51 Comments Add your own

• 1. Jen  |  October 8th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

  Oh jeez, I totally know what you mean about the mortgage crisis. We also did not buy way beyond our means, even though we very well could’ve had we pushed for it. Instead, we bought the smallest, crappiest house on the block at a deal, but we did get talked into getting a loan for more than the selling price of the, in order to consolidate some debt, and as such, there’s no way we could sell now. No way. And our loan is supposed to start adjusting up as of November. Sure, we feel duped, but ultimately, we knew what we were getting into, and we believed our mortgage broker when she said that home values would continue to go up. I mean, why wouldn’t they? They hadn’t stopped increasing here in Seattle for 10 years. How could we have known? We played our hand, and we lost. And it sucks.

  But YAY for baby kicks!!!

• 2. H  |  October 8th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

  I’m happy for you and your baby movements!

• 3. Style Bard  |  October 8th, 2008 at 8:50 pm

  Congrats on the gassy baby movements! (I sincerely hope he or she grows up to read this and declares, “I am the fart that came” because that would let me die happy.)

  I agree with the ridiculousness of blaming the lenders. It’s like blaming the store selling the bullets, you know? There have been so many incompetent people not looking out for their own financial futures and shooting themselves in the foot, and that is exactly why I do watch and heart Suze.

  Furthermore, I loathe Welch’s based on the commercials and those damn precocious children. And syrupy grape juice is grossss and lacking in subtlety. But keep me away from Manishevitz this week, yknow what I mean?

• 4. Zephra  |  October 8th, 2008 at 9:19 pm

  First baby movements for me always felt like butterflies in my stomach not gas…But then, I am sure i had gas.

  I was shocked when the mortgage company approved us for 4 times the house we wanted to buy. We are quite content with our 15 year, 5.35% $80,000 started home that is only 12 years from being paid off. I want a bigger house but it is so not worth it.

• 5. Kristi  |  October 8th, 2008 at 10:12 pm

  “They’re like drinking heavy drapes in a mahogany room. ”

  My God, that is EXACTLY the right description!!!! Thank you for voicing it!

  Congrats on the baby movement – it gets trippier.

• 6. JMH  |  October 9th, 2008 at 1:43 am

  I totally agree with you on the mortgage problem. Whatever happened to personal responsibilty? I mean, I know it sucks, but not everyone can afford a giant, expensive home. And if people keep getting “bailed out”, you know this will happen again. UGH! Makes my blood boil.

• 7. Jennifer  |  October 9th, 2008 at 3:51 am

  I agree completely. The same thing happened to us when we bought a house. We were offered triple what we decided we could afford – the lender said it was common practice and that many people ended up in over their heads. This didn’t seem to trouble her.

• 8. Violet  |  October 9th, 2008 at 4:36 am

  I totally agree! When we bought our house 4 years ago, we figured out for ourselves what we could afford, and then just ignored what we were approved for, which was a ridiculous figure. And we got a fixed rate, because we knew it was probably a crazy gamble to think that prices would always rise, and interest rates would always stay low or fall.

  And the papers here are full of stories about people who – oh, “so sad”, she sold her one bedroom condo to buy a giant house with a gourment kitchen, even though she works as a checker at Safeway, and now she lost it, and she’s crushed. Boo hoo – I’ve never had a gourment kitchen, and I’m married and make more money than that. Think it through!

• 9. Amanda  |  October 9th, 2008 at 4:42 am

  I agree with you that some people should’ve done a little more research and thought things through a little better. But, I also think that it’s somewhat unfair to blame people who just trusted the people we’re supposed to be able to trust. The lenders were greedy, over-the-top greedy, buying up mortgages, making up new terms, typing out these terms in hundreds of pages of documents that no one is ever going to read through, selling these mortgages to other lenders without providing insurance on them, and then telling their clients to trust them.

  While the hubby and I did our research, knew what we could afford and got a fixed rate mortgage, I also know plenty of smart, nice people out there who wouldn’t think twice about not trusting their banker/mortgage lender. Why would they lie? Why would they hurt me – it would just hurt them back, right? Guess not, because the government will bail them out so they don’t lose their yachts and summer homes while the rest of us are left with nothing.

