It’s Back To Reality In California
The Glendale News Press reports fromCalifornia. “Beset by a distressed economy and a soaring number of city inspections, the FourOneSix mixed-use condominium project on Broadway Avenue has pushed back its opening to January and will wait until its debut to push ahead with unit sales, officials said. Sales have been slow at the FourOneSix project. This month, 21 condominiums were sold in Glendale, the same amount as September 2007 — though average square-foot values for those units have dropped 27% since last year, said Keith Sorem, a Realtor with Keller Williams.”
“‘The bottom line is, we’ve seen a decline in value,’ he said. ‘Buyers are obviously concerned about a decline in value . . . and don’t want to buy something for more than what it’s worth. Why would you put money down on a project you can’t see, can’t touch and can’t feel? Most people are aware of the overall decline in value. Buyers are skeptical.’”
The Mercury News. “Laura Meneses made the same fateful choice that thousands of local home buyers have made since 2004: She decided to spend most of her family’s income on housing. ‘We’re barely making it now,’ said Meneses, who estimates that 80 percent of her family’s income goes to housing costs. ‘It’s been very, very stressful.’”
“Taking on a huge mortgage made more sense when Silicon Valley real estate seemed only to climb in value. Meneses, a part-time cook at a San Jose senior center, and her husband Juan, a construction worker, never planned to get rich on the $465,000 house they bought in 2004. They just hoped it would help finance college for their three kids.”
“Even with a refinanced, fixed-rate mortgage, Meneses estimates she and her husband spend 80 cents of every dollar they earn on the mortgage payments, utilities and real estate taxes for their San Jose home. Her mother has moved in, partly to help pay the mortgage, and partly to save on her own rent. She shops at the dollar store and has served potato soup for meals.”
“‘It was my dream to buy a house,’ Meneses said this week, ‘and wow, the dream has kind of turned into a nightmare.’”
“Meneses said the $7,000 annual tax bill she and her husband owe to Santa Clara County is a big part of her family’s housing burden. She estimates that the family’s total housing costs are roughly $6,000 a month. Does she regret her decision to buy?”
“‘That’s hard to say. I don’t, because I wanted the stability of not moving my family around every few years. But we’re paying about $6,000 a month. I mean, sure we could have more money and go on vacation, but it’s hard to say. The stability of being in one place with your children and not having to move means a lot to me. I didn’t buy my house to make a huge profit. I bought it so if my children wanted to go to college, we’d be able to pull money out later on,’ she said.”
“Bernie Kellman says he can swing the two-story Richmond house where he raises 3-year-old Frances on an $80,000 salary working as a psychiatric social worker for Alameda County. But he got nowhere over countless calls pleading to rework a bum loan after it was sold and a new lender bumped his monthly payments by more than $700, to $2,700, citing a tax error.”
“‘I’ve never gotten past the first level of customer service,’ said Kellman, who faces a November foreclosure date and receives stacks of postcards from lawyers and shills with sketchy offers of salvation. ‘I can afford a home. I want someone to look at my loan. But I’m scrap metal.’”
“Kellman still hopes for a taste of good fortune. He now owes $470,000 on a home worth less than $300,000. Kellman kept paying the original amount, hoping to show good faith and get the lender’s attention. Before long, he was two months behind and getting electronic recordings when he picked up the phone. Last month, with notice of a foreclosure date, he finally stopped paying. Now he’s tracking rentals online, in case his home gets sold.”
“‘I’ve got a good job. I’d be a good person to loan money to. Someone could make a few pennies taking my $2,000 a month. This is not an investment. This is a home for me and my kid,’ he said. ‘At the end, I will have to say, get your … house. I’m letting the kid crayon the living room.’”
The Santa Cruz Sentinel. “I should probably have seen this coming … moved my average-guy retirement accounts to something safer, protected my family from any dependence on strange Wall Street accounting schemes. Come to think of it, should probably not have refinanced our home a few years ago, either.”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time, what with the insane cost of living for ‘average’ families these days, especially in a place like Santa Cruz County.”
“Here’s an e-mail I received this week from a local reader at the writer’s request, and for obvious reasons, I’m not printing his or her name. ‘Back in 2005 my husband and I refinanced our home of 35 years. It was the only money we could get hold of to pay off medical and other obligations. Our payments went up by over $2,500 per month. The loan amount went from 560k to 725k.’”
“‘Because of lost wages/income we started getting behind on the payments to WaMu about a year later. We called them to advise that we were having problems and asked for their assistance in getting over the hump. They would not accept partial payments as the monthly, so every partial we sent went to the principle — that didn’t help resolve the issue though.’”
“‘Our pleas were met with aggressive, non-cooperative responses. We clearly told them that we could make the payments from the earlier amount and if they would just work with us we would be able to catch up within about six months — no deal. We tried to get help from many including HUD … what a joke.’”
“‘In November of 2007 our home was foreclosed. We owed 725k. As we all know, the market declined and our family home was sold for less than 300k. Why would the bank be willing to take a loss from someone else and not from those who had worked so many years to keep this home? Not only did we suffer that loss but now we can’t even get a bank to talk to us about any amount of credit. A foreclosure is a huge bad mark on your credit rating.’”
“‘The foreclosure created a domino effect for us and we are about to lose our business because our personal credit has spilled over into that arena. We are also facing a possibility of being homeless. Now that so many are suffering financial chaos, funds for assistance to renters are also not readily available. We had never asked for any public assistance while raising our very large family and now that we need help it’s not available to us.’”
“‘Pardon me if my bitterness is showing when I hear all this talk about bailing the fat cats out of their messes. What about those of us who have worked hard all our lives and can’t catch a break.’”
The San Bernardino County Sun. “The Sun: Some people believe banks were using the bailout proposal as a scare tactic and that lenders could ultimately tap into other sources of credit and liquidity instead of borrowing from taxpayers. Is there any truth to that?”
“Jeff Burum, who is co-principal of Rancho Cucamonga-based home builder Diversified Pacific: ‘Anyone who floats that rumor should call up the former CEO of Washington Mutual or Merrill Lynch. These organizations no longer exist because of the (dried-up) financial markets. You can’t even get an acquisition and development loan in the Inland Empire today - it doesn’t exist.’”
“The Sun: The two-county region is suffering from its highest job loss ever, and thousands of former and current homeowners are struggling through debt and bankruptcy. How much worse can things get?”
“Burum: ‘You’re starting to see major home builders like D.R. Horton sell assets for 10 cents on the dollar. They’re dumping assets in California, Nevada and elsewhere. Those values haven’t even hit the marketplace yet. They’ll continue driving down values in the Inland Empire’s real-estate market.’”
The Desert Sun. “The stock market was unimpressed with the $700 billion bailout passed Friday in Congress, a Coachella Valley commentator on the economy said. ‘It’s almost like a negative catharsis,’ agreed Bob Marra, president and publisher of Wheeler’s Market Intelligence. ‘Now, it’s back to reality, and reality right now is not all that great.’”
“Christopher Thornberg, a principal with Beacon Economics, was one who viewed Wells Fargo’s move as a sign that Congress should have stepped back. ‘The rhetoric has been, ‘wow,’ the credit crisis is causing America to go to hell in a handbasket,’ Thornberg said. ‘But the truth is, the consumer is overloaded with debt. They’ve been spending way too much on the basis of falsely inflated values in homes and portfolios.’”
“‘This will not make it all go away,’ he said.”
The Press Democrat. “Peter Inglis of Petaluma dreamed of retiring in his 50s, following a 30-year career as a painting contractor. But the turbulence on Wall Street and a slowing economy has forced a change in his plans. ‘I’m not going to be retiring anytime soon,’ said Inglis, who turned 58 last week. ‘My nest egg is half of what it was two years ago.’”
