Caught between a basket of laundry and a vacuum, I had the TV going in the background and it ended up being the Oprah show (don't I just sound domestic?!). Did anyone catch this? It was an inside look to really, what the housing crisis is doing to many former middle-class Americans.
Adjustable rate mortgages skyrocketing into unreasonable payments, more former homeowners and families are becoming borderline, if not fully, homeless. A few of the families had been iirresponsible and frivolous with their spending, now finding themselves unemployed and wondering where they will sleep for the long term.
Being in the industry and "knowing" about this type of tragedy day in and day out,....here's what really got to me. There were literally 50+ year old people living in TENTS, too ashamed to let their families know they had expired their finances and could no longer afford any sustainable living or employment situation. Are we that far gone as a society where, in the worst of worst, we would let our own PARENTS sleep in a tent, to let God knows what happen? Almost any person from any other country would have themselves been ashamed to allow this sort of thing to happen. I will refrain from going on even more about this, but that to me was just beyond heart-wrenching.
A point that Oprah had made was that, in times like these, families are becoming closer, enjoying time together more and learning to appreciate the smaller things again, rather than needing a huge house, giant SUV, frequent trips, and expensive toys.
It just seems it shouldn't take leading your children from shelter to shelter with a garbage bag with your belongings in it to get back to that...
This is bad folks, and this is reality. Still not convinced you as a RE professional need to learn to do what you can to keep people in their homes? (ie SHORT SALES?)
This is heartbreaking....and truly a call to action for our industry. What do you guys think?
Here's the link to the story so you can visit yourself:
http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090218_tows_lisa-ling-recession
(Please note the Oprah show retains full copyright to the above information in entirety)
Would be interested to hear your thoughts!
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