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My home: 2 bedroom 1 bathroom condo in inland San Diego, a nice area but a lower value area compared to much of San Diego.

When I purchased my home: March 2007 (90 day escrow so I moved in in June).

Price I purchased at: $280,000

Loan I got: 80% financing (20% down) at 5.25% fixed 30 years

Estimated price NOW per Zillow: $204,000

What I believe it's more likely worth now: $190,000...most recent sales are 2/2 going for $200k-$220k, my place is a 2/1 and the couple recent sales of those are $170k-$175k, though I got my place completely refurbished as it was a condo rental converted for ownership.

The worst part: All these stupid bitch people around who bought places they couldn't afford with absolutely horrible interest-only loans are bitching about everyone doing them wrong and demanding government assistance, and they're probably going to get it. I make a decent living, not decent enough for the mortgage payments to be completely painless, but decent enough that I should not be going into foreclosure anytime soon. I was smart about getting a good loan, bought at what would have normally been the right time to buy (before summer which is typically the hot time of year), put a lot down to get a killer loan and not have to pay mortgage insurance, etc.

Now, about a year and 4 months later, not only is my equity in my condo completely wiped out, but I manage to owe more than its worth. People who made horrible financial decisions, buying a house they couldn't afford to begin with etc. will likely get bailed out and lord knows...get a huge discount or perhaps their house for free or some bullshit. I will get NOTHING. Me being young, white, and male will assure me of that too because young white males are supposed to be the most powerful people in the world and not disadvantaged in any way.

I don't mind helping people that need help. I donate thousands of dollars a year to charities even at times when I can ill afford to, usually in the wake of natural disasters like Katrina and the Myanmar cyclone, etc. Those people did nothing to deserve the havoc their lives received and truly deserve the help they get. I wouldn't say that everyone facing foreclosure today entirely dug their own hole - clearly home values plummeting and the economy are kind of going hand in hand, and some lenders did in fact have horrible lending practices (I worked in a real estate appraisal management firm and can say most loan officers would shit in your grandmother's mouth to get a loan closed). BUT - I do not feel the least bit sorry for people that spent well beyond their means, got an ARM mortgage aka ticking time bomb and knew what would be coming, and are now bitching that they can't afford to pay their mortgage and woe is them. People want to pretend that everything bad that happens to them is out of their control and put all the and it's total horseshit.

The government is about to help all these people at taxpayers' expense, including taxpayers like me who are feeling close to as much if not as much or more of a pinch from crashing home values. WE won't be helped because we're not stupid enough to have gotten ourselves in a situation where we couldn't afford the house we lived in because of making a stupid decision, getting a horrible mortgage, etc. Worse yet, the government's probably going to cut funding from education since it always seems to be the first place they look so that future Americans will be even more stupid than today's Americans and probably repeat the same mistakes tenfold. Not that it matters anyways - schools don't teach shit about managing finances even though as we all see, it's one of the if not THE most important aspects of life in the real world...perhaps they expect children/teens/college students to learn from their parents, most of whom don't know shit about managing finances either.

I don't know - I just don't see the government planning to do a damn thing to actually fix any of the problems that caused this - just try to cover all the bullet holes with band-aids and forget it happened and then wait for it to happen again before doing the same. I almost don't even want to vote for president - do any of you believe one of these two presidents will seriously change anything about the flaws in our society/economy?

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