An Incredible Convergence Of Real Events In Florida
The New York Times reports on Florida. “A Florida couple, Scott and Deanne Hopp, bought and sold house after house, and seem to have done well at it for a time. They specialized in buying houses with less than no money down, borrowing more cash than they actually had to pay. One of their homes caused a scandal when it was featured in the local newspaper as being used for sex parties promoted on the Internet.”
“The Hopps protested that was not their fault, that a tenant had organized the parties without their knowledge. Simply renting out the house was a violation of the terms of their mortgage, but the lender, Countrywide Financial, evidently did not notice.”
“A month after the scandal broke, it gave the couple another million-dollar loan to buy a house four miles away. Now both of those loans have gone into foreclosure, and so have three others that were made by other lenders on other homes.”
“The total judgments against the Hopps come to $3.9 million, and that does not include hundreds of thousands of dollars in second mortgages that apparently were not worth trying to collect. The houses are selling - if they are selling at all - for far less than the amounts owed.”
“The house with the sex parties in Holmes Beach, provides an example of the ways the Hopps were able to finance their purchases - and of how far Florida real estate values have fallen.”
“They bought the home in early 2004 for $710,000, borrowing $829,300. After a few new loans and a refinancing, they had a $980,000 first mortgage and a $70,000 second mortgage from Countrywide. The first loan was a negative amortization loan, and by the time the loan went into default they owed $1.04 million. Add in the fees and back interest, and the total came to $1.1 million.”
“The securitization records showed that $1.1 million was just 70 percent of the house’s appraised value, but that appraisal proved to be a little high. Countrywide has been trying to sell it for months, at ever lower prices.”
‘The latest offering price is $729,900, but if no one offers that much the house is to be auctioned next month, with a minimum bid of $369,000.”
“It was Ms. Leder, a former resident of Holmes Beach, who first noticed the home on Countrywide’s Web site and has followed its descending asking price for months.”
“‘It reminds me when I was a cub reporter at The Bradenton Herald in the early ’90s, chasing similar deals,’ she said. ‘The names of the banks were different then and most of them have long since closed down. But the daisy chain of creatively financed sketchy deals remains eerily similar.’”
The Gasparilla Gazette. “In a phone interview, Lee County Property Appraiser Ken Wilkinson said said the year over year drop in values countywide is a rare event. ‘It’s the first time in my history, which is over 28 years,’ he said, adding that he is not sure when the last time was that there was a decline in Lee County. ‘But I would guess that it hasn’t happened since the Depression.’”
“While Lee County was down by 12.36 percent, property values across Cape Coral dropped for the second straight year, falling more than 25 percent in 2007. Cape Coral lost 26.4 percent of its just value, meaning the city saw more than $7.3 billion of its value dissipate.”
“The Cape’s drop was the most severe in the area though Lehigh Acres had a nearly comparable decline, losing about 23 percent of its value. ‘Those were the areas where most of the markets were based upon, in my opinion, greed and speculation,’ Wilkinson said. ‘Those who went up the farthest will come down the farthest.’”
“Property owners should be prepared for a similar decline next year, according to Wilkinson. He pointed to the massive rise in residential short sales that are moving homes off of the market at bargain prices.”
“Unlike foreclosures, short sales are considered arm’s length transactions and would be used in the formula to determine real property values.”
“‘Realtors are going to be happier this year because there are going to be more sales. But the majority of those are going to be short sales,’ Wilkinson said. ‘Once that becomes the market, we use them obviously.’”
From Tampa Bay 10. “Along a seemingly unending line of perfectly manicured lawns in a New Tampa golf course community, the eye stops on a house that is conspicuously out-of-place. In the front yard, a Trojan condom box sits undisturbed in the midst of a mangled mess of weeds. A backyard pool is green with algae and muck, and a rotting wood chair bobs near one end.”
“On the front door of the house, a white piece of paper flails in the breeze. On it, there is a stamp from a Hillsborough County code enforcement board. This house is a foreclosure.”
“Bob Jester has lived next to a foreclosure eyesore in Inverness for the last few years. ‘I’m just disgusted,’ he said. ‘The inside of it’s just been completely destroyed. The toilets are ripped up. [The] electrical is ripped up. There’s [sic] holes all over the wall. Feces, garbage.’”
“When the backyard swimming pool became overgrown with algae and there were no fences to keep neighborhood kids out, Jester took it upon himself to figure out who the owner was. And his suspicions were right. The house had been repossessed by a mortgage company in California.”
“In Hillsborough County, there are about 400 new foreclosure filings each week.”
“Oftentimes, trash, piles of newspapers, overgrown lawns and algae-ridden pools sit untouched for months as a house goes through foreclosure. ‘It’s an attractive nuisance to children. [I] guarantee kids are the first who will know there’s an abandoned house in the neighborhood,’ said Hillsborough County code enforcement manager Jim Blinck.”
The St Petersburg Times. “The housing downturn continues to crush Florida bankers: Overdue loans, mostly real estate related, have nearly quadrupled the past year in the Sunshine State.”
“If that were not enough, the state’s lenders have unusually low cash reserves to protect against mortgage defaults. And 41 percent of Florida-chartered banks were unprofitable the first three months of this year. That’s twice the number of banks that bled red ink last year.”
“It’s not just problem home mortgages, but also developers defaulting on loans used to buy land and finance condominium towers. ‘We’re still on the downside of the curve. We’ve not reached a bottom,’ Miami banking expert Ken Thomas said.”
From WESH.com. “Like so many Central Florida communities, MetroWest has seen its share of foreclosures. But the Hamptons subdivision has taken an unusually hard blow.”
“Residents estimated that there are well over 100 foreclosed homes. The homeowners’ association still keeps things looking nice, but on every street sit empty condominiums and townhomes.”
