Quote:
|
it's because of them being in a house they can't afford to make the payments plus interest with.
|
Almost right. It's because they were allowed to buy a house they couldn't afford. I know it's easy to say if someone is stupid enough to leave their keys in the car they deserve to have it stolen, but it still doesn't make stealing the car OK.
Quote:
|
Here's the deal. If a car dealer can get me a 60K corvette at a high interest is it MY responsibility to not buy it or his responsibility to not sell it to me. Do you expect HIM to say...buy the Ford Taurus instead, it's what you can afford? People were living beyond their means...that's the bottom line and now they are paying the price.
|
No, we're all paying the price. Thats the point I'm trying to make. I'm just saying if people are going to point fingers at the cause of the "mortgage crisis" let's get it right. It's not just the buyer, but the seller as well.
It's not always "stupidity" that puts people in a position to be taken advantage of by lenders.
Let me give you an example from my own experience about 15 years ago. I'm not real proud of my obviously flawed logic, but sh!t happens.
I know that putting a little money aside to pay cash looks good on paper, but when you're living pay check to pay check as a single parent with 4 kids, that ain't going to happen.
So I'm driving this 17 year old station wagon which is needing repairs almost weekly when I see catastrophic failure in the near future. I head down to a local dealer to see what my options are. With my less than perfect credit and less than impressive income, I'm offered either a 15 year old Chevette for $2,000 or a 7 year old Explorer for $10,000. Here was where my flawed logic got the best of me. I'm thinking on one hand I can buy the Chevette, which will probably end up just like my station wagon in 3 moths, or I can buy the 7 year old explorer, with a higher payment. I'm thinking the money I save on repairs would make up for the higher payment. Plus, it will be better in the winter, and better able to shuttle around the family. See how I'm talking myself into the more expensive vehicle?
So for 3 years I'm lovin my choice in my new vehicle, even though I knew the interest rate was killing me. Being the money conscious person I was
I had the salesman get me the lowest possible payment. Little did I know this low payment was just paying the super high interest rate. Well sh!t happens and I loose my job and can't make my truck payment. I call to find out how much I owe and find out I still owe as much as the truck price was to begin with. I'm like WTF? The truck goes back and then I receive this nice letter in the mail saying still owe $6,300 on the truck. They sold it at auction for $3,700 and now I've got to pay the difference.
Live and learn I guess.