Poll: who is the victim

7. someone else?

All of the families that have been unfairly priced out of purchasing a home for too long.  Families that should have been able to afford a home, wanted a home, but because the bubble was artificially inflated and maintained for so long they were priced out of the market.  They could have taken a flyer, taken a risky gamble, but they choose to continue to try and scrimp and save enough to buy, but the market kept outrunning them.  All driven by greed, fraud and misinformation.

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The real victims are the Chinese that financed all this bad debt and lost $700 billion in the process, which is why the Pesident and the Republicans are bailing them out so that we don't have to sell them our National Parks and Federal Highways if they decided to stop lending and cash in on their national debt holdings.

curiousm,

I tend to agree with you.  the joy that is expressed when more folks go underwater (and thus proven wrong) is amazing.

who is to blame?

everybody!

who is the victim?

nobody.  this is a game that has been and always been open to anybody that wants to play.  if you lost... then you lost.  I can be symptathetic, but I do have a question for N T E T S, besides pointing fingers have  you even jumped into the game yet?

i sold a home in '07 and i am holding land. i rent and save. i plan to buy eventually. so yes, i am playing the game.

as for the post, i was baited by sir allen and friends, who keep harping on the victims of the debt implosion. there are 2 kinds of people in the world, the responsible person who knows the mort he can afford and buys that, and the irresponsible person who buys the very bestest home he can with the documentation he can come up with... if you are responsible, the people who are asking for handouts are the same people who are cutting your throat in this whole situation. that is my pov.

oh and before you ask, in the last 2 weeks before my house sold i had to cut my asking price 20k to make the sale, when i could have afforded to keep the home which had a mort of only a little over 700 a month... i'd say i'm playing the game rather well

oh and the person i sold it to:

bought it, invested 70k in "upgrading" my 1700 sq ft home and then put it on the market for almost 100k more than i sold for. it never sold and is now back off the market. comps in the area place it about 30k above my original sales price(seattle just TANKED last few months.)

hows that for ego stroking?

     I think NTETS assumes too much. People where I live are hurting and none of them bought a houses during the boom. They were already there.   Neighbourhoods have empty boarded up homes from those who did buy during the  boom that were foreclosed . Builders have empty houses that have been on the market over a year. All this is driving the price of houses down terribly. One of my neighbours wants to sell his house he has lived in for 20 years and move to Arizona but nobody will even look at it. Its now an undesirable neighbourhood.

     All I am reading on these threads is a bunch of chest pounding . Bragging how they weren't affected by all this and mocking the ones that were. That is depressing. I'm glad I don't know anyone like NTETS .

actually i have said more than once(including this thread) that the 1 person in this whole mess who i feel sorry for, feel who was injured unjustly, feel has been reamed repetedly in this situation is the logical responsible person who bought as an educated person within his means a home he truely could afford and for all the prudence in the world has lost his equity.

"the guy who put down 20% on a new home only to see that whole deposit vanish, poof and is still making his payments"

that was my pick for the victim. the great americans who had the economic sense to buydown their mortgage payment and to buy a home for a resonable price and a manageable rate. for these people and them alone i feel a great deal of sympathy.  especially retirees!

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I agree with NTETS.  While it is a shame that many were caught up in the bubble and under the spell of RE agents and lenders who hypnotized them with talk that "real estate always goes up" and the rest, the true victims of the burst are the people that bought during the bubble, took out mortgages that they could afford and would not reset, and had their own skin in the game.  And by that I mean their own saved downpayment, not the proceeds from an earlier bubble-flip.  Those people scrimped and saved and worked for that money, only to have it vanish.

Most everyone else is not losing much but fantasy.  If they used bubble-flip gains for a downpayment, that was "magic" money - not hard earned.  If they put no or little money down toward a house that they can no longer make payments on, they should never have been in that house in the first place - it was a fantasy home built on "magic" loan money.  It may seem harsh, but that is reality.

Are there folks that lie somewhere in the middle of the spectrum?  Sure.  Everything is not black and white.  However, in overwhelmingly large part this is not about "victims."  It is about people that took a gamble and lost.  It happens all the time.  The only reason that this has become a national issue with all the talk of "assistance" is because of how widespread the banks allowed the problem to become.

After the bill becomes law,how will the  ""magic""money be put back in system!

The banks should be eating that "magic" money since they were the ones stupid enough to hand it out.  They should get their empty foreclosed houses in return - just like their contracts provided for.  There should be no bailout for them.  There are better ways to use 850 billion to help the country.

"People where I live are hurting and none of them bought a houses during the boom. They were already there."

Dealseeker: If people who bought before the run up are hurting then perhaps they sucked all the equity out and now it is time to pay the bill for buying the plamsa and the Range Rover, boo hoo is right. When you buy a house there is no implicit guarantee in the fine print that your home will appreciate every year.   Just because someone assumed that and it didn't happen I am supposed to take money out of my pocket to help them stay in that home.   People make all sorts of poor choices.   There is a home just around the corner from me, abondoned, lots of mail stuffed in the box, over grown yard......someone choose to pay over $600K for that house in 2006, they put it on market for a few months at $500K and then the sign came down and the people moved out.   I have more respect for them that they choose to walk then have the BALLS to ask another American to help them stay in a home they had no business buying.   Sure that house may cause the homes nearby to fall somewhat in value, but a homeowner who can afford their home and is staying put has nothing to worry, someone with an ARM is worried, someone who knows they will have to sell and move soon is worried.  