“Baby boomers are rethinking retirement as they watch their investments dwindle. Plummeting home values, fading 401(k) accounts, shrinking interest on CDs and worries about their own jobs are driving the trend. Fears about the future of Social Security and defined-benefit pensions only add to anxiety for the over-50 set.”
“‘Even people who are five years away from retirement are nervous,’ said Rick Duarte, financial advisor in Rohnert Park.”
“‘It’s a scary time,’ Inglis said. ‘You go into a paint store, and it’s real quiet.’ The sour economy ‘has made everything more difficult,’ he said. ‘Now, I won’t be retiring at least until I qualify for Social Security.’”
“‘I’m going to be working forever,’ said Sarah Jaeschke, who recently left her job as a part-time math instructor at College of Marin in Kentfield.”
“‘I couldn’t afford to live in the Bay Area,’ said Jaeschke, 58, who moved from Petaluma to Kona on the island of Hawaii two weeks ago.”
The Manteca Bulletin. “The foreclosure whirlpool powered by overpriced properties not in tip-top shape to begin with when they were bought three years ago at the height of the inflated housing price bubble are now effectively acting as an albatross around the neck of the median selling price of previously owned homes in Manteca.”
“And until those homes clear the market, the median price in Manteca will continue taking a nosedive toward 2002 levels when the median selling price of an existing home was $237,892. The median price now sits at $246,343. Prices have been steadily plunging since the week of July 21 when the median had slipped to $262,766.”
“Three years ago not a single existing home that closed escrow in Manteca sold for under $320,000 in September. This September is a drastically different story. Of the 118 homes to close escrow in Manteca all (but) about 10 ended up changing hands for less than $320,000.”
“That $320,000 home three years ago had 896 square feet, two bedrooms, one bathroom, no garage and a lot barely bigger than the house. The highest priced house closing escrow so far this month for under $320,000 in Manteca - $310,000 - was for 3,200 square feet with three bedrooms and three bathrooms.”
“Consider a home on Trinity Avenue sandwiched between Manteca High and Spreckels Park. The home with just over 1,200 square feet that sold four years ago for over $240,000. It was vacant for months - probably close to a year. The bank put it up for auction but got no takers with a starting bid at $120,000. The three bedroom two bathroom home - that had remodeling done inside and outside before it was sold four years ago - closed escrow this month for $101,000.”
“The buyer is already in a position to rent it even on the low end of today’s market and still show a positive cash flow out of the gate. People have to live somewhere and there are a lot more renters today mainly because there are a lot of people who lost their homes to foreclosure who aren’t in a position to buy.”
“A spot check with real estate offices across Manteca shows well over 90 percent of their clientele are from the valley - 100 percent in some cases. Plus the vast majority are Manteca residents who are either current renters or else investors.”
“One glaring difference in the buyers between 2006 and today are that over 90 percent are local while two years ago it was the other way around.”
“That is a reality that Coldwell Banker Crossroads Real Estate agent Wendy Audet and Sue Teunissen, among others, said is a silver lining to the foreclosure mess. ‘We have Manteca residents buying who never could afford to buy a home before,’ Teunissen said.”
‘I’m going to be working forever…I couldn’t afford to live in the Bay Area’
‘Even with a refinanced, fixed-rate mortgage, Meneses estimates she and her husband spend 80 cents of every dollar they earn on the mortgage payments, utilities and real estate taxes for their San Jose home. Her mother has moved in, partly to help pay the mortgage, and partly to save on her own rent. She shops at the dollar store and has served potato soup for meals. ‘It was my dream to buy a house,’ Meneses said this week, ‘and wow, the dream has kind of turned into a nightmare.’
‘the truth is, the consumer is overloaded with debt. They’ve been spending way too much on the basis of falsely inflated values in homes and portfolios…This will not make it all go away’
‘The home with just over 1,200 square feet that sold four years ago for over $240,000…closed escrow this month for $101,000.’
One thing I’ve learned over the years is that there are relevant patterns and lessons that can be taken from one housing market and applied to another. IMO, because Manteca fell so far so fast, they are much further along toward getting the economy back on track. And sure enough, rents are much closer to being what payments would be.
And lo and behold, locals are actually buying the vast majority of the houses; imagine that!
No offense to Mantecans past or present, but what a perfectly crummy spot to be the epicenter for wanta-be landlards. A place where you roast in the summer, and get to smell up-close and personal, a variety of noxious odors all year-round.
One thing I hate most is wannabes.
Alad:
You said earlier that local food prices will go up drastically with dollar debasement because farmers will be able to get more money from foreigners than from locals. However, I see similar financial woes occuring world-wide. Hence, it seems that local food prices may continue to be predicated on local incomes. What do you think?
95% of the small farms in this country in 1950, are now under the thumb of corporatedom, and fee fie fo fum,
they’d rather sell for a bigger sum.
Food has been the one thing we generally produce too much of, and in an America suddenly grasping for exports, it would be the ideal thing to sell to whomever ends top dog (hard to say who it’s going to be, but not us) and will pay 3x what our local market bears, and the only extra expense incurred is 1-way f.o.b. charges to somewhere in the Far East where people are hungry.
If your Fee Fi Fo Fum Farm scenario comes to pass, of course, it’s a prime opportunity for low-overhead, high-quality small farms to experience a resurgence.
There’s plenty of farmland, and there are lots of small fry selling on a small scale even now, far beneath the radar of the ConAgra Deathstar. Their market has been higher margin exotic/organic foodstuffs, for the most part, but there’s no reason they can’t thrive and prosper if the big boys decide to hand over all their GM soy and corn to the Chinese.
I love the heritage produce that still grows in the Bay Area. Have you ever had a local apple? Local apricot? They are in a whole different category from those imported Washington apples and wherever-the-hell apricots. They are smaller and don’t look as nice, but they actually taste good.
The farming companies want us to pay more for water, so
they can export their food to China.
Are we subsidizing the Chinese?
I always find that there is usually a correlation between supermarket fruit looking “pretty” and tasting bland.
Strawberries seem to be bigger than ever, but they have absolutely no taste anymore.
I’ve noticed this too. Pretty hard to miss…
Ain’t this totally true! I’ve been enjoying some local heirloom tomatoes–all colors and shapes!–and they are dreamy. Nothing like the nearly tasteless supermarket regular roma and slicing and etc tomatoes.
I’ll happily pay more for stuff that actually TASTES like it’s real food.
Now I wish I had some of those heirloom apricots. Mm.
I quit eating store-bought (or restaraunt) tomatos years ago. I like ‘em outta the garden.
Regarding the exportation of food to China, the reverse really seems to be happening. I am recently back from New Zealand, and you can’t find peanut butter on the store shelf down there that is NOT from China. I kid you not. I went through every brand on the shelf one day and they were ALL from China. Another customer saw what I was doing and made a comment about sources of food. The current scandal about melamine in milk products from China is hitting almost everywhere in the world. Tbhe Chinese are turning into huge food exporters. Labour is cheap and they can pass on the savings. Look before you buy.
I have always hated tomoatoes - but i recently learned that i don’t hate them, i just hate the typical grocery things that are passed off on consumers as tomatoes. I was told the modern “tomato” was basically engineered to be firm enough to withstand rough shipping conditions, which explains the awful texture.
Heirloom tomatoes, however, are actually delicious.
I knew/Know so many people in the Bay Area who spend the vast majority of their income on a mortgage. Homes here seem to have always has this sort of unrealistic meaning. The feeling seems to be that if you buy, then golly- you’re so lucky to be able to stay in the Bay Area as if its some sort of exclusive club.
Homes are all that people in this area care about, base their lives, marriages, kids, and retirement around. It is an unhealthy relationship. It will be interesting to see the effects of our likely recession and how home prices- which even now are grossly overinflated- will react.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard saying they’re ditching their stocks and investments and going to buy a house. Bubble mentality must die a slow death here.
