My House Got Stolen In The Housing Bubble
A report from the Bakersfield Californian. “Ten-and-a-half years ago, sorting through the day’s mail, I would often marvel at the number of let-me-sell-your-home postcards from real estate agents. We were surely half-millionaires on paper, I remember thinking, because our nothing-special suburban house had, apparently and quite suddenly, nearly doubled in value. I had known something wasn’t quite right, but the glitter of found money was dazzling — just not dazzling enough, fortunately, for me to suggest that we do something about it. And so we sat and watched.”
“Millions of other dazzled Americans took the leap, though. Then, 10 years ago this weekend, it all collapsed. Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 protection, an event generally acknowledged as the start of the Great Recession. The abyss began swallowing homes — and lives.”
“Scott Shaw of Bakersfield saw much of it play out before him. The retired postal worker was selling real estate in the months leading up the bubble’s bursting, and he remembers how one seller in particular, in way too deep, didn’t fully grasp what has happening.”
“‘I went out to show a house that the owner had paid about $950,000 for, then used his equity to buy furniture, a swimming pool, more cars, et cetera,’ Shaw said. ‘Now he was trying to sell it for somewhere in the low $700,000s, and he asked me if he would have to pay the loans back. Wow! I had to catch myself from laughing. ‘Yeah, you’ve got to pay it back.’”
“The seller was a self-employed truck driver and his wife had a minimum wage job making sandwiches at a hospital. Their stated income had been enough for them to qualify for their loan.”
“Dawn Reichel puts it like this: ‘My house got stolen in the housing bubble.’ It wasn’t just any house. It was Reichel’s family home. The roof she’d grown up living under. Her parents had given it to her and her husband when they’d moved out. Now she was losing her inheritance. ”
“‘We got a ridiculously high appraisal, then refinanced,’ said Reichel, who lives in Bakersfield. ‘We did a bunch of home improvements. We used the money to rebuild the fence, fix the roof, repaint the house, upgrade our air-conditioning system. When we went to refi again at the end of the term, our house was worth $100,000 less than we owed.’”
“Their monthly house payment almost tripled from $890 to $2,400. They had to walk away. And when the house was auctioned off one Christmas Day it went for $58,000. ‘When you’re 50 years old and you’re watching everything go down the toilet, it’s not conducive to a happy marriage,’ she said.”
“Reichel still has not recovered financially. She has been a renter ever since the meltdown, though she says she is slowly but surely getting back on her feet. Reichel blames the American condition. ‘So much of it is our sense of entitlement,’ Reichel said. ‘We feel that we have to have everything, so we get everything and then we find out we don’t need everything. But we’re willing to take risks to find out.’”
“And so we did. Have we learned? Check back in 10 more years.”
“Dawn Reichel puts it like this: ‘My house got stolen in the housing bubble.’
If there’s one common thread among virtually all “victims” of the housing bubble bust, it’s a complete absence of personal responsibility and accountability. Your house didn’t get “stolen,” lady - you lost it solely through your own poor financial decisions.
+1. She’s unwilling to acknowledge that she was making gambles that she didn’t even understand.
‘When you’re 50 years old and you’re watching everything go down the toilet, it’s not conducive to a happy marriage,’
A tiny bit of financial understanding is conducive to a happy marriage.
usually when the money runs out the women bail.
What are they supposed to do when they are out of money? Wait for the guy to win the lottery? Seems like it would be more promising to find another guy with money to share.
The rub tends to come when they are responsible for driving the reckless spending in the first place.
Exhibit A: My ex-wife. I was physically assaulted in response to trying to take stern measures to reign in her out-of-control spending (she never worked at all during the marriage). “The kids need this” was her battle cry to justify custom furniture, the Mercedes SUV, etc…
RE: “It’s for the children…”
I’m sorry about your tale of marital woe, MgSpiffy, which sounds like a worst case real world example of spousal parasitism. Good for you to find a way out of what must have been a very painful union.
I must have truly lucked out, as my wife works hard to contribute to our household income, plus she is not a spendthrift. It’s still a struggle to stay financially afloat in California, but at least the boat doesn’t have a gaping hole in the hull.
There’s no point in trying to explain basic responsibility to people like this. They’ll always find a way to rationalize how they “got screwed”.
