Financial Reflections

It seems no one can avoid foreclosure these days.

First of all, from the “I could have seen that coming” category, rapper DMX is about to lose his big house due to a trip to the big house.  The police broke the doors down, they stayed down and as often happens to vacant properties, looters came and cleaned the place out.  Living large and breaking the law don’t mix.

But now even churches are facing both foreclosure and bankruptcy.  That’s unfortunate, but inevitable with the parishioners of those churches fighting to stay in their own homes.  Could churches have planned a little better?  Maybe.  But something tells me many churches are conservative with their finances (at least relative to rappers) and the economy is in quite a tailspin to bring them down.

Maybe better evidence of how foreclosure is hitting everyone is to take a look at renters.  When you pay rent, you’d think the landlord would automatically turn around and pay the loan on the property first.  That’s probably the case a vast majority of the time, but things have gotten so bad that renters are losing their home as the property owner is getting foreclosed on.  Should tenants be allowed to run credit checks on landlords?  I don’t think that will happen anytime soon, but here’s some advice from the LA Times if your landlord goes into foreclosure.

It is estimated that 3 million homes will face foreclosure in 2009.  That’s a daunting number.  There are alternatives out there for people in that situation.  Right now, I’m glad I’m not in that situation.

What’s your situation?  Are you facing foreclosure?  Let me know in the comments below…