It’s Not Surprising Prices Are Declining
Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. CNN Money, “The new year picked up where 2007 left off, as sales of existing homes fell in January to the lowest level in nearly a decade, according to the National Association of Realtors. The reading was the lowest since the group began reporting annual sales pace in 1999, down 23.4% from a year earlier. The median price of a home sold during the month fell 4.6% to $201,100 from $210,900 a year earlier. Before the start of the current housing slump, it had been 11 years since prices fell compared to a year earlier.”
“The median price of a single-family home dropped to the lowest point since February 2005, falling 5.1% to $198,700.”
The Wall Street Journal. “Inventories of homes increased 5.5% at the end of January to 4.19 million available for sale, which represented a 10.3-month supply at the current sales pace. There was a 9.7-month supply at the end of December, revised from a previously estimated 9.6 months.”
“‘Inventories are high, so it’s not surprising prices are declining,” NAR economist Lawrence Yun said.”
From MarketWatch. “UBS may be facing legal action from a German firm that bought into a $500 million portfolio of collateralized debt obligations that the Swiss investment-banking giant structured and sold. HSH Nordbank said in a statement on Sunday that it ‘has decided to start legal proceedings against UBS.’”
“The claim would aim to recover “significant losses” on the CDOs, which were linked to the U.S. mortgage market, the company said.”
“The legal action would aim to show that the ‘manner in which the investments were sold to HSH Nordbank and UBS’s subsequent management of the assets were clearly contrary to our interests,’ the firm said.”
From Reuters. “HSH Nordbank’s decision to sue Swiss bank UBS this week may be the vanguard of many investor lawsuits against banks over investments in collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) that have gone sour.”
“The German state-controlled bank said on Sunday it would start legal proceedings against UBS to recover losses on a $500 million investment in a CDO made in 2002.”
“‘The question focusses on how the CDO was managed? Did UBS put assets it didn’t want into this structure?’ said Tom Jenkins, an analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland. This case ‘could pave the way for many more suits against it (UBS) and others,’ he wrote in a note to investors.”
The Boston Business Journal. “A $517 million debt vehicle backed by risky subprime mortgages and issued this past summer by Fidelity Investments has run into trouble after credit ratings on some of the securities have been cut to junk status. The mutual fund giant has more than $1 billion in exposure to collateralized debt obligations.”
“The Boston company created that little-known affiliate, Ballyrock Investment Advisors LLC, to issue and oversee collateralized debt obligations. The timing of Ballyrock’s subprime-related CDO issue could not have been worse. Since then, Wall Street firms have reduced the value of their CDOs by as much as 80 percent in some cases.”
“Ballyrock manages five CDOs, but only one has been subject to negative ratings actions and is linked to subprime mortgages, said Fidelity spokeswoman Anne Crowley.”
“One glimpse of the strain from Fidelity’s CDO issue comes from asset manager AllianceBernstein, which cut by 30 percent the value of $1.23 million in securities purchased for its Balanced Shares Fund from the Ballyrock CDO, U.S. regulatory filings show.”
“The papers that U.S. borrowers sign when buying a house are piled so high that few people read them all, and even fewer absorb the information.”
“Critics of the current documents say it is time to require home mortgage lenders to prepare a short, plain-English summary of each loan so consumers actually know what they are signing. Many in the housing industry agree.”
“Richard Syron, CEO of Freddie Mac, the second-largest U.S. home funding company, told Reuters last week he also worries that consumers do not always understand pitfalls hidden in their mortgage details.”
“‘I’ve refinanced a few times, and I can’t say I read a fifth of the 75 pages before signing them all,’ said Syron. ‘We’ve just got to do a much, much better job of being sure that the consumer knows what they’re getting.’”
“Lawmakers are among those who have failed to read their mortgage details and are interested in making them easier to absorb. Sen. Charles Schumer told Reuters he trusted his bankers when he signed for the loan on his house. ‘Like most people, I didn’t read my loan document in the one mortgage my wife and I signed 25 years ago.’”
“Sen. Charles Grassley, of Iowa, also said he did not read his mortgage documents but thinks simpler disclosure could be achieved without legislation. ‘The consumer ought to know as much as the bank knows,’ he said. ‘I bet you don’t need to change the law to do it this way.’”
“Rick Farr, partial owner of United Capital Mortgage Assistance, firmly believes that inadequate information hurt many of the people who call his company for help in preventing foreclosure.”
“In many cases, when lawyers, real estate agents, buyers and sellers gather to close on a sale, the terms of the loan were such that ‘the only people at that table who didn’t think there would be a problem with the loan was the (new) homeowners,’ he said.”
The Des Moines Register. “About 10 percent of 1,530 lending-related complaints to the Iowa Division of Banking over the last 10 years have been against mortgage brokers. Six of those were against Iowa Mortgage & Consulting, where Joseph P. Kedley, worked.”
“Carol Vaughn, who is wheelchair-bound and suffers from a variety of health problems, said Kedley promised to save her money with a fixed-rate loan. That’s what she thought she was getting when she signed the papers.”
“Instead, she received a $72,000 loan at 11 percent interest that is scheduled to adjust next year, and a second mortgage for about $17,000 with a 13 percent fixed rate.”
“‘He told me that I was going to save so much money that he was going to get an award from the governor for saving me so much on interest,’ she said.”
“She did get $5,000 in cash to help pay off her credit card bills, but her monthly payments went from about $500 to $800. Her loan is based on an appraised value of $94,000 - a figure from an appraisal she never saw. The house was valued at $40,000 when she recently paid to have her home reappraised.”
“‘I thought he was being straight with me. I didn’t think someone would try to cheat me,’ Vaughn said.”
The Chicago Tribune. “The new buyers of a rundown graystone on the South Side showed up Jan. 9 to look at the house they won at a foreclosure auction. They took the plywood off the front door and went inside to make sure the utilities had been shut off. Then they called the police.”
“Sitting upright in the corner of a bedroom off the kitchen was a human skeleton in a red tracksuit. Neighbors told police the corpse was almost certainly Randy Johnson, a middle-age man who lived alone in the North Kenwood house.”
“The cause of Johnson’s death has not yet been determined, but it is just one of the mysteries about 4578 S. Oakenwald Ave. Somehow, Johnson’s house was transferred three times to new owners without anyone noticing he was inside.”
