Today's Sun (London) ran a clever piece where the reporter, Tim Spanton, tracked down two living breathing humans who go by the names "Freddie Mac" and "Fannie May" and guess what? They are having a tough time too: FREDDIE Mackie — known as Freddie Mac — lives with his wife Carol in a two-bed terraced house in Glasgow. Amazingly, he is a mortgage broker. And he has had to take on a second job as a debt adviser to survive. Instead of 40 hours a week, he now works 60 to try to maintain his £25,000 a year pay. (Approx. $44,000 US dollars.)
Dad-of-one Freddie, 56, left, said: “It is ridiculous. You work twice as hard just to stand still. There was no way I could afford to have my normal quality of life if I didn’t take another job.”
RETIRED teacher Fannie MAY is trying to beat the crunch by going back to work as a rock singer. Fannie, 53, of Cambridge, quit school earlier this year to record an album after cutbacks saw her do more work for no pay rise.
The widowed mum of one has a £400,000 mortgage (approx. $703K US) and is worried house price falls could leave her in negative equity. She also invested in property but is now selling her five flats.
She said: “I hoped the flats would give me a healthy pension but it’s an uncertain future.”
(Thanks to Paul Kedrosky for the tip.)
2 comments:
Just let my house go. Should I feel guilty about contributing to the failing investment banks? Lehman Bros just cut their dividends to stakeholders by 93%. I tried to cut my principle by any amount my bank would agree to. Considering I owed $332,000 on my home (no lines of credit from equity involved, fixed mortgage)and the value fell to $166,000, I thought they might have some flexibility. Nope. I actually didn't talk to the bank, they had no one handling my foreclosure. There was no one there to talk too.
The mortgage insurance company was the liaison. They basically said I need to pay up everything one way or the other. Now.
Given the projected rising volume of home foreclosures on the horizon, these banks better start realizing their not in the cat bird seat.
DD
Wow. What a roller coaster of a tale. Truth is, there's enough blame to go around. Read this morning about the ghost towns of new home developments in Las Vegas and empty condo towers in Florida and again ... I dream of yurts.
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