patrick.net

I was actually looking at the rules to modify my mortgage. I pretty much qualify except one small detail. My mortgage is about 29% of my gross income, also, that includes taxes and homeowners insurance. Does anyone know if the 31% rule of income towards your mortgage includes those additional costs?

Only 29% com'on Techie you're letting our GDP down. Get with the program and spend, spend, spend. Spend like there's no tomorrow for our kids.

I think some money savant somewhere in Washington should be punishing those that over budgeted on housing, instead of trying to give them a financial Mulligan.

A friend works at WF, he stated 422,000 mortgage payment modifications started...only 3537 takers thus far (thanks Wachovia). We are both guessing that many of these loan owners are upside down. Are they reducing the principle of the loan or just giving out low rates?

Well I'm royally screwed at around 17%

If they'd give me 2% then I'd borrow a shitload of money. I'll get this friggin party started!

I'm in the same boat. Bought a house I could afford easily, at peak had more than 50% equity. Now best case scenario I break even, worst case scenario I am 60k upside-down.

We are DINKs paying boatloads of taxes because we have so little debt. We're paying for all these people making less but living large. What can you do?

Your refusal to borrow yourself into slavery makes you a bad slave. In fact, not a slave at all. You must be punished!

The thing I hate about all of the loan modification programs is that the people being rewarded by them are often the people who created the problems in the first place by purchasing a home they could not afford. I worked hard and purchased a home within my means and now I feel like I am having to pay for all of the people who spent money they did not have. A analogy to me would be waiting in a long line to get tickets for an event, but not being able to get in because all of the people who cut in front where given priority.

d3, you are right. But wait, more unfairness on the horizon! This just in from the National Inflation Association: "The main areas of increasing employment in November were health care and government jobs, which are non-manufacturing jobs. This increases the global inbalance. These jobs are not being created due to a strengthening economy, they are being created due to our artificial, temporary and destructive "stimulus." They are forcing our country to get deeper into debt and create massive inflation."

Translation: The result is that YOU (and everyone else in America) WILL BE PAYING HIGHER PRICES FOR EVERYTHING YOU PURCHASE. Inflation is unfair.

Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia. Is WF treating the Wachovia loans differently than their own?

I would argue that there is some manufacturing under the 'health care' term. Some times when I use some piece of equipment, ie, blood tubing, 3-way stopcock, needle, syringe, etc, I look at the 'Made in ____' and you'd be surprised how many say some town in Minnesota or Indiana, etc.