1 No doubt this news will sent the new stock market higher.

2 Economy surges, biggest jump in 5 years!

Damn PA, sucking us in like that!

3 A record number of U.S. homes were unexpectedly lost to foreclosure in the first three months of this year...

FIFY

4 Never mind the details. How can I make some money off this? I'm going to need some to give to my kids to make up for the lost decade of opportunity they will encounter as they enter the job market.

5

If this fucking housing market would just get out of the way, then I could get my turn at ball kicking.

 

(Oh, and the energy market is right behind me...)

6
Yeah Barney Frank and Maxine Waters... and Bill Clinton's housing secretary!
&a/Shout out to our shiny new tax and spend/ hope& change government who are making sure businesses of all sizes suffer via punitive taxation... for the common good.

7 If only I had cash sitting around. If only I weren't paying off debt. If only.

8 Ya know what we need to stop these foreclosures, more gas taxes, because people are just wasting their money on other necessities.

9 I hope those million families tee'd up for eviction were Obama voters.  Eviction is Change you can believe in.

10 There isn't shit in the pipeline. The banks are as tight-fisted with their REO homes as they are with their loan money. The GF and I have been looking for a decent house for months, and none of the vacant houses that are obvious REOs are on either the banks' lists or the MLS. We found one that's a short sale, and we're going to put a bid in on it, but we plan on having to wait at least 6 months to see any action on it.

11 Well, people were buying things (including houses) with money they didn't actually have for years. No matter what anyone does, this won't end until the property they acquired but cannot pay for leaves their possession. Simple as that. When everyone who was living beyond their means is corrected to be living within their means, we'll know what the "new normal" is.

12 Many of those joints will be trashed/stripped needing major wiring/plumbing work to replace what was removed and scrapped and won't sell anywhere near a "modest" 20% loss.

What? All these places have Chinese drywall in them?

13 Ok folks, I realize it's tax day and everybody is on a doom and gloom kick, but the solution to this problem is falling off a log easy.

If your behind on your mortgage payments just setup a brothel and use that income to pay your mortgage.  Worked for Barney Frank.

14

Gosh, it's almost like we're in an economic war or something. Wait until you see the rate for commercial foreclosures.

Cloward-Piven, anyone?

15

Dang, this is a tough call. I was convinced that anyone with money should get back into real estate, because it is an inflation hedge like gold.

Then again, banks wisely will not lend in the Obamunist anti-business climate, so only those with ready cash can buy. And if the Affirmative Action housing bust hasn't played out, and if Obamunist punitive tax hikes cause further business decline and further layoffs and thus further foreclosures.....

What do all the AOS guys and gals think?

16 You see a million foreclosures, I see a million new SEIU offices...

17 I live near SF and I have seen folks sleeping in their cars along with whatever stuff they could fit in them. Something about how they looked told me that these folks recently lost their homes; as if they still had jobs, but no place to live. It was something I had never seen before.

18 The Department of Commerce reports a boom in refrigerator boxes.

19 Don't forget the losses from short sales prior to foreclosure.  You could probably double your $30B estimate.  Some areas, homes are being sold at 50-60% of loan balance.  I have one transaction where the loan balance was at $220K, but the bank was willing to consider offers as low as $95K.  Being the super-duper broker I am, I was able to get them an offer at $129K.  The lender is still going to take it in the shorts.  Foreign banks seem to be more willing to dump the homes at a greater loss than domestic ones.  That's gotta be a sign of the economic recovery we keep hearing about from the Obama Admin, right?

20 What? All these places have Chinese drywall in them?

Copper pipes/wiring can be sold to scrap dealers for cash.

21

Not to worry, there's another "unexpected... er, whatever" news release today:

 

http://tiny.cc/dqa9p

 

Heh.

22 PA, my friend, that head/subhead was a major suckerpunch. Thanks for the early a.m. laugh!

23 @10 There is a huge shadow inventory of housing out there that banks will take their sweet time to unload, so they can avoid putting more losses on their books.

24

I live near SF and I have seen folks sleeping in their cars along with whatever stuff they could fit in them.

Something about how they looked told me that these folks recently lost their homes; as if they still had jobs, but no place to live.

It was something I had never seen before.

I have known people who "borrow a friend's driveway", using the bathroom and kitchen a bit for a nominal pitching in fee, and otherwise crashing in their vans.

Even in "good" times, The Bay housing market was unreal. But when you lose that good paying job, suddenly the long commute in from Fairfield or Tracy for that ranch home no longer makes sense, although everyone I know in such a situation has figured out some way to keep up payments and keep the home. The desire for ones own space is still a strong one.

25
Another government caused disaster. Thank you Barney Frank, Jamie Gorlick, Chris Todd and all your community organizing friends who called housing a right and forced banks to make bad loans.

26 Cool, my Nielsen ratings are going to soar on this news!

27 Curmudgeon -- I'm thinking that we're still seeing delayed correction for people thinking they had more $ than they really did. If I were going to invest in RE right now (which I'm not), I'd be looking for prime stuff in the best locations. Of course, that stuff probably isn't for sale. But I don't know that there will be any true bargains laying around. The really good stuff is going to still cost. The shit is going to be cheap. Do you really want on invest in the shit, and everything that goes along with it (i.e. who are you going to deal with when you rent it/sell it? Do you really want to deal with those kinds of people?).

It's like anything else. If you really know your market and the local conditions and have a better eye for value than other investors/buyers, you'll do well. If not... I'd stay out of it.

28 Hmmm...its almost as if this was planned, loosen credit with easy money, cause crisis, restrict lending, sweep in and buy the good stuff for pennies on the dollar, leave losses to the taxpayer.

Nah, that would take an entity so powerful that it actually controlled the money supply and in collusion with other money supply controllers.  You'd have to be a conspiracy nut to believe something like that.

29

Dang, this is a tough call. I was convinced that anyone with money should get back into real estate, because it is an inflation hedge like gold.

Posted by: Curmudgeon at April 15, 2010 10:43 AM (ujg0T)

Ordinarily, I would lean heavily towards real estate - I have always been a huge proponent of owning real estate (actual land is best), but these are different times.  The states are going to be going after property taxes for everything and they will be looking to suck money out of the wealth of their residents before the federal government can get their slimy hands on those citizens' incomes.  These days, one must look to accumulate wealth that is not immediately open to raping and pillaging by the state governments.

The other problem with real estate is that, due to low downpayments as the norm for purchases, real estate prices move more in sync with interest rates than they traditionally would when people were putting down 20% or more.  That being the case, when the Fed loses control of interest rates (which will happen before long, especially when inflation kicks in) those rates are going to skyrocket and housing prices will crater - and I really mean "crater".

30 You'd have to be a conspiracy nut to believe something like that.

Du-du-du-du-du-dah!

Did someone hear call for a conspiracy nut!

31 Obamavilles coming to a town near you.

32 In our metropolitan area, more and more dilapidated RVs and camper shells can be seen parked semipermanently on the streets. Housing for the New Soviet Man.

33

Everybody with an underwater mortgage has been playing liar's poker over the past year. The owners don't want to do a short-sale, they don't want to lose the home outright to foreclosure, and they're still dreaming of getting some kind of equity out of their "investment". The banks are terrified of the boatloads of bad real-estate debt still littering their balance-sheets (and commercial real-estate is a bigger stinkweed right now than residential), so they're slow-poking foreclosures to avoid taking the writedowns. The Feds are too frightened to admit that their various "incentives" to solve the mortgage bubble have backfired, so they're basically ordering banks not to foreclose without all the "due process" they can stomach (and then some).

The nut of the problem is that lots of people simply cannot afford the homes they live in. Especially in California, Arizona, and Florida -- where the worst problems are -- people were able to get outrageous mortgages on homes far above their income-level. Simple mortgage-adjustments aren't going to do it; there is no conceivable way these people can pay the mortgages they took out, now or ever.

