A Lot Of People Made Dumb Decisions In California
The Wall Street Journal reports from California. “The bedroom community of Corona is a microcosm of the looming devastation for homeowners in California’s so-called Inland Empire. Corona lawyer Nathan Fransen says he has nearly 100 clients trying to avoid foreclosure but none appear eligible for the government rescue package.”
“‘The government has misread California. Most foreclosures here are on loans that haven’t adjusted, meaning that people can’t afford what they have now,’ says Mr. Fransen. He lives in a gated community where he says dozens of million-dollar homes face foreclosure. ‘The plan won’t help much here, and the problem is going to get worse.’”
“Economist John Husing predicts the number of area jobs could decline next year as expansion slows. Mr. Husing is an authority on the Inland Empire. ‘My sense is that the [rescue] plan won’t help,’ Mr. Husing says. ‘A lot of people made dumb decisions.’”
“On Calle Canon Road, residents say they were drawn to the street by the two-story, 4,000-square-foot homes, built on some of the biggest lots in the area. Developer William Lyon Homes Inc. was selling stucco-and-stone-faced models in 2004, starting at around $500,000.”
“Today, four of the 11 properties on one side of Calle Canon Road are abandoned, and some sport big foreclosure-auction notices. At least three foreclosed homes were originally bought by investors who never lived in them, and one was never occupied.”
“Of the scores of houses for sale in the area, about half are in default or foreclosure, real-estate agents say.”
“Karenn and Steve Oropeza arrived at Calle Canon Road in 2004. Public records show they paid $557,000 for a four-bedroom house and took out a $500,000 mortgage.”
“As property values skyrocketed, they refinanced three times, most recently in late 2006, for $835,000, Mr. Oropeza says.”
“The couple say they used some of the money they pulled out of the house for home improvement, such as a backyard waterfall. But Mr. Oropeza says the bulk was used to pay off credit-card arrears. ‘We were in a vicious cycle of refinancing our home to get out of debt,’ he says. ‘We banked on selling the house, but that’s where we failed.’”
“Meanwhile, Mr. Oropeza expected to be transferred to Texas…In June, they bought a 3,600-square-foot home for $283,000 in the Houston suburb of Katy, Mrs. Oropeza says. ‘It was easy. We had good credit.’”
“In the run-up to their move, she says, the couple lived off credit cards to ‘make sure we had cash for the house payments’ in Corona. They packed up in June, and then took their 9-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter on a long-planned Caribbean vacation. They returned to Calle Canon Road, ‘got in our cars and drove to Texas,’ Mrs. Oropeza says.”
“Neighbors Ms. Lefranc and Mr. Saffold are dismayed over the Oropezas’ departure and note that shortly before leaving, the couple bought a new Lexus. ‘I think they took money out of their house and split,’ Ms. Lefranc says.”
“Mrs. Oropeza says that she and her husband recently bought a Lexus and a Chevrolet Suburban with no money down. She denies that the family intended to abandon the house. The choice was straightforward, she says: ‘It was easier to keep the house in Texas than the one in California.’”
“The couple stopped making their Corona mortgage payments in June, triggering a notice of default 90 days later and starting the countdown to foreclosure. ‘We’re sad because there goes our credit, and because people think we are a bunch of flakes who walked away from the house and tried to make money,’ Mrs. Oropeza says.”
The Press Telegram. “The California Association of Realtors’ most recent housing report issued in November showed home sales fell more than 40 percent in October in California from a year ago and the median price of an existing home fell almost 10 percent.”
“The state’s median home price fell below the $500,000 mark for the first time in more than a year to $497,110.”
“Locally, the median in Bellflower fell more than 13 percent to $430,000, Downey’s median fell nearly 17 percent to $503,500 and Lakewood saw an 8 percent drop to $487,500. The median in both Long Beach and Norwalk fell 9 percent, with Long Beach dipping to $450,750 and Norwalk dropping to $424,000, and Paramount saw its median drop nearly 8 percent to $370,000.”
“Another hard-hit local community was Compton, where the median fell $50,000 in a year to $350,000 for October.”
“October also brought bad news in foreclosures. A total of 50,401 foreclosure filings were reported in the state for the month, more than triple the number reported in October 2006.”
The Modesto Bee. “Today, Police Chief Charlie Halford is scheduled to ask the City Council to allocate $102,725 for landscaping and boarding up about 35 houses. That amount is what it would cost to fix up and maintain for a year, 5 percent of the estimated 700 residences in the city in some stage of being repossessed.”
“It took the Police Department months to get the mortgage holder of a house on El Portal Avenue to board it up. Another house, on Grant Avenue, remains unsecured, and police respond to calls there almost daily, Halford said.”
“‘We’ve been told by the mortgage holder that they are planning on boarding it up, but that hasn’t happened yet,’ he said. ‘They came out and measured, but if it is not done in the next week, we’ll probably do it.’”
“Whether the city ends up recouping the money, he said, the $650 cost of boarding it up would pay for itself in fewer police hours spent there.”
The Contra Costa Times. “Affordable housing is becoming easier to find in Dublin as developers adhere to the city’s rules for providing such homes in for-sale developments. However, selling those affordable homes, in some cases, is proving harder to do.”
“For that reason, Dublin is looking at allowing owners of below-market-rate units to rent them out in cases of financial hardship. Some other cities, including Livermore and San Francisco, already have created such provisions.”
“Sellers now say they are having a harder time finding qualified buyers as a result of the market slowdown. Some qualified buyers are thinking twice about whether to go after a below-market-price home. A glut of unsold homes on the market means ‘regular rate’ homes are, in many cases, not much more expensive that the ‘below-market’ units, city reports say.”
The Press Democrat. “Finding a home under a half-million dollars was easier than expected for Steve and Becky Bovee, who landed a good deal on a Santa Rosa house that had languished on the market.”
“The Bovees got the seller to take less than the $424,900 price tag for the three-bedroom, single-story house in Santa Rosa’s Hidden Valley neighborhood, and then even kick in closing costs. The original price was $499,000 when the home hit the market four months earlier.”
“‘It’s better than we expected,’ Steve Bovee said. ‘This was a good time to look. It was more of a buyers’ market.’”
“From falling prices and favorable loan rates to a glut of choices, buyers are well positioned to take advantage of Sonoma County’s slowest real estate market in more than a decade.”
“Not everyone can seize the opportunities. Lenders have tightened requirements with loan defaults at record highs. For many borrowers, that means having $50,000 in cash to make a down payment on the typical home.”
“And many would-be buyers remain wary about the market’s direction with analysts forecasting prices will continue to decline well into next year.”
“Home prices have dropped 10 percent from their 2005 peak, returning the price of the typical Sonoma County home to $515,000, a level not seen since 2004. The price of homes under $500,000 has tumbled even faster, 15 percent or more, because the greatest number of homes for sale are in that range.”
“‘The buyers, they are in control now. They are very well aware of it,’ said Timothy Hedges, broke in Sebastopol. ‘They want at least the idea that they’re getting a good value. Even if a property is priced very competitively, they still want to deal. They want to know they were able to do some negotiating.’”
“But buyers aren’t in a rush. ‘Some look at dozens of homes,’ said agent Randy Tallariti. ‘There’s so many great deals, and they think the market is going to go down, down, down.’”
“More buyers are considering purchasing through short sales, which make up a growing number of listings. About 20 percent of houses on the market are short sales, in default or in foreclosure.”
“‘Very few people are paying asking price,’ Steve Bovee said. ‘That was unheard of two years ago.’”
“Today, they expect the value of their home to decline, but plan on staying in the home long enough for housing to eventually bounce back. ‘I actually foresee us to lose a little value. I think the market is still on its way down,’ he said. ‘But the opportunity presented to us was a good one. We plan on hanging out.’”
‘Two years ago, Santa Rosa City Manager Jeff Kolin breathed a sigh of relief after weathering three years of layoffs, service cuts and state budget crises. Instead of cutting, the city reinstated such services as downtown police bicycle patrols and hired maintenance workers to plug a growing pothole problem. Well, that’s over.’
‘Blanchard said if the housing slowdown lasts two more years as some expect, the city’s budget cuts could reach ‘draconian’ levels by then.’
‘A Martinez developer specializing in renovation says he regrets having bought the 60,000-square-foot Hunter Building north of downtown Stockton. ‘The Stockton market is so slow it’s killing me,’ he said. ‘There are no takers in Stockton. We have an empty building.’
‘The building takes up the entire 800 block of North Hunter Street. Sawhney declined to say how much he has invested in the remodeling other than to say ‘a lot.’ He bought the building in early 2006 for nearly $2 million and said early this year that he expected to spend about that much rehabbing the building. ‘I regret it, but now we are into it.’
‘The business condo market is slowing down substantially, said Shelly Cannon-Keely, an office specialist in the Stockton office of commercial real estate broker CB Richard Ellis. She is not involved in marketing the Hunter property.’
‘It has not been as much credit driven as much as it involves real estate worries regarding future value and if it makes sense if they will receive a return on their investments,’ she said.’
Distressed budgets and failed office condos, more housing bubble offshoots predicted here years ago. I wonder if these people so happy with their now $400k houses, will be so pleased when the ‘draconian’ measures kick in?
Conan, the Draconian…
Terminator of jobs
‘It has not been as much credit driven as much as it involves real estate worries regarding future value and if it makes sense if they will receive a return on their investments,’ she said.’
Return? They haven’t sold a single one…
…if they will receive a return of their investments,’ she said.’
Fixed it for you.
Are office condos EVER a good investment?
Yes, in 2001-2004.
