Good for Eric. I bought my first house 2 years ago during the boom, and still managed to get a decent deal on a house with a 30 year fixed at 6%.

Although I place most of the blame at the feet of the mortgage lenders, a lot of the harm resulted from these idiot speculators and their 'get rich overnight with real estate' cd kits. Every time I hear a story about someone getting stuck with 20 condos they can't sell I just have to laugh.

Here let me buy you that barrel and suspenders. You're gounna need 'em.

No joke those numbers don't add up, and I see that everywhere. I just closed on my house 4 months ago and went with a conventional 30 fixed and couldn't feel more secure about my loan.

I can't imagine being able to sleep at night with a variable rate type loan.

I bought my home in 2004 and attended free classes provided by the county for first time home buyers. It was totally worth my time and I highly recommend them. I didn't qualify for any of the fianancial assistance from them, but that's worth a shot too. Did a 30 year fixed rate too. I don't feel sorry for those people who got caught up with it and did variable rates.

i don't wish to be a troll, but the grammar nazi in me has to say this.

the heading should be "answers" and not "answer's".

Aigh! Grocer's Apostrophe! Et tu Ben?

@medalian1: I was able to go to one of those classes as well.

I put 10% of the purchase as down payment. Then through the county, thanks to that class I went to, I got a freaking interest-free mortgage on 15% of the reminder of the purchase price. The rest is in a fixed 5.9% 30 year mortgage.

It's definitely worth checking with your local departments if you are a first-time home buyers. This is saving me some cash.

What's great is that not only do the numbers not add up in terms of the mortgage payment itself, it totally doesn't take into account property tax, which on a $425k house would probably be almost $1000/month(guestimate based on my home value/tax cost) where I live. :o

My daughter works for a mortgage company. I notice that the advertiser is Lending Tree. This is a lead generating company. They charge mortgage companies $25 to $75 for leads. There are hundreds of these lead generators, posing as mortgage companies, on the web. Anyone that would post their personal financial information on the web is asking for trouble.

I had a broker trying to push me on a Interest Only for a while. It felt so bad I am glad I avoided it. Too bad others didn't pay attention.

I saw the same irony a few weeks ago on MSN... this screencap is funny, thanks to the woman's reaction to receiving such a low rate:

$500,000 mortgage for $1700/month!

Hmmm... seems like the 'Shack URL got hacked.

http://img410.imageshack.us/my.php?image=msnsubprimemortga...

@quagmire0:

good point! Don't forget insurance too.

@joeblevins:

Interest Only loans are only bad if you truly can't afford your loan. With an IO, you can pay above the balance each month, and that all goes to principal. With my IO, I've set it up so I'm actually paying more principal than I would be with a traditional 30-year fixed, and I got a better interest rate.