“Ann Samball, a Realtor who bought a condo in the Hamptons two years ago as an investment, is riding out the tough market by renting it out. She said she believes that so many buyers in the Hamptons are in trouble because they didn’t plan ahead.”
“‘I truly believe that was a really hot property, especially for investors, and people bought into them thinking they were going to flip it and not planning for something to happen such as the market to change as it did,’ said Samball.”
The Daily Business Review. “Investors interested in buying distressed properties are increasingly using a different tactic to purchase desirable assets at a deep discount - buying the defaulted mortgage.”
“Investors are making an end-run around owners, buying mortgages on well-located commercial and residential properties, foreclosing and taking ownership of projects some lenders are increasingly desperate to unload.”
“‘They are going to the mortgage companies and asking to purchase their nonconforming loans for 50 to 60 cents on the dollar. Sometimes even less,’ said David Serle, broker in Boca Raton. ‘They then package these loans and foreclose on the properties. Now they have homes 40 percent to 50 percent below market value. They fix them up, and sell them for a profit.’”
“Ultimately, the size of the buyer’s discount is tied to the seller’s motivation and the desirability of the properties in the debt package, said Ron Kriss, a real estate attorney with Akerman Senterfitt in Miami.”
“‘Everything is supply and demand,’ Kriss said. ‘Some of them are very nice properties and some are garbage.’”
“The best bet for buyers is to target banks with the highest rate of nonperforming loans, burgeoning real estate-owned property portfolios and concerns about liquidity and potential regulatory issues.”
“‘That’s a seller that’s going to be very highly motivated,’ Kriss said.”
“As home foreclosure cases piled up in his court, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge David C. Miller began to notice more affidavits from mortgage lenders stating they couldn’t locate the borrowers.”
“‘The ones that caught my attention very early on were the ones that said they didn’t have driver’s license information or they didn’t have employment information for the borrower,’ the judge said in an interview.”
“‘Did someone just walk in off the street and say, ‘Gimme money?’ the judge asked sarcastically. ‘I don’t think that’s possible.’”
“Increasingly, banks are struggling to locate defendants to serve them with formal notices. Whether the banks are performing their due diligence to find the defendants or whether the defendants are being evasive is anyone’s guess.”
“Attorneys representing Countrywide, a lender with thousands of mortgages in South Florida, cited a blanket corporate policy against commenting on foreclosure matters. Contacted directly, Countrywide officials also declined comment.”
“Officials with Washington Mutual, another big mortgage lender, deferred comment to the company’s Miami-based public relations staff. They deferred comment to the company’s national staff, who responded by e-mail that they had no comment.”
The Seminole Voice. “Is the U.S. in a recession? Not even economist Sean Snaith can answer that question yet. ‘People ask me and I tell them the truth: I don’t know,’ said Snaith, the director of the Institute of Economic Competitiveness for the University of Central Florida.”
“One of the factors ailing the economy is the housing market, which had been described as a bubble that popped. Snaith said he did not think the market was a bubble, and after periods of sleeplessness and watching the Food Network, he came up with a metaphor he was comfortable with: The market is a soufflé.”
“The soufflé recipe called for 77 million baby boomers, historically low mortgage rates, innovations in financial markets, low unemployment rates, strong growth in personal income, and a pinch of speculation, he said.”
“These ingredients came together to make the perfect soufflé, rising high in the ‘preheated’ economy until some ingredients started to fall out.”
“‘We had this incredible convergence of real events - all the ingredients were there and they came together in just the right way, in a way we’ll never see again in our lifetime, quite frankly,’ he said.”
The Star Banner. “The economy might or might not be in a recession, but it’s not likely to get much better for the next 12 to 18 months, a leading economist said Wednesday.”
“‘We don’t anticipate getting back [to stronger growth] until 2010,’ Snaith said. ‘The housing bust has been compounded by the credit crunch. It takes time to get that confidence back.’”
“The year started on a ‘dismal, sour’ note, he said. ‘There was no silver lining in any of those clouds.’”
“‘We’ve got a tough situation ahead,’ Snaith said. He later added that home prices nationwide won’t return to the prices seen in the 2004-2006 boom. ‘We’ll never see the levels that we saw during the housing boom,’ he said.”
“He described home prices as a ’souffle,’ not a bursting bubble. ‘There’s no happy ending for a bubble,’ Snaith said. ‘A souffle, if all the ingredients are in place, does not have to go flat.’”
The Naples News. “Realtors, property owners and independent property appraisers might be turning blue over recent news that Collier County’s property base has decreased by an average of 4 percent.”
“But they’re not upset for the same reasons they’ve expressed in the past: reports that the Naples market was one of the most overpriced in the nation.”
‘Now, they’re screaming that the 4 percent decrease in value doesn’t come close to representing the fast and vast decline in property value.”
“‘How can this be? Down only 4 percent?’ asked local property appraiser and property tax agent Donald J. Ward, who said he’s been involved in the Naples-area real estate market for 14 years. ‘The Dec. 27, 2007, issue of the Wall Street Journal reports a study showing Naples … as the fifth-worst declining market in the country.’”
“‘And these guys show only 4 percent? That’s only a little shy of a perfectly stable (market). In some areas of our county, values are down 50 percent or more, and I have the qualifications and documentation to prove my numbers,’ he said.”
“Ward contends that his own home has decreased in value by 50 percent, and his appraisal business has decreased by 70 percent due to the horribly ailing real estate market.”
“‘They are saying that our values went up 7 percent in 2006 and only down 4 percent in 2007. That would be a stable market, meanwhile, there have been over 2,000 foreclosure filings so far in 2008,’ Ward said. ‘Myself and everyone I know - having anything to do with real estate - just can’t hang in there anymore.’”
“‘If you own property in Naples Park, Golden Gate, Golden Gate Estates, Marco Island, and many other areas of Collier County, values are down 40 to 60 percent, not 4 percent,’ Ward said.”
