The Market Has Gone Completely South In Florida
The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida. “As of last month, a record 30,000-plus single-family homes were listed for sale in the Tampa Bay area, and for the first time in three years, the median sale price in Pinellas County dipped below $200,000.”
“Realtor Nancy Baird doesn’t mince words when asked about having to hang on another six weeks or longer. ‘It’s a huge problem because so many people are waiting to see what happens,’” Baird, a sales agent in St. Pete Beach, said. ‘They’re scared they won’t be able to take their Save Our Homes cap with them. I have a customer who’s selling her condo and renting instead of buying because it’s cheaper.’”
“Baird recently sold a home in St. Petersburg that had an assessed value of $230,000. Because the home had been on the market 18 months, it sold for the discounted price of $180,000.”
“In its latest study, Metrostudy found that Pasco County’s annual housing starts fell 46 percent in 2006 from the year before, the biggest drop in the Tampa Bay area.”
“But, in some cases, the chilly market does not explain everything. For example, the award-winning, 4, 800-acre ‘new town’ of Connerton in Land O’Lakes launched its sales in late 2005.”
“It’s approved for 8, 700 homes. So far, it’s sold about 200, said Stewart Gibbons, Connerton’s president.”
The Orlando Sentinel. “The number of finished-but-vacant homes ‘remains troublesome,’ according to a report released Thursday by Metrostudy. The number of vacant new homes in the region rose 26.3 percent from the first quarter of 2006.”
“‘No one is putting anything new on the ground,’ said Keith Bass, Orlando division president for Ryland Homes. The Metrostudy report showed that housing starts in Orange, Lake, Seminole, Osceola, Volusia and Polk counties fell 46.7 percent during the first quarter compared with a year earlier.”
The Citrus County Chronicle. “Statistics show new residential starts in Citrus County declined 29 percent from 2005 to 2006 and the total dollar value of new residential construction declined 26 percent in the same period.”
“Jim Crosley, director of sales and marketing for Rusaw Homes, said the company has felt the slowdown. Rusaw Homes marketed 130 sales contracts in 2005, but only 50 in 2006 and just 3 so far this year.”
“‘The market has gone completely south,’ he said.”
“Colony Stone, a subcontractor that handles stuccowork for Rusaw Homes and Citrus Hills, has laid-off 60 employees, Crosley said. ‘That’s going to be a big impact on the county,’ he added.”
“He said some people are paying twice as much in taxes as they were three years ago. Property values were falsely inflated when investors ‘flipped’ property for quick profits in 2005, he said.”
“Development Services Director Gary Maidhof said more single-family housing permits were issued during the first three months of 2007 than in the first or second quarters of 2006, respectively.”
“Maidhof said the trend in 2005 was for investors to sink money into real estate, which was rising in value, but the reverse is true today. ‘Keep in mind, in 2005, that was an anomaly,’ he said.”
The Sun Sentinel. “When a mortgage broker convinced Erik Zapata he could own a home, he quickly signed on the dotted line. He and his girlfriend moved their two children out of a low-income housing project in Pompano Beach and settled into their new Coconut Creek condo.”
“But as the numbers on his monthly statements soared, Zapata found himself in a sinkhole of debt. He says he did not clearly understand what he signed: a deferred-interest loan that adds thousands of dollars in unpaid interest to his mortgage.”
“‘The dream home becomes the nightmare,’ said mortgage lender Tino Diaz,. ‘If we’re putting people into homes they can’t afford, we’re wrecking them. You have lenders out there saying, ‘If you’re breathing and you’ve got a paycheck, let me give you a home.’”
“The brother-in-law of a good friend, a Boca Raton lender, talked him into an easy deal, Zapata says. His income, at the time $22,000, didn’t need verification, the lender said.”
“Zapata agreed to pay $700 monthly before taxes on a $244,000 condo in Riviera Palms. He’d pay over a 40-year period at an interest rate of 1.7 percent. But he didn’t know he was paying only a fraction of the total interest, 8.6 percent. He soon noticed his statements showed a debt growing by $1,000 a month.”
“‘I felt cheated,’ said Zapata. He considered walking away and losing the condo, but is trying instead to get a refinancing loan with a different lender. He could pay more than $7,000 in refinancing penalties and has little money left over for other expenses.”
“Zapata admits he had been in a hurry to sign and glossed over key details in his contract. ‘We were so happy when we moved into this place,’ Zapata said. ‘Now I sit up at night staring at the numbers.’”
The Herald Tribune. “Coast Financial Holdings Inc. continues to hemorrhage, posting a loss of $2.4 million in the first quarter. Coast also increased its provision for loan losses by $1.4 million in the first quarter, primarily to cover a commercial real estate loan to developer Michael Tringali.”
“The bank made 482 loans totaling $110 million to CCI customers, many of whom were speculators. The company drew millions of dollars from the bank, even though it did little to no work on some of those homes.”
“Many of those borrowers, $31.6 million worth, have stopped making payments on their loans, and Coast will file foreclosure actions against them. ‘We have begun enforcing our rights under the construction loan agreements,’ said Tramm Hudson, Coast’s special advisor.”
“Four additional customers of a home building company that abandoned 50 home sites here went to police this week to pursue further criminal charges against the company’s top executive.”
“Joseph Pufta, the former head of now-defunct Avalon Homes, was charged last month with 21 felonies after seven families contacted police saying he took their money and failed to complete the work they paid for.”
“‘It’s all the same,’ said North Port Police Detective Lenny Hills, of the families’ stories. Avalon got money from construction loans and failed to pay subcontractors for work, Hills said. Those subcontractors, in turn, abandoned the jobs and placed liens on the houses, he said.”
“While several other local home builders faltered when Southwest Florida’s real estate bubble burst last year, Pufta is the only area builder to face criminal charges. One of Pufta’s charges stems from an episode where police say his company cashed a New Jersey woman’s $42,180 check, yet 18 months later her lot had not even been cleared.”
“‘I didn’t know it was a crime that you filed with police because it’s a builder that just didn’t finish your house,’ said Alisha Buckingham, who finally contacted authorities after work on her two-story home stopped last June.”
