Last year saw a record number of mortgage foreclosures. The year 2007 saw a 70% increase in mortgage foreclosures from the previous year. The number of foreclosure warning was 1.3 million homes. The highest foreclosure rates were in Florida, Michigan, California and Nevada. Some home owners had mortgage life insurance attached to their home and may be seeing this disappear as well.

Unfortunately, many people thought they could buy a home a subprime rates, shell out less money to start, and hope that their home value rose and so did their salary. This is never a safe bet. It soon became apparent that home prices were falling, instead of rising. There are a number of lessons to learn from this fiasco, but I don’t think they will be.

1. If you can’t afford it today, don’t be so sure you can afford it tomorrow.
2. The government shouldn’t be responsible for bailing out citizens every time someone makes a mistake.
3. Except for you mortgage, strife to become debt free.
4. Live within your means. If that means doing without a big screen TV and the latest iPod, so be it.