“‘The property owners of Collier County are getting robbed, and many of us can’t even pay our bills to begin with, due to the crumbled real estate and construction market,’ Ward said.”
“He is so incensed that he started a new local organization called Coalition Against Properties Unjust Taxation.”
I would imagine that the final days of the Roman Empire had a lot in common with this time, especially with all the shenanigans in Florida (financial and otherwise).
and the obsession w the weather= change,dude
love that hot wind, dude
Florida’s about as close as one can get to the Horse Latitudes, both physically and financially…
The only difference being, they are jettisoning houses, not horses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXJ5j8ug3Kk
Actually, the last few days here in west central Florida have brought one of our worst weather patterns — the brutally hot doldrums of the pre-rainy season. I went for a run yesterday evening and could barely go two miles. Beautiful sunset, though.
Yep, it’s so hot and humid today I won’t have to light my grill to cook on tonight!
Sex parties? Empty condom boxes? Ben, is this the HBB or Penthouse ;)?
Let me tell you about the time my personal trainer came over while my husband was at work . . . . .
I hate it when other people are having more fun than I am.
HA!
that’s just your cover story
“Let me tell you about the time my personal trainer came over”
God, please don’t if it involves any of your 300 pairs of Crocs. Lol…
Do they make 6″ platform lucite crocs for professional ‘dancers’ ????
“‘The property owners of Collier County are getting robbed, and many of us can’t even pay our bills to begin with, due to the crumbled real estate and construction market,’ Ward said.”
Yeah…I know they’ll get a lot of sympathy from all of the rich, spendthrift renters that have been “throwing” their lose and extra money into the pyres of RE the past few years
“I couldn’t believe it was happening to me”
or was that just the 80s?
Sorry, I forgot to pick up my empty boxes I left at the party!
“The house with the sex parties in Holmes Beach, provides an example of the ways the Hopps were able to finance their purchases.”
I knew it all along. Florida is full of a bunch of crazy, dumb f**kers!
CFC sure liked lending them money, maybe the tan one was regular at those parties? Showing up with the loan docs tucked strategically in his Speedos.
“maybe the tan one was regular at those parties? Showing up with the loan docs tucked strategically in his Speedos.”
See Ben? You really need to enable to barf gif.
Tan man
:barf
Speedos
:barf
Loan docs tucked
:barf
Just before I left circa 91 it was the cop in the closet videotaping his wife during her afternoon trists. And, no he wasn’t there unbeknownst to her.
“The house with the sex parties in Holmes Beach, provides an example of the ways the Hopps were able to finance their purchases.”
Seems like a good article to represent the bubble - one long orgy that’s now old and limp once the Viagra was taken away.
“The house with the sex parties in Holmes Beach, provides an example of the ways the Hopps were able to finance their purchases.”
Ok lets admit it, we can’t predict everything. We expected the Meth houses and pot grow houses and houses stripped for parts. I don’t recall this being predicted.
I guess when the real estate gets cheap enough, lots of things can go on.
I don’t think the sex parties were part of the business plan. Renting it out was. The renters just happened to have sex parties.
However, how long before we find a house, probably in the CV or IE where they were making meth, growing pot, and having sex parties?
And will it be Countrywide that provided the financing?
There have been many stories about renting vacant houses or just breaking into them for porno sets. It’s a growth industry.
We predicted brothels. So this isn’t that far off….
We had a pot grow house in our all rental townhouse community! So we renters shouldn’t be too smug. (And landlords should drop rents so they can be pickier about tenants) Man do those DEA agents drive some nice rides… “Undercover” my…
Hey, I wouldn’t want their job, so let them drive the vett! I have to say, any four of them could have taken on the entire local police department… scary and impressive (I have two close friends that are SWAT snippers too. So my bar is set pretty high.)
Got Popcorn?
Neil
Wasn’t there some foreclosed homes in Cali that were being used for p*rn filming? I think it wasn’t until the neighbors complained that anything was done about it?
I really hope that all the True RE Believers are proud of themselves! Four Dollar Gas AND a “show”!
Got Lube?
I watched a few and I wouldn’t pay the appraised value.
–
Phoenix, Miami and Tampa are seeing new price lows almost every day in Radar Logic data. The latest Annual Rate declines (for transactions that originated in march and April) are:
Phoenix 42.5%
Miami 38.2%
Tampa 37.9%
Jas
Perhaps avalanches pick up speed as they roll downhill?
Holy crap. We’re getting into 1926 territory now.
Nowhere near that here in the desert.
Long way to go.
Houses/condo still selling in some parts.
We’d seem to be firmly in “crash” territory now. When will the media notice? A search on Google returns a little under 1/2 million hits for “housing crash” versus 15 million for “subprime”.
The latest Annual Rate declines
Are those data taking march/april and annualizing it, or are you using the January starting point and then drawing a line thru the march/april median data point?
If it’s the latter, WOW. (and if it’s the former, it’s still a wow but probably lower case.)
“Snaith said he did not think the market was a bubble, and after periods of sleeplessness and watching the Food Network, he came up with a metaphor he was comfortable with: The market is a soufflé.”
I’m laughing so hard I’m about to cry. I can see Snaith, 20 lbs. heavier, immobile, staring at moldy dip, shirt crusted with Wavy Lay’s, mumbling to himself, “it’s a souffle, souffle, souffle doesn’t go flat, Sean see souffle, must be souffle, right?”
Sean, man, next time I’m in Orlando can I take you out for dinner? I don’t want you to end up like that lady that locked herself in the bathroom for a year.
Under current conditions, I have to fully agree with Snaith: The market is not (any longer) in a bubble; rather it is in a free fall, and headed for a very hard landing.
It’s more like a souffle that someone took out of the oven and smashed on the floor.
