So the government has signed into law a new bill to give “mortgage relief” to people who got into trouble with their loan. That sounds nice doesn’t it?
While people who hit hard times when the real estate market took a down turn and their houses were worth less than they paid for them, all I can say is “life’s a bitch”. There has never been a guarantee that your house will increase in value. Everyone should realize that when their interest rate is variable, that means it can change and you might pay much more. It’s a risk. You are rewarded for taking the risk by getting a lower initial rate. You might come out on top, you might lose. It’s a gamble. Except when the government shows up to bail you out when things go wrong. Some will say, “Well it doesn’t hurt you to help these people out.” Bull! It hurts me in two ways:
- First and foremost, it doesn’t fix the long term problem of stupid people buying something they can’t afford. Bitten once, shame on you, bitten twice shame on me. These people are still “bite free”. They won’t learn from this and are likely to do it again. Why not, there’s no risk if the government will bail you out.
- All of us as tax payers pay for it. The money comes from somewhere. As the article states, this bill costs $800 billion and pushes the deficit to 10.6 trillion. That means we just increased our debt by 8%. To bail out stupid people.
I chose not to take the risk. I paid a higher interest rate to get a 30 year fixed loan. I felt a little foolish when others got lower rates. But I now have an interest rate locked in for the next 25 years. Why did I do this? In part, because I had earlier gotten a 5/1 ARM mortgage that went up on me and I learned my lesson.
Don’t let the government make the American people stupider than they already are. Let your congressperson know that you don’t like this bill and would like to see less “nanny-state” policies and more “tough love”