TG
Two points. There are plenty of folks with good income and actually decent credit scores who cant buy homes. Not everyone ends up with sub 600 FICO’s. I have seen 780 FICO scores documented by past clients 6 months after a short sale. What they cant get is gov’t backed mortgages because they dont qualify under the guidelines.
As convenient as it may be to think all these people bought vacation homes, timeshares, lavish vacation, expensive cars etc I have seen otherwise. The ones who were that irresponsible were more often than not in the liar loan crowd based upon what i have run into. Most of the ones I have run into lived pretty modest lives and this was their one big mistake. Many spent years trying to keep the property but eventually realized it was futile. I have clients that moved into parents homes and rented out their underwater while supplementing the shortfall for 4 years. Eventually the writing was on the wall for them.
People with bad credit but very good incomes are all over the place these days. None of my clients has had any trouble finding a nice rental as long as they have income. Thats all landlords really care about.
Just to be clear. I am not saying the well employed are the majority. What I am saying is they are the better tenants out there than the liar loan crowd. So paramounts older, smallish house appeals to the liar loan crowd while the well employed still have the income to rent a nicer/newer home. Nothing more, nothing less.