Yep. Snaith really has sunk to that Yun place, reserved for ‘economic specialists’ that refused to see the truth. He may likely be called on his idiot viewpoints. Or more likely, just forgotten as a minor footnote to a southern states’ woes.
Anything so he doesn’t have to admit he and his cohorts were dead wrong.
Whatever happened to *real* economists, you know, like Keynes or Friedman (depending on your inclinations). Guys like Snaith and Lawrence Yun are just spin-doctors/PR agents.
Here he is, pronouncing that he “doesn’t know” whether this state is in a recession. Next time insommnia hits, rather than watching the Food Network he should read the local papers, or talk to local people, or drive around town and edify himself.
yes, but it’s the following comments that show just how dilluded this man is:
“The soufflé recipe called for 77 million baby boomers, historically low mortgage rates, innovations in financial markets, low unemployment rates, strong growth in personal income, and a pinch of speculation, he said.”
Historically low mortage rates: CHEAP MONEY via FED.
Financial Innovation: Due to Cheap money from FED.
Low unemployment: Due to lying statistics from BLS
Strong Income Growth: You MUST BE KIDDING??
Pinch of Speculation: IT was ALL ABOUT SPECULATION!! You idiot!!
Because there was CHEAP EASY MONEY and NO INCOME GROWTH@!!!!!
The Baby Boomers money went down the toilet in 2001. So did their hopes of retirement. They needed to fix it. FED gave them a solution: Buy Houses.
It would be interesting to see exactly what age group did buy into the housing feeding frenzy. Not sure that I agree that it was baby boomers. Personally, I know of no (none, zip, zilch, zero) BBs who bought RE during the past 6 years.
“economist Sean Snaith” - oxymoron (or maybe just leave out “oxy”)
“There are a lot of indicators that the U.S. is in a recession but there are a lot of indicators that it is not, Snaith said. An answer to that million-dollar question won’t come until six to 18 months after the period ends — after an “economic autopsy” is performed by the National Bureau of Economic Research Business Cycle Dating Committee.”
Did he make this economic assessment based on the mix of items being prepared on the Food Network? They used Hamburger Helper in that segment, but in the next segment they grilled steaks. If they did an autopsy on him, would they find a brain?
“Recessions are a component of the business cycle in the U.S., he said, so if we’re not in one now, we’ll be in one later. It’s tough to figure out what a business cycle is going to look like because no two cycles are the same. Snaith calls them ‘economic snowflakes.’”
Where do you even start with this one.
“The durations of the recessions have been reduced in recent years due to economists and policy makers enacting regulations to counteract bad economic times, such as the Federal Reserve Bank cutting interest rates, Snaith said.”
But we’ve spent 20 years undoing those regulations. As a result, how much longer and deeper will be the current recession? I didn’t realize “cutting interest rates” was a regulation.
Recession? “I don’t know.”
Maybe they should spend more time hanging around more regular folks. I’m sure some people think that the economy is great, but the question is, how wide is their perspective?
I could easily make the case that the economy has been in recession/zero growth since 2000 for about 75% of the population. The only “growth” there has been has been has been the transfer of wealth from individuals and companies that actually make something, to the 6% crowd in real estate and financial “flipping”/Wall Street.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to announce later whether its shareholders have agreed to invest an extra £12bn in the firm to boost its capital.
The bank launched a rights issue last month and existing investors had until Friday morning to take up the deal.
RBS will use money raised to help cover losses related to the credit crunch.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7439231.stm
Florida is amazing! It’s a very fraud friendly state! But they’re still prudish about certain things….
Nobody complained when people commit mortgage fraud. Even “small-time” fraud–like lying about your income, or buying a home to rent and claiming on the mortgage application that you live there–can cheat banks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars!
Newspapers in Florida encouraged specu-vesting and the housing Ponzi scheme. The reporters never considered the mathematical and logical impossibility of ever increasing prices, or houses becoming affordable because of it.
But have one SEX PARTY and everyone’s outraged!
I laughed when I read that story because a wheeler-dealer friend of mine in Florida rents out houses to use as “cam houses”. You ever wondered where those $2.99/minute video girls and guys live? Lake County, Florida.
FL election practices, insurance market, and mortgage overspeculation make one question their regulatory and compliance environment. The Jeb Bush legacy?
Also Sherman Oaks…. a friend of mine lives opposite a McMansion (formerly a quaint 60s ranch, sold as a tear-down) and remarked about all the douchebags and hotchicks coming in and out at all hours of the day, con equipment, film equipment, in this high-end neighborhood. Cheaper than a Valley warehouse porn studio operation, apparantly.
Sherman Oaks, eh?
Now that’s a great porn name.
Of all the cities in California Sherman Oaks has to be one of the top Porn Names.
Sherman Oaks, Sherman’s Oaks.
Now if you want a great Porn Name for a porn star with a bad heroin habit who happens to live in California, then you can’t go wrong with Needles.
da bear
“But have one SEX PARTY and everyone’s outraged!”
I’m having trouble w/that one since in 1981 two of my college classmates got kicked out of school for what they did on a stage in Fort Lauderdate.
I dont really get it. Why is going to a sex party any different then going to the movies or a game? People need to get over it and if it doesnt sound fun, they don’t have to participate. No biggie. It’s usually those that dont get invited that are the most upset.
I didn’t know there were any other types of parties? Who doesn’t have sex at parties!
How do you know it wasn’t a “biggie”?
The nation’s foreclosure crisis threatened a high-profile victim this week: TV legend Ed McMahon, best known as Johnny Carson’s sidekick on “The Tonight Show.”
Ed McMahon and his wife, Pam, talk to CNN’s Larry King about their mortgage problems.