“Left holding the bag is Countrywide Home Loans, the nation’s largest mortgage lender. Now it is likely to lose it all because it financed the sale of a home whose rightful owner was in no condition to sell.”
“The intrigue surrounding the Oakenwald house offers a glimpse into the strange and murky world of mortgage fraud. Lenders duped into making loans have every incentive to unload the properties, and almost none to blow the whistle on wrongdoers.”
“‘They foreclose. They don’t care. They just foreclose,’ said Daniel Lindsey, a supervisory attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.”
“Last week, Countrywide vacated the recent sale of 4578 S. Oakenwald and returned the buyer’s money. That happened only after Cook County officials announced they would fight to put the house back in the Johnson family’s name.”
“Countrywide Financial Corp., reacting to negative publicity, canceled plans to host a posh ski trip for about 30 mortgage bankers at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch ski resort in Avon, Colo., a spokesman said.”
“The three-night event – for smaller mortgage banks known as ‘correspondents’ that sell home loans to Countrywide – was to include two four-hour business meetings along with skiing and dinner at upscale restaurants, including the Spago restaurant, whose menu includes Kobe steak with wasabi potato puree for $105.”
“Rising defaults and falling home prices led to losses of about $1.6 billion at Countrywide in the second half, and the company has reduced its work force by 11,400, or 19%, since July. Countrywide’s servicing arm, which collects payments and handles other administrative tasks, has about 90,000 loans in foreclosure, or 1% of the total.”
“Sen. Charles Schumer…denounced the planned ski outing last week. ‘Let me get this straight: Countrywide is too cash-strapped to prevent layoffs, refinance borrowers or ward off bankruptcy without help from Bank of America, but it can afford a posh junket for its co-conspirators in the subprime mess?’ Sen. Schumer said in a written statement. ‘This brings new meaning to ’snow job.’”
“Andrew Gissinger III, Countrywide’s executive managing director, residential lending, was to have been among the hosts of the ski trip. In a memo to staff last fall, Mr. Gissinger urged employees to hang in there despite the current slump: ‘I’ve made a lot of people rich or richer who have joined me on my past crusades.’”
“The correspondent lenders account for a big portion of Countrywide’s business. In last year’s first nine months, Countrywide bought about $151 billion of home loans originated by hundreds of correspondents across the country. In the same period, Countrywide originated $173 billion of loans through brokers and its own employees.”
“With the industry in turmoil and many small lenders going bust, Countrywide may feel the need to cheer up the correspondents. Some such lenders say it has become very difficult to sell their loans to Countrywide because the company has grown much pickier and is rejecting as overly optimistic more of the appraisals that back those loans.”
“An agenda for the canceled meeting noted that falling house prices and ’skyrocketing delinquencies’ have created a ‘new world’ in which ‘loans are being examined with the utmost scrutiny.’”
“The agenda said participants were to discuss quality control, among other topics.”
From CBS News. “Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo has come under fire for scheduling (the) lavish retreat. ‘Of all the acts of corporate stupidity, this takes the cake,’ Sen. Charles Schumer told CBS News. ‘They only nixed it after they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar.’”
“On Thursday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will scrutinize the compensation and retirement packages of one chief executive and two recently deposed CEOs of companies ensnared in the mortgage crisis.”
“The witness list includes: Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation’s largest mortgage lender; Stanley O’Neal, formerly of Merrill Lynch & Co.; and Charles Prince, formerly of Citigroup Inc.”
Does anyone know how any of these borrowers can go about getting their mortgage vacated altogether if the lender can’t provide legal documentation showing they are the assignee? We keep hearing of these foreclosure cases that are thrown out of court because the lender can’t prove they own the note, but I haven’t read anything about how a regular borrower who’s mortgage is held by one of these poorly documented pools(who isn’t in default) can go to a court and get a judge to throw the loan out.
Could there be a business opportunity here for a law firm to have late-night infomercials asking anyone who has a loan with a particular servicer, that was taken out between particular dates, to contact them? The law firm could sign these people up under contingency: if they can successfully get the mortgage vacated the borrower agrees to pay the lawyer 6 months worth of mortgage payments.
Could this business idea work?
If this actually had legs I shudder to think what damage a thriving law practice in this area could have to already deteriorating RMBS values.
If the borrower is not in default, that means they are making their payments, right? How could one claim they don’t know who the lender/servicer is, if they are cutting them a check each month? The “business idea” of encouraging people to disregard their personal responsibility and contractual obligations doesn’t really improve our current state, does it?
I could see a legitimate argument if your checks are being returned and you haven’t received adequate notice of your loan being sold. This reminds me of the practice of continually requesting evidence of an unpaid debt from a creditor. If they (creditor) failed to respond to an inquiry within a certain period of time, you could go to the credit bureau and have the negative item removed. Again, working harder to try to avoid a legitimate debt than to actually pay it is not really in the best interest of our world IMO.
Mr. Drysdale said: “How could one claim they don’t know who the lender/servicer is, if they are cutting them a check each month?”
The borrower may be making payments to a lender, but the borrower may not realize that this lender is no longer a LEGAL holder of the mortgage note due to improper documentation. My point is that a lawyer could help these borrowers (who have loans that are improperly documented by lenders) go to court and have the mortgage vacated (i.e. since the lender is unable to show proper legal documenation of their ownership of the note).
I am sure there are many borrowers who wouldn’t care one jot about the morality of ceasing their payments if they knew that they had no legal reason to continue paying the lender (i.e. because their lender had no legal documenation).
This may not “help” the real-estate market, or general credit melt-down, but it seems as if there is a business opportunity here for a lawyer wanting to make some contingency money by getting mortgages thrown out in court (even when there is no delinquency). Once a borrower knows that their lender can’t legally prove ownership of the mortgage note, it is then up that individual to decide if they want to do the “moral” thing and keep paying, or offer a contingency fee to a laywer to get their mortgage vacated in court.