We're talking about the landscaper -- let's call him Tom -- who somehow wangled a $250K mortgage out of a bank on a $2000/month salary, and who lost his job when the downturn hit. He was in over his head at the get-go and doesn't have a prayer of getting enough income to afford the house he's in. But Tom's bank has a problem: they have lots of other people just like Tom who got mortgages they can't afford. Normally the bank would foreclose on the houses and make what they could on a resale, and realize the writedown. But given the numbers of bad loans, the losses could be ruinous and Uncle Sam's piggy-bank is empty. So they're simply letting the people say put and letting the bad loans fester. The losses are already there; they're just not being "realized" by either the homeowners or the banks. It's an untenable situation and will collapse sooner rather than later, but everyone is hoping that a dramatic uptick in the market will save them. (Which ain't gonna happen; the losses are too big and too concentrated.)

 

34 Now can we call The Vapid One's® administration a failure?

35

mr.frankypants, #11: Well, people were buying things (including houses) with money they didn't actually have for years.

Thus, people created a bubble. And by "people," no doubt you mean end-use consumers, the people living in the houses and buying the stuff. The end of the supply chain; no one further down to absorb the shock.

No matter what anyone does, this won't end until the property they acquired but cannot pay for leaves their possession.

So all of these bailouts for people who spent beyond their means and are now being saved by the government from being foreclosed out of their homes only prolongs the pain. That seems uncaring (with seems being the operative word, politically).

Simple as that.

Yes, it is.

When everyone who was living beyond their means is corrected to be living within their means, we'll know what the "new normal" is.

It's like riding in a hot-air balloon with a big hole in it, and instead of trying to set it down the pilot blows more hot air into it. It won't work. It can't work. And the higher he tries to fly it, the harder will be the crash.

(Yes, crash. I said it.)

36
So this is "The Recovery", eh?

37 Barack Hussein Obama  -- EPIC FAIL

38 The solution? Increase property taxes. Idiots.

39 Sorry ... Barack Hussein Obama  -- unexpected unprecedented EPIC FAIL

40 I have been looking for a house for the past 18 months.

With all the shenanigans that the banks are pulling in the housing market, I have left dejected, and will continue looking at a later date.

List of some of the bullshit the banks have pulled on me.

As mentioned above, short sale bid waiting for 6-8 months while other houses have been sold that I could have put an offer on.

After accepting offer on a different house, the bank broke off because someone offered more on the house halfway through closing with me.

We put a bid on a house that was not in foreclosure, but privately held, and they increased the radius at which they compare prices for comparable houses.  What this did was lower the appraised value and then our financing fell though.

Ball up "government incentive money" into the price of some houses to keep property values artificially high.

The list goes on.....

41 What I'm also seeing is qualified buyers are getting their legs cut out from under them because of low appraisals.  Especially with FHA loans.  The appraisal comes in low with added repair requirements that if not corrected causes the home not to meet minimum loan standards.  The banks will refuse to pay for repairs or allow the buyer to make any repairs , killing the deal.  No appraisal, no loan, no deal.

42

In our metropolitan area, more and more dilapidated RVs and camper shells can be seen parked semipermanently on the streets. Housing for the New Soviet Man.

VDH wrote an interesting article a few days back about seeing lots neo-shanty-towns in California: collections of trailers, old RVs, and whatnot linked into a central house via jerry-rigged power lines. If you've ever seen pictures of third-world slums, you'll know what I mean: crappy jerry-rigged huts with electrical wires running higgledy-piggledy to the transformer (and generally a river of raw sewage running down the street). Well, welcome to the brave new America, comrades! We now have our own authentic third-world Obamavilles, complete with open-air sewage!

 

43 @34 Exactly right. Clownifornia has so many toilet paper mortgages it needs a septic tank the size of the Salton Sea to hold them. Bombay Beach is the new beachfront.

44
Also on the horizon, another wave of foreclosures as five and six year ARMs reset, pushing the payments beyond the rental income realized by the mini- Trumps who bought the places to flip, but were forced to hold when the resale market took a dump.

45 I expect more and more banks will do the lovely trick of foreclosing and then not actually filing the paperwork so that the deed is in the bank's name until right before a sale.  That way when the house burns down, blows up from the meth lab, creates a hazard, etc. etc. the bank can deny liability on the grounds that it's not the title owner of the property.

46 "So all of these bailouts for people who spent beyond their means and are now being saved by the government from being foreclosed out of their homes only prolongs the pain" -- The bailouts aren't going to the people, they are going to the banks who marketed and sold those bad loans. The people are still getting foreclosed and evicted. If, the TARP and stimulus funds had been given directly to the underwater homeowners or unemployed, it might have actually stimulated the economy.

47 Housing for the New Soviet Man.
That's a Lada house.

48 Saw this last night.

_{Anyone know about this?     http://tinyurl.com/y5voph8}

_{Posted by: Miss'80sBaby at April 15, 2010 12:59 AM (yfJ6g)}

We're so screwed.

49 Monty, hopeychangey in action. I hope all 52% of those drooling imbeciles ends up filtering raw sewage through a rag for drinking water.

50 Karl Denninger had a piece on this yesterday.Basically said that this is the second big wave- also mentioned that B of A was giving people 3 weeks before they sold their home at auction.  As for those "repayment plans?" Didn't work. Only a small percentage was able to stay on track with them.

51 The states are going to be going after property taxes for everything

Palm Beach county is pulling the trigger on late taxes quick.  Within about 6 months of being "late" your shit will be on the auction block.

52 We now have our own authentic third-world Obamavilles, complete with open-air sewage!

I read that column...the part where the gov't agencies in charge of code violations would rather go after someone with "improperly installed solar panels" than the people with fire and health hazards clearly visible from the street was particularly infuriating.

53

that there will be any true bargains laying around. The really good stuff is going to still cost. The shit is going to be cheap. Do you really want on invest in the shit, and everything that goes along with it (i.e. who are you going to deal with when you rent it/sell it? Do you really want to deal with those kinds of people?).

I manage rental properties. I'm used to dealing with them! :-)

But I am thinking that if the Obamunists trigger massive stagflation like they will, real estate, especially away from the ghetto cities, will rise.

54 Sorry ... Barack Hussein Obama  -- unexpected unprecedented EPIC FAIL

Historic.. you always have to get "historic" in there somewhere...

Geez, how do you ever expect to land that MSM job if you can't even handle that?

55

OT - Too cool not to share:

http://tinyurl.com/y4qch8b

Barry would cancel this program.

56

Rickshaw:

Real-estate markets are local, so conditions vary, but I've noticed a trend that even in places where housing prices are way down and foreclosures are way up, it's still very hard for some people to find a house. A lot of this is due to the Catch-22 banks find themselves in: deadbeats can't be evicted, which means the house can't be sold, which reduces the number of available (and affordable) housing units; unpaid loans require banks to hoard more money, which reduces the amount they're willing to lend out, and tightens the requirements for the available money.

The definition of "qualified buyer" is much different now than it was even five years ago. The days of no-money-down financing are long gone. It's all about money on the table, at least in my region of the world. Most people are going back to the old-fashioned "20% down" model, which makes it hard for a lot of younger folks to buy into the market. (On a $120K house, it's very hard for a young couple to save up $12K of their own, especially in a down economy.)

 

57

Most of us have been around long enough to know that our economy has peaks and valleys. That's the nature of the beast.

But what do we do when our own government is actively promoting and prolonging the downturn? I know hindsight is 20/20, and looking back, this seems to have started with the Community Redevelopment Act signed by Jimmah Cahtar and revised (?) by Billy Jeff Cliton.

In other words, this could've been avoided if we had Congresscritters who had a modicum of business experience and common sense.

Have we really lost that much intelligence in Washington?

58 Another government caused disaster. Thank you Barney Frank, Jamie Gorlick, Chris Todd and all your community organizing friends who called housing a right and forced banks to make bad loans.

Yep, and what are they talking about now; more regulations on the banks and wall street because people hate those fat cats.

And where are the Rethugs on this, doing their normal "we're afraid to fight back" meme!!!!!

This is how the Rs fk it up every time!  RThey should be screaming to the high hills about who really caused this mess and they are not.

59
There is going to be a 'correction' of some type sooner or later.  The longer the marxists try to use Chinese loans to buy votes, the more likely it becomes that the 'correction' will be societal rather than economic.  That's all.

60 The Soviet "railroad of state" is chugging along but eventually it gets stuck.
Comrade Lenin says
... throw out the engineers and bring in the proletariat.

