On Wed, 3 Jun 2015 15:35:51 -0700, "Julie Bove"
> wrote:

> These days, younger people want it all and want it now.

That's fine if they can afford it. I bought a house I knew I could
die in - minimal steps to the front door, master bedroom on the main
floor, space between houses (this is San Francisco, so that's
unusual). I got it all. I had to give up "sunshine", but that was
the trade off. All in all, it was a good choice. We lived off one
paycheck for a couple of years, in a very nice, but not very expensive
apartment a block away from where my husband worked and had only one
car. We walked to restaurants. Nice area for the newly married and
we saved a lot of money so we could put 20% down on a house.

Remodeling is "the money pit". No matter what you do, you could have
spent more and done it better. The reality is that no matter how much
you spend, 15-25 years later: it will be out of date and you'll have
to do it all over again.

--

sf

On 03/06/2015 6:58 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
> On 6/3/2015 8:35 AM, William wrote:
>
>> You read a story like the following link will take you to, and you say
>> to yourself, how can people go through life and be so incredibly
>> stupid by the time they reach retirement age? Some of them act like
>> they are playing the lottery with their homes.
>>
>>
>> http://bigstory.ap.org/article/39c19...d-housing-debt
>>
>>
>>
>> Obviously, the Bankers act like pigs at the trough writing mortgages
>> to people who clearly are not qualified for the loans. If we put a few
>> thousand mortgage bankers in the Federal Penetentiary for 50 years
>> without possibility of parole, some of this idiotic monetary policy
>> will cease.
>>
>>
>> William
>>
>>
>
> Some is the fault of greedy bankers. Some is the fault of mortgage
> brokers that lied about the applicants income. Most of the fault is the
> homeowners that looked at their house as an ATM and kept taking cash
> out. It was so easy to get a home equity loan or line of credit.
>
I occasionally listen to a talk radio station and am pi$$ed off by the
number
of ads from home equity loan companies aimed at less well off, getting them
ever deeper into debt.
Graham

On 6/3/2015 10:40 AM, graham wrote:
> On 03/06/2015 6:58 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>> On 6/3/2015 8:35 AM, William wrote:
>>
>>> You read a story like the following link will take you to, and you say
>>> to yourself, how can people go through life and be so incredibly
>>> stupid by the time they reach retirement age? Some of them act like
>>> they are playing the lottery with their homes.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://bigstory.ap.org/article/39c19...d-housing-debt
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Obviously, the Bankers act like pigs at the trough writing mortgages
>>> to people who clearly are not qualified for the loans. If we put a few
>>> thousand mortgage bankers in the Federal Penetentiary for 50 years
>>> without possibility of parole, some of this idiotic monetary policy
>>> will cease.
>>>
>>>
>>> William
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Some is the fault of greedy bankers. Some is the fault of mortgage
>> brokers that lied about the applicants income. Most of the fault is the
>> homeowners that looked at their house as an ATM and kept taking cash
>> out. It was so easy to get a home equity loan or line of credit.
>>
> I occasionally listen to a talk radio station and am pi$$ed off by the
> number of ads from home equity loan companies aimed at less well off, getting them
> ever deeper into debt.
> Graham

I have never applied for a home equity loan but I don't doubt it. The
mortgage lenders are still going after people who want more house than
they need (and really can't afford) with promises they don't understand.
All they hear is they can get this much for that little... what they
don't bother to do is read is the terms five years from now.

Jill

Jebus, FYI, ABC News yesterday did a short segment on a woman, well-employed, whose
monthly prescriptions were something like $10,000 or more a month (leukemia pill) and she
had to declare bankruptcy, sell her house, and move her and her young daughter back into
her mom's house. Drug companies have marked their products up by hundreds of percentage
points, just because they can. They long ago recouped their R & D expenses.

Jill, much of the home mortgage mess is also due to young couples who are told they have
been approved for, say, a $350,000 loan, and so that is what they count on spending -- their
top limit -- instead of, say, looking at houses which are much cheaper. I just don't understand
this propensity to have it all, right now.

When I used to watch House Hunters, i was astonished at all the young, newly married, childless
couples, who thought they couldn't live without all granite countertops, stainless steel
appliances and hardwood floors. Unbelievable.

N.

On Wed, 03 Jun 2015 08:35:07 -0400, William > wrote:

> Obviously, the Bankers act like pigs at the trough writing mortgages
> to people who clearly are not qualified for the loans. If we put a few
> thousand mortgage bankers in the Federal Penetentiary for 50 years
> without possibility of parole, some of this idiotic monetary policy
> will cease.

We baled out the Wall Street whales and they're back at it again.

--

sf