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Posted on 11/16/2008 11:11:44 AM PST by BGHater
Should you keep paying your mortgage?
If you have significant equity in your home, absolutely.
If you don't, it's getting harder to answer that question, especially when our government keeps giving people who owe more than their homes are worth so many reasons not to pay.
Last week, the government announced a program that will substantially lower payments for many homeowners who have little or no equity, but only if they are at least 90 days delinquent.
Critics say the plan, which applies to loans owned or guaranteed by government wards Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac among others, could encourage people to suspend payments.
But what about the moral obligation to pay off a debt?
Elected officials have been chipping away at that by blaming the foreclosure crisis largely on predatory lenders. In a campaign fact sheet, President-elect Barack Obama says he "recognizes that the real victims in the subprime mortgage crisis are not the lenders, but the millions of borrowers who followed the rules and whose only crime was taking out mortgages that lenders told them they could afford."
Last year, Congress started removing some financial hazards of default when it passed a bill that temporarily waives the income tax on mortgage debt that is canceled when a homeowner is foreclosed upon, sells a home for less than the remaining debt (a short sale) or gets a loan modification that reduces the principal balance.
The tax waiver originally applied only to debt on a primary residence canceled in 2007, 2008 or 2009. Last month, in the bailout bill, Congress extended the waiver until 2013.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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Penalize the hardworking and reward the slackers
Apparently.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Schiff says. "People are going to feel like complete morons if they don't participate. The people getting punished are the ones who never made an irresponsible decision to buy a house they couldn't afford."
The government is offering loan servicers $800 for every homeowner they get into the plan.
Schiff predicts that loan agents "will be cold-calling people trying to get them into it. Just like they encouraged people to overstate their income to get a bigger loan in the first place, now they will encourage them to understate their income to qualify for a smaller loan."'
* It makes you wanna cry* That or -self censor-.
I have four homes. I pay the payments due every month. My parents taught me that and I’ve always done it that way. When I was younger I did without a lot of things my friends and relatives had, but I paid my bills. It’s the right thing to do and do it as long as you can.
What mortgage? Saw it coming long time ago.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. THe only thing I can come up with is that they’re looking at credit records for a lot more than making loans these days - like getting a job or an apartment.
But what about the moral obligation to pay off a debt?
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I think the last collective generation to be taught this is now about to collect social security...
But at least I'm a conservative idiot who walks the talk.
Hey, maybe you can get some of our tax money back. Why don’t you rent three of them out to Section 8 Housing and charge and assload in subsidized rent?
Besides, it’s like jumping bail. You’re looking over your shoulder from then on.
I don’t have a mortgage payment, guess I’m screwed.
There was no overstatement of income required when I bought my house. They just qualified me for far more than I could ever have paid. I knocked it down by about 33%.
No you have one home and three rental properties.
Same here. Paid it off last year (yippee!).
But, they’ll get us with increases in property tax in a few years, I’m betting.
Bad stuff happens to people sometimes, but I can't imagine deliberately not paying a debt.
Thaks for emphasizing th important issues. I’ve lived in all of them at some time or another and my wife paid on one by herself for 12 years before we met. Started with no refigerator because she was squeezing every penny. So we still think of them as homes. Sorry to upset your dictionary.
I have a better idea.
How about giving the money to those of us who put 20%+ down on a house that was within reason of our income in the form of shares in a REIT. The REIT in turn can go out a purchase the distressed properties and give the current owners an opportunity to “rent-to-own” within 5 years. Whatever profit is made accrues to the REIT investors, the people who made the smart decisions in the first place.
I resent getting charged for others criminality.
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