Eventually the "railroad of state" gets moving again, but yet again it eventually gets stuck.  Comrade Khrushchev says
... get rid of the proletariat, they don't know what they are doing .. bring back the engineers

Again,  the "railroad of state" gets moving again, but yet again it eventually gets stuck.  This time Comrade Brezhnev says
... pull down the shades and pretend we are moving

Moral of the story ... pull down the shades and pretend we are moving

61 .

62 I'm a Californian and our home was foreclosed on.We have to be out in 15 days. What happened to us was job related...There were none. Husband in construction. We do have another home that we own to move to. That home is also headed to auction.It's not that we bought too much house.It was strictly the economy.No matter what the MSM says there is no recovery!

63 Obamavilles coming to a town near you.

Posted by: Mal at April 15, 2010 10:54 AM (Z+qzA)

Wastin' away in Obamaville.

Looking for my gummint handout.

Some people say there's that Bush to blame

But I know, it's not my damn fault.

64 Jean -- no it wouldn't have. If capitalism is to work, people who lose need to lose properly so they can learn, move on, and do it better the next time. Giving them cash subsidizes bad choices.

65 If, the TARP and stimulus funds had been given directly to the underwater homeowners or unemployed, it might have actually stimulated the economy.

You know, as someone who rents because I can't afford a traditional mortgage in the current market, I resent the hell out of my labor being taxed to keep people with minimal math skills/economic sense/self-control/humility/etc in homes they never should have purchased in the first place. How am I supposed to save up my down payment?

66 Ms80'sBaby - another 1000pg + bill

67 The nut of the problem is that lots of people simply cannot afford the homes they live in. Especially in California, Arizona, and Florida -

Monty, is it still the six state problem?  I remember last year the vast majority of the problem was in California, Arizona, Florida, Nevada (ie Vegas) and I can't remember the other two (see also too lazy to look).

The Firm does pro bono work and we're doing a lot with foreclosures right now.  The clients who bought a home within their means and then fell on hard times I do feel sorry for.  The rest?  There was no way in hell they were ever going to pay those loans.

I'm very very grateful that back in 2003 or so when everyone kept telling me to buy because I could get a loan even with my negative 50 credit score that I said no.  I might suck at math but I did comprehend that buying a house where the mortgage payment equaled 80% of my salary  after the initial rate readjusted was not a Good Idea.  I also understood that adjustable rates can also go up not down. 

I'm half assed looking now but anything decent in a decent area is still pricey.  I'm not buying until I can do a 20% down, 25 year fixed rate.  It's my *home*.  I'm not going to lose it.

68

The states are going to be going after property taxes for everything and they will be looking to suck money out of the wealth of their residents before the federal government can get their slimy hands on those citizens' incomes.  These days, one must look to accumulate wealth that is not immediately open to raping and pillaging by the state governments.

I'm in Prop 13 California--bring it on. Maybe the Demunists would finally get thrown out on their arses.

The other problem with real estate is that, due to low downpayments as the norm for purchases,

I think those days are over and 20% minimums are back.

69 I read that column...the part where the gov't agencies in charge of code violations would rather go after someone with "improperly installed solar panels" than the people with fire and health hazards clearly visible from the street was particularly infuriating.

There you have it... the end product of bureaucracy as substitute for liberty, as watchword and moral for living.  Why would one, as a proponent of the growing modern state, want to bother with cleaning up real messes when we have to do real work, like post giant dietary warnings on vending machines and inspect the orientation of taxpayer-subsidized solar panels on the expensive houses of more highly paid government officials or crony capitalists.

70 53 Pull my finger ...

Posted by: the invisible hand at April 15, 2010 11:05 AM (PD1tk)

Thread winnah!

(Genius: a fart joke you have to think about...)

71

#48: The bailouts aren't going to the people, they are going to the banks who marketed and sold those bad loans.

But they said on the news that ...

( ... oh, right.)

The people are still getting foreclosed and evicted.

But didn't Obama say ...

( ... never mind.)

72

And when this happens property tax revenue will also crater which will cause another set of problems.  Though some benefit will be that local governments will be forced to cut the fat.

Posted by: polynikes at April 15, 2010 11:05 AM (m2CN7)

Just because housing prices drop doesn't mean that tax assessments will drop.  There has long been a ratchet effect for tax assessments and as the state and local governments get further under water, they will absolutely refuse to give up on any taxes that tap into the WEALTH of people - as that is where the real money is, as opposed to the transient qualities of income.

73

Everybody with an underwater mortgage has been playing liar's poker over the past year. The owners don't want to do a short-sale, they don't want to lose the home outright to foreclosure, and they're still dreaming of getting some kind of equity out of their "investment".

And, of course, they still have to live *somewhere*. Barring a necessary relocation, most choose to stay put. In uncertainty, they stay with the devil they know over the one they don't.

74 You know, as someone who rents because I can't afford a traditional mortgage in the current market, I resent the hell out of my labor being taxed to keep people with minimal math skills/economic sense/self-control/humility/etc in homes they never should have purchased in the first place. How am I supposed to save up my down payment?

+12 trillion

75 This is just the tip of the iceberg. While the banks will be able to recover some of their losses through foreclosure, most of them are also holding a boatload of "seconds" -- stuff like home equity loans that rank behind mortgages when it comes to paying off creditors.

In other words, holders of these loans will get exactly DICK when these homes are foreclosed upon.

Have the banks recognized these losses yet? Hells to the no, mothafucka! Some of them are keeping these "assets" on their books at like, 80% of value. It's a lie and everyone knows it.

A homeowner who's underwater and is going to be foreclosed due to delinquent payments on isn't going to be paying off his outstanding home equity line, for God's sake.  And after the foreclosure has been wrapped up, there sure as hell isn't going to be anything left over after the senior creditors have been paid. These assets are worthless.

76 Frankypants and Heather -- so we gave the money to bankers, esp the insiders like Soros? We shouldn't have done it at all, but if your going to give out money - spreading it out to the lowest common denominator is better then giving it to connected cronys who caused the problem to begin with.

77 The other problem with real estate is that, due to low downpayments as the norm for purchases, real estate prices move more in sync with interest rates than they traditionally would when people were putting down 20% or more.  That being the case, when the Fed loses control of interest rates (which will happen before long, especially when inflation kicks in) those rates are going to skyrocket and housing prices will crater - and I really mean "crater".

Which anyone who owned a home in the late 70's/early 80's could tell you about. Hello, 17% mortgage interest rates? I know I was underwater then with 20% down and a few years already paid on a 8% 20yr mortgage. Pretty much freezes the real estate market - who trades today's 5%-6% rate for a rate 2X to 3X higher? If you have to sell at that point, the same sort of discounting applies as for bonds with a coupon rate well below current actual rate.

78 Can we start calling this the "Obama Depression" now?

79 Moral of the story ... pull down the shades and pretend we are moving

That was brilliant.

Obama... the Brezhnev Presidency.

80

"Holy shit!  You mean there are still a few people watching our show?  Quick!  We must stop them!"

http://tinyurl.com/yypzge4

HotAir

81 How am I supposed to save up my down payment?

Get it the old fashioned way - crime ;->

82 If  we could only close Gitmo things would get better. Torture hurts the economy. It's science. Imbeciles.

83 As I predicted, the stock market is going up again on the power of bad news. Something smells like week old fish in a dumpster.

84 I think that the "underwater" problem is overstated, atm. While there will be edge cases with people/families walking away from underwaters, the vast majority of people buy a home in order to live in it. I bought in '03 (a repo from Fannie Mae!) and have been doing the fix-it work. It was just under 250k. With what has happened to prices in the last two years, I'm probably underwater. Not really sure though. Just living in the place raised its value above the foreclosure sale evaluation, and everything I've done to it since then has too. Really though, it doesn't matter to me like it doesn't matter to most homeowners. I'm living there. I'm going to be living there when my kids head of to college.

It's not primarily an investment.

85 Higher unemployment. Higher foreclosures. This is the greatest economy recovery EVER!

86
Meanwhile, Hillary keeps slurping the scotch and the party never ends.

87 Everyone in America should be reading zero hedge, the market ticker, mish's global economic analysis, and calculated risk.