“Mrs. Oropeza says that she and her husband recently bought a Lexus and a Chevrolet Suburban with no money down. She denies that the family intended to abandon the house. The choice was straightforward, she says: ‘It was easier to keep the house in Texas than the one in California.’”
Oh, OK. You didn’t mean to abandon it; it was just easier to keep the other one. Thanks for clearing things up! Your new neighbors in Texas are lucky people, no doubt about it.
As I have said many times here, Texas has enough homegrown deadbeats. We don’t need any new ones from out of state.
I try to gentle share this about Californians - it’s all about the ‘Bling’. She and her husband felt entitled to the new rides - they earned them!
Too bad, Tx.
Send in the Clownifornians.
2007 Clownifornian = 2010’s Pagliacci
My “Rescue Plan” for these clowns would be to issue them each 1 bottle of water, one can of beans and drive them all into Death Valley from all directions to GRAZE for the next 40 years
Okay Mikey, HBB Old School
(Harvey Korman, ‘Blazing Saddles’)….. “Too Jewish.”
Clownifornians? They were from Texas in the first place, weren’t they? We remember what the Enron bunch did to us - sterling folks, all of them.
Texans are a real bunch of standup people I tell ya’ll.
They can protect the new house in BK, right? Good ole Texas.
yep, and Florida has those great homestead laws, O.J. Simpson took advantage of that and their tax laws. Dude’s bankrupt, guilty (civilly) of murder, and he’s living it up better than me!
But she has a conscience (as well as another house and now, no tax problems to worry about). In 5 years their credit will be fine and they can HELOC all over again.
‘Neighbors Ms. Lefranc and Mr. Saffold are dismayed over the Oropezas’ departure and note that shortly before leaving, the couple bought a new Lexus. ‘I think they took money out of their house and split,’ Ms. Lefranc says.’
You look at the moral angle now, but I have been trying to tell folks that Lefranc and Saffold will be calling these people the smart ones in a couple of years. Anyone who thinks FBs are going to sit around and pay off these underwater houses is kidding themselves, IMO.
Heck, I think they’re the smart ones. The FBI isn’t going after single case mortgage fraud, so unless they pull the same bit in Texas, they’re set.
New cars… A new affordable home… They’re set.
A coworker’s neighbor one day up and declared at a neighborhood BBQ “I’m not paying the bank’s increase in my rent.” He found another job, packed up, and mailed the bank his keys. He knew what he was doing. If the market has shot up… genius. Since it didn’t… here you go Countrywide. (Victorville, CA).
Since there is no shame in a foreclosure, why stick around? I wouldn’t do it… but that doesn’t mean its not currently the smart thing to do.
Got popcorn?
Neil
I know you and Ben are right, but it really pisses me off that this kind of behavior will go unpunished. I wish my parents raised me to be a scum bag and maybe I would do this same scam.
‘I wish my parents raised me to be a scum bag’
I’m willing to bet that every day you are glad your parents didn’t.
I 2nd Ben’s comment. It wasn’t the hard working and moral that were in the 1930’s bread lines. It always catches up to people. I have an uncle who was in 1970 a “millionaire”. By 1974 bankrupt. He’s suffered 33 years trying to shake off the reputation he built up. So Karma has a way of paying back.
That said… I still understand why people are doing this. Once you’ve dug a hole so deep… go on to China.
Got popcorn?
Neil
“I’m willing to bet that every day you are glad your parents didn’t.”
Indeed! In the end, doing the right thing will be rewarded.
In the end, we’re all dead, the good, the bad, & the ugly alike. Problem always is, what do we do in the mean time?
Do what you think is RIGHT.
Not only bad things happen to good people, but good things happen to bad people.
(c) Mad TV
“smart ones”
This country has rewarded bad behavior for far too long and now it just continues…
Crispy, couldn’t agree more. These schmucks freakin walk away from an 800K= debt and get to start over with a new home in Tx.
This country is just Bull$hit! These people should never, ever, under any circumstance, inc. medical, be loaned ANY money. Ever. Even if it is 3 cents!
This crap has to stop. Look, take this example. These people had a 500K mortgage. Bubble rising. They rifi at 835K. Take 335K and buy a nice 300K McCrapper in Tx flat out. No mortgage, just prop taxes. Then let Corona home go.
Where in the world is my country? What happened to this place? I know I say it once every month or two, but this is the topper.
Pi$$ me off. To top it off, they should lose the house in Tx.
Enough of rewarding bad behavior and beating down savers and those of us just trying to be productive and do the right things in life.
RANT OFF!
On the other hand, massive amounts of people who are willing to send jingle mail might a) cause enough pain to get lenders to return to something like real underwriting standards and b)work through the inefficiencies developed by the bubble as quickly as possible. People who can’t control their spending will be the ones in worlds of hurt in when the credit spigot runs dry.
I admire Japanese culture but doing the “honorable” thing by having you and your offspring (in the case of intergenerational mortgages) pay off way too much money spreads out the economic pain over several decades.
I don’t actually understand how they can keep the cars. They walked away from a REfinanced house in CA, therefore the lenders have recourse to go after them. Wouldn’t they have to file BK to get out of it? I can understand that in a BK proceeding they might be able to keep the TX house, but I don’t see how they get to keep the Lexus etc.
if they’re free and clear, they can’t keep them in bankruptcy.
Uh, they will lose the Texas house, right? Doesn’t the bank where they owe $800k+ have the right to garnish assets?
Might be, the last act has not played yet.
I doubt the IRS will be kind either. I would love to be there when the first levy is executed on their paycheck and a lien filed against their property. Don’t give too much thought about these crooks getting away clean and free. They are F’d just don’t know it yet.
It said they didn’t put any money down–which means they are financed. They don’t actually own the car—and the bank can’t repo someone else’s stuff, unless they wanted to repo this couple’s debts and take over the car payments.
“Anyone who thinks FBs are going to sit around and pay off these underwater houses is kidding themselves, IMO.”
I wonder how many of these FB types, were previously renters and now they figure walking away from an “owned” property is just like walking away from a rented one. They never had any equity or extracted it all, so they’re skin isn’t in the game.
I agree with Ben, the notes holders are in for a big shock, bailout or not, the FBs are a walkin’.
Ben, I am a little slow, but I was not looking at any morality! I think I’ll go to Texas and open a Peyote farm (if the government allowed greenhouse grown Peyote, I would).
Peyote grows wild in S TX. No need to cultivate.
Just grow San Pedro cactus its not illegal and gets 100x bigger, gets you stoned and you can sell stems of it on Ebay…. and no thats not why I have the cactus name
“Peyote grows wild in S TX. No need to cultivate.”
There are about 800 sq miles in Texas were it grows in the wild, of that land 780 sq miles is privately owned for hunting and allows no peyote pickers. A 1 acre greenhouse will legally provide $$$, there is a shortage of legal or illegal peyote to the 400,000 people that use it for religious reasons. The government does not allow greenhouse cultivation. It must be harvested in the wild. A small market, but potentially very profitable. I am not going to walk all over Texas looking for cactus!
Now if the religion allowed toad lickin’, there would be no problem. Lots of Bufo toads around.
LOL
Jimson Weed was everywhere here, a few months ago…
‘There are about 800 sq miles in Texas were it grows in the wild, of that land 780 sq miles is privately owned for hunting and allows no peyote pickers’
That’s just a little over one section; I think you have been eatin’ peyote. Heck they have it all the way out here in AZ.
Anyway, who ever asked permission?
A section is 1 sq mile or 640 acres. Today a decent ranch is 15 sections, a decent farm is 5 sections. “40 acres and a mule” was determined by a quarter of a quarter of a section.
The allowable area for Peyote is 512,000 acres or 800 sq miles. That is more walking than I want to do to harvest. LOL Ben, you better keep off the Arizona weeds!
“Anyway, who ever asked permission?”
LMAO! Amen brutha…..
Peyote wearin’ thin
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2861718520071217?sp=true
http://tinyurl.com/ys7gwp
You can get anything on Ebay.
Ben everytime I keep thinking that, “hey, prices in my neighborhood have come down,” I read this sh!t and think to myself…oh my, what will the other side of the mania look like?
I’m hoping it won’t look like the Mad Max scenario.
Disagree with the premise that the Oropezas can or will walk free, and that this is only a moral issue. Or, at least if they skate, it’ll be because their lender does not have the cojones to pursue them.
They refi’d several times. The lender can obtain a deficiency judgment against them. Once obtained, the lender can go to Texas and seek enforcement in a Texas court. If the Oropezas’ property in Texas was purchased with HELOC money on the CA property, the TX house can be seized to enforce the judgment. It may complicate things that the TX house is now their primary residence, but it won’t bar enforcement forever. It doesn’t matter that the TX property may decline in value, too; we’re assuming that the TX property is all equity at this point.
Even if the TX property was acquired with a mortgage and is, therefore, beyond the reach of the CA lender, the Oropezas are working folks. Their wages can be garnished and any bank accounts seized. What do they do then? File for BK? No judge in his right mind, particularly after the 2005 Act, is going to let them skate.
I’m not saying that any of this is easy or quick. In fact, it’s messy and prolonged, but no more messy and prolonged than this whole damn housing crash. I would be very disappointed if the CA lender did not pursue the Oropezas to the very ends of the earth, or at least those of the 50 states. If the Oropezas flee to MX, all bets are off, but their income sources are here in the States.
Now I’ll turn to the rhetorical question that OC Dan, I believe, has posed: these low lifes are going to cost the CA lender (Countrywide? OK, then the lender’s a low life, too, but on general principle….) hundreds of thousands of dollars. Isn’t this the F worth it to pursue these folks?
