<p>We are in really really big trouble. Every day it becomes more and more obvious. What's funny is that I don't even understand how we will get out of this mess. Mayeb time will pass and things will come back to normal, but there's such a big disconnect here. I'm sorry but I blame the banks here. It's so easy to play with people's mind and have them take a bad loan under bad circumstances. The problem is that people, even at the top of the country, don't always think the way they should. The main problem is how far ahead are you lookign at. As a country, you should have politics that will take into considerations the next 50 years. Have a middle of the road plan, 15 years, and a short-term plan, 5 years (government term). What happens is that the government does what is good for the next 5 years, maybe 10 if they can be reelected. Who cares about the next party anyway...If I did a good job during my tenure people will remember me as a good president, and the next president will be the one looking bad because of my bad selffish decisions. Well, the banks acted the same way, the grass is always greener on the other side. The saw one stupid company making bad loans (call it ARM, subprime, no docs, ...). The first company doing so wasn't causing any problem to the housing market, the second neither, but after a while when everybody is overinflating the market, you are causing a bubble. Do you know what the prisoners dilemna is?</p>
<p>Now what? Well people won't be able to make their payments and soon it will get ugly really ugly. Even for me who doesn't own a home, it makes me sad why? because I'm ready to buy a home but I can't because of this mess.</p>
<p>About all the people who took HELOC and are now selling their homes and the bank is eating it up...well I'm not sure if I am angry or jealous...depends what happens with them...if they get away with it and don't get hit with bankruptcy then good for them, otherwise it's not worth it. Too bad for the banks, but that's what they deserve. You make bad decisions, you have to pay for it.</p>
<p>Fnally, about the $3000 or $5000 or $10000 monthly housing payments. Well, who's to say how much is to much for anybody? For the couple in this example $4000 is reasonable, for someone making $300,000 $7,500 is reasonable. As long as it is a real payment, not IO or ARM or whatever other crap you could qualify for.</p>
<p>To bad real estate is not like the stock market...it would already be 25% lower than today's market and it would make it much easier to recover and start fresh again. </p>