1 of 2 The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that McMahon was $644,000 in arrears on a $4.8 million loan for a home in Beverly Hills, California, and his lender had filed a notice of default
………
Ed McMahon: Well, if you spend more money than you make, you know what happens. And it can happen. You know, a couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that. And, you know, things happen. You want everything to be perfect, but that combination of the economy, I have a little injury, I have a situation. And it all came together
http://us.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/06/lkl.mcmahon/index.html
The media is all over this story. And with such sympathy.
:barf
Yep, but why is a 83 year old ex-star ,(who has made millions in his lifetime ),depending on earned income ? Did he think that he would be employable at 83 anyway ?
To be fair to Ed, while the news is sympathetic to him and calling him a “victim”, Ed’s more honest! He said:
Ed McMahon: Well, if you spend more money than you make, you know what happens. And it can happen….
I just don’t believe he’s broke. He’s gotta have it stashed offshore or something.. somewhere he may never be able to get it, since they’ll be watching him like a hawk from now on..
I bet he lost most of it in divorces. That is where all the guys I know have lost their wealth.
He lost most of it in divorces. But he also got a 7 milion dollar settlement for this house about five years ago in a toxic mold case. Of course the lawyers saw most of that. Than they rebuilt the house but spent more than the amount of what they received in the settlement.
Poor money management they cop to. At least they admit they were fools with their money.
“‘Did someone just walk in off the street and say ‘Gimme money?’, the judge asked sarcastically. ‘I don’t think that’s possible’”
They didn’t have to walk in off the street. The lenders were more than happy to make house calls.
Not only that, they were happy to sit in your kitchen and call you “Buddy.”
I know a guy who likes to make of strangers what he terms a “Ten Minute Friend”. Give him ten minutes of your life and he’ll become your newest best friend.
Whatever you are interested in he is interested in; If you love the Dodgers, he loves the Dodgers.
Basicly he digs out what is deeply buried inside a person and then feeds it back to him.
He’s a great salesman because people trust him; To him it’s all a game.
TEST
Trying to see if the barf gif works. I figure since Snaith is a fixture and we’ve gotten to the used-condom stage of the bust, I’m'a have to fire this guy off some.
:barf
9205 Keating Dr. Palm Beach Gardens Fl. 33410
sold for $275,000 in Nov.05
taken back by U.S. Bank National assn. Tr.in April
for sale now at $99,000
I know approx. where that is…..I used to go to the ABC LIquor store on the corner there on Northlake….NOT A PARTICLULARLY NICE AREA….BUT OK…..Kinda trashy houses there up along I-95….Left Palm Beach County back in Jan. 2006…Sold into the “”"BOOM”"”…Currently in WNC, where property taxes are less than 1 months rent in Florida…..”"”REALLY”"”
Anyone down Fl way have info on any of those Donald Trump young millionaires that appeared on his tv show the apprentice? I’d love to see an update just to gloat.
You mean Kendra Todd- the RE mogul?
September 26, 2006Is the Real Estate Market in Bubble Trouble?You can’t go anywhere without hearing people talk about “the real estate bubble.” Such talk drives me to distraction, and I’ll tell you why. It’s because there is no real estate bubble. Bubbles are for bathtubs.Despite a thousand articles in Sunday newspaper real estate sections, the bubble is a myth. Talking about a bubble implies a sudden burst, and real estate does not work that way. You don’t go to sleep one night with your house worth half a million dollars and wake up to find it’s lost half its value.
-K Todd
No, but in FLA it sounds like if you go to sleep you’ll wake up and it will have lost 80% of its value. Especially condos - like mr. rump is so fond of building.
Great quote.
Good reason to ignore just about everybody on TV.
You don’t even have to go to sleep for your house to lose half its value.
“The securitization records showed that $1.1 million was just 70 percent of the house’s appraised value, but that appraisal proved to be a little high. Countrywide has been trying to sell it for months, at ever lower prices.”
‘The latest offering price is $729,900, but if no one offers that much the house is to be auctioned next month, with a minimum bid of $369,000.”
Isn’t $729K the new conforming loan limit in high priced markets? Surely there is at least one greater fool out there who is willing to borrow up to the conforming loan limit in order to catch this falling knife offer?
The more I read about Countrywide the more I can’t understand why this company isn’t being pursued in court as an organized criminal enterprise.
Souffle anyone? Snaith must watch a lot of Rachel Ray.
Please! It’s soufflé.
He is so incensed that he started a new local organization called Coalition Against Properties Unjust Taxation.”
C.A.P.U.T comes close to Kaput. Yeah, that sounds about right.
Ha! Good catch.
Hmmmm… I’m pretty sure that’s what they were going for when they picked the name. It’s not coincidence.
I’ve been an HBB’er since April 2007, and I really do have to thank Ben and all the bloggers here for providing me with amazing insight these past couple of years. As someone once said, the lessons learned here are at the graduate level (and I will never look at a Joshua tree the same way again). However, as hard as it’s going to be, I have to stop coming here because of a piece of self-realization that hit me last night.
Some background: I’m not an FB (bought in 97) but came close to becoming one. Last year I almost put a deposit check down on an investment home in San Diego, but pulled out at the last minute. After finding this blog (and patrick.net), I realized I had dodged a bullet. I also have a neighbor who has 4 investment properties and will not shut up about his Trump-like acumen. Thanks to these blogs, when I talk to him recently I experience schadenfreude at a level that is almost intoxicating.
Anyway, last week I got invited for a get-together at a close friend’s home this weekend. Typical bubble buyer, rented out his existing home and bought a brand new McMansion in early 2007 with a 5 year interest-only, got a 2nd, upgraded with flooring, back yard, 73″ TV, etc. They’re aware of the housing crash, but believe that “by 2009 things will start to get better and their house will start back on the appreciation path.” So here I am, salivating at the prospect of party conversation where I systematically dismantle their arguments, when it hit me: I’ve become THAT GUY that is so smug, so self-righteous and so judgmental of others. I began to realize that after months and months of being in this echo chamber, I now automatically assume that every homeowner is an idiot who has no fiscal discipline and is deserving of the JT treatment. I immediately look down from my pedestal at people who buy large plasma TV’s at the local Costco, instantly assuming that a HELOC is involved. Every person driving a BMW or H2 is underwater. Every Realtor is a whore. And you know what? In most of these cases it’s probably true. But the level of judgmentalism in my life has gotten way out of hand.