Agree with OC Dan, that this is disgusting and these low lifes deserve to be put on a cash up front basis for the rest of their lives. AFTER satisfying the debt owed the CA lender (I am gagging somewhat at the thought that the Tan Man has any claim to sympathy, but hey: let’s let the Oropezas make Countrywide whole–if that was the lender–and then stick Tan Man in the clink, forcing him to disgorge his insider trading profits).
but it’s oh so much easier for the lender to go to gubmint (any gubmint will do….) for money than to have to follow these people and try to collect. Unless they outsource….hey, there’s an idea! A new version of Dawg, the Housing Hunter!
Better check up on your law. Texas is one of the few states that does not recognized out of state court judgements. I tried on a California flake who moved to Texas to “serve” and could not even thou I had his employer address, etc. Texas law firm said, ” I would be wasting my money and time” Judgements are only good if you can enforce them. Not in “texes” ! Misspelled for a good reasons.
It’s pretty damn cocky of the Oropezas to go public with their mortgage scam story. They may lack any sense of accountability for their actions, but this will surely bite them in the butt. Welcome to Tejas, pilgrims.
@ Jerry M.
All the states in our union are constitutionally required to give full faith and credit to the judgments of sister states. Not doubting your experience, but there may have been very practical reasons why the TX attorneys said it wasn’t worth the bother in your case: amount of judgment too small; amount of judgment too big to permit easy satisfaction from the debtor’s salary; debtor had lots of basic living expenses (e.g. medical) that would limit amount of recovery on a contractual obligation.
In this case, though, the Oropezas obviously make more than a subsistence living, and even more the case if they bought their TX home with HELOC money, so it is owned unencumbered.
Get a law degree before you start talking about what states have to or do not have to do. (NOTE: Legal concepts are not DIY.)
“Once obtained, the lender can go to Texas and seek enforcement in a Texas court. If the Oropezas’ property in Texas was purchased with HELOC money on the CA property, the TX house can be seized to enforce the judgment.”
NOPE. Had that come up in a case. Defendant was in Texas, had a judgement against them from another state. Out of state judgement can be domesticated in TX …..
BUT YOU CAN NOT TOUCH THE PRIMARY HOME.
Little oddity about Texas
Not going to collect against the house in Texas.
Ann: knock it off with the law degree bs. I have been practicing for 30 years, though not admitted in TX, and I do not practice in creditor rights, so the primary residence may indeed be untouchable in TX. You concede my primary point, which is that–in your word–the judgment can be “domesticated” (which Jerry was denying), but simply claim that the particular asset to which we are referring is exempt. I was looking for ways to go after the Oropezas, and if the primary residence is unavailable, then go after their wages, or any other assets they have. Sheesh. Let the lender be a little aggressive for a change, rather than let all these people walk all over them. Even if the primary residence is customarily untouchable in TX, it may not be in the case of fraud.
And quit with the silly disdain.
To Country Dude… you may have practice law for over 30 years but “class room theory” verses “reality” is differant even if your professor said this and that etc. First of all Texas is Not a sister state for judgements . It it reasonable easy , with long delays and paper work from state capital offices to say get a judgement in Arizona from California, but Texas is one of the “few” states that is not a “sister state” therefore making it very difficult. Your philosophy and practicability needs a little work and untell you have had a ” real case” or study credit issues in depth, please leave the practice of law for many years as a case for being a true credit expert. Believe there are a few lenders who are saying the same thing now. Reality and class room theory on what works and does not is coming more in the light.
‘We’re sad because there goes our credit, and because people think we are a bunch of flakes who walked away from the house and tried to make money,’
Almost… as if… you are a bunch of flakes that walked away from your house and tried to make money.
Duh.
Do the banks have the ability to sic the bill collectors on them
and threaten to take them to court? I have people talk on this blog about recourse does that applyu to this situation ?
The question was answered. Thanks.
“I’m willing to bet that every day you are glad your parents didn’t.”
I am. But the scumbags never seem to have a conscience or self-image problem. The don’t even think they are scumbaggage, just more agressive than the rest.
I guess we let God sort’em out…..
“The couple stopped making their Corona mortgage payments in June, triggering a notice of default 90 days later and starting the countdown to foreclosure. ‘We’re sad because there goes our credit, and because people think we are a bunch of flakes who walked away from the house and tried to make money,’ Mrs. Oropeza says.”
No, you;re not a flake, U are an irresponsible financial idiot and a possible fraudster to boot. Borrowing up to the max of $835,000 to buy usless crap then simply walking out on that loan when U got underwater. Meanwhile buying another cheaper house in texas and two brand new cars to boot while literally in default om first home. Hope the IRS goes after everything u got . While you’re at it why don’t U file BK on your credit card debts as well so U can do a complete 100% F*you to the banks and lenders.
‘We’re sad because there goes our credit, and because people think we are a bunch of flakes who walked away from the house and tried to make money,’ Mrs. Oropeza says.”
___________________________________
Who needs credit? We’ve got a brand new fleet of luxury cars, a new house with a low low payment (only a fraction of what we paid in CA) and no credit card debt thanks to our now-defaulted HELOC. We don’t need no stinkin’ credit.
But if we do, in about 2-3 years all will be forgiven anyway. God Bless the USA!
I can’t believe they were arrogant enough to publicly state their story. I am so throughly disgusted, I have lost faith in this country entirely…really.
I found it appalling too that anyone would opening brag about their FBer-ness or their fraudulent credit behavior.
Disgusting.
Between 1M bonus each for the Wall Streeters that created and profited from this mess, and 300K for the Oropeza, money to the little people!
We Americans swindled the Europeans, the Australians , the Asians. That’s what Greenspan said, they are paying for the price of peace.
“Karenn and Steve Oropeza arrived at Calle Canon Road in 2004. Public records show they paid $557,000 for a four-bedroom house and took out a $500,000 mortgage…As property values skyrocketed, they refinanced three times, most recently in late 2006, for $835,000, Mr. Oropeza says.”
TO add insult to injury,The Oropeza’s apparantly brought into one of most expensive New Corona Home developments recently built. This is located 10 miles south of the dwtn Corona(intersection of 91 and 15 fwys) in a region known as temecula valley which has seen tremendous amts of new tracts spriung up among the hills on both side of the i-15. (Was at the contruction site of the new Dos Lagos planned community in 2005 which is just up the fwy) .
They just had to buy a spankin new upscale william lyons 4000 sq ft mega mansion in Corona, which if they did not know it at the time was seeing a hugh burst of contruction in new homes all over the Corona and surrounding IE communities of Norco, Lake elsinore, Canyon lake, Wildomar,Alberhill. As a matter of fact the SW Riverside region portion of the IE had more new homes put up than any comparable region in CA, maybe the entire US, iMO.
This would of course result in eventual HB oversupply and buliders reducing prices to move inventory but of course this is not the Oropezas fault for being RE idiots right. Or maybe they are the smart ones and the lenders /Hb’ers are the stupid ones!
Tough Luck! the NEW bankrupcy law excludes credit card debt or so I’m told. They will keep up the credit card payments. The lenders screwed themselves. hehehehehehe
And while we’re there, since we promised the kids we’d take them to the Caribbean…
But - they’ll end up divorced in a few years, mark my words. I was married to someone like them. Whatever it was, it was never enough.
These people deserve the very worst for what they have done.
Karma. This is what they’re teaching their kids. It’ll come back to them at some point. The kids will suck them dry and then take off. Why not? Mommy and Daddy did it to the bank.
I bet they paid their tx house in full using CA home “equity”. wow!
We need to get Paladin to go after these deadbeats.
The lender has recourse because it was in refinance . In this case I would go after these creeps who thought they could take the money and run .The nerve of these people being concerned about their credit rating when its clear that they timed their move to get all the money out and the cars before they defaulted .
I have told the story of my neighbor who was making offers on property to flip while planning to walk on their flip turned bad in the development I live in . My ex-neighbors are creeps because they most likely will just transfer their assets to their kids and claim they are broke .The real kicker is that right before they bought that property they are defaulting on ,they make a quick 50k on another property they flipped in the project .They think that they should be able to keep the profit from that flip but they want to burn the lender on the short-fall on their last flip .
These are the speculators that are crying victim and they want someone else to pay for their bad investment ,even when they had the money to cure the short sale (apparently the lender wanted them to bring in money on a short sale and they refused to do that )No bail-outs ,go after these creeps .
You folks need to relax. They could have just sold the home in 2006 and taken the proceeds and bought the place in TX. The only difference is the buyer: in one case you have a greater fool, and in the other case you sell it to the bank, which happens to be another kind of greater fool. I couldn’t be sure of course, but they might not have broken any laws.
The way our laws are written, people are encouraged to act unethically. Hence, you have a-holes running amok and a credit system that is unstable (notice the tightening of credit). This kind of corruption runs deep in America.
Looks like they advertised their financials decisions in WSJ for god’s sake. IRS has a line item with an asterisk on their “who’s bad” list. Have fun with your lexis.
Do you guys believe in Karma? scarey thought.
I hope this is a good lesson for the stupid lenders.
She basically cash out while staying at the house for more equity gains, when it didn’t happen she simply send in the keys.
I believe this is the main theme for crooks like her in this bubble.
When all you look at in determining whether you lend money to someone is credit score. People will eventually get wise and learn to cheat.
These people should be jailed for fraud
>>>“Mrs. Oropeza says that she and her husband recently bought a Lexus and a Chevrolet Suburban with no money down. She denies that the family intended to abandon the house. The choice was straightforward, she says: ‘It was easier to keep the house in Texas than the one in California.’”
My sense is that the [rescue] plan won’t help,’ Mr. Husing says. ‘A lot of people made dumb decisions.’”