“and has served potato soup for meals.”
Now they tell me!
I was raised on potato soup, my mom made that with grilled cheese sandwiches and we thought it was just great. Maybe it’s the Irish in me, but I still love potato anything.
And now I find out what a hardship I’ve endured. I guess those of us not living high on the hog won’t notice the difference as much. Hope not, anyway.
Add some leeks and call it vichyssoise.
I might if I could pronounce it, but I’m a vegetarian anyway.
Leeks are not animals, are they?
LOL!! Lost is lost I guess
Potato leek soup is awesome. I’ve never heard that name though - must be some fancy schmancy Big V thing.
Nah, its a fancy schmancy French name for cold potato and leek soup.
You know those French - cheese sandwich? Croc Messieur
BTW - here’s a recipe for it. Takes about a long to make as it does to boil yer spuds.
http://www.soupsong.com/rpotato5.html
..mmm might have to get my blender out tonight, I feel soup coming on..
Thick & Chunky Potato-Leek Soup.
Maybe it’s the Irish in me, but I still love potato anything.
Me too.
People rarely guess it to look at me, but my ancestry is 100% Potato Eaters.
No kidding, if potato soup is now considered a hardship then I think its safe to say that this society has reached the penultimate mark of softness.
You are of course aware that ‘penultimate’ means the last but one. What is the ultimate mark of softness?
I’ve been raked over the coals on occasion on this very blog because I do low class things…like purchase cheap cleaners, toothbrushes, etc., at places like Aldi.
Potato soup? D@mn straight.
Incidentally….why millions of people in the South don’t grow broccoli in their backyards during the winter months is beyond me. Broccoli loves 40-60 degree weather, winter sunshine and is easy to grow from November-February because most pests are dead as a result of freezing weather. Repeated nighttime temperatures of 20-25 degrees are no problem.
Broccoli harvested fresh tastes a great deal better than what one can buy in the groceries as well.
“Now they tell me!”
I know… I didn’t get the memo either. Is going hungry really that preferable to potato soup?
I can see how it would be a hard ship if the family had to survive by eating bone soup or stone soup or even boiling down an old penny loafer. But potato soup? no way , we love potatoes.
See, that’s just wrong . . . after reading all of these comments - I’m going to have to Google potato soup . . It sounds really good!
Cripes sake, potato-leek soup is a delicacy in my household!! I’m afraid we have a loooooooong period of austerity in front of us all.
I think potatoes have gotten kind of expensive. I think last I looked russet (not prebagged) was something like .89 cents a pound. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems when I was a kid potatoes and onions were really cheap. I don’t think either are that cheap anymore.
I do love potatoes myself. 100% german heritage here. I’m baking one right now with a pot roast, but one of my favorites is baked fries –dipped in ketchup.
Related commentary from Sacramento (for those who don’t read the local blogs).
Sacramento has fallen very hard and very fast as well. Our median is down 40+ percent (45%? I lose track nowadays). Sales are still moving along though many of us speculate that there is a massive shadow inventory waiting to be unloaded on the local market as there are many supporting anecdotes about people visiting homes for sale that are not listed on the MLS, and brokers having long listings of homes not on the MLS.
Anyways, the overwhelming theme in the greater Sacramento region is that lower priced homes (under 250k) are moving fairly fast and receiving numerous offers, though by some measures as many as HALF of them are going to investors (speculators). The investment activity in our area is absolutely astouding.
Amazing how many people are actually willing to jump onto a train as it’s wrecking.
Meh. It’s not completely irrational now. If you shop around and are quick on the trigger when you find a value you can get something that cash flows now. I think rents will fall with a recession, so it’s not a real good idea, but they could be right.
Did you hear the news that Coldwell Banker is launching a national, reduce-your-asking-price-by-10% campaign? Priceless.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/coldwell-bankerr-launches-national-10-day/story.aspx?guid=%7B0481B2FE-7457-41B4-BCF1-CBA888F7055C%7D&dist=hppr
That’s really interesting. I’m very curious to see what the outcome of this “sale” is going to be. I’d be surprised if it made a huge difference. I’m going to guess that most sellers willing to lower the price up to 10% for this sale have their homes priced well above appraisal anyway. I’d also assume that anyone serious about buying a house –but was put off by asking price– would offer a much lower price.
Related commentary from Sacramento (for those who don’t read the local blogs).
Sacramento has fallen very hard and very fast as well. Our median is down 40+ percent (45%? I lose track nowadays). Sales are still moving along though many of us speculate that there is a massive shadow inventory waiting to be unloaded on the local market as there are many supporting anecdotes about people visiting homes for sale that are not listed on the MLS, and brokers having long listings of homes not on the MLS.
Anyways, the overwhelming theme in the greater Sacramento region is that lower priced homes (under 250k) are moving fairly fast and receiving numerous offers, though by some measures as many as HALF of them are going to investors (speculators). The investment activity in our area is absolutely astouding.
What does this mean for an actual recovery when so many of the homes are being sold to people who do not intend to live in them?
patient renter,
Sad to hear. Right now banks are so up to their eyeballs in inventory they’re really not in a position to turn away ANY kind of an offer. And this is exactly what many of us have feared.
The Buh-hoom ( Part II )
A second wave of speculation after a failed first wave always does the trick, don’t you think? Now… I hate to harp on it but how much you wanna’ bet the latest class of Casey Serin seminar grads are looking to (wink-wink) exploit the same loopholes in the tax code? Personally I think they’ll lose interest LONG before they have a shot to “cash in” but when the hysteria lives, it’s only too clear change needs to take place.
I’d just like to say that my family still makes and eats homade potato soup. Its fantastic.
What the hell is with the disparging remarks about potato soup? Is pasta a no go, as well?
“‘Back in 2005 my husband and I refinanced our home of 35 years. It was the only money we could get hold of to pay off medical and other obligations. Our payments went up by over $2,500 per month. The loan amount went from 560k to 725k.’”
Home of 35 years (since 1973) and you still owe $560K on it? That doesn’t ring true.
It rings true in today’s debt society.
They need to discuss their:
1. Trips
2. Cars (I bet they had more sheet metal on the driveway than a year’s salary.)
3. Boats or other expensive toys (e.g., Harley)
4. ‘Collectables’ In this I include expensive alchohol.
5. Gifts (I know too many people who did the MEW dance to impress others with gifts to relatives or charity.)
I have a coworker who owes $450k on two homes bought by for $150k (combined!). I’m not thinking he’s flying business class across the pacific again this year. His DTI has to be around 60%… But he has eight of the nicest cars (Mercedes S-class, Jaguar, BMW (5 series), Suburban, Infiniti G35 (new this quarter), a full size truck, and two ‘collectables’ I’ve never seen.)
Got Popcorn?
Neil
Not coming from a drinking family, I never realized that having a cupboard full of expensive alcohol was a status symbol until my bro was telling me about some guy who just got a settlement (10k) from SSD, along with a free ride (all expenses forever), and went and stocked up his shelves with expensive drink, as his family always made that out to be a big deal.
Sad thing is, he’s diabetic and about to lose both feet. He’s drinking his status symbol.
Oi vey.
Yeah - it seems sad that diabetes is not the wake up call it should be for most people. My personal experience is that maybe only half the people actually react as they should to it’s seriousness. Like it’s like the housing bubble - they want to believe their health (wealth) can go on forever without any lifestyle changes.
“Sad thing is, he’s diabetic and about to lose both feet.”
Diabetes is ravaging America’s medical budgets.
Curious - they didn’t say this was their “first” re-fi - I detect several years of “housing atm” activity.
But hey, I could be wrong . . .
