3.28.2012

Details on Robert and Karilyn Bales' mortgage hell

Earlier this month, we posted on the financial problems of accused mass murderer Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.

Now the full-time journalists at the Seattle Times fill in the details.
Records show the couple's financial dilemma accelerated in 2006, when Karilyn Bales refinanced their four-bedroom Lake Tapps home — and an Auburn duplex she owned before she married Robert — all on the same day through Paramount Equity Mortgage. With Robert deployed, she signed the paperwork.

The California lender, which Washington state regulators previously had accused of deceptive practices, put her into two loans considered "subprime," with high interest rates, prepayment penalties, and balloon payments, records show.

In all, the couple borrowed more than $500,000 as the housing market was nearing its historic implosion. Their homes now have a combined assessed value of $358,000.
Robert Bales was no angel. But as the war machine was chewing him up and spitting him out, the banksters were doing the same thing to his family back home.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know what the old lady spent that cash-out refinance money on...

Party on Wayne
Party on Garth

Kenny Bing said...

From the article -
"Like many Americans, the couple had dug themselves into a sizable hole, records show."

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"He gets by on you. No his mind is not for rent. To any god or government. Always hopeful, yet discontent. He knows changes aren't permanent"
- Rush

Too often, we don't tell the tribe to go fuck itself.

Anonymous said...

What was the 500,000 used for??

Anonymous said...

Banks made them borrow the money.

Banks made him go crazy and kill those poor people.

I go back further. I blame math. Bankers use math and other numerical trickery to operate so I feel math should get part of the blame.

Kenny Bing said...

"What was the 500,000 used for??"

"Pregnant with her first child, and with her husband in Iraq, Karilyn Bales took advantage of what seemed like a sure thing — tapping into their home equity to help stabilize the family's finances."

'Cause we all know how "stabilizing" it is to go a cool half a mil into debt using the grand old shack as collateral, right?

This country is so full of shit that it has brown eyes.

Anonymous said...

He was making $68,000 a year tax free and they only had two kids. I supported my family on about half of that and didn't have use a house as an ATM so I don't get what the problem was. Drugs or gambling maybe?

Happy Super Tuesday!