__________________________________________
Yeah they listened to your endless BS. How about we send you the bill for your bull??
Like the decision he made in calling the IE the “center of the universe”. What a knob.
This clown said Bakersfield would be the next IE and we would grow for years to come (like that is something to aspire to).
What a blowhard, I guess he had to justify his speaking fee…
“…calling the IE the “center of the universe”.
IIRC, the center of the universe is a giant black hole, destroying everything that approaches it. That almost works as a metaphor, except that nothing escapes a black hole, but LOTS of people are about to escape the IE.
I don’t know about the center of the universe, but in the center of our galaxy sits a gigantic black hole sucking everything into it. Maybe that’s what he meant.
Oooops, beat me to it, AKron.
except your version is more accurate than ron’s
‘I think they took money out of their house and split,’ Ms. Lefranc says.”
Damn straight they did.
“Mrs. Oropeza says that she and her husband recently bought a Lexus and a Chevrolet Suburban with no money down.”
Oh F off you stupid b*tch! Then what’s the deal with the Carribean vacation?
Oh yeah, Pres Bush, if you’re listening, this is what your Debt Forgiveness bill is letting off the hook. Struggling homeowners my a$$!
Agree, I need some lotion.
Between the DEbt Forgiveness, Paulson saying GSE limit to Jumbos and Easy Al bailouts…
lotion? we all need astroglide….
WTF?! WTF?!
Wow…words cannot describe the utter lack of responsibility and remorse shown n by this couple.
I certainly hope the bank goes right after them, with the police not far behind.
It certainly sounds as if they purchased the cars when they knew they were on the way to foreclosure.
REFINANCE = RECOURSE. Nice of them to announce in the paper where their future job/house is, to make it easier on the repo guys/collection agencies.
That is the case in Ca. true, however, they are trying to eliminate that…
“Locally, the median in Bellflower fell more than 13 percent to $430,000, Downey’s median fell nearly 17 percent to $503,500 and Lakewood saw an 8 percent drop to $487,500. The median in both Long Beach and Norwalk fell 9 percent, with Long Beach dipping to $450,750 and Norwalk dropping to $424,000, and Paramount saw its median drop nearly 8 percent to $370,000″
Just some tidbits: Belflower and paramount are both rather grimy depressed working class to lower class comunities with not much to recommend them. Not exactly ghettos(yet) but rather depressing and grey burbs.
Lakewood was for a long time a nice clean solid middle class city and still is somewhat but virtually all the homes there are the old small 2/1 and 3/1 or 3/2 , 1000 -1500 sq fts built around WWII or in the 50’s’. Thus the rather low median prices compared to other LA decent middle class LA exurban communities.
Downey actually has many neighborhoods with large(7000-9000) sq ft lots and large ranch homes and is still somewhat kept up decently for the most part. May be ragged in a few outlying areas but downey is by LA standards a comparatively clean burb.
Long beach has many ragged depressed ramshacle zips in it’s central and westside zips, as well as the really depressed N LB 90805 zip. It also has virtually no hi=-paying industries anywhere : the last major hi-paying large industrial employer, Boeing, is shuttering down shortly.
Norwalk is a mediocre dive, with five fwys running thru or around it, which makes for a city which is a jammed throughfare for crazed motorists and truckers, adding to it’s geneallly dismal livability. It is a working -Lower class community thou not quite a ghetto( yet).
Thanks for the info, Peter!
I think you’re even being generous with your description of these places, but you’re def. right on the money. Last time I was in the LBC I had to pay a gang member to park on the street for the long beach grand prix. That was enough of Long Beach for me.
bitter - i agree. i’d never live in any of the cesspools he mentioned - ever - even if someone gave me a house…
LOL My brothers a Repo man, going on 20 years now, I swear he’s half bloodhound that boy can find anything. Has even called these deadbeats and told them they have won something or was delivering some flowers and the knuckleheads give him their address. Now he’s one guy with a booming business these days.
TX won’t enforce a California judgement, so no recourse.
Assuming all their toys are paid off, there will be no repo men.
http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Oct/1/126857.html
Makes me sick. My friend rents a “million dollar” home in Corona, he has had to move 3-4 times (I lost track) in 2 years because his landlords kept defaults, now in Dos Lagos.
Texas homestead status requires a while to take effect. It is something like: a year after you were residing there January first. So perhaps January 1, 2009 they will have homestead status and its extra protections and minor property tax advantage.
It just blows my mind how these folks had to know they were on the financial ropes and yet you go out and buy two luxury statement cars. Isn’t graet to live in a world where this is possible?……….I need a new planet.
Who was the lender of the final recourse? That’s a lender who should be avoided by any sane depositor.
You just KNOW that people like this will be first in line for any kind of “bailout” program
And they don’t see a problem with it……..
Until some of these people are either literally “strung up” in the courthouse square, I cannot understand why we are planning to “help” them at all.
These folks do not want a bailout. They bailed out at the top. It is the banks problem now.
If they get a bailout, they are truly F’d. Bail ‘em out, Bernanke!
Ah yes, strung up in the courthouse square. But i have a better idea, a sort of Joshua tree crucifixion. You find yourself some tall specimens, then ream and erect. The sight of dozens of FB’s ass-impaled and hovering twenty in the air should make folks think twice.
‘Joshua tree crucifixion’
Now we have a visual! And maybe a HBB t-shirt!
ex-nnv
I’m laughing hard! That should be a HBB t-shirt.
What would be the caption on the t-shirt?
Housing bubble elite?
Have you given your Realtor ™ a Joshua tree today?
Got popcorn?
Neil
‘It is the banks problem now.’
I guess it makes sense that the bailouts seem more targeted to banks than to FBs then (e.g., House proposal to slap taxpayer-funded loan guarantees on FHA loans up to $700K…).
Is there a cartoonist in house?
“What should be the caption on the t-shirt?”
It sure is different here.
How about “Prices aren’t the only thing always going up”?
What would be the caption on the t-shirt?
HOHICA
“What would be the caption on the t-shirt?”
‘crucifixion?
Thru the door, left line. One Joshua Tree each’
It sure is different here.
ROTFLMAO
I want to buy that one!
Neil
No Income? No Assets? No problem!
If you think about it, they may be onto something.
Buy everything you could ever want every 7 years, file BK, let your credit repair itself in 7 years and repeat. All without ever having to actually PAY for anything.
This paying your own way (and then some) nonsense is really getting tiresome. Considering all morality was lost two generations ago, what does one have to lose?
Considering all morality was lost two generations ago, what does one have to lose?
Well, this is perky thought. Thanks for making my evening that much brighter. I’ll be passing it on to my kids.
I always think people have something to lose by not doing the right thing, even if the world is going to crapola around them. Going bankrupt every 7 years requires developing a massive entitlement complex combined with little self discipline.
Given that, I fail to see how anyone could ever be content if their happiness rests on life suppling almost any and all of your heart’s momentary whims. Greed grows on itself. Lasting joy tain’t found down the path of never ending credit.
That was my uncle to a tee. Still the only man I have ever known to declare bankruptcy twice and this was in the late 70s and early 80s. Truly remarkable, but when you worked as a 7-11 cashier and wanted those towncars what else was a guy supposed to do?
Lack of remorse? Come on, they said they were sad.
‘We’re sad because there goes our credit, and because people think we are a bunch of flakes who walked away from the house and tried to make money,’ Mrs. Oropeza says.”
Yes, it is so sad to be a criminal: “I’m sad, because there goes my freedom and my status - now people think I’m just a lazy bum who wants to make money by stealing it from others.”
“‘We’re sad because there goes our credit, and because people think we are a bunch of flakes who walked away from the house and tried to make money,’ Mrs. Oropeza says.”
Yes, it is so sad to be a criminal: “I’m sad, because there goes my freedom and my status - now people think I’m just a lazy bum who wants to make money by stealing it from others.”
Yep, true sociopaths are always very sad about what’s happening to THEM. But they could care less about havoc and/or pain they’ve wreaked taht affects anyone else…I sense zero remorse and zero accountability in these people.
DOC
I would love for them to open he front door of their Texas house and find a Joshua tree.
Yeah, and thanks for driving up the prices of everything you bought with your funny money, thief.
Regardless of the government intervention, the banks and investors in RMBS are going to take it in the shorts across the board, and are soon going to realize that lending money on an 80 percent PLUS of cost basis is equivalent to buying the house themselves and renting it back to the borrower.
Underwriting standards will tighten, and the knuckleheads like the Oropeza’s will have a very hard time getting a HELOC unless they can demonstrate at least 20% equity in their home.
It’s all slowly coming to a grinding halt…
Banks will keep making stupid loans if they can sell those loans, and they can sell them if they can get the FHA to insure them.
Trouble is that now prices have already started to fall, and that has broken the bubble mentality. Even some of the generally clueless are starting to question whether it makes any sense at all to pay more per month to buy a place than to rent since, as it turns out, real estate doesn’t always go up.
On this cheery subject:
‘The Coming Collapse of the Modern Day Banking System
Staring Into the Abyss’ By Mike Whitney.
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney12172007.html
One quote:
“One of Britain’s leading economists, Peter Spencer, issued a warning on Saturday:”
“The Government must suspend a set of key banking regulations at the heart of the current financial crisis or risk seeing the economy spiral towards a future that could make 1929 look like a walk in the park.”
“Spencer is right. The banks don’t have the money to loan to businesses or consumers because they’re trying to raise more cash to meet their capital requirements on assets that continue to be downgraded. (The Fed may pay $.85 on the dollar, but investors are unwilling to pay anything at all.)Spencer correctly assumes that the reason the banks have stopped lending is not because they “distrust” other banks, but because they are capital-strapped from all their “off balance” sheets shenanigans. If the Basel regulations aren’t modified, money markets will remain frozen, GDP will shrink, and there’ll be a wave of bank closings.”
