Talk Elections

I wonder how many people here really felt the effects of the crisis through losing a home, declaring bankruptcy, or knowing a close friend or relative who did.

No, because I rent and would never live in the suburbs.

I see. This confirms my suspicion that you are the only person you know.

And everyone else I know rents and doesn't live in the suburbs (which makes perfect sense, how many 21-24 year old suburban homeowners do you know?) except for relatives and I don't know of any of them being affected. So there you go.

Actually I do know a handful, unaware if they were really affected however.

Right now you seem to be the exception, hmm.

I purchased a home right when everybody else was getting into these stupid, risky loans.  People who study this kind of thing were saying then that it was going to lead to trouble with all of these people banking that housing prices would just keep going up forever.  I chose to get a regular old 30 year home loan like everybody has for the past 50 years or so.  I didn't buy a McMansion I couldn't really aford just because somebody was willing to loan me the money for it.  

Why should my tax dollars go to bail out people that did this so they can stay in their houses they can't really afford?

I know plenty of people who can't afford to live in the villages they grew up in because a load of rich incomers have priced them out of the market. Is that what thee mean?

No, everyone I know either rents or already has their mortgage's on their house's paid off.

No. We have owned this house for 17 years.

We aren't really having a housing crisis here.  Yes, prices have stopped rising and there are fewer buyers than there were, but nobody is losing their houses.

We're so poor here that we don't notice ups and downs.. we're just always "down".

No. Small 3 bedroom/2 bathroom houses still sell for over $1 million. The housing crisis doesn't touch super-rich white-collar majority-Asian California suburbs.