It really is amazing.......25% of mortgages are underwater!

[Fishhead]

[obamaismyuncle]

that is a pretty amazing number, wow.

[Fishhead]

[THE PROFIT]

Do you mean upside down or literally underwater?

[StraitShooter]

what you mean?..behind in payment?..or-owe more than house is worth?

[Iona]

It means that the outstanding mortgage balance is greater than the value of the home.

[mav2112]

It only going to get worse...........

What gets me is I am sitting here at my 60,000 a yr job in the 2000-2006 time period and noticing all the Fu*king house prices sky rocketing........The same houses I was looking at in 1997 was now 40% to 50% higher and all around me people were still making the same money.(they were the same houses).......noting had realling changed that much for incomes.........

I was thinking "What am I doing wrong" people were buying these 200,000 homes like crazy........well now that shit has hit the fan I realized something was out of whack when it was happening........

What a scam............Now everyone who bought those 200,000-300,000 houses will quickly realize there house they still owe 278,000 on is only worth 178,000 and thats with half of the neighborhood empty from forclosures.............

[Brock Landers]

time will cure all

[mav2112]

The question is what would you do if you were underwater 100,000 on your house.........????

If you are making payments........Do you know how much money it is going to cost you over the next 27 years to pay that 100,000 in value you have lost.............

[mav2112]

time will cure all

Time wont help this problem..............

The housing market will never come back to what it was..........

The only way I could ever possibly see this happening is if peoples incomes increased by 35%.........but right now people are saying

What incomes???????

[fsugolf]

time will cure all

we can hope

[Enogsiwon]

What's so hard to believe?
The country is getting dumber..
I look up to China now.. They did not let liberalism or immigrants tell them how to run their country and for this they will be awarded with power over the world..

[nobs]

They should have all paid $400,000 Cash like fishead did.

[Enogsiwon]

You got guys like Pavy preaching about carbon credits and saving the planet, yet his homeland just filed for bankruptcy..

[Fishhead]

They should have all paid $400,000 Cash like fishead did.

If they did, they still would be in bad shape.

Pay 400,000 for a house that is worth 200,000..............not good.

[RageWizard]

Its crazy. I bet that there are allot of people who are underwater big time on their housing values who are killing themselves to make the payment, or are even paying late. My advice is to walk away. That home is which used to be considered your biggest asset, and investment, is now your biggest liability. The only reason the government is proposing all of these mortgage relief things is to help the BANKS, not the home owner. If you stay and tough it out, you will get hosed big time. If you leave, yeah it goes on your credit rating, but guess what, after a few years, you can pick yourself back up, and I am willing to bet that the bankrupcy thing isn't that big of a deal in 10 years time. Hell it already has lost allot of its negative stigma over the previous 10 years. Don't be stupid, unless the bank forgives some of the principal, you are getting screwed, walk away, or short sell now. Housing prices haven't bottom yet partly because the banks have inventory that having reached the books yet.

[RageWizard]

If they did, they still would be in bad shape.

Pay 400,000 for a house that is worth 200,000..............not good.

Its all about location. I paid in full, but my location is in the back woods where the amish and mennonites play. They just heard of money here, and the other day I was looking at the asking housing prices in the paper, and they aren't that bad from 4 years ago, just down around 10% in my estimation.

I also own a apartment complex in Hollywood Fl. It is a mixed bag, when I bought it around 15 years ago, it cost $250K, then in 2005 I paid tax on it as if it was valued at $1000K, and I couldn't charge high rents because everyone owned their own home. Now the value is back down to around half $500k, but I can rake people over the coals, and bend them over just so that they can get a wiff of living in my apartment complex. As a matter of fact, I think I would have a rough time qualifying according to the management, and the place is totally packed.

[nobs]

If they did, they still would be in bad shape.

Pay 400,000 for a house that is worth 200,000..............not good.

Actually that would be a good thing. You buy a house to live in preferrably for the rest of your life. All that a higher valuation does is cause you to pay more property tax.

[RageWizard]

Yeah, but no equity mortgage should you want one, and if you have to sell, you effed. Taxes will find a way to be increased they always are, and with the money spent today by the government, the lower tax is just temporary.

[Peep]

Interesting, and I imagine the 25% figure is true.

If so, I would think there is some more shaking out to come.

My wife is a mortgage broker here in Canada. She believed the USA 25% figure, and I asked her what our number was here. She said "none". Not so easy to get a mortgage up here. Which turns out to be a good thing when values head south.

[mmike032]

Warren Buffet has predicted that housing market will come back this yr:
I sure hope so as my income depends on it. So far this yr theres already more new construction going on here than this time last yr.
"In his annual letter to shareholders released Saturday, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett predicts that problems in U.S. housing will be mostly over within a year or so, except for high-end homes and homes in certain overbuilt areas. Buffett writes:

The industry is in shambles for two reasons, the first of which must be lived with if the U.S. economy is to recover. This reason concerns U.S. housing starts (including apartment units). In 2009, starts were 554,000, by far the lowest number in the 50 years for which we have data. Paradoxically, this is good news.