“Spencer said: The Bank is staring into the abyss. The Financial Services Authority must go round and check that all banks are solvent, and then it should cut the Basel capital requirement level from 8pc to about 6pc. (”Call to Relax Basel Banking Rules, UK Telegraph)”
Oh oh- the central banks are thinking about decreasing reserve requirements. THAT will not end well…
“‘The government has misread California. Most foreclosures here are on loans that haven’t adjusted, meaning that people can’t afford what they have now,’ says Mr. Fransen.
Misread California?? Excuse me?? Why is it so hard for someone to admit that if you can’t afford your house, you shouldn’t be allowed to keep it?
Yep, the implicit assumption is that it is the governments job to keep foreclosures from happening.
Misread in that there are no victums. No easy money? No housing payment.
And somehow we’re supposed to hit bottom in 2008? I don’t think so!
Got popcorn?
Neil
“If you spend a whole afternoon just eating popcorn and watching football, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if that’s all you do, you get swept along with the tide, without any idea of where you’re going.”
Roland Joffe
You have to have a peanut every now and then!
lol!
How about a steak with a nice Cabernet?
I like spinach as the veggie.
Yeh, what a bitch - no Government bailout for folks who chose to buy houses they couldn’t afford in the first place!
Don’t give them any ideas, for Christ sakes.
The Oropezas are straight-up criminals. These people need to go to jail just as bank robbers do.
SOP for CA homeowners. Fairly typical behavior, IMO. There is no guilt, because they are just doing what the rest of the entitled mob does. And sadly, there will be limited consequences for them. They will do it again when their credit allows, like the fine Americans they are.
I’m drowning my ears with Butthole Surfers “Psychic…Powerless…” so I can deal with the news from this California thread.
I’m listening to Talking Heads “Burning Down the House” and “Life During Wartime”. These crooks are laughing all the way to Tehus looking for the next screw job.
I think I’m going to put on some Pink Floyd and pretend this never happened.
Anybody got any Clearlight?
That was funny sm. Anybody out there?
Of course, they did keep others employed thru their financial activities. American spirit to the core, these folks are. They DO understand our economic growth model of credit and debt.
And now? On to another state to help those in need.
This is not fairly typical behavior, IMO. You’re just reading about the bottom feeders in SoCal, they get the press coverage. Plenty folks from all over our fine country have probably done the same, though probably not with such SoCal flair.
IS DQnews behind on the November data or what? I want to see how bad we did last month in San Diego!
November home prices slide 10% from 2006
Home prices in San Diego County tumbled nearly 10 percent last month from year-ago levels, taking the median down to $440,000, the lowest in more than three years, DataQuick Information Systems reported Monday. The latest price represents a 15 percent fallback from the all-time record of $517,500 set in November 2005. It was a bigger decline than the 11.7 percent peak-to-trough drop from 1992 to 1996, when the San Diego economy slid into a deep, prolonged recession.
Thanks for the update…yahoo news couldn’t find that all day!
Ouch! I’m almost afraid to look at Sac and Yolo county data.
Nothing here to surprise me. As I pointed out in a recent post, the median SD county list price on ziprealty.com (SFR or condo) has slipped below $450,000, and homes typically sell for below list price in a “buyer’s market.”
“peak to trough”
Wait ain’t seen no through yet…
The latest price represents a 15 percent fallback from the all-time record of $517,500 set in November 2005. It was a bigger decline than the 11.7 percent peak-to-trough drop from 1992 to 1996
—————————————————
They word this in such a way as to make it seem that the current fall is only about as bad as the mid-1990’s crash. But look at the data carefully and you will notice that while the percent drop is similar as in the 90’s the rate of the fall this time is 4 times faster. That’s right, the 12% drop in the 90’s took about 4 years to develop (1992-1996), but this time we had that same percentage drop in only one year!
Good eye!
“The bedroom community of Corona is a microcosm of the looming devastation for homeowners in California’s so-called Inland Empire. Corona lawyer Nathan Fransen says he has nearly 100 clients trying to avoid foreclosure but none appear eligible for the government rescue package.”
100 roadside I.E.D.’s…
(inland empire defaults)
“The bedroom community of Corona is a microcosm ”
Ha Ha Ha bedroom community!1 They make it sound like it was some kind of pristine well -groomed tree-lined sylvian Suburban oasis. The real Corona is rather different. Very tacky dwtn with lots of homeless, cheap ragged stores, and crazed motorists jamming thru that fwy bottleneck city. The outer ‘bedroom’ satellite neighborhoods ringing old dwtn corona suffer the same nasty 95%+ summer heat and pallid yellow smog as does the rest of Corona and the IE. The grimy industrial strips run thru the heart of the city along the railway lines cutting right thru the center of Corona. The overbuilding and construction along the south rapidly growing parts of Corona has resulted in massive oversupply of empty useless shopping strip malls and half empty office complexes, and a lot of dust everywhere.
Sylvian bedroom community? I think not!
I took a motorcycle riding class in Corona in the summer. Temps were 103 degrees. A dirty, hardscrabble place that I never want to see again.
Corona? Corona?!? Holy Moley! That’s the same Corona I’m thinking about, right? Isn’t that where the junkyards are? Right on the tracks?
Yeah, Corona is a microcosm all right. A microcosm of all that s*cks about inland southern California. I can’t believe that anyone paid more than $100 for a house there - but then there was the bubble in Compton, so I guess anything is possible.
Those people don’t need a bailout.
They need to be in jail.
SD just came out - DOWN 10% YOY and 15% from the peak - TIMBERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
“The last time the overall median was as low as November’s figure in March 2004, when it stood at $430,000.”
They packed up in June, and then took their 9-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter on a long-planned Caribbean vacation. They returned to Calle Canon Road, ‘got in our cars and drove to Texas,’ Mrs. Oropeza says.”
“Neighbors Ms. Lefranc and Mr. Saffold are dismayed over the Oropezas’ departure and note that shortly before leaving, the couple bought a new Lexus.
I had to laugh at how they gamed the lenders. Although what they did wasn’t right, the lenders were willing to throw money at them with reckless abandon. The lenders got what they deserved. The Oropezas’ have a house in Texas, and as long as they plan on staying several years, they ‘ll probably be fine. Unless, they can’t get their uncontrolled spending habits under control.
Right, and if anyone wonders where all those evaporated $billions I post about every business day go, here you are.
“if anyone wonders where all those evaporated $billions…go”
I think I like the backyard waterfall the best!
At least it will dry up and won’t need to be sprayed for mosquitoes.
And Ben’s thought brings me to envision the sudden horrific slashing of the consumer’s ability to spend as that ATM money dries up with cruel finality.
Short everything.
Isn’t it interesting they bought the cars in CA before they moved to Texas ? There has to be some angle there I’m missing, can cars be repoed across state lines ?
I have read in the past that Texas BK laws were lenient, not as lenient as Florida but more so than Wisconsin or California. I do not know if that is still true. If they are planning on BK, IMHO, they have to have owned the cars for 6 months prior to filing or it can be construed as fraud.
More lenient than Florida.
Then why didn’t OJ move to Texas? LOL
they’d have strung him up here
“‘The government has misread California. Most foreclosures here are on loans that haven’t adjusted, meaning that people can’t afford what they have now,’ says Mr. Fransen. He lives in a gated community where he says dozens of million-dollar homes face foreclosure. ‘The plan won’t help much here, and the problem is going to get worse.’”
Million Dollar homes in Corona?
How gauche!
“Million Dollar Homes”…….”Corona”
Sorry but there couldn’t possibly be 2 more polarizing words. I went to school in Riverside which felt like a safe haven from Corona. Those gates in the “community” used to prevent the Corona locals from escaping.
“‘Very few people are paying asking price,’ Steve Bovee said. ‘That was unheard of two years ago.’”
I wish I could say that was the case in Eureka. People offer $5K less than asking and think they got a great deal. I’m amazed prices in Santa Rosa aren’t that much more than Eureka…two years ago, the price differential was almost double. Although there are definitely cracks in the resale market here, it hasn’t fallen like the rest of the state has…gotta keep those SoCal equity locusts from coming here!
Also, on another note, what is it about Texas that every washed-up California homedebtor wants to move to? I know it is far cheaper and the weather is better than most of the Plains states, but still. It seems like during every California downturn, there becomes a preferred state for busted Californians to move to. In the early 1990s, it was Colorado. Now it seems to be Texas.
Don’t worry, these FBs don’t even have jobs in Texas:
‘The family is now living in Texas. But Mr. Oropeza says he no longer expects a transfer, so every other week, sometimes more often, he says he flies west to make his usual rounds of retail locations in the Inland Empire. Mrs. Oropeza says she travels to Orange County every three weeks for her job.’
This gets more surreal the more you learn about our aspiring Bonnie and Clyde. They moved *before* the transfer was a done deal ? Is there some advantage to moving to Texas that shields you from collections agents or the law ?
Actually, as I read it, Mrs. O does have a job in TX; she just travels to OC every three weeks. Lots of people have work arrangements like this.
But if they both still only have jobs based in CA, so much the better for the lender. Easier enforcement against their salaries, since CA would be the state in which the lender obtained its initial judgment.
make sure their new employers know what gems they just hired….
TX is an extremely debtor friendly state. Stay here 90 days and you’re all set.
‘an extremely debtor friendly state’
And for good reason. Most are broke.
LMAO!
you know I won’t argue with that. It’s the land of deadbeats and 30K millionaires.