  Here’s a good article/news story that I found helpful:

  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/05/60minutes/main4502454.shtml

• 10. jonniker  |  October 9th, 2008 at 4:53 am

  Amanda: Like I said, it’s a bit of both — no one’s letting the lenders off the hook here. But again, it’s really hard for me to imagine, as a homebuyer, not doing ANY individual research and then saying, “But no one told me!” because they just blindly trusted a person selling them a loan that they’d make money on. And a lot of reasonably smart people did that! They did!

• 11. Kris T  |  October 9th, 2008 at 5:04 am

  Here’s my 2 cents about the mortgage crisis from my point of view, which some people may consider stupid or naive (and may hate us for it) but there is a point to our reason. . When we bought a house here in Las Vegas we got a 30 year ARM (adjusting after 5 years). Why you say when we could afford a fixed? Because my hubby’s job is VERY specialized (Ferrari tecnician (no we dont own one!)) and internationally based. Which means tomorrow, he may come home and decide that we are moving to Macau,Europe, South America or even Russia. We have a good life and if we are still here in 2011 when it readjusts, that is our cross to bear. So for the record, we did not get an ARM to destroy the economy…we did it because we have no idea how long we will be here.

  Sorry Ill get off my soapbox now

• 12. erica  |  October 9th, 2008 at 5:15 am

  So, two things, and keep in mind that I am Grumplestiltskin today:

  1) COMPLETELY agree with you re: mortgage crisis. At the risk of sounding like a complete DOUCHEBAG, I’m sorry but if you made the decision to go with an ARM, deal with the consequences. It’s not my responsibility to bail someone out who made (what I think is a) stupid ass decision. We bought what we could afford after spending DAYS and WEEKS and MONTHS doing the math and overthinking every last part of the home-buying process. We were approved for about three times what we bought but we knew what we could afford and made a decision regarding what we would spend, again based on simple numbers and facts. It makes me so angry to hear people whining about predatory lenders, etc. because I’m sorry but if you can’t do simple math to calculate what you can afford, then either ask someone to help you figure this out, or don’t buy a house. I am currently 30 pounds overweight but I’m not bitching that Ben and Jerry’s makes their ice cream too tasty and tempting. I chose to eat it and became a fat-ass. My fault and my responsibility to take the weight off now. Maybe a poor analogy but it goes to personal responsibility.

  2) I never had the “Mason-jar fart” feeling when pregnant. Liv’s movements – when they first started – felt like a bird’s wings fluttering or like a butterfly. When she got bigger it was more like, well, arms and legs and buttcheeks under my skin. So interesting that everyone feels the movements in a different way/place!

• 13. Sadie  |  October 9th, 2008 at 5:36 am

  Congrats on feeling your ALIIIIIIIIVE baby move!

  And I will just echo most of your commenters re: mortgage lending and personal responsibility and say AMEN sister. I bought my home at the height of the market in late 2005, and mortgage brokers were falling all over each other to finance me. And to finance me, a single 26-year-old woman, for more than double what I could reasonably afford. Like you, I did my own math and bought reasonably, so I don’t have a ton of sympathy for all these jackasses who took half-million dollar mortgages on McMansions while earning a $50k salary, and are now freaking out because theie houses are worth half that.

  That said, Amanda has a point about people (stupidly) trusting lenders. If you’re a low-income subprime buyer who is told by myriad financial-type people that homeownership is within your reach, “we will just be creative with your loan, and sign here here here and here,” I can see how it happened. Doesn’t excuse it, but it’s unfortunate all around.

• 14. jonniker  |  October 9th, 2008 at 6:18 am

  Sadie: I can see how it happened too. The market kept rising! And traditional thought was that dude, MY HOUSE IS AN INVESTMENT. And it was, for 20 years. But no more.

  But I don’t think anyone saw the housing crash/credit crunch happen to this degree, and now oh my God, it’s a fecking mess, and a lot of really nice people (like poor OneNJen up there, whose story I’ve been following for years) are stuck in it.

• 15. Sadie  |  October 9th, 2008 at 6:32 am

  I am just glad that I didn’t cave to temptation and take out a HELOC or home equity loan in 2006, when my house was worth a good deal more than I bought it for. Because right now, I would be up that proverbial creek, like millions of other Americans who thought “houses never LOSE value, right?!”

• 16. Jess  |  October 9th, 2008 at 7:20 am

  I’m just very glad that we don’t own a house right now. We’d like to own one at some point, but we’re not in a rush, and we’ll be very careful when we decide to buy. So many people don’t have that luxury. No matter whose fault it is. What a pain in the ass.

