But given that many Americans thought that they deserved a $400,000 house with nothing down while earning a wage of $10 an hour, they were just as GREEDY as the bankers offering these loans, wouldn't you say? This is my take on it, anyway. As Newsweek magazine recently stated in a cover story, "The whole country has been complicit in a great fraud."
The results are quite striking: Nationwide, for those who purchased U.S. homes since the beginning of 2003, nearly one in three now have negative equity. Nearly half of buyers who purchased houses in 2006 are "underwater", which is the new term for owing more on the mortgage on your house than the house is worth on the real estate market.
Overall, one in six American homeowners owe more on their homes than the homes are worth. No more getting cash out of the equity of a house to live a life that people can't afford.
The question I posed to my friends was: Are these one in six, in fact, "homeowners" if they owe more on their homes than the homes are worth?
This was the response by my friend Todd Lorentz:
- Ernie,
- This is my take on it:
- Technically, if they don't own any equity then they're "house-sitters".
- The most commonly assumed home owner, then, is really the bank. However, the money that the bank lent was not real - they just made it up on paper and never actually had that amount in the first place to lend out. So the bank actually purchased the home through the people who are now the house-sitters, with money that didn't exist. If the money doesn't actually exist, then it is really not a true sale and the original home builder still technically owns it. But they didn't own it either if they also took out similar "fiat" loans to build it.
- So yes, indeed, who are the real owners?
- It appears that all of those "house-sitters" are living in in a nation that is filled with houses that nobody actually owns, or which have been acquired without using REAL currency to buy.
- Therefore, America is functioning more like a "commune" where everyone, after a little tricky paperwork, can stake out a claim on a place to sqaut.
- Yes, America is a nation of SQUATTERS and those house-sitters should be subject to the laws on squatting. If the orignal builders allowed them to "squat" there while knowingly accepting no REAL cash for it up front, then the house-sitters are actually squatters and
after a period of time the squatters can stake an ownership claim to it as their own. Then, that would make them full owners, free and clear, without spending a dime on it.
God Bless America!
Todd
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