“She said that on Aug. 11 the company drew $42,000 from her account. ‘I don’t care if I’m in labor, I’ll be sitting in that court until it’s done,’ Buckingham, now seven months pregnant, said about seeing Pufta held accountable.”
I really dislike Florida for all of the usual reasons and now i’ll have one more…
It’s the prow of the great ship lollypop (or Titantic or Luisitania or Andrea Dorea, et al) that will soon plunge into fathomless debts~
Oh yeah…
First.
wow read this comment from the first article:
“My taxes and insurance have gone from $680 per month 2 years ago to $1970 per month today. I can rent a larger home than I currently live in for less than that. Add my mortgage payment in, and it was cheaper for me to live in San Diego.
by Steve”
FL IS SCROOOED
The tone of these articles is stricly negative; no bottom-calling here. I think the MSM may be moving from the ‘denial’ to ‘acceptance’ phase that the bubble is really not coming back. Expect more ugly/bearish reporting going forward.
Come on over to the Palm Beach post blogs someday if you want to hear plenty of DL like predictions! It appears that Palm Beach believes itself to be immune to the housing downturn, even though (IMHO) they may in fact be bubble central for S. FL. But hey, at least the optimism is still there.
I got a great lecture about how RE has always outperformed the stock market over the long term the other day. Then I got a great discussion of leverage (If it goes up, I make infinate profit, if it goes down, I walk away).
Hey, hope springs eternal, especially in Palm Beach!
“Hey, hope springs eternal, especially in Palm Beach!”
Haven’t you heard its Springs every month.
Spring bounce?
I see your name, and I was just wondering, were in S. NJ are you? I used to live in Cumberland county before moving to Palm Beach. Let’s just say, housing is a different world in that part of NJ (very, very inexpensive!). Or it was when I left; is that part of the country now seeing a bubble as well?
Thx!
I live in Gloucester County. Housing bubble did catch up to this neck of the woods. There are no longer any dirt roads, thanks to pavement and everyone found out that it would cost less to live in South NJ( instead of living in North NJ, where traffic is ridiculously backed up on the garden state parkway and Nj turnpike). So now there’s traffic around, prices of homes have gone up, population exploded and taxes average out around 10,000 a year.
Well, since Rush (Pills) Limbaugh lives there, it HAS to go up!
No one in florida is accepting yet. Complete denial. I still see other year, before things really change. The prices of housing just went so high, there is just no buyers yet. The smart people are just laying low.
“‘I felt cheated,’ said Zapata
if i hear one more story about these “victims”, i gonna barf. sure, everyone else is paying 6% on their mortgage, but i’m special, that’s why my interest rate is 1%, i had no idea that i could be accruing interest, jeez.
The only cheating you experienced was forgetting to get in the common sense/brain line before being born. Perhaps you can use this as an excuse for the rest of your life as well.
I saw this article earlier today on the SS. I could not wait to see it here; as I knew that Zapata’s story would just pull on all our heartstrings. Come on, we have to help out people who purchased a home at more then 10X income, its the American thing to do folks!
“if i hear one more story about these “victims”, i gonna barf.”
Maybe the HBB could market barf bags personalized with our blog handles, to keep by the computer for when we read these stories.
I wonder if this guy is a guest worker? Hey, at least he’s doing better than the strawberry picker over in yesterday’s Cali thread. That guy made less and his house cost three times as much. Note to guestworkers: Do NOT buy a condo. Condo boards frown on renting rooms to make your mortgage.
The thing that REALLY pisses me off is that the real victims of this problem are never heard from.
Who are these people? US!
We are the people that have been unable to buy a home because idiots like the guy in the story have been using crazy lending standards to bid against us on houses. We can afford them, they can’t, but they still have the loan paperwork, and that’s all it takes.
The real victims are not idiots that are losing homes they could never afford. The victims are people who could afford homes that were unable to buy because lenders were “arming” idiots with 10X income loans!
I could really afford to buy a 500K home, given a reasonable D/I ratio and % of income. However, I am competing with people making 50K and with the same loan approval bidding against me on a house that they can clearly not afford.
I will get off my “victim” podium now. However, I think that responsible borrowers/buyers were really the ones who were shafted during this whole crazy run-up. The idiot with the suicide loan could never afford it in the first place!
Well said!
The MSM also shows its bias when characterizing the market downtrend. They always couch it as bad news.
House prices going down? Oh, that’s automatically horrible!
Not for us renters, jack!
The MSM assumes that every single American owns a home (or three) so heavens to mergatroid we’re all just soooooo upset when house prices fall. Let’s all have a good cry about it.
Hey Media, 30% (?) of us do NOT own a home, and we’re cheering wildly and partying on while this ridiculous market tanks. Burn, baby, burn! But you’d never know it from reading the newspaper or watching TV.
I love this blog.
Los Angelenos are requested NOT to fire their handguns at the large black helicopters hovering over the city most nights.
Right on, Michael. As taxpayers, we will be further victimized when the big bailout comes.
We bought our home in 1997 so I have no complaints in that area. But I do feel the same when it comes to people who keep doing the cash-out refis and running up credit cards and the bankers who encourage it. They just run up the prices of everything.
If you saw the cars my husband and I drive, and watched me shop at Goodwill, you’d probably think we’re poor. We’re not at all, but how can our earned and saved money compete with people paying with fantasy dollars? It just can’t.
People can’t live on credit cards forever. Eventually everything will need to get paid off. You might be shopping goodwill today but the people that pissed their resources away going into stupid debt will be shopping there tomorrow.
Thanks for your comments. You are spot on. Just keep on collecting 5.4% on CD’s while these properties tank.
Doesn’t being a guest imply that one was invited to come in the first place?
Yes, they have been invited. Perhaps if we focused on those doing the inviting rather than the guests we would have better luck reducing the number of guests.
Sorry, but the Chamber of Commerce does not have the authority to extend those invitations, which is why illegals do not have visas.
