It’s Monday, and seeing stripped down foreclosures is nothing new in Phoenix. I wouldn’t have posted this video at all, but check out the cavalier comment by the house stripper at 1:08:
This woman has been in this home for ten years. She was not originally sold a home she could not afford. I’ll take a wild guess that she refinanced or got a HELOC at terms she couldn’t afford and spent the money. Now it’s the bank fault?
Just how prevalent has an attitude of "Well if the bank was stupid enough to lend me money, it must be their fault," become?
Let’s face it. The bank has a staff of MBA’s with the skills and experience to determine which loan applicants are good risks, and which mortgage instruments are appropriate for each applicant. The homeowner generally does not have that knowledge. Yes, homeowners got greedy and borrowed more than they could afford, but the banks should never have approved those loans. The blame here lies clearly with the banks and I cannot blame the homeowner for being angry at their deceptive practices.
i believe what these people are doing is criminal. however, the banks KNEW EXACTLY what type of people they were lending money to so i could care less that this is going on. it’s like when the woman got bit by a snake and asked the snake why it bit her…to which the snake replied “you knew i was a snake when you picked me up?”
CharlesD –
At the same time, the average person has access to Google. For most people, a house is the single largest purchase they will ever make, consisting of many years of their salary. If they can’t be bothered to spend a couple of hours googling what their loan terms -mean-, or using any of the basic calculators to figure out what their payments would be, well.. I have a hard time feeling sorry for them. There was a poll that came out a couple years ago that that showed some large percentage (like, 50% range?) of americans didn’t even know what kind of loan they had – fixed or adjustable.
At some point you are responsible for your own safety and security. I’m all for going after these banks who did actively mislead people, and I’m all for letting the ones fail that gaves loans to people that their MBA team knew wouldn’t pay it back, but I’m also all for letting people who were just dumb/lazy pay for their mistakes as well.
If you take a look at her, you know what she spent the money on: food.
Isn’t she what you call a welfare queen?
“They’re the ones who gave me a loan that was really rediculous to give in the first place.”
Wow. People’s ability to deflect all blame or sense of responsibility just boggles the mind. I have no sympathy for the banks that stupidly took on so much risk; but, I’m starting to lose my cool for some of these people. They spent way beyond their means, borrowing obscene amounts of money to waste on Goodness knows what and then blame someone else when it falls apart! With attitudes like that, this country will never recover.
The banks could always get creative and issue 1099’s in the name of the ex-mortgage holder for the wholesale value of the stripped materials from the foreclosed house.