"To be perfectly blunt, the victim is those of us who came to read your post . Its nothing but an ego feeding , self righteous diatribe  fed by hindsight. Its amazing how many of you people come on here to stroke your own sense of self worth at the expense of others on the Internet. Finger pointing and all."

Sounds like somebody's Option ARM is about to expire!

I'm really amazed.  I'm just not reading this the same as some others.  I thought it was a very good question, it made me pause and think.

Lets get one thing straight - for the RE market to completely correct, there's going to be a lot of pain.  I'm 100% for the market to correct to an appropriate, natural level, and I'm fully aware of the pain and distress that this will cause for many families.  I'm also fully aware of how much the correction will help the many, many families that were forced to the sidelines.  Helping "needy" families is one thing, propping up a market and pricing out families that should have access to the market is just wrong.

Well said, Mikal.  I agree 100%

Mikal...thread winner.  Thank you for the voice of reason.

This is a perfectly valid poll/question. The people who don't like it are the ones who had stuck their heads in the sand refusing to believe housing was a bubble that is deflating. Now they want to do the same thing regarding the victims.

I didn't give my answer:

6.  The folks who paid 20% down.  Okay, they don't really exist.  But the real victims are those that bought near market peak with normal loans, but much higher than 3x annual salary.  Those people who don't intend on walking away from their houses because they think this market will turn around in a few years back to peak prices, or they feel some moral duty to actually pay their loans, even if it means being flat broke for at least the next decade.  They're the losers in this game.  They did nothing wrong other than buying at market peak and sticking through it.

And yes, this is a very good poll.  Hats off to NTETS.

I used to be ALL FOR helping people to stay in their homes; when the were long term renters, and the house building craize was causing their homes to be destroyed in order to build high end condos; or when their units were being converted to condos specifically to price them out!

I suggested to the city that zoning protection be provided for the historic units they occupied, and that the city loan "down payment" money in order that the existing occupants could buy out the owner, while still making rent payments in the same range.

But helping people stay in ownership houses when the price was too high, and when the loans were distorted, and when the banks and mortgage companies were offering "free money" and when the agents talked people into buying what they shouldn't just so the agents could pocket the commission?  I see no reason to bail those people out; they can make a profit by walking away and buying something they can afford, or renting something at lower cost.

But if they just got behind due to unexpected medical bills for surgery???  Sure, adjust their payments to help them get back on their feet for a couple years; once they are fully recovered and the medical bills are undercontrol, they should have no trouble earning enough to pay the mortgage.  But not a "handout"; a "readjustment", or defered loan.

the were --> *they* were

Regarding the people that complained about NETS original post; It appears they are all new aliases for existing Realtors and Loan Officers; so it appears they are mostly talking about their commissions.

Still I would like to know what the letters N.E.T.S. is supposed to stand for.  Besides, only three user profiles complained, and some may be an alias for another..  If the poster really felt like a victim for reading a post, why did the person even bother opening the thread?  At an average of about 100 new threads per day on Zillow, there are plenty of other things to read and comment on.

Perhaps one of those commenters is that re-occurent troll that keeps trying to drive market watchers away?

i thought that this was an excellent poll.  I don't see how it could be read as "stroke(ing) your own sense of self worth at the expense of others on the Internets".   that is just silly.  someone has eaten a bitter slice of pie, it seems.

Well pasa...curiousm, dealseeker, and sir allan, all seem to be the same poster.  I don't think that I need software for that one.

     This is why...

*Warning Valhakar Rant Incomming*

And to continue Pasa's point with the less then civil approach...

Who the hell said we had to wring our hands in grief and be nice to people that made mistakes, even honest ones. Public shaming is nearly lost from our society and it possibly one of the greatest contributors to the social unraveling we have seen over the last 50 years.

50 years ago if you spent too much, bought too big of a house, over leveraged your credit and went bankrupt, you would be laughed at and shunned. Jerk, idiot, moron, deadbeat, bum these are all terms of ridicule and shame. Fast forward to 1975+, we made everything someone else fault. Being "mean" was bad. We then saw the jump in economic asshattery and moral dissolution. Without shame and the social ability to shame others, society falls apart.. as we have seen over the last 2 decades.

There is never one specific thing you can blame for large scale problems, but there are always major contributors. "Don't be mean" is one of them. Screw you bleeding hearts, you caused this just as much as the unchecked greed.

I volunteer with kids and ride an ambulance as part of the volunteer rescue squad. Even with all that seemingly warm fuzzy left wing living, I hold this to be true: I ONLY own you the social safety net. Anything else is your own responsibility. I will not feel sorry for you. You make mistakes, you pay for them. I owe you 3 hots and a cot with a roof over your head till you can get back on your feet. That is all I would expect to receive.

My opinion: there are many victims. I feel sorry for most of them. Many of them do not deserve to be victims.

...BUT...

Very few of them can be helped without victimizing others, who deserve it even less.

I am really sorry that someone overpaid for his home. But if we make someone else buy this house at inflated price, we simply make another victim.

And this applies to more that real estate. Did you pay full price for a fake Rolex? Well, I AM sorry, but I am not buying from you (actually, if you try to sell it "for the price you paid", it makes YOU a criminal). Did you lose your paycheck in a casino? Again, I am sorry, but you are not getting mine.

Jim, I agree they are all the same person.  Talk about stroking...using multiple ids in an attempt to give validity to the thoughts of a single person.  How sad.