I do feel for those of you who felt that the house you bought was worth it. I bought a house before prices had gone completely crazy, but even so paid $325,000 for a three bedroom plus MIL because it’s in Seattle.

But you say that while no one needs a house, people need housing. Okay. But that still doesn’t explain people buying houses rather than renting. Yes, rental prices will go up. That’s why you have to look hard. Each time I have moved to a new apartment, I’ve generally looked at 5-15 places, as well as scoured ads for a couple of weeks. I understand that in moving to a new city (especially in the case of job loss), you don’t have the luxury of time, per se.

But I guess the question is: Why did you buy a place you didn’t like? Why not rent? I know a few people who shared a room with siblings without incident. I understand it’s preferable for kids to have separate bedrooms, but while salaries are low, sacrifices are made.

And you said you didn’t believe the house was worth it, equating it to gas prices. Um, why on earth would you BUY a house if you didn’t feel it was worth the money you paid? Why not rent? A 2 or 3 bedroom apartment? Or, yes, even a home. There are plenty of owners out there who have had homes for awhile and thus are able to charge different prices. Here in Seattle, you can sometimes find 2 bedroom houses in the northern part of the city for $1000. You can also find them for $1900. It just depends on the house and the owner.

And when gas prices were so ridiculous a lot of people found alternatives. Bus transportation skyrocketed. People drove less. they generally found as many ways as possible around the prices that they found so ridiculous.

I am sorry that circumstances forced you to live in a city with a high cost of living. I am sorry that you couldn’t really get your family a nicer house. But again, no one deserves a house. There’s nothing wrong with renting. Perhaps the argument is that rentals were almost as much as a mortgage. Even so, while I’m sure times were very difficult and I can’t imagine the pressure you were under after a job loss, I wonder if it was the best idea to move to a city with such a high cost of living, given that you knew what your salary would be and how much your equity would translate to.

The fact is, you went from a house to a house. I wonder if you even considered an apartment or renting. I think once you have had a house, it’s very difficult to go back to apartment life. I know this from experience. But I also know that choices, however unsavory, are still choices.

Abigail’s last blog post..Are we too optimistic?

I also think it is silly to sell simply because you are upside down. My husband and I lost a little over 20k in the value of our home in only a couple months, and it’s frustrating. Yet when purchasing this home we knew that we would be here 5-8 years, so why sell when we planned to be here for that length of time? We are constantly told that if we are not close to retirement age to keep up with a 401(k) and wait it out… if you can afford the payment why not wait it out??

All you people who say people shouldn’t walk away completely fail to realize the magnitude of the bubble in many places. I’m guessing not many of you live in CA, NV, AZ, or FL. In many situations such as mine… people lost 60% of the value of a home they bought in 2 years. I didn’t pull money out of my house, I didn’t spend extravagantly, all I did was buy a home at the worst time in the history of the United States. Now someone can buy a home next to mine for half the price I paid and to add insult to injury, they will pay lower property taxes, and they will also have a much lower interest rate because rates are now at 4.5%. It would be nice if I could refi and get this rate as it would save me about $800 a month, unfortunately my loan to value ratio is 220% because it has fallen 60% and I had an 80/20 no money down loan.

Anyone in a situation like mine has absolutely no incentive to keep paying. To make matters worse CA raised taxes on everyone including middle incomes by about $1000 per family this year. So I’m supposed to pay my absurdly high price, high interest rate, extra taxes,pay to help other get into a home much cheaper than I did, and pay to help people who didn’t take nearly as big of hit that have LTV ratios at 105% or lower all while still paying my insanely high loan? Well don’t worry I am not even going to bother trying. Maybe I could do it, maybe I couldn’t, but at this point it isn’t worth even trying.

But imagine if you went to the used car lot and and found that demand and poor practices pushed up the prices of even a 5 year old Chevy compact car to $30K. That janitor will either have to find some other way to get around, or buckle down and find a way to afford that car, sacrificing other expenses.

BTW, thanks for the mention!