If I were in a foreclosure situation and my lawyer told me the lender who appeared in court was not the legal holder of the note…I’d be jumping for joy. These so called mortgage brokers who issued these toxic loans and those up the ladder, were only in it for the commissions…so too bad, so sad! Legitimate loans in the past were well documented. AND if you have a loan now payable to countrywide, check and see if the broker who wrote the loan is still in business. If they are, call them and ask for copies of the note: The first thing they will tell you is they didnt keep copies. When a friend of mine sold her house three years ago, the closing statement came in with a 9k pre payment penalty. She never agreed to any prepayment penalty, plus Wisconsin has usuary laws, she would have had to sigh an opt out document. My purpose in calling was to get a copy of the document…when countrywide was confronted, they didnt have it either..obviously, it never existed. The 9k prepayment penalty was removed from the closing settlement…just like that! So, the moral of the story is “screw them, before they screw you!. They dont have any morals why should you.
So what happens if you are NOT in a foreclosure situation, but you discover that your lender doesn’t have adequate documentation to prove legal ownership of the mortgage note (e.g. there may have been other cases of mortgages in the same pool as yours where the lender lost in court proceedings)? Is there any reason to keep making payments to the lender if they can’t legally prove they own the note?
Ok, I need input from the California contingent.
What can you get in the OC these days for 250K? Irvine, Anaheim, etc. I know you can’t buy a doublewide in one of the beach cities for that.
Does Countrywide have a decent selection of REOs in OC on their site?
Can whoever gave me the statistics page on projected price drops there (I think it was wittbelle) give me that link again?
And does anyone know a decent short sale realtor there?
Try Santa Ana. Very nice community, just get a hand gun permit before you go.
Ambac rating AAA affirmed by s&p
mbia off watch
now “watch” the shorts run
Suprised this didn’t have more of a Levitra effect.
Threats, promises of rewards, or both from the PTB? This might provide a great opportunity to dump MBIA and Ambac paper. No pension fund manager or windows & orphans trustee can now be faulted for buying such instruments.
No way, not there yet. It’s crashing, make no mistake about it, but 250K still doesn’t exist.
Tex, if you’re looking for a SFR in OC for that price, you’re probably SOL for a while. You’re talking rock-bottom at that price, and we ain’t there yet. Now if you go out of OC, that’s an entirely different story. Start looking for sub-200K prices in those areas right away.
It’s not me. It’s a friend who I can’t seem to convince that such an animal does not exist there. She’s in Riverside. I told her to start perusing the Countrywide REO page and get a decent short sale realtor and maybe in about 2 years she’ll get something.
You can’t even get a condo for that, can you?
I haven’t scoured the condo pages, but I’d say for the most part no.
I don’t believe 250k exist anywhere in OC. It certainly does not exist for a SFR.
Whats intresting in Irivine is I’m seeing the high end drop fast. This was not expected but over 1mil homes are rapidly heading to 2003-2004 prices and closing in on the 1 mil mark. These are nice high end homes. This is putting huge pressure on the middle class 4/2’s listed in the 800k 1mil range. Right now for a few 100k more your looking at twice the quality of home. I think the bottom will fall out of the 4/2 stucco market soon and then you will see 3/2 collapse. I never though the high end would collapse this fast. Just goes to show you how little reality was in the flash in the OC.
Since when is 800K middle class?
Since the middle class started making 300K a year.
Duh!
ex-nnvmtgbrkr
I meant the homes are simple middle class track homes not the price.
I can’t take it any more….. It’s tract house, as in, built on a specific tract of land…..not a track house, which, I presume, would overlook a sports field.
Mary Lee, I’m guessing you’re a bit older than the average poster here. Most folks gave up on pointing out incorrect homonyms and mis-spellings long ago. That kind of stuff simply isn’t taught in school any more. You just don’t see such errors in blogs either. You see it in the dead-tree media, TV (Fox News bottom-of-screen crawl text has some hilarous errors), even professional journals.
I suspect that in about ten generations from now most people will be completely illiterate, instead of just partially as they are now.
“No way, not there yet. It’s crashing, make no mistake about it, but 250K still doesn’t exist.”
If an OC $250k 3/2 ranch were available I’d be there right now, yesterday too!
huge pressure on the middle class 4/2’s listed in the 800k 1mil range.
More like bankrupt wannabe upperclass sheeple who pretended to be rich. Now they are in the lower class where they belong.
and wear bulletproof vest when going out to check you mail
Though not adjacent to the beach, I believe Irvine and Anaheim are considered “beach cities”.
“…Irvine and Anaheim are considered “beach cities”.”
By whom? I want some of what they’re smoking.
There are a few condos for that price in South OC but no SFH yet.
Still so early in this game. I was prepared to put in offers in West LA at a fraction of list prices, but they won’t look at them yet because they don’t want to report the losses.
What event would cause them to want these off the books? Any guesses?
No SFR’s in that range… it will be awhile in those areas. Short-Sale Broker I would try Leo Nordine first if he doesn’t handle them, ask for a refferal…he’s on the end of the business to know who’s doing what as far as short sales…
http://www.nordine.com
Countrywide REO
http://www.countrywide.com/purchase/f_reo.asp
BayQT~
We have just busted under the 400K number in Orange, Anaheim and fringe Anaheim Hills(the area’s I know) for SFR. Interesting enough though, the ones @ or under 400K sell in days with multiple offers and they are all Bank owned. In the same neighborhoods you have homes listed for 500K-600K-even 700K. We have 200K-300K price variations in the same neighborhood, wacky good fun
Clarification’s;
the SFR in marginal Orange neighborhoods are not moving @ or just under 400K. They are sitting and wishing (for 2005).
Not sure Anaheim or Irvine could handle you Tx.
Prices in Irvine are even more out of whack than beach areas. Anaheim starter homes are sill above 300K.
Rumors abound of forclosures going into the 200K range but no hard data yet.
“The witness list includes: Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation’s largest mortgage lender; Stanley O’Neal, formerly of Merrill Lynch & Co.; and Charles Prince, formerly of Citigroup Inc.”
I heard O’Neal got picked up on waivers by another MBA team…
Inventing excuses is “Inventory Larry’s” new game.
“‘Inventories are high, so it’s not surprising prices are declining,” NAR economist Lawrence Yun said.”
“‘Inventories are high, so it’s not surprising prices are declining,” NAR economist Lawrence Yun said.”
Prices are high too you dope. Of course, they never want to point that part out.
