Will Jesus forgive home loan debts?

All well and good, but what will he do for us renters?

As the person who started this thread, I feel the need to publicly clarify that I do not have any connection with David Stansfields production, and neither am I able to endorse it.

G’day Gordon,

I agree with comments that the response below is a bit glib.

Gordon Cheng - 23 June 2008 12:07 AM

People could always sell their houses. I often thought that when looking at the stressed people in the neighbourhood of one of the places I used to live. House sold, mortgage stress reduces to zero.

No matter how much Christians might want to sell their home: a. there may be no-one prepared to buy it - this will become an increasing possibility with the way finance is going; b. if they did find someone to buy it, the price they get could be lower than the debt they owe - this would mean that people still end up with debt, so it may be more worthwhile to sit it out; and, c., who says they’ll get a job in Bathurst?

J.

I was forced to sell my house when my marriage ended. Being a typical Sydney-sider, I was devasted.

In hindsight, being forced to get rid of that mortgage was one of the best things that ever happened to me in a spiritual sense. There is much to be said for living, as much as possible, a debt free life.

Thank you for your queries / concerns.  Please note that I have published my resonses under “Mortgage Stress” in the General Discussion area.

Craig Schwarze - 26 September 2008 08:48 PM

I was forced to sell my house when my marriage ended. Being a typical Sydney-sider, I was devasted.

In hindsight, being forced to get rid of that mortgage was one of the best things that ever happened to me in a spiritual sense. There is much to be said for living, as much as possible, a debt free life.

I wonder how many marriages will end when the home loans default? I wonder if a significant enough bunch of home owners default… where these people will rent?

I blame both the greedy Wall Street financial system AND the town planners. If town planners condensed our town plans into New Urbanism townships connected by rail, we could place more people on less land creating more affordable accommodation closer together, eliminate a lot of traffic and pollution problems, and create more vital communities.

Developers have a cheap product — suburbia — that they wish to spew out over our entire globe. They’re in league with too many politicians, so I don’t have a lot of hope that we’ll be able to democratically select for politicians that will actually change our city plans and facilitate New Urbanism modes of living.  Australians are often just not aware of the benefits of car-free New Urban living.