The Pig Going Through The Snake In California
The Union Tribune reports from California. “Lenders took back the homes of struggling San Diego County homeowners in record numbers during the first quarter. Real estate agent Linda Ring, who specializes in foreclosure sales, said she has seen many homeowners simply walk away from their properties even if they can make the payments, because they no longer want to pour money into homes now worth so much less than what they had paid.”
“In eastern Chula Vista, where foreclosures have soared, Ring estimates that 70 percent of the homes for sale are distressed properties. ‘They’re selling for practically 50 percent of what they were in 2004 and 2005,’ she said.”
“Agent Kristian Pete said he (secured) a buyer for a foreclosed home in Otay Ranch, which is in the 91913 ZIP code. It originally sold new in 2005 for $970,000 and was listed for six weeks at $589,000. Peter declined to reveal the buyer’s offering price but said buyers currently offer 5 percent to 10 percent, sometimes as much as 20 percent, below the asking figure.”
“‘It affects us all equally,’ said Peter, who also lives in the 91913 ZIP code. ‘Obviously, it’s in my best interest to try to get the situation under control and hopefully sell off the excess so the market can correct itself and go back to a stable if not appreciating market.’”
The LA Times. “In San Bernardino County, Deputy Sheriff Mike Strickland says he is now delivering eviction notices to six or seven foreclosed houses a day, about twice as many as last year. Most of the evictions are in new housing developments, he said, and the occupants have usually abandoned the property by the time he gets there.”
“‘A lot of the homes were 5 or 6 months old. The people got in by the skin of their teeth,’ Strickland said. ‘They can’t afford their payments, they skip.’”
The Fresno Bee. “The number of houses entering foreclosure in Fresno County soared to record levels last quarter. The rate of increase was less than the state as a whole — and significantly lower than hard-hit regions such as Stockton.”
“That didn’t impress DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage, who said the 2,464 notices of default — up 120.8% — sent to Fresno County property owners last quarter was the highest since tracking started in 1992. ‘A year ago you had doubled and you’re still doubling,’ he said.”
“In Fresno County, 31.7% of all resales in March were bank-owned. In Stockton and San Joaquin County, 71% of all existing home sales were houses repossessed by banks. The percentages in neighboring Stanislaus and Sacramento counties were 62.3% and 55.4% respectively.”
“The typical price tag of a foreclosure is about 15% less than a traditional property, he said. ‘Banks are finally doing the right thing,’ said Don Scordino, president of the Fresno Association of Realtors. ‘They are bringing down the price to where it needs to be. A year ago, the most unrealistic sellers in the market were the banks.’”
The Recordnet. “While the existing-home sales market in San Joaquin County appears to be on the rebound, new-home sales continue to stagnate. Greg Paquin, president of the Gregory Group, said that foreclosures need to be cleared out of the home sales market first.”
“‘Basically, they can’t produce new homes to match the prices of foreclosures,’ said Alan Nevin, chief economist for the California Building Industry Association. ‘It’s really just that simple. The market is going to have to stabilize. It probably will take another six months to go through the inventory of foreclosed homes. Now it’s just a matter of the pig going through the snake - and it’s happening.’”
“The numbers of homes in San Joaquin County and throughout California going into foreclosure both hit record levels in the first quarter of this year, DataQuick reported. The actual numbers of repossessions also are soaring.”
“Cameron Pannabecker, owner of Cal-Pro Mortgage Inc. in Stockton and a member of the board of directors of the California Association of Mortgage Brokers, said that…he continues to encounter more and more at-risk homeowners.”
“He said he doesn’t know any experts not projecting that the number of default notices will continue to double or triple last year’s numbers quarter over quarter. ‘As for the homeowner relief, it is not a pretty picture,’ Pannabecker said.”
The Santa Cruz Sentinel. “Dozens of homeowners have flooded the Watsonville Law Center, saying they were duped into buying homes and are now in the midst of foreclosures, the director told the Watsonville City Council on Tuesday, asking the city to come to their aid.”
“More bilingual interpreters, attorneys and other forms of legal services need to be available to the homeowners, along with something resembling crisis counseling. Dori Rose Inda, center director, added that some mortgage brokers duped strawberry pickers and day laborers into thinking they could afford homes, and have since left town.”
“‘We hear emotional stories,’ she told the council, ‘but we don’t prepare them for what is about to occur: That they’re really going to lose their home.’”
The Mercury News. “There’s still plenty of pain ahead for Silicon Valley’s housing market as more homeowners faced the threat of foreclosure in the first three months of this year than during any quarter on record.”
“One San Jose homeowner who owns six rental properties in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties said he stopped paying the mortgage on one of the Santa Cruz properties in February, though he has yet to receive a default notice. He said he’s trying to avoid foreclosure by arranging a short sale. He’s facing trouble on some of his other properties, too.”
“The homeowner, who did not want to be identified, said the renter moved out of the Santa Cruz property recently and he can’t rent it for nearly enough to cover the mortgage. He paid $770,000 for the beachfront house, but figures it’s worth $500,000 now.”
“‘Of course, with the market going down you can’t sell anything,’ he said.”
From ABC 7 News. “Two of the counties hardest hit with foreclosures are Contra Costa County and here in Santa Clara County where a senor citizen we spoke to, will now lose her home.”
“‘Had I known when we refinanced last year, I would never have gone for something like that,’ said Carmen Johnson.”
“Johnson is losing the home she has lived in for the past 35 years to a foreclosure sale. ‘I’m 65 years old. I needed a little something to retire on,’ said Johnson.”
“She refinanced her home with a sub-prime loan. Her payments recently jumped from $2,500 a month to $3,500 when the loan reset.”
“‘I didn’t read the fine print and I wanted the money,’ said Johnson. ‘I just took the money without really paying attention.’”
“‘You’ll hear that story over and over again,’ said San Jose realtor Sandra Sample.”
The San Francisco Chronicle. “Tens of thousands of Californians lost their homes during the first three months of the year as foreclosures soared more than 300 percent across the Bay Area and the state. Lenders took back 6,579 homes in the nine-county Bay Area during the first quarter, up from 1,493 a year ago and 4,573 in the fourth quarter, according to DataQuick.”
“Raul Gonzalez and his wife were thrilled after buying a San Jose home two years ago. The feeling faded quickly.”
“Gonzalez, who immigrated from Mexico in 2000, said he unwittingly used a negative-amortization loan. The balance grew each month, and after the teaser rate expired, the monthly payment rose well beyond what the 33-year-old painter could afford.”
“The main lender foreclosed on the three-bedroom home in late January and the family traded their keys for cash, moving into an apartment later that month.”
“The couple filed a lawsuit against the mortgage broker, Realtor and one of the lenders, asserting they were defrauded, among other claims. But the strain of the situation led to health problems, Gonzalez said, and the hit to his credit rating means they have little hope of buying another home anytime soon.”
“‘The reality is, I can’t do anything,’ Gonzalez said in Spanish through a translator, his attorney. ‘Perhaps it’s better to leave these problems and only rent, because I have to take care of myself.’”