Actually, this is something of a stunning admission by Yun. Maybe it’s all a mistake…I’m sure he meant prices were ‘negatively rising’.
LOL!
I’m really going to keep my out for that phrase. It’s not out of the realm of possibilities.
You might remember Yun rah-rahing the seasonal inventory declines of December as if they were some sort of trend. To me this deception was blatant because there’s no way he didn’t know seasonal trends of inventories.
And on that note, the inventory numbers throughout the West are off the charts in comparison to this time last year, and jumping by the minute. You compulsive knife-catchers should at least see this as a screaming “not yet” omen.
Yo Larry. Try this out in front of a mirror:
“Inventories are high, so it’s obvious prices need to decline faster.”
or … “It’s NOT a good time to buy!”
“UBS may be facing legal action from a German firm that bought into a $500 million portfolio of collateralized debt obligations that the Swiss investment-banking giant structured and sold. HSH Nordbank said in a statement on Sunday that it ‘has decided to start legal proceedings against UBS.’”
The Swiss were hardly neutral, in matters financial.
They are the Americans of Europe. Not members of the EU, and increasingly intolerant of immigrants.
I would seriously re-think investing in anything Swiss related.
good to see you back Aladyy . . .
with the writers strike over & such I thought maybe you went back to yer day job.
increasingly intolerant of immigrants
Increasingly? It is my understanding that for a long time now it has been virtually impossible to naturalize there. Even if you are married to a Swiss citizen it is next to impossible.
Can you expound on how EU membership and immigration policy relate to neutrality? Just wondering. Your comment surprises me.
IMO the fact that they’re not members of the EU, and that they are fairly closed to immigration, makes them more neutral than other countries. Switzerland’s nature has always been politically isolationist, and financially open - those to me seem like hallmarks of neutrality.
We would do well to copy the Swiss. For starters, let’s opt out of the U.N.
“The cause of Johnson’s death has not yet been determined, but it is just one of the mysteries about 4578 S. Oakenwald Ave. Somehow, Johnson’s house was transferred three times to new owners without anyone noticing he was inside.”
OMG!!!! Unfrigginbelievable! You can’t make this up. WOW!
“Left holding the bag is Countrywide Home Loans, the nation’s largest mortgage lender. Now it is likely to lose it all because it financed the sale of a home whose rightful owner was in no condition to sell.”
These guys are complete effing scum.
I read that and just laughed so hard… Not because of poor Mr. Johnson but just how this story shows how bad of the stench of fraud has become in real estate.
If there is a HBB Hall of Fame, this story deserves a spot.
If there is a HBB Hall of Fame
There is.
The Hall of Quotes is just over there, and contains such gems as “New Paradigm” and “People will live with their parents until they are 40.” An entire wall of the exhibit is covered with desperation quotes such as “They can’t commint to pulling the trigger because of the negative media.”
The upstairs gallery contains Glamour-shot portraits of legends such as Suzanne, and that “classy realtor” who wears a Rolex. There is also a special Sentaor Video exhibit featuring a montage of Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, and Hillary Clinton making statements for the camera. The artist tells us that the most difficult aspect of creating this piece was choosing select quotes from such a vast array of material.
The Extreme FB’s are housed in the dungeon. Current occupants include a strawberry picker, a babysitter, and a candle shop owner.
The gift shop sells statues of St. Joe, cracked pieces of granite countertop, and a fine assortment of tanning products hand-selected by Angelo Mozilo exclusively for HBB.
I guess the undiscovered corpse in flipped home goes in the Unusual Media Healine room…
(how can an appraiser miss a corpse?)
This is just insane.
I know where this is. It’s just south of the big 47th St. Exit on Lake Shore Drive. It’s a fairly sketchy neighborhood.
yep. and whats more I’d bet all the CountryWide ski party invitees will see nothing at all wrong with their cancelled lavish outing, and instead be quite pissed off at what they felt perfectly entitled to as their just rewards for being the head honchos or rainmakers.
never mind the carnage that they left behind. someones else’s problem. let em eat cake. and the politicos posturing - oh PLEASE!
I bet quite of few of the bandwagon jumpers took payola from these crooks/salted away in their reported (and cayman) accts. I mean, gimme a break already Willis. all these years of doing nothing then out come the hearings to save face.
same ol’ same ol’ circus acts performing in the bigtop. just cast yer gaze to whichever of the 3-rings strikes yer fancy, while eating neil’s popcorn for never-ending feats of amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazement.
(thats the currently overused safe buzzword: “Amaaaaaazing “. Everything is “amaaaazing” … it wasnt good, or bad, or anything that could come back later to haunt you if you dare take an definate opinon, just be safe & say it was ” amaaaazing “. especially heard uttered from rising starlets so they wont offend anyone.)
RE: These guys are complete effing scum.
And John Kerry Democratic Senator from Massachusetts is lookin’ to bail their sorry azzes out.
It will be very interesting to learn when his loan payments stopped being made. Say about the time of his demise? Boy, oh boy, just the kind of media Countrywide needs.
I just looked the property up. The original owner paid off the mortgage and had it free and clear since 1993.
Every time I think I’m numb to the lunacy, I hear something still yet more insane.
A house with a dead man in the kitchen transferred hands THREE TIMES with no one even noticing. I’m just speechless. This is true lunacy.
“Sitting upright in the corner of a bedroom off the kitchen was a human skeleton in a red tracksuit.
It was the kitchen. The skeleton was wearing a red tracksuit in the kitchen.
This is why I stay away from foreclosures. I have no plans to establish a Bates Motel East.
Holy crap I meant to write the bedroom.
The bedroom. The skeleton was in the bedroom.
I thought you found them in the closet.
Only in London.
True story from the street I grew up on: I was back there visiting my parents for Christmas ‘01-New Year’s ‘02.
Mom was in the habit of not walking the dog past one neighbor’s house because the lady was a nutcase. She even threatened to shoot at anyone driving by in a VW, and guess what my folks drive?
Well, on this visit, Mom and dog strode right past the house, and I was amazed. Mom said this was because there had been no activity at the house in quite some time. She assumed that the crazy neighbor had finally moved out.
