HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

What is the minimum percent down payment that people should be required to have in order to get a mortgage (i.e. rent money from a bank i.e. the FHA or Fannie or Freddie)?

Want to know what bank is gonna fail next? Just look for crazy rates on CD's and savings accounts

Remember when Countrywide and Indymac were paying the highest rates in the US?

Well, now WaMu is offering a 5% CD, in a desperate attempt to raise cash (and stay afloat)

Hell, why not? After taking in a bunch of new sucker money, it's the taxpayers and FDIC that'll get stuck with the tab (again).

This. Should. Be. Illegal. And it should be ESPECIALLY illegal for WaMu to take in any new deposits over the FDIC limits.

And yet it's not.

From Mish:

Desperation at WaMu Puts Taxpayers at Risk

Desperation is in the air at Washington Mutual (WM). That WaMu is offering 5% on CDs should be proof enough. From LastNightInVegas.

If the 5% rate WaMu is offering on CDs isn't indication enough that there's trouble brewing, the fact that WaMu is promoting it with a hand drawn white board sign certainly clinches it.

Add it all up - is your net worth (assets minus liabilities) more or less than it was ten years ago?

The past ten years in the stock market have been a struggle.

Inflation has destroyed what you thought you had. Or think you have.

The dollar is worth a warm bucket of spit.

And of course, Americans' #1 asset, housing, has collapsed. Which wouldn't have been so bad, had everyone not lost their minds and HELOC'd their gains away.

There's no question that the rich got richer under Bush/Cheney - even though the last two years will have proven to be brutal I think as real estate and credit melted down.

So how's it lookin' HP'ers?

And are you worried or optimistic about the next 10 years?

No political party owns either one of these. No matter how hard they try to convince you.

Once the voters understand that, America and the world will be better off. But I don't think the voters are gonna understand that for a long, long time.

Anyone else getting sick of watching the Dems and Reps battle this crap out while Rome burns?

Any word on Ron Paul getting into the GOP convention?

HousingPANIC Quote of the Day

“Everyone has been in a panic. The realtors are crazy; they want you to drop the price really low.”

- Alexandra Swanberg, desperate Florida homedebtor, not understanding supply and demand, August 2008

Question: Why would you keep making payments on $500,000 mortgage for a home now only worth $300,000? Answer: You don't. Only a fool would do that.

It makes ZERO financial sense to stay in a home that's crashed in value, if you owe significantly more than the home is worth.

But still, it must feel so wrong to just walk away. Good honest people, professionals, folks who'd never ever think of filing for bankruptcy or welching on a debt. But they're doing the math, facing the reality, and smartly walking away now.

Welcome to post-housing-crash-America. Where foreclosures and bankruptcies aren't just for yucky people anymore. They're for anyone who listened to a realtor on commission and 'bought' a home these past few years.

Let the banks sort it out now.

America's house price time bomb

Faced with seemingly never-ending falls in the value of their properties, some American home-owners are taking radical action; they are choosing to walk away from homes and their mortgages.

In May 2006, at the height of the housing boom, Karen Trainer bought a $500,000 apartment in California - with money borrowed from her bank.

By this year, Karen still owed $500,000 on her mortgage, but her apartment was worth $200,000 less.

So she was deep in negative equity and, to make matters worse, the interest rate on her loan was about to increase.

"I thought 'this is crazy'," Ms Trainer says. "It just does not make financial sense."

And now, this election is officially a joke. At least to John McCain it is. HousingPANIC calls for John McCain to end the Sarah Palin charade. Now.

"By the way, she's also been a member of the P.T.A."

- John McCain, desperately trying to defend how Sarah Palin would be qualified to be Commander in Chief, head of the US armed forces, leader of the free world, August 31, 2008

__________


The GOP ticket is now a joke, and a worldwide laughingstock.

They should step aside. Both of them.

Delegates to the GOP convention should mount an insurrection.

John McCain has taken the American people, and the people of his own party, as fools.

Watch this McCain interview, on Fox News of all places, and you'll understand.

The GOP did the right thing and had Bush withdraw the laughably unqualified Harriet Miers as Supreme Court nominee. The adults in the GOP should do the same thing with Palin. It's cruel what McCain is doing to Palin. He's putting her out there to be destroyed. He should be a man and end this charade himself.

Ah, screw it. The American voters aren't this reckless, are they? If Palin stays on the ticket, McCain should lose all 50 states. And that would be a good thing. I should want Palin to stay on the ticket just because of that.

But it's just too dangerous. I want McCain to lose, and lose badly, but what I don't want is even the chance in hell that someone with no qualifications to be President becomes President. It's just too dangerous.