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Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

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Re: Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

#31

It seems to me a huge bank like Bank of America is well-capitalized to start a huge investment project into a troubled area of a city that will: 1. provide wealth to it's residents 2. fix crime and blight 3. help alleviate housing affordability crisis Right now, a troubled area might have housing wealth be 1/4 of a nearby affluent area. But generally, this is simply because of crime and bad schools due to the cycle o…

What you're missing is that those are typically functions of a government, which Bank of America is not.

This is "hacker" news, since when is an appropriate answer "that's now how it's usually done."

Re: Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're missing is that those are typically functions of a government, which Bank of America is not.

This is "hacker" news, since when is an appropriate answer "that's now how it's usually done."

Eh, the whole Omnicorp takes over the Detroit police department to clean up the slums thing isn't all that new - it was the plot of Robocop after all.

Re: Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is "hacker" news, since when is an appropriate answer "that's now how it's usually done."

Eh, the whole Omnicorp takes over the Detroit police department to clean up the slums thing isn't all that new - it was the plot of Robocop after all.

How is that similar? I'm not talking about anything with PD. Simply incentivizing troubled areas with wealth for simply not doing the things that makes their assets worth so much less. There is absolutely a non-zero amount of people, who if given steady income, would not be committing crimes of poverty. That income can come from the housing wealth generation. It's just a matter of where on the range of 1 - 100% can those issues be stopped with adequate wealth.

Re: Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

#34
post #28

It seems to me a huge bank like Bank of America is well-capitalized to start a huge investment project into a troubled area of a city that will: 1. provide wealth to it's residents 2. fix crime and blight 3. help alleviate housing affordability crisis Right now, a troubled area might have housing wealth be 1/4 of a nearby affluent area. But generally, this is simply because of crime and bad schools due to the cycle o…

> But generally, this is simply because of crime and bad schools due to the cycle of poverty. What makes the schools bad, if they receive on-average marginally higher per-pupil funding than mostly-white schools [1]? [1] on average, both Black and Latinx total per pupil expenditures exceed White total per pupil expenditures by $229.53 and $126.15 - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584198724... - I ca…

I'm not really talking about just handing out more money to schools, nor debating whether schools received less funding. The school problem comes from both not valuing education and people who have had a rougher go at life that the problem keeps perpetuating in their children. (dad in jail, mom on drugs, mom working 2 jobs so has no time and the children just hang with other older children, etc.). Feel free to send your kid to that school if you think it's just as fair a shot at life.

Re: Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

#35

Different media outlets have publicized this story by claiming that this program was just for Black and Latino buyers (pretty racist for a company to sell different products and have different policies for people based on race), while this story says that this program is in historically Black and Latino neighborhoods. Kind of a difference if it's open to all people or not. Which is it? Personally, I'd say that the ''…

The US government made money from the 2008 bailout. I don't understand why people think it was free money to the banks. No, they were loans that were fully paid back with interest.

This is fugazi concocted by the financial industry to mislead the public. The devastation they wrought on the economy and the consequences for ordinary people weren't fully captured by those loans. For example: the Fed's aggressive quantitative easing policy that had been in effect for more than a decade post 08.

Re: Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, the whole Omnicorp takes over the Detroit police department to clean up the slums thing isn't all that new - it was the plot of Robocop after all.

How is that similar? I'm not talking about anything with PD. Simply incentivizing troubled areas with wealth for simply not doing the things that makes their assets worth so much less. There is absolutely a non-zero amount of people, who if given steady income, would not be committing crimes of poverty. That income can come from the housing wealth generation. It's just a matter of where on the range of 1 - 100% can t…

I'd also note that the we haven't figured out the whole nearly invincible cyborg cop aspect yet either, so that's a fairly significant difference too.

Mostly I assume that if Bank of America thought they could make money doing what you say, then they'd probably be doing it already. If they'd lose money on it, then there's no way they'd do it. That's one of the ways that American companies are just refreshingly simple.

On another note - I really don't understand what housing wealth is supposed to do for people. My house has increased in value around 200% in the last decade. And? Sure I've got more money on paper, but what am I supposed to do? Sell it and live in my car? (I think I could pull off van life maybe.) All that's happened is I have to pay ever more in property taxes.

Re: Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

#37
post #28

It seems to me a huge bank like Bank of America is well-capitalized to start a huge investment project into a troubled area of a city that will: 1. provide wealth to it's residents 2. fix crime and blight 3. help alleviate housing affordability crisis Right now, a troubled area might have housing wealth be 1/4 of a nearby affluent area. But generally, this is simply because of crime and bad schools due to the cycle o…

> But generally, this is simply because of crime and bad schools due to the cycle of poverty. What makes the schools bad, if they receive on-average marginally higher per-pupil funding than mostly-white schools [1]? [1] on average, both Black and Latinx total per pupil expenditures exceed White total per pupil expenditures by $229.53 and $126.15 - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584198724... - I ca…

When schools have increased funding it doesn't magically solve the problems. You will still have high crime levels, gang problems, lower attendance, less educated parents, less likely to have a stay at home parent, less money for tutoring, less stable housing, less likely to have 2 parents in the household, etc.

Don't get me wrong, money does play an impact, but only when the families have it. When families are wealthier their kids do better even if their school is getting less funding than some of these schools in poor areas.

Re: Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

#39
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But generally, this is simply because of crime and bad schools due to the cycle of poverty. What makes the schools bad, if they receive on-average marginally higher per-pupil funding than mostly-white schools [1]? [1] on average, both Black and Latinx total per pupil expenditures exceed White total per pupil expenditures by $229.53 and $126.15 - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584198724... - I ca…

I'm not really talking about just handing out more money to schools, nor debating whether schools received less funding. The school problem comes from both not valuing education and people who have had a rougher go at life that the problem keeps perpetuating in their children. (dad in jail, mom on drugs, mom working 2 jobs so has no time and the children just hang with other older children, etc.). Feel free to send y…

Those sound like problems with the pupils, not the school. This is not semantics - it affects how to solve the problem, and informs what consequences various solutions may have.

Re: Bank of America just launched a zero down payment mortgage in 21 cities

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically in the US, white people and white neighborhoods have gotten substantially better loan availability and terms (and disproportionately higher appraised home values) than minorities or people living in neighborhoods with large minority populations. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining for a very concrete example.

> white people...have gotten substantially better loan availability I've heard this said a lot of times, but this feels more like a slogan than an actual data point to me. Bad statistics are endemic in these sorts of discussions. Is this statistic comparing all Black people to all White people or is this a clear apples-to-apples comparison? And where do other races like say Asians fit into this here? Apparently, Asia…

There's 107 primary sources at the bottom of the linked Wikipedia page alone if you wanted to do the research towards a "full understanding".
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