Now I do realize that most everyone on this board has every right to feel that these FB’s are deserving of some poetic justice. After all, if I had been locked out of the market myself I would be just as upset. But it reminded me of how I felt every time I heard of someone winning millions on the Lottery. Right away my first reaction is, “lucky bastard, but just wait, in a few years all the money will be gone and he’ll be worse off than before he won.” And it seems like 9 times out of 10 that is exactly what happens, and the schadenfreude hits, and then I think, “See, I would have done better.” But does the smugness and judgmentalism make me any happier? Am I a better person when I think I am better than others? How is this any different from me cheering on the demise of home buyers who are only human, made really bad mistakes, and are now paying for it?
So I guess all I’m trying to say is, there is nothing wrong with watching the bubble unravel and seeing affordability slowly and surely come back. But I have to ask myself, if I had an opportunity to make hundreds of thousands in the short term, at the expense of hurting the chances of others for obtaining homeownership, would I pass it up? We are all self-centered, flawed creatures, after all. But we also have the innate ability to be better than our baser instincts. And the first step to achieving that is to divorce ourselves from those things that enforce our negativity. I’m not judging anyone who chooses to continue to enjoy their well-earned schadenfreude (again, the whole point is to become less judgmental), but for me, I’m going to try to get above that.
Thanks to all who have been a great resource in my understanding of the macros and micros of the housing market, and especially those on this board who always put a smile on my face with their amazing wit. I wish you nothing but the best in the future and I hope you all find what you’re looking for.
Peace,
Ray
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/24994059/
Cinderella Man 2008
Call it a souffle if you want - if the main ingredient is dog turds, it will taste like shit.
“A backyard pool is green with algae and muck, and a rotting wood chair bobs near one end.”
How DO you drain these things anyway? Can’t you just pull the plug, or does someone with a tanker have to come in and pump it out?
Man, when I was a kid in Socal I thought we were totally deprived for not having a backyard pool.
When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, one neighbor had a backyard pool. Just one.
And we kids avoided it. Because it was FREEZING in there. Even during the dawg days of summer.
There was an unattractive girl in our neighborhood that had no friends, so her parents put in a pool so the kids would pretend to like her.
I agree Slim, you don’t have many weeks to use a pool in Pennsylvania.
What’s always puzzled me, however, is why there are so many backyard pools in the neighborhoods near Chicago O’Hare. Regardless of what runway you approach, it seems like every third house has one. How long is it warm enough to swim if you live in Chicago?
They have invented such a thing called a pool heater.
so what’s the annual cost of a pool in Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa - 1 hp electrical pump running 24/7, plus natural gas heating, plus water, plus pool man?
European banks have now suffered considerably more losses because of the credit crunch than their US rivals, even though the turmoil was first triggered by problems in the US subprime mortgage market
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/28f13802-3349-11dd-8a25-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
I’d better check under the bed, I may have suffered losses.
Eurozone banks were seduced by easy money. The bubble was bigger in the US and more sustained, the dollars were cheaper, and the “risks” supposedly lower (remember AAA bonds, people) so they were oversold.
They have to thighter accounting standards otherwise they’d bury it like US banks. Good news is that they’ll recover quicker. Assuming that they survive that is.
And here in Florida it’s started again……
The RADIO COMMERCIALS.
Remember back in 2004-2005, how each hour you got to hear from Carlton Sheets, ‘Dolf DaRouse, Ken?Whitney, AD Kessler, and countless others about the easy riches from Real Estate? It was endless.
This morning, another guru is schlepping Real Estate Riches. I think in the Forceclosure area. Once again….no money down, easy finance. Just get the CD, book and course. You, too, can be rich beyond the greatest dreams of avarice!! Hurry!! Don’t miss out!! These deals won’t last!!
I just can’t take any more!
Please let’s have a Depression to get these scum-bags like the Hopps and their ilk stuffed under a mattress somewhere, never to be seen or heard from again.
PleeezZE ….no more easy Real Estate Money Games!!!
But ,but ,there are a few people that still have money left for them to go after .
Please let’s have a Depression to get these scum-bags like the Hopps and their ilk stuffed under a mattress somewhere, never to be seen or heard from again.
PleeezZE ….no more easy Real Estate Money Games!!!
1st: You cannot con an honest man.
2nd: During a depression, said scams are even more common as everyone is desperate to increase their standard of living. I recommend reading a book called “The hungry years.”
Got Popcorn?
Neil
The Con men and skanks will always be with us.
What I am referring to is TIGGGHHHT MONEY.
All this crap is the result of Lending Gone Mad. The Lender will lend you the money and through in $100,000 extra just to make you happy???
With a Depression credit will be RESTRICTED. Lenders will be constrained. Prices will fall.
Yes, the Cons will be looking for easy marks, but the won’t be looking to the Banks or the Mortgage Lenders. If the do, they can expect a protological examination before they get a dime.
What I’m afraid of, is that the “CON” man just may be “”PACKING”"….a concealed weapons permit….
and askes you to kneel and pray for his salvation….and maybe ‘tithe’ 100% of your cash…
This morning, another guru is schlepping Real Estate Riches.
I heard that on the radio and filed a complaint with the Florida attorney generals office. It was clearly false advertising!
“We had this incredible convergence of real events”
Real events, eh? This is difficult to conceptualize if you’re in Orlanduh in the imaginary realm.
Goofy suit it is.
Yes ,and if one of the convergence of events didn’t take place ,such as fraudulent and faulty lending ,the events that followed would not of taken place .
