"1 in 6 now owe more on their mortgage then their property is worth".
Are you underwater?
Comments ... #
Probably.
posted by thetoledowire_com on Oct 09, 2008 at 07:04:28 am #
I think any fairly new home owner is. I bought about 6 years ago and owe 10 grand less than I bought it for. My mortgage company called me one night and asked if I would be interested in refinancing. I said “Well, what can you do fro me?” They put me on hold to do the numbers and came back and apologized. Seems that after doing the math they could not even refi what I currently owed let alone the purchase amount.
Scary.
No longer having equity in their homes makes people feel less rich and thus less inclined to shop at the mall.
Stable dressing. I would never check my home equity before shopping at the mall or anywhere else.
If the value of your home is falling, your property taxes will fall along with it. Let's not forget that lower tax bills are a good thing. Additionally, your home is actually worth whatever you can sell it for, not what someone else thinks it's worth. A person may claim their home is worth $350,000, but if they can't sell it within 30 days for $350K or more, then clearly the home is not worth the asking price.
Unfortunately, Lucas County's triennial update scheduled next year will not lower property taxes. According to a Blade article the County claimes property values have not dropped locally. I don't remember exactly the line of reasoning but I recall it was pretty thin and desperate. They are going to fight tooth and nail to maintain the current level of revenue generated by property taxes.
My wife and I certainly feel poorer... We've lost about $40,000 in home value and are down around $50,000 in our 401Ks and other retirement funds, we're trying to save more then ever, because we don't know what the future will bring.
We did have the Lucas County Auditor reduce our tax value on our house from $175K to about $155K... it's still a bit over market, but we'll take it.
I am.I bought my house 3 years ago, and have lost about 20% of the value according to the last appraisal I had done. I'm not fretting though because I don't plan on selling my house within the next ten years. I just wish I would have waited for some of those foreclosure properties that are now on the market. I've seen houses that were purchased 5 or more years ago for $200K, but sold for $150K recently in some really nice areas of Sylvania. Great buys if you have perfect credit and 20% down.
No. When my husband & I applied for our home mortgage, they tried to loan us twice what we could afford. We said, "No, we can't afford that"! Then about 6 years later the Lucas County Auditor tried to tell us that our home was worth about $40K more than what it was appraised at in 1999. We fought that one too (and won).
We just used our common sense. So many people out there don't and buy things they can't afford and houses bigger than our parents ever dreamed of and then wonder why they're being foreclosed!?
posted by SillyWabbit on Oct 09, 2008 at 10:37:42 am #
Owing more than your house is worth (in todays market) has nothing to do with whether you bought more than you should have unless you paid too much for it to begin with. The market is bad, everyones values have gone down, period.
Its not time to save, its time to buy land.
When our money isn't worth toilet paper, very soon, none of your saved money will buy squirt. At least with land you can feed yourself. What about the Amero? Don't you think this contrived rape of the dollar (and you) was meant to destroy our currency so that the bush bankers could get us to accept the Amero!! Shock, Crisis, Worry, Despair, these are what our government has to instill in you to get you to accept the Amero. Are we there yet. Understanding what they are doing is part of defending yourself against it. Its also how we enslave other countries and our own workers with terrible trade deals like NAFTA, we wait for a horrible crisis, whether real or just perceived, then we make an off to "help" that has strings attached in the form of a trade deal. Think earthquake, Tsunami, hurricane, civil war, etc. Thats when our corporate-government trade deal teams move in to enslave them through deals with their paid off governments. Hey,, that must be like spreading democracy ,, right?
I'm not, but I also bought a house I could actually afford. Yea I would've loved to have a bigger house with a bigger yard, but at the time I couldn't afford it. Now I wish I would've waited and bought one of the forclosed homes with a big yard for cheap.
posted by hunkytownsausage on Oct 09, 2008 at 04:16:20 pm #
Again, it's not about buying a house you can't afford. I bought a house I can afford (paid way less than what I was approved for) but I still owe more tha it is worth because of the market. Two and a half years ago it was appraised at 25k more than it is today. It has nothing to do with my income whatsoever.
Without naming names, I exhort several posters within this thread to study any of the logic reasoning books available at the Toledo Public Library. Ryan will save many keystrokes by some posters undertaking such studies.
No. We're pretty fortunate in that regard. Other than the fact that our equity took a hit, of course.
My house is still worth about $150K more than I owe. I have no intention of selling any time in the next 10-15 years, but at least we'd come out ahead if we ended up having to sell at a discounted price for some reason.
To clarify on my earlier post, I do not owe more than my house is worth. I'm one of the lucky ones I guess.
posted by hunkytownsausage on Oct 09, 2008 at 08:37:18 pm #
We bought a home we could afford. We have a good interest rate, and unless we lose our jobs or have some other devestating circumstances, we're staying put. But it still hurts to check out zillow and see that the home is worth less now than when we bought it. We had hoped to use some of the equity in our home to help pay for our kids' college. Let's hope things turn around before then.
No, but the downturn has chopped at least $20K from our equity, and if we had to sell our home right now, we would have only $10-$20K after a sale.
IF we could even find a buyer capable of getting a mortgage - that's the scary part.
posted by historymike on Oct 09, 2008 at 06:43:28 am #