52 Books in 52 Weeks: Book 2

This week's book continue with the theme of homes but with a decidedly different perspective. Our Lot: How Real Estate Came to Own Us by Alyssa Katz is a look into the housing boom and subsequent economic crash. 

The substance of this particular book made me mad at the government (Democrats & Republicans) as well as at private industry (at least the individuals who perpetuated mortgage fraud). It looks into the history of real estate and the patterns that have been repeated since the 1920s when Americans traded their freedom for debt. 

A good portion of the book describes how the poor and uneducated were affected, but later in the book, the author explores educated people who were scammed out of large sums of money (if you are from Arkansas and had a negative experience with Avedis, you might understand the educated people who lost big bucks in scams in Florida).

Here are excerpts of some of my favorite passages from this books:

"Sub-prime lending joined malt liquor and the lottery as a corner industry that sold the promise of escape."

"Does home ownership create better neighbors or neighborhoods? Or are neighborly and thrifty people more likely than others to become homeowners in the first place?"

"More than anything, Fannie Mae made working people comfortable with the idea of taking on vast debt as the price for participating in the American dream."

 "Home ownership reached its all-time peak at the end of 2004... the only sensible thing to do was to borrow as much money as possible. The capitalist minded borrowed to maximize leverage and therefore gains." *This applied to us in 2005. We did not max out what we could borrow, but we did take advantage of a no-money down mortgage to purchase our first home.

"If you want to know who is responsible for the sub-prime crisis, it is the Congress of the United States of America. They created premption for state banks, federal banks and savings and loans. It is the result of years of high-powered lobbying." – Governor Ray Barnes (GA)