The Sacramento Bee. “During the first three months of the year, banks repossessed a record-shattering 5,278 homes in the Sacramento region, DataQuick said. Put another way: The area’s first-quarter foreclosures already are half of last year’s entire total.”
“DataQuick now tallies 15,327 capital-area foreclosures since January 2007 as the post-boom housing crisis has deepened in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties.”
“Last weekend Paul Sosa and his wife moved their furniture out of a Marysville home they bought in October 2005 and sent it to a rental in Sacramento. On Thursday, their Yuba County house will be repossessed.”
“Sosa and his wife found themselves with a home worth less than they owed. Paul Sosa said they were caught in a risky loan scheme that overstated their income, enabling them to buy a $341,000 home now worth – at best – $270,000. When their monthly payment jumped by $500, they were finished.”
“‘I’m not the only one losing a home. … My next-door neighbor, he lost his house, too,’ said Sosa, 71.”
“Area debt and mortgage counselors say the continued housing turmoil has spurred a dramatic change in their clients’ attitude. More and more, they say, they are hearing people talk about simply walking away from their mortgages.”
“Like the hundreds of others in this Cal Expo exhibition hall, Francisco Cervantes and his wife were looking for a home at a bargain price for their three children at a two-day auction of foreclosed homes in Sacramento. On Sunday, the pickings were lush, but their eyes were on a four-bedroom, two-bath home closer to their jobs in Woodland.”
“The 3,800-square-foot home, a symbol of a slumping Central Valley housing market, represents dreams that have been dashed and a dream opportunity. Once valued as high as $711,000, the starting bid on Sunday was just $259,000.”
“‘Maybe it will come down a little more,’ Cervantes said.”
“He left Sunday waiting to see whether a rival’s winning offer would be confirmed. And, just in case, he filled out paperwork hoping for a second chance.”
“Armand Sarcomo and his wife, Rachel, were eyeing a ranch-style home on five acres listed in the Yuba County community of Browns Valley. The house, once valued at $424,000, opened for far less and Armand was ready. He flashed his bid card at $169,000 and a few times more, stopping at $200,000. It wasn’t enough, though, and the property sold at $205,000.”
“‘We’re looking for a second home,’ said the 28-year-old union sheet metal worker. ‘It’s a good investment. We’re a young family trying to move up and take advantage of the market.’”
“Real Estate Disposition Corp. would sell 165 homes on this day, many far below their original value. The company will sell more than 1,000 properties on its nine-day tour of Northern and Central California before it pulls up stakes May 5.”
“The auctioneer’s call sends tuxedoed bid takers sprinting up and down the rows, flashing hand signals, exhorting buyers to pump up the bids. ‘One-ninety-five, one-ninety-five, one-ninety-five. I’ve got 200!’ And, just like that, it’s on to the next one.”
“Mike Burkett of Elk Grove took a cigarette break before heading back inside to bid on a bank-owned home, an investment property to give his children a doorway to their economic future. ‘You look at the appraisal price, and it’s $300,000 from two or three years ago, and it’s starting off at $49,000 or $50,000,’ Burkett said. ‘Three, four years ago, you couldn’t even buy a house.’”
“But he knows what led to this opportunity. ‘You’re bidding on somebody’s loss. You’re thinking about somebody who invested all of that money and now (the home) is on auction,’ he said.”
Now that defaults are at a rate about 3 times the level of the last bust, what was that about a low base? And no bail-out. Imagine that.
I don’t think there are 3 times as many homes available either. At most 50% more, thus you are still running at least twice the rate as the previous bust.
With all these foreclosures happening in California it won’t be too long before the realtor mantra “now’s a great time to buy a house” will actually be true.
On subject, my guess is 25%+ of Cali foreclosures involve “homeowners” who are Mexican citizens who simply walk away and go back home or move into a rental in the barrio.
I would hesitate to buy since you never know what direction a neighborhood may grow. Growing up in the San Joaquin Valley, I saw many neighborhoods decay quickly into crime ridden slums. In places like Stockton, Modesto, and Fresno, a distressed sub could easily turn into a pretty sketchy rental neighborhood. Worst yet, the government may get involved and transform these neighborhoods into some sort of public housing.
I recall reading an article in the Modesto Bee around the top of the bubble, about how Realtors were getting revived buying because several Mexican families would pool together and buy one house. I noticed a lot of Mexicans using their garages as living rooms in Riverbank. I wasn’t sure if it was just something they liked to do, of if they had to use the garage for lack of space in the house. We had some neighbors in Oakdale that I’m pretty sure did this. We never saw the same people there week after week. And one little kid that we did see there regularly would be gone for long periods to visit family in Mexico. They were a problem in the neighborhood, having loud arguments and speeding down the 25 mph street. They forclosed and left the house in shambles last summer.
And there is a line of new pigs queued up to enter the snake.
Next resets, anyone?
That’s going to be one well-fed snake for the next several years.
Yep, you put in a perfectly good pig, and a few weeks later you get a pile of snake poop.
What’s not to like?
Exactly. Guess what? Around here there are about 3X as many NODs as there are current foreclosures. It’s a pipeline going into foreclosure and a trickle going out. Over the next six months those NODs are going to go into foreclosure and flood the market even more.
And that’s WITHOUT a recession. It’s a lead pipe certainty that REOs are going to increase from now into the fall even if current income and jobs stay as they are. If you assume a recession, it’s Katie bar the door.
The statement that gets me: 70% of sales are “distressed”.
At what point is “distressed” just “normal”? 100%?
Some of these mortgages have been sliced, diced, securitized, serviced and sold so many times they couldn’t find the frigging papers to bail the Fb’s out even if they wanted to.
Hush Barney..maybe they’ll keep paying…somebody
This is a note to mossypete regarding Lamorinda:
You stated last night that the median household income in the area was around $200k, but it’s actually closer to $100k (check Onboard Neighborhood Navigator). Sounds like your estimate of incomes was based on house prices, which is circular thinking. Rather, your estimate of house values there should be based on emperically observed incomes. Prices there need to drop about 50%
Also, in case anyone is interested, median household income in La Jolla, CA is around $90k. It’s not more than that.
Well, La Jolla is more of a wealthy community with many well to do retirees. Lot of old money there too…
No, no old money. Just old people who need to live off a fixed income and have paid-for houses. I grew up in San Diego and I know better than to think any differently.
La Jolla technically also includes many apartments near UCSD, with undergrads, grad students, & postdocs/medical residents.
Great, so those are your residents. Those are the people available to live in houses. Theirs are the incomes that pretty much determine what can be collected as rent.
The La Jolla that has all the money is west of the 5 freeway, and there is plenty of money.
Yes. And the prices for the places there are not a concern of any of us. The other prices, however, might be. There was a tiny 1 1/2 bedroom (yes, one bedroom really only qualified as 1/2 in my book) across the street from me (right off of Genesee) that someone wanted $600k for. I nearly busted out laughing in the realwhore’s face.
Any city that has the number of debutante balls and fundraising events as La Jolla is swimming in the old money. You must have lived on the wrong side of the train tracks. I would change that movie title “Earth girls are easy” to “Society girls are easier”.
John:
How long have you been there, and where else have you been? La Jolla does not have any more of that crap than everywhere else. Even poor people do that stuff; they just spend less money at each event.
