Friday, August 15, 2008

A Bright Side to the Real Estate Mess?

I ran across an article that had a certain bright side (sort of) to the real estate downturn. It seems that it is keeping families together because they can't afford to sell their house at a loss. Now the reality is this is a big mess. If your relationship is over and you can't afford to sell the house to divide your assets I don't think this will make a happy home life. But maybe, just maybe, some of the couples will work through this hard time an come out stronger.

Ok, I'm an incurable romantic....
But lawyers and financial planners anecdotally say they are seeing more clients staying married – if only for the time being – simply because they cannot afford to break up.
“Truthfully, it’s a mess,” says Carol Chumney, a family-law attorney in Memphis, Tenn. “There are a lot of folks who want to get a divorce, and the house is an impediment because nobody wants it.”
Of course, not all divorcing couples are able to get along well enough to minimize their losses. “A lot of times both of them cannot agree on what to do,” Chumney said. “It can be a huge financial mess. In the past a lot of times folks wanted to keep the house, and lately, that’s not the case.”
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