Overcoming economic survivor guilt
A year after the meltdowns of the banking and housing industries, an unseen by-product of the financial crisis has crept into the American society: the economic survivor guilt, the news organization USA Today reported.
Simply put, the economic survivor guilt is the uneasy feeling of “capitalizing off of somebody else’s misfortune.”
This economic survivor guilt is specifically widespread in Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County.
Data aggregator RealtyTrac reported that in July, one in 13 homes in Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County was owned by banks. For the month of August, RealtyTrac reported that Nevada tops the U.S. foreclosure rate list, with one in every 62 housing units in Nevada receiving a foreclosure filing.
The prevalence of foreclosed homes resulted to the ample supply of houses for sale at bargain prices.
While a great number rejoice at the bargain home prices, there are those who carry the guilt burden for the persons who lost their homes.
A realtor told the news organization that whenever clients would express guilt feelings over the bargain prices of homes, he would remind his clients that it is not their fault and that they need to grab this opportunity for the welfare of their families.
Psychologist Sylvia Lafair told the news organization that buying bargain-priced homes is like buying a stock. Guilt is often not attached when buying a stock as one does not meet or come in close contact in whatever form with the person who sells the bargain-priced stock.
To overcome this economic survivor guilt, Lafair said, bargain-priced home buyers can balance this guilt with good deeds. When moving in to the newly bought home, for example, she said, the old things that are not anymore useful can be donated to the shelter of Salvation Army.
It is a bit sad that we investors are able to capitalize on such misfortune, but it happens everyday.
Instead of these homeowners “crying over spoiled milk”, they should take the opportunity to capitalize on this crisis themselves.
Instead of just walking away from the home empty handed, try to short sale the property and negotiate the new buyer into giving you some “walk away” money.
There will always be people that will take advantage of a crisis – but can you blame them? I don’t think you can.
I can’t blame them one bit. It’s all part of the recovery cycle. Sometimes your winshield, sometimes your the bug!
Its unfortunate that now foreclosures sale has been dropped and quite uncertain about the housing market stabilization. Any idea on how the Mortgage modification program has impacted? Federal officials say that it has reached its target well ahead of its schedule. Keeping fingers crossed.
Regards,
Mack McMillan
The new program is just in it’s infancy now and has not had a lot of time to work yet. This program is only for the homeowners that have received NOD’s, Notice of Defaults, since July 1st of this year. Time will tell how well it will work. I am optimistic though. A chance to sit down , face to face with your lender or representative, and say hey what will work. Hopefully a loan modification will save their home. With the high unemployment rates Nevada and Clark County are having, a short sale may be a better choice to avoid foreclosure.
well i think there will always be people that will take advantage of a crisis – but can you blame them? I don’t think you can.
“capitalizing off of somebody else’s misfortune.” And this says all! Indeed, you can only win if your competitor will loose.
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I think the most important step is to be realistic in what you can and cannot do. I’ve seen so many first time home buyers jump into something they cannot afford only because they have big dreams.Do your homework done first if you are thinking about taking out a loan or mortgage. The time spent looking into your options can save you a good deal of money later on.
In these tough financial times, having one debit on a house or car would be the best option thank 2 as one would be paying to amounts of interest and having this they could or would fall into serious trouble, and get themselves into huge amounts of debit resulting in them loosing their homes or and their cars.
I am shocked that the major mortgage mistake above was not included. I have seen many times when a buyer gets preapproved by a lender and then enters into a contract to purchase a home. Then a couple of weeks later they buy a car on credit or furniture and the loan ends up getting denied. Whatever you do when you are trying to buy a house you should not have anyone pull your credit or make a purchase on credit until after the home has closed and funded.
The mortgage loans seem to be very useful for people, which want to start their own company. In fact, that’s easy to receive a bank loan.
Homeowners who defaulted on their mortgage are given notices of default by lenders to inform them of their options to make their account current and avoid foreclosures. Banks have no choice but to foreclose on properties of owners who still failed to pay their mortgage. To recover their loss investments, banks prefer to sell the properties as quickly as possible. And quick selling can only be done if the foreclosure properties are priced very low to make them attractive to buyers.