Want a free house?

[Nitrogen]

All you have to do is buy a house you can't afford, then shoot yourself when they come to foreclose on it:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/eviction.suicide.attempt/

I wonder how many others this would work for.

[Manedwolf]

Some people have torched their own house, too. They tend to be surprised when they're charged with a felony.

[Desertdog]

Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Somebody a little rational should have said, "She is 90 years old.  Lets let her live there until she dies, and her heirs can pay us off or we foreclose."
Now her heirs have a home free and clear.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Jeebus H.

And I suppose we;re going to pay for her medical care now, too.

[Gewehr98]

I wonder how many others this would work for.

I vote we give Manedwolf a mortgage, then foreclose on it, just to see what he does.   

[Desertdog]

And I suppose we;re going to pay for her medical care now, too.

We are.  Remember medicare?

[2swap]

Well, Nitrogen, I can understand the reasoning of the bank. They probably assumed to profit more from the good PR than from the foreclosing, especially in the current situation where houses are apparently sold for <1000 USD.

[Hawkmoon]

I guess I'm just a hard-hearted S.O.B. but ... somebody please explain to me why forgiving her mortgage is any more "appropriate" than forgiving any (or all) of the other defaulted mortgages Fannie Mae holds? Sheesh, she and her hubby bought the house in 1970, so they owned it for 30+ years, then she took out a mortgage? Stupid. A reverse mortgage would have made more sense, in her case, but even those don't work too well if the person lives longer than they expect to -- as happened to a close friend of mine, who lived several years beyond when the income stream from her reverse mortgage ended.

[TexasRifleman]

somebody please explain to me why forgiving her mortgage is any more "appropriate" than forgiving any (or all) of the other defaulted mortgages Fannie Mae holds?

That's sort of the poster child for this whole bailout mess.

Banks loaned money to people that had no possible chance of ever paying it back.

Now the rest of us live in hyper inflation and a collapsed economy because of it.

Doesn't it make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

[MicroBalrog]

Banks loaned money to people that had no possible chance of ever paying it back.

You forget the bit where the Fed (a government agency) loaned money to the banks for this.

[brimic]

This ties in well with Monkeyleg's "I'm an idiot" thread.

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=15189.0

Nothing like being a resposible citizen who pays their mortgage, pays their taxes, and pays more taxes to pay for those who won't pay their mortgages.

[MechAg94]

somebody please explain to me why forgiving her mortgage is any more "appropriate" than forgiving any (or all) of the other defaulted mortgages Fannie Mae holds?

That's sort of the poster child for this whole bailout mess.

Banks loaned money to people that had no possible chance of ever paying it back.

Now the rest of us live in hyper inflation and a collapsed economy because of it.

Doesn't it make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Was it a bank or one of those mortgage lenders who then sold the loan off?  I guess it doesn't matter.

[2swap]

I guess I'm just a hard-hearted S.O.B. but ... somebody please explain to me why forgiving her mortgage is any more "appropriate" than forgiving any (or all) of the other defaulted mortgages Fannie Mae holds?

Free publicity. A national ad campaign to improve its image would be much more expensive, I guess.