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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (79459)	6/13/2007 11:44:21 AM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

re: a glazed look comes over their eyes... I had that look last night. Over dinner my wife told me about a coworker that, for inexplicable reasons, dumped their financial situation on her. The following is a story I have heard several times recently, with different people. She and her husband both work, and pull down a very nice salary combined. Despite this they have no savings whatsoever. They had lots of home equity up until a few years ago, when they refinanced and took out their home equity to buy "toys". The toys are now outdated and/or wearing out. They now owe more on the house than the house is worth. They want to move but can't sell the house because they can't come up with the difference. They know they should cut back on spending but are still living beyond their means, using credit card debt to make up the difference. They asked my wife what they should do, and she asked me. I said she should not tell them anything as it was a lose-lose situation. They already knew what they needed to do but clearly weren't going to do it. When the credit card debt maxed out or became too much to service it would be over for them. They made too much to declare bankruptcy. They were going to lose their home. Their kid was not going to college as they hoped. They would both work until the day they died. They had voluntarily become slaves.