Friday, March 13, 2009

Risk vs. Plain Ol' Stupid

We have neighbors whom we refer to as "The White Trash Neighbors". Partly because we can never remember their names, but mostly because they don't take care of the things they own. Their yard, for example has been dirt and weeds since they put in a pool 4 years ago. We finally got sick of the weeds in our grass so we put up a block wall. So a few days ago I had a conversation with our "White Trash Neighbor". We were talking about how horrible the economy is and that we are both having a hard time figuring out what to do to keep our homes. All was going well until this sentence fell out of her mouth,

"We knew when we signed for our loan that we couldn't afford it, but we decided to take a risk."

Excuse me...what did you say?

A risk? The word risk means there is a small possibility for success. Signing for a loan you KNEW you couldn't afford means you KNEW you were going to fail. Honey, that wasn't a risk, that was just plain STUPID!

People like them are the reason my property value has plummeted.
People like them are the reason my husband lost his job.
People like them are the reason we can't sell our home and may lose it.

I honestly had to shut out the vision of me grabbing a folding chair and going all "Jerry Springer" on her rear end. I kept my perma-smile on and ended the conversation but not before she let me know they hadn't made their mortgage payment in 3 months and now the mortgage company was going to rework their loan and lower their payment. I'm so glad to hear that they are getting help since they so CLEARLY deserve it...(yes, I'm being sarcastic.) Grrr.

3 comments:

Kim L. said...

Don't you LOVE it? We had 7 houses out of 12 foreclosed on & vacant on our little street at one point....you know what that looks like, dead grass, weeds everywhere etc....and it did WONDERS for our property value as well. Our house is now officially worth 1/2 what we bought it for...and there is nothing we can do because we have a "responsible" loan. ARGH!

Kris said...

IT KILLS ME!! I talked to someone who has a house at the river, an RV, quads and all the toys. They are walking away from the house at the river, haven't paid their property taxes, and are behind on their mortgage. They 'QUALIFY' for their second to be 'refinanced'. The payment on a $250 thousand line of credit will be $68 per month with almost 0% interest, good for 4 years. Their plan is to dump extra money into paying off the principle. WHY IS THAT FAIR? We've worked, sacraficed, gone without, and knew how to add when they calculated our mortgage - and someone else gets all the brakes. Those special loans are supposed to be for the people who have been responsible and have fallen on hard times - not someone who couldn't budget, was stupid, or didn't know when to stop buying crap! Sometimes, I wonder why we bother to be "responsible" - it seems like you get a better deal if you aren't! Ok - now I've vented - thanks for listening :)

The Kneeland Family said...

Oh Yep! I know what you mean. Not a very happy thing.