“… you lost it solely through your own poor financial decisions.”
What she needs is financial guidance, something I am ready to offer to her. I will even throw in a free cup of coffee!
Always knew you had a heart, Mr. B.
Always knew you had a heart, Mr. B.
Yes, and that is where you need to place the wood stake. Otherwise, he comes back to life and drains you dry.
I’m guessing that you would gladly share a pen in case you can figure out a loan to help her out of her financial difficulties, of course with a taxpayer-guaranteed affordable lending program backing up the agreement.
Putting up one’s house as collateral for a loan has historically been considered a desperate measure. It is a truly a triumph of marketing that now it is done casually, for spending money.
You want to put your house ON THE LINE for a new car? A vacation? A boob job for the wife? Granite countertops?
In the bad old days before corporations would spy on us daily and use that information to sway elections for socialists…
Most homeowner folks would have said “FU!”
“It is a truly a triumph of marketing that now it is done casually, for spending money.”
It helps if the customer base is populated with a bunch of totally dumbed-down ignorant pukes.
This is what happens when you pay a grossly inflated price for a rapidly depreciating asset like a house.
Cambridge, MA Housing Prices Crater 17% YOY As Construction Cost Fall ($50/sq ft for lot, labor, materials and profit)
https://www.zillow.com/cambridge-ma-02138/home-values/
*Select price from dropdown menu on first chart
Mr. Banker, you are turning into a millennial slacker. Yes, you were at the top of your game ten years ago but now you are settling for a participation ribbon:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/homeowners-are-sitting-on-dollar6-trillion-theyre-not-tapping/ar-BBNkWmt?ocid=spartandhp
Seriously. He’s just sitting back and waiting for the muppets to come shambling in his door to sign on the dotted line. I think we should cut off his coffee privileges until he shows greater zeal and results in separating fools from their money.
You should, coffee is for closers.
Have we learned? Check back in 10 more years.
No need to wait ten more years to find it—it is abundantly obvious (from the re-bubble) that the vast majority have NOT learned.
WHERE DID THE HOME EQUITY LOAN MONEY GO???
You had a house - FREE AND CLEAR.
And then you used it like an ATM.
No one stole your house - you sold it to the bank a piece at a time.
And you are NOT a victim.
+++++
“Dawn Reichel puts it like this: ‘My house got stolen in the housing bubble.’ It wasn’t just any house. It was Reichel’s family home. The roof she’d grown up living under. Her parents had given it to her and her husband when they’d moved out. Now she was losing her inheritance. ”
Sounds exactly like what the United States is doing with the trade deficit . Selling a little piece of our economic capacity every month .
“$elling a little piece of our economic capacity every month .”
China import$ are in demand @ $ubsidized Co$ts to million$ of America’$ poor. Google any $tore: Amazon, Target, Walmart$, Co$tco
Mega U$A Citizen/Corporation$ would never $hort-change the American Nation bye utilizing labor$ & material$ from foreign nation$!
Google any of their $upply Chain$, all tributarie$ lead to the head water$ of plentiful cheap American blue collar$ worker$.
With they right amount of debt$&loan$, they can afford American made product$ regardless$$ of cost$.
Keep WAGE$ low!!! … Profit$ high!
‘When you’re 50 years old and you’re watching everything go down the toilet, it’s not conducive to a happy marriage,’ she said.”
Yeah, and they flushed the toilet themselves, so they need to own it.
Wonder if she and her husband:
Lived beneath their means
Saved a little
Did not used their house as an ATM
Things would have turned out different…
Century 21 - Let Suzanne get to work!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20n-cD8ERgs
The FSA army has no shame.
I can make a pretty good guess how he vote too…
Obama Is Going To Pay For My Gas And Mortgage!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36×8rTb3jI
++++
“Now he was trying to sell it for somewhere in the low $700,000s, and he asked me if he would have to pay the loans back. Wow! I had to catch myself from laughing. ‘Yeah, you’ve got to pay it back.’”
Was Manafort a FB?
Brownstone estimated valued: $4.1 million - but was going to be listed for $9 million in 2017.
$3 million condo trying for $500/night rent on Airbnb.
++++++
Check out the 4 homes Paul Manafort must forfeit
Yahoo Finance | Rick Newman
The plea agreement between Paul Manafort and special counsel Robert Mueller requires him to hand over four properties acquired or furnished with ill-gotten money, including a lavish estate in the tony Hamptons, on Long Island, New York.