“He is so incensed that he started a new local organization called Coalition Against Properties Unjust Taxation.”
CAPUT (pronounced ‘Kaput’)
Reminds me of Madeline Kahn singing “I’m Tired” in Blazing Saddles
“In the spreading mortgage crisis, there are many homeowners who were tricked into taking out loans they could not afford, or who failed to understand the risks they were taking. This column is not about them.”
How about an article about them?
It continues to amaze me that there are so few articles with real victims in them. Everyone was speculating, or HELOCing to live large.
There must be some people who simply stretched too far to buy at the peak before they were priced out forever, right?
Yet the media has a hard time finding them amidst all the others.
And how many borrowers went on a fixed rate and refused the toxic adjustable that the industry was trying to cram down their throats so they could get the unqualified people into the liar loans .The toxic adjustable loans were pushed by the real estate and loan industry .I can hear the agents say ,”You can get a 500k house instead of a 250k house if you go on this adjustable and make more appreciation because real estate always goes up . When your teaser payment goes up ,you can just refinance or sell and not pay taxes on your gains ,it’s all good .”
The worst part is those who bought with a fixed rate, who put 10% down, but into a home that’s quickly surrounded by deadbeats and renters who could care less about your neighborhood. I bought a condo in a three family house. I’ll never have a problem affording the mortgage because its a fixed rate and its only 25% of my after tax income in expenses monthly… but I can’t leave even if I want to because its lost close to 30% of its ‘value’ and my neighbors either foreclosed or started renting to section 8′ers here in MA. I made a huge mistake, and I sure don’t want any taxpayers to bail me out. I just wish I hadn’t listened to my family, friends, the media, and everyone else. Owning is not some magic pill that makes you a better person, or rich, or happy. now I’ve got to put off getting married, raising a family, all that stuff until the negative equity is at a number that I could afford to pay for to get out. I didn’t really anticipate staying a short time, but I should have known based on my age. I’m kicking myself every day.
Right ,good point . Even if you were a prudent fixed rate borrower and didn’t buy something you couldn’t afford ,you are stuck because of the neighbors that surround you .This is why Wall Street/Lenders had no right to make bad loans or fraudulent loans and create this false demand for housing .
With so many foreclosures, God knows how your neighborhood will end up . What about the people that bought into a project expecting a certain homeowners fee and now the HOA is BK because the speculators are defaulting .
Y’know, I just realized it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that commercial where the guy on the lawn tractor says he’s in debt up to his eyeballs and asks, “Won’t somebody please help me?”
I guess lenders won’t, anymore.
‘We’re still on the downside of the curve. We’ve not reached a bottom,’ Miami banking expert Ken Thomas said.”
In the meantime, all of the realwhores are claiming the market has reached bottom and they are getting bidding wars on properties in the Tampa Bay area to cause the public to rush in and by the overvalued properties.
In the meantime, I post on the sptimes.com blog site countering their claims with facts that they can’t dispute. I doubt that many of these realtors understands what ethics is all about. In the meantime, the realtors are pissed because they are hurting business wise for a market they helped run into the ground.
‘Myself and everyone I know - having anything to do with real estate - just can’t hang in there anymore.’”
Good! It’s time to weed out those who helped create this mess. Let them fail and lose money just like their customers are losing.
What comes around, goes around! Payback time for excessive greed!
Somewhere in my past religious training I remember I shouldn’t gloat nor should I take pleasure in someone else’s pain…
Forget that. I’m going to have f fancy restaurant lunch just because I can afford it. Payback for when I waited for their party to spend the HELOC money. Man… I hope not too many of my favorite restaurants fail…
Got Popcorn?
Neil
Just got an email from KB here in Tampa, according to the saleswoman, they are raising prices next week. Here was my response: Thanks for the info. I know it’s the end of the fiscal for KB. I listened to the conference calls for Hovanian and Toll and the Spring selling season was a complete bust. I look forward to buying a home but it will be at prices that were within the historical norm. I urge you to tell your headquarters that the day of 550 FICO’s coming in the door and signing whatever was put in front of them are never returning. The banking crisis in this country is just in the top of the 3rd inning. The people with very high FICO’s and graduate degrees are not going to purchase depreciating assets and housing is not an investment (unless it is cash flow positive) except for the people that bought “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and most of those people have neither high FICOs or graduated from college. I’m a data kind of guy and I really urge you to forward this to your boss. I’m not a doom and gloomer but I am not paying 2004-2007 boom prices in Florida. I appreciate you keeping me in mind and I will purchase at the right price and at the right location.
Alt-A resets begin in earnest in July/August and will place even more REO and short sale inventory on the market here in Tampa. If I’m wrong I lose $5K, but if I’m right I save another $40K.
Regards,
And, what’s worse, you just posted your reply on this blog. Where the rest of us copy -n- pasters can adapt it for our own purposes. You meanie ;-).
My response would have been a little simpler:
You’re raising the price??? Are you crazy??
It’s too high, already!!!
I guess I’ll just be “priced out forever”.
Just got an email from KB here in Tampa, according to the saleswoman, they are raising prices next week.
Lennar is also playing the same game. However, many of their so called closed sales have failed to close due to lack of financing.
Just think, had you bought between January and the end of March in the Tampa Bay area, you would have lost 6.9%. If you had put 20% down, you would be down to 13.1% equity and the lender could require you to pay PMI which would add about $100.00 to your monthly mortgage payment.
I bet the realtor forgot to mention these little facts that end up costing you.
The people with very high FICO’s and graduate degrees are not going to purchase depreciating assets and housing is not an investment (unless it is cash flow positive) except for the people that bought “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and most of those people have neither high FICOs or graduated from college.