• 17. Heather B.  |  October 9th, 2008 at 7:24 am

  Ohhh so that’s what it feels like from the inside. Because from the outside? Just as creepy!

  When I first moved back up to NY, the former Governor of the great state that you lived in, sat me down and started asking me about real estate and if I was going to buy and telling me that I should buy. And when I saw him a few weeks ago, he asked me again (this was pre-bailout freakout) and just as I started thinking about it (albeit precariously) it was like BAM! So! Guess I’ll remain a renter. Oh well. I’m not ready for a house yet anyway.

• 18. cagey  |  October 9th, 2008 at 7:30 am

  RIGHT ON. Yes, there was some predatory lending, but did those loan sharks FORCE folks to sign on the dotted line?? Um, no.

  My husband and I bought WAY less house than we could afford. We also refuse, REFUSE, to have more than one car payment and we drive our cars forEVER (last year, we finally sold our 13 year old Honda). Yes, yes…. I do currently drive a really nice luxury car and I love it. Which is a damned good thing, because I will be driving it for at least 5 more years. No, we are not a thrifty sort of people and are certainly not bastions of financial responsibility. However, we have tried to keep our debt commitments (fixed expenses) down. This crisis is a wakeup call for EVERYONE, including us, and as such, we are paring down our variable expenses such as clothing, eating out, and other fun stuff.

  On Bill Maher’s show, Andrew Sullivan correctly pointed out that the American people were also to blame and the reaction was fairly severe. But, dammit. He was right.

• 19. Casey  |  October 9th, 2008 at 7:43 am

  I agree with your resentment towards having to bail out people who made poor decisions. I live in So Cal the market is still incredibly inflated. A condo will go for almost half a million dollars. And trust me, around these parts, you can pass your neighbor the soap in most homes because there are no property lines.

  We’ve decided to not even try to buy a home here because we don’t want to get in over our heads. We like to master plan things, much like yourself.

  My parents are on their fourth home. They have worked since they were 15 and always live within their means. My dad lost his business due to to the recession hitting his small town, hard. Then, my baby brother got a rare cancer that insurance was uncooperative with. They’re in the process of losing their home as I type. Responsible people like them should get help, not spoiled people. My parents have and would again repay their debts to society, but unfortunately there is no hoep for them.

  OK, I’m going to be manic now-gotta go!

• 20. Lori  |  October 9th, 2008 at 7:56 am

  Calling the lenders predatory is like calling the kid at Best Buy “predatory,” because he tried to sell you a 52″ flat screen when all you could afford was a 19″ analog TV. What an asshole!

• 21. jonniker  |  October 9th, 2008 at 7:59 am

  Casey: Your parents are precisely the type of people who deserve to be helped, I agree. In that case, you’re a victim of the economy and truly horrid circumstances. I’m so sorry that’s happening to them. And it really pisses me off that they’re not getting it because of the maelstrom surrounding this mess.

  But I’ve gotten a surprising number of angry e-mails so far this morning from people who are angry with me and feel judged when THEY THEMSELVES will admit that they bought way more than they could afford, put no money down, got a variable rate mortgage and are now screwed and the bank won’t help them. And HOW DARE I JUDGE THEM.

  First of all, I’m speaking to no one personally here. I have no idea what anyone’s personal circumstances are, so obviously I wasn’t talking to THEM.

  Secondly, I fully maintain that there are people who got greedy and thought it would be cool to live beyond their means. The whole country got caught up in a strange entitlement culture that we’re now paying the price for, and I’m not entirely excluding myself from this.

  What I don’t appreciate hearing, and what I’ll just say here in case anyone feels like writing me an e-mail saying so, is that I am a rich, spoiled girl who doesn’t know what it’s like to go through hard times and how enjoyable it must be on my high horse! Because, not that it’s any of your business, it’s not remotely true.

• 22. Jennifer  |  October 9th, 2008 at 8:03 am

  So I understand that you’re discussing “how we got into this mess” but can I toss in my two cents about “how are we going to get out of it.” OK, yeah, bailout. So the gov’t is giving all these institutions some large numbers of billions of dollars. And they expect the institutions to behave responsibly with this free taxpayer money, get themselves out of bankruptcy etc. So the first example of this “responsible spending” is AIG who sent their executives off to a fancy $440K retreat including $24,000 of spa treatments. Yeah, nice. Get a thousand-dollar massage and hot oil treatment courtesy of my tax money.

