Who caused this mess?
Was it the banks?
Banks followed the laws as written. They where told to lower lending standards on mortgage loans or else.
What do you think Barack Obama did as a ‘Community Organizer’? He harassed and sued banks into lending to poor quality customers. Often through government regulations and laws.
Was it the customers?
They often took loans out that they knew would be difficult or even impossible to pay back. Many wanted to pump and dump for big profits. When things got tight, did they do everything possible to pay their loans? Did they contact their lenders to try to come to terms, or did they simply stop paying?
Very few banks will refuse to work with a customer that comes to them first. They don’t want the home. They want the mortgage payments.
Was it the Government?
After all they are responsible for the actual laws governing the lending industry. Like Insurance, another industry they constantly rail against, banks and financial institutions are among the most highly regulated industries in the country. That is why a lending document is dozens of pages long. Every one of those regulations add to the burden on the banks and increase the bottom line cost to the customer.
They are also the largest individual rent payer in the World paying billions of dollars in rent for people through fair housing vouchers which are anything but fair!
All these housing vouchers drive up the fair market values of both rental units and real estate to levels that are out of the reach of many working individuals.
This leads to the perverse scene of welfare recipients living in working and middle class homes next to home owners who are paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a month in payments to live like their neighbor who is paying nothing.
A better recepie for resentment could never be found.
More likely it is a combination of all these that caused this mess.
Now the only people really paying are those that are honest enough to pay their obligations.
You might want to add the role of MERS and robosinging to your summary of fault. There is plenty of fault to go around.
“Banks followed the laws as written. “
No they didn’t. Otherwise they’d have a clear title.
banks made money hand over fist and were engaged with regulators.
The govt didnt do anything the big banks didn’t want.