These blogs are reporting the true economic cesspool we've turned this country into.

It's downright scary what's happening. Over the past 10 years, Wall St and Washington politicians have colluded to steal billions from the middle class. Crony capitalism at its worst.

The sickening part is that these fuckers are so ruthlessly greedy and immoral that they're going to bring the whole system down. Most Americans are too busy playing with their Ipads to notice or care.

88 Donna- Sorry to hear about your foreclusure and work situation.  Improving the employment picture by removing government-caused obstacles for growing businesses will help to bring back the housing market eventually.  But for many, that will be too late to keep them in their homes.

89

OT: File this under the "No Shit Sherlock" category

Pentagon report says safeguards were 'inadequate' to prevent Fort Hood massacre - NBC http://bit.ly/cRk06n

90 I resent the hell out of my labor being taxed to keep people with minimal math skills/economic sense/self-control/humility/etc in homes they never should have purchased in the first place.

That's the bottom line.  However if by some Keynesian witch doctor magic Barry's giveaway plans could work, then the rest of us expect a giant gubmint check in the mail.  Every single one of us.  Buy our vote, damn it, it's the Keynesian thing to do.

91 Dang, and to imagine how much better off we would be with her as President, wow.

92 To you folks in CA I know I am sounding like a stuck record, but CA has still not readjusted to where it should be. 1950s track houses on postage stamp size lots in my old neighborhood are still (attempting) selling for $550/sq ft.

Even in a good economy middle class people can not afford those kinds of prices. Combine that with the fact that "rich" people will not buy a 1950s track house on a postage stamp size lot and you get the picture.

The only way those houses sell is under some kind of CRA type cram down with zero down, interest only payment with a balloon in 5 years. i.e. another bankruptcy.

This shit will not be over until we get Washington out of the banks and the financial markets. Since that is not going to happen, we will get collapse instead. 

93 double dip in 3 .. 2 .. 1 ...

94 Frankypants and Heather -- so we gave the money to bankers, esp the insiders like Soros?

No, we shouldn't have done it at all.  If you gave it to the "little people" so they could live free above their means, wouldn't they have given it to the bankers anyway? ...unless they continued to blow it on consumer goods/lifestyle crap, in which case they end up right back where they started anyway.

95 You know, as someone who rents because I can't afford a traditional mortgage in the current market, I resent the hell out of my labor being taxed to keep people with minimal math skills/economic sense/self-control/humility/etc in homes they never should have purchased in the first place. How am I supposed to save up my down payment?

You should resent more that these giveaways are propping up real estate prices.

96

Look, the solution to the economic mess that this country is in is obvious,

we need more negative stories on Palin - stat!

97

Greek Lightning strikes would be an effective solution--inventories of homes would be reduced, fire departments would gain the much-needed practice they'll need when riots overcome population centers, companies like ServPro would be riding high.  Most importantly, if the properties are in a desired area, it would spark (NPI) a building boom.

Kind of like euthanasia for the existing-homes market. 

98 Gotta get that 2 wheel garden tractor restoration done. I'm gonna need it.

99 The word of the street is there's a huge shadow inventory of foreclosures. As soon as mortgage rates rise the banks are going to dump houses on the market (thus bringing down principal).

100 @92  -- Oh great, now "the scotch" is a euphemism for a woman's naughty bits.

101 Jake Tapper is an Idiot.. I hope he gets fired.

102

Monty, is it still the six state problem?  I remember last year the vast majority of the problem was in California, Arizona, Florida, Nevada (ie Vegas) and I can't remember the other two (see also too lazy to look).

It's concentrated in those states, but there are problems in lots of other places too. "Gentrification" programs in lots of big cities led to "bubbles" as well. If you look at areas that are are in the sun-belt and got hit hard by the recession, you'll see the locus of the "housing bubble". (Texas had the makings of a bubble, but wisely put the brakes on construction early in the 2000's, which is why they escaped the worst of the blowback. Ditto Colorado, especially in the Denver suburbs.)

The clients who bought a home within their means and then fell on hard times I do feel sorry for.

Well, if a guy makes $100K in one year and nothing in the next, you can't really say that he makes $100K a year in income. The problem is that banks were making loans based on purely bullshit estimates of income. As Donna mentioned earlier, people who work in construction or the other trades make good money when times are good, but tend to quickly be unemployed when things go south. It's not just how much you make; it's what kind of work you do.

I personally know a couple in Vegas who bought a $200K house (not a mansion, but a hell of a lot fancier than my own shack). He worked as an IT guy for one of the big casinos; she was a teller and dealer on the gaming floor. They got their loan based on a 2-year agggregate income of around $120K per year. Not bad...until you looked at their lack of long-term job history and huge credit-debt. Last year he got laid off and was basically unable to find any kind of work in Vegas -- even grunt-level blue-collar stuff. There was just nothing there for him: nada, zip. She got her hours cut to part-time. So for two years they made $120K; this year they'll pull in (maybe) $30K. And next year isn't likely to be much better -- in fact, that level is more likely their "natural" level for many years to come, given their job prospects. So their "means" were always lower than both they and their bank assumed they were -- it was just that the go-go boom-times obscured that fact. The people were deluded (and profligate); the banks did shitty due-diligence.

 

103

 As I predicted, the stock market is going up again on the power of bad news. Something smells like week old fish in a dumpster.

Yeah, about the only thing I am finding "unexpected" about the economy right now is how the stock market keeps managing to go up despite the obviously bad economic news that comes out daily.

104 To you folks in CA I know I am sounding like a stuck record, but CA has still not readjusted to where it should be. 1950s track houses on postage stamp size lots in my old neighborhood are still (attempting) selling for $550/sq ft.

That says it all.  Let's see... what other highly industrialized nation has spent twenty years in the doldrums of sluggish growth and stagnation, and is notorious for paying princely sums on penny sized real estate?

I no have crew, hobo-san.

105

The word of the street is there's a huge shadow inventory of foreclosures. As soon as mortgage rates rise the banks are going to dump houses on the market (thus bringing down principal).

Just look around any middle class neighborhood here in Sacramento.  Tons of vacant homes that are not on the market. Their sitting on them.

106

frakypants at #90 has it. Yes, the current real estate investors have had a bloodbath. And more often than not, the foreclosures are rental units. But the homeowners, so long as they have *some* kind of income, will stay in their homes, no matter how underwater, because they have to live *somewhere*. And the lenders will make deals with them because foreclosure is such a pain in the ass.

107 I'm not advocating a Keynesian solution - but that if your hell bent on doing a massive Keynesian solution - you should at least try and do it right. They way they did it, spent the money and didn't solve anything. It just allowed the banks to inflate the stock market. If they had spread the money lower, then people would have spent it on stuff, like a contractor to fix a roof - who would have spent it on a new truck - etc.

108 Am enjoying the surge in the stock market...all that cash that could be used to help pay down the mortgage is being invested in firms that have withstood the Obamageddon.  And the weaker Obama appears politically, the better it is for business.  Don't cash out until November.   

109

Yeah, about the only thing I am finding "unexpected" about the economy right now is how the stock market keeps managing to go up despite the obviously bad economic news that comes out daily.

If the stock prices are in dollars per share, and the dollars are being devalued, are the stocks even going up in real terms?

110

It's not primarily an investment.

That's the key. It's only a loss if you sell (or can't pay the note). If you buy your house, you know, to live in, you're not as harmed by the ups and downs of the economy. But too many people bought houses with the express intent of "flipping" them, and got caught short when the market dropped. They bought at the market-peak, and now have nowhere to go.

I recently bought a guitar for a ludicrous amount of money. To someone who doesn't play and who doesn't fancy custom-made instruments, it would seem like a lousy way to spend money (a bad "investment"). But a) I could afford the money, and b) the pleasure and satisfaction it gives me is well worth the money I spent on it. I feel the same way about my house. It's my home, not just a place where I store my shit.

 

111 Can we start calling this the "Obama Depression" now?

We call it the "O"pression.

 As I predicted, the stock market is going up again on the power of bad news. Something smells like week old fish in a dumpster.

Yeah, about the only thing I am finding "unexpected" about the economy right now is how the stock market keeps managing to go up despite the obviously bad economic news that comes out daily.

