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Good morning again. How do you buy a house for $148,000, live in it for a decade while its value rises to more than $400,000, and still lose it to foreclosure? Five simple words: refinance, refinance, refinance, refinance, refinance.

That’s the tale David Streitfeld tells here of a foreclosure in Corona. The buyers refi’d five times -- 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005. They took out cash, did some remodeling, and watched their $148,000 mortgage turn into a $447,500 debt. They bought a house in Texas and tried to sell the Coronoa house for $480,000 and couldn’t; the bank foreclosed, then the bank tried to sell the house for $445,000 this spring, and couldn’t. The house still hasn’t sold. It’s now listed for $395,000.

Our take: Situations like this one help explain the vehement opposition we see on this blog to the idea of direct financial aid to homeowners at risk of foreclosure, aka a ‘bailout.’ Why help someone who has cashed out five times? Why help a speculator who put no money down in hopes of a quick flip and got stuck holding the bag? Why help those who put nothing down on big houses they couldn’t afford, and still can’t afford?

We understand the larger argument for slowing the foreclosure process -- that the mortgage process is confusing, that waves of foreclosures can destroy neighborhoods, further depress home values, and thus harm families that are actually paying their mortgages. But to sell that argument, somebody has to address the choices made by those now in trouble.

‘We made some bad decisions,’ says Theodore Judice, the Corona homeowner who refi’d five times. ‘No one ever came to our house and forced us to do anything.’

Comments? Thoughts? Email story tips to lalandblog@yahoo.com