>I sort of feel bad for people who bought in the past few years and are getting burned by declining values but....not really.
>
>I mean, why should short term fluctuations in home values bother you if you've bought a home as a residence? Isn't it conventional wisdom that you buy a home planning for the next ten years?
>
>IMHO, buncha cry-babies.

Any speculator who is now crying the blues is indeed a cry-baby.

But there were hundreds of thousands of folk who intended to stay in the house they 'bought' who were victims. They were victims because:
1. These weren't real 'mortgages'. Yes, they were loans to buy property BUT they did not have the cotrols/scrutiny that real bank mortgages have.
2. In fact, the mortgage sellers got their cut of profit immediately that the 'sale' was approved. And their own office did the approving! It is widely reported that the mortgaga sellers falsified documents (inflating purchasers' assets, deflating debt, revising copies of tax forms, adding an equity loan into the mix, etc. And they certainly under-played the effect of the teaser rate changing after 2 years.
These "mortgages" were then magically "securitized" (most financial people have NO IDEA of the process used to do that) and sold to investmnt firms around the world.

Hundreds of thousands were badly hurt by this crap. They don't seem to be getting much help from their governments - at least nothing like the investment banks and banking in general are seeing.


>
>>http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/13/business/housing.php?page=1