2005: 1. Sign now because I’m gonna make 20% yoy and refinance again for a nice new car and BoraBora vacation
2. They aren’t making more land
3. This is the easiest money I have ever made
4. I don’t even have to work anymore
2007:
1. Those predatory lenders, they made me do it.
2. The government need to bail me out.
3. They made the fine print too small for me to read
4. They threw in a shinny stainless steel refrigerator. I am often distracted by shinny objects.
Yeah, and so are bass moron.
It makes me cringe to think that some people bought on the basis of the shiney SS fridge and granite (that adds about 3-5K to the total cost of a 500K home) but I know they did. It’s like buying a Lambo because it has a cup holder that can hold a Double Big Gulp soda! WTF?
lambos are CHEAP
so are ferraris
when housing cost 1 million plus for an ok house, suddenly a 250k car seems affordable.
How interest payments on loans works, in relation to current interest rates, should be a mandatory high school course, in every public school. No graduation awarded, unless student pases the test.
” I have a customer who’s selling her condo and renting instead of buying because it’s cheaper.’”
Hearing something like this quoted in the MSM, and coming from a Realtor no less, is quite a change.
This is item #6 on CNN’s money tips for net worth growth. Hmmm…
Of course I logged it.
http://recomments.blogspot.com/
Got popcorn?
Neil
If more people sell their condo this month, Baird will make the lease payments on the BMW.
“‘I felt cheated,’ said Zapata. He considered walking away and losing the condo, but is trying instead to get a refinancing loan with a different lender. He could pay more than $7,000 in refinancing penalties and has little money left over for other expenses.”
What a retard. This is exactly the kind of idiot I was referring to in my earlier bits post. Did none of these people learn to add and subtract in school? They go from living in a slum to a so called luxury townhouse paying almost nothing every month and they don’t even think something may be slightly unusual?
Amazing, isn’t it? I don’t blame him for wanting to get out of a low income housing project in Pompano Beach, I went to one of those on a United Way project one time. Very grim. But hey, he could live like a king here in SouthShore, in one of the subsidized farmworker housing apartment complexes, complete with swimming pool, clubhouse and tot lot. All he has to do is prove part of his income is from agriculture. Ain’t it grand? Of course, if you’re a returning Iraq vet with a limb blown off, you don’t get the same deal.
How do I prove part of my income is from agriculture?
Is it good enough that my folks started out as farmers?
Just show up unable to speak English and the alleged progressives will take it for granted. Clutching a wilting vegetable in a hand might also be helpful.
“Clutching a wilting vegetable…”
Nice touch. It’s all in the details.
“Clutching a wilting vegetable…” That’s what my wife says…oh never mind better not go there
It’s almost as if the Universe is pulling a joke on these people. “Here is your free or nearly free new luxury home. Ooops, time’s up. Get out.”
Subsidized housing in Hillsborough County is ridiculous, and I suspect a major draw for poor people in other areas. It also allows apartment owners to hike prices to whatever welfare will pay, which is often way, way more than the places are worth. I believe no adult should be allowed to get welfare without agreeing to immediate sterilization. There is not enough money in the world to pay for unrestricted poverty growth and the misery it produces. Virtually everything from downtown Tampa north to Land o’ Lakes is slum, excluding Carolwood, which isn’t in Tampa’s city limits, so South Tampa, an area one tenth the size, is footing the bill. No wonder it’s so expensive and the taxes are so high.
You cannot take a poor person and put him in a beautiful house and expect his life to be transformed forever. The mental patterns and images (yes negative thinking, woo woo mystical stuff here) of a lifetime cannot be erased so easily, and tend to reassert themselves at the first available opportunity. This is why I sit in amazement watching “Extreme Makeover.” I bet a very high percentage of the “winners” on that show end up right back where they started within five years or fewer. Ditto for millions of white trash flippers who thought they were “upgrading” by moving into progressively more expensive housing, but will be downgraded in due course. Water seeks its own level, and Dogpatch and Beverly Hills are a few million levels apart.
I have an even more radial (and horribly subject to abuse, and therefore bad) system. I think that everyone should be temporarily sterilized. Only when you have proven finacial stablity should you be allowed to have children. If you can’t afford it, you should not be allowed to have them, plain and simple. It’s not like a car that somone can just repo. If you can’t afford it, we all have to afford it for you.
Now, before all the nuts come out of the woodwork, I realize that this plan cannot be implemented because of social implications. But, all things being just in the world, this is the way it should work.
My mother in law volunteers to work in a nusery every winter when she is here (snow birds from MN). The nurery is in a local highschool that has about 95% hispanics. All the girls are on welfare and the nursery is only for students - not staff. One girl was pregnate with her FOURTH child by TWO differect guys in her senior year. I just shake my head in disgust when I hear stuff like this. My tax dollars at work!
I don’t think that’s radical at all. I’ve been saying for years–and only half-jokingly–that contraceptives should be put into the water supply, and only those worthy of having children (i.e., kind people who will love and nurture them, and teach them something worthwhile) should be given an antidote. We sterilize pets to prevent misery, but when somebody suggests doing it to humans, gross people start screaming we’re depriving them of their rights. What rights? To reproduce at everyone else’s expense. If they want absolute reproductive rights, they can move to an empty island in the Pacific. Oh, I forgot. Somebody just built luxury condos there.
I still hear people claiming that there is no overpopulation, just bad human distribution, but the fact remains that humans are destroying this planet at an unprecedented pace, and apparently with no qualms.
What makes this even more annoying is that contraception and sterilization, unlike abortion, do not have real or potential victims, and if practiced, would pretty much eliminate that issue from the political landscape. I guess some people simply prefer drama and suffering, even if the suffering is someone else’s.
The above comments are for Michael Fink. I need to practice directing my comments, because I have no idea where they’ll wind up in the post downline.
You get what you reward, so if people are rewarded for breeding, they’ll breed. Big time. If people get paid for bonking and spoinking, they’ll bonk and spoink. Beats sorting vegetables.
I imagine some people do all three at the same time.
I think the reason that we will never see pop controls like this is because, in some sick way, the govt still thinks that people give us power. The more people we have, the more powerful we are as a country.
