Comments on: Facts about Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan

By: Golfing Girl

Golfing Girl — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:23:05 +0000

RE: my last comment. I meant that you need a job for the home loan, not the student loan. And no need for a B average for the home loan, just the student loan.

By: Golfing Girl

Golfing Girl — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:21:53 +0000

@Tim
You couldn’t be more correct. Not everyone NEEDS or DESERVES a house. It’s the same with college educations. Not everyone NEEDS or DESERVES to go to college yet we have masses of gen X and Y’ers out there with crazy student loan balances. You should have to prove that you can repay the loan (a.k.a. a job) and you should have to have a B average in high school to qualify for a student loan.

By: Sun

Sun — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:00:15 +0000

@Tim: I agree with you that home ownership isn’t a right. People should work hard to earn their home instead of being given by the government. However, right now the problem I think is that the government just can’t let millions of people lose their homes to foreclosure given how bad things have already been, even though homeowners themselves are those who are responsible to pay their bills. It’s like those big banks such as Citi and BoA, and Detroit automakers. They are kind of too big (at least in terms of the consequences) too fail. I think the government just can’t afford to let millions of families to sleep on the street. It’s not really rewarding people with bad behaviors and punishing those who are paying their mortgage bills every month. It’s the thing that the government has to do, even though we know it isn’t the right thing to do.

Speaking of who’s the responsible for creating this mess, I think banks should share more blames than individual buyers. Everybody wants to own their own home, but not everybody can afford it. It’s mainly the bank’s responsibility to make sure the buyer has means to pay for it. However, banks were very creative to make people think they don’t have to have a job, a steady income to buy a house by creating an illusion that buying a house is like getting a cash cow, you can withdraw money any time you want because home price can only go up. The banks should have applied the same amount of scrutiny before as they do now.

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:33:18 +0000

What do you have to do to actually utilize part #1 of the plan?

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:39:02 +0000

@sun: you are wrong. If people can’t afford to own a home, they can’t afford to own a home. They can rent. They can earn more money and save until they can own a home. We should not subsidize housing. The basic premise of this bill is to reward bad behavior. People seem to forget that we already gave out $300billion, yes $300billion, in the homeowner’s bill last Fall. Did people forget about that? They must have, because it was secondary to the TARP and everyone focused on TARP. The end result was, as should have been glaringly obvious, that over 50% defaulted again. Go figure! People who couldn’t afford the home to begin with still can’t afford the home.

Congress dog and pony show yelling at bank CEOs was stupid. Congress wants the banks to lend freely again. Duh, too loose lending was how we got into this mess. Banks are lending, they are just lending to folks and companies with excellent credit.

Now this home owner bill. More billions to reward bad behavior. It subsidizes mortgages for people who can’t afford their mortgages. if they could afford them, then they wouldn’t be in default. That has nothing to do with banks.

Duh! banks are in it to make money. The whole notion that greed is evil is stupid in a capitalistic society. This is the premise of companies: to make money. Yeah, ok, so lenders freely lent, which the govt heavily supported. That has nothing to do with the consumer signing the dotted line.

The banks should be hoarding the TARP money, because of the sheer number of defaults. if they freely lend TARP money out again to everyone and anyone, they are going to have tons more defaults on top of their existing defaults. The underlying premise is lend money which will invariably lead to more defaults.

Screw affordable housing. Seriously. Home ownership isn’t a right. People can rent if they can’t afford. The housing problem was started in 1991 when this whole affordable housing for everyone push started. We should not be subsidizing home ownership to people who are in homes they should never have been in to begin with. Unfortunately, this is exactly what we are doing.