Posted On: December 30, 2008, 3:29 pm CST

Posted By: Independent

Its easy to point fingers now that everything has hit the fan.

Dems and Reps both have to take some accountability.

More importantly the consumers and loan originators have to shoulder much of the blame.

If your going to purchase the largest item of your lifetime, don't you have some responsibility to understand exactly what type of loan contract you are signing up for? Many of these people who's ARM came due and were not able to pay, shouldn't have been in those homes to begin with. They went in with the idea that the housing market would continue to climb at record rates and when their ARM came due in 3 or 5 years, they would have a good deal of equity in it to sell or refinance. That Bet by the consumers put them in this position.

Secondly, the loan originators were allowed to act recklessly. Who regulates these guys??? No one. What kind of license or qualifications do you need to be a mortgage broker??? None. You had no oversight or regulations for these guys and they capitalized on it. I had many guys I knew that were making 100K, 200K closing 10 loans every month. Stated income loans could be about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Who in their right mind would allow this? There was more underwriting involved in buying a used car, than a 350K house.

Point being, when you throw common sense out the window and greed takes over you run the risk of todays housing mess to occur.

Quite pointing all of our fingers in the direction of the politicians and lets start holding people accountable at the point of sale.