The Mortgage Meltdown

My neighbor lost his house.

I'm so sad for him.

In his case, he lost his job (oh, I know that one!) and got behind. With the market being the way it is, he couldn't refi and he couldn't get caught up. His ex is waiting, hoping that he can pick up the house later, once the foreclosure is finished and the bank puts the house on the market for a fraction of what my neighbor owed.

Yes, he's hoping to buy the house back. Those guys put so much work into their house, it's a darn shame this happened to them.

I know that I can't refi right now. I'm only about $20,000 upside down right now, so I'm stuck in my loan for a bit. In this market, at this time, it's not as bad as it sounds. Fortunately, I don't have to refi until 2010, so there's time for the market to swing up again.

I'm watching the mortgage meltdown with much cynicism.

You see, the mortgage companies are freaking greedy. They don't WANT to renegotiate loans. They don't WANT to give up a prepayment penalty so the customer can refinance into a better loan product. They don't WANT to work with the customer.

It's all backfired on them!

LOL, now they're paying the price for the misrepresentation of the loan products, of the under and over valuing of properties, for straight up fraud (like manufacturing the numbers without the customer even realizing what was done!).

Yes, sometimes they deliberately undervalued a property, forcing the homeowner into a less desirable but more profitable loan product, knowing that the homeowner had to refi NOW. Taking advantage of the situation doesn't make it right.

Even so, houses are starting to sell again. Prices have dropped enough that many people are starting to look toward buying that first home. Truly over valued house prices have dropped dramatically and people are looking to buy.

So the mortgage meltdown will eventually pass. Again.

Because this isn't the first time it's happened. Nor will it be the last.

The politicians and bankers and mortgage companies will all be on the bandwagon about what they did to help the consumer.

And we'll know they're all full of poop. Because nice guys like my neighbor don't live in this hood anymore.

The market will recover. So will he.

But the mortgage companies' lies, misrepresentation, and out and out fraud have been revealed.

Finally.

I'm looking for more banks and mortgage companies to go under before we completely recover from this mess. More fraud will be revealed. More lies and misrepresentations will appear to haunt these huge companies.

I don't know that I want the government to be all up in the mortgage business, but I do know that I want the rules and regulations, the laws that are already in place, to be enforced.

Make the greedy bastards pay.

And pay.

And pay.

Just like we, the consumers, usually have to pay.

It's nice to see it happen to the big guys for a change. Even though it messes with the economy for a while.

We little guys are used to it. We will survive the mortgage meltdown. It's just once more mess in our lives and we know how to hunker down and hang on.

That's the operative phrase in this mess, "Hang on!"

Hang on, change is coming!

Hang on!