Well, it turns out that the guy who delivered the mail called the police to do a welfare check. Which they did. The crazy neighbor had died, probably around the middle of December. Her body was found inside the house. This discovery was pretty hard on the local firefighters — I saw one of them heaving in the driveway.
When I was a teenager, a man living next door died in a rocking chair, looking out his window, theoretically at my window, and was there for days before anybody discovered him. Because his window was dark, he couldn’t be seen from outside.
That must have been one hell of a show you put on!
Our crazy neighbor lady lived next door. When she died, it thankfully didn’t take so long to discover— her kids, who were pretty well aware that she was a bit deranged, made regular calls to her, and when she didn’t answer they knocked on our door to ask if we’d seen her.
I swear, my first two thoughts, in order, were, “I bet she’s dead,” and “Maybe we can get some real neighbors now.” We got the news just before my brother left with friends that she was dead— he burst out laughing from the craziness of it all. Then he played some football with his friends and broke his collarbone— something he still refers to as “Mrs. Rooney’s Revenge.”
Incidentally, we did get some “real” neighbors after that, and unfortunately the last set moved to a different state around October, just before the market tanked. Their house still hasn’t sold and I feel sorry for them because it’s just a case of really bad timing for them (ideal new job and location, close to their families.)
Our next-door neighbor died at home. We discovered her body several days later. A few weeks afterwards, the house went up in flames while the greedy offspring argued about their “rightful” inheritances. Eventually, the property was sold “as is” to new owners who rebuilt the structure. Of course, the new owners knew nothing of the history prior to the fire until I accidentally mentioned it during a conversation one day.
Accidentally.
Cookie cutter McMansions are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.
Let’s see if this link works…
Photo of the house
The place looks a little creepy, but with some landscaping and some TLC, this house could easily be beautiful again. The County Assessor lists it as 113 years old and made of solid masonry. That area of the city used to be wealthy, so unless it had been “updated” in the past 50 years, this house likely has a fantastic interior just waiting for some restoration.
It does look beautiful. But what is the neighborhood like now? The whole area may be run down.
Good God! There is a “Cook County Assessor’s Office”!
The Blues Brothers must be true, then!
Holy cow! Can you imagine walking in on that horror? I’d be traumatized for life. I’s sure like to know what he died from.
I know I was so shaken by the visual that I got my rooms mixed up.
You know it’s sad though that someone can die and no one notices. Didn’t anyone miss Mr. Johnson or the people that Az Slim and Incredulous mentioned?
In the case of our neighbor, my parents and I had learned long ago to avoid her. Especially after she told my mother that there was a VW Beetle that was really getting on her nerves, and she felt like taking aim at it. At the time, my father drove a VW Beetle, and my mother advised him to take a different route to and from work.
And she’d also managed to antagonize the rest of the neighborhood. So, people weren’t exactly checking in on her.
If you’re 5 cans short of a six pack, no friends and no family, I can see how there would be no one around to check on a person like that.
On the other hand, can the stench of a decaying corpse be that indistinguishable? I would think just the opposite, and that someone in the neighborhood would call authorities about the smell.
BayQT~
Nobody noticed the dead guy next door. I didn’t even know he lived there, but the other people who lived there should have noticed he was missing. It must be awful to be so alone in the world, but I suspect it’s a fairly common condition.
The “witness list” should be renamed the “hit list”…
“Sitting upright in the corner of a bedroom off the kitchen was a human skeleton in a red tracksuit. Neighbors told police the corpse was almost certainly Randy Johnson, a middle-age man who lived alone in the North Kenwood house.”
Beisbol been berry berry bad to him…
“Let me get this straight: Countrywide is too cash-strapped to prevent layoffs, refinance borrowers or ward off bankruptcy without help from Bank of America, but it can afford a posh junket for its co-conspirators in the subprime mess?’ Sen. Schumer said in a written statement. ‘This brings new meaning to ’snow job.’”
Aside from his pleas for a bail out, am I the only one that is actually beginning to like this guy?
I think the Great Orange One should run for office. He has what it takes to be a true politician. Or maybe we should rename him the Great Pumpkin.
Schumer’s not a bad guy…a bit of a whiner, but more honest and insightful than the other senator from New York.
Chuck the Schmuck is a total loser.
I once had the bad fortune of coming across him in the “kissing baby” mode. It was all I could do to control myself from punching his face in.
I like Schumer. He’s quite the counsel for NY residents. I had an issue that he resolved favorably.
He is in the bankers pockets. Wrapping bailout with visuals of the poor FB. He is the worst of the worst of the worst.
Yep, definitely in the bankers’ pockets.
I guess he figures if the horse is going to die anyways, might as well rider ‘er hard.
Not until he stops treating FB’s as victims and tells them to take their JTs like men!
I like Schumer also. He wrote the original ban on assault weapons (which Bush and the Republicans have blocked renewal for 7 years). And he replaced one of the worse Senators at the time, Al Dimato.
Yes he is a little to cosy with the banking interest. But compared to most Republicans, he is almost anti-corporatist.
It’s funny, I see a lot of Hilary and Schumer bashing here. But under the Republicans, we have just lived through one of the most corrupt Congress in a hundred years (The Brookings Instituit) and I see almost no anti Republican sentiment.
Oh yeah “they’re all the same” That is such a crock!
There is a ton of anti-Republican sentiment, but that would be beating a dead horse. Why complain about Bush when he is on the way out, and is fast becoming a lame duck anyway? His will be remembered as the worst administration in American history. I’m glad Florida and Ohio are getting hit hard by the housing crash…they deserve it for putting him in office.
Well stated Ed. Thank you.
Sorry guys, but the absolute worst administrations were in the late 19th century. The worst administration of the last 50 years was, hands down, Jimmy Carter’s.
“Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo has come under fire for scheduling (the) lavish retreat. ‘Of all the acts of corporate stupidity, this takes the cake,’ Sen. Charles Schumer told CBS News. ‘They only nixed it after they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar.’”
Senator do-nothing unloading on ceo do-nothing.
Call it a wash.
good one!
Man. I was counting on going to that retreat too.
“‘I thought he was being straight with me. I didn’t think someone would try to cheat me,’ Vaughn said.”