I would argue that that is exactly NOT the case, however, it will take another 100 years before the mindset changes. The more people you can line up with guns, the more powerful your army was (70 years ago), and the American people, in some sick way, still think that way. Every person is a good person, because it adds to the “power” of the American machine.
What they don’t realize is that probably only about 50% add anything to the economic prosperity of the American public. The other 50% suck off the 50% that is actually doing something productive.
And, frankly, the population=power idea is totally outdated anyway. One person with the right codes, and the right level of psychosis can destroy every living thing on the planet in less then an hour. Technology is power, not head count.
OFF TOPIC —
Want another radical political idea? Eliminate the standing armed forces. All of them, no more soldiers at all. The only response will be nuclear cruise missles. That’s it. You fly a plane into a building, we drop a few hundred megatons of nuke onto your country, as that is our only possible response. It works for the Mossad, if the enemy truly believes they will be removed from this earth (entirely) by fu**ing with us, I doubt we would ever have the problem again. A offshoot of this idea is to stop supporting Isreal. Why? Because, those people are crazy as he%%! If we let them take the gloves off, they would kill everyone of their enemies in the area, and that would be the end of the blood war in that area. They would not hesitate to use WMDs on their enemies; it is only our involvement that allows this war to grind on in a conventional manner. And yes, eventually, one of the Arab countries is going to get a bomb and nuke Isreal. And then the Isreali people are going to do what they would have done 20 years ago, which is to turn the responsible country into a large, smoking crater. It is only a matter of time before this happens; and although the loss of life will be horrific, at least the constant death will stop in that area.
i have a simpler suggestion: following Jefferson’s and Washington’s advice on foreign policy and there wont be a reason, real or perceived, for a psycho to fly planes in the building. No wait who’s gonna feed the military-industrial beast than? - sorry for getting off topic, i started thinking logically, forgot to take the medication.
got cash?
…”the other 50% suck off the 50%”
Jeebuz can’t you use a better metaphor this is FRIDAY!
“It works for the Mossad”
yeah cuz israel is wicked safe
Incredulous, the subsidized housing down this way is truly mind-boggling. I remember you posting a while back about how the farmworkers live down here, and if you were talking about Wimauma, you’d be right. Ruskin, however, is a whole different matter. If I didn’t see it with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.
People generally have to get used to changing conditions on a gradual scale, otherwise it is a cruel joke. Nothing is sadder than to see someone in way over their head. I am all for opportunity and giving people a leg up, but not when it comes at the expense of common sense.
I saw a story a few months ago on the local news about some poor guy who was in charge of some local housing authority from which millions were missing. The poor fellow was in tears over it, I don’t think he had the first clue that ultimately he was responsible for it and it was just beginning to dawn on him. The cruelty of the media was mind-boggling. Clearly, the guy’s appointment to the job in the first place was some sort of affirmative action politically motivated move. And I’m sure he depended on the staff to sort of bolster his position and mask his inexperience, but apparently it just became a free for all. It’s like parents telling some little kid in kindergarten they can do anything, then having the kid take an SAT test and excoriating and punishing him for flunking when he’s just barely learned how to read. And then continually expressing contempt for the kid after that. That’d mark someone for life. It’s all well and good to bolster self-esteem, but you don’t tell a girl with one leg she can become a prima ballerina, even Heather Mills would tell you that.
Hi palmetto. I like this line:
“It’s all well and good to bolster self-esteem, but you don’t tell a girl with one leg she can become a prima ballerina, even Heather Mills would tell you that.”
Years ago there was a local weekly talent contest on one of the Tampa cable access channels. The hosts wore (her) an evening gown and (him) a tuxedo, and acted as if the whole thing were very, very important. There was a live studio audience. Needless to say, it was hilarious, if one found terrible acts by no-talents entertaining, which I did and still do.
One week, a blind girl with spastic eyes came out and sang the theme to “Ice Castles,” a movie about a figure skater who lost her sight. The singing was awful, but the sight of her spastic eyes flipping in all directions while she belted out her sympathy torchsong was simulatenously horrifying and screamingly funny. I guess nobody wanted to tell her to wear sunglasses because her eyes had another problem in addition to not working, and to sing a different song, because fishing for sympathy was in bad taste.
American Idol is a tribute to no-talents who think they’re going places, but it seems that hundreds of millions of people suffer from self-delusion in one form or another. Uneducated, unsanitary people who cannot communicate are not likely to achieve success in life, and putting them into McMansions only delays their awakening for a short while.
“it seems that hundreds of millions of people suffer from self-delusion in one form or another. Uneducated, unsanitary people who cannot communicate are not likely to achieve success in life, and putting them into McMansions only delays their awakening for a short while.”
Chalk it up to popular psychology, which has a stranglehold on the school systems. The schools have been turned into little better than clinics and gang recruitment centers. Everybody is a star. I was reading over on a political blog about how the dumbed-down education system has played a large part in the housing bubble. People are unable to evaluate data for themselves, so much so, that if somebody else tells you that you can afford it, why, it must be true!
The worse off a person is as a human being, the more arrogant they are. At any income and occupation level.
Off-topic, but speaking of Tampa-area public access TV, were you a fan of Sondra Prill? The YouTube video of her bellowing “Pump Up the Jam” is the most frightening rendition of that song I’ve ever heard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2i77YEMQrQ
I had to mute this clip cause I’m at work…but the visual looks fun!
will listen to it later
Snake Charmer, that is ghastly. I don’t know who Sandra Prill is.
Notice how many goofs are involved in this idiotic video? YouTube is the only way any would ever get air time, other than in news casts showing them being dragged away by law enforcement. How sad, actually.
“There is not enough money in the world to pay for unrestricted poverty growth.” Incredulous, this is the only stmt I’ve ever read on hbb that I’m gonna write down somewhere and repeat endlessly.
Thanks az_lender, but the only folks who will listen are those who agree with you, and they’ll take it as a wisecrack. Everybody else will be mystified and think you mixed your words up.
plenty of money and much more coming.
Replace money with wealth and you then have a much better quote.
No matter how much money, it won’t pay the bill. It’s like trying to prop up social security by forever expanding the population base paying into it. Or keeping the bubble inflated by importing illegals. Everything awful in this word looks like a bubble to me.
