To Bail or Not To Bail on Your Home?
If the value of your home is less than the amount of your mortgage does it make sense to keep making your payments or should you just walk away? If you can’t get the bank to reduce the principal of your loan, what should you do? Well, no one can tell you that because every…
If the value of your home is less than the amount of your mortgage does it make sense to keep making your payments or should you just walk away? If you can’t get the bank to reduce the principal of your loan, what should you do? Well, no one can tell you that because every situation is different, but, as The Times points out this weekend, the penalties for defaulting on your mortgage may not be as onerous as they once were. First of all, more and more banks and saying OK to short sales, in which the owner sells the house for less than the value of the mortgage; secondly, even if you go into foreclosure, the bank is unlikely to chase you down to make up the difference between the sales price and the mortgage amount. If the lender does forgive some piece of your debt, however, some states will still try to treat the forgiven debt as taxable income. Lastly, some legal experts expect that the credit rating agencies won’t hit you as hard for a foreclosure now as they might have in the past. It just seems obvious that a foreclosure in 2008 or 2009 doesn’t have as much information value as a foreclosure five years ago, said legal prof Todd J. Zywicki. Are any readers currently underwater and considering voluntarily bailing on their home?
Thoughts on Walking Away From Your Home Loan [NY Times]
Photo by Jennscrzy
Yes walk away there are too many vultures just waiting to buy your home and that og your neighbors for a song. Most of you homebuyers thought you were so smart and we renters so stupid for not buying before. Well now don’t expect any sympothy or money for that matter. I am so angry with homeowners now it is not even funny. You bleed the nation and now you still want more money. When is it going to end?
It’s best to bail. Your lifestyle will all of a sudden become much cheaper. You would need 7 to 10 years, the time it would take for your walk-away to disappear from your credit anyway, to save again.
***Bid half off peak comps***
Cease fire then. We can come out of our trenches and play soccer on Thursday.
I agree this is a pointless merry-go-round but I want to say that while I try not to be just b/c it can cloud judgment – a “snob” is far from the worst thing one can be called – in some ways it can be complimentary. So please do not take unneccessay offense
(I just think snobbery is of little use in making economic decisions like cutting and running from an underwater house)
Nope, I wasn’t kidding at all. Exaggerating and stereotyping more than I should just to get a rise out of fsrq, but definitely not kidding.
Fsrg: Touche. But I assumed Lechacal was kidding?
Interesting: Did a search for “McMansion” in NYT archive and the only places it’s used are in editorials and op-ed pieces (which are generally anti-McMansion) or features. Almost never in news stories. (Obviously, I have too much time on my hands this afternoon.)
McMansion has about a stable a meaning as, say, “dump.” Certainly descriptive and useful, but really conveys the speaker’s (negative) judgment. No one calls a big house they find beautiful a McMansion. Again, we’re in the eye of the beholder here…
fsrq: I love you too man.
Serisouly though, I suspect that almost everyone else understands perfectly well what I am saying, so there is absolutely nothing to be gained from continuing this debate. Perhaps we can discuss at Floyd NY on Thursday. Otherwise I will find it tiresome and pointless to try to engage you.
I would point out that very little of what I have said has had anything to do with brownstones.
lechacal – snobbery at its highest level – congrats:
-“A McMansion is awkwardly placed on too small a lot” – you mean like was done 90 years ago invirtually every “town” suburb in Nassau and Southern Westchester – like Garden City, Rockville Center, New Rochelle? – those McMansions are now considered ‘classics’
-“The real thing is built to last as long as a brownstone” – The crappiest siding and sheetrocked box should last longer then true brownstones – a porous and crappy building material used because it was cheap, available and gave the appearance of wealth (sound familiar?)
-“McMansions invariably sacrifice aesthetic beauty and outdoor usability in favor of maximizing indoor square footage.” – really? I have seen plenty of homes that anyone would consider a “McMansion” that has psuedo porches, verandas, gazeebos ,etc….
-“A McMansion may have a few pathetic young trees in the yard that will take many years to reach meaningful size.” – and eventually they will be full size – so then will they no longer be McMansions in your eyes?
-“A McMansion almost certainly has a huge flat screen TV in it somewhere.” – you mean like virtually every other house in America with a TV bought in the last 5 years? Now your against flat screen televisions???
-“The big SUV in the McMansion garage is almost certainly leased. Whatever the owner of the real article drives (or has driven) is owned outright.” – really? maybe the owner of the vehicle has their own buisness and they know that economically it is MUCH more tax advantageous to lease then buy (or finance) a vehicle that will be used for any business purpose
-“The owners of the real article may or may not cook for themselves, and even if they do they almost certainly wouldn’t sell their house on the basis of the brand names of the appliances.” Yeah sure because I have seen alot of expensive Brownstones, mansions and other high end real estate that have Kitchenaid appliances.
-“The owner of the McMansion probably stretched himself to the maximum to buy. The owner of the real article did not.” – you know this because……you’ve done an indepth study of the financial histories of people buying brownstones & historic mansions vs modern large opulent homes or just because your snobbery enjoys the use of stereotypes ot make you feel smarter?
etc, etc, etc
The reason why the term McMansion can have no real meaning is because other then the fact that it is generally built recently everything else is in the eye of the beholder and the fact that you cannot accept this makes you a snob of the highest order.
Putnam: What’s a suburub? Is that like a residential development in Vermont?