As some of you may know, I’m observing a short-sale. Ten days ago the couple thought they sold the home and would be able to walk away from their 1st and 2nd mortgages without consequences. WHY? Their REALTOR assured them it was a short sale. Now as the closing date nears, the RealTurd is trying to get them to sign a document promising to pay off the second (50K) over 15 years. Trust no one.
Unreal. I’d tell the realtor to jam it.
At first I thought it read “tell the realtor to toejam it”, which was disturbing and appropriate at the same time.
Anyone else finding this thread a particularly effective diet with the moldy corpses and toejam?
Her loan is based on an appraised value of $94,000 - a figure from an appraisal she never saw. The house was valued at $40,000 when she recently paid to have her home reappraised.”
“‘I thought he was being straight with me. I didn’t think someone would try to cheat me,’ Vaughn said.”
Jeezus lady . . . you need to have your crap detector overhauled.
“Sen. Charles Schumer…denounced the planned ski outing last week. ‘Let me get this straight: Countrywide is too cash-strapped to prevent layoffs, refinance borrowers or ward off bankruptcy without help from Bank of America, but it can afford a posh junket for its co-conspirators in the subprime mess?’ Sen. Schumer said in a written statement. ‘This brings new meaning to ’snow job.’”
Ok, this is gossip, but was told to me by the owner of a janitorial company the other day . He told me Countrywide downsized one of their depts into a new building, and what he saw in the trash was a waste. Newer staplers, stacking files, all kinds of fairly new office stuff, etc… He was told they were going to update the new offices, so the supplies were dated. He said nothing was wrong with the stuff.
The *telephone game , but it is worth a mention.
(* Didn’t see it with my own eyes.)
Hey, I could use some new office supplies!
I wouldn’t be too concerned about the office supplies. Countrywide has offices in Chandler, Az. About a year ago, they knocked down several adjacent structures which appeared to be new and unoccupied, and proceeded to erect “matching” new ones which still appear to be unoccupied. I guess they were concerned about the esthetics of the neighborhood.
Actually, I can sympathize. When I downsized it was just overall less hassle, and perhaps cheaper, to toss a lot of stuff. I did give a lot away. I do know that every time the spouse mentions “garage sale” I threaten to start drinking again. It’s my sure-fire fall back!
A black stapler vs. a clear purple one. I agree, tossing stuff is cheaper (time & $)., but this was clearly to update the stuff. And they got new furniture too.
I think garage sales are a waste of time. My time is getting more valuble, as I just had the 11th anniversary of my 39th b-day.
OT, but I wonder how the franchise biz is doing with all these lay-off happening. Subway must be getting a pile of inquries.
If your office supply inventory is in fairly good condition, why not donate it to a non-profit? I did this a few months back, and, oh did they appreciated it.
Or you could offer it up on your local Freecycle. The people who accept your offer will even come to your place and pick the stuff up.
Yeah, freecycle is great, in principle.
In NYC though, you get a lot of scamsters. I don’t care if they sell it behind my back but I wouldn’t them inside my house.
“Lawmakers are among those who have failed to read their mortgage details and are interested in making them easier to absorb. ”
Geez, you could at least have them point out the places where it says fixed-rate at X interest rate, no prepayment penalty etc and read THOSE parts..
Are the documents really the problem, or are there cultural/literacy problems involved that CONgress would rather not discuss?
The auction of new homes (38) Sunday in Phoenix drew a overflow crowd and the homes all sold within 2 hours, most left with a empty feeling i was told since most thought a bargin was in the making instead the homes fetched very close to their orignal asking price.
Matter of fact the builder was amazed, how is it these homes sat for up to two years with no takers yet all sold in 2 hours and to the orginal purchase price almost , was something wrong in Denmark or did these 38 people who bought these places really understand what was happening?
Are you sure the company or mortagage holder wasn’t buying them, thus artificially keeping the prices up? Are you sure most of the buyers weren’t shills. Fake auctions go on all the time here; in the end, almost none of the properties actually change hands. Yet even the fake sales to those “buying” their own properties are reported by the real estate industry as sales. It’s a scam.
I wouldn’t doubt it ( a scam) to many people left the ballroom with a feeling that the whole thing was either a twlight zone where money was no object or they have been tricked into to thinking a real auction was going down, i sure would like know if these homes really sold on the up and up?
Someone who owned a real estate franchise in my area, went to jail over a scam auction. Although he could not “practice” real estate anymore, he worked for his wife as the office manager when he got out. Three hots and a cot didn’t reform him at all, imo.
I bet we’ll see a lot of this this spring. There is a large segment of the populace who really think this is the bottom. I’m in LA, and there is increasing talk about all the “buying opportunities” due to 5-10 percent price declines. The flipper mentality dies hard, and I predict many knives will be caught. In the end, it won’t make a bit of difference, other than leading to lots of (incorrect) pronouncements that the bust is over…
I live in your area, and I hope the boycott of buyers makes the selling season a bust. I am hoping you are wrong. My sister lives in W L A, and her 2,000 sq ft home is worth over $1.3M. That’s absurd. I live in a nice area, and people seem to be aware that now is not the time to buy. Lets hope Christopher Thornberg (Beacon Economics, formerly UCLA Economist-Speaker) has put some food for thought in the sheeple’s mind.
Your post reminds me of my parent’s neighborhood in Studio City. Nobody sees their little wonder of the world going down more. Movie Stars live around there, they brag. BFD. You get it, I wish they would.
I’m hoping I’m wrong too. But a friend of mine is about to buy a place in the hills as an investment… using a HELOC on his current place for a down payment. He’s getting it for around $450 sq ft, a screaming bargain… by 2006 standards. He’ll need to rent it out for 10k a month to cover the payments. He thinks this is realistic. He also thinks that in 5 years it will be worth way more than he’s paying.
Stupid right? But this is the mindset of buyers in LA right now. The black swan hasn’t landed here yet unfortunately. At least in the “good” areas. When it really breaks here, which it will, the wailing and gnashing of teeth will be epic. The trend is clear, but the rose colored glasses many folks wear here are still working. Pumpers are gonna be working overtime this spring. And again… it won’t work.
There must be pockets of stupidity out there. Evidently, your friend is a neophyte to investing.
“The Black Swan”-good book.
Which place is your buddy buying? Is it an REO?