I am starting to come to the conclusion that no way will the fed allow the market to fall until Nov. 3rd.  But then again, you would have to be a conspiracy nut.

112 They way they did it, spent the money and didn't solve anything. It just allowed the banks to inflate the stock market. If they had spread the money lower, then people would have spent it on stuff, like a contractor to fix a roof - who would have spent it on a new truck - etc.

The problem is two-fold in this administration. Obama and his closest cronies never really gave a damn about the actual problem. They viewed it as a method to nationalize the banks & auto companies, and move us closer to communism. The rest of the administration don't have a damn clue as to what the economy is.

To them it is just a big political game.

113 the banks did shitty due-diligence.

Many originators quickly repackaged the loans and offloaded them to willing suckers.  If the originator of a loan were compelled to hold it for say at least 10 years before trading it, they'd be a lot more careful about their vetting.

With a ready supply of suckers waiting, and the originators getting off the hook quick, there was no motivation for any diligence at all.  These were "write and dump" mortgages.

114 It's not primarily an investment.

Not to you but for a bunch of people that's exactly how they viewed it.  It's an asset, not a home, and assets are never ever ever supposed to depreciate, dammit!

Prof. Reynolds had an interesting bit up ages ago about how he blamed HGTV and TLC for a lot of this.  People watched House Hunters and Flip This House and heard all the realtors saying how you had to have granite countertops and spa tubs and master suites and then people went out and took out the home equity loans to make those improvements.  So now the people who did that think they should get the market value of the house with the improvements and they really can't afford to take anything less.

115 With a ready supply of suckers waiting, and the originators getting off the hook quick, there was no motivation for any diligence at all.  These were "write and dump" mortgages.

The problem is the suckers were freddie and fannie, which means the taxpayers.

116 Curmudgeon -- about your early proposition re: purchasing real estate -- Since you're already managing rental properties and you seem to be reasonably intelligent (after all, you are a commenter at a smart military blog), I'm going to guess that you know the ins and outs of your local market very well. That'll tell the tale. If you see properties that someone's going under with and you find them ready to take a bath on price just get out, you can probably pick up some places to make your own little portfolio. One guy I know in my market was flipping houses and buying multi-unit rental properties for the longest time. He's not flipping any more, but has a good eye for the rentals. He's also gotten into buying foreclosed or on-the-verge-of-foreclosed homes and doing whole-home rentals. He also has a bunch of cash.

The reason I mentioned what I did earlier is that I know that RE and rental properties isn't for everyone. But if you're already there, you know the score.

117 alexthechick: I'd like to see numbers on how many people who bought in the last five years did so with the express purpose of flipping, how many thought of it as "I'll live here for four or five years than turn a profit when I move up" and how many just bought because it was the nicest place they could afford to live. Not saying how it would break down, but I suspect that the number of people in category 1 is very small. The number in cat 2 is larger, with cat 3 being the largest. The thing about it is that almost all of those cat 2 people will be forced to realize that they're now converted to cat 3's.

118

With all the money wasted on bailouts they could have given it to the people who really needed it to pay down  their mortgages to stay out of foreclosure and then claim it as income for their taxes. True they will have to pay a much higher income tax but that's a one time deal plus the gov. get some of it's money back.

AND the unemplayment rose unexpectedly..... again.

119

Just look around any middle class neighborhood here in Sacramento. 

Greetings from Antelope! Where are you, Rich?

120 "He also has a bunch of cash." As the cash is going to be devaluing soon, he is probably better off in RE that he understands and produces some income.

121

As long as the population continues to grow, there will be aggregate demand for housing. Maybe at lower prices, and it may take some time to aggregate (v.).

So let's imagine a scenario where as many as, let's say 8 million people just picked up and left the U.S.. For some strange reason, they got the idea they were not wanted here, let's say. What would the prediction be for housing prices under that scenario?

No, let's be more specific. Suppose the reason they left was because they could no longer find work, or they were picked up in a van and driven out of the country. Could one predict the bottom falling out from under the low-end RE market?

122 O/T:  Have you guys seen this?   Is this the TEA party?  Is it worth participating if you can't go and march in person cause you have to work 24/7 just to pay your taxes and survive?

"About The Online Tax Revolt

There is a massive rejection of the established powers taking place in our country.  Americans are mad as hell and we are not going to take anymore.  The Online Tax Revolt is about sending a clear message to Washington that we are a growing and vocal movement that is calling for real change.

The first-ever Online Tax Revolt, a free, interactive march on Washington was launched using state of the art technology. Concerned Americans can have a voice on tax policy, culminating on April 15 with events in Washington, D.C.

“The Online Tax Revolt is open to every American who believes taxes and spending are out of control, harmful to our country and a threat to our nationÂ’s future,” said Campaign Chairman Ken Hoagland.  “Our economic future and that of future generations is at stake.  We need taxes that are lower and a tax structure thatÂ’s fair."

123 Tons of vacant homes that are not on the market. Their sitting on them.

That's a short term play only.  I think they get burned by it because the tax bills keep coming due, and the towns will soon get savvy to the fact that they can turn their code enforcement offices into a revenue center by writing all these  joints up for every little infraction. 

Towns will start to adopt "unoccupied building statutes" where things like having one blade of grass on the lawn too long is a $100/day fine.  Unfixed broken windows? $100/day fine.  Dead grass? $100/day fine.

It won't take much of that sort of shit before the banks decide its time to just get out for whatever they can get.

124

Alex- Sellers wern't the only ones watching TV.  Buyers expect that homes look brand new, and are completely updated.  Ceramic is cheap, you have to have stone floors, ect. 

125 I also suspect that a lot of boom houses, esp the multi-unit ones, were built very poorly. There are a lot of big McMansions around here with cheap ass vinyl siding on the sides and back, cheap roofs, and mid-grade windows -- all of that crap isn't going to be acceptable on 6000 sq ft - $1.2M property in five years.

126 I attended a lecture last night featuring a pretty big name in private equity (Carlyle Group) who sits on the board at GM--always on the hunt for tips, he thinks that GM's next generation of hybrids are going to launch it back into profitability; GM's also seeing heavier growth in China.  While it lost a lot of goodwill, if GM follows the trend of Ford's stock, you could stand to make a tidy profit whenever the IPO is launched. 

127 Curm- I'm in Natomas.  I think we may have met at a Sac Meetup last year.

128 I also suspect that a lot of boom houses, esp the multi-unit ones, were built very poorly.

I know for a fact that there's $10M mansions that were built out on the island of Palm Beach where the quality of the electrical installations was no better than you'd find in a tiny $100K tract house.  Crap materials, sloven installations.

129 Hey! No post about tax day?

Oh that's right - Taxes for most Americans went down.

Right, now I get it.

See you at the Tea Party!

130 he thinks that GM's next generation of hybrids are going to launch it back into profitability

If he'd said small turbo-diesels I'd be excited.  Hybrids are lame.

131

Towns will start to adopt "unoccupied building statutes" where things like having one blade of grass on the lawn too long is a $100/day fine.  Unfixed broken windows? $100/day fine.  Dead grass? $100/day fine.

PA- We're starting to see that in some areas now. Vacant homes are required to be registered with the city. 

132 Regarding the commercial market,  I am going to share something I learned this week.

My dog-trainer has a small place in a strip mall,  where he holds classes and his wife runs the dog-grooming side of the business.   They have a steady clientele and it's a no-frills operation (no fancy furniture or decor, no expensive equipment, laptop computer and cell phone only).

When their lease expires they are leaving.  He can do dog training at people's homes or group classes in the parks.  She will go work as a groomer for one of the big pet places or do grooming at people's homes. 

He told me they took a bath in taxes this month and can't continue because it makes no sense to pay rent if they can get along without it.  So,  that strip mall will lose a tenant and I doubt it will get a new one any time soon,  since all over central Indiana there are hundreds of empty strip mall spaces,  if not thousands.

Also,  I am a small time antique dealer on eBay, and I go to auctions a lot.  I have noticed an increase in business inventory mixed in with estates.  Drywall tools, valet parking signs,  new giftware with the price tags still on them, car repair shop equipment, etc.  all indicate people who are out of business and who are not going to be renting commercial space. 