“Why would the bank be willing to take a loss from someone else and not from those who had worked so many years to keep this home?” — said the guy who owed WaMu $725K.
az_lender’s answer: You screwed the bank. If you got away with screwing the bank, everyone would get away with screwing the bank. Actually you DID get away with screwing the bank, but they’re not going to reward you for it by giving you the house too. It’s not as if a simple workout would’ve solved the problem, considering that you were underwater by four hundred thousand dollars. You woulda walked away eventually.
If it was JUST medical, they could have KEPT their house and qualified for Medicaid. I’m sure they’re not telling you about all the CRAP they bought.
Crayola me a river…
“This is a home for me and my kid,’ he said. ‘At the end, I will have to say, get your … house. I’m letting the kid crayon the living room.’”
“…never planned to get rich on the $465,000 house they bought in 2004. They just hoped it would help finance college for their three kids.”
So, what’s my take away from this quote and laddie’s quote above? Greed is not greed if there’s kids involved?
edgewaterjohn,
Don’t get me started! Yeah, we never planned on getting ‘rich’ ( we just thought we’d never have to pay a penny out of pocket for our ‘own’ children’s education and went by the assumption ’someone else’ would down the road? )
I mean that’s HOW it’s supposed… to work, right? Nope, no unrealistic expectations there!
Agree; this is the quintessential attitude which fueled the entire housing bubble. This quote might as well have been “I thought I would get rich quick in the housing market.”
Those lessons you teach your kids may come back to haunt you someday.
I felt sad for that little girl.
I imagine her going to family, friends, school (whatever) and coloring on their walls.
This father is a moron.
Leigh
But apparently this moron is a well educated psychiatrist..
“Bernie Kellman says he can swing the two-story Richmond house where he raises 3-year-old Frances on an $80,000 salary working as a psychiatric social worker”
…….NICE!! Dr Bernie is teaching the despondent that if you don’t get your way, well just as a 3 year old would do - crayola the walls of your world. Well done Dr Bernie!!
Morons come in all shapes, sizes and flavors.
Leigh
he’s not a psychiatrist (AKA Medical doctor). He’s a social worker. A psychiatrist usually make about $200K/year. I don’t know of any psych who make less than $150K/year
“What color is your anchor?”
(Remember the old “What color is your parachute?” books popular in the 80’s? Picture the Wile E. Coyote version where the parachute gets replaced by an anchor.)
Reading this very rich article yesterday in my local rag, I think I remember the piece also saying that dude is an ex-bicycle messenger…
hey, watch it!! nothing wrong with being an ex-bike messenger, I am too and it was a blast way back when….and FWIW sold my place early last year thanks to what I learned here
The Last of the Mantecans
“A spot check with real estate offices across Manteca shows well over 90 percent of their clientele are from the valley - 100 percent in some cases. Plus the vast majority are Manteca residents who are either current renters or else investors.”
“The Last of the Mantecans”
LMAO! Now that’s just a riot.
HAHAHAHAHAHA. LOL! Nice!
[Sound of uncontrollable giggling]
Nice one ‘Lad!!!!
When you’re a construction worker and a part-time cook, then “financing college for their three kids” is tantamount to “getting rich”. Why can’t the kids go to the local community college for two years while living at home and working part time, then get student loans and continue to work part time when they transfer? It’s not ideal, but it’s just reality. If your parents are poor, then it’s going to be harder for you to succeed, so you might as well suck it up. Relying on some crazy gambling investment to change that for you is probably not the best plan.
Big V,
So right, other than hitting the lottery, that’s about as good as it gets for folks in that position. Both of my daughters did their first 2 years at CC and are doing just fine thanks!
As usual, we’re left to explain how someone that age had remained a renter all those years and then suddenly in 2004 sees home ownership as their Golden Ticket?
But the idea of a “free education” won’t die that easily. When I worked in Portland there were like 18,000 client accounts. Many with kids ( before there were 529 College Plans ) had the old UGMA/UTMA accounts and they-were-a-disaster! I mean it just looked like legalized gambling to us? The… most… long… shot stock picks imaginable! ( Hey, if this thing hits the way the rumor mill has it..? My kid goes to college for FREE!! ) Mind you this in stingy Portland!
I guess to many parents, it just looks so insurmountable it’s easier to think of it like it WAS the lottery?
I “went to college for free.” It’s called scholarships. Which I worked my backside off for in high school, FWIW. As my parents suggested I should.
Still paying off student loans, since living expenses weren’t included.
It’s situations like this that are everything that is wrong with the housing bubble, and everything that is wrong with the bailing out of such home “owners”.
Heck my Dad was an engineering manager at GE for 35 years and we still had to get loans and jobs to get through college. It amazes me these days how it’s standard for it to be assumed that parents will pay their kids’ way through college. Especially for a part-time cook. Sorry kids - suck it up and work and get loans like most of the rest of us did.
So, I watched the “trailer park boys” … or at least part of the movie before I turned it off. So, the boys are in prison and a lot of the cons are trying to figure out the “big dirty”.
The one big score that gets them enough money, that they don’t need to work and stay out of jail.
Sounds like the same mindset from half the country with get rich schemes. Like a bunch of cons from the trailer park.
Wow.
It didn’t really occur to me when I read that part, but it would be interesting information to know what they were hoping for college-wise. Were they expecting their kids to go to Stanford?
Both me and my husband went to CCs and graduated from a University of California. My degree probably cost half what someone spends by going to a UC for a full 4 years. The CC also gave me a chance to try out a lot of different classes. Class sizes were generally smaller and some even more interesting than at the UC. My kids will be going to a CC. I don’t understand people that just send their irresponsible 18 year olds straight off to a 4 year.
“‘Pardon me if my bitterness is showing when I hear all this talk about bailing the fat cats out of their messes. What about those of us who have worked hard all our lives and can’t catch a break.’”
Oh, I completely agree on some points here. Paulson and his pals should be bent over and rode hard out behind a rusty dumpster in a grimy alley, instead getting billions of tax-bucks. On the other hand, I am personally a big believer in working smarter, not harder. I don’t like to work hard for little reward: witness my industrious morning, where I pawed idly at papers on my desk, gossiped a bit, admired my shoes, admired someone elses shoes, ate a packet of Twizzlers, and eventually wrote up some comment letters. ‘Smarter, NOT harder’, is my motto.
This sad story claims that these victims refinanced their home of 35 years for medical and ‘other obligations’… yada yada. I wonder what ‘other obligations’? Cars, bo0b jobs, what ‘other obligations’? I wanna see a list.*
You see, that’s why I lavishly anoint my little evolved monkey brain with Schnapps and licorice, so that it will keep alert and warn me when I want to do something stupendously stupid, such as take on onerous ‘other obligations’ and/or refinance my home of 35 years at ruinous rates.
Thank you, little monkey brain, thank you.
*Actually, I don’t. I don’t want to know what these stupid people spent all their money on.
This one is a little weird. I think he could actually swing that payment, and it also seems odd that he hasn’t launched any legal defense over the “tax error”. If he had an agreement to pay a certain amount, then it seems the agreement would hold. I think he’s really just walking away because of the depreciation.
In Texas sometimes new developments are taxed at the unimproved land rate until enough houses are built for the the tax assessors to arrive at an valuation. I’m sure the sales office only shows buyers the current tax.
How did it get up to $560k to begin with? If the house is worth $300k today, then surely it was purchased for far less than that 35 years ago.
You mean the bank wasn’t very nice to you after you borrowed many multiples of your house’s original value and then told them you couldn’t afford to pay it back? NO!
Because you haven’t been working to keep this home. You have been treating it as a revolving line of credit, and now you are not paying the money back.
Oh, you had a lot of kids? Well, in that case, where’s my check book? Lord knows that your family is more entitled to my money than my own family is. And please, don’t put out your kids by asking for their help. Those precious darlings shouldn’t be expected to chip in, not one bit.
I can’t catch a break either. Sucks, doesn’t it?
