The attitude they have:
“It wasn’t that we didn’t manage our money,” Comfort said. “We know in America, everyone owes something. We couldn’t get things done the way we expected. It happens to everybody.”
"
From the article:
A growing debt
How one family went from no debt to owing more than $1 million.
*Debt does not include interest or other fees
July 1997
The Boatengs arrived in the United States
DEBT: $0
1999
Purchased a used Toyota Corolla for $2,000
CARS: $2,000
DEBT: $2,000
May 2000
Took out a mortgage on a three-bedroom town home in Germantown.
CARS: $2,000
MORTGAGE: $128,900
DEBT: $130,900
2000
Purchased a new Nissan Altima for $12,000.
CARS: $14,000
MORTGAGE: $128,900
DEBT: $142,900
2003
Comfort began to take out student loans.
2002-2005
Refinanced their Germantown home several times to fund improvements and to pay off some debt, including the cars.
MORTGAGE: $128,900
CASHOUTS: $95,000
DEBT: $223,900
July 2004
Refinanced their Germantown home to borrow $60,000 for the down payment on a new house in Fairwood, outside of Bowie.
CARS: $14,000
MORTGAGE: $128,900
CASHOUTS: $155,000
DEBT: $283,900
November 2005
Took out two loans to buy the new home in Fairwood.
GERMANTOWN MORTGAGE: $128,900
GERMANTOWN CASHOUTS: $155,000
FAIRWOOD MORTGAGES: $554,683
DEBT: $838,583
September 2006
Refinanced to consolidate the two loans on Fairwood home and some debt.
GERMANTOWN MORTGAGE: $128,900
GERMANTOWN CASHOUTS: $155,000
NEW FAIRWOOD MORTGAGE: $612,276
DEBT: $896,176
2006
Took out personal loans after their tenant in Germantown failed to pay rent. Comfort obtained two $20,000 business loans.
GERMANTOWN MORTGAGE: $128,900
GERMANTOWN CASHOUTS: $155,000
FAIRWOOD MORTGAGE: $612,276
PERSONAL LOANS: $15,000
BUSINESS LOANS: $40,000
DEBT: $951,176
August 2011
Bank valued the home in Fairwood at $378,216. This was $238,839 less than what they paid.
2013
Comfort completed a master’s degree after taking out roughly $60,000 in student loans.
GERMANTOWN MORTGAGE: $128,900
GERMANTOWN CASHOUTS: $155,000
FAIRWOOD MORTGAGE: $612,276
PERSONAL LOANS: $15,000
BUSINESS LOANS: $40,000
STUDENT LOANS:$60,000
DEBT: $1,011,176
January 2015
The Boatengs are still living in the Fairwood home. They have not made a mortgage payment in more than six years.
Sources: Post analysis of financial records
I’m currently reading, ‘The Fifth Witness’ about the murder of an unscrupulous lending officer (though most likely strong armed by the likes of Bawney Fwank) who was in the process of repossessing homes.
It’s hard to know which side to root for! ;)
No loan undertaken by a sentient adult should in any way manner shape or form have any provision that surprises. Sorry.
JMHO: Nobody should by a house that costs more than $250,000 unless they can pay cash. The exception would be if it's a revenue source such as rental apartments.
When mortgages became politicized into tools of social engineering, the fundamentals flew out the window. There’s no good reason to pile debt upon debt when you’re already in financial distress, it’s not a way out it just delays the day of reckoning. Too-easy financing has led to boom and bust cycles, which are bad. People were encouraged to buy more than they could logically expect to be able to repay under the best of circumstances, which is also bad. Why do the bean-counters think that this is a good thing?
Oh no, not more of these sob stories!
I’ve read a gazillion of them since 2008 ... I thought they had died down a little lately.
I guess the media is back on the job trying to propagandize us about ‘underwater’ borrowers.
One has to know their limitations. Physical, mental, financial, etc.
It is simply not feasible for a couple earning $113,000 annually to pay off a $540,000 mortgage. A conservative rule is a mortgage of no more than twice your annual income. Three times is a challenge. Five times is guaranteed failure.
If Obama had a mortgage....
The entire KEY to this is they bought that house with an INTEREST ONLY adjustable rate loan. They were given a free ride to this country, given jobs, preference and the attitude they can do anything. And if ‘anything’ bad happened it isn’t their fault.
Their windfall experience in the purchase and sale of their first townhome (with its rise in value financed by the likes of Jaime Gorelick, Franklin Raines and James Johnson who insisted banks loan vast sums of money to people who couldn’t pay it back) led them to further greed. A fantastic $600K plus home they couldn’t afford, but the interest-only payments, the interest deductions and its anticipated rise in value seemed a good bet for another, even bigger windfall in value.
It didn’t work out that way - Tough sh!t. Go back to Ghana if you don’t like it. Seems to me you grifters have spent near 2400 days not paying mortgage payments, still collecting your salaries... STFU.
Hard to understand how two people who could get good jobs couldn’t read the contract.
In 1985 we borrowed $25K at 13% interest and my husband built our house, physically hammering in every nail and doing the plumbing and electric himself with some help from our teenage sons.
When the interest rates dropped, we refinanced to 11% and then a few years later to 9% and had it all paid off in about 12 years.
The worst part is that this is happening to people buying much less expensive homes; anyone working a job for $50K+ has forces scrambling furiously behind the scenes to either move the job overseas or import foreigners to do it cheaper here, and any plans those American workers had are out the window. Here in NJ this has led to public-sector employees being our upper middle class, with some wealthy people on top, a growing class of illegals and welfare gibsmedats on the bottom, and a shrinking middle class of American taxpayers fleeing as fast as they can.
I know people in trouble with their mortgages, and they spent less than $250K on their homes; their jobs were pulled out from under them, and it can happen to most people. While people may point out their recklessness, understand that the lessons learned are having grim consequences; very few American children are being born to working parents, but rather to the gibsmedat/illegal segment of our culture - and those who are meticulously trying to plan out the next fifty years of their lives are footing the bill for them through income taxes and such.
The Democrat 1998-2008 Red Line Legacy for individuals; the Obama National Legacy 2009-2016 for our country.
May his skin turn “White”.
Why hasn’t this debt-laden turd paid on his mortgage in years? Does the melanin content of his skin give him special consideration? What the heck? I tried to buy a house in 2002 but because my income wasn’t high enough at the time the lenders refused to finance me.
They should have stopped in May 2000. They could have first paid off the cars then worked away at the mortgage.
It’s their own stupidity. Why did they need to move? Why did they need a NEW Altima? They wanted more than they could afford. Stupid is as stupid does.
Only the Washington Post could think that this is surprising or a problem that the market can’t resolve.
Nothing at all should be done about this.
Oldplayer
No, dear, it doesn't.
“They did not tell the bank that Kofi lost his job.”
I’m not sure, but doesn’t a buyer sign a document at closing stating their financial situation has not substantially changed since loan application?
If the buyers signed such a form, wouldn’t that be fraud?
If stupid people are given all the things that smart people earn, what is the advantage of being smart?
If careless people are given all the things that careful people never need, what is the advantage of being careful?
If liberal people barrow the money that conservative people save, what is the advantage of being conservative?
I say let dumb, careless liberals sink.