, this should be pretty easy. Then, the bottom of the market fell out. Housing values crashed, and refis became too difficult to get. They didn't have enough equity and value to justify a loan large enough to pay off the purchase money mortgage. Was it a gamble? Sure, but nobody really saw this coming, which is why it pisses me off when I see idiots on DU spouting shit about not feeling for these folks. I've been in this business (real property) for almost 20 years, and I didn't see this burst coming. Folks in the same business for 50 years didn't see it coming. Greed and fraud caused this, and folks are suffering for it. Oh, and speaking of fraud, ome values in some areas won't properly correct in some areas because of it for many, many years. Criminals who came in, got fake inspections and appraisals, raised values incredibly, only to have them crash when their house of cards did. Those still in the area now have homes mortgaged for more than current true market, so they can't refi or sell either.

4. Stupidity. Yeah, there is a percentage of folks that bought the McMansion that they couldn't afford and they knew it, but thought they'd figure out how to swing it, but this is a smaller percentage than some folks think.

Another thing to bear in mind in all this, is that a great number of folks took the advice of professionals in buying a home. People looked to realtors and mortgage brokers as they would any other professional providing a service, figuring them to be the experts. Come to find out, Florida had an unbelievably high number of felons allowed to practice in this business. When I bought my house, I was told I could "afford" twice what I wanted to spend. I knew better.

For the record, I'm in the title business and I see a LOT of REO, short-sale and pre-foreclosure work out there. This is my collective observation based on the public records, conversations with colleagues and title/closing agents.

[mike_c]

32. dude, we might be idiots, but we're the ones who were RIGHT....

I mean, anyone who fits your category #3 and didn't understand the nature of the risk they were taking was just plain blinded by their own ambitions. What about those of us who DIDN'T fall for it? We turned out to be right.

I feel for those folks. I'm sorry they're suffering the consequences of their stupidity. I truly am. But dammit, those of us who did the right thing and decided to stay within our REAL means are still left holding the bag, even while many of us still rent from folks in category #3 who thought they could become overnight real estate moguls.

Yeah, I'm a little bitter about how the "American dream" has turned out. Folks should have been smarter. A little common sense instead of common greed would have gone a long way toward preventing this debacle.

[flvegan]

35. I think you make a good point

about REAL means. A very good point, actually. I think many folks, in general, know what they think is living within their means, but not their real means.

However, I firmly believe that there's a huge population of people in this situation that got misleading advice from people they considered professionals, and the other outside factors WAY beyond the control of the borrower figure in far too much.

That said, I also believe that if one doesn't know what they're doing when they sit down at a closing, it's worth the couple/few hundred bucks to have a lawyer there representing you. But, that's the view from here.

I'm bitter myself, I admit it.

[PassingFair]

45. #5

In my state, Michigan, many people are losing their
homes due to "cash-out" refinancing.

As housing values soared, many refinanced to
inflated appraisal rates and are now upside-
down on their mortgages.

Tragically, as so many here are losing their
jobs in manufacturing...

[phusion]

24. I've been renting for nearly ten years...

And, through college, I would have never been able to afford a home anyway. And now, as a single 27yo college graduate with a "well paying" job, there's no way I can afford a mortgage payment. Hell, I probably can't even get approved for a loan...

So, while I'm not facing foreclosure, I worry that I won't be able to afford a house for a very very long time. Especially if wages never improve. My raise last year? 0%!

[InvisibleTouch]

25. Raises hand.

Condo I'm no longer living in, but trying to sell. I'm so far behind on my payments that if I can't sell the place like yesterday, it will be gone. I had a buyer, and at the last second their loan wasn't approved (was supposed to go through last week). That's been my major source of stress. Have got about a total of $50 to my name at the moment. Will have to make it through somehow.

[hedgehog]

39. My OP was asking about the aggregate rather than the personal,

but thanks for reminding everyone here that every person facing foreclosure is indeed a real individual. Too often it's the faceless"them"!

[Vanje]

29. Right where I live

In my subdivision last month, a couple packed a U-Haul and ran away from their mortgage. They left their windows and front door wide open.
There is no for sale sign. I bet the lenders wont even figure out they've gone till they get the 3rd or 4th overdue payment notices marked, "Return to Sender."
The door bangs when the wind blows.
That house has become a refuge for feral cats and raccoons.

[slackmaster]

33. The "Just walk away" strategy

Sometimes it makes sense for people to do just that.

[SharonAnn]

51. Person buying my old kitchen cabinets said they were glad they weren't from a

home in foreclosure. We're remodeling (little by little for the last year)and replacing cabinets.

She told me that the ads you see on places like Craig's List for almost new cabinets and/or appliances are almost always from homes going into foreclosure and people are selling everything they can out of the house before they walk away. Kitchen and bathroom fixtures, light fixtures, cabinets, appliances, window treatments, shelving, carpeting, other flooring, etc. I was stunned, which shows you how aware I am of what's going on.

