129
They bought homes at the peak of Austin's housing boom. Now they're taking devastating losses.
(www.businessinsider.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2026
129 points (95.7% liked)
News
39199 readers
3747 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
OK, so if all house values have crashed at the same rate (generally what happens in cases like this), the equity that they lost doesn't make much of a difference because they can buy a new, larger home with the difference still based on your new sell value.
Of course, this can mean being "underwater" but that literally does not matter in the big picture (besides of course the mental burden of having to give more than needed to corrupt banks), provided that you are still able to afford the mortgage. 2008 included massive job loss which means people would have had to walk away from their mortgages even if their houses appreciated as people without jobs could not buy the houses.
If you bought a mortgage you can't afford because you wanted a house during a huge bubble, then you already fucked yourself regardless of the market. Or if you lost you job in a bad market (like now), then it is really unfortunate and the billionaires and companies need to be compelled to actually pay their taxes to keep the unemployment payments running.
One thing to note on your first point: Generally speaking, the only time that equity loss doesn't make a difference is if there is no mortgage. If you do have a mortgage; When housing prices are stagnate or increase, you can sell your home for a similar one with little to no loss (the buyer of your house effectively pays off your old mortgage and you roll your equity into your new mortgage).
BUT, if prices tank while you still have a significant portion of your mortgage owed: you're screwed when you need to relocate. The sell price of your house won't cover the reminder of the mortgage. If you need to move, you either pay it off (hope you don't need to move for work) or foreclose. The bank is cool with either - they couldn't care less about you.
Edit: Clarity and typos.
In the 2008 crash, a friend's house was stolen by a bank. He was upside-down but making his payments, and the bank forced foreclosure anyway, sold the house to a subsidiary for an absurdly low price, and sold it two years later at a massive profit. My friend, his wife and son moved in with me. I'm hoping the CEO of that bank gets his own personal Luigi, and the first shot is in the guts.
That should definitely be illegal... Absolutely zero logic, just corruption.
Also hoping for the worst for that CEO, the board, and the entire management suite.