Ironically, by increasing the amount of money, you can also increase the number of poor.
I think you may be right to some extent….
however then there’s JK Rowling and Chris Gardner (subject of the Will Smith movie The Pursuit of Happyness). They probably wouldn’t be too into your sterilization theory.
Not such a stretch really…
We’ve gone from where the paris hiltons of the world dominated on looks alone, to where brainpower will lord over all, soon.
Got mental capacity?
I don’t know. I didn’t say to sterilize poor people; I said to sterilize everyone, and only let nice, loving people who would nurture their children and teach them something worthwhile have an antidote. Poor people can be as nice, loving, and nurturing as anyone else, provided they’ve been encouraged to be so. Yes, they have to feed the kids, but they don’t have to lavish them with junk.
When I was in high school, the nicest students with the highest grade point averages to boot were poor. They had wonderful parents.
J.K. Rowling is a genius with unlimited talent, and a very obvious first-rate education. She deserves every bit of her success, and the billion or dollars it has provided to her.
You are right about the psychology. Place a fat person on an island with only fish to eat and they will drop the pounds. Return them to the land of McDonalds and they will return to fat.
“It’s all well and good to bolster self-esteem, but you don’t tell a girl with one leg she can become a prima ballerina, even Heather Mills would tell you that.”
“Years ago there was a local weekly talent contest on one of the Tampa cable access channels. The hosts wore (her) an evening gown and (him) a tuxedo, and acted as if the whole thing were very, very important. There was a live studio audience. Needless to say, it was hilarious, if one found terrible acts by no-talents entertaining, which I did and still do.
One week, a blind girl with spastic eyes came out and sang the theme to “Ice Castles,” a movie about a figure skater who lost her sight. The singing was awful, but the sight of her spastic eyes flipping in all directions while she belted out her sympathy torchsong was simulatenously horrifying and screamingly funny. I guess nobody wanted to tell her to wear sunglasses because her eyes had another problem in addition to not working, and to sing a different song, because fishing for sympathy was in bad taste.
American Idol is a tribute to no-talents who think they’re going places, but it seems that hundreds of millions of people suffer from self-delusion in one form or another. Uneducated, unsanitary people who cannot communicate are not likely to achieve success in life, and putting them into McMansions only delays their awakening for a short while”
Truth!!!
Off topic but interesting; today’s Boston Globe had FIVE PAGES of open houses listed.
I’ve only glanced at this from time to time but I can’t recall it ever going beyond one or two pages in the past. Could be wrong but even if this isn’t some kind of record it can’t be a good sign for sellers around here.
That advertising revenue represents some of the very last greenback Dollars the fishwraps will be seeing…
LOAN SHARKS - they all go after those who so much want more - the flippers to hell with - but these others - they were too trusting of institutions that changed from the George Bailey variety to Potter greedy loan shark types - I do feel for these people and most of us could easily or have easily been duped by someone who was trustworthy in the past - Doctors , sales men, corporate management, they have all become untrustworthy - where are the mom and pop who cared about people - gone the way of greed - loan sharks are credit cards, and any loan from the banks, mortgages, etc are loan sharks approved by congress critters to fleece the public
“She said that on Aug. 11 the company drew $42,000 from her account. ‘I don’t care if I’m in labor, I’ll be sitting in that court until it’s done,’ Buckingham, now seven months pregnant, said about seeing Pufta held accountable.”
Expect to wait for a lifetime or 2.
No Viva Zapata
Its ironic that his name is Zapata. His more famous namesake (Emiliano Zapata) went to war for free land for the peasantry. I guess that this is just a 21st century version of the struggle. Instead of the battle cry being “Tierra y Libertad” (Land and Freedom) its now “Casas y Coches Caros” (Expensive houses and cars).
Oops, if forgot the final tag line: Si se puede!
$22,000, didn’t need verification, the lender said.” “Zapata agreed to pay $700 monthly before taxes on a $244,000 condo.
This is truly shocking. We were making 44K together when we got married, and squeeeezed to buy a 130K townhouse at 5.5% interest the first year.
Back in 89 we struggled to buy a 90K condo on mid 40’s income as well (and a 9% FHA loan)
I paid 17% interest on my first $23K ranch on $17,500 salary. Most of you can figure when that was.
http://droughtreporter.unl.edu/map.jsp?&src=&daterange=month&c_ot=on&c_wa=on&year2=2007&year1=2007&c_ag=on&day2=4&scn=nv&day1=4&c_fi=on&c_en=on&month2=5&month1=4&c_so=on&Cmd=sv&st=Florida
When your entire frickin’ state is a drought disaster, does anybody give a good goddamn what a house is worth there?
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/pbcwest/content/local_news/epaper/2007/05/03/m1a_nocool_0503.html
I thought it rained every day in the summer in Florida for 1/2 hour or so.
“I thought it rained every day in the summer in Florida for 1/2 hour or so.”
In central Florida, that is true, but traditionally the definition of summer in that respect was the school summer — June - August. It’s not uncommon for it to be dry now, nor for there to be fires. It would be interesting to know if anyone can learn of a Spring when there were no significant brush fires in Florida. Or even an April or May.
“….Tino Diaz,. ‘If we’re putting people into homes they can’t afford, we’re wrecking them….”
Finally, some truth to the matter. This Countrywide dribble about
“sub prime has provide homes to those who previously could not afford them” is non-sense. They can not afford them, never should have bought them, and to provide any further subsidy or bail out will only further ensnare them in a deeper mess. Let CW eat these loans. The best thing Senator Dodd can do is lend these FB’s a $1500 security deposit on the rental they should be occupying. They will “…sit up at night staring at the numbers…” until someone leads them out of this mess, just like CW lead them into it.
Really, if they can’t afford them with a 6% mortgage, how are the supposed to afford them with a 9% mortgage?
“The best thing Senator Dodd can do is lend these FB’s a $1500 security deposit on the rental they should be occupying.”
Jingle — while I prefer government not be involved in any of this, we all know it will be. Given that, yours is a great idea, IMO.