Let’s talk about old money. Old money is money that people inherit instead of earning. Anybody living off of old money is having their income included in the “median income” calculation. It doesn’t matter whether you’re living off the interest in your trust fund, or off your paycheck. Income is income, and the median in La Jolla is around $90k.
V:
I’ve been in san diego for about 15 years since graduate school at UCSD. Lived in la jolla, del mar, downtown and now back up in UTC (next to la jolla). Go down to la jolla often to sample the culinary and cultural arts and assess the locals, i.e., the moneyed class. These aren’t parvenus, these are well-bred individuals who know their station in life and act accordingly. Conspicuous consumption is not their MO, legacies and class distinction are their overriding concern.
Oh John, Oh Desmo.
My family has been in San Diego for 3 generations. We know plenty of people in La Jolla. The median income is stated below. The money is plenty to support a median house price of around 350k.
Oh V, little little v
People in la jolla don’t have houses, they have estates. Estates convey a certain robert mondavi stature that only fine wine and even looser women, except for the face, the face has to be as tight as a young french girl’s buttocks, can entertain.
Argh, argh, and more argh.
1. I’ve been to a Robert Mondavi winery. It was cheap, they were renting it out for a concert. It was very, very, very snobbish there. Some moronic contractor guy started to kiss my hubbie’s ass, but then got all freaked out and left when I accidentally used the Spanish word for female genitalia instead of the Spanish word for bridge. The part that freaked him out was that I thought it was funny. This was an air-conditioning contractor. That kind of snobbery is commonly known as “insecurity” to the rest of the world.
2. French women don’t have buttocks. They are emaciated and cannot compare to the anamilistic beauty that is moi.
3. Most of the houses in La Jolla are kinda small. I’ve been in a bunch of them. They’re nice, but small.
4. Most of the people I know who lived in La Jolla already decided to sell because they knew there was a bubble and thought there was too much traffic there anyway. These people have been high-level scientists and professors, NOT multibillionaire aristocrats with “breeding”.
I think I’m done.
2. French women don’t have buttocks. They are emaciated and cannot compare to the anamilistic beauty that is moi.
anamilistic - is that a combination of anal and militaristic? Which part of the armed forces did you call home?
Nothing can compare to the insouciance of a french girl… the supplications, the heaving breasts. I’ll take coy to your moi any day.
What a ridiculous assertion. La Jolla is among the most desireable communities in the entire country, much less San Diego Cty. There are dozens of georgeous homes with billion dollar views above one of the best beaches around. Of course there is more ritzy stuff there than in most communities. It goes without saying.
One cannot evaluate communities like La Jolla on median income. Makes no sense. The bulk of the market should judged according to the top 5% of income in the US. Regular folks need not both applying, unless it is to UCSD and the vastly lower quality stock of housing to service the university.
InfoAge:
Stop drinking the KoolAid. Price increase in La Jolla paralleled price increases everywhere else, and price drops will do the same. It is not different there. There are not enough people making enough money in La Jolla to buy up all the multimillion-dollar properties there, and there never have been. La Jolla has always been populated by people earning high wages, not by people who were born with multimillion dollar trust funds. There just aren’t enough people like that in the world to buy up all the beach-front property.
I’ve lived all over the country. Let me assure you, La Jolla is NOT among the most desireable communities in the entire country. I doubt many people in South Carolina have heard of La Jolla (even though the major golf tourneys are there). I can guarantee that a lot of people have heard of Hilton Head. If you want to see “old money,” go there.
I second what he says about hilton head, those people know how to have estates! La jolla’s okay (and yes I have been to both)
Let’s get to the bottom of this young lady! Alas, no bottom for California in 2008, but we are headed in that direction.
Rancho Santa Fe is much more beautiful than la jolla and seems to have larger estates and more wealth than la jolla. I went to La Jolla Country Day School and visited friends in both La Jolla and RSF. While there are some truly, truly, rich in la jolla, it seems that everyone in RSF is wealthy. Stables, fruit orchards, etc.
Del Mar is also a beautiful community. I think RSF, and Del Mar, (not to mention Cardiff, Encinias, Leucadia for the less wealthy) are the truly desireable communities in San Diego County.
What are you smoking? Rancho Santa Fe has more WASPs than a hot, humid summer day in michigan. It’s embarrassing to watch people act and talk in an effected manner, betraying the ease with which la jollans live life. Straight teeth and a fitted shirt won’t cut it in la jolla.
EXACTLY Big V!
The rich in San Diego and most of Southern California are parvenus, not old money, if there is much in the U.S. anymore. Parvenus also tend to rack up debt. The median income statistics don’t lie - there are a lot of moderate income households in these wealthy enclaves. People move here from the mid-west to show they have arrived. What you see on the street is meaningless.
Old money does not generally decimate itself by fleeing to the states where personal income tax is very high. A lot of old Philadelphia money is sitting right there in PA with the flat 3% state income tax. (You all heard about PA’s being the 3rd “oldest” state in the US, during the recent primary; this is no accident, it is connected with tax policy.) A lot of other old money is floating around Palm Beach and Vero Beach with the 0% state income tax and the recently-repealed intangibles tax. I do know of some old-money people in Sta Barbara and Beverly Hills, but they augmented their inheritances by doing profitable RE deals when that line of work was available.
The exact median income in La Jolla is $82,273.
More about La Jolla, to dispell the myth for all who think it is a haven for retired billionaires and such:
Median age: 42.27
Median years in residency: 3.27
5+ years in residency: 34%
Annual residential turnover: 18%
Residential vacancy rate: 6%
La Jolla is just like all these other cities that are claiming to be invincible because supposedly all the millionaires on Earth either live there or want to live there. Supposedly, no houses ever go up for sale and everything is always occupied and no one uses income for anything. There simply aren’t enough people around to buy up all the houses in all the cities in this state that are reputed to have such status. La Jolla is toasted toast. TOAST!
There is absolutely no reason why a couple such as myself and my husband should not be able to afford a modest La Jolla house.
“There is absolutely no reason why a couple such as myself and my husband should not be able to afford a modest La Jolla house.”
Because you don’t deserve to live amongst La Jollans. Your pariah status and disregard for all things classy, including chandeliers, brie with lambrusco, and aversion to all big game meats, will only cause heartache for you and your husband. I am only the messenger. Hate the message, love the messenger is what I always say.
Well, I guess we can’t live there now because we are Nouveaux Chip now, living in Silicon Valley. I have to tell you, that really bites. I feel like telling all these Palo Alto snobs to go visit La Jolla, just to show them up.
Don’t worry V, as soon as you and yours can buy a house in la jolla, me and the mrs. will be able to move in next door to you. Then I can regale you with tales of firm french buttocks, Robert mondavi “select” wines, and breeding that rivals anything you would find on a horse farm. Looking forward to the day when we’ll be neighbors.
that was the most civilized debate I have ever seen on this blog.
Now I have an urge to drink some brandy in a snifter wearing a smoking jacket while gazing upon a firm french supplicant in all her heaving glory lounging naked on a bearskin rug!!!
No, make that location a San Diego beach, since it’s the the area of topic. crashing waves. firepit.
