Underwater on their mortgages and angry at banks, more borrowers are choosing to hand over the keys, even if they can afford the payments.
Wynn Bloch has always dutifully paid her bills and socked away money for retirement. But in December she defaulted on the mortgage on her Palm Desert home, even though she could afford the payments.
Bloch paid $385,000 for the two-bedroom in 2006, when prices were still surging. Comparable homes are now selling in the low-$200,000s. At 66, the retired psychologist doubted she'd see her investment rebound in her lifetime. Plus, she said she was duped into an expensive loan.
The way she sees it, big banks that helped fuel the mess all got bailouts while small fry like her are left holding the bag. No more.
"There was not a chance that house was ever going to be worth anywhere near what my mortgage was," said Bloch, who is now renting a few miles away after defaulting on the $310,000 loan. "I haven't cheated or stolen."
Time was when Americans would do almost anything to hang on to their homes. But that commitment appears to be fraying as more people fall behind on their loans while watching the banks and lenders that helped trigger the financial crisis return to prosperity.
Nearly one-quarter of U.S. mortgages, or about 11 million loans, are "underwater," i.e. the houses are worth less than the balance of their loans. While home values are regaining ground -- median prices rose 10% in Southern California last month to $275,000 compared with a year earlier -- they remain far below the July 2007 peak of $505,000.
More Here.
Think there is No Credit Bubble in Canada? Check These Stunning Graphs!
Link Here
Oh just wait until these suburbian homeowners find out about Peak Oil, and how the Hirsch Report has been surpressed by the mainstream media since 2005, and all the terrible implications within: suburbia represents the greatest misallocation of resources in human history. They will beg the mystical and magical technology gods to save them, only to find that reality makes a poor negotiating partner. The End of Empire is here.
ReplyDelete9:05, that was a very interesting comment.
ReplyDeleteYou just turn your pretty head and walkaway
ReplyDeletewalkaway,
Individual basic bankruptcy costs about 2,000.00 around here so as usual the freaking attornies are cashing in. The lawyers are moving us along nicely down the path of total decapitation of any and all dignity America may have left.
ReplyDeleteWalk away from your mortgage and you will be held accountable for the balance you are running from once it is sold. You have to hire an attorney and file bankruptcy. You will need current tax documents and a fist full of cash so the attorney can have his lovely assistant go to the file and pull up a form and type in all your crap and file it with the courts. That will be 2500.00 please. You ask if you can make payments and he says; I don't think you are good for it.
ReplyDelete@ 9:05 The End of the Roman Empire was violent... Looks like we will be too! I hope some nation secures those loose nukes after the US collapses...
ReplyDeleteNothing to be afraid of folks. It has happened to many other nations before... But I see that there's still many in this nation that are in deep denial of the inevitable.
They keep kicking, screaming and pouting that everything will get better... Sad, real sad to see them on TV fighting a lost cause...
The hoping and grasping is pathetic. Face it America, the Empire is about to go bankrupt. The first casualty will be American Idol!
Very poetic actually!
950 just walkaway and ignore all correspondence, end of story, no lawyers, no nothing
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine how very stupid sheeple are.
ReplyDeleteI have grown over six acres of fruits and veges on a land I don't own. I don't till the land. Just throw seeds here and there, and have been eating the produce for 15 years now.
I don't pay land tax, property tax, income tax etc. I get free clean rain water. The land has a fish pond hence free fish. And yes I bath with the fish.
Kick ass 11:47! Sounds like a freshwater 'Blue Lagoon"
ReplyDeleteThe sheeple are so braindead the government can still get by with parading pics of a dead man as some super-threat. Bin-Asset died of kidney failure in 2002. He was 75% a goner when he was treated in a Dubai hospital in the summer of 2001 with his CIA handlers. They wanted to keep him alive long enough to play the role of poster boy.
ReplyDeleteI mean Geezus Americans are fucking stupid. Last one to leave turn out the lights.
yo people lets all kick government ass yo
ReplyDeletenot blue lagoon
ReplyDeletewalden pond?
Points you all seem to miss. Median prices rose 10% in Southern California last month to $275,000! The stock markets are going gangbusters right now. Things are improving fast and still no depression or crash anywhere near in sight.
ReplyDelete2:05,
ReplyDeleteDid California suffer net job losses during this time? How about America as a whole? If "yes" to both questions, then the net effect is nothing more than INFLATION.
10% a month... Boy I sure hope workers got such an increase in their pay.
9:05. You dont need a lawyer to walk away, just a pair of shoes. If they come after you for the balance, file for bankruptcy. This isnt a horror film situation, its almost laughable. EEEEWWWW, I'm reallly scared!
ReplyDeleteAbove comment was for 9:50, not 9:05.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for W. Bloch, when hell freezes over. This magpie of a human being is just going to walk away from her home, when she "CAN" afford it? She is apparently well educated (formal education)?
ReplyDeleteShe is nothing but a damn parasite! And anyone who agrees in what she doing, they are no better.
It only goes to prove that thse people who buy houses and walk away saw it totally as an investment, and not a home.
Good riddence to her and all alike.
When will people start walking away from America thats more to the point.Perhaps in years to come the buffalo will roam across a depopulated A merica. After all whats to keep people in America now,theres no jobs no money.
ReplyDelete6:19 She is 66 and will never recover from the loss if she stays in the home. She made the right decision. Humans have made contracts unbreakable for any reason. It is not an immoral thing to break a contract. Ask the banks themselves or the politicians. They do it all the time. We as the little people have been brainwashed into thinking that when someone breaks a contract for any reason we are evil. It is the banks and politicians that created and instilled that mindset in people. However, they use the opt out clause daily. Please do not place your own twisted and unreasonable values on the rest of mankind. She did not commit the unforgivable sin, nor did you when you called her a "damn parasite." You are entitled to your opinion as we all are.
ReplyDelete7:48 Bang on!
ReplyDeleteLet the banksters spin their own freakin wheel.
I have no opinion regarding Wynn Blocks 'morals'.
ReplyDeleteMorals don't control or direct American Business in any way. It's hypocritical to suggest moral obligation on a business transaction by an individual but not by a corporation who is also a person under the law.
Why is one 'person' held accountable and another not. That's a legal problem, not a moral problem.
Business is business. Morals are not involved.
Personal ethics is an entirely separate matter.
Here I am speaking as a member of the business elite, someone well versed at divorcing morals
from business decisions, if you get my drift.
I don't think anyone in America feels that a person has obligations in business other than
legal obligations.
Speaking of legal obligations, I do hope Wynn Blocks is fully aware of all the laws that can affect her transaction.
If she leaves the home she may be persued for the differance in value between her original loan agreemant and what the house is now worth.
She will not be protected by bankruptcy or anything for that matter. These laws are quite
draconian and allow the garnishment of wages and the confiscation of nest eggs.
She, along with many millions of people walking away from homes will probably find herself in a whole lot of financial and legal trouble in a few years.
Surfdom for real.
Those folks made a wise biz decision; but anyone first needs to council with an attorney in their state to find out details on what may happen later before walking away from a banker rip off mortgage. Banks are not held accountable for anything, so I assume some are seeking revenge too.
ReplyDeleteLearn Mandarin and Spanish ASAP.
ReplyDelete