Nostalgic For A Past That Isn’t Coming Back
The Tampa Tribune reports from Florida. “The mortgage crisis is causing more than just heartburn for homeowners. It’s changing their moral compass. Homeowners are walking away - even when they can afford their payments. Some loot on the way out the door. Others trash the home to ruin the bank’s chances of selling it. Today’s homeowners are tired of watching the lenders who triggered the financial meltdown get bailed out while they suffer. They want revenge. They feel entitled. ‘It went from being a shame to being behind on your mortgage to feeling like it’s a big joke,’ said Jim Kelly, a Tampa homeowner who said numerous neighbors of his have stopped paying. ‘The big talk at cocktail parties is how underwater is your house and how long have you lived there for free.’”
“Kelly paid off his mortgage 17 years ago and never tapped his equity – even though he saw the appraised value jump a couple hundred thousand dollars. One of his neighbors bought a house 25 years ago for $80,000, took out home equity loans, and bought new furniture and went on exotic trips. They now owe $250,000 and stopped paying the mortgage. ‘It’s a moral issue,’ Kelly said. ‘You borrowed the money and because of the world credit issues that have nothing to do with your house, you think you’re entitled to something.’”
“Tampa real estate agent Paul De La Torre said he sees the entitled attitude often. Clients who are trying to sell their homes for less than the mortgage – called a short sale – are increasingly asking to take pieces of the home with them. ‘They want to take the appliances and other things they bought with their equity money,’ said De La Torre. ‘I tell people that if you didn’t pay for it with your own money, it should stay with the house. Taking it just makes it more difficult to find a buyer.’”
“‘I just sold one house where they guy took the wall plates,’ De La Torre said. ‘Those are like 60 cents at Home Depot. Everybody says, ‘Look what the bank did to me,’ De La Torre said. ‘But when people were selling their homes for $100,000 profit, no one complained.’”
The Orlando Sentinel. “Like a lot of Florida homeowners, Philip Becker would like to tap into the $418 million in federal aid the state expects to receive this year to help quell the foreclosure crisis. He lost his construction job six months ago and is depleting his savings to remain current on the mortgage for his Winter Springs townhouse, which has lost nearly 40 percent of its value since he bought it in 2005.”
“‘Impending doom is what I’m facing,’ he said. ‘I’m hoping to avoid messing up my credit. I just want to try to keep the home I have and get back up on my feet, but I’m paying for something and [the value] is going to take me years and years to catch up to what I owe.’”
“Becker showed up Monday at a public forum on how Florida should use its share of federal Hardest-Hit Fund dollars designated for states most severely impacted by the deteriorated housing market and economy. He didn’t get much in the way of answers or reassurance. He still has no idea if he’ll qualify for whatever help Florida tries to offer. ‘There was no sense of urgency,’ he said after the hearing.”
The Bradenton Herald. “Before the local housing market crashed, ‘Kathy’ had a ‘very comfortable income,’ a healthy savings account balance and no outstanding credit card debt. Then came a divorce and the housing slump. Kathy, whose last name was withheld, fell behind on her mortgage and lost her Sarasota home to foreclosure in mid-2008. She now lives with a friend, is barraged with calls from creditors and their lawyers, and lives in constant fear of losing her car for non-payment.”
“She was among hundreds of Floridians surveyed as part of The Face of Foreclosure, a Florida Realtors research study that was released Tuesday. ‘I have found this entire experience to be devastating,’ she told researchers. ‘I am in total financial ruin.’”
“Its key finding: Most people fell into foreclosure not because of a single major life event — such as job loss or serious illness — but a cascading combination thereof. Those homeowners tended to be married with children, well-educated and better-paid, the study found. More than 90 percent of foreclosures were filed on homes owned by married couples, while 65 percent were on those owned by families with children at home. More than half of Florida homeowners in foreclosure had attended or graduated from college. And more than two-thirds earned at least $50,000 a year.”
“The findings show the foreclosure crisis — largely believed to have begun with defaults on subprime and other exotic loans in 2007 — was widespread and did not discriminate, a researcher said. ‘This study really kind of debunks a few myths,’ said Joel Searby of a Gainesville research firm that conducted the study. ‘This isn’t an issue just for the lower-educated or those with lower incomes.’”