Ah La Jolla…the place where my husband had to Heimlich an older gentleman at the La Valenica Hotel to save him. He, and a surgeon who happened to be dining there, saved this 90+ gentleman resident choking on piece of steak, with a knife sterilized w/vodka and used a pen casing for an airway because the TRAFFIC on Prospect was so frick’in jammed it took the fire Dept. 20 minutes (& they had to run up the street w/the gurney) to get to the restaurant. Sorry these homes are MICRO DOT places compared to Rancho Santa Fe. In the end though, it was all so damn phony in So Cal… it made Shallow Alto look real! I couldn’t breathe after awhile. You can have it.
If they cut into his airway, it wasnt a heimlich. That would make it a trachiatomy. Heimlich is when you get behind someone and give em the heave ho and they cough out the blockage.
Are you talking “the village” or are you including UTC, the “golden triangle,” in your statistics?, which really doesn’t count as La Jolla. Just like Del Mar Highlands/Carmel Valley, is really North City West.
The city of La Jolla as defined by postal zips.
La Jolla is NOT a city, i.e. it is not incorporated. It is a neighborhood in the CITY of San Diego… just like North Park, Normal Heights, etc. A common misperception, but I realize it would be terribly degrading if a La Jollian had to use the proper “San Diego” as the city in their postal address.
First off, I meant to say “dispel”. Secondly, what is big game? Like elephants and stuff?
In this case that would be the elephant in the room. It really must go.
Exactly. The thought of you at an exclusive la jolla dinner party asking “What is this? Why does it taste so strange?” sends shivers down my spine. The sheer pleasure of eating hunted fowl and wild game on a skewer with sweet and sour sauce brings tears to my eyes.
My grandpa fed me some of his spoils once after one of the infamous hunting trips (where the boys are identified as “killer” or “nonkiller”). It was gross. Are hunting weapons reserved exclusively for the aristocracy now?
We have much to learn from the British. Ever had wild boar carpaccio? Heaven on a plate. Using weapons to hunt seems to be the exclusive domain of the privileged these days.
Well, I can tell you’ve been being sarcastic this whole time, but using weapons to hunt has never been the exclusive domain of the rich. Hillbillies do it for a living, not there’s anything wrong with being a hillbilly.
Oh, and you should stop eating wild animals. Humans have encroached on wild spaces to the point where hunting wild game is no longer sustainable. My mom says I’m not allowed to eat wild game, veal, foie gras, or any of that stuff. If you’re doing it, then you are not cultured; you’re just living in the dark ages. Stick to free-range, organic meats. If you can’t afford that, then just eat less meat, and you’ll be better off for it.
I’m a huge fan of buffalo. Is lamb okay? Grass fed beef is the way to go, none of that grain-fed crap for me. My mom says you are what you eat, but in reality you are what your eat eats.
Unfortunately, paris is coming up for me and duck pate is definitely on the agenda. Are you saying the French aren’t cultured if they eat veal and foie gras? As long as you respect food and where it comes from, to me that is the true sign of a cultured person.
The French can take a back seat, John. You are an American, which means your habits and culture are more important and correct than anyone else’s. When you go to France, don’t forget to wear your T-shirt with the American flag painted largely across the front, sides, and back. If anyone threatens you, make sure to raise your voice and say “I am an American”. That’s an alert to the other American tourists (and the French, who naturally defer to us) to come and defend you. Don’t let the scoundrels sway you.
La Jolla has landsides now…..can you top that ?….hahahah….old money is just saying ‘did you hear that noise honey?’…sorry hun….gota turn up the ear piece abit…..did you put that crack in the garage floor?…..say again?
“Gonzalez, who immigrated from Mexico in 2000, said he unwittingly used a negative-amortization loan. The balance grew each month, and after the teaser rate expired, the monthly payment rose well beyond what the 33-year-old painter could afford.”
Yeah, right. All the sudden he needs an interpreter to speak/understand English. He knew exactly what he was doing. Besides, is a non-English-speaking house painter with a stay-at-home wife really expected to own a house? Haven’t house painters pretty much always been renters? And haven’t people who don’t speak the language pretty much always been poor?
And he’s a painter, the most unskilled job you can have around here next to gardening. And he expects to own a house in an area where even college grads have a hard time ?
Wow - when I was painting our house it was not easy at all. All the taping and switching colors and clean up, etc. Peeling wallpaper, spackle, sanding, primer, coats of paint, scraping, touching up and that’s not even in the rooms where there were dual colors or texture. It sounds from this and Big V’s comments above it like you are insulted he even entertained the idea of owning any house - like how dare a simpleton (must be illegal immigrant) dare think about ever buying a house. The fact that he’s losing the house is the same as plenty of other non-immigrant, supposedly educated, citizens rich & poor alike.
I’ve done a bit of paintbrush work around the Arizona Slim Ranch, and I agree with Are They Crazy. It’s a lot harder than it first appears.
And doing it well is even harder. I can’t hire qualified painters any more, it seems like they are all busy, and all I can get are sloppy amateurs. Maybe when construction finally grinds to a halt, it will be possible to hire competent painters again.
The secret to painting is to pick a segment for each time you do paint. And don’t worry if it takes you several weeks to complete the job. Ah, finally prep the area before you start the actual painting.
I’ve painted every room in my house 2-3 times, the back porch and finally (last year) the entire exterior. And this is a 3500 sq ft place (excluding the garage which I did as well). OTOH I like to do this kind of work. If you don’t then hire a painter.
No kidding Pal, I painted ALL my rentals for years. Its not rocket science, any trained chimp can do it, there are no barriers to entry. Spare me the “Oh my god it’s such hard Labor” crap. Theres a reason painters don’t make much and aren’t entitled to buying a house.
No matter the station in life, IMHO, one is allowed to buy any house one can afford and want to live in. Outside of CA, there are plenty of places where a painter can afford a house. Probably even places in CA.
He said unskilled, not easy.
He had a pay-option mortgage. He isn’t “losing” the house - he never owned it.
This poor “immigrant” is probably sucking the system for his health issues, seeing a “green dream”,from his equally scummy “Latino” Attorney (most likely), and wanting us to feel sorry for him. Go back to Mexico.
and after 8 years living here he still is speaking through an interpreter–unbelievable.
is he here legally??
That’s my first question…has anyone asked for his green card??
IT is highly unlikely he is here legally!
I knew several guys that bought several places and skimmed the equity to pay off homes in Mexico..They all said they would play the game till it ended then adios..Free money..Stupid gringos.
“I knew several guys that bought several places and skimmed the equity to pay off homes in Mexico.”
I bet Dubya didn’t envision that happening!
If you can do the math to figure out how many gallons of paint you need to complete a job (and I’m sure he can do this), he can figure out what his payments would be after the “teaser” period is over. I don’t buy the “Poor me! I’m just a simple house painter” shtick.
I doubt that. Mexico has a much more sociable and trusting culture. There were a lot of fast talking mortgage brokers writing loans without telling the full truth. Probably this guy wanted a house, had someone convince him he could buy one, and he signed. A lending system that did due dilligence would not make such a loan, and a reasonable investment system would not slice and dice this obviously doomed loan with a bunch of others in order to game the ratings system. This guy should have known better, but the real guilt is with the play money system. There is no reason we can’t have a dynamic and minimally regulated lending system with open debt markets without this kind of silliness going on.
Is it must me or have the media started outsourcing their proofreaders?
This guy ‘emigrated’ from Mexico and will most likely ‘immigrate’ back to Mexico when he realizes it is better to do so while absconding with all loaned money he could procure.
“‘I didn’t read the fine print and I wanted the money,’ said Johnson. ‘I just took the money without really paying attention.’”
Kinda sums up the whole mess, doesn’t it. And I love the “I just took the money.” No, this FB just took the debt. Of course the MSM didn’t ask the real question, which was how much did she tap and where did it go?
35 years and it wasn’t paid off ?
apparently it was, but she refinanced. oops.
“35 years and it wasn’t paid off ?”
Her husband probably “paid it off”, but he didn’t know how to “live it up”, so she had to wait for him to die so she could live in the manner which she deserved. Sorry, but no sympathy here!
Her honesty about it, at least, is quite refreshing, compared to what most of the other fools are saying, e.g. “OMG I didn’t know it was an ARM I was fleeced!”
“Johnson is losing the home she has lived in for the past 35 years to a foreclosure sale. ‘I’m 65 years old. I needed a little something to retire on,’ said Johnson.”
Well, most people sell their houses and downsize becuase they are aware that loans have to be repaid, which makes retirement difficult.
Yeh, I thought that was funny as well. Apparently she took the “housing ATM” analogy literally and didn’t realize that the loan had to be paid back!
How many seniors out there thought they could retire on home debt instead of home equity (and I mean real equity from the actual sale of a house)?
It’s a perfect strategy as long as you die before you have to pay the debts off.
So apparently because she is old she expects other people to pay for her retirement?
Time for some Soylent Green.
What did they do with Chuck Heston???????????
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
That is the whole problem behind the problem. Too many old people (including me) trying to live off of other people’s efforts. Even those with legitimate pensions are, in effect, now living on other people’s labor. Not having trusted the pension system much, I am living on other people’s (borrowers’) pensions.
My mom recently told me that she “was really counting on that house for retirement”, yet she was never planning on selling it. I don’t get it. How can so many people believe they can continue living in their house, and still use the equity in the house to finance 20 years of retirement? I know she’s not the only one.
Reverse mortgage that puppy. Say bye bye to any expected inheritance. Thank Jehovah that you’re one of those highly sought after technical professionals.
I don’t have parents to take care of, but if I did, I’d rather they reverse mortgaged and took care of themselves than whine and complain through lesser funds, rely on me to take care of them and then leave a house as an inheritance.
My dad did that. Now his equity is long gone, the bank won’t give him any more money for his house, and he’s still standing. It is a strange neutron bomb kind of financial device. It blows away equity while leaving people and intact along with their liabilities.
Reverse Mortgage ?
Reverse mortgage.
No! She doesn’t even know what a reverse mortgage is! That was not her plan at all.
Does anyone know if the reverse mortgage is going to be the next mess? You see these pushed on TV, but I don’t know much more about them. Something tells me they are too good to be true.
A friend of mine has always said that the reverse mortgage is just a way to steal a senior’s house.
BayQT~
If the house is under water, the senior can’t be kicked out, and the loan deficit isn’t due upon the death of the signer. The safeguards are there. I’m not a huge fan, but if you need to survivie…
Thanks to Greenspan and Reagan, Social Security COLA’s and some senior comfy invesetments are getting eaten up my inflation. Seniors have savings, and their interest income is gone. I hear a lot of seniors say, they thought they’d be ok. Inflation is killing their purchasing power. Also, Medicare co-pays and premiums are inflating away too.
..not nearly too good to be true. Check wikipedia’s page for starters.
The only problem with reverse mortgage loans is that the upfront fees are huge: 12-14% of the initial credit line. Even if the balance triples during the borrower’s lifetime the fee comes out to 6-7% of the average balance.
“Reverse Mortgage” ….
brought to you by the same geniuses who thought up “subprime loans”, “option ARMS”, “No doc loans”, and God knows what else.
Maybe she’s “counting on it” in the sense of having a paid-for (apart from property taxes) roof over her head. There’s some value there.
Yeah, but in that case, then why should the newly lowered value upset her at all?
Psychological? Perhaps it’s her “ace in the hole” for “just in case” she needed to access some cash? Who knows. Ask her what she meant, V. When she explains in her terms, you’ll be able to translate, at the very least, ask her questions about what she thought her options were with the house after she retires.
BayQT~
I can’t handle it.
It all makes sense as long as prices always go up. It all comes apart when prices level off and start to go down.
But this is California thus RE prices will never, ever go down.
So it doesn’t matter what damage one does to his finances; eternally rising RE prices will always bail him out.
Well, it beats what my mom is counting on, which is welfare, state senior housing, Medicare & Medicaid, and hitting us kids up for cash whenever she’s got money trouble. :\
i wonder.. which costs more:
a. Support a child for the first 20 (or so) years of it’s life.
b. Support a parent for the last 20 (or so) years of it’s life.
Here is a perfect aide-de-memoire when dealing with possessive pronouns and abbreviations:
“It’s gross to see a dog lick its balls!”
The first is an abbreviation, the second is the possesive pronoun.
Now to return to our scheduled program….
Carbonator, I can’t resist noting that you misspelled “possessive” the second time. Perhaps I should say, mistyped.
The greatest generation deserves to be treated well. They certainly paid into the system. Kick the newly arrived (legal or not) off the perks. I heard the illegals alone are costing Ca. $16B, and the figure rings in at approx $336B nation wide. That’s a start.
re: what costs more: roughly 12 of those first 18 years for me was paid for in large part by your tax money. (Thanks. I’ve supported myself since then and I make good money now, so I appreciate your help).
But, with the cost of senior healthcare these days, I think the last 20 are a lot more expensive. You can rear a kid on a shoestring and they’ll usually be fine.
re: Greatest Generation: my mom’s a Boomer, born in ‘46. And she hasn’t paid much in.
I love my mom, but she made some poor choices. :\
i bet you’re not alone.. i bet the large majority of children are disappointed that their parents are not as wealthy as they should have been..
The greatest generation is actualy termed the,
“ALL ABOUT ME GENERATION”, or if you prefer,
“LOOK WHAT I AM COLLECTING NOW GENERATION”
My mom commented that whoever invented those packing bags (sucks the air out to make it small) is a genious. She mentioned it must have been a baby boomer.
My comeback was, “It probably was a babyboomer because you guys buy so much crap you need all the storage space you can find.”
Um, the “Greatest Generation” were the people who fought WW2, i.e. the Boomers’s parents. NOT the Boomers.
joey - I don’t care that mom isn’t “wealthy.” I do care that she’s never actually been able to support herself or her family without quite a lot of US Taxpayer assistance. We kids are all fine now and supporting ourselves well, but we’re all a bit disappointed that this continues. She’s just never been very ambitious or industrious, and chose her men poorly.