Regardless of how great the media portrays the economy,  I think bad times are still ahead of us.

133

Oh that's right - Taxes for most Americans went down.

Wow, the dupe is strong in this one.

134
there's $10M mansions that were built out on the island of Palm Beach where the quality of the electrical installations was no better than you'd find in a tiny $100K tract house.

Yeah, but they're just going to be destroyed in the next Transporter or Miami Vice movie anyway, right?

135 Where I am, a home unoccupied for 6 months is automatically condemned - unless it has an active building permit. There is some sort of administrative process to forestall the tag.

136

Big Fat Meanie:

You'd do better to bet on aliens landing and inviting us into the Galactic Federation than on GM becoming profitable again. It's the most sucker-bet in the history of sucker-bets.

The Chevy Volt will flop because a) it's too expensive, b) it's underpowered, and c) no one wants to get stranded in the back-ass end of nowhere when the battery goes flat. Add to that the fact that it will take 8 hours on a 110V outlet to charge the thing (or more), and that few people have a 220V outlet in the garage, and you're not going to see much demand. (And do you know what generates the electricity people are going to use to charge up their "green" cars? Mostly coal and natural gas. In other words: fossil fuels.)

Electric cars are a stupid idea and I wish the car companies would focus on other areas (diesel, biofuels, and -- maybe, later -- hydrogen).

 

137 I've seen some of the build it quick and cheap houses that are in the $150-250,000 market. Some real shoddy workmanship. Think of that show where homes are built in a week. Looks good on the outside and inside but there's a lot of coverup work done.

138 Has GM released the tax hit for their retirees prescription drug program yet?

139 Green shoots, bitches. You all are just a bunch of racists who refuse to see the booming recovery that's dead ahead, right around the corner.
/s/
MSM each and every month for the months of January 2009 to present . . . . .

F'ing Kudlow with his "Recovery Tomorrow!" piece, mostly based on retail sales being up. He's either stupid or a manipulative, lying ass. Retail sales are up because there are half as many retailers today as there were 18 months ago. Best Buy, sales up = recovery? And Circuit City going tits up had nothing to do with that? 

Oh, what's that? Unemployment claims rose "unexpectedly" again?

F me seven ways to Sunday.

140 who sits on the board at GM--always on the hunt for tips, he thinks that GM's next generation of hybrids are going to launch it back into profitability;

Hahahaha, was he trying to sell timeshares as well? GM will be going back to the gov with its hand out within another year.

They have not fixed the underlying problems yet.  And the only way that POS Volt will ever sell is if the gov mandates that people buy it or nothing. 

141

 Transporter or Miami Vice movie

Is that what you're now calling hurricanes down South?

 

142

F'ing Kudlow with his "Recovery Tomorrow!" piece, mostly based on retail sales being up.

And Kudlow normally has the good sense to call the Commiecrats out.

Perhaps he is betting on November 2010 making November 1994 look small, and the Republicans of 2011-2012 acting like the Gingrichians of 1995-1996 defunding/repealing Obamunist care, and holding the line on spending?

That could be the *only* plausible reason for his optimism.

143 All those unemployed people are just tapping Obama's stash to spend like drunken sailors, right?

144

So let's imagine a scenario where as many as, let's say 8 million people just picked up and left the U.S.. For some strange reason, they got the idea they were not wanted here, let's say. What would the prediction be for housing prices under that scenario?

Well, at this time that isn't quite happening yet. I have heard reports of it, but the Home Depot and Lowe's lots around here are still chock ful of "day laborers", to say nothing of places under freeway overpasses.

145 Vic - or if Obama acts like a Utopian fool in the Middle East and gas goes to $7/gal. (Sorry, $7.15 - with Lindsey's tax)

146
♫ ah-ah-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
ah-ah-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[sing it with me!]
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
How soft your fields so green, can whisper tales of gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your overlords. ♫

147
I don't think that's THE circuit city. I think someone is using their name.

148 Hybrids are lame.

Especially with an "Obama 2008" sticker still on the bumper.

149 And the only way that POS Volt will ever sell is if the gov mandates that people buy it or nothing.

The government would never compel people to buy something, right?  On second thought...

150
wrong thread!

151

As someone who does mortgages for a living and has for 17+ years,  there is a lot of misconceptions out there about how people "got in over their heads" and bought what they couldn't afford.  The problem is that most people didn't,  the loans that were given to people that couldn't afford it were done at a subprime level normally.  Sub prime is virtually gone now.  There are two issues here that are causing this to happen.  One is that the jobs market sucks and people are out of work for 2+ years and they have diligently taken money out of savings they had/401K etc. because they don't want to take a hit on their mortgage and do take their obligations seriously.  They don't want their credit to get bad.  If you were out of work for 2 years, do you have enough to stay in your current situation?  But then comes in the second problem,  the real estate market is so soft that they will have to sell for a loss,  so they hang onto the property hoping to get a job or to break even on the house if they sell it.  This depreciation of the market started end of 2006 and has not rebounded (although many areas are being market reclassified to non-depreciated to stable which is good)  So what normal people would do is sell and move down or rent,  and they can't do that either because they are trying to stay current on their obligations and don't want to screw the bank or themselves with credit problems in the future. 

After working through this with people for the last two years,  I can only say a very minimal amount of people got loans they couldn't afford in my opinion. 

This is going to become a bigger problem sooner than later.  Commerical real estate is the next market in trouble.  Also with states not getting money to pay teachers,  they are rif'ing hundreds of teachers in every district around me.  These are teachers that have been working for years and now will be laid off. Getting jobs in this market will be impossible for teachers and they have mortgages too,  they will have to move into another job market which takes jobs away from other demographics.   Property tax dollars are trending down thus less $$$ to use for local government,  which will show job losses soon unless they raise the multiplier to get more money at which point that puts homeowners in trouble again. 

Another thing that needs to be addressed is CRA requirments which in my opinion caused this mess in the first place.  Noone wants to talk about that in the government because it was their mess.

Sorry this is so long,  but frustrating to be in this business now. 

The congress is getting ready to try to pass a financial banking package later this month,  as in everything they do lately they do not think the reprecuations of their actions through.  They want the originator and the lender to keep 5% of loan values as cash reserves.  On paper that might seem like a great thing,  the originator has a stake in the loan, blah blah blah.  But let me tell you what it will do.  Brokers will be gone,   noone can keep that kind of cash on hand,  they don't make that kind of money on the loans in the short term.  Big banks will have to change the way they do loans as they also will not be able to do this,  they will have to look at outsourcing loan originations to not carry that.  Loan officers will become independant contractors and impossible to police.  You think it is bad now,  just wait if this thing passes.  Plus there is no way to regulate it.  As usual Congress is trying to fix a problem that they have no expertise in and will f it up royally.  They have already done that with the new respa regulations which are suppose to help borrowers and actually confuse the crap out of them and add fees onto a closing and to borrowers because we have to put extra manpower into doing the loan.

I wish I could change jobs right now,  because I think this is going to get worse real quick,  but like a client in a house they can't sell and will be underwater,  the job market is such that can't change industries and try something new.

152 By giving the banks an unlimited credit line, it has allowed them to repair their balance sheets for free. Making 4 or 5% in treasuries with no risk. In turn, they have been able to sit on repos rather than sell them. It's kind of a great thing for banks. They get your money for free and then repo your home, sit on it until the market or interest rates come back.

Then the jobs report. It was incredibly shitty. They attribute the shittiness to all that easter egg painting and church going.  The MSM reporting that stimulus is working...

153

April 15 (Bloomberg) -- Manufacturers are charging ahead as sales and inventories grow, spearheading a U.S. economic recovery that shows scant signs of lifting labor markets.

Damn unemployment is just ruining Barry's little economic golden age.

154 And I've noticed that the new unemployment numbers story has disappeared from the front pages of some pages like Yahoo and Bloomberg. Minitrue says the economy is just wonderful and no evidence to the contrary will be allowed.

155 I'm sitting at a point where I'm almost at 20% of the value of the home, which would mean the end of PMI payments. I can't wait until the final .23% comes off, and they revalue, so I can find out how many more months/years I get to pay PMI.