As a person with a high FICO score and a graduate degree and as a person who bought and appreciates Rich Dad Poor Dad as, at the very least, an inspiration, I can assure you that we don’t hold a monopoly on intelligence. Greed and fear infect every demographic.
I apologize if my comment sounded elitist but I am always stunned when talking to realtors how much they are sure their ‘expertise’ equals something. My graduate degrees are a testament to perseverance; it literally means I ran a marathon. Some choose to run and others don’t; I don’t think I’m better or smarter than someone without a college degree. Heck, I’ve learned more from this blog on investing (shorts, etc.) than I would have in college (isn’t that a shame). I’m just data driven and it perturbs me a little to know that most in the real estate industry don’t care about facts or data points but want you to ‘feel’ the purchase. It makes me queasy. As to “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, I will sound elitist here, he’s a hack salesman whose life story has been shown as similar to others authors to be more in the fiction category. Just ‘clusty’ or ‘ask’ search…..
Yes, when reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad one really has to separate the wheat from the chafe. The get-rich themes are probably mostly chafe. What I appreciate, though, is his emphasis on becoming financially literate. That struck a chord with me. I also like his emphasis on knowing how to sell (such as his story about being a best-selling author and not a best-writing author). At the end of the day, that really is what it’s all about even though people (like me) don’t like to admit it.
…oh, you mean “chaff”! LOL
Spelled like in the bible, not a verb meaning, “to irritate or rub against harshly.”
I apologize if my comment sounded elitist
You are far from an elitist! You are using your education correctly by taking the time to research and understand the market and what you might be getting into in this current housing market.
The person who educates themselves about the housing market or anything else mitigates the possibility of making a poor decision andending up financially burned. I often play the part of the dumb consumer when talking to the realtors to see if they think I am just an uneducated buyer falling for their hype and lies. Then I confront them with facts and let them know they lied to me and walk away.
Although I would NOT lend money to the couple - after knowing that they were violating the terms of condition for taking out a mortgage - it is reasonable to assume that foreclosure would in the long run (given the state of the economy) become counterproductive. For a home to sit idle for some time without the prospect of being sold in the short-run, can cause sever deterioration to the home, which would only ad to the cost of the home, and therefore serving as a disincentive to purchase the home. The banks could therefore suffer an even greater financial loss. There should be safeguards to keep homes from being foreclosed. It is fair to say, however, that the federal government did provide 300 million dollars last month to the FDA to insure 1.5 million home owners who are at the brink of loosing their homes. But is this enough? Government officials contend that this measure was only passed to assuage some of the problems, but not all. What should be done to alleviate most of the problem? Does anyone have any good ideas? I would be interested to listen.
Although I would NOT lend money to the couple - after knowing that they were violating the terms of condition for taking out a mortgage - it is reasonable to assume that foreclosure would in the long run (given the state of the economy) become counterproductive. For a home to sit idle for some time without the prospect of being sold in the short-run, can cause sever deterioration to the home, which would only ad to the cost of the home, and therefore serving as a disincentive to purchase the home. The banks could therefore suffer an even greater financial loss. There should be safeguards to keep homes from being foreclosed. It is fair to say, however, that the federal government did provide 300 million dollars last month to the FDA to insure 1.5 million home owners who are at the brink of loosing their homes. But is this enough? Government officials contend that this measure was only passed to assuage some of the problems, but not all. What should be done to alleviate most of the problem? Does anyone have any good ideas?
yes
let the market correct itself.
anyone who is stupid enough to buy a overpriced home should pay the price.
a house should be bought to live in not as investment.
As much as I appreciate your statement, it is a little naïve considering that it is a fact that people do purchase homes for investment purposes. But it is also a fact that people who cannot afford a home have gone through lenders who have knowingly made bad loans believing that they were insured (from the same insurance companies who rely on real estate). In addition, it is also easy for someone – whom I presume has not lost their home – to say that the market will take care of itself. The issue has do be dealt with now and even after assuming that it should have never happened. Well…it did. The United States is already facing a housing crisis with an estimated 4 million people who could be affected by it. To keep the integrity of the country, something must be done to alleviate the social problems that can be involved (ex. Crime rates, homelessness, welfare…). And with that lingo, you should know that even in the United States, capitalism is not absolute. Usually the “invisible hand” helps bail out Citi Bank and Wellsfargo for the mortgage crisis. Should the government help only them out because they knowingly made bad decisions as well.
I meant FHA
Spent the week in the Sarasota-Tampa corridor and got caught in the traffic nightmare caused Wednesday by the tragic tanker crash and fire at I-75 and 301. It is screwing up traffic big-time in the entire area from Tampa-St. Pete down to Sarasota, relative to commuting to and from the former - they are saying it will take 6 weeks at 24/7 to repair the bridge and get traffic back to normal.
Saw more closed businesses, but not as many newly-closed ones as during my last trip. Restaurant traffic seemed down, but highway traffic didn’t. Felt like almost half of the housing in the Parrish-Moccasion Wallow area is for sale - lots of 5- and 10-acre ranchettes.
For the first time ever, and I lived in Orlando before I-4 existed, almost all traffic on I-4 moved at 70-75 MPH - a good 5+ MPH lower than I can remember since the 55-limit days. Traffic on I-75 is another 5MPH faster than I-4, but again about the same amount slower than during previous times, so folks are realizing the difference it makes in gasoline usage.
wow, i noticed a mistake on my last post. Instead of FDA, it is supposed to be Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
Coulda’ sworn I posted about the Sarasota-to-Tampa area and the traffic havoc from the tanker fire that has closed southbound I-75. Anyway, tampabay dot com was kind enough to post this map of how to get around:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/breakingnews/files/diagram_map_of_i75_detour.pdf
I had to drive south almost to University this morning, to get out of the traffic jams and over to northbound I-75. Also read that customers for the big Ellenton Mall temporarily dried up - the presumption being that a lot of customers would have to drive south, either to get there or to get home.