if your mortgage is less than $500,000 and your monthly payment is more than a buck fifty, we need to talk

How stupid do these people think we are, or more to the point, how stupid are people?

The mortgage refinance business is way out of control. From where I sit, people appear to be getting themselves in all sorts of trouble with creatively financed homes, where the monthly payment is something close to chump change now, but oooh you wait. If you still have this mortgage in 3 years, you're life is going to be a living hell when the payment zooms past the national debt. Either that, or you will own less of your house in those three years than you do when you start the payments. There are people out there now who fell for this three years ago and are losing their homes. Learn from them. Don't follow in their footsteps. It's not worth living in some huge fancy house now, so you can be out on the street in three years. I listen to these ads on the radio and just wonder. Who falls for this crap? I can see the interest only mortgage plan three years ago, if you want to live cheap, know you're going to move out in a few years and are willing to take a calculated risk with your living arrangements. The housing bubble was just getting bigger, and it seemed a reasonable gamble, if you weren't going to stay in a house for very long, to sit on whatever appreciation was coming for free and cash out later. Whatever apprecation the value of the house gained would be yours to pocket. That was then though, and now, that calculated risk isn't looking so good. The housing bubble burst, and homes aren't appreciating like they were then. Those mortgages with low starting rates that soar after three years weren't all that great a deal then, but they're looking real ugly now. People are losing their homes at a ridiculous rate now...so how are there still people who can watch that and say, "Sure! Sounds good. Sign me up."?

Listen people. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Learn it. Live it.