I know the borrowers are in part to blame for responding to the big false real estate campaign that was going on during the housing boom ,but how much of the blame goes to the REIC .
Think about this :
(1) Builders marketed to investors in combo with their “special subprime lenders ” and sought out unqualified speculators with a scheme to claim they were owner-occupants to obtain construction financing .
(2) Real estate agents sought out and lured unqualified buyers into buying inflated property based on a National Real Estate Campaign of false advertising based on ,”real estate always goes up “, buy now or be priced out forever ,” refinance out of bad loans with appreciation “,or ,”now is a good time to buy because we have alot of inventory, or don’t have alot of inventory ,(we are running out of land ).”
(3) Front line loan agents helped borrowers commit fraud on loan packages and underwriters /loan management failed to underwrite loans/check appraisals for personal gain in a scheme to pass risk of fraudulent loan packages to the secondary market .
(4) The REIC failed to qualify borrowers for housing which created a false market raising real estate values and property taxes . The REIC engaged in a scheme to “keep the party going ” by marketing home ownership as a short term investment void of need for a property to cash flow should the investor need to rent the property . The REIC encouraged borrowers to buy new property prior to selling their old property and did not protect borrowers with “subject to clauses “,and engaged in one-sided contracts and entrapment for borrowers .Builders engaged in one-sided contracts that were not subject to market conditions with full knowledge that borrowers would not have the ability to perform if financing or maket conditions changed .
(5) The REIC sought out lenders/appraisers who would hit the mark on appraisal/unqualified borrowers and black-balled ones that wouldn’t . The Lenders failed in duty to prevent fraud .
(5) Appraisers failed to appraise property in a proper fashion and used inflated appraisals and fraudulent appraisal as a appraisal data based in part due to pressure from the REIC to perform or starve .
I could go on and on ,but the lenders/RE agents are very vunerable to attack legally IMHO in spite of the fact that it was a team effort with the greedy borrowers.
Sure , borrowers are to blame for buying things they couldn’t afford, but the stupid public believed the big real estate rah rah campaign going on which was void of any down side risk disclosure and was riddled with false promises and outright lies from the REIC.
hahah,
REIC did beautiful efficient job. It performed exactly as it was supposed to do, ie.—>made as much money as possible in the shortest period of time.
As far as I am concerned it was the lenders (not the mort brokers, banks, etc.) that caused this entire mess and they should and shall eat it. The MBS croud will be crushed (and rightly so) for throwing TRILLIONS at these bonds because they are to lazy to find real legitimate investments. If you pay attention the vast majority of the REIC conduit that passed these MBS up the line were cutout corporations with no assets living on fees. The made impossible promises about buying back bad product that once excercised crushed them stoping the flow of blaime.
I feel the the most corrupt in the entire chain are the bond credit rating agencies. Didn’t S&P cut the credit rating on some MBS shortly after grading them (like 6mo or so)? If the bonds are soooo shitty that they needed downgrading after only 6mo they were obviously and demonstably flawed from gate. I bet the last thing they wanted to do was regreade them so early, but thier lawers were prolly standing on thier throats to downgrade them before they blew up so they would have some cover.
Wonder how much the bond credit guys get for issueing thier ratings?
How much does it cost to get a higher rating with the same pool of loans in a MBS?
Papa Bush opened the doors to MBS when he took the reins off of fannies mae and look where they are now. How many years have they gone without finincial statements =)
Alas the blaime ultimatley rest with us for not being activist grassroot fanatical politicos ensuring proper leadership.
He could take out a 100 year loan, and those payments still won’t be low enough.
I’m running out of tears for these ‘victims’.
Brokers, like car dealers, prey on the uninformed. Read a book before making the largest purchase of your life, for crying out loud. You reap what you sow.
Read a book before making the largest purchase of your life,
“Read a book”…HAHA - funny!
I’ve been thinking about the internets (homage to our glorious leader) and it’s impact on society…
Anybody generation boomerish or perhaps x’ish had to actually read books, to enlighten oneself.
When I was a young aladinsane, the way we cheated, as in not reading the entire tome, was called “Cliff Notes”.
I can recall tidbits from all i’ve read and google my way to whatever I need, to get a paragraph or a few pages and seldom more and for me, it’s really all I need, as i’ve probably read as many books as Burgess Merideth did in that fateful Twilight Zone episode from way back when.
Internets=Cliff Notes
“I’ve been thinking about the internets (homage to our glorious leader) and it’s impact on society…”
Everyone knows that GW misspoke and mis-pluralized “internets”. Just ask Al Gore for the proper pronunciation- after all, he INVENTED the internet…
And that statement by Al Gore was perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever mumbled by any talking head on TV, EVER.
If Al Gore can spell TCP/IP I would be shocked, let alone explain to me how the 7 layer stack works.
The fact that some poor geek who actually did invent TCP/IP didn’t step up and challange his flight of lunicy is a sad fact indeed. I can only hope that others see that statement for how stupid it is, and prevent him from ever doing anything without being asked about inventing the Internet.
Read a book? They can’t even make it through a 10 page mortgage contract…
Read a book before making the largest purchase of your life, for crying out loud.
Judging by the FCAT results in reading, maybe they don’t know how…..
The wisdom in cases like these does not come from within. A great number of people will not “read a book”, do their research, add and multiply a few numbers, ask smarter people for advice, or anything.
Frankly, these idiots don’t know that they’re idiots. And they never will. And the idiots think they’re Einsteins while they perform their idiocy. When the idiocy is exposed, they are victims. In reality they are still idiots.
” Frankly, these idiots don’t know that they’re idiots. And they never will. And the idiots think they’re Einsteins while they perform their idiocy. When the idiocy is exposed, they are victims. In reality they are still idiots.”
Great quote….unfortunately the machine needs idiots, they make a much better profit on them thatn on responsible savers,and informed buyers. Every revolution was started by an educated middle class. If they can get rid of them they can reign as kings with only the poor serfs below…
Comment by Home_a_Loan “Frankly, these idiots don’t know that they’re idiots. And they never will. And the idiots think they’re Einsteins while they perform their idiocy. When the idiocy is exposed, they are victims. In reality they are still idiots.”