Great story. A bit off topic. A client tells me today that she has to go in for surgery. She has cancer and they need to open up her chest. Sounds pretty serious but I didn’t want to pry. Her insurance company tells her…this operation is experimental so she won’t be covered. For cancer? That isn’t even the punch line. She tells the hospital she cannot afford the surgery, so what can she do to reduce the cost.
They tell her she can save some bucks by using local anesthesia.
LOL
They are going to give her local anesthesia while they open up her chest?
I have made comments in the past that this country is heading straight for 3rd world status, but I cannot think of a single 3rd world country that would pull this shit.
If it’s experimental, she’s a participant in a clinical trial, and they can’t charge her for it. There’s something not quite right about this one.
Uh, no. “Experimental” for insurance companies is definitely NOT the same thing as “experimental” in the clinical trial sense.
Yeah didn’t you know that Insurance Companies are the most religious people on earth……everything is an Act of God and not covered.
Like the hundreds of others in this Cal Expo exhibition hall, Francisco Cervantes and his wife were looking for a home at a bargain price for their three children at a two-day auction of foreclosed homes in Sacramento.
Tilting at windmills.
Ah yes, Don Juan. One of my favorite quotes is at the end of Book One where Don Juan and Sancho Panza have just come back from their excursion and Sancho’s wife greets them. She proceeds to vent her spleen to her husband and questions why he would go along with that madman Don Juan. Not appeased by Sancho’s explanations, he finally says to his wife “Honey is not for an ass’s mouth.” Perfect.
I think you mean Don Quixote.
Wasn’t that written by Miguel de Cerveza?
Never thought I’d make that mistake. Must have had rabelais on my mind.
“Agent Kristian Pete said he (secured) a buyer for a foreclosed home in Otay Ranch, which is in the 91913 ZIP code.
I can’t help but think of that SNL skit will Eddie Murphy as Buckwheat. OOOOOOOOOOO-TAY!
Questions for Bay Areans:
Where is the “center” of Silicon Valley? Is it Palo Alto, San Jose, or somewhere else? Also, will this center, this “belly button”, so to speak, survive the housing crash? Is it immune to the local/state/world economy? Is it immune to crashes, but not to booms? Is it also immune to people with no fashion sense, thereby making all ugy outfits instantaneously en vouge? I need a lot of detailed explanations for all of your opinions.
Sorry V, but at first I thought you wrote “Is it immune to crashes, but not to boobs?” Then I thought, what kind of mere mortal is immune to boobs? Or could she have meant boob, as in “that realtor is such a boob, it makes that mortgage broker tool look like that knob dennis kneale”. And then reality set in as I read it correctly as “booms”, finally my imagination faded away…
Not being ironic in my answer…the “center” is around Santa Clara, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Cupertino, but it’s really a bunch of suburbs with no center. Some high-end areas are on the edges of this area (e.g., Atherton, Saratoga, Los Gatos).
The anti-growth restrictions caused the tech tycoons to go underground. Literally. There are old neighborhoods in Palo Alto with 1940s houses…gutted and rebuilt inside, and with modern sub basements…
It will fall the least and the latest because that’s where the management job are, that’s where venture capital companies spread the $eed, and that’s where a lot of smart get-rich-quick folks want to be.
It has boomed and crashed every 10-15 years since WW2… military… microchips… software… dotcom… and now alternative energy is going up…
I would say “PALO ALTO” is the center
Stanford Research Park to be even more specific.
Palo Alto? Nah, I’d go a bit further South and say Castro St. in Mountain View.
Palo Alto is where the VCs and CEOs hang. I’d say Santa Clara/Mountain View for the actual business locations.
DETAILS! I need details.
Get out your map. Draw a line from the intersection of 237 and 880 (in milpitas) over to the intersection of 101 and 85 (in mountain view), and then circle down 85 to 280, East to 880 and then back up to where you started. That’s the hottest area, job-wise, encompassing Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mountain View and Cupertino. Palo Alto, Downtown San Jose and Milpitas / South Fremont are adjuncts.
The area describes is where all the traffic heads in the morning. Down 880 in the East Bay. Up 101 from South San Jose. Up 880 from Santa Cruz. Up 85 from South San Jose. Down 101 from the Penninsula and beyond. I work with a guy who commutes to Campbell from Tracy using two different trains because that’s better than driving it. You don’t know what nightmares are until you’ve driven from San Jose to Tracy during rush hour, up 680 to 580 and then out through Livermore. Those people are certifiable.
I’ve often thought the exact epicenter of Silicon Valley is the Fry’s just off the Lawrence Expressway. Everybody stops by there for emergency parts and junk food.
To the extent that question make any sense the right answer is probably “In Cyberspace!”, but it would perhaps be even more accurate to say that Silicon Valley is inherently off center which is what allows it to spin so fast.
Which center do you mean is another question that comes to mind. For games, Redwood City. For biotech it’s South City. For Internet Mountain View and South Park, maybe? Things move very fast and companies tend to grow or fail which often means new facilities every few years.
So, you’re saying that it is completely off base for anyone to claim that their particular Silicon Valley location is more robust than any other Silicon Valley location, due to the dynamic nature of business here?
Here’s my take:
Palo Alto, and neighboring areas are NOT IMMUNE to the housing collapse. Prices are too high there, too.
HOWEVER, in communities like Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Atherton I believe houses will sell at SOME price.
So, while prices can drop 50% in “Silicon Valley”, I believe things are nice enough there where there will be a buyer for a home at some price.
\Compare this to other areas, like the Sacramento “suburbs”, Central Florida, Idaho, Vegas, where there may be areas where houses won’t sell at ANY PRICE, and they’ll be boarded up (and, if we’re lucky, bulldozed!)
Also, I don’t consider Pleasanton, Gilroy, Fremont, to be part of “Silicon Valley” despite claims of realtors. Those homes may not find buyers at any price.
“It probably will take another six months to go through the inventory of foreclosed homes”
Like there isn’t a whole lot of foreclosures coming down the pike for the next few years ? What a rube….
These stories of late coming out of California just make me all giddy with glee!
Yah, I notice a distinct lack of “Palo Alto will never fall, though” BS coming from certain posters… who seem to have disappeared.
“The 3,800-square-foot home, a symbol of a slumping Central Valley housing market, represents dreams that have been dashed and a dream opportunity. Once valued as high as $711,000, the starting bid on Sunday was just $259,000.”
“‘Maybe it will come down a little more,’ Cervantes said.”
————————–
Ah, the daily California thread.
Here’s a house that’s down 64% from the high, and the only interested bidders are wanting a lower price! The “Golden State” has so, so far to fall.
And Ben - what’s with the strange reference to Hillary and Barack in the title? Turn off the CNN and get some fresh air!
Isn’t AZ property falling too?
As much as the AZ REIC hates to say so, property is falling here.
So why does az_owner always come on the CA thread and argue that our crash is a result of the CA business environment? If the same thing is happening everywhere else, the cause must be something bigger (like exotic lending).
Of course it is.
But take your typical AZ house that went from $150k in 2000 to $330k in 2005, and is now back to $220k. Big loss of about 33% - painful for someone but “only” $110k to be eaten by various parties - banks etc.