Your comments were great. This mess is like a wormhole. On one side is wall street, and feeding it are these debtors. They’re equally as evil.
However, I think the debtors are even more screwed up morally! I’m sure the folks on Wall Street knew what they were doing, and that it was wrong. The Homedebtors see themselves as victims and think that they have acted morally. Which is worse?
“‘It was my dream to buy a house,’ Meneses said this week, ‘and wow, the dream has kind of turned into a nightmare.’”
Does she regret her decision to buy?”
“‘That’s hard to say. I don’t, because I wanted the stability of not moving my family around every few years.
Let’s see, the house has turned into a nightmare, but Mssr Meneses isn’t sure if he regrets his decision to buy.
I’m sorry, I cannot help this man.
The Bay Area is a place all on its own. You’d be surprised how many people have done this over the last twenty years. We refused to, and left.
“Baby boomers are rethinking retirement”… “shrinking interest on CD’s”
Wait just a DAMN minute here! When it was their parents being thrown under the bus in a Yield Starved world… they couldn’t have cared less?
Re-fi… take cash out… AND get a lower rate and a lower payment!? Sign me UP!
( Now that it’s ‘their’ boo-boo in the wringer it’s a problem? )
By George, I finally gooogled Manteca to see what’s all the fuss.
I think you guys are being waaay to harsh. It’s less than an hour to Yosemite. Now there’s a nice place for you.
And Bass Lake too!
No, it is not a nice place.
It is a dump full of agricultural workers.
Houses at $200K median are still too expensive for those that live there.
Newark is just an hour away from NYC…
It is one of the many armpits of California. Seriously. Smelly, stanky, sweaty Armpit.
It smells like pesticide, and is ugly as the dickens. We used to have real farmland (like in Newark, for instance, where I now live), but all that got housed over, so now our food has to grow up in the harsh outlands of Manteca and Los Banos. It’s not natural.
Heck they’ve been growing ag crops in Manteca & Los Banos for decades. It’s been at least 30 years (maybe 40) since they grew crops in Newark, though Milpitas still had row crops until around 1980 when they built the “Great Mall” and housing on the Mc Carthy ranch.
Seriously though, drive through Manteca in Dec. & Jan (granted you might have trouble FINDING it in the tule fog) or in July & August. Do this in the morning, coming over the Altamont pass around 7AM to Pleasanton. Then you’ll know why it should be A LOT cheaper to live there than in the Bay Area.
People who want to be close to Yosemite live in Sonora or Mariposa or Coulterville or the like, not Manteca.
No kidding. It may look like an hour away on the map but it feels a lifetime away. Manteca is like the Central Valley’s Rust Belt.
It’s more than an hour. More like over two hours. The east-west roads aren’t very good.
“Meneses, a part-time cook at a San Jose senior center, and her husband Juan, a construction worker, never planned to get rich on the $465,000 house they bought in 2004. They just hoped it would help finance college for their three kids.”
And how much does college education for three kids cost? I’m just so relieved to read they didn’t intend to “get rich” off their house on top of expecting it to pay for three college degrees!
That’s the reason a relative kept her house in Cali……said (in 2006) that it was going to be worth a million bucks in 6-7 years when her kid is ready for college.
Goodbye Harvard/MIT/Stanford………hello, Barber College.
Community College in Cali has always been dirt cheap. You do the first two years at the CC, then transfer to some Cal State college (also pretty cheap). No need to get tens of thousands of dollars into debt. Of course, you will need decent HS grades and SAT to get into State, or good CC grades to transfer. That might be the rub for some people.
Our local community college said over 90% of incoming students need remedial math, english, or science or all. Only a little over 50% pass the remedial classes. It takes very little in grades to go to a Cali CC. On the other hand, a few years back my oldest decided to go back to college and did 2 years locally then transferred to UCLA where she graduated with that lovely UCLA diploma at half the cost.
These people will be lucky if they even qualify to Rent until they Die.
Perhaps they should now save and invest in 3 phony Harvard/Yale college degrees from an online diplomia mill for their fortunate spawn
Just Sad News:
Wow, where do I start:
A guy I worked with over 10 years ago, and he has a good job, just call me looking for $300,000 cash to save his house. He is going into foreclosure and will be out of the house in two months if he does not come up with this amount. Typical story: Bought house 10 years ago, redo of house, kitchen, landscape etc. No equity. Bad credit. Three kids and he added a separation from his wife is in the works.
Machinist I know said work is very slow. He said he is really slowing down fast.
A friend at a Laser Marking company said they are going on a one day on one day off rotation shift to keep from termination any employees.
On lunch break, I went to Harbor Freight (Cheap China tool knock off type store) for their parking lot sale. Word is they are terminating warehouse people.
A guy who does dental work for dentist (Crowns, caps etc.) said it has not been this slow for him since 1992.
Know quite a few people in the construction trade who are sitting around. One guy had a “bad reaction to some medicine” and is the hospital. I know he had a big work crew and just finished up on all jobs and had no new work lined up. Another construction owner just terminated some workers.
It is hard to keep you chin up, when everyone around you is crashing. Many people know I have some cash stashed and are starting to call me or “just checking up on you” calls. These people know I did not drink the cool-aide and have some $ saved. Well another lession I am learning: Being successful is knowing when to say NO.
Someone said to me: People are looking at you like you just won the lottery! You better plan like you just won the lottery with friends and family!
Tell them that you lost it all on the stock market. DO NOT pay for your friend’s new kitchen and landscaping. He needs to patch it up with the wife and move in to a rental.
Agree, Big V.
Sorry to hear about your friends, simi. We’re hearing the same, but I’m a bit upset because these are the same people who thought I was a nut when trying to warn them. **Now** they want my advice…
Simi, keep a low profile, it’s hard to say no sometimes.
Here’s another story: a friend of a friend just divorced her husband, they have two boys and she got custody (he’s was violent) and he pays child support. He makes tons of money installing home theaters for the wealthy. His company wants him to move from W. Colo. to Pheonix, but he can’t sell his POS house. If he doesn’t move soon, he’s worried about getting fired. He can’t lower the price (Heloc’d) and he’s recently remarried a high-octane gal.
First of all, Pheonix? Say what? The Land of the Sinking Bird? Second, I told her to be ready to live w/o the child support, which she fortunately can.
Oh, and I got reamed out royally for even suggesting that things were crashing, told I was a pessimist. Sigh. With friends like that, who needs family?
I agree with Lost - low profile is better than saying no. I have a printout of a post from here about not talking face to face about bubblicious topics unless you find like minded people or those open to the idea.
Wow, ain’t that the truth? I got in a helluva argument today with some folks when I expressed how I wasn’t terribly sympathetic about some of the people who were being laid off from their jobs. It’s hard to be sympathetic towards people who had scammy type jobs, or who earned their pay making difficult situations for others. I was called all sorts of names, and that was just the beginning of the whole mess. These are times where people are on the edge and it doesn’t take much to set them off, especially if they drank the kool-aid.
See, some of these folks may have made fun of us for warning about a “bubble” before. Then, they laughed. Now, they’re cussing some of us “for being negative” and the downturn is naturally the fault of negative (new word for intelligently cautious) people, not the stupid and greedy, of course.
A sort of wide-eyed, gee-shucks what a shame, bland, detached positivity is the best way to deal with such folks.
For one’s own safety, I might add.
sigh. I’m not concerned about starving during a depression. I’m more concerned about getting kilt for being a smart-ass.
“It’s hard to be sympathetic towards people who had scammy type jobs, or who earned their pay making difficult situations for others. ”
We can only wish that 100,000 lawyers will be laid off each month for the next 12 months. Unfortunately, that brand of fraudster will continue to gut the assets of others to line their pockets.
And so it goes.
