People have been buying places to live in for hundred's even thousand's of years. We are no different in that respect today. However we are different in how we pay for and use our homes. Of course, I am talking about the loans we have.
Back in the 1940's you could borrow to buy a home for a maximum term of 7 years. This practice was based off of the Biblical mandate that all property be returned to its original owner every 7 years (called the year of Jubilee). Anyway, today we can get loans for cars for 7 years and in some cases longer than that. Of course, if you buy some cars you need to spread the payments that long in order to be able to make the payment. Unreal!
As you know, you can get home loans for 30 years today but you may not know that you can get them for 40 even 50 years. You can get all kinds of mortgages today. You may have read about how the mortgage companies have contributed to the current housing mess with some of the loans they were making. I agree with that to a point but I want to call US out today. US being home owners. I will share a couple of points below and would love to hear your feedback.
1) We as mortgage consumers should never blindly accept what a mortgage rep (or anyone else for that matter) is trying to sell us on. If you can comprehend what they are saying go it alone, however the vast, vast majority of us are no where near prepared to make that decision based solely on what we are being told. Seek counsel, it is a Biblical principle you know (Proverbs 12:15)
2) We as homeowners should never use our equity as a banking account. As a whole, we want what we want when we want it (nice sentence huh?). This has led to the issue we find ourselves in now. (http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080306/home_equity.html). Homeowners have the least percentage of equity since 1945. That is staggering. This is SQUARELY ON US. We have got to get our wants under control. In my mind, it is unacceptable to use your home equity to buy things you otherwise could not afford.
Enough of my ranting! I don't mean to sound course or nuts about this but it is a huge issue. If we continue to use our equity like this what happens when we have a TRUE emergency? We as Christians should stand out of the crowd when bad times come. They are coming, will you be ready??
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hey Jamie, from one finance nerd to probably another, Great Blog! God has given us the Bible so that we have an instruction manuel to live by. It is amazing that more people/christians don't turn to the Bible for financial advice. Proverbs 22:7 The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is Slave to the lender. Keep up the good work!
Post a Comment