In California, you have houses that went for $711k in 2006 and now are worth $260k. That’s almost a half-millon in losses that need to come from somewhere, and even in California $450k is a lot of money. Consider that California has 5 times the population of Arizona, and estimate 4 times the losses on each property = 20 times larger problem.
It’s the sheer magnitude and duration of California’s housing bubble that will make it dwarf anything else seen in the nationwide meltdown. And it’s the smugness and self-righteousness of certain Californians, even when they come crawling to a neighboring state looking for a job, that makes me a little less sympathetic to their plight than say a person from Ohio.
The sheer magnitude of the CA GDP also dwarfs everything else. It’s percentages that matter, not actual numbers. Percentage of income, percentage of GDP, percentage of rent. The crash in CA was not caused by special CA conditions. It is not proof that Californians are stupid or that the business environment in CA is bad. It is only proof that CA is not different here.
If it’s percentages that matter, then it must matter that Arizona never takes more than 4.54% of your marginal income dollar, while Calif takes as much as 9.3% (or even 10.3% if your super super rich). The higher rate creates more pressure to bury your money in ever-appreciating (?!?!?) real estate.
actually, you don’t have to be “super rich” to pay 10.3. And the actual “super rich” probably maintain their legal residence in NV or FL while living in CA.
A couple of years ago, there was the “Meathead Tax” on the ballot. This initiative, proposed by Rob Reiner, would tax all those earning more than 400K an additional 1% to fund public “mental health” expenses. I was shocked when it didn’t pass. It made me have some hope that my fellow voters aren’t complete idiots. Nobody making more than 400K/year would ever make CA their legal residence if that passed. Heck, you could rent an cheap apartment in vegas and not actually live there, and it would cost less/year than your tax increase!
Oh, and I don’t believe that Californians are crawling into AZ looking for a job. It’s my impression that some are moving to AZ already equipped with a job because a few large employers are moving some of the less skilled labor over there. Even the “high-end” tech jobs that have been out-stated (to WA, OR, and AZ) are sort of lower level. My hubby interviewed for some of those jobs because we figured our $$ would go farther in a cheaper state, but he said all the jobs were kinda stupid, so we stayed here.
What Jobs in AZ ? There’s very little high tech there that pays well, the rest was dependent on the housing boom, Resorts, etc. Gone are the days you could move there and work at Home depot and buy a house.
“a few large employers are moving some of the less skilled labor over there.” Ouch
From my humble little perch near the shores of Lake Erie, and having watched a foreclosure problem here for a period of time measured in years, it’s rather amazing at how quickly places like California and Florida have blown past the Rust Belt in terms of numbers of foreclosures and amounts of losses.
Someone from the Midwest would be shocked and amazed by the sheeplike willingness of Californians to jump on the “next great craze”. The culture is built upon that notion and allows things like the Dot Com boom to happen. It is now evident in the Web 2.0 passion and hoped for with the burgeoning “green” movement.
I don’t think the “green” revolution is going to pan out on the scale of the Dot Com boom.
The mentality goes all the way back to the Gold Rush. After the original one in ‘49, there was the Comstock boom in the late fifties and sixties, the Southern California real estate boom in the late eighties, and so on through the dot-com and mortgages-gone-wild booms.
The get-rich-quick mentality is deeply ingrained in California culture. Stolid keep-plugging-away New England Puritans we’re not. The downside to the golden booms is the inevitable epic busts that follow them, but Californians are they whose loss is laughter when they count the wager worth.
Or so they like to think, when they’re riding high. When they lose their shirts, they go sniveling for bailouts.
Have mercy on us natives. I wager that most of the Clownifornians upon which you heap your scorn are mostly recent arrivals.
yea you got that right
It’s more like the two major parties are pigs and snakes. Air? I was mountain biking in a ponderosa pine forest when you were dodging trash bags on your way to work this morning.
“It’s more like the two major parties are pigs and snakes.”
Agree 100% Ben. They get us coming and going.
Silly remembrance of summers spent in Flag/Sedona area -Ponderosa Pine bark smells like vanilla. and square cinnamon lillipops from Sprouse.
I was biking around White Rock Lake
damn you anyway!
Here is a pretty serious price drop in Mission Viejo for a 5 bedroom, 2500SF home. This home is near my in-laws, and prices of homes in their neighborhood similar to this model were in the mid $800s not that long ago. So we are looking at close to a 50% price haircut now in their neighborhood:
http://www.socalmls-homes.com/Listing/ListingDetail.aspx?Listing=28874055
Wow, $190/sq. ft. Nice haircut on that (I know that’s expensive in some places, but that’s cheap here in OC).
Redfin says that it sold for $658,500 on December 30, 2003. Ouchie!
Cool, so they are below 2003 prices for this listing.
There’s a reason that I don’t read the Mercury News despite living in Sunnyvale, CA
The Mercury News. “There’s still plenty of pain ahead for Silicon Valley’s housing market as more homeowners faced the threat of foreclosure in the first three months of this year than during any quarter on record.”
“One San Jose homeowner who owns six rental properties in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties said he stopped paying the mortgage on one of the Santa Cruz properties in February, though he has yet to receive a default notice….”
Here’s a tip for that Mercury News reporter: if you’re trying to illustrate “pain” perhaps you can find a better poster child than some would-be-Donald-Trump who bought 6 properties he couldn’t afford. There’s no pain here, just greed, stupidity, and probably fraud.
Same here on both counts — live in Sunnyvale and never read that rag unless it’s linked from here for the laughs.
Pretty brilliant guy they interviewed too — thinks he’ll receive a NOD a few weeks into non-payment. Like he’s special and the bank doesn’t already have 1000s of such notices to send out.
And it doesn’t sound like foreclosure is a ‘threat’ here since he doesn’t live in a recourse state — this is just gambling with house money. Walk away scot-free and look for the next can’t-lose ‘investment’.
rob
Sue McAllister the reporter isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
..Paul Sosa said they were caught in a risky loan scheme that overstated their income..
What risk?
Dude.. you’re 71 freakin’ years old.. you think they’re gonna throw you in the slammer for conspiracy or something? hmm.. maybe.. best just keep your mouth shut.
Note that according to Sosa, he didn’t overstate his income, “the scheme” did.
OT and freaking hilarious - I think the realtor here is called suzanne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jThcc5lbfOs&feature=related
Brilliant: the house comes with a dead clown!
“It probably will take another six months to go through the inventory of foreclosed homes”
This was a real accurate statement; however probably just another realtor who knows nothing about real estate. It will probably take another 3 years to go through all of the foreclosures.
FHLB Federal Home Loan Bank to stop buying mortgages
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN2347333420080423?rpc=44
San Diego employment has just decreased on a year-over-year basis, falling by 1,700 jobs between March 2007 and March 2008.
That is a very small drop in the grand scheme of things, representing a decline of just .1 percent. But it’s the first time in a long time that employment has turned negative at all. The data I pulled from the Employment Development Department website goes back to the year 2000, and it shows that even during the recession and slowdown that took place at the beginning of this decade, the weakest month showed a year-over-year increase of 2,300 jobs.
So even though we are not in an officially recognized recession, San Diego’s employment situation is worse than it ever got in the aftermath of the 2001 recession.
