Pinetop White Mountain Blog

It's Almost Halloween!

Does my picture convey my mood today?  I hope so because I'm feeling rather ghoulish! I usually try to be very positive in my posts but I had to say what was on my mind today. 

I am constantly reading on various sites the number of foreclosures in the market that are "Strategic Defaults" rather than people who truly cannot afford to pay for their homes any longer.  This bugs me.  I understand it's frustrating to own a home that isn't worth what was owed against it or what was paid for it.  I can even understand getting frustrated because the values in a neighborhood keep falling.  But stop and think a minute, why do those values keep falling?  Because too many people have forgotten what a owning a home is really about.  It's not about investment, it's a place to live & raise a family.  Too many homes have gone back to the banks because it has become fashionable to let a home go back to the bank.  

I can't tell you how many times I hear things like "Well my neighbors did it so I'm going to do it too!" Or "Why should I keep paying for something because it isn't worth what I paid for it?"  Wait a minute, you buy TV's & other big ticket items like cars, and they are worth half what you paid for them the minute you carry them out the door or get in it and drive away.  When did a Home, a place of shelter and a place to raise your family, become a "must appreciate" commodity or it isn't worth having?      

We have all been hit with the downturn in this economy.  Our homes and investments of every kind are not worth what they were at the top of the bubble but that does not mean that the value of those items will never come back.  It just isn't going to happen quickly and it certainly isn't there right now.  There is no easy fix for this mess.

You see where I am going with this?  It is a downward spiral that simply has to stop otherwise the market is never going to recover.  People have to stop the "Strategic Defaulting" just because they are ticked off at their banks and the economic situation.  The modifications need to stop too because they cannot be done in a way that is fair to everyone and they are just creating more "Strategic Defaults".  If people can't make the payments then they lose their homes, period.  One house being sold at a low price is not going to destroy entire neighborhoods.  Many people defaulting will.  We have to get out of this "If I can't have it now I don't want it thought process".  No one is entitled to anything in this life.  You work for it and you take the good with the bad. 

Letting a house go back to the bank just because things aren't the way you would like them to be is not the answer.  It is only compounding the mess.  Until the defaults stop, we are all on a downward spiral that is going to just keep getting worse and worse.  Pretty soon whole neighborhoods will be empty (I'm sure in some areas this is already true) and much of the population will be living in some trashy rental in a neighborhood that was once very nice.  No one will have any pride in their places anymore and the spiral will continue on and on until there is no value left in any home in any neighborhood. 

Is this what we want?  Do we have so little pride left that we are willing to sacrifice all our values because things are not the way we want them to be?  Are we so caught up in the "entitlement" thought process that we simply don't care anymore?  I hope not or we are all truly doomed to accept whatever the rest of the world throws at us. 

I'm going to close with this familiar phrase: "Nobody loves me everybody hates me guess I'll go eat worms"! Well, if we keep going the way we are that is all we will have left to eat.  I hope they taste good with salt and catchup!

Have a Happy Halloween Everyone.  I'm going to go eat lots of candy and try and cheer myself up.

Sandra Paulow, Associate Broker, GRI, SFR