In case anyone is overly bored:
$30,000 Millionaires: Douchebags in the Mist
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2007-11-29/news/douchebags-in-the-mist/
Venturing into the Dallas jungle in search of the elusive $30,000 millionaire: Is he myth or fact?
I guess these phrases have a real meaning. When I started lending in AZ mobile parks in 1993, my uncle in Phila found me a RE atty in PHX. The PHX guy said “AZ is a very lender-friendly state.” I wasn’t sure what all was involved in that stmt, but the results have been satisfactory.
Texas has a very generous homestead exemption (remember Enron), which enables homebuyers to shield their homes from creditors in the event of bankruptcy. This means that, in the event of a financial reverse, they can put their money into the house and protect it from crditors.
“Karenn and Steve Oropeza arrived at Calle Canon Road in 2004. Public records show they paid $557,000 for a four-bedroom house and took out a $500,000 mortgage.”
“As property values skyrocketed, they refinanced three times, most recently in late 2006, for $835,000, Mr. Oropeza says.”
“The couple say they used some of the money they pulled out of the house for home improvement, such as a backyard waterfall. But Mr. Oropeza says the bulk was used to pay off credit-card arrears. ‘We were in a vicious cycle of refinancing our home to get out of debt,’ he says. ‘We banked on selling the house, but that’s where we failed.’”
WTF is it with the “water” feature requirement on homes now?
I have a feeling it is part of the “must over improve the home”, to convince one’s self that there is “value” in the property. Same reason for all of the finished basements, multi-tier decks, gazebos, landscape lighting, sports courts, outdoor soundscapes and so on. More consumer junk that adds nothing to the true value of the home. I think the FBs think this adds character to the home, when in fact it makes it look like a theme park.
theme park indeed: Down the street from where I work are houses on the spendy side - all with a little water feature in the front, standard. Two in a row have a small rock with water coming out the center. 50% remain unsold.
I thought kids throw laundry detergent in front yard waterfalls making them into mr bubble theme parks, I would not want one out front of my house.
The sparrows like to use them as bird baths and latrines.
You nailed it! Guy I know has the waterfall hot tub in the backyard. But that’s not all. Tell the the rest, Johnny! He also has a nice, large in ground fire place. Literally bigger than the one in the house. But that’s not all. He also has the nice stainless steel bar-b-que and all the patio furniture. Truly a sight, but I can almost imagine the cost. Then again, he told me he took out a 30K equity loan to have teeth work for his wife done.
Unbelieveable!
Second guy. RV, boat, seadoos, and mega TV.
How do all these people make it? Am I the only guy making less than 150K in South OC? Also, first guy told me he couldn’t…That’s right, buy his own home at today’s prices. Why do people think that the next generation is going to be able to?
I am so pissed after reading this article. Thanks, Ben!
That’s the part that most amazes me. People realize that prices are so high that most people can’t buy. But they want to keep prices high. And then they wonder why no one is buying. Idiots.
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
Wife
And you may ask yourself-well…how did I get here?
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
Water dissolving…and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? …am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god!…what have I done?
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the moneys gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
I believe a lot of cash was pulled out to finance college and university for children. The universities had a boom too and could raise tuitions like crazy. Now with all this cash gone such places will suffer as well.
“Mrs. Oropeza says that she and her husband recently bought a Lexus and a Chevrolet Suburban with no money down. She denies that the family intended to abandon the house. The choice was straightforward, she says: ‘It was easier to keep the house in Texas than the one in California.’”
OK Sentors, how’s this for a proposal. These are upper middle class suburbanites like yourselves, so we have to help them, and we have to help the investors who hold the note.
I have been to the Caribben once, and it was quite the extravagance. I have an 11 year-old Saturn wagon. I ride a bike to work. I have no cable and no air conditioning. And I have a paid off house.
Well, since the average American has just 50% equity, why doesn’t the government give people like me a 50% mortgage (unless they are “at of over 55,” and use the money to help get these fine people out of hock on their other home? It’s wouldn’t be like welfare, because no one would be doing anything for the poor.
I’m glad that Mr. and Mrs. Oropeza went on the record with their mortgage looting. Like those idiots in NO who smiled at the camera while walking out of the looted stores.
Gives Casey Serin a place to find them
Anybody here in the Pacific Grove area?
I wish! A hopeless sport, put the ball in the hole, pick it up and do it all over again. A love that will never leave me.
If anyone here is in Pacific Grove, Monterey, Salinas, etc., please email me off line. I’d appreciate it.
gymnastgal32 at yahoo dot com
txchick
a little OT but what do you think is the real reason Wm Lyons took his company private?
I don’t know anything about the company or the takeunder. What is your theory?
Oh man i fell asleep, been sick all day…..
I think he didn’t want to see his public stock fall from $100 a share to single digits. Plus he can reorganize/lay off quietly, and if they get sued most MSM may not even report it.
Maybe he is really sick, and its harder to value a private company for IRS Estate purposes, then a known public stock price?……. I’ll bet in 2009-2010 he will take the company back public.
“The couple say they used some of the money they pulled out of the house for home improvement, such as a backyard waterfall. But Mr. Oropeza says the bulk was used to pay off credit-card arrears. ‘We were in a vicious cycle of refinancing our home to get out of debt,’ he says. ‘We banked on selling the house, but that’s where we failed.’”
Waterfalls are so Tom Vu…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYqDS9i8zJw
Well I posted here the other week about the wife and I finding a house we love. We gave our agent a verbal offer to pass along. That number includes a 20% down payment, but is about 60% of the list price from 150+ days ago, about 85% of the current list price. The real kicker is it’s less than 50% of their original wishing price.
Apparently they aren’t enamored with our offer. They’ll be disappointed if they come back to us next month…because our offer will be another $100k less. Sellers still don’t get it.
BTW, I do realize that we’re nowhere near the bottom. That said, this could be a 30 year house for us so I don’t need to catch the bottom. There are a lot of intangibles that add “value” to my wife and I which would make this knife worth catching
Don’t feel bad about making offers. We make an offer at least once or twice a month. And for something we like, we make repeat offers… dropping the offer every couple of months. I consider this activity to be a contribution to society, doing my part to communicate with sellers and letting them know exactly why their houses/lots have been on the market for over a year! And the funny thing is that it is very easy to do because we know they’re not yet ready to accept (reality).
“The couple stopped making their Corona mortgage payments in June, triggering a notice of default 90 days later and starting the countdown to foreclosure. ‘We’re sad because there goes our credit, and because people think we are a bunch of flakes who walked away from the house and tried to make money,’ Mrs. Oropeza says.”
LOL, sad my a$$, this is SOP. today. Hell, I get an inquiry on how to do this at least once a week. Just last week some FB asked if he should take out his remaining equity just in case he needs to bail, something about buying a house cash in another state. Too funny…
Where are the regulators/ authorities? Oh I know - Asleep at the switch again, trying to solve last years problems instead of todays issues…
He must have been calling you from last year. Did he miss the memo?
“Mrs. Oropeza says that she and her husband recently bought a Lexus and a Chevrolet Suburban with no money down. She denies that the family intended to abandon the house. The choice was straightforward, she says: ‘It was easier to keep the house in Texas than the one in California.’”
You nice folks here on the blog may remember me mentioning a little while back that I am hoping to jump on the mtge brkr bandwagon in 5 - 10 years, once this thing turns around. At that time, I had mentioned how I am sick of the bullcrap and intend to ride the next wave up. This type of article, along with the bailouts, free money, victimization, total loss of moral compass and personal responsibility, just makes me want to do it all the more. BUT..now I have added maxing out the debt offered to me, hiding the assets (somehow) and then declaring BK. (2015 - 2020 are going to be some fun years for me)
Why should we stay on the straight and narrow road, taking the high ground, when it seems like the other 99.99% of the population, (Wall Streeters, elected officials, appointed officials, etc.), all bend those of us in the 1% over, every chance they get? I have had it with the foolishness..if you can’t beat them, you might as well join them.
“if you can’t beat them, you might as well join them.”
Don’t. Karenn and Steve Oropeza now have their acts recorded on the Internet. Because of their acts (possible fraud, misrepresentation) it is unlikely either of them will ever get a government job or clearance.
Background checks conducted on applicants for professional positions will bring up his/her name regarding this situation since most companies google applicant and employee names as part of their search.
~Misstrial
If you want to join them in the next bubble it is going to be cleantech/greentech.
It has already got a good head of steam, but has maybe 5-7 years of legs before that bubble pops.
So true. My latest opportunity for an actual paycheck is connected with wind-power investigations. And hey, I’m over 60 and haven’t had a salary since 1995 — not exactly a top-notch resume. (I do have fairly recent sci publications.) My point is, there’s an unusual concentration of opportunity in the area suggested by sunsetbeachguy.
“cleantech/greentech”
I wouldn’t bet on it. At least not as a genuine bubble, more like a scam.
Well thats a genuine bubble ala dot.com or the housing bubble. The scammers follow the bubbles. But despite the pain sometimes in the aftermath of a bubble good things remain.
For this bubble a much needed return to sensibility and prudence are probably going to be the result and it was and is needed and has been for a long time.
Lots of smallco failures happening. Just wrote off HYBT. Plenty of small scam companies jumping in on the “next sure thing”. Pump and Dump operators working the stocks as well. It’s the dot.bomb all over again, except without the IPOs or the money.
if you can’t beat them, you might as well join them
The comments are a veritable spring of bitterness tonight.
Maybe we should put in a fountain.
You always have something to lose by joining the “other side”, not the least of which is hanging around lying scumbags because the 2 honest people left don’t want to have anything to do with you.