Nathan
EDD #’s are from the BLS, and are based on:
*Life/Death Model
*Computer Modeling (not real stats)
*40% of the unemployed don’t qualify for Unemployment Insurance. Self Employed, 1099′d, etc…
Don’t take their stats seriously.
Another reason to be cautious about the “official” EDD stats…they’re making it very difficult for people to qualify for their unemployment insurance, by simply not properly staffing the phone lines. There was a piece in a recent LATimes about how staffers couldn’t get through, no matter if they phoned 40-50 times.
I guess that’s one way to keep the unemployment %’s down.
You don’t need he phone. When I collected last year, I filled out form on line, they called me, they started sending checks, I filled out paperwork and mailed back, they sent me more checks. Only time I ever collected after all the years paying in. It was a nice vacation provided by very low overhead.
“To by are they crazy”.
Here’s the more comprehensive LATimes piece on the EDD hangups.
P.S. Glad the system worked for you!
“San Jose realtor Sandra Sample”
Was she in Deep Throat?
but I thought it was supposed to be the horny monkeys with a football in the belly of the pink elephant, hiding from the mortgage pig under the rug in the globo-bubble smoking den?
where’s the snake in all this?
>> “It probably will take another six months to go through the inventory of foreclosed homes.”
Er, not if nobody’s buying “homes” because they can’t get mortgages (or won’t if the interest rates are where they currently are (and headed higher)).
If only uses 1983-or-earlier standards for reporting unemployment figures, we’re already at between 9% and 11%.
“There is absolutely no reason why a couple such as myself and my husband should not be able to afford a modest La Jolla house.”
“Because you don’t deserve to live amongst La Jollans. Your pariah status and disregard for all things classy, including chandeliers, brie with lambrusco, and aversion to all big game meats, will only cause heartache for you and your husband. I am only the messenger. Hate the message, love the messenger is what I always say.”
Well tut,tut,tut…anyone who’s ANYBODY knows that the center of the refined known universe is the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and it alone.
If you are not within cab distance of Beekman Place, you are essentially NOWHERE, mere groundlings and proletariat. My gawd, once you cross westward over the Hudson, you are in JERSEY and the rest of flyover redneck country. Merely continuing westward until you reach Caulifluornia, well, my good man, it simply ISN’T DONE! New York has the U.N., you know, and Julliard, and the Guggenheim, and of course, the EXCHANGE, and the Empire State Building, and everything else left coasters covet but can’t touch. Lincoln Center, The Met, Times Square, give my regards to Broadway; tell all the gang from 42nd Street that I will soon be there…
“Brie with Lambrusco” indeed. What do you expect from Bridge and Tunnel people???
“21″ , “Top of the Sixes”, and the “Four Seasons”; pretenders to the throne? Can you imagine showing up for dinner at 7 and NOT WEARING A BLACK SUIT???
“Top of the Sixes”…are you kidding me? Been out of business for years.
Or decades. Beekman Place is not especially desirable. And what’s with the tedious British affect…you sound like an unemployed valet.
Lotsa black swans on the loose these days…
Calpers CIO steps down
By Deborah Brewster and Anuj Gangahar in New York
Published: April 23 2008 23:06 | Last updated: April 23 2008 23:06
Russell Read, the chief investment officer of Calpers, the biggest US pension fund, is quitting after less than two years in the job.
Mr Read will remain at the California Public Employees’ Retirement Plan (Calpers) until June 1 and then plans to pursue his longstanding interest in environmental investing, the fund said on Wednesday.
Calpers, which has $235bn under management, would begin a search for his replacement, it said.
…
Calpers returned 10 per cent last year, above the average return for State pension funds. However, returns fell away in the second half of the year as both fixed income and stock portfolios were depressed by credit market turmoil and talk of recession. Calpers’ assets have shrunk by more than $20bn in recent months,.
Appears he sees the ‘Enron by the Sea’ in his future….good luck with ‘environmental investing’….better off with investing in rice.
“Last weekend Paul Sosa and his wife moved their furniture out of a Marysville home they bought in October 2005 and sent it to a rental in Sacramento. On Thursday, their Yuba County house will be repossessed.”
—————————————————–
This is my other pet peeve.
If they really BOUGHT the home, then there’s no way it could be repossessed. Oh, you mean they took out a LOAN for a home and they never paid it back, which led to said home being repossessed … Well why didn’t you just come out and say that.
NODs for Palmdale 93552 for the last 12 months. Paste it into excel and the resulting graph will clearly show you we are not, “bouncing along the bottom”.
48
72
75
100
123
112
132
142
228
204
203
316
“Real Estate Disposition Corp. would sell 165 homes on this day, many far below their original value.”
——————————————————
Yeah, they may have sold for less than a previous years inflated value, but today, they sold for EXACTLY the current value.
“‘Had I known when we refinanced last year, I would never have gone for something like that,’ said Carmen Johnson.”
To me this is one of the key issues. When is it the individual’s responsibility to determine the risk versus the society’s role to inform or make readily know the risks? We have been over this a zillion time here on HBB and I still do not have a solid handle on where one draw the line in cases like this with elder folks. I am quite firm that middle aged borrowers should bear the responsibility based on my belief that they as a group should have reached some level of experiential maturity. Considering that a property purchase is the largest purchase most will make I would hope that each person would recognize that and feel somehow compelled to dig a little deeper into the well of available knowledge. But, I recall that in my past, pre HBB, days I really did have no clue about RE and loans and such and truly did believe that the REIC “professionals” would help me comprehend what I could afford and what the risks were. That was until what they tried to sell me was so far out of my budget that it simply did not make sense. Now why were so many folks out there somehow missing that warning light in their cockpit? And then there is the MSM. All I can say about how the MSM handled “informing” the public about the risks of the bubble financing is that they failed the public, but served their clients well.
Bottom line is that we all have to realize that there are very few people we should listen to for advice and fewer yet we should trust. It is truly sad that elder folks who got swept up in this train wreck did not get better advice from their family and friends.
Foreclosures undercutting new construction. MAJOR step forward!
she has seen many homeowners simply walk away from their properties even if they can make the payments, because they no longer want to pour money into homes now worth so much less than what they had paid.”
Correction: …what they SAID they WOULD pay.
Oh, thats a good one. Wish the MSM would stop blowing smoke and start doing something about the real problem. Wouldnt it be nice if the rags started printing articles about Joe/Jane Six Pack and their six houses in foreclosure and that they only made $50k combined household income, and claimed primary residences in every one of those houses. C’mon MSM, when are you going to start asking questions that have teeth and make these scumbags squirm.
“Like the hundreds of others in this Cal Expo exhibition hall, Francisco Cervantes and his wife were looking for a home at a bargain price for their three children at a two-day auction of foreclosed homes in Sacramento. On Sunday, the pickings were lush, but their eyes were on a four-bedroom, two-bath home closer to their jobs in Woodland.”
“The 3,800-square-foot home, a symbol of a slumping Central Valley housing market, represents dreams that have been dashed and a dream opportunity. Once valued as high as $711,000, the starting bid on Sunday was just $259,000.”
You need 3800 square feet WHY?