People thought it was good news a few years back when housing starts -- the supply side of the picture -- were running about two million annually. But household formations -- the demand side -- only amounted to about 1.2 million. After a few years of such imbalances, the country unsurprisingly ended up with far too many houses.

There were three ways to cure this overhang: (1) blow up a lot of houses, a tactic similar to the destruction of autos that occurred with the “cash-for-clunkers” program; (2) speed up household formations by, say, encouraging teenagers to cohabitate, a program not likely to suffer from a lack of volunteers or; (3) reduce new housing starts to a number far below the rate of household formations.

Our country has wisely selected the third option, which means that within a year or so residential housing problems should largely be behind us, the exceptions being only high-value houses and those in certain localities where overbuilding was particularly egregious. Prices will remain far below "bubble" levels, of course, but for every seller (or lender) hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits. Indeed, many families that couldn’t afford to buy an appropriate home a few years ago now find it well within their means because the bubble burst."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/...#ixzz0gxhPFRan


housing markets run on cycles, the getting was good for to long and had to correct itself.
same happened in the 80s although I wasnt in the trades than but some elder contractors have told me the stories

[flyingillini]

It always amazes me the prices of homes in other parts of the US. Things are low right now but a nice place is going to run you a million. 7 or 8 gets you something decent with no yard in a bad area.

[wtf]

rage is correct on the bankruptcy issue, my sister filed and not three months later the credit card apps came flying in

guess they assumed she had no debt

time will not heal this, it was a huge massive bubble , never to return in our lifetimes

what about the dot com bubble, there were the same idiots claiming the same thing-prices will return-----NOT

[Fishhead]

rage is correct on the bankruptcy issue, my sister filed and not three months later the credit card apps came flying in

guess they assumed she had no debt

time will not heal this, it was a huge massive bubble , never to return in our lifetimes

what about the dot com bubble, there were the same idiots claiming the same thing-prices will return-----NOT

Excellent post

[THE PROFIT]

I have never heard it called under water. I've always heard upside down. May be a regional thing

[Brock Landers]

rage is correct on the bankruptcy issue, my sister filed and not three months later the credit card apps came flying in

guess they assumed she had no debt

time will not heal this, it was a huge massive bubble , never to return in our lifetimes

what about the dot com bubble, there were the same idiots claiming the same thing-prices will return-----NOT

she got credit card offers cause you can't file again for 7 years, so the cards are bankrupt proof and have nothing to lose.

[Fishhead]

I have never heard it called under water. I've always heard upside down. May be a regional thing

[THE PROFIT]

When I sold cars the customers were always upside down in their car. If I had ever used the term under water they would have thought I was talking about flood damaged vehicles

[onlooker]

I just bought a house in October 2009 for 135K, what a few years ago use to go for 354K. My mortgage is lower then what I was previously paying in rent at the apartments I lived at.

I hear stories about how someone owes over 250K on their homes, and they are only worth 105K now. $1800 a month mortgages with adjustable rates. Sometimes its hard to feel sorry for them, because there is no reason for someone to pay that kind of money for a house if the payment is more then 35% of their incoming pay. The house pretty much owns them, and they struggle to make ends meet.

[idontlikerocks]

made a great offer on a place last month . the bank forclosed on a 104k mortgage and i offered 111k final offer and the reo specialist refused my offer. the next day the list price dropped from 125k to 117k. 6 months from now it will be sold for less than the 111k i offered. it isn't just a problem of housing being underwater; there are also lots of idiots working in this field.

[pimike]

Time to buy

[johncrud]

under water amazing.... muahahah kfjalkfjd

[blueghost]

glad i got mine paid off ,,i think

[flyingillini]

I just bought a house in October 2009 for 135K, what a few years ago use to go for 354K. My mortgage is lower then what I was previously paying in rent at the apartments I lived at.

I hear stories about how someone owes over 250K on their homes, and they are only worth 105K now. $1800 a month mortgages with adjustable rates. Sometimes its hard to feel sorry for them, because there is no reason for someone to pay that kind of money for a house if the payment is more then 35% of their incoming pay. The house pretty much owns them, and they struggle to make ends meet.

Where in the world can you buy a home for even 500k? I owe 189k on the place I live in now. I bought it for 500k, it's worth about 1.1 now...I have tons of equity in it. My group homes, I owe about 800k each on them.. A nice home goes for over a million here. You can get in something for 7 or 8 but it's in a shitty area with no yard. I prefer nicer areas.

[StraitShooter]

Its crazy. I bet that there are allot of people who are underwater big time on their housing values who are killing themselves to make the payment, or are even paying late. My advice is to walk away. That home is which used to be considered your biggest asset, and investment, is now your biggest liability. The only reason the government is proposing all of these mortgage relief things is to help the BANKS, not the home owner. If you stay and tough it out, you will get hosed big time. If you leave, yeah it goes on your credit rating, but guess what, after a few years, you can pick yourself back up, and I am willing to bet that the bankrupcy thing isn't that big of a deal in 10 years time. Hell it already has lost allot of its negative stigma over the previous 10 years. Don't be stupid, unless the bank forgives some of the principal, you are getting screwed, walk away, or short sell now. Housing prices haven't bottom yet partly because the banks have inventory that having reached the books yet.

outfukinstanding