Housing Crisis: Vacant and Wasted

by Carrie K. Hutchens

A few years back, I saw an enormous amount of upscale housing being built. My question was, "Where are all these people working?" Then I heard about the new fangled loans where one merely pays on the interest for so many years and I knew what was going on. I predicted then that there was going to be a major problem and it wasn't long before I was proven right.

And now?

I think we are headed towards still another major mistake that will merely complicate the original blunder and serve no good purpose.

Holding people accountable can get very complex when considering the housing mess and like crisis. After all, who is the most guilty? The consumer that came to believe the sales pitch (given by a professional) that he or she or they could afford the dream house or the professional who should have known better? Top that off with a bank or mortgage company willing to enter into the loan agreement and a consumer is given even more confidence that the deal is safe and their financial abilities and the economy is up to the challenge. What a shock it must have been when reality came rushing home a few years down the road and many found themselves without the original options and no alternative plans or finances to turn to.

One question is...

If experts didn't see the foreclosure epidemic on the horizon, how can average consumers be expected to have seen it?

There are people that carelessly enter into financial agreements, but there are also people who, in good faith, enter into agreements that turn out to be flawed. Agreements that rely upon outside sources and events that the person has no true control over, like job security, promotions and bonuses. Though perhaps due, the consumer cannot readily MAKE the right thing happen just because it was promised and earned. Life is funny that way.

Now, people are being foreclosed upon and here are all these houses that have no immediate buyers. Houses that are easy targets for vandalism and prone to early decay that seems to travel frequently with vacant homes. So what is the point? What is the benefit to any or all? Is there a benefit?

It is one thing to foreclose upon people who had no intent of honoring the agreement(s) set forth, however, what about those who were deceived by the professionals or hard hit because of the crisis they didn't create? How about the people who most likely would have been able to refinance as planned, if the housing boom hadn't imploded, which, I might add, was through no personal fault of their own? What about those people?

It seems to me that rather than leave those houses sitting idle to punish those who innocently got caught up in the housing movement (that appears to have been little more than a legalized scam), it would make more sense to figure out a plan to keep as many people in their homes as possible. It would make more sense for financial institutions to be bringing in some money, rather than no money on foreclosed houses. After all, how does the latter help the mortgage holders, people or the public (who will most likely pay indirectly)?

Get courts and lawyers involved and up goes the amount due. Put a judgment against people and what are the chances they will be able to borrow and if they can't borrow how are they supposed to pay back the amount in question? And while they are unable to borrow to pay the required amount, the interest and penalties keep growing and growing, and as the vicious circle goes -- because they can't pay -- they can't borrow -- so the penalties keep mounting and so does the hopelessness of the situation. Who, then, really benefits beyond lawyers, collection agencies and the like?

One additional irony to this crazy mess is that mortgage companies may get stuck with receiving pennies on the dollar, especially after paying court fees, collection fees, lawyers and collection agencies. Why are some of these companies so willing to pay such people and the collection costs involved, but often not as willing to work diligently to give the consumer the benefit of those same amounts? Why are they not willing, especially when doing so would give everyone a fresh slate to work on and chance for both to come out with a fair and honest result?

There may have been a day and time, between the depression and now, when the majority of people who failed to live up to their agreements did so through their own fault, but I don't believe that is the case today. Today, I think there are situations where the majority of fault in failed outcomes rests with big business and a system that fails to face it, muchless deal with it. A system that often fails to hold the big business as accountable as the individual. If the system is going to be involved at all, then it should be involved with "true" fairness to all.

It is one thing for people to mis-spend their money, or be otherwise careless in their financial dealings. It is quite another for them to be sold a bill of goods by experts and professionals that should have known better even before this whole housing fantasy (crisis) became a twinkle in someone's eye. And maybe... just maybe... those people that had the twinkle in the eye that turned out to be so blindingly wrong, ought to think about a better fix to the mess they created, than foreclosure that punishes the consumer (regardless of their degree of personal fault), and leaves so many houses vacant and wasted.

Vacant and wasted -- can our economy afford the price tag hanging on the housing crisis?


Carrie Hutchens is a former law enforcement officer and a freelance writer who is active in fighting against the death culture movement and the injustices within the judicial and law enforcement systems.