DP
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
What’s up with all the hate?
I’m not letting lenders off the hook in any way. They SHOULD be forced to take responsibility for their part in the crisis. Did I ever state or imply otherwise?
All I’m saying is . . . lenders aren’t the only party at fault here. It’s like maplesyrup said, too: caveat emptor.
By the way, do you know why that term “caveat emptor” is in Latin? Because it’s as old as Rome, that’s why. Buyer beware! — That’s just common sense, after all. And you ignore it at your peril, as we have seen so many people do these last few years.
You know, you can legislate all the consumer protection you want . . . and, for the record, I think we SHOULD legislate consumer protection . . . but in the end, you can’t legislate common sense. And it’s too bad, really, because if everyone had just a little bit more of it, the world would be a much better place, n’est-ce pas?
JoB: Yes, I have bought a house before. As a matter of fact, I still own it. Outright. How about you?
You’re right: there were a lot of papers to sign. And by God, my wife and I looked at each and every one of them carefully before signing. Yes, it took us a whole afternoon to do that, and we asked a lot of annoying questions during the process. But considering the amount of money at stake, I felt that it was well worth the time.
What the papers said was that we were borrowing a heap of money and the lender was going to charge us a certain amount of interest in order to do that. The papers also said that if we didn’t pay the money back according to a certain schedule, the lender would come and take our house away from us.
The papers didn’t say anything about the value of the house being guaranteed to go up. Nor did they say anything about me being guaranteed an income that would be sufficient to pay off the loan.