From Mitch Albom the other day:
"The New York Times...detailed a company in San Diego called You Walk Away. It helps people drop their homes into foreclosure and avoid liability. For this, you pay $995. And people are doing it -- happily, thankfully. Think about that company, that name. You Walk Away. Only in this economy, at this point in American history, are we grateful to pay somebody to lose our homes. Yes, of course, it's tragic when people are uprooted. Tears are shed. Hearts are broken. But many of these so-called homeowners should not have owned those homes in the first place. They should have walked away until they could make the reasonable down payment. They should have stayed where they were, in a smaller house, in an apartment, the way their parents and grandparents did, until they could save enough to afford it -- not afford the pyramid scheme, but the home itself. Sadly, nobody wants to wait. We have a sense of entitlement. Gimme mine now. Why shouldn't I have a house? Why shouldn't I have a bigger one? Why shouldn't I buy and flip like my friend the next town over? Look at the TV. Everyone's getting rich but me!"
Indeed. It used to be, as Albom mentions, that prospective homeowners were always told that if you can't afford to put down at least 20% of the home's cost as a down payment, then you can't afford the home. You should wait. (That's what I understood, too.) But banks were letting people buy while putting down only 10% or less. Even with no down payment. Whose fault is that? Answer--it's not just the banks' fault.
