“Were You One of those that Gave Those Bad Loans?”

I don’t get asked this question very often, but this was one of those opportunities to address the question. I was recently at a networking event and happen to speak to a gal that makes her living buying and selling art. When I told her what I did for a living, she asked me if I was one of those people that gave those bad loans.

There was a bit of anger in her tone, so I asked her if she had been involved with “one of those bad loans”. Well as a matter of fact we were. She told me that she and her husband lost their home a few years earlier. I was a bit surprised she was willing to share such intimate information with someone that she had just met.

We sat together for a half hour, as she told me that she and her husband got a stated income loan, that they never could afford. I knew she wasn’t going to like my next questions, but asked her, if you knew you couldn’t afford the home and the payment, why did you decide to take on the obligation? I could immediately see her struggle to come up with an answer. I asked her if she felt the two of them should take any responsibility rather than only the person that did their mortgage?

Losing a home is devastating, especially for folks in their 60’s, it stinks. There were a lot of bad loans done, this was one of them that should never have been done. She asked me one final question, would you have done our mortgage? I wouldn’t, but you might have gone down the street and done it somewhere else, no matter what.

I thanked her for sharing her story with me and wished her much success in her business.