  So you’ve pointed out Joe Homeowner not being responsible, getting into debt etc, but how about Rich Banker’s responsibility. Obviously they have none, they have no rules nor incentives to behave responsibly, and unless the government hires a few hundred babysitters to watch each company’s expense account, we’re just throwing good money after bad, as we mortgage our childrens’ future.

  Sorry for so much negativity, but the AIG story is sending me over the edge. And I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

• 23. Blythe  |  October 9th, 2008 at 8:04 am

  Understanding numbers and statistics is not easy for me. And I think it’s a common affliction. All those PERCENTAGES and INTEREST and blah blah blah. I think English majors like me just tune out and don’t want to deal with it so when someone says, “Yes, you can afford this lovely home that you want, just sign here ” we want to believe them.

  But that’s just letting someone else spend your money for you. And as boring as it is (and believe me, I was in a title company office on Friday and was practically popping No-Doz to keep from falling asleep and drooling on their mahogany table), it’s worth forcing yourself to read the fine print.

  Thanks for being brave enough to say this. There’s enough blame to go around, and while a big fat chunk belongs square on the shoulders of the greedy lenders, at least a little bit goes to that part of many of us that must have what we can’t afford.

• 24. jonniker  |  October 9th, 2008 at 8:10 am

  Jennifer: I totally agree re: corporations. No one is letting them off the hook, least of all me, I promise. It’s a fucking MESS, and I think everyone acknowledges that the corporations are largely to blame.

  Blythe: Dude, I totally agree. I remember reading all of it and being all, whaa? AM SO CONFUSED. It took hours to wade through and all made me feel very cranky and headachy.

• 25. mar  |  October 9th, 2008 at 8:15 am

  i agree with you that both sides should take the blame, but then i cringe when i read things like the article on cnn.com today. in cook county/chicago area where the banks are serving more than 43,000 eviction notices to people today, most of whom are tenants diligently paying rent, but are completely f#cked over because their landlords aren’t fulfilling their side of the mortgage for the building where they live. i realize there are a lot of idiots out there who thought financing for 2-3-4, even 5 times the worth of their property, but people who didn’t even make that mistake are getting screwed over.
  and i’m not sure pardoning that poor 90 yo woman who shot herself’s loan (what f#cktard bank/lender makes a 30yr mortgage to an 80-something year old in good faith?) won’t start an epidemic of people hurting themselves just to get out of it. *sigh* kinda glad i rent.

• 26. jonniker  |  October 9th, 2008 at 8:17 am

  Mar: When we were renting our house out, I was shocked at the amount of prospects who came through because their house was being foreclosed on and they got evicted. But again, they’re the total victims in this and have nothing to do with anything, really, except that their situation is unfair and totally sucks.

  Also, as I mentioned, we didn’t make that mistake. And we’re screwed over, too.

  But so aren’t we all, as we gleefully watch our retirement savings and portfolios drop precipitously?

• 27. mar  |  October 9th, 2008 at 8:17 am

  i meant 43,000 eviction notices per year, not today. duh…

• 28. Sadie  |  October 9th, 2008 at 8:25 am

  Yeah, I also feel really bad for good tenants getting screwed by bad landlords. Landlords who collected rent and never paid the mortgage with it, those people should be criminally liable when their poor tenants get tossed out on the street because the place is in foreclosure.

  Oh, and don’t even get me started on AIG. I work for a billion-dollar publicly-held corporation, and like most, our earnings are way down this quarter. They have cancelled everything non-essential, including our goddamn holiday party, in an effort to show stockholders that they are being fiscally prudent in this time of distress. What does AIG do when they are in the throes of banruptcy and holding out their hands for over $100 billion in government bailouts? Go ahead with a scheduled $440k retreat for employees/contractors. BOGGLES THE MIND

• 29. slynnro  |  October 9th, 2008 at 8:58 am

  BUT WAH! I DOES NOT WANT ME NO PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES! People are like Betta fish- they will keep eating and eating until they kill themselves.

• 30. She Likes Purple  |  October 9th, 2008 at 9:20 am

  Jonna, a term you used in a comment above kind of hits the nail on the head: American culture has morphed into this entitlement culture (as a general whole, obviously, as I’m not describing every American here). Americans feel entitled to things they just can’t afford, and, sure, there SHOULD be blame placed on the corporations feeding this mentality, but we are ultimately the only ones in charge of our family’s emotional and financial security as we are the only ones who will ever have our family’s best interests at heart.