The following the straight and narrow road has nothing to do with material rewards or popularity. It’s about looking at yourself in the mirror and being able to live with what looks back. People who have crossed the line have very little chance at happiness or stability in this life.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be a country of laws or that there aren’t causes worth dying for. We need to keep law and order and fraud should be prosecuted. But I’m also saying that the universe has a remarkable system of payback in place. Sometimes the only action required is waiting.
” … the universe has a remarkable system of payback in place. Sometimes the only action required is waiting.”
Gotta agree. Seen it happen over and over. Karma can be a real bitch.
No, I don’t think you should join them, because then you’d just be part of the Stupid Parade. And parades are pretty fun, laws, yes, M-o-o-n spells ‘parades are fun’, but on the other hand, this parade might end up marching right into the bay before anyone notices it’s time to stop.
I think that particular saying: ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’, came into being in a gentler time, when we didn’t have as many pointy objects lying around to hurt us.
I hope the financial system doesn’t have a case of shifting antigen A-prime flu. Captain Trips is no fun.
Yeah, and if you join “them” you won’t be “one of us, one of us, one of us” anymore. (any film buffs out there?)
freaks
Bingo
Don’t. Politicians die or get voted out of office, governments change, banks fold, stock markets go down and high financiers go to prison. Somehow, we will muddle our way through this mess and the nation and economy will be stronger.
I think that the next bubble is carbon credits. SOMEONE is making big bucks right now planting itty bitty trees to so that politicians and celebrities can keep their SUVs and 24,000 sq foot houses (plural).
One thing that I have not read about but speculate is a problem is banks holding properties. When banks owned the loan in the past their options from bad to “really” bad were
1) sell at FMV
2) modify loan
3) hold on books
Now everything is different. Banks are servicers holding an asset owned in a securitized package owned by Bill and Marge in Iowa through their pension plan. Bill and Marge as the ultimate owners have no say in the best thing to do from an investors standpoint. I’m not an expert in the servicing arrangement banks have through the CDO/CMOs but I believe the servicers options from bad to “REALLY” bad are
1) hold on books (actually “off” books since they are only servicers)
2) modify loan
3) sell at FMV
The incentives now reward the opposite of what is best for the investor and the long-term health of the market.
shows a lot of properties coming on the market in the future and only a small fraction of the new inventory is being sold.
I would be interested in comments from those knowledgeable but it appears we could have our own “Lost Decade” as all of these homes sit on (”off”) the books of servicers while lawyers and IBs wrangle and the govt/FED spins in circles looking for answers and Bill and Marge happily see that their pension hasn’t gone down.
The leverage is much greater this time around, somewhere on the order or 100X.
This is why it can’t really get strung out too long, unless someone pushes an easy button.
The various entities will be recognized as drastically insolvent, admit it, litigate it, and those properties will be sold at firesale.
18 months out at this point IMO.
It may be, gleaning from the reports I’ve seen that the banks and investors may not even have considered the possibility, and adequately planned systems for managing the asset in a crisis, since Real Estate Always Goes Up.
Okay, a few things here…
First, how freakin’ many people, who couldn’t afford to, took out a loan at 500K or more in this country? These stories ben posts are just getting crazy. Freakin’ Corona. Yeah, My Sharona, my Corona.
Second, to quote Churchill, and with do disrespect to the RAF in WWII, “Never have so many (FBs) owed so much (a mil here, a mil there) to so few (the banksters, etc.).”
It gets worse:
‘A small glimmer of progress emerged on Calle Canon Road one recent afternoon. At a vacant home flanking Ms. Lefranc’s, the front door — normally sealed with a lockbox — was open. Inside, Chris Jensen, an appraiser, was taking stock for a woman who bid on the house at an October foreclosure auction.’
‘The hints of new life in the neighborhood — and the prospect of a government-backed mortgage lifeline — clash with warning signs. To the south, unfinished developments aggressively market new homes. Shaking her head, Ms. Lefranc sighs, ‘They keep building houses.’
It’s what I’ve been saying. If prices stay artificially high, the building will continue. Price supports will only make the situation worse, as usual.
What the hey, Ben! My family income is a nice 67K. There I admit it. However, I am the only one working. We are okay with that. However, why do I feel at times that I am the only schmuck living a poor life? Criminey. Sometimes I feel like the whole country is Bill Gates and my family and a couple of good friends are the only bums left.
This insanity is going to be painful when it finally ends. There are no more answers. Look at WS. The Dow was down again. These guys have played all the cards and the only ones left aren’t very pretty. Sure, run the money press all night. Good luck with the foreign side of that. Raise interest rates. Good luck with that. Kill off any chance of getting loans for only the very best credit. What people don’t realize is that we have lived high on the hog for too long and the piper has to be paid.
Also, what is this person thinking buying a home for half a mil in Corona? The heat and smog alone drops that price by 40% right off the bat. So let’s start at 300K and go down from there!
What the hey, Ben! My family income is a nice 67K. There I admit it. However, I am the only one working. We are okay with that. However, why do I feel at times that I am the only schmuck living a poor life?
Because it’s easy to feel that way when 80% of your friends are living on 2 incomes and have no qualms about pulling out their Visa and Mastercard buddies in a “pinch”. We live on 1 income and a little bit from my part time business and have no debt. Luckily, my sister in particular lives at her means so it’s not quite so bad. We’ve also got some friends who live on 1 income and they do the same things we do, and that helps too.
I try to remind ourselves of two things: we have a far lower stress lifestyle than my two income friends. We can be flexible in ways that 2 incomes families cannot (and indeed, my ability to let DH work resulted in a substantial pay raise this year.) I also try to remind myself that 2 income debt ridden lifestyle is not “real”. If they bought it on credit, they couldn’t afford it.
Thanks for that reminder. It is just such a fight in South OC to keep it all in perspective. And then this clowns in of all places, Corona. Heck. They worked the system. Meanwhile, I just want a nice home close to my owrk w/o HOA Nazis. Where is my town?
Oh, maybe I will just rent until death. Better to sleep well and be debt free than suffer through HELOCs and MEWs. As some of you know, I’ve been there and done that.
OC Dan:
No offense but you are below OC’s median household income, per NAHB/Wells Fargo.
I am a tried and true bear on housing, but I gotta say that below household median earners tend to be perma-renters in OC.
Hey it would be great if/when you can afford to own in OC.
However, I am just glad that my wait won’t be that long. My household income is nearly twice the OC median household income and I am still priced out of a prudent RE purchase.
Hey, no offense taken. One income: no debt, money in the bank, wife stays home w/children, pay the bills on time, work 7 miles from home so I go home for lunch, work 9/80 w/Friday 7 Sundays off. I am not complaining.
I guess I could have tried to go for the bigger money when I was younger, but I found that I didn’t really want all the hassle that came with it. I know too many people who don’t know their wife and kids. I worked two jobs after college and 50-60 hours a week was not fun. Two paychecks was nice, but after a while, not fun.
Also, even if we go to the extreme and say the AVERAGE household makes 100K in South OC, then homes shouldn’t be more than 300K. Also, why do I hear more and more people say they couldn’t afford their homes. Either homes are too expensive, people don’t make as much as everyone thinks we do, or it is a combination of both.
OC you know what changed my family from a two income to one ? When my kids didn’t know who dad was (me) when I went to pick them up from daycare.
Hell, this is an anonymous board…so I’ll describe my situation.
Even the $200K+ crowd can’t afford the highlife that many of the FB’s are living.
$200K income 4 years out of grad school (started out at 90K), just paid off all college and business startup loans and now have a small nest egg of 20K. Have driven a ‘99 model Toyota for the past 5 years with no intention of upgrading soon. I rent a condo at 1200/mo. Single, FICO is 700. I have a tax liability of 25K because I was unemployed 6months of this year to get extra training for a job change and didn’t have an income…chose to live off of my 2006 tithe to Uncle Sam instead (though I am finally paying it back, more slowly than I’d like).
Folks, it’s not that much money when it comes down to it. I am aiming for a 400K home loan, and think that is stretching it. I simply cannot believe that these FB’s who make half of what I do are HELOCing up to 800K and living WAY better than I am, with the prospect of a government bailout to boot. It really does make you pretty angry when you’re trying to be smart about your money and honest about living within your means.
“One income: no debt, money in the bank, wife stays home w/children, pay the bills on time, work 7 miles from home so I go home for lunch, work 9/80 w/Friday 7 Sundays off. I am not complaining.”
And this year’s Honorary Doctoral Degree in Applied Finance will be presented to…
Drum roll please…
OCDan! (crowd goes wild)
For years we’ve been trying to figure out how everyone else has luxury cars, fancy vacations, designer clothes, plasmas and all the electronic goodies, nights out on the town, etc. We have decent income and little debt and yet keep wondering why we feel like we’re the shlubs. But, when the piper has to be paid, they’re all going to be so miserable going backwards monetarily while we’ve all found great ways to have fun and enjoy our lives. All they have are things and a pretend life. We have the real deal, good times, many laughs and true love and caring about each other.
crazy, we felt the same way. Could not for the life of us understand how so many people could afford expensive McMansions, big new cars, cruises, etc. Then we started reading this blog, and it became clear. We have a modest income, but we own our home, buy used cars, longest commute is 5 miles, and we have time to enjoy our family! I would not trade places for anything…..
Hey OC Buddy, a lot of us are similiarly situated. You are not alone!
67k in the OC w/a family? god bless you…..
Everybody has their own way of going through life, but in my household, we judge our happiness on our standards and only our standards. It’s not super easy to do this. It’s natural to be envious, angry, needy, etc. but once you wrap your mind around it, life becomes a lot simpler and you wonder what all the fuss was about.