Irritating, but it's my house now, and it's just insurance (for the bank). I must not be a very high risk loan, because the bank didn't sell our mortgage, like they said they were going to 4 years ago when I got the loan.

Damn my luck, buying my first house, only to witness the crash.  Oh well, gotta live somewhere!

156 I gots my foreclosure papers yesterday...Ive been here 32 years, The mortgage co. wouldn,t work with me at all..sumpthin about not having a job bla,bla,bla lol. I can,t take all my stuff..gonna have a quick garage sale..does anyone know if I will get charged for the stuff i leave..if i have to leave anything???

157 I can't wait until today passes. The government opening up e tax returns and snail mail and not seeing any money.

When they call me, I am gonna offer to do the jail time for 100 bucks a day. Time, I have a lot of. Money, not so much.

158 Texan, do they really want you out -- I know some people that have been foreclosed - and flipped to essentially a rental status and those who have been fighting eviction for more then a year.

159  Hybrids are lame.

Especially with an "Obama 2008" sticker still on the bumper.

Posted by: McCain's actuary tables at April 15, 2010 12:07 PM (GfYt/)

I think Priuses come with Obama bumperstickers. They must because I don't think I've seen one without one. Or the Coexist bumpersticker

160 .does anyone know if I will get charged for the stuff i leave..if i have to leave anything???

It varies from State to State. Normally you can be charged for the cost the bank incurs in foreclosure, sales, etc if their cost + plus the outstanding loan comes out higher than they get for the sale.

161 Leave a big dookie on the kitchen counter top.

162 not sure how bad they really want me out...I want out..this old house has alot of ghost and bad memories..i,m lucky enough to have a choice of 2 places to go..an old farmhouse with 600acers that the family uses for a retreat..it needs some work,but is livable  and i can snipe Hobos from the front porch..or Mom is begging me to come to Fla. and spend some time with her..

163 Texan - in many places they pay you leave without a problem.

164 But....but....but.....Obama said he was going to keep everyone in their homes!

165 I can't wait until we kick Obama's ass out of our home.

166 To all appearances, Circuit City still has their online business going.  I though they were toast.

Someone bought the name in the bankruptcy auction iirc. 

167

169 .does anyone know if I will get charged for the stuff i leave..if i have to leave anything???

It varies from State to State. Normally you can be charged for the cost the bank incurs in foreclosure, sales, etc if their cost + plus the outstanding loan comes out higher than they get for the sale.
 

well if thats the case..i,m so screwed anyway..that i,m gonna leave all the stuff i can,t take,,plus the stuff i was gonna haul to the dump and take a big do-do on the kitchen counter and the $4ooo.oo dbl. pain windows i got 2 years ago may have an accident..opps  thank you for the info.

168 Be careful, people are getting popped for malicious stuff. If your in a poor mood - just let the local juvenile delinquents know that there is an empty house that might have a couple cases of Natural Light laying in the basement. Nature will take it's course.

169

Texan- check with your lender.  They really are paying people not to damage the property. 

Check craigslist for people willing to come pick up garage sale leftovers. 

Where are you located? 

170 Damn unemployment is just ruining Barry's little economic golden age.

This is some mighty viscous sarcasm my man.

171

@TEXAN, if you're going to leave stuff, I'd recommend selling it off.  You'll get a better price than the bank would, and it'd give you travel money.

172

177 Be careful, people are getting popped for malicious stuff. If your in a poor mood - just let the local juvenile delinquents know that there is an empty house that might have a couple cases of Natural Light laying in the basement. Nature will take it's course.

HeHe that would be right up the mean little shit across the street with the paintball guns ally

173 178

Texan- check with your lender.  They really are paying people not to damage the property. 

Check craigslist for people willing to come pick up garage sale leftovers. 

Where are you located? 

 Fort Worth

174 181 - hey CQB practice! Get the kid to enlist and some good might come out of this.

175

Texan- check with your lender.  They really are paying people not to damage the property. 

Check craigslist for people willing to come pick up garage sale leftovers. 

Where are you located? 

 that sounds great..but how would u go about asking them..to pay u not to tear stuff up?

176 Texan, its called "cash for keys" around here.

177

182   Check cl then,  plenty of people will come get your stuff, or you could donate it and take a tax write off.  Or I will drive over with my truck, load your not wants and donate them for my tax write-off.

178 well if thats the case..i,m so screwed anyway.

What I was speaking to is what the law allows. The bank may or may not be into that.

179

And then let's add in the 800 pound gorilla of the billions of dollars of commercial real estate loans that are coming due over the next couple of years. Some of these give a whole new meaning to the term "underwater". There will be foreclosures, distress sales, etc. coming up - just a matter of time.

It isn't as poignant, perhaps, as beleagured homeowners taking a beating, but the point is, as PA emphasized with respect to the home mortgages, is that there are a bunch more haircuts (buzzcuts, maybe?) headed the way of already creaky institutions and investors.

180 TEXAN: Don't take any of that dumbass advice about ruining the place or enticing someone else to do it. Don't be that kind of person.

181

FROM PPP......Our monthly look ahead to the 2012 Presidential race finds Barack Obama more or less tied with all four of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination. He trails Mike Huckabee 47-45 and Mitt Romney 45-44, ties Newt Gingrich at 45-45, and leads Sarah Palin 47-45. This is the weakest performance Obama's posted in these 13 monthly surveys and a pretty clear indication that passing health care has not done anything to enhance his political standing, at least in the short term.

Sarah is down 2 to Obama. And people think she can't win?

182 "27 Curmudgeon -- I'm thinking that we're still seeing delayed correction for people thinking they had more $ than they really did. If I were going to invest in RE right now (which I'm not), I'd be looking for prime stuff in the best locations. Of course, that stuff probably isn't for sale. But I don't know that there will be any true bargains laying around. The really good stuff is going to still cost. The shit is going to be cheap. Do you really want on invest in the shit, and everything that goes along with it (i.e. who are you going to deal with when you rent it/sell it? Do you really want to deal with those kinds of people?).

It's like anything else. If you really know your market and the local conditions and have a better eye for value than other investors/buyers, you'll do well. If not... I'd stay out of it."
++This is a pretty sharp summary. I'll second, coming from someone in the RE business over 30 years.

183 Just looked up....on CNBC they are quoting a guest..."the US tax code is 6 times longer than War and Peace"  "and 10x's longer that the kind james version of the bible"

Essentially, it is hard to refinance or do a "work out".   don't know anyone who has been able to do this, they usually get the ol "bank run around".  You can't sell the house, there are no buyers and if you want a mortgage through FHA for an apartment or house, the apartment or house first has to be qualified for them to even consider lending you any money.  The only people buying real estate are from other countries or people with CASH.

184

189 TEXAN: Don't take any of that dumbass advice about ruining the place or enticing someone else to do it. Don't be that kind of person.

i,m not that kind on person..just trying to keep my chin up with a little humor..its been a bad,bad year..was close to eating a bullet..BAD..even though i don,t have a job and can,t find one that pays enough to save my house...I,ve stopped worrying about stuff and am just gonna do the Happy to be ALIVE another day thingy and make do the best i can. I,m so thankful i have someplace to go..I can,t even imagine living in my truck like someone  commented above..anyhow some of u will need my expertise in loading ammo sometime soon and i will be their for ya'll

185 This is interesting.  Amazing what you learn in google searches.

186

TX- are you on facebook?

 

187 Screw-em frankypants, if they have problems - maybe they may be more inclined to cut a deal with the next guy. If it makes him feel better and isn't a felony - have fun.

188

TX- are you on facebook?

if u were talkin to me..no..sry never bought in to that..i,m a multi-player gaming addict....Damm u Baron for ever showing me Delta force 1 on PC

189

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, made $5.5 million last year, largely on sales of his books, and paid nearly $1.8 million in federal income tax, according to the tax return they released Thursday.

The Obamas gave $329,000 to charities in 2009, including $50,000 each to CARE and the United Negro College Fund. The president also donated his $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize award to 10 charities.

$5.5 million income and $329k to charities. I guess "spread the wealth around" means to only spread other peoples' money around.

190 It's all good though, PA. That twat on The Weather Channel said the large increase is due to increased efficiency of the banks in working through the foreclosure issue. Win- win, motherfuckers!1111!!1!!!!!1

191 Hybrids are lame. Especially with an "Obama 2008" sticker still on the bumper. That will be standard equipment on the new hybrids. In fact it will be required by the NHSTA.

192 And if TWC twat said it, that means NBC, GE and Soros approve

193

Monty,

My guitars are all 'beaters'.  To match my ability.  You never want your guitar to sound better than you.

EBJ

194

My next door neighbor called last night and asked me to be at his house at exactly 10:30am. No biggie, I was always fixing his shit.

I walked in and found he committed suicide.

 I didn't know he was was being evicted on the 24th. He left me a note apologizing, but he didn't want the kids to find him after school. I was so tempted to take pics of their cars w/Obama stickers on them. Truth to power on Tax day..but that would go viral, and the kids don't need that. I lied to his ex-wife, and said I stopped by alot, and it looked like he had a heart attack. My 1st thought was to grab a bottle, but I'm an alcoholic. That won't work.

What would happen if he were a tea-partier, or had a McCain sticker. (shudder)

195 #90

What you aren't considering is the glut of rental properties in some of the same markets. Underwater homeowners are seeing places nicer than their houses offered for rental at a rate less than their mortgage. People were taught in recent decades to regard their home as an investment that would eventually give them back more than they'd put in. That doesn't work when you buy at the height of a bubble.

We went through much the same thing less than 20 years ago but memory appears to be in short supply. Unless you were very well off, buying a house in California or certain other markets in the last five years was just plain stupid. I knew there was going to be another crash but did realize how much worse it would be than last time around.

#98

CA became ground zero for real estate insanity. The little place in Thousand Oaks my parents bought when I was an infant/toddler (my mother isn't clear on the exact date but somewhere around 1966/1967) for $14K was listed for $500K before the crash. It had a pretty good sized chunk of land attached but still, outside of pure madness, that figure could be explained by massive inflation. Which may still come.

-----------------------------------------------------

If I was inclined to believe in conspiracies, these event seem to be the perfect plot to resurrect the Soviet Union in North America. What a fiendish idea: destroy ownership of property by claiming to encourage ownership. Bring down or take control of all the big financial institutions in the process and you've handed all of the property over to the government. You like having a roof over your head and indoor plumbing? Submit to our rule or else.
 

196 Has kids he's responsible for and he offed himself?  That shit is weak.

197

#159: Sorry this is so long

Quite all right, Chris; it was worthwile reading.

I bought a house in 2001: 20% down, financed 80%. By 2005, I was able to refinance without a penalty. Rates were low then, so I did. Over those 4 years, I increased my equity from 20% to about 33% -- which is an understatement because property values went up since then, but the loan balance was about two-thirds of the original purchase price.

The people at the bank said that my payment record was good and that the house's value went up, so if I wanted to make the new loan at 100% of the new-and-improved value of the house, I had that option. And of course, I could also purchase a home-equity line of credit -- not a loan, but access to a loan should I ever want to borrow more. Anyway, the bank offered me about twice what I wanted on the refi. I politely declined, and they didn't push.

What I did find, though, were that the real estate brokers always had creative ways to put people in homes, and they all knew a guy in the mortgage business who could help make it happen.

 Just my experience, fwiw, and wondering how typical this is.

198 #149

The name is the only remnant of the original Circuit City. It is now a division of Tiger Direct, alongside CompUSA. I get daily emails from both of them and it's easily apparent they are the same operation trading on the familiarity of the brands.

199

"Bring down or take control of all the big financial institutions in the process and you've handed all of the property over to the government. You like having a roof over your head and indoor plumbing? Submit to our rule or else."

That might work in Russia. Or Europe.

Here, it'd just result in a bunch of dead feds.

200 #114

Actually, the plan worked perfectly. You just have to understand who were the intended beneficiaries. Hint: Not us.

#120

I was stunned to find 'Flip This House' still being shown a year after the crash began. I don't know if it was old repeats but it struck me as astonishingly bad taste on the part of the network.

#127

The effect wouldn't be as great as you might expect. Here in Southern California, we have a thing we call 'clown houses.' (The term was probably coined by John Kobylt of KFI 640 AM fame.) These are houses packed to the gills with illegals, often sleeping in shifts to better use the space. It can be a quite lucrative use of a rundown rental. They're called clown houses because when the cops show up (or are believed to be coming) the illegals stream out of every door and window in amazing numbers, like clowns emerging from a circus car.

Numerous other illegal alien live in other arrangements, like backyard shacks, which are not code compliant, to say the least. You probably have some illegals taking up a certain portion of the housing stock but far, far less than a comparable number of citizens who haven't been reduce to homelessness.

#129

I suspect we're going to see proposals in Congress to have the government seize ownership of lots of properties as the companies holding the mortgages die. This is just part of the program to make the government the primary landlord to US residents. Make the rents cheap and it would buy a hell of a lot of votes in 2012. Too bad the neighborhoods will quickly become hellholes.

201

My next door neighbor called last night and asked me to be at his house at exactly 10:30am. No biggie, I was always fixing his shit.

I walked in and found he committed suicide.

 I didn't know he was was being evicted on the 24th. He left me a note apologizing, but he didn't want the kids to find him after school. I was so tempted to take pics of their cars w/Obama stickers on them. Truth to power on Tax day..but that would go viral, and the kids don't need that. I lied to his ex-wife, and said I stopped by alot, and it looked like he had a heart attack. My 1st thought was to grab a bottle, but I'm an alcoholic. That won't work.

What would happen if he were a tea-partier, or had a McCain sticker. (shudder)

hope its wasn,t to hard on u haveing to go thru that..i,ve been down the road ur friend took..and i thank god my friends picked up on me going down that path and purdy much shamed me for even thinking that way.I wish he would of had someone to turn to..

202 #208

I'll believe when it actually happens.

I've spent most of my life wondering what it would take to get a lynch mob marching on the state house in Sacramento. Hasn't happen yet and they keep doing stupid stuff to top their previous outrages.

Heard any serious admissions from Washington that they have a lot of responsibility for this mess? Any serious suggestions on the majority side that Fannie and Freddie need to die? Anybody named at the big operators like Countrywide who are under any threat of prosecution?

Not so far. All of the perps get to walk away rich or enjoy massive pensions and perks for life.

203

There have been a rash of  suicides in my area....3 in 3 days, all hangings, even the female and that is not usually the chosen manner of death for women suicides.

Things are getting desperately bad around here.

Someone described above the phenomena of a driveway renter, someone who lives in a van or such in a driveway and uses the toilet and kitchen in the house. I have one of those at the house next door to me, along with a vacant house (over a year) down the street, and other neighbors who seem to have taken in many family members, judging by the occupied mobile home they have permanently on the front lawn.

I'm never going to be able to sell my nice home in what used to be nice, safe neighborhood up until recently.

A deep uneasiness has fallen over me.

204 #212

I haven't heard much about suicides but there are, I believe, quite a few more people living in my immediate neighborhood than it was intended to house. When we moved into this three bedroom unit it was me, my mother, and my oldest sibling/sister. She joined us in our previous place when divorce forced her to give up her home. The three of us were living in a pretty nice place owned by another sibling who'd been stuck with it since the last real estate implosion in the 90s. We weren't paying what it was worth as a rental but there had been a lot of damage done by previous tenants, so my other sister decided it was better to have us at a slight loss.

When the market finally came back, on its way to going berserk, that place got sold and we ended up here. Two years ago, my brother got a very long overdue divorce and is camping out in the living room. He has a good steady job but it isn't enough for him to meet his obligations and have his own place. The real problem is that my employment has been terribly unsteady for a long time. If I had a reliable income and got my debt paid down, we could probably get into a four bedroom rental.

But I've little hope.

205 I'm gonna miss my kind neighbor. But the selfish side wonders "what the fuck kind of NJ/NYC gang banger is gonna move in now?". This place will be in metro papers as a foreclosure by the end of the month.

206

Hutch1200, I am sorry that you were placed in that situation. No one should be asked to handle something like that, ever, without a drink no less.

It sounds like you thought of his family in how you handled matters, too.

You are a real man (or woman) in my book.