  I guess I just feel that this is a seriously needed wake-up call for many, many people, and it can be turned into a very positive thing. Live within your MEANS, spend what you HAVE, drive cars you can AFFORD, pay DOWN credit cards and watch your savings grow. Don’t let anyone else tell you what you should be spending when you are really the only one who should know the answer to that.

• 31. She Likes Purple  |  October 9th, 2008 at 9:25 am

  I should also add that I totally understand the entitlement mentality. I work very hard at a full-time job with a killer commute, and I try to do side work to pursue my passions. I feel over-extended MOST of the time. My husband works very hard at his full-time job, and there are plenty of months we have a hard time making all of the income stretch to all of the bills. We feel we DESERVE a nice beach vacation or a nicer car or a new, nicer wardrobe. And in many, many ways we do deserve those things, we just can’t afford those things. That’s a very difficult reality to grasp, especially when so many people are TELLING us we can have those things (with a teeny-tiny SOUL-SUCKING catch, of course). So, it’s easy to get sucked in, lord, I know that, but this wake-up call will hopefully help all of us who feel we deserve what we can’t afford get to a place where we can evaluate our priorities and imrpove our lives.

• 32. Katie  |  October 9th, 2008 at 9:26 am

  I think there are three things that make me especially mad, and inclined to extend a little bit of compassion to homeowners.

  1) People have been historically told that credit card companies are hard to get credit out of, and mortgages are especially the case. So when people with bad/risky credit have been told their whole lives that they can’t get a credit card, or can’t get a home loan, or can’t even buy a car, get told that there are special programs that can get them into a house, it’s not totally illogical to think that a mortgage company wouldn’t give them more house than they can pay for.

  2) The degree of fraud and outright lying that seems to have been going on is just staggering. It’s not just that mortgage companies will approve you for a mortgage that’s more than you can pay for- mortgage lenders were operating under policies that FORBID verifying income, TELLING people to inflate the amount of money they made, and not telling people of when their ARMs would readjust or how much. People took on mortgages that they couldn’t pay the ARM when it went up five years later, but were constantly told that:
  a) they would be making more money by then (American Dream ho!)
  b) they would refinance by then anyways (so they would never pay that amount), and
  c) their house would be worth more then anyways.

  3) The American Dream of Home Ownership is a powerful one, sold over and over again to people who have no actual shot at accomplishing it. There’s a good series of articles on it here: http://www.republicoft.com/2008/07/16/the-society-of-the-owned-pt-9-renters-owned/

  So yeah, I’m all for personal responsibility, but I think it’s a little more complicated than that. And I don’t own a house, so it’s not personal and I’m not attacking you at all, I just disagree.

• 33. Hollylynne  |  October 9th, 2008 at 9:36 am

  I do agree with you that there should have been more (much!) personal responsibility on the part of many borrowers.

  Having said that.

  Have you ever been offered an ARM by a mortgage broker? Cause I have. And I’m a CNN watching, finance savvy, 800-credit-score-having kind of broad.

  And let me tell you, it was made VERY UNCLEAR at first that I was being offered an ARM and once I did figure it out and had read all the paperwork three times over I STILL couldn’t have told you a) what my ballooned mortgage payment would be, b) when that ballooning would occur and c) what I’d be able to to to prevent said ballooning.

  OF COURSE, I didn’t take that loan. OF COURSE I knew better. But I had the benefit of having been glued to CNN for the last 6 months while the entire world crumbled around us.

  And yeah . . . EVERYONE is screwed. This is true. My fiance and I have been fighting for ALMOST FIVE MONTHS to get financing for our condo. Cause thats exactly how I wanted to start our life together. Yep, I’m angry too.

• 34. jonniker  |  October 9th, 2008 at 9:47 am

  Hollylynne: We were totally offered an ARM like a thousand times over. It was awful all around. We were, however, never offered the no money down option because we were buying from a builder and demand was high enough (thanks to an overinflated housing market!) that they wouldn’t allow it. It might be the one case where the inflated housing market worked in the favor of the buyer by denying them.

  Katie: I know what you’re saying, and I’m not disagreeing. Because I don’t think that personal responsibility was in any way the whole picture, nor do I believe that every person caught up in this mess is personally responsible. The mess is a very complicated, multi-faceted problem. BUT! I think we all acknowledge the points that you made, but I see very few people acknowledging that in some cases (AGAIN NOT ALL, AND NOT EVEN THE MAJORITY), the American people are also responsible.