I meant to post this on the California thread. This dim bulb has lost ~700K in the California market.
You guys will LOVE this. This dim bulb has lost 700K or so in the California market.
http://whinecountryrealestate.blogspot.com/2007/12/doom-and-gloom-bubble-blogs.html
Cry me a river. We may be bitter renters, but he is a bitter loser!
she
Sorry, didn’t read the fine print, Carol, at the end of the entry.
anyone notice this:
“Having SEVEN kids (uh, no, I’m not Mormon) has taught me when someone is open to listening and when they are not. ”
just for tx!
hah is this real? I would buy one of her compressed Tee Shirts if it read “My broke neighbor got their interest rate froze and all I got was this lousy Tee-shirt”
been there, done that, got a lousy T-Shirt, burned the T-Shirt and AM now looking at the HOUSE
About four years ago a lady from Bowling Green, KY tried to get me to invest with her in a mutli-unit rental property. At that time I had no idea there was a housing bubble or fixing to be a housing bubble. I started asking questions because it is MY MONEY!
When I started asking her about the specifics of the property (purchase price, interest rate, etc…) she looked at me as if I had some audacity to be asking such questions. She told me the place is cash flow positive, and that is all that I needed to know.
This is how people get separated from their money.
I do not now know the whereabouts of this lady, but it is easy for me to imagine that where ever she is she is knee deep in RE doo doo by now, and she has taken OPM with her to her sh#t pile.
Got 10% down?
Houses in Compton for $400k? Does that strike anyone as straight up whack?
Why should a house in Compton cost any more than one in a decent part of Houston?
It’s all cr$p right now. Fundamentals are out of whack. People are scared. Banks don’t have enough cash. Just wait. In 10 years, Compton will be 50-100K. Mark my words. 400K is unsustainable!
Sometimes I see these people living in hog heaven and I seethe with envy. There’s no way I can afford a nice car, a nice house, and electronics galore on my salary.
Then, I realize that they can’t afford it either and they’re royally screwing themselves over.
It’s at that point that I feel a lot better.
Almost all my borrowers drive better cars than my Ford Focus. OTOH I’m taking a great-nephew on a Kenya safari, leaving the day after tomorrow. I like expenditures that make no pretense of being “investments.” Merry Christmas to all here.
Great going - good for you. Wonderful idea to take nephew of such a wonderful trip. Have a great time.
Have a good time, and please do report back to us how your trip went.
Well said. The trick in the future will be not to need credit…as those who don’t need it will the only ones who will be getting it. All these types of folks absolutely depend on credit…and likely always will, ensuring they are fleeced into the grave.
Right now they’re fleecing the lenders into the grave. RIP New Centruy, American Home Mortgage and two dozen other mortgage lenders.
“The couple stopped making their Corona mortgage payments in June, triggering a notice of default 90 days later and starting the countdown to foreclosure. ‘We’re sad because there goes our credit, and because people think we are a bunch of flakes who walked away from the house and tried to make money,’ Mrs. Oropeza says.”
Let’s seek out and adjust these a$$wipes with a hat-rack, per an earlier thread today where hat-racks and hammers were compared. All respects to ex-nvmg poster, but not everyone has a joshua tree, whereas most everyone has a hat rack. And I bet it feels the same, on the 5th attempt at attitude adjustment. Reading this thread, I am so much willing to take scientificky notes on the project.
Sorry, rough day, I’m sorry I was grouchy.
Well, you are.
I would love Ms Oropeza to read this read this thread and know there is no way she can erase it.
Compton! If anyone has never heard of Compton which is in south Los Angeles and Mexican and Black gang infested, let the bumper sticker I saw describe it better than I ever could. It read:
“I come from Compton where everyone steals your sh*t.” (I added the asterisk lol)
Who in their right mind would live there - let alone buy there! Great place to raise kids. For his 1st birthday present buy him an Uzi or a Glock. He’s going to need it on his trip to and from school.
Don’t forget the urban copper miners are taking anything not nailed down, some parts of the city haven’t had streetlights in months
It’s not just Compton - many other parts of greater LA have been “mined” for the streetlight wiring. As the Mexicans leave, they’ll take with them everything that’s not nailed down, and some stuff that *is* nailed down.
My family had property in Mexico in the 1960s and 1970s, and I can attest that there is a culture of theft prevalent in Mexico. Everything that belongs to the Gringo is up for grabs as soon as you are not looking. They’re like cockroaches with hand-trucks.
The Orepeza family might be a bunch of flakes, but they made a smart move. It is a smart move but unethical. They are taking the path of least aggravation. Can the lender from California go after their assets? I suspect there a lot of cases like these in California.
Many cases. I guarantee it. However (and they knew this was coming) the legislation that Bush signed where, if you go bankrupt you don’t get off that easy anymore, might come back to bite them in the ass - but they seem to know what they are doing (scam wise) so don’t count on any poetic justice coming into play.
Hey, you have to admire the foresight and state stupidity arbitrage. I think it takes a year to become a TX resident if you own property. According to the article, they bought the Houston house in June 2006, and you know they declared that house as their primary residence immediately and rolled whatever was left of the re-finance recourse debt into the Houston house. As soon as June 2007 rolled around, they stopped payment on the CA house and split for TX.
Recourse money is in the house, but they’re TX residents, nyah, nyah, can’t touch this.
2003 Pricing is alive and well:
7910 Kiskadee St, N Las Vegas 89044
Sale History
07/06/2007: $209,250
01/31/2006: $257,000
06/11/2003: $159,480
Zillow.com “Zestimate” = $244,055
Realtor.com listing (MLS #739232) =$161,000
It appears the July 6th buyer might be a bit sideways.
Knife catching heck, that 7/6 buyer caught himself a bag full of razorblades. Stories like this are rocket fuel for the next leg down.
You know what’s really cheesy about zestimates? If a sale is made for more than the current zestimate, the zestimate is raised to reflect the sale price. If a sale occurs below the current zestimate, no change is made to the zestimate. I’ve seen this over and over.
Hey anybody know how the debt forgiveness deal is going to work?
Prez sez no IRS attack after short sale. Does that open floodgates for FBs on the fence about selling for a loss?
A little OT, but can anyone tell me why Sears or someone else isn’t still making and shipping kit homes from their catalog anymore? They look better than the modular crap I’ve seen coming out:
http://tinyurl.com/2f7g8t
gee, and some folks on the bb were complaining about the new tough bk laws- guess they didn’t make them tough enough
This is an unbelievable thread. As I was working my way down the thread, the thought came to me:
“what about the lenders?” What about the banks? Why did they allow these fools to refinance for $835,000? When the house was worth far less. And then these fools take the money & run.
Now these past few months, we’ve been saying on this thread “Caveat Emptor” latin for ‘Buyer Beware’. But the same goes for the banks. They should have NEVER given these idiots a blank check. Now the bank is stuck with a house which is underwater. And not just a house that is worth far less than the equity in it. That equity is EVAPORATING by the day.
What were they thinking? Did they take complete leave of their senses?
Banks are supposed to be conservative, prudent protectors of their depositors’ money. They deserve…..
I’d better stop there.
Repeat after me: It wasn’t their money. It wasn’t their money. There were no real banks involved, only stock operators who sold off the risk to suckers.
The bankers only did what they were taught in their Ivy League MBA program.
Unfortunately, Cliss - they are not stuck. It’s a club. They all help each other out by various means including, if they become insolvent, taking over the debts. Their second lne of defence is The Wall Street Gangsters. Banks going bust are not good for business. Their third line of defence is the Fed who will print more confetti money. Again, not good for business if a bank or corrupt hedge fund goes belly up. Their fourth line of defence is the goverrment who, via the multitude of corrupt, bought and paid for politicians, will hold hearings and decide banks have to be rescued. Probably through sleight of hand tax payer funds. Thus, you have the people who run the USA conniving between them to make sure the game goes on.
you haven’t been reading enough threads. no “bank” is on the hook. all mortgages are repackaged and sold as MBS to non-bank idiots around the world. Don’t worry if you have any cash in a MM or bond fund in your 401K or pension, you’re probably one of the lenders on the hook.
I must say, I can’t really feel any anger towards these Orepeza’s. After what the country has wasted on this Iraq war, what the Orepeza’s have done is really small time stuff. The whole country seems to be going to hell. I say let it. The faster we hit bottom, the faster things will turn around. I know it sounds irresponsible, but I’m sort of hoping the whole damn country go up in a giant bonfire so we can start over again without so much corruption the next time around.
There were alot of dumb buyers BUT they knew exactly what they were trying to do…they did it with full intent to make money and screw the next guy…
I have absolutely no remorse for these people and I hope 100% that they get whats coming to them.
Million Dollar homes in Corona?
NOT FOR LONG!!! Live in OC and could never understand how homes got that high. Must have been the KOOL AID from the RE whale $hit industry.
I just hope Ron Paul gets elected in ‘08 so we can have some fiscal responsibility and common sense back into the way this country is being run.
“In the end, we’re all dead, the good, the bad, & the ugly alike. Problem always is, what do we do in the mean time?”
Wait for the Rapture? I thought those who are “believer’s in this life will rise to a heaven where peers who couldn’t hum a bar in tune on earth will be heard singing beautiful spiritual tomes where no pain, hunger or thirst gets in the way. Like too many think who don’t have s__t in this life, “savings in this life don’t matter, I’ll soon be fluttering along with my family and friends who have passed, and J__s and G_d in the next life away from every sinful human who didn’t follow my version of Christianity 101. Tell me again, “how does Santa Claus manage to squeeze down my chimney?
Saint nick was an exceptionally lanky man from what I have read about him.