It doesn't matter

Houses don't matter.

Interest rates don't matter.

Jobs and Paychecks don't matter.

Closed Deals don't matter.

It is Humans that matter.

I can't help but wonder how many lives are deeply effected each and every day by this market? 

For a minute... think about all the Homeowners that can't make their payments.  The stress they must experience every time the phone rings.  Is it yet another call from the Lender?  "I couldn't make the payment yesterday when they called - why would they think I could make the payment today?" 

  How about the homeowner who's current or has no mortgage but is rapidly nearing retirement?  They might have lost much of their investments (401k and IRAs) in housing and financial stocks.  They might have hoped their home was their retirement.  Years ago they thought,  "We'll sell the house and that'll fund our retirement."  They still might be able to sell today, but at what price?  Can they hold on long enough?

How about the landlord / investor who's mortgage payment just adjusted.  Running a negative cash flow doesn't bode well for them.  There's more than just the landlord.  What about the tenants?  They paid their rent each and every month on time.  What happens to them when their landlord goes belly up?  

How about those that are in the industry?  The loan officers, the real estate agents, the processors, the title and escrow people, the appraisers, the wholesale reps, the builders, the managers, the underwriters, the secondary mortgage people, the risk managers, the list goes on and on.  Don't forget about the faceless ones you'll never hear of that work in back rooms and cubicles.  All their incomes are down.  All their business is off.  They may be one of the millions of job cuts.  Perhaps their company abruptly shut their doors.  Or maybe they just blindly reduced staffing.  Perhaps this is all that they've been doing for the last 20 years.  Perhaps it's the only job they know.  Will they land on their feet?   Will they be able to find gainful employment?

How about the industries associated to housing?  They are just as much connected.  The electricians, the carpenters, the roofers, the painters.  How about the people working in the lumber mills, the steel factories, the supply chains?  How about the big box retailers?  Home Depot and Lowes?  Their numbers are still good but the crunch will catch up to them soon enough.

  It's easy to get caught up in labels and numbers.  The Evil Lenders.  The Greedy Loan Officers.  The Heartless Wall Street Bankers.  Foreclosures at record numbers.  Subprime mortgages and ARMs resetting.  Bernanke this, and Greenspan that.  Bush, Paulson and Mozilla.  None of it really matters. 

HUMANS MATTER

Relationships matter.  Family matters.  Behind every story, every headline, every news report, every foreclosed sign there is a human story - someone is suffering.  Chances are it's much more than one person.  It's a family.  It's kids, it's wives, it's husbands, grandchildren, Aunts and Uncles, Cousins and Friends.

Just something to keep in mind.

Humans Matter