Screen all your phone calls and emails. It’s easy to do - legit business callers will leave a voice message and you can always quickly sort and review email in your spam folder if need be. I’ve been doing this for a decade - since you’re the one who pays for your services you should be be one to decide who gets your attention.
My strategy:
“Oh, we haven’t bought a home yet. They’re so expensive, so we have to really watch our spending so that we can buy.”
NEVER tell anyone how much you saved. Avoid the word ’savings’ like the plague. Why do people feel like a saver’s money should be there money? Ugh…
A friend at a Laser Marking company said they are going on a one day on one day off rotation shift to keep from termination any employees.
Read a book on previous recessions or the GD, its a typical pattern before mass layoffs. The longer a company holds out… the worse the final layoff ends up having to be (due to the ‘rainy day fund’ being exhausted).
Sadly, that works for only about six months. Companies only do this when there is a hope of a large recovery. Expect layoffs next year.
Everyone is getting ready to ‘right size.’ Even my employeer. ugh…
Got Popcorn?
Neil
My CEO just sent me an e-mail telling me not to worry, we are well insulated. Maybe it’s just the eternal pessimist in me, but I think that’s the first sign of trouble brewing. Oh, bother.
Beter get your resume ready and circulated out and about, Big V. Start cutting unncessary expenditures. Very bad sign.
My husband’s company had some VP come by to assure that they were well-positioned and were in fact continuing to follow the plan to add positions (and hubby is one of the managers doing interviewing and seeking to fill positions).
He told me that feeling confident. I heard it and thought, “Okay, is that good or bad. Cause I worry when execs start saying it’s okay.”
I have no idea what to make of it, frankly.
Mir
“The longer a company holds out… the worse the final layoff ends up having to be…”
This point needs to be stressed. Since it’s been decades since there’s been a real recession - how many of today’s newer business owners have even contemplated a prolonged downturn?
The news here in the Tampa Bay area was full of restaurant and small business closings. At one aluminum extrusion plant, people aren’t sure if they’ll get their final paycheck, let alone insurance and vacation benefits. People showed up for work, and the place was padlocked. It later opened for a little while so people could go in and collect their things.
“You can’t even get an acquisition and development loan in the Inland Empire today - it doesn’t exist.’”
And that’s bad because?
“They’ve been spending way too much on the basis of falsely inflated values in homes and portfolios.’”
Are people still using margin to buy stocks?
Are these getting margin calls that are cleaning out the market?
Cramer told his peeps to have savings for five years.
This is a repeat of the dotcom bust but now it’s half of the population.
I wonder if they will raise the losses we can write off……dreaming.
“……$80,000 salary working as a psychiatric social worker……”
Man, am I in the wrong business. The next bubble?
I’ve had to deal with hundreds of pilots over the years, along with supervising direct reports (I thought Jerry Springer was Bulls##t…….after supervising people for ten years, you realize that Springer is just the tip of the iceburg.)
Do I qualify as a “psychatric social worker”?
join ACORN
everyone’s a victim
I would’ve bet an entire paycheck that that one wouldn’t get past you.
“…after supervising people for ten years, you realize that Springer is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Standing ovation for that one!
“Standing ovation for that one!”
+1 Our local pharmacist said, “Half the town is high on prescription dope!”
A Psychiatric Social Worker is basically the same as Licensed Clinical Social Worker. You need a Masters in Social Work and 2 years of practicum. You also need to pass 2 state exams on a computer. I wonder if that practicular person works in the prison system.
Around here people like this perform miracles such as convincing long term homeless to get jobs, apartments, lives, and stop bothering everyone else. Part of the reason you don’t care is because you are from one of the places that throws away humans rather than one of the places where thrown away humans tend to accumulate. Man, the trashy “I’m better than these people” attitude on this blog is too much. Humility is also a positive quality.
Here’s a local journalists who relies on Vancouver’s “Condo King” to tell him if it’s a good time to buy in our neck of the woods… Can’t believe he didn’t mention your blog…
——————————————————
I bought a house at exactly the wrong time
Miro Cernetig, Vancouver Sun
Published: Monday, October 06, 2008
Not long ago, I was addicted to real-estate blogs. More precisely, I was fixated on what you might call the Internet’s real estate disaster genre: HousingPanic.com, HousingDoom, FlippersInTrouble and, my favourite, ICan’tSellMyHouse.
I didn’t own property, you see. I yearned to buy. Yet I thought the West Coast prices way too high. So I loved the gloomy advice of my bloggers, most of whom were located in the United States.
Long before news of the sub-prime meltdown hit the mainstream media, they were warning the U.S. financial system was about to go kaboom. Just wait, they said, for those $1 trillion in junk mortgages to come up for renewal right about, well — now.
For almost two years I stuck with the doomsayers. I was a believer. My blogger friends, some of them clearly experts with insider information about the industry, had awfully convincing numbers. When the U.S. market melted down, the world markets would follow, they predicted.
So I held off buying my piece of Lotusland.
Then I moved to Vancouver, to begin writing columns.
I quickly discovered that all the while I had been listening to my gloomy real estate disaster bloggers the price-tag of an average Vancouver home had moved up by something like 20 or 30 per cent. I’d missed the boom. So I reassessed and did this calculation.
On a scale between one and 10, I asked myself, what was the chance of the Vancouver housing market going up 10 or more per cent in 2008? I thought less than two. (Turned out I was right about that.)
Then I asked, what are the chances of an average house price going up between zero and 10 per cent? Maybe six out of 10, I guessed.
And the chances of Vancouver prices actually dropping? Maybe two out of 10, I surmised. (Most of my friends, who at dinner parties often talked about how their soaring real estate was ensuring their retirement, thought I was slightly crazy to even think such a thing.)
As you might have guessed, my resolve had finally weakened. So, in the spring of 2007, I bought a piece of paradise. The odds seemed on my side, I decided. At first the prices seemed to keep soaring.
Soon I was telling people at dinner parties how much my house had gone up, too.
Now I’m back to where I started.
The real-estate-disaster bloggers actually were prescient. Wall Street is melting down because of the junk mortgages. Bay Street is in a tailspin. Now my almost daily question is what’s going to happen here?
Why did the Bank of Canada suddenly feel the need to pump $20 billion into Canada’s financial system in the last few weeks? Can we really avoid a massive downturn here? Have I made a ruinous decision?
As usual when I’m confused about the economy, I called Jock Finlayson. He’s the big thinker over at the B.C. Business Council and probably the best economic forecaster in the West. He’s never political or an alarmist. It’s always just the facts.
And the facts really don’t sound very good.
“I wouldn’t feel bad about buying,” said Jock, listening to me fret. “Nobody saw this coming. We’re in a hurricane, but in a hurricane you don’t know how bad it is until it’s over. And it’s not over.”
At the moment, Jock said he himself is in the middle of re-evaluating the growth predictions for the B.C. economy, which the provincial government expected to grow by 2.3 per cent in 2009. Bet on our 2009 GDP growth sliding sharply downward.
Jock then added: “I wouldn’t be surprised to see prices (of Vancouver houses) fall 10 or 20 per cent.”
Worried, I then called Vancouver’s Condo King, Bob Rennie, to see what he thinks. A man with his pulse on the real estate market, he was comforting.
While the local economy is surely going to be impacted by the financial crisis in the United States, he says people who buy downtown and within the city of Vancouver are likely in good shape.
There just isn’t enough supply for the people who want the stuff in the centre of the city.
Rennie also believes the fundamental reality is there’s no oversupply of housing and condos in the city of Vancouver, as there is in many U.S. cities now seeing the market tank. He also sees a strong demand for Vancouver’s high-end real estate by rich people from afar.
“I wouldn’t sell right now,” Rennie said. “In fact, I just bought a few more units myself.”
Maybe he’s right. I sure hope so.