The four homes are worth about $16 million, combined, according to estimates from real-estate firm Zillow.
If you’re on the market for a fancy house once owned by a now-notorious criminal, here are the four Manafort properties you may soon be able to buy from the government
174 Jobs Lane, Water Mill, N.Y. (above). 5,574 square feet / 10 bedrooms / 6 bathrooms. Estimated value: $7 million. This is Manafort’s Bridgehampton estate, complete with a pool, tennis court, basketball court and putting green (with sand trap). Prosecutors documented more than $6 million in payments Manafort made for home improvements to the property.
377 Union Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. (middle unit, above). 4,284 square feet / 7 bedrooms / 4 bathrooms. Estimated valued: $4.1 million. This brownstone is in the trendy Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. Brokers working for Manafort planned to list the property last year, at an asking price as high as $9 million. No more.
29 Howard St., Unit 4, New York, N.Y. 2,150 square feet / 2 bedrooms / 2 bathrooms. Estimated value: $2.9 million. Manafort didn’t spend much time in this condo in Manhattan’s ritzy SoHo district. Instead, he rented it on Airbnb, for upwards of $500 per night.
1046 N. Edgewood Street, Arlington, Va. 2,828 square feet / 4 bedrooms / 2.5 bathrooms. Estimated value: $1.7 million.
I was forced to overpay for a my last house cause all of the bailouts to underwater homeloaners.
That’s a seldom-mentioned point, which is that the costs of homeowner bailouts were implicitly passed on to any renter or prospective buyer who did not own a home when the bailout measures were implemented. It’s a case of a massive wealth transfer dressed up as a Democratic Party sponsored mission of mercy.
You (and folks like you) and savers were destroyed by obama’s QE and ZIRP.
No fan of Obama, but QE and ZIRP were the Fed’s doing. Presidents come and go, but the gold collar criminals at the Fed have been plundering the 99% since 1913.
“We were surely half-millionaires on paper, I remember thinking, because our nothing-special suburban house had, apparently and quite suddenly, nearly doubled in value.”
When you and your unwitting neighbors inexplicably find yourselves all sitting on an extra half a million dollars in unearned income, you can be sure you are witnessing one of the hallmarks of a mania first hand.
Are you saying that they aren’t superior investors? Those flyover folks just don’t understand that CA is special, and Bakersfield is particularly special. It’s just different there!
Like John Kenneth Galbraith astutely noted, “Genius is a rising market.”
What does that make a falling market? “Knifecatchers are morons”?
Politicians also appreciate the extra tax revenue.
Is this a Mr. Banker trick? You feel richer but are actually poorer as you have to pay more money in taxes?
And the new taxes will NEVER go down - even if the housing bubble implodes fully.
Public unions pensions WILL be paid.
Amen!
‘Shaw and his wife are in the same house they’ve been in since 2003. They’d walked away from temptation.
“At the time, I said, ‘No, let’s just sit on it.’ It’s a house, not a piggy bank,” Shaw said.’
++++
Mr Banker plays for keeps…
‘Norman Maynard of Bakersfield wasn’t so lucky. He jumped on what seemed like a great opportunity and lost his house.
He and his new wife, along with their respective grown sons, had agreed they should refinance the house and cash in some of that surprise equity. When the bottom dropped out, their adjustable-rate mortgage payment jumped from $1,600 to $2,600.
“Everyone won except for me,” Maynard said.”
++++
There is an entire political party and their entire political base is centered on that sense…
“Reichel blames the American condition.
“So much of it is our sense of entitlement,”"
“Norman Maynard of Bakersfield wasn’t so lucky.”
“Lucky”. Not smart, but lucky. I love this blog.
“He jumped on …”
A snake? A cactus?
“… what seemed like a great opportunity …”
😁
“… and lost his house.”
Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
‘Norman Maynard of Bakersfield wasn’t so lucky. He jumped on what seemed like a great opportunity and lost his house.”
I thought it was talking about his new spendthrift wife.
Downtown Los Angeles, CA Housing Prices Crater 10% YOY As Housing Sales Industry And Media Collaborate To Conceal Information From Public
https://www.zillow.com/downtown-los-angeles-ca/home-values/
*Select price from dropdown menu on first chart
Realtors are liars.