Too true. I appreciate the frankness of this forum. Most on here don’t pull any punches.
Comment by Home_a_Loan “Frankly, these idiots don’t know that they’re idiots. And they never will. And the idiots think they’re Einsteins while they perform their idiocy. When the idiocy is exposed, they are victims. In reality they are still idiots.”
Too true. I appreciate the frankness of this forum. Most on here don’t pull any punches.
‘It’s a huge problem because so many people are waiting to see what happens,’
wainting for what- it’s alreadt dying
It’s not a problem for them, it’s a problem for the sellers.
Stop blaming everyone else for your misfortunes.. The weather, rates, speculators, subprime, land, government.
There’s no such thing as a sure bet. America’s culture is raised on pointing the blame at everyone else buy yourself.
Palm Beach is definately in denial. I bought a house in Jupiter Farms in 2003 for $325,000, taxes $3000 year. Sold it in 2005 for $545,000, taxes jumped to $11,500. Just went on the market for $800,000 a month ago, taxes would be $15000 at that price. They already switched realtors after 30 days as if that was the problem.
Now we are looking to rent in Parkland. Hundreds of brand new houses for rent. Some are listing for $4000-5000 in rent while others are more realistic at $2500.
Denial is still in full bloom.
“…in 2003 for $325,000, taxes $3000 year.”
You might have lucked out (through error) on that initial assessment relative to what you paid. In PBC I think your taxes should have been around $5,000, even with homestead (which is worth squat, at that price level) and SOH.
Regarding the DH Horton up-scale “Orbela” housing development in Oxnard, Ca. I keep getting pretty invitation cards in my mailbox from DH Horton about this latest catastrophy. I posted something about this before after I visited the site a few months back and found nothing but empty land, a sales office and some construction equipment. They are offering these properties from the low $400,000 but, as I posted before, much of Oxnard is a low income Latino area with, I would imagine, incomes which would have trouble buying a property for $125,000 UNLESS they were handed an exotic mortgage which, in all probability, most would default on within a year or so. That horse has bolted from the barn anyway. Added to that, it’s been reported that Ventura now ranks as the top contender for foreclosures in the state. Yet, if you drive north from Thousand Oaks along the 101 (incredibly congested California $3.60 a gallon gas consuming) Freeway, there are building sites everywhere. Here’s the joke. The invitation card says if you visit the “Orbela” sales office of DH Horton, you get a chance to win a bike! Wow! The invitation card reads: “Visit our sales office and present this invitation to one of our sales staff and you could win one of our two beach cruiser bikes (probably Made in China) which you could ride down to the beach!” Gee! TWO new $60 bikes! DH Horton are really pulling out the stops! Generous to a fault. Um, well thanks anyway DH Horton but being given the chance to win a crappy Chinese made bike hardly compensates me for having to talk to some slick, grinning used car salesperson who will attempt to pressure me into buying a grossly over-priced, probably badly constructed piece of tacky crap in a gang infested part of Ventura where I would need to spend thousands on security additions if I was dumb enough to fall for your b.s and buy. I suggest you stick the bike where the sun doesn’t shine - then ride down to the beach.
OT. The just released employment numbers. Government numbers on employment show the economy is slowing. Gee. What a surprise. These government numbers (like ALL government numbers these days including the inflation numbers) are fake. Here in California, the unemployment numbers would be scary and staggering (and I suspect Florida would be the same) if the “illegal immigrant” factor were factored in. Thousands and thousands of illegal immigrant construction workers are being laid off and the employment numbers in the sub prime mortgage business have plummeted. I suspect that many who work in real estate, from secretaries to realtors, appraisers, etc, are hanging on by a thread with greatly reduced incomes. This wake for housing has just started.
I remember back in the early 90’s when the San Diego market tanked. Back then illegals were used mostly for grunt work at the construction sites, with the skilled and semi-skilled work still being done by Americans (I had a few acqauintences who worked in construction). Those boys did show up in the unemployment stats back then. I recall reading an article in the Union-Tribune from back them. A car dealer said that you could tell when construction fell on hard times because thats when a lot of pickup trucks got repo’d and wound up on his used car lot.
actuallu lots of RE 1099 types become “employeed” w crap jobs while they hang on
I guess Horton wants to get people into the tract that don’t have transportation by offering a bike . Perfect sub-prime buyer ,someone who doesn’t have a car payment …he he .
thank god for oxnard. otherwise they might live in wonderful thousand oaks.
we need places like that which are affordable for them.
“Rusaw Homes marketed 130 sales contracts in 2005, but only 50 in 2006 and just 3 so far this year.”
Be generous and extrapolate the 3 so far this year up to 9 for the entire year, and the yearly numbers become 130, 50, 9. Now THAT’S what I call a decline.
When the county starts tearing down partially built units, the number could even go negative!
Oops, those are contracts, not starts.
From the sptimes.com article:
“”There are three reasons the market has stopped,” Riley said. “Taxes, insurance and the press.”
Overpriced homes or outrageously slack lending? Nah, no blame there. I love how they blame:
Taxes - like these were a shock. The tax rates were available to you long before you entered into the contract to buy a home.
Insurance - well, who exactly is supposed to pay for the past & future hurricane calamities?
The Press - yeah, it’s always their fault when bad things are happening, because they bothered to tell you about them. Nevermind that the press is largely run by the REIC.
In the (special?) case of Florida, I think taxes and insurance have indeed contributed to the catastrophe, although with overbuild and the factors you mentioned, there would’ve been a problem anyway. In the Florida case, I can cite specific investors who were cash-flow positive (by maybe 25% of expenses) when they bought (say) five years ago, and who are now cash-flow negative by same percentage.
And I’m not talking about ARM resets here.
FL does indeed have special problems, again, taxes and insurance.
Insurance I can actually feel sorry for people for. Yes, we live in a hurricane zone. But it has been a hurricane zone forever; there was no reason/way to predict that premiums were going to double in 3-4 years.
Taxes? Well, although I disagree with SOH, you knew what you were getting into when you bought. If you have SOH protection, then you know exactly what your tax burden is going to be every year moving forward. And frankly, if you don’t have SOH protection, you’re an idiot for buying in FL.