  I mean, when you look at how far we’ve strayed from our parents’ and grandparents’ generation, it makes me a little ill. They lived SO FAR beneath what so many of us do, and I imagine a lot of them are horrified at what my generation, in our relative youth, has come to expect so quickly, you know?

  And I think that’s what’s struck me as so surprising about the e-mails I’ve gotten. I think I was pretty clear that I wasn’t talking about all, and certainly not the MAJORITY, of people caught up in this mess. Because it seems to have escaped people that hey, I’m stuck in it too! Totally stuck and losing money on a house every month! AND IT BLOWS. I HEAR YOU.

• 35. Katie  |  October 9th, 2008 at 10:10 am

  Oh man, totally agree on that front. I think I just really react strongly to the “poor people are responsible for this mess/we could have avoided it if only lenders wouldn’t give money to black people” thread of the conversation.

• 36. Katie  |  October 9th, 2008 at 10:11 am

  Oh, that sounded bad. NOT BY YOU. YOU OBVIOUSLY DID NOT SAY THAT. By the media, I mean.

• 37. jonniker  |  October 9th, 2008 at 10:25 am

  Also, am I the only person who WASN’T surprised by AIG’s move? I worked for a large-ish public company, and worked very closely with the CEO. I can distinctly recall being told to trim expenses at every curve and watching people get laid off, while at the same time working with his admin assistant to book a trip to see investors on a private plane, to the tune of $25K, for the sole reason that he didn’t want to be inconvenienced. I think once you reach a certain point in corporate America, you just kind of lose all sense of reality.

• 38. Amanda  |  October 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am

  Hey – proud of you for starting this discussion. We obviously all need an outlet for this as everyone is frustrated and scared.

  I’m sorry you’re getting mean e-mails though. How disrespectful. You wrote your (respectful) opinion down for the world to read, and the rest of us publicly commented with our (respectful) opinions. That’s how a discussion works and I wish others could participate in a mature way.

  But again, thanks for starting the discussion.

• 39. Kristin H  |  October 9th, 2008 at 10:32 am

  Wow, you’ve gotten a lot about mortgages today. So I’ll launch on to other topics and tell you instead that you? Are VERY WISE to be cautious when moving until all the dust settles.

  We sold our house in Michigan and were happily tooling around in Indiana six months later when we were served notice that we were being SUED over the sale of our house. For a very long and boring reason that involved a community well (that we didn’t even know about when we sold!). And the other guy had a free lawyer though his workplace union and we had to pay out the nose for ours and blah blah blabbity blah. It cost us a small fortune and was a TERRIBLE ordeal. You are smart to be wary.

  And also, congratulations on feeling movement! How exciting! : )

• 40. Leah  |  October 9th, 2008 at 10:51 am

  I thought baby’s first movements felt like diarrhea waiting to happen. How lovely and magical!

  And yeah, the mortgage crisis is a mess. We live in a place where starter homes that aren’t falling apart AND aren’t in the ghetto (the actual, real-live, murdery ghetto) cost $500K because that’s just what the market is here. Even though we’re looking at some really tight times ahead (mortgage! baby! maternity leave! part-time salary! more health insurance!), we actually feel lucky that we bought when we did. If mortgage lenders hadn’t been stupid enough to approve us for the insane amount they approved us for (we actually have TWO mortgages and neither is a fixed rate (!!!)), we wouldn’t be able to buy a house here anytime soon, if ever. So, we’re totally part of the Stupid Club that bought above our means, but we’re also not complaining because we knew what we were getting into and are willing to do what it takes to make it work because we LOVE LOVE LOVE our house.

• 41. Emily  |  October 9th, 2008 at 11:37 am

  GAH, the entitlement thing is ridiculous, as Jennie stated above. I remember when my parents moved into their current home, 20+ years ago. Guess what? They didn’t run out and go into debt trying to make it look like Pottery Barn threw up all over the place, like so many new homeowners do today. I remember our house being bare, and full of hand-me-down furniture, and my parents were OLDER THAN I AM NOW back then. Why do we all feel like we deserve so much STUFF? And not just stuff, we deserve THE BEST WE CAN POSSIBLY GET, even though most of the time, we can’t afford it? We’re such a greedy society. It goes way beyond the mortgage crisis – there are millions of people out there who will continue to look like they’re living the American Dream, when they’re really just continuing to delay the inevitable by living it out on credit. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, don’t you think?

