Mortgage stalking: I know how much you owe

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Recommended reading: An intriguing and funny essay in today’s Boston Sunday Globe about ‘mortgage stalking’ -- searching public databases for mortgage information about a particular home-owner -- your neighbor, your boss, a famous person, whoever.

In ‘Confessions of a Mortgage Stalker,’ Linda Keenan writes that her ‘moogling’ addiction (that’s googling plus mortgage) started when she was researching home-sellers -- to learn how motivated they might be -- and grew from there:

‘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.)’

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Full disclosure: We worked with Linda at CNN and think she’s a terrific writer.