“Kwitcherbellyaching”

“Kwitcherbellyaching!” That’s what I heard for much of my youth from parents who had suffered and worked harder than most of the generation they produced. There was plenty of life between “Kwitcherbellyaching” and “Use your head for something besides a hat rack.” That life was chock full of love, laughter, tears and a strong work ethic. It was rooted in family who passed through Ellis Island and suffered fools badly. There is a common thread that runs through families like my own, although it seems a bit harder to find on the news these days. I wonder what has happened to personal accountability.
I sat glued to the news this week as hundreds of politicians, industry captains and economy experts offered opinions about the state of our economy and country. I heard frightening words. I saw panicked expressions. I watched hands in the air and fingers pointing across party lines. I listened with a Realtor’s ear as I heard one accounting after the other of how we “ended up” like this with the housing market and that we “ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO BAILOUT THIS INSTANT” to survive as a nation. I then heard somewhere within my “hat rack”……nearly unperceivable, but definitely thick with a familiar old brogue…… “Kwitcherbellyaching!”
The ability to obtain financing for housing has always been inextricably linked to one’s ability to pay. The process of lending responsibly is central to safeguarding the American dream for those who have worked hard enough to achieve it.
Within the past recent years, however, two things happened. First, a “Ponzi” scheme developed whereby if a consumer had a pulse, he was granted money that he would never be able to repay. Certain “Ponzi” conspirators who are responsible for this abomination made a lot of money from bad loans. Secondly, too many Americans who have a duty to protect all Americans did not “use their heads for something besides a hat rack.”
We Realtors are not in the business of housing just anybody. We house Americans who have more opportunity to realize dreams in the most extraordinary “experiment” in the history of the world we call the Constitution of the United States of America. We walk Americans up the steps to their first homes. We open the doors to second and third homes as the family dynamic changes over years of working hard to advance through the housing market in America.
Our democracy based on capitalism works and it works like a charm in the housing market. If you want to own a home, work hard, save as much as you can and pay your bills on time. If you want to own a bigger home, work harder, save more and pay your bills early. Following that age old philosophy will put you on the road that leads you to the bank, to me and to your own new front door.
Those who would conspire and collude to take from those who have to give to those who have not would fair better somewhere else in the world with a society that does not encourage and reward hard work.
The housing market has reacted normally to the bacteria with which it has been infected. What we have witnessed is not the “bursting of a bubble”. We are seeing first hand the draining of a purulent boil. As one who has practiced in both the healthcare field and the real estate industry, I know that the healing starts when the puss has been drained and the wound is cleaned.
Even as I write, the banks will not give money to anyone unless they have demonstrated even more carefully than ever that they can pay it back. As a Realtor, I know that the festering boil is over and that is a good thing for my business and for my country. There will never be a property that can not be sold and there will never be a bank that can not lend to a buyer who is qualified to buy that property, so “Kwitcherbellyaching” and “Use your head for something besides a hat rack.”