This guy is pumping radio ads in San Diego about how the real estate market is going to “turn and turn fast. Don’t lose your equity!”
https://www.reefpointrealestate.com/info/john-has-all-the-buyers
The only way not to lose your equity is to offload your overpriced shack onto a Greater Fool or Knife Catcher while the offloading is good.
sell when you can, not when u have to!
Easier said than done if you are in the place you own for access to your workplace and don’t really need to relocate. It’s a big gamble to time a bubble top. what if you sold now and the Fed subsequently slowed its pace of punchbowl removal? You could end up missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional home equity gains and end up paying higher rents while trying to time market reentry.
Buying a home or not used to be a low-risk, predictable financial decision. The Fed has turned it into a high stakes gamble of your financial future.
Rising interest rates + DJT’s new tax laws + the Great QE unwind + Mel Watt retiring in 3.5 months (maybe sooner with sexual harassment charges pending) =
=
=
=
=
HGTV shows showing stuck flippers having to move into their flip…
u are as good as your last paycheck to a lot of gold diggers.
I’m sure it’s not easy being a gold digger when you have to maintain that thigh gap, not develop any cottage cheese on that caboose and submit to someone in poor shape. The guy just has to have money, which could be inherited… no work at all. But when the sun eventually sets I’m sure they’re both disappointed with their choices.
Sunrise may prove even more painful:
A little history:
After bubble 1.0, the tech/.com bubble popped, due to gutting of Glass-Steagall, the Fed blew bubble 2.0, the housing bubble. Then, after bubble 2.0 popped, the Fed blew bubble 3.0, the “everything”, and current bubble. Why do they do this, even though they know (but won’t admit they know) that bubbles ALWAYS pop, and outcomes are ALWAYS extremely nasty? Because they’re afraid of civil unrest, plus can-kicking.
The “wealth effect” (housing + stocks) is supposed to ameliorate all of the bad feelings that people got from being screwed over (think wealth transfer) by the banking cartel and the Fed, which is the head of said cartel, whilst they’re in the process of picking your pockets.
The same issue is at play with student loans. Hey, it keeps the young and disenfranchised in the classroom and off the street, instead of protesting, or something worse.
The financialization of the U.S. economy is a pathological (read abnormal) state of affairs. This in NOT your run-of-the mill free market economy. Thanks to our world-class education system, including “common core” and other dumbing-down progressive policies, most people don’t have the slightest clue that they’re being taken to the cleaners, hoodwinked, shafted, schlonged, etc. etc. etc. Go watch “The Matrix” again and you’ll get the idea.
Since the Fed and their cronies are a one-trick pony, expect more of the same when bubble 3.0 pops. Only this time around, the Fed’s out of ammo, and so that civil unrest thing, along with a generous helping of that pesky Second Amendment (hey, the Fed may not have any, but we the people have ammo), might make things a little more “interesting”.
The bottom line is that the Fed is well underway in the process of destroying the economic system of this country, and by doing so the nation itself. This is the grand plan of the progressive agenda. Until the avg. citizen wakes up and takes notice, things aren’t going to get better any time soon. Of course our duly appointed representatives in Congress have “got your back”, and so there’s really nothing to worry about (snark).
“It’s a recession when your neighbor looses his job, it’s a depression when you loose your job.”
+1
I’m with you on everything but the comment on “Common Core”. All that is is a way to show your math work and think it out vs. just hitting numbers on a calculator. A lot of folks (Moms really) hate it because they can’t do it, so it MUST be terrible. It’s not bad once you figure it out, and God willing maybe these young kids can figure out how Refi works instead of “Theys stole MA Hause”.
“… maybe these young kids can figure out how Refi works instead of “Theys stole MA Hause”.
I’m offering free lessons.
(Well, not exactly free lessons, but they kinda seem to be free.)
As long as people are so financially illiterate that they count on USA Today’s millennials to get numbers correct, how can things change? Check out what the average rent is as told by the USA financial illiterates to the other millennials:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdKbNrANrJs
I disagree with your opinion of common core. There is a method of teaching math (arithmetic to elementary) that is not common core methods or “hitting numbers on a calculator”. It is the teaching methods used for hundreds of years until “progressive thinking” took over and the education system became a political football with many different players (none of them the students).