Generally speaking, when it comes to real estate, the city of Los Angeles is a pocket of stupidity. And yes, he is a neophyte, on the sense that he bought a house in ‘04 for 1.4 mill which, after his recent remodel, is now “worth” 2.8. He doesn’t really get that the party is over, despite my gentle warnings. Sadly, he’s not alone.
The memories of the boom die hard, this may take a while unfortunately.
“Which place is your buddy buying? Is it an REO?”
Thanks! You have just perfectly illustrated the point I made in the previous reply.
We sold our “luxury” McMansion in 2005, and are still waiting out the market renting.
Your friend sounds young and stupid, and is getting in way over his head. Paper profit vs. real profit, big difference. He sounds myopic. His lesson will be painful and long. I still compare this downturn to Japan’s, but the conditions are worse for us. Like Japan, 10-15 years of a Real Estate Depression. Anyone agree, disagree?
What are you talking about, plysat?
Don’t appreciate the dissrespect. Is it stupidity to keep track of a certain area?
“Don’t appreciate the dissrespect.”
Sorry Wilson, no disrespect intended. I just pictured someone going “OMG it *is* a bargain! I want one! Where is it?!?!?”
My apologies.
All good, plysat. Figured I must have come off the wrong way. I actually track that area carefully. I’m shocked at the prices that trust fund/celeb brats obliviously pay. There are a bunch of REO’s popping up recently and they have been in terrible shape. I’m curious who would even pay top dollar for them…
“Your friend sounds young and stupid, and is getting in way over his head. ”
Agreed, though he’s not stupid, just deluded. He’s getting advice from folks who have literally made millions flipping/building in the high end market in LA. Their perspective is decidedly more bullish than mine, or anyone elses here.
I think he’s gonna get killed, but I haven’t sold multi million dollar properties, so what do I know right?
I have been in the shopping center game since 1986 (was an Asst. Controller prior too), and have been through a few cycles of the market. Its going to be a hard correction to deal with, unless his cash flow is strong, and his time frame is long, he may not have a happy ending. This is a global credit mess of historic proportion. I worked for an international REIT, and have met some impressive minds. I was a young whipper-snapper once myself. I thought I knew the right people at 30 myself. Nope, time on the planet helps too.
Bottom-calling is a new sport in the MSM. In RE, it’s more difficult than calling a top, since RE bottoms tend to be flat and extended.
We are finally seeing a few new, lower comps being set in Santa Monica here, but there’s a long way to go. According to foreclosure.com, the local REO count is as follows by zip:
90401 - 0
90402 - 0
90403 - 2
90404 - 3
90405 - 9
And it’s all crappy little condos except for one crappy little SFR.
There are a few on the way in Malibu. Nothing yet in Brentwood or Pacific Palisades. The overpricing in those areas is INSANE. I’m thinking when it comes down there, it will be a tidal wave…
The article is on the Repugnant web site.
http://www.azcentral.com/realestate/articles/0225auction0225.html
“Several homes sold for about $100,000 less than the previous asking price. There were good deals but not very many great deals, visitors said.
For Kelly Manzeck, 34, there with her husband, Kevin, and their two young daughters, it was the perfect place to buy a vacation home. They had visited the properties in Flagstaff, taken pictures and selected just one they’d bid on. The three-bedroom, two-story condo was listed at just over $500,000. The Manzecks, of north Scottsdale, picked it up for $383,000 - about $50,000 less than they were willing to pay for it.”
Some shill betting going on? I would bet yes. But still, hardly close to peak prices.
We are 20% off with a good 20-30% more to go. As Ben likes to say, we need these knife catchers to set the new comps. If there are 0 transactions, then there will be $0 in price drops. Each comp that goes for below previous market is a comp that sets the new market for the next knife-catcher to buy for less than.
“Mr. Gissinger urged employees to hang in there despite the current slump: ‘I’ve made a lot of people rich or richer who have joined me on my past crusades.’”
Come on kids follow me, and lets all go on a crusade and liberate the holy land.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children’s_Crusade
You know what happened to a lot of those Crusaders…
FYI- 2 bed/1 bath/800 sqft. in the heart of Santa Ana, $235,000
930 Highland St.92703
MLS#P610926
Someone paid $435,000 for it in 2005. Its still has another $100,000 to go down.
“‘Inventories are high, so it’s not surprising prices are declining,” NAR economist Lawrence Yun said.”
Lawrence Yun, you just don’t get it now do you when it comes to economics. Home prices are not declining because of inventory, home prices are declining because they are overpriced and not affordable! Consumers are refusing to pay the high home prices and consumers do not believe the NAR’s false information that home prices double in ten years.
The media needs to stop focusing on the NAR who has lacked credibility and has not made one correct prediction on the housing market since the bubble burst. The consumer should ignore the unethical and questionable sales pitches by the NAR in it’s attempts to fool the public into believing now is the time to buy. There has never been a worst time to buy than now. Follow the advice of the NAR and it will cost you money!
If you ask me, the House Committee should also be investigating the NAR for pumping the news with lies and false hope. For an orginization that fronts itself as a expert in the real estate industry, they sure blew it.
Oh wait, according to NAR’s Mission Statement:
“The core purpose of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® is to help its members become more profitable and successful.”
Indeed.
What else can Lawrence do? He’s paid to lie. He knows the jig is up, and he’s probably smarter than them all. He must have the largest gold holdings in the NAR.
Federal Jury Finds 5 Former Insurance Executives Guilty in Financial Manipulation Scheme
http://tinyurl.com/2cxlco
Ferguson, Monrad, Milton and Graham each face up to 230 years in prison and a fine of up to $46 million. Garand faces up to 160 years in prison and a fine of up to $29.5 million.
A little justice, and just wait until this mortgage garbage starts hitting the courts in a big way.
I was talking with a bankruptcy attorney on Friday. She says that she’s quite busy these days.
I want to be a bankruptcy attorney (have the law degree) What I can’t figure out is how you go about getting paid….:-) Isabel
I may be doing some business with this attorney (as a vendor to her firm), so I’ll ask how she gets paid.
