Does U.S. Really Support a Home Mortgage Bailout?

Politicians are sorely misreading public opinion of imperiled homeowners who bought into the bubble, according to a Los Angeles Times editorial.

President George W. Bush announced his intention last week to reach out a hand to the “many Americans” who “may have been misled” in the sub-prime (bad credit mortgage) market. Moreover…

• Two days earlier, presidential aspirant Sen. Barack Obama called for fining “predatory lenders” to bail out “hoodwinked” families.
• L.A. City Councilman Richard Alarcon wants a $5-million revolving fund to “help homeowners on the verge of foreclosure.”
• The media reports on families losing homes, disabled owners facing foreclosure and newlyweds being tossed into the street.

But here’s one tale of subprime woe you may not have heard.

Casey Serin, a real estate investor in Sacramento, bought eight houses in four states with little or no money down, couldn’t sell them and couldn’t pay the mortgage loans, and so began losing them to foreclosure.

He then began keeping a self-pitying online diary he called Iamfacingforeclosure.com.

Serin hasn’t drawn much notice from politicians or the media, but bloggers have so vilified him that CNet’s news.com granted him the title “world’s most hated blogger.”

And cases like his help explain the disconnect between public opinion and bailout happy politicians and the elite media:

According to a recent Fox News poll, there’s 70 percent opposition to a taxpayer sub-prime home loan bailout.

Most people actually believe homeowners themselves - at least far more often than not - are to blame for their own home mortgage problems.

How can people oppose helping out their fellow Americans? Easy.

Many saw this crisis coming years ago - not through any real estate wizardry but by observing the signs that have been in front of us through most of this decade.

In large parts of the United States - and in all of the Southern California housing market - real estate turned into an obsession, a mania.

So when the mortgage industry nearly collapsed this summer, Americans were already fully versed in 100 percent financing, “no doc loans,” “teaser rates” and “flippers.”

There was no mystery here.

Continue reading this editorial here …