Published yesterday: Watt refused to participate in harassment probe
“Top housing regulator Mel Watt declined to participate in an investigation of claims that he had sexually harassed a woman who worked for him, according to portions of the investigator’s report obtained by POLITICO.
Agency employee Simone Grimes this year accused Watt, who oversees mortgage-financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, of repeatedly making sexual advances when she tried to discuss salary concerns.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/14/mel-watt-harassment-1933046
“… repeatedly making sexual advances when she tried to discuss salary concerns.”
Play for pay. Or pay for play.
Simone Grimes should know that Mel Watt prefers screwing taxpayers.
Moorpark, CA Housing Prices Crater 8% YOY As Plunging China GDP Ravages Southern California
https://www.movoto.com/moorpark-ca/market-trends/
The crackdown on sanctuary cities gives birth to ‘freedom cities’
“Sanctuary city policies, like Austin used to have, were a defiant effort by progressive urban cities with large immigrant populations to reject cooperation with federal government-led efforts to round up undocumented immigrants. But after a crackdown on sanctuary policies by the Justice Department, and by conservative state legislatures, like the one in Texas, blue cities were forced to find another way forward.
The newest solution has been “freedom city” policies, which unlike sanctuary initiatives, create new ways for city officials to comply legally with federal rules and state laws, while still protecting undocumented immigrants.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/crackdown-sanctuary-cities-gives-birth-freedom-cities-n909606
I always love the way liberals and progressives think they can ignore any democratically and perfectly legal federal or state law they don’t agree with…
But you better bake that damn cake.
Cause the Supreme Court said so…
Can’t understand why gay guys cannot make their own cakes. It is not like straight guys are known to be more artistic.
Does the Fed’s hair-of-the-dog cure, where a much larger pile of debt is created to rescue the economy from the inevitable hangover that follows a massive easy money credit binge, really work?
I guess we’ll find out soon enough, once the Fed finishes its policy normalization exercise.
It’s a lot like watching a large asteroid, whose trajectory puts it on a collision path with Planet Earth, hurdle through space.
The Wall Street Journal
Opinion Commentary
Get Ready for the Next Financial Crisis
The post-2008 fixes piled on more debt. And when rates rise and credit turns, equity won’t be far behind.
By Daniel J. Arbess
Sept. 14, 2018 6:08 p.m. ET
It’s the 10th anniversary of the Lehman Brothers debacle. Do we need reminding that debt crises take place when markets underwrite and buy too much bad debt? Yes.
The 2008 crisis was clearly visible before it struck. So is the next one. The short-term fixes produced by America’s broken political system failed miserably to reduce debt. Instead they substantially increased, nationalized and redistributed it—from household mortgages to sovereign, corporate and consumer balance sheets. We may be about to experience the consequences…
If the Wall Street Journal is telling you that an imminent correction is about to happen, is it really because a correction is going to happen or is it really telling you that the big guys want to buy your stocks cheap? We did not see the MSM telling us about the housing or stock market correction last time just before the bottom fell out.
Point taken, though I don’t think the article tries to pin down the timing, making it a stopped-clock prediction that is certain to prove correct, whenever the next financial crisis strikes.
Nonetheless it’s a fascinating op-ed and worth the time and effort to read it.
“….Have we learned? Check back in 10 more years.”
Readers here can tell in the next 10 seconds. This whole blog is based upon the premise the bubbles and bust keep repeating themselves.
Not quite. Ben may feel free to correct me, but my impression is that at this juncture, it is based on the premise that The Housing Bubble isn’t over yet, and the aftermath has yet to begin to play out.
By contrast, other manias of historic scale, such as the South Sea Bubble or Tulipmania, are long over and clearly visible through the lens of history.
I listened to a long running RE radio show here in Las Vegas yesterday, after not bothering with it for years. One of the hosts said that he thinks Vegas is “just at the verrrrry beginning of a buyers’ market.” He said it in a lighthearted, “no cause for concern” manner. No comment from the two or three other realtors/mortgage guys on the show.
