North Carolina Tentmaker said:
Well Gina, yes and no. It would be cheaper in the short term. But the long term consequences would be devastating.
The reason we are in this mess to start with is the government interfered with the business of mortgage lending. They did this by creating Freddie and Fannie and giving a government sponsored guarantee to high risk loan applicants. They encouraged banks to loan to high risk and minority applicants and guaranteed the loans saying that if they were not paid the government would pay them (through Freddie and Fannie mortgage insurance). So banks went out and loaned money to people who had no business getting loans, people who, if they were evaluated by proven business models, would not have qualified. The market boomed. Housing starts boomed. Housing prices soared. And then, what do you know, the business models proved true and the mortgages went into default.
Now take your idea Gina and put it into practice. The banks get paid. Now they want to loan that money out again. Why not loan it to high risk applicants. If they don’t pay the government will. The people get their houses, and house starts will boom. Everyone who does not have a house will want one. And they will want bigger and better ones. Why not apply for a loan I can’t afford? If I don’t pay it the government will.
Then guess what, it crashes again, only bigger this time.
We cannot continue this cycle. The best option, the only option that really addresses the problem is for the government to do nothing. The bad loans fail. Banks learn to loan money only to people who can pay it back. People loose their homes, and they learn not to borrow more than they can pay.
We have a program, a safety net for failed mortgages and failed businesses. It’s called bankruptcy! And no one goes to jail (unless they broke laws). We have no debtor prisons and no one is going to sell your children into slavery. Your creditors have to settle for what you have. They learn not to make risky loans. And you get to start over at zero. And hopefully you make wiser choices this time.
This is a good system and it has worked well for years.
Thank you for giving a reasoned out answer.
The question came from watching a news video of a lady who bought a home without a lawyer and didn't bother to read the paperwork. Something called a sub-prime loan...her bill shot up very high, she couldn't pay, the bank is foreclosing.
Then some lady in charge, dunno if she was the mayor, was encouraging residents to "become squatters in their own homes" and refuse to leave in these cases.
The idea was that banks and places like FM got/are getting bailed out, many of them getting into the situations very knowingly, flying personal jets to go pick up their money, etc., while people like this lost their homes.
So I just wondered if it was even reasonable to think such a thing would help.
I really know nothing about the housing market. The only knowledge I have of it is from an interview I did with a county financial counselor for a story...he spent a couple hours explaining how it all works but I only got the basics and forgot most of them.
Apparently it wouldn't help to do that either.
BTW, I don't think that all the people losing their homes are irresponsible. So many companies have had to let decent paid workers go. The stories are all over the place, the people are too. I know people with college degrees that are now working in fast food joints, and it's not because they're lazy...it's because they lost decent paying jobs.
A previous client of mine lost the main section of his business and people with jobs of 50, 75K were out of work. One of them took a job as a tutor for minimum wage.
It's not really a fair statement to call people irresponsible for getting into debts. It's a rare person that can save enough money to outright buy a home without making payments, and income isn't guaranteed. Anything can happen, and right now, anything is!