All I know is that I haven’t the foggiest idea what’s going to happen to the value of my house. And now I’ve also got something other than real estate to obsess over. My banker is mailing me my RRSP statements.
I’m afraid to look.
mcernetig@vancouversun.com
They have models for predicting how bad a hurricane is gonna be. And where it’s gonna go. And when it’s gonna get there. Then they warn people about it, and evacuate if necessary. Come to think of it, the guy was right. Today’s problems were no more predictable than a modern hurricane.
Dude.
I guess it is different in Vancouver. *snicker*
Problem is here that your calculations have nothing to do with fundamentals, either financial or spiritual.
If you are happy with your slice of paradise, can afford it, and will be living there for the next decade why are you worried about what your house is worth right now or 2 years from now? 10 years is a long time - you may even lose money a decade from now, but so what? You can’t take it with you.
On the other hand, If you bought because you wanted it but could only rationalize it by using some random probability that housing prices couldn’t go down much, you’re in deep trouble. Canada has a much more traditional lending system but still offered many bubblicious lending products. Check out price/rent/wage/vacancy ratios to really understand what’s going on in your market rather than hoping out of towners will save you or relying on random “expert” advice.
Either way, you’ve already worried too much about your housing purchase. If you need the money and would sleep better at night with it in the bank, suck up any loss and get rid of it. If you don’t need the money, turn off the financial cable networks and live your life in the house that you wanted.
Wow. Time for me to go to bed.
Crap. Ignore random rant - I didn’t notice it was a repost until *waaay* to late.
*Sigh*
Test
What do you guys think about this $20B high-speed rail proposal? Irresponsible waste of money we don’t have, or a good public works project to bolster employment and bring us out of the doldrums?
Electrifying the existing railroads and moving our freight traffic onto them is a fantastic use of resources that would cut our oil use in half.
High-speed rail is a boondoogle and an attempt to avoid facing the reality of what’s coming. It’s been said that mobility was the defining characteristic of america in the last century. The defining characteristic of america in the next century will be staying where you are and learing to make the most of it.
Considering that we have a really big country, and that someday air travel will no longer be cost effective for the masses, we might as well get in gear with this. Amtrak coverage in the western US is pathetic.
I think it makes sense over the long haul. I’d like to connect Portland and Seattle to it at some point.
If you’d really like to see $20B wasted - follow the advice of the highway/construction lobby. They’ll be happy to suggest adding another couple lanes to your area’s roads.
Everyone knows how that turns out.
I’m in favor of bringing back the Zeppelin.
You can work out the math for cost efficiency. I already ahve.
The PPT is apparently in favor of bringing back the Hindenberg. Balloon up high in the sky go boom!
Who knows these days. Even $20 bil seems trivial in the context of having just pissed away $850 bil.
The rail has been on and off the table for a million years. It will NEVER happen. Never.
Eventually plug in electric cars using lithium or capacitors with range extenders will cut the use of oil. The development can’t be stopped this time. Hell, you can buy the parts online and do it yourself.
Look for oil to drop back to 30 and coal/Nat Gas to be much more expensive within 10 years. Solar will be more common in the sunbelt to offset the ever increasing electric bills as the grid is strained to recharge cars.
Airlines will go back to being the money making machines they were and the rail would go the way of the redline in So Cal.
Way better than the 700B bailout. We’d also need electrical power plants to make the electricity.
I’m all for better mass transit and getting us off oil. Every dollar of oil we cut mean another dollar in the domestic economy and probably more than that as it pushes prices down.
Back to Reality in California, eh? Maybe not so much in our zip code…
7972 PURPLE SAGE, SD - Rancho Bernardo, CA 92127** Foreclosure
Beds: 6
Type: SFR
Sq. Ft.: 4,453
Lot Size: 11,761
MLS #: 080065232
Baths: 6/1
Built: 2004
$/Sq.Ft.: $292
List Date: 09/20/08
On Market: 16 days
Description
Wow, check out this bank-owned foreclosure in one of san diego’s best residential communities! This quality, davidson-built home is spacious and luxurious, and is situated on a cul de sac lot with large yard complete with fire-pit & plumbed for spa! You’l l enjoy the casita, perfect for teen or guests, 4-car garage, expansive travertine flooring, lavish granite and stainless kitchen and dual fireplaces! A rare opportunity for the prudent buyer!
The prudent buyer who is willing to let their teenager live in the casita? Prudent, indeed.
Forgot this information:
List Price: $1,299,000
Estimated Monthly Payment: $8,642
ZipRealty will give you up to $7,794 cash back.*
P.S. This foreclosure home is priced right at the current median SFR list price for homes in our zip code. By contrast, according to DataQuick, the August median SFR sale price was $700,000 — $599,000 (46 pct) to the south of the current median list price.
Prof, that was today, give it a few more days. With the stock market like it is, things may change pretty quickly.
I’ll take four!!
I’ll toss in a bit more.
NOD filed in Feb.
Purchase price of $1,059,896 on 7/30/04
(Tried for a short sale at $1,195,000)
They think they deserve nearly $240,000 in appreciation?
Best of luck to the bank stuck with that place!
I love all these money pits equipped with the latest RE sale gimmickry, the trendy, exclusive family fire-pits. (6 cinderblocks, 2 logs and a frigging grate)
It’s only fitting as these Fools should pay more…to get Burned…TWICE
~~is or her name. ‘Back in 2005 my husband and I refinanced our home of 35 years. It was the only money we could get hold of to pay off medical and other obligations. Our payments went up by over $2,500 per month. The loan amount went from 560k to 725k.’”~~
This person has been doing something suspicious. After 35 years, your house–bought in the 70’s, doubtless on the cheap–should be paid off at least five years. Does this mean they took out 3/4 of a million dollars? If so, where the hell is that money? Did they get some rare multiple organ transplant? Cause I don’t see how someone gets 725K in loans on a house that should be long cleared to zero mortgage-wise.
Journalists are NOT doing their job. They’re presenting sob stories without digging deep and giving the real story. If it was some politician in a party that the journalist despised, they’d dig and dig and dig until they found something shady or something to hold the person accountable. But in these foreclosure tales, it’s all about surface woes and only hints at some serious mismanagement of funds. At the very least, explain how much was used for medical costs. 100K? 400K? 1000 bucks? Makes a difference in how sympathetic I’d feel.
More lazy journalism.
Mir
I would like to buy a house in San Ramon… Can you please let me know your thoughts on when is a good time..i know the price is still far off from all the indicators and it’s still pricy… But the interest rate is 5%? is quite low right….
Just a thought …
Billions of dollars are pumped into the Bay Area in the form of venture capital and R&D. If this recession thingy causes these sources of money to dry up then the Bay Area may be in for some really tough times.
Again, just a thought …
pretty valid…
“Baby boomers are rethinking retirement as they watch their investments dwindle. Plummeting home values, fading 401(k) accounts, shrinking interest on CDs and worries about their own jobs are driving the trend. Fears about the future of Social Security and defined-benefit pensions only add to anxiety for the over-50 set.”
“‘Even people who are five years away from retirement are nervous,’ said Rick Duarte, financial advisor in Rohnert Park.”
Prior to the New Deal it was considered normal for most folks to simply work until their bodies and/or minds weren’t able to perform work any longer. It appears that the US is headed back to the good old days for the elderly. Wal Mart is going to have a lot ‘em to choose from for those greeter jobs.
“Baby boomers are rethinking retirement as they watch their investments dwindle.”
Therin lies the answer to the Social Security underfunding problem. The longer workers work the more money they put into the SS system and the less money they take out.
Corporate pensions benifit for the same reasons.
Some fun with numbers …
I know of people who want to retire early from easy, secure jobs and wish to take the pension buyout instead of the annuity. Their wages are approx $70,000/yr and their lump sum buyout is about $200,000 on average. So, in effect they are willing to sell their $70,000/yr job back to the company for $200,000.