The Financial Times
Opinion Global financial crisis
A post-crisis cure that has stored up economic pain
It has become clear to many people that their future has been re-priced
Merryn Somerset Webb
Think of the pensioners who know that middling levels of wealth are meaningless if you want an income
Merryn Somerset Webb
September 14, 2018
When the world’s central banks leapt into action to save the global financial industry in 2008 there was not much discussion about whether that was the right thing to do. Some economists observed that the central banks had shown a bizarre level of incompetence in allowing a credit crunch to turn to crisis on their watch — so gambling that they were competent enough to fix it seemed a bit nuts. But for most people, the imperative of avoiding meltdown — indeed avoiding any real recession at all — trumped these concerns.
…
The wealthy, and those in a position to borrow and take risks, have become wealthier. As a simple example, imagine a middle-aged man with a large mortgage in central London in 2008 and an equity portfolio. If he did not lose his job, he has had a brilliant decade. His mortgage costs have collapsed, his disposable income soared and his wealth doubled. If he works in any area that involves helping other people speculating to get yield, things are even better.
On the other end of the scale, we have those who have spent 10 years being punished for thrift. Think of the cash savers who, with interest rates near zero and inflation over 2 per cent, lose money in real terms with every passing day. Think of the pensioners who know that middling levels of wealth are increasingly meaningless if you want an income.
Ten years ago £200,000 was enough to produce an annual income of £10,000. Today £500,000 hardly cuts it. And think of course of the many tenants who know they can never save enough for a house deposit. It has gradually become clear to all these people that their future has been re-priced — and not in their favour. Add in an overlay of austerity (other people getting rich while your library closes) and stagnant wages and you see the problem.
…
When the world’s central banks leapt into action to save the global financial industry in 2008 there was not much discussion about whether that was the right thing to do.
Oh there was discussion. But a lot of effort went into making sure most people never heard it or got the wrong idea about which solution was best for them.
As a refugee of one of the places mentioned in this article, I can say that many people left to escape the ever present risk of becoming a target in communities where serious crime problems go chronically underaddressed. I would guess that if city leaders got their crime problems under control, they could bring back the workers who used to support vibrant local economies.
How Struggling Dayton, Ohio, Reveals the Chasm Among American Cities
As a ProPublica/Frontline documentary shows, the economic and social gaps among cities are growing as dramatic as the gaps between urban and rural areas.
by Alec MacGillis
Sept. 11, 5 a.m. EDT
…
There have always been more and less wealthy cities, but nothing like what is on display today, as a select group of hyper-prosperous cities put ever-greater distance between themselves and their counterparts. Consider this. In 1980, even after the first wave of deindustrialization, Middle American cities such as Dayton were remarkably close to par with their coastal peers. Per capita income in the Seattle area was only 16 percent greater than in the Dayton area. In metro Boston, the edge was only 6 percent. In New York, 14 percent. In Washington, 31 percent. And in the San Francisco Bay, 33 percent.
All those cities have since left Dayton in the dust. Seattle’s per capita income is now 48 percent greater. Boston’s edge has jumped all the way to 61 percent — a tenfold increase. New York and Washington are both over 50 percent greater. And in the Bay Area, per capita income is 94 percent greater than in the Dayton area—that is, almost double. (And these stats are for the whole Dayton area, not just the diminished city proper, which has lost nearly half its population since 1960, to about 140,000 today, and where more than a third of the population now lives in poverty.) You’ll find similarly widening gaps if you substitute Dayton with St. Louis or Milwaukee or Fresno or Buffalo.
…
Arvada, CO Housing Prices Crater 8% YOY As Denver Area Mortgage Fraud Escalates To Unprecedented Level
https://www.movoto.com/arvada-co/market-trends/
“it may suck to sell early and then see more gains. But it sucks worse not to sell and end up with nothing and being a bagholder.”
Aww, come on, people, don’t be scared — look at all that free money:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/homeowners-are-sitting-on-6-trillion-in-available-cash-but-theyre-not-tapping-it.html
Jesus Christ. I don’t want to live on this Earth any longer.
Well for Pete’s sake, hurry up and tap that equity so that you can claim victimhood and qualify for a bailout when you are at the point of losing your home in the next financial crisis. Worst case is you lose the home, but don’t forfeit any untapped equity in the process.
…. which requires appraisal fraud.
“Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.” —Dubya
“He Told Us to Go Shopping. Now the Bill Is Due.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/03/AR2008100301977.html