Stan Suther's Real Estate and Stuff

I have always loved analogies.  I’m sort of a visual person, so they help me understand and explain things.  For example, when you need to fix something but you can’t shut it down to do that, a common analogy is that it’s like trying to change the tires on moving car.  Kind of paints a word picture that most people can relate to, doesn’t it.

This morning on one of the news shows, I heard a couple of talking heads debating the merits of the new program which has the goal of helping people stay out of foreclosure on their houses.  One of the folks noted that many people who have been successfully paying their mortgages over the years don’t like the idea of helping people who are facing foreclosure because of a variety of bad decisions or even bad behavior.  I surely understand that.  However, the other talking head said that because foreclosures hurt every house in a neighborhood, pulling their values down, helping the neighbors stay out of foreclosure is like calling the fire department to put out a fire two or three houses down from you.  You’re paying for the fire department, and you know that if they don’t come and put out the fire, even if you know the owner probably caused it by throwing a lit cigarette in a trash can, then the fire will probably spread to the next house and the next house and will eventually spread to yours.  At a time like that, you can’t worry about what started the fire.  You just know we’ve got to put it out as soon as possible before others (and you) get burned.  We can work on fire prevention later.

I thought that painted a word picture I could really understand.