I Still Have No Sympathy

The more I read about the bailout and all those begging for their share of it, the less sympathetic I become towards those people. I am speaking mostly of the people who are at risk of having a home foreclosed upon.

I hear and read stories all the time about people who are "upside down" on their mortgages...owing more than the home is worth. Do these people realize that when they buy a new car, they are upside down on the loan the minute they drive off the lot? Of course not.

Owing more on the home loan than the home is worth only really comes into play if you are trying to see. If you bought a $500,000 home and it is now worth $375,000 and you have no plans on selling, how are you losing any money? Did your monthly payment go up because the house value went down? No, it did not.

The biggest problem with people getting homes repossessed is that the family bought more home than they could afford. While I will admit that banks a Realtors make it easy to get a big home, the consumer must be held accountable for their actions.

Let me relate a story to you. This is my story. I was a homeowner in NC. I had a modest 2000 sq ft home in the county (out of the city) that was valued at $140,000. I was relocated to Texas just three years after we purchased the house (the house had appreciated about 10% or so) and since I was a homeowner, I was looking to buy a home in Texas. The homes in the areas that I was looking at were a tad more expensive per square foot than they were in NC, so my wife and I decided to drop the square footage down to about 1700 to keep the mortgage in the price range we thought we could afford. Now during this time the Realtor and the bank both told me I qualified for a much bigger mortgage than I wanted (they told me I could increase the sq footage to 2500 or so with little increase in mortgage payment) but my wife and I stood firm. We would buy what we KNEW we could afford, which was 1700 sq ft in a solid middle class neighborhood.

After a couple of years the interest rates dropped and we refinanced. our mortgage dropped about $100 a month and we were in even better shape than we were when we started the process. As a matter of fact, taking into consideration the tax differences, we are paying about the same was we were in NC, for a slightly smaller, but much newer home. We are mostly happy.

I did not give in and buy a big house. While I will admit that it was a little crowded in our three bedroom/2 bath 1700 sq ft home with two adults, one teen, and two dogs for the first couple of years, now that the teen is an adult and we are down to one dog (rest in peace, Maxx), the house is perfect for us. Could I have afforded a bigger place? Sure, but to be honest with the debt that my wife and I were carrying at the time (we are minus that debt now, praise God) it would have been tight. Knowning that we tithe (give 10 percent of our income to the church), we did not feel that we would be good stewards if we wasted money on more of a home than we needed. I feel that we did the right thing.

I know a lot of people who own big homes. Many of them need them due to the fact they have several children. A few of them enterain and the larger home allowed them the ability to invite large numbers of the church body over to fellowship. There are a few people I know who own big homes and really have no need for them, but that number is few by comparison. Most buy what they need.

The woman in Arlington, VA that CNN did an article on recently is one person who does not deserve a bailout in my opinion. While it is not mentioned what her husband does for a living, she has gone on the record to state that she is a bus driver and she and her husband and kids live in a $800,000/3500 sq ft home in a nice subdivision that is now worth $675,000. She has been given notice that her home is at risk of foreclosure. Unless her hubby makes a very good living, it is easy to see why she is in financial troubles. I know family of three (three that live in the home...the family is somewhat larger) that lives on the equivalent of two bus driver's salaries (on of them actually is a bus driver) in a home slightly larger than ours. I cannot see them affording an $800,000 home.

Why does a bus driver need such a extravagant home? Not that I am trying to judge but an $800,000 home seems a little out of reach on a bus driver's salary.

No, I am sorry...I have no sympathy here. If she bought a more modest home, lost her job, and was on the verge of being homeless, I could understand but not the situation that CNN has presented to us.

Where is El Gee?

I am still waiting for "change". Anyone else seen it yet?

I thought this was sadly amusing. This is what you all get for electing an inexperienced man to the White House. At least the people running on the other ticket did not promise what they could not deliver.

Where are all the Obamaniacs? I wonder if they are ready to crucify their "savior" yet.

On a more serious note, I really have not felt like blogging much, but I have been keeping Facebook current. Oh, my Vox page is also very out of date.

Sigh.

Old Patterns Returning

I find myself getting back into my normal routine two weeks after we had to put Little Man down. I am walking The Golden most every morning now (much to her chagrin) and the walking is doing me good. I do not mourn heavily for my little buddy any more. I may get a little sad, but not heartbroken. This is a goof thing.

Work has been interesting. I got off call Monday morning at 7 AM only to have my TL call me and tell me his son was sick and he would be taking the day off. Then on Wednesday, my TL was sick, so I worked by myself again. To keep the risk of me catching whatever my TL has to a minimum (we share an office), we are working from home today (which I did on Mon and Wed instead of my normal Tues and Wed)...I am sure my boss is confused.

Also on the work front we have been informally informed that we will be moving in a few months to one of the major buildings of the company we acquired last year. I will be going back to a cube something I have not had in five years or so and in "hostile" territory. The folks we acquired still are not happy with us but they will come around eventually.

I also find myself beginning to like (perish the thought) my work smartphone, a Palm Treo 800w (which runs Windows Mobile 6.1)...but not as a phone, as a PDA. Yes it is Windows and yes it has to be soft restarted every week or so, but I like the rest of the software. As a phone it is inferior (in my opinion) to the Palm OS based phone. The ringtones are not as loud and the speaker phone not as clear or loud as my Palm OS based one. That will take some getting used to. I prefer a louder phone since I am in noisy environments and I am not one to turn on vibrate mode unless I am in church or someplace else where silence is the rule.

I received a surprise phone call last night from our son, Soldier Boy. He is still in PA with his biomom but he is thinking about moving back to Texas. He is training to be a recruiter and it is a job he enjoys and if what he is telling me is true, the Army will pick up the tab on the move.

We had not heard from him in about six months or so. He had not cashed his Christmas check, nor had he returned e-mails. I was beginning to think that he had gotten into some sort of trouble. From what I understood that is not the case. He did confide in me that he is beginning to see a side of his biomom that he did not know existed...a side I warned him about before he went to live with her. While it is too personal to divulge on the web in a blog, let us just say that he is seeing a lot of what I saw 20+ years ago when I was married to his biomom. At that time, it was not pretty. And while I am a new man and continually pray for her salvation, I cannot forget what happened. I can (and have) forgiven her, but I doubt I will forget.

It was a good conversation and I am glad he finally called. I am sorry he had to see some of his biomom's erratic behavior (and even more sorry that she has not changed) but we all have to grow at our own pace.

Soldier Boy stated he had an e-mail problem that still has not been corrected and now he is forced to use a Yahoo account instead of his military one but that does not explain why he has not contacted us. I am sure when he calls back to talk to my wife this evening.

Well, work calls. I need to see what trouble I can get myself into :)