You had to realize that SOH was designed to shift the burden to those who cannot vote, and that it was going to be used to tax the everliving life out of people without the caps. Anyone buying investement property in FL, given the current tax climate, is out of their minds.
Nobody could have predicted what happened with insurance. But taxes are a totally different issue. My father is a CPA, and when I moved to FL he came down for several days (about 3 years ago) to look at homes with me (didn’t buy, thank god).
Anyway, as soon as he started to look over the SOH laws he said, “You would have to be crazy to buy here if you can’t get this cap; this is a license to steal from the non-voting public”.
The point being, anyone with 1/2 a brain should have been able to figure out what SOH was really intended to do, and is out of their MIND to buy something knowing that SOH was designed to tax the life out of non-owner occupied homes.
“”There are three reasons the market has stopped,” Riley said. “Taxes, insurance and the press.”
I threw up a little in my mouth when I read that.
Have other real estate sections of papers thinned out like the Herald Trib in Sarasota? Most major builders aren’t even running Sunday adds anymore! Lennar seems to be the only one that I consistently see every week.
“He could pay more than $7,000 in refinancing penalties and has little money left over for other expenses.”
What? Like a “critical thinking” course at local community college?
Cost: $60.00
What? Like a 100 word essay on: “What I learned from Ben’s HBB”
Cost: $$$$$$$$$$…Priceless!
“He says he did not clearly understand what he signed”
‘I felt cheated,’
“Zapata admits he had been in a hurry to sign and glossed over key details in his contract.
‘The dream home becomes the nightmare,’
‘Now I sit up at night staring at the numbers.’
Please, America help this guy…and give him a good education…common sense is not enough…he desperately needs “enlightenment”…6 weeks of Bernie Mac…with a quiz on Ben’s HBB…like who posts: “Got Popcorn” or “…a whack on the side of the head with a 20# trout” or “The PPT is on time: 2pm EST” … Now that’s what I’m talk’in about America…
“6 weeks of Bernie Mac”
Favorite line from Bernie Mac was when one of the kids wanted a popsicle and Bernie told them they could have a water-flavored popsicle.
LIErah moves to move and stock has been tanking as NASD soars
MOVE MOVE INC 4.44 Down 0.45%
The Market Has Gone Completely South In Florida
ROTFGMAO, Ben’s joined the ‘horrible puns’ competition.
“‘If you’re breathing and you’ve got a paycheck, let me give you a home.’”
Really? I thought the paycheck was optional.
Not only are the builders and realtors hard up for buyers but every industry seems to be resorting to cheap shot inducements . As I posted a week or so ago ,lately I am winning a bunch of prizes without even entering contests. I won’t talk to these salespeople or claim my strings-attached prizes, but I’m sure you end up paying for it or they steal your identity .
When I want to buy something I research it and than I go out and buy it . I don’t need some salesperson to call me or jump on me in the parking lot to buy something . I wouldn’t even deal with someone who called me up on the phone anyway because to give information over the phone is stupid if you don’t really know who you are talking to .
If a real estate agent came to my door and asked me if I knew of anyone who wanted to sell or buy I would say ,”That’s none of your business .” Why should I turn on someone I don’t know on to someone I do know ?
Right now the REIC are looking under rocks to try to find buyers ,including hitting up college students and illegals . Its really sick what happened to the REIC .
The lenders/REIC should be sued for driving up RE prices and taxes by faulty lending and I’m sure there was a reasonable assumption by the public in general that the demand /lending was based on a firm foundation . Not only have lenders /REIC /Builders put the deposits and pension plans at risk in this Nation ,but they have allowed fraud in lending to get to such a massive level that it will destroy people and neighborhoods and investors in markets .
Stupid greedy borrowers should of saw the self-serving mania for what it was .
“Right now the REIC are looking under rocks to try to find buyers”
This correlates to the mortgage related spam e-mails that I’ve received for the past several months.
The friggen debt zombies…..Sympathy?
How about feeling sympathy for a family that has waited for a few years to buy but has been outbid from some debt zombie or been priced out becasue they save for a downpayment and refuse to sign the dotted toxic loan contract?
This country is corrupt and going down hill. Friggen illegals get can loans demand rights demand this demand that and zeros can blame someone else for their greedy foolish ways.
I know…no one was offering responsible citizens a “bailout” in the form of financial assistance when home prices were skyrocketing to unsustainable levels.
WTF is wrong with this picture?
waiting to see of one of these big class action law firms start class action suits against the NAR, NAHB and all the other unethical REIC cos.
Yes i am a happy renter with a wad in the bank earning 5% and sleep well at night. Oh maybe i will buy a better car from some debt zombie prices on those are really dropping. lol!
How about you Bitter Homeowners?
You have to wonder at the FL house falling from $230k assessed “valuation” to $180k over 18 months on the market. Presumably came onto the market in December 2005. These PFs (Poor Fools) didn’t miss the top by much, even if St. Petersberg, FL was ahead of the curve. If they had priced it realistically then, they would be seen as real estate savants today.
My friend got a $500,000 house in the bay area when her dad died in 2001. She saw a real estate investment class advertised on TV that year, sold the house and started investing in real estate full time. She started taking lots of real estate seminars for $5000 a weekend sometimes. She now owns 7 houses in Cape Coral costing over $12,000 a month in mortages since she has been unable to sell or rent any of them. She also owns 2 houses in Las Vegas that are “upside down” to the tune of $600 per a month and tells people she’s a real estate investor. She has not worked except for real estate investing since 2001 and is now in debt 2 million dollars from loans she took out against her properties.
Her mom signed for some of the first home loans and also bought 3 houses in Cape Coral along with her entire church group and circle of friends. And all of them are “hoping the market picks up soon.”
“Community activists, however, maintain that many borrowers were deceived about the costs they were incurring.”
The “creditor did know or should have known of the obvious stupidity of the borrower” - is the best legal strategy
“I have a customer who’s selling her condo and renting instead of buying because it’s cheaper.”
Gee, who would have ever guessed?
The clarity of thought on this thread is outstanding.