If it were a business that they were selling that returned $70,000/yr should they be willing to accept only $200,000 for it? I don’t think so; Such a business would be generating a 35% return. A more reasonable figure for the business would be a million bucks; At a million bucks a $70,000yr wage would be a 7% return on invested capital.
Just something to think about …
“‘I’ve got a good job. I’d be a good person to loan money to.”
‘At the end, I will have to say, get your … house. I’m letting the kid crayon the living room.’”
hmmm. I think he should rethink his profession as a psychiatric social worker.
“I’ve got a good job. I’d be a good person to loan money to.”
It all depends on what criteria one uses to define what a “good job” is.
Some people think a “good job” is a job that challenges a worker to learn and be productive.
Sadly, nowadays having a “good job” usually means one has a government job where it is virtually impossible to be fired.
Ben, Ben, Ben, I had to have a stiff drink after reading this posting. Where are the journalists? They continue to write the same old sob stories, although I did have to laugh at some of these as written.
1. Meneses says that they pay out about $6K per month or $72K per year. And mind you that is about 80% of her families income. She’s a part-time cook at a senior center and he’s a construction worker and we’re supposed to believe that they are pulling down some $90K in this environment and even if true thought that they were able to afford to purchase a $465K house.
2. Kellman buys a $470K house on an $80K salary. Kellman is psychiatric social worker should have taken some psychic courses in college, would have faired better as a psychic social worker.
3. “Peter Inglis of Petaluma dreamed of retiring in his 50s, following a 30-year career as a painting contractor. Me thinks that not only will he not be retiring but that people can do their own painting and he may end up being a one man painting contractor doing all the work by himself at the ripe old age of 58.
4. “Fears about the future of Social Security and defined-benefit pensions only add to anxiety for the over-50 set.” Anyone in the last 40 years who planned to retire solely on SS should have a large dose of anxiety. As for ‘defined benefit’ pensions, they have been the goose that laid the golden egg, it’s those that pay a lump sum that should have the high anxiety.
LOS ANGELES - An unemployed man with an advanced finance degree who was despondent over his own financial problems shot and killed his wife, three children, mother-in-law and then himself in an upscale home in a gated community, police said Monday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_re_us/bodies_found
“Life is too important to be taken seriously.” - Oscar Wilde
This is quite a conundrum: What do you do with a ginormous glut of former investor-owned SoCal homes (now foreclosed) to both (1) fill them with owner occupants and (2) keep prices from dropping to levels the locals can afford? It seems like you could get one or the other, but not both…
Wall Street Journal
* REAL ESTATE
* OCTOBER 7, 2008
California Officials Try to Avoid Second Housing Hit
By RHONDA L. RUNDLE
Parts of Southern California hit hard by the housing crisis are maneuvering to shape the Treasury Department’s plan to buy up troubled assets so that it doesn’t wind up causing a second wave of pain in their communities.
A development property is for sale in Colton, in California’s San Bernardino county. Officials in areas of the state hit hard by the housing crisis, such as San Bernardino county, are pushing for a federal bill that would let local businesses and governments buy up some of the distressed real estate to ensure that it doesn’t fall into the hands of speculators who have no interest in the local community.
Officials in San Bernardino and Riverside counties are determined to avoid a repeat of what happened 20 years ago, when the savings-and-loan crisis led to a massive selloff of distressed real estate in the area by the federal government’s Resolution Trust Corp. Many of those properties, including foreclosed homes, were sold at fire-sale prices to investors who unloaded them quickly. In some cases, entire neighborhoods of what had once been homeowners turned into largely rental communities, further depressing property values and delaying an economic rebound.
“We don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease,” said Steve PonTell, a business owner in the vast area east of Los Angeles known as the Inland Empire. He says he is worried that neighborhoods could be seriously damaged if the Treasury “dumps” real-estate assets in such a way that leads to absentee ownership.
I’d rather have “speculators” buy it than the Government! Who will they put in the homes? Welfare cases and mental patients?
And why is the Government doing in the real estate business anyway?
Where to even begin?!
“‘I couldn’t afford to live in the Bay Area,’ said Jaeschke, 58, who moved from Petaluma to Kona on the island of Hawaii two weeks ago.”
I looked on a map. Petaluma doesn’t border the San Francisco bay, and can’t be called the “Bay Area”. I know it’s a nit, but it’s a trick R-E agents used in the early days to inflate prices. The logic went like this: “Houses in Atherton are selling for $5M” they’d say in 2000…”therefore Manteca and Petaluma are worth a fortune, too!” (Note! I’m not saying that Atherton prices weren’t inflated–just that R-E agents used one area to prop up prices in other areas that were within a hundred mile radius)
She shops at the dollar store and has served potato soup for meals.”
Hey! So do I! I also had Borscht (Beet Soup) this week. Where’s my interview in the newspaper?
Petaluma is considered wine country or northbay, and until a few years ago, it had a lot going for it. Telecom companies sprouted up like weeds, employing a ton of highly-paid engineers/IT folks and creating quite a few merger millionaires. Housing prices followed the boom, and soon buyers were looking at ~$500k for a very basic 3/2 tract house.
Unfortunately, many of those start-ups were bought out by companies HQ’d elsewhere who started moving development out of California beginning in ~2004. The smart homeowners saw what was coming, sold out, and took their profits to more affordable regions. Lots of funky financing at the 2005 peak left the latecomers in the lurch. Currently, housing prices are off ~30%, and the town’s tech industry is showing no signs of recovery.
Reuven…if you had to look up Petaluma on a map, I’m not sure why you are presenting yourself as an expert on the Sonoma County housing market. There was no scam on the part of real estate agents. They were participants, absolutely, but they didn’t drive the prices.
As I stated earlier, during the late 90’s, venture capital flowed freely into telecom start-ups in various small business parks, stretching from Petaluma up through Santa Rosa along 101. Sonoma County was well on the way to becoming the Silicon Valley of the northbay, and some people got very, very rich on stock options before things started to fall apart. When Cisco bought a local start-up in 1999, Petaluma got about 250 multi-millionaires in one fell swoop.
Before long, it was like a gold rush as companies went on vc-funded hiring sprees, but there simply wasn’t enough housing for the influx of newcomers because the county had very strict urban growth boundaries and was resistant to change. Because of the housing shortage, my neighborhood saw 200% appreciation over the course of three short years. Bidding wars were common, and most houses sold within one day of listing regardless of condition.
Then, in the early 2000’s, many of the start-ups were bought by larger companies, who bolted for more business-friendly regions and took their highly-paid employees with them. By 2006, Sonoma County was head-long into a classic business bust, compounded by a banking industry that was playing fast and loose with the rules of good lending.
So, despite your opinion, the housing debacle in Sonoma County cannot be laid solely at the feet of the real estate industry. They got taken along for the ride just like the rest of us. Stick with what you know, Reuven, and leave explaining the Petaluma housing boom/bust to those of us who lived it.
The Mercury News. “Laura Meneses made the same fateful choice that thousands of local home buyers have made since 2004: She decided to spend most of her family’s income on housing. ‘We’re barely making it now,’ said Meneses, who estimates that 80 percent of her family’s income goes to housing costs. ‘It’s been very, very stressful.’
I need to add that it’s only fitting Laura Menses bleeds once a month–when she makes her house payment.
I love the smell of jingle mail in the morning!
Gross.
“Crisis counselors were deployed today to help the friends and classmates of a Porter Ranch family killed when a financially stricken businessman turned a gun on his family and himself.
Karthik Rajaram, a 45-year-old financial manager, was found dead Monday with his wife, mother-in-law and three sons at their home. In a letter addressed to police, Rajaram blamed his actions on economic hardships.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mental8-2008oct08,0,2958257.story