by Adam Lee Buller

Created on: June 30, 2008   Last Updated: July 10, 2008

As someone who works in Financial Services I have recently come across many individuals and families who are on the brink of losing their homes. Many of the people I meet are not greedy, money-grabbing individuals who bought their homes trying to make a quick buck, these are just the minority who quite possibly deserve to be in the situation they now find themselves, the majority however are merely hard working people trying desperately to provide a good secure life for themselves and if they have them their children. Unfortunately along the way, misled by the fear of seeing their goal of owning their owning home quickly slipping further and further out of reach and the view that fooled many even very financially aware investors that property was only going to continue to rise in value , these hard working people made some very serious errors of judgment, financially over-committing themselves to levels where they can no longer cope.

As much as my heart goes out to many of these families, when faced with the question of whether government should step in to bail these individuals out my answer is an overwhelming NO! The repercussions on society of taking such a course would be catastrophic!

The decision to buy a home along with others, for instance what career path to choose, who we wish to spend the rest of our lives with and if or when we want to start a family are among the biggest we will make in life. These major decisions should be taken with great care as they will financially and emotionally affect us for a very long time if not the rest of our lives. Over recent years we as a society seem to have forgotten this and if we begin or in some cases continue to reward people who make foolish decisions by bailing them out we will remove any reason for people to make well thought out, wise decisions, that lead to a stable society in which people think before they act and not the other way around.

As an example for every foolish financial decision that has been made in regard to over committing to a mortgage that could not be repaid there will be someone who foresaw that house prices could not continue to rise in value forever and that the housing bubble would burst at some point then allowing them to buy a property at a reasonable affordable price. In the meantime they may also have decided to save a chunky deposit so they they could get a better rate on a mortgage and give them a buffer against any possible further declines in house prices that may otherwise

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