If you’re doing Chapter 13s, your fees are paid through the plan. If you’re doing Chapter 7s, you have to get the client to pay you upfront within the US Trustee guidelines. If you’re doing corporate work or being hired by a creditors committee or bondholders committee, you get paid by fee application to the court and are paid by the estate (provided that your employment has been approved by the court in advance)
Ah, sounds more simple than getting paid for regular legal work. I guess if it was not, there would be very few practicing bankruptcy attorneys, or it would have to be relegated to the jursidiction of the public defenders.
Isabel
cash or Money Order or Cashier check up front
Both can be faked… and can take up to 30 days until the fakes bounce.
I’m not sure there is any safe way to take money any more. I think a wire transfer into your bank account is as good as it gets.
‘I’ve made a lot of people rich or richer who have joined me on my past crusades.’
At the cost of society. Privatize the profits and socialize the risk.
Where is MY bailout? Oh yeah, that’s right, I don’t need one. I act responsibly - on a personal and public level.
I just hope they don’t drink the kool-aid when Gissinger gives the word that his crusade needs to be taken to the next level.
“Sitting upright in the corner of a bedroom off the kitchen was a human skeleton in a red tracksuit. Neighbors told police the corpse was almost certainly Randy Johnson, a middle-age man who lived alone in the North Kenwood house.”
“When ’staging’ goes wrong, this week on Flip This House”.
Maybe he was spending the year dead for tax puposes ?
Friends have told me that the self-employment tax was killing them. Now I know to take them more seriously.
AaaaaHAW! Ahahaha. Good one!
Where is the key board protection squad when you need it?
“Critics of the current documents say it is time to require home mortgage lenders to prepare a short, plain-English summary of each loan so consumers actually know what they are signing. ”
There is one — it’s called the Truth-In-Lending, or TIL. It shows the full amount of all payments, including the total amount of interest that will be paid. Estimated schedule of payments, including an adjustment schedule for ARMs. It indicates if it’s an ARM or Fixed, and if it has a call option. It’s one of the most straightforward documents in the stack. Trouble is, borrowers get glassy-eyed and just don’t read anything…while making jokes about “signing their life away”, and their “first born”. The solution isn’t to add yet another document. People who don’t read what they sign won’t read the new one, either. It could literally say “I’m a fool and am consigning myself to a lifetime of debt slavery,” and they’d still sign to get their “dream home”. Sadly, financial education is the solution, but it’s rarely sought out.
That always gets me too. The TIL Statement is easy to understand. You’re so right, we don’t need another document at signing. Its like the laws we don’t enforce, yet people scream for more.
Financial education isn’t the answer either. You have to look at the audience. Nobody would show up, and if they did, they wouldn’t pay attention, sorry to say.
We can’t make society fool proof. Hey, I even voted for W in 2000.
I heard this saying from an engineer: “Everytime an engineer makes something foolproof, nature designs a better fool.”
Every software bug you fix introduces at least two new ones.
Law of 2.5: Every project requires twice as much money as planned, takes twice as long to complete as planned, and accomplishes only half of its goals.
Peter Principle: In an organization, everyone rises to his/her level of incompetence. IOW, they get one too many promotions.
Go Mozillo, Go!!!
Enron2 : Revenge of Tanzillo.
“Left holding the bag is Countrywide Home Loans, the nation’s largest mortgage lender. Now it is likely to lose it all because it financed the sale of a home whose rightful owner was in no condition to sell.”
I…urgh…blarg…I’m almost too astonished for words. Do you all realize what this means? One of the annoying new catch-phrases of this bust lately has been ‘you only had to fog a mirror to get into a house/loan/refi/whatever…’. Well, it turns out you don’t even have to be able to make a fog! Fook the fog! DEAD people can get into the action! A total revision of cliche is needed; it’s cats with dogs, beans into peas time.
As a side note, I wonder how long he was sticky for? And I’m curious if he looked as creepy when he was found as The Scary Orange Guy Mozilo looks just all the time regularly?
The dead guy didn’t buy or sell a house. The dead guy had his house stolen from him by a fraudster that filed a fake deed. The fraudster then sold the house for $450K cash. The buyer and seller then disappeared into thin air.
When realizing they had been taken, Countrywide decided to sell the house to anyone, for any amount, in hopes of spreading the pain.
Well, I guess not. Had the fraudsters removed the body, maybe no one would have ever figured out that the deed was a fraud.
I think the story is better with the dead guy buying the house.
Kind of like the time Buck Bundy got a credit card and Al and Peg used it to go out on the town.
Countrywide should have had the ski trip. Then it would have been nice if they had all pulled a “Sonny Bono”. Then it would have been a success. Nobody left.
I remember the weather report the next day… Mostly cloudy but partly ‘Sonny’ on one tree!
“Mr. Gissinger urged employees to hang in there despite the current slump: ‘I’ve made a lot of people rich or richer who have joined me on my past crusades.’”
At whos expense Mr. Gissinger…… at whos expense…
Creep…
Auctions are open to the public so the IQ is low to begin with.
Rational thought goes out the door when fools are herded by shills.
I remeber a heavy equipment auction which had 12 Excavators of almost equal value. All twelve were auctioned one right after the other. The first one went to the 8th bidder. The second also had 8 bidders. Price went up crazy. Guess what lot 11 & 12 didn’t get bids.
My boss picked up #10 at the asking that actually got knocked down from the opening call. My boss didn’t start bidding till the 6th lot.
We’re still in business, a bonding company took over the genious who bid up the third one.
As ths Sage of Omaha said.”The impatient give their money to the patient.”
I think it is kind of fitting that Countrywide planned a ski trip. It may go with their new slogan……..”Housing it’s all downhill from the here.”
Thank you, thank you! I’ll be here all week.
I think it is kind of fitting that Countrywide planned a ski trip. It may go with their new slogan……..”Housing it’s all downhill from here.”
Thank you, thank you! I’ll be here all week.
lol.
Found on trulia:
“can a student w/ good to excellent credit buy a coop or condo if their only source of income is student loans?
im a student getting my masters and my fiance is also going for her degree in optometry. we were interested in using our loans that assist in our bills while we are full time to go towards a mortgage on a coop or condo instead of renting an apt. is this doable? we don’t work but have good to excellent credit and have 10% to put down. one of us has no debt (not counting the student loans) and the other has $3000 on a credit card. ”
Sorry Ben. It’s 6:30 on the East coast and I figured the Bits Bucket was a little stale.