The Leonard Lopate Show

While unscrupulous bankers have some part in this problem, too much emphasis is being taken off of the responsibility of the homeowner to understand their own finances.

Homeowners speculated on the real estate market.

Homeowners used their equity as a bank account to pay for luxury goods.

Homeowners falsified applications (with the assistance of loan officers & brokers) to get loans they knew were unsustainable.

People who treated their homes with care and exercised financial prudence are not being foreclosed upon unless they suffered some other problem.

PLEASE ask your guests to comment on the generally shoddy financial reporting in this country...the 10-second comment on the evening news, it's impact on the mood of buyers and seller, and how it could be made better.

love the show.

People who exercised fiscal responsible behavior should be assisted. the rest can sink; including the banks. Why should everyone else pay to bail out people who took undue risk. I am targeted for abusive loans from credit card companies all the time. My answer is I don't take the lender up on the offer.

Can you discuss purchasing a foreclosed home?

Please give more time to Mr. MacKenzie. Josh is really taking over your interview.

Part of this issue of "duped" borrowers are borrowers who did not take the necessary care to examine the loan documentation, either themselves if capable, or through an attorney and can be attributed to willful negligence. When an innocent borrower was duped, they should be helped. I believe this is really a very small minority and not worthy of a national debate.

lenders pressured appraisers to "properly" appraise homes to allow deals to go through. There are investigations currently underway and prosecutions are forthcoming.

part of the problem with a cure to this issue is determining who is to be helped. Using "primary residence" as the determining factor is problematic because many of these loans were required to be primary residences when in fact the borrower did not and never intended to live in the property. making this determination is more difficult than many people believe.

It is not very long ago that losses in residential real estate were widespread. It is amazing that even well intentioned and educated people were seduced by the notion that real estate appreciation was practically guaranteed. Buyers, lenders, regulators, rating agencies, and investors all had a vested interest in perpetuating the sham.

I just heard on NPR yesterday that developers are leaning on congress to help them in light of the current situation, and threatening to pull their contributions otherwise.

So, it's ok for congress to help them out of the problems of saturation-- which they caused?! And blame it on the homebuyers' irresponsibility, that's rich.

when banks refused to loan to people of color it was called redlining,

now that they have they are accused of some form of vampirism.