• 42. Emily  |  October 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am

  Also, I wanted to add, this is a great post, with great, intelligent comments. It makes me feel totally lame that I just posted something about vomit.

• 43. Jen  |  October 9th, 2008 at 12:08 pm

  I have so many friends who are living as Emily mentioned – way above their means, with brand new cars, houses finished to the nines, new clothes all the time. We are a greedy society – people want what they want when they want it – they don’t want to have to save or work for something the way that our parents did.

  I specifically remember house hunting at the same time as another couple we know – they came back from getting pre-approved for their loan and just couldn’t BELIEVE how much they had been approved for! Now they were going to look at NEW houses, or maybe BUILD! They were so excited. It was one of those times that I felt so glad to have a husband who is so rigid about money and spending and planning, because I am one of those who would probably get excited like that too, if I didn’t have him to keep my two feet on the ground.

  Also, yay for baby movement! I loved feeling those first little bubbles. Now I’ve got some thumping going on in there, and it’s exciting every time it happens.

• 44. TwoBusy  |  October 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm

  I’m going to avoid the whole mortgage conversation and instead focus on 1) congratulating you on the whole “feeling the alien crawling around inside you” thing, which is clearly HUGE; and 2) taking what is clearly an unreasonable amount of pleasure in the fact that the Shins have become a part of your life despite your repeated attempts to resist them.

• 45. nonsoccermom  |  October 9th, 2008 at 1:21 pm

  Great post! I completely agree on all fronts. Especially about the weirdness of the first baby movements. Congratulations!

• 46. Lippy  |  October 9th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

  We bought at the top of the market in Vegas for crying out loud. But we did have a townhouse to sell, so we put down the 20%, and everyone acted like we were impaired. But we could sell and come out even or at least close. One of our “friends” is a mortgage broker, and set up other friend, teachers, for a balloon mortgage without telling them. They found out at closing, told the escrow people screw that and went to get a regular loan.

  But other friends, next door neighbors, bought their house put in every upgrade and didn’t bother to put any money down. They just decided they want to live near family and moved, selling their house as a short sale, because hey, why not. It really pisses me off. And they don’t think it will affect their credit. Yeah screw a bank over for 85,000 and then buy another house. Grrrrrr. Again they didn’t have to move for a job, or health reasons which I understand happens. I thank them for the bailout.

• 47. Jhianna  |  October 15th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

  Okay, so I read through comment 21 and had to put in my two cents.

  I’ve been a homeowner for 20 years. That breaks down to four primary mortgages and two refinances. I knew what we could afford by both practical and Old Tyme Lending measures, and that’s what we went for this last time. We’re probably in the same boat as you and Adam if we tried to sell this place, but I haven’t looked since things started going belly-up.

  Am I alone in remembering when credit card and lenders offering you an increased limit was something to celebrate because it wasn’t easily come by? It’s hard to switch gears from that line of thinking into thinking of those folks as nothing more than institutionalized loan sharks.

  Sure, some folks got greedy. And some folks have no idea how it’s supposed to work. I’ll bet you my next paycheck that for every person who didn’t care that the risk was high on the mortgage they were getting, there’s another person (at least one) out there who worried about the rates and amount through the entire process but was assured by the person handing them the check that everything would be fine.

  I’m just worried that the folks who really deserve the help (like Casey’s parents and some good folks I know on the non flat side of the screen) are the ones going to be hung out to dry in this mess.

• 48. Jhianna  |  October 15th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

  And if I’d kept reading, I’d have seen Katie state my points in a coherent and well written manner. Blah

  Yay for alien/giant fart feelings!

• 49. Health Insurance Aetna He&hellip  |  November 2nd, 2008 at 1:06 pm

  Health Insurance Aetna Health Insurance Universal Life Insurance…

  I didn’t agree with you first, but last paragraph makes sense for me…

• 50. Lindsay  |  November 25th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

  New reader here; I stumbled across your blog when my RSS feeder recommended it… That second paragraph made me laugh literally until I cried. And I thank you for that.

• 51. NET Goiania&hellip  |  July 2nd, 2011 at 2:34 pm

  Recommended websites……

  [...]This post was mentioned on Twitter[...]…

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