She said they would feel like they were buying stolen goods to buy under those conditions.

[Gormy Cuss]

31. The question on who faces foreclosure is broader than just the sub-prime loan segment.

There are many facing foreclosure who had Alt-A or other mortgage products too. The sub-prime segment of the market is however where one finds the highest concentration of owners in minority neighbors and who were riskier loan recipients in the first place because they had less capital to invest, weaker incomes, and other factors that may have lead them to choose subprime products, not the least of which is predatory practices of some lenders.

See this literature review on subprime lending and other alternative financial services working in low income communities. http://www.abtassociates.com/reports/final_abt_subprime_Feb_17.pdf
The principal author, Bill Apgar is with Harvard University, Joint Center for Housing Studies and is former assistant secretary of HUD.

There is a consistent pattern of high use of subprime loans in neighborhoods with high rates of minority-led households and lower incomes. There may be a more recent analysis conducted for HUD or Fannie Mae on the who faces foreclosure now but I can't put my hands on it at the moment.

[hedgehog]

38. Your post reminds me of the story that broke some years back

when it was revealed that a lot of high interest loan companies (Beneficial?) that catered to/ preyed on low income people were more or less fronts for large banks such as Chase Manhattan. The one fact that everyone overlooks is that these so-called risky borrowers apparently were doing fine keeping up with the payments until the adjustable rate ballooned into usury territory.

[Gormy Cuss]

42. You should read the report at my link.

It covers all the other financial products used to soak low income people too, like payday loans, auto title loans, etc.

You are correct that some of the shady financial vendors are owned by the bigger traditional banks ---IIRC most owned payday loan fronts.

[AlCzervik]

40. 3 on my street plus one short sale. The short sale, i know the whole story, i'll give you the

cliff notes ok?

Neighbor and husband got divorced 3 years ago at the height of the market, she bought him out because she wanted to keep the house for the kids, so she has to refi, needless to say she is now 100k upside down in her mortgage because the market has tanked.

She's not blaming anyone btw, she feels guilty about the short sale, she thinks she's adding to the problem but after she paid her mortgage she had $400 a month left---that was it. Ironically her ex went on to buy a foreclosure. My neighbor directly across the street did almost the same thing but for now she's holding on, barely.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

46. A lot of small business people , probably

Having been one twice, my heart really aches for them. It is very common for small business people to use the equity in their homes or to refinance to either expand their business or tide it over. Sometimes it is just throwing more money down a rathole, but small business are optimistic risk taking types or they wouldn't have gone down that route in the first place.

I also think the tightening up and reducing of equity lines is probably hurting these guys a lot.

[backwoodsbob]

49. own my home outright

one car loan is all I have.

Me and mrs dem have one car loan and about 70k a year in solid jobs not going anywhere.

[azmouse]

52. 2 homes in my neighborhood are in foreclosure....

One is right across the street. The family just walked away from the house.
Mine is a nice neighborhood. At the real estate peak homes were valued at around $600,000... now these same homes are valued at around $350,000.

One family in the next development over, bought their house for $670,000 early in '07. They want to sell now but are so unrealistic about the market. They are asking $800,000! I wish I knew who gave them such bad advice. They would be lucky to get $400,000.

[Tansy_Gold]

53. What AZ neighborhood are you in?

Just curious, really, so feel free to PM me if you prefer.

I"m currently in Apache Junction, moved from Buckeye in '06. I've watched a lot of real estate values tank over the past three years.



TG

[azmouse]

54. Glendale

It's sad to see this house across the street look so abandoned. The city has cleaned up the weeds twice this year but if someone doesn't do something with the house soon it'll fall into disrepair and no one will want it. I've heard it might be put up for auction soon. I hope so just to get it sold. I'm tired of looking at the mess.

[Tansy_Gold]

58. That's how I feel about my old house in Buckeye.

I didn't have much emotional attachment to it even after living there for 18 years and was able to move away with no regrets, but now, seeing pictures of it in its present state, I feel sorry for it.

Someone ought to be living in that house, taking care of it, raising a family, having good times and making memories.



Tansy Gold

[samuraiguppy]

55. at my old job, I worked with a senior engineer

making over 90K a year, he is married to a dentist who was making over 200K per year (WOW). They had way over bought in an extremely expensive area--got a million dollar home 5 years ago. She had to have the biggest, the best, the fanciest address etc etc...Now the home is worth about half what it was when they bought it--and when their arm readjusted over the summer--they had to walk away from it.

I didn't feel sorry for them at all--even though I liked the guy personally. His wife was one of those spendy types--always wanting real diamonds, big mansion etc. He definitely liked the lifestyle--but most of their money problems were because of over spending. She came from a wealthy family and is used to the good life--but apparently her folks are not on board for bailing her out in every situation.

I live in Ca, and I actually know many people just like this family.

[Name removed]

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