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Home Ownership for Dummies
Today's Jeffersonian reports that people are complaining about having to travel to Towson from elsewhere in the county to attend a workshop that would qualify them for the county's Settlement Expense Loan Program (SELP). The article quotes one community "leader" thus:
" ' You don't have a (low-income, first-time home buyer) program and have people traveling all the way to Towson,' said Lansdowne resident Theresa Lowry, co-director of the Southwest Leadership Team that serves Baltimore Highlands, Lansdowne and Riverview."
I respectfully disagree. Owning a home is a pain in the neck that requires planning and sacrifice. And a person who cannot find a way from Lansdowne to Towson for one crummy evening seminar will probably fail as a homeowner the first time a toilet backs up, the roof leaks, or only cold water comes out of the "hot" tap.
While we are about convincing people that owning their home is The American Dream, we need to convince them keeping that house in shape and keeping the mortgage paid is Job One. As with having children, home ownership is a tremendous burden; one which not everyone is suited to bear. There are many for whom clothes, a fancy car, and "partying" will always be the prime attractions. When do-gooders go out of their way to qualify such people to purchase a house, they are often setting in motion a chain of events that is bound to end in failure.
The SELP programs have been around long enough now that some follow-up ought to be possible. Ditto for all the mortgage qualification schemes that burden borrowers with debt beyond the tried-and-true 28% figure. Before throwing good money after bad, the county government ought to determine whether there is a correlation between foreclosures and purchase transactions in which someone has gone to excessive lengths to qualify a purchaser.
Contrary to common belief, no lender profits when a house ends up in foreclosure. And the losses on those deals end up passed along, in the form of increased loan costs, to the people who are willing and able to delay gratification and make owning their residence the primary goal.
Frankly, the rest don't even make suitable tenants. As a small-potatoes landlord I had all too much experience with tenants who would skip the rent payment to buy Christmas presents for the kids, another case of beer, etcetera. Hardly anything is more galling than having a tenant call on her cell phone to tell you she "won't have the rent this month," all the while puffing on a cigarette purchased at $4 a pack.
There is no helping people who are poor because they have bad judgment.