Confessions of a Mortgage Stalker

Phase 1: The beginning of the descent

"Linda, why are you moogling your shrink?"

That's what my husband calls it, "moogling," or mortgage Googling, which started out, as most nasty vices do, with a twofer of arrogance and hellbent curiosity. I was house hunting in Metro West, first-time buyer, former business-news writer, and incorrigible bear on the housing market. I had found like-minded cranks on Boston.com's real estate message board, a cast of oddballs who seemed like truckers swapping tips on their CBs, except the stuff here involved, say, the latest dismal housing starts report or slumping lumber prices, all greeted with ghoulish delight. I loved these people. It was here that I was introduced, by a fellow traveler in housing flotsam, to an irresistible website, Masslandrecords.com, my portal into the finances of anyone with a mortgage in Massachusetts, and into my own moral quagmire.

Phase 2: Denial

I had heard chatter about Masslandrecords.com on the board and was encouraged one of my housing homies to make sure I knew, before buying my first home, how much debt the seller was freighting. Well, of course, I thought, I had to know my bargaining position. I would be breaching my family fiduciary responsibility in not looking up the seller's mortgage - perhaps a subprime time bomb? After all, it's public record, right? In the old days, I'd have to trudge down to town hall. Now I can peruse most statewide stats in my pajamas, laptop aglow. (For the newcomer, navigation can require a little trial and error, and some counties post their data on separate websites.) But I should have seen the monkey that would soon be on my back. Indeed, I had witnessed, with great distaste, that one of the message-board grumps had used the records site to post all the mortgage data of an unfortunate woman trying to sell. The initial down payment, that unpaid municipal bill, and more. Boy, that creep needs to get a life, I thought.

Phase 3: Full-blown addiction

It would happen during my toddler's nap, when I was too tired to read something of substance and too proud to watch Jerry Springer, which, looking back, would have been the dignified choice. I had already looked up the mortgages of every prospective seller we were facing, even for B-list houses. Then I started to wonder: How much debt does my agent have? Does she need this deal done fast? Seemed prudent to know. How about the seller's agent? It was then that I slid quickly into a "what-the-hell" phase. Let's see what my husband's boss has for a mortgage. His boss's boss. Two former co-workers. That really cute guy from freshman year. A prominent local housing economist who has been bearish on the market. (I thought there would be ironic comedy if he himself had a ginormous mortgage; there wasn't, he doesn't.) And then, the moogling that led to the intervention: looking up my psychiatrist's mortgage. I didn't find it, though I now know plenty about the mortgage for his office, where I sit and discuss my neuroses. Definitely some irony there.

Phase 4: Ceding control to a higher power

That was my husband, who, after hearing of the aforementioned shrink and others, said "Enough." I agreed. He blocked the site with embarrassed indignation, as if I were a reckless kid showing too much cleavage on MySpace.

Phase 5: Making amends

The only positive thing I learned through this is that there are some people so close to me that moogling didn't cross my mind - those right outside my family, in what I started calling, during a mercifully brief self-help phase, "concentric circle number 2." So I don't have to apologize to David, Scott, or Tina. But to everyone else, I'm sorry. I'm especially sorry for the folks with a seven-figure adjustable-rate mortgage taken out a few years ago that now must be pile-driving through their bank account, despite the Fed's recent help. See, I'm relapsing already. And since I'm making my fearless inventory, here you go: Keenan, Linda. Fixed-rate mortgage, 380K. No liens yet, but check back soon online. At your own peril.

Linda Keenan, a freelance writer in Wellesley, is a former writer for CNN. E-mail her at lindaerinkeenan3@gmail.com.