The Herald Tribune. “A few years ago, during the real estate boom that you may remember, a developer ran a newspaper advertisement that said something like, ‘Drive an extra 20 miles and save an extra $20,000.’ It’s certainly not news that home buyers are willing to drive a while to find cheaper housing. We have built nearly our entire country on this concept. But at what cost? A new report by Chicago’s Center for Neighborhood Technology quantifies it.”
“The report, ‘Penny Wise and Pound Fuelish,’ indicates that when the costs of purchasing, insuring, maintaining and fueling a car ($7,000 or more a year) are factored in, most of those so-called ‘affordable’ communities become unaffordable, especially for ‘working families’ making less than $50,000 annually.”
“The center’s report is based on the high gas prices of 2008. The cost of buying, maintaining and insuring vehicles is included in its interactive Housing + Transportation Index. The number of neighborhoods considered unaffordable under the H+T Index grows by about half in the Sarasota-Manatee metro, and more than 80 percent in the Punta Gorda MSA. ‘Housing affordability in the United States is currently being drastically overestimated, and many families could be susceptible to foreclosure as gas prices rise,’ according to the report.”
My Fox Tampa Bay. “To offer buyers the convenience of touring dozens of homes for sale in one weekend, the Florida Association of Realtors and their member clients will be hosting open houses on April 10 and 11. It’s the first-ever statewide open house weekend. The Florida Open House Weekend comes just before the April 30 deadline for the federal homebuyer tax credit. Homes need to be under contract by that date and closed on by June 30 in order to take advantage of up to $8,000 in tax credits for first-time buyers. A $6,500 credit is also available for those who haven’t owned a home in the last three years.”
“Blue balloons, featuring the Realtor’s ‘R’ in white, will denote those homes that are part of the statewide open house campaign. Balloons will be on display simultaneously at open houses from the Panhandle to Key West.”
The Palm Beach Post. “New Treasury Department rules to streamline short sales go into effect Monday, giving sellers, buyers and Realtors hope that the grueling process of getting bank approvals will soon ease. ‘The biggest problem we’ve had in the past is lack of cooperation from the lenders and no uniform set of rules,’ said Realtor Craig Fialkowski in Palm Beach Gardens. ‘Nobody does anything the same.’”
“Five years ago, Fialkowski had no short sale listings. Now they make up half of his business, he said.
“Because property values dropped so dramatically in Florida, said West Palm Beach Realtor Jared Dalto, who deals almost exclusively in short sales, it’s difficult to get lenders to take substantial losses, even with small monetary incentives. ‘When the losses are so big, it’s like climbing Everest,’ Dalto said. ‘When negotiations happen in short sales, it’s all about money.’”
The Naples News. “Just as the 2010 census got under way, the U.S. Census Bureau released population estimates from the past year that showed how the recession has affected growth in various parts of the nation. For the year ending July 1, 2009, Collier’s growth rate ticked up slightly though still nowhere near the huge gains from earlier in the decade. Lee County lost population for that time period in 2008-09, the first time that happened in the past decade.”
“Armando Nargi, president of the Lee County Chamber of Commerce, said he wasn’t surprised by the numbers. ‘Right now there’s no growth and no stability in our economy in Lee County,’ Nargi said. ‘It changes month-to-month, day-to-day … employment opportunities are severely limited.’”
“The 5-foot alligator lurking in the algae-green waters of the community swimming pool was not the worst thing code-enforcement officers have found in recent years at AAA Apartments in Cocoa. Bathrooms infested with mold. Walls with gaping holes where air conditioners had been ripped out. Garbage and trash strewn about the 52-unit complex. The city began issuing code-violation fines in 2007, back at the beginning of the housing slump, and the apartments’ co-owners soon owed the city $1.8 million — more than three times the current list price of the property, and enough money to motivate the now-former co-owners to try bribing a code-enforcement officer.”
“As home foreclosures continue to mount throughout Central Florida, code-enforcement officers say apartments, condominiums and other commercial buildings are being abandoned by their owners and repossessed by banks in growing numbers. ‘The coming wave is the commercial foreclosures,’ said Mike Rhodes, code-enforcement division director for the city of Orlando.”
“As it turns out, the two co-owners of the troubled complex on Fiske Boulevard took a different approach in trying to make the problem go away. Lindsie Pham and Timothy Buu, both of Orange County, Calif., pleaded guilty last month to attempting to bribe a Cocoa code-enforcement officer in hopes the officer would overlook more than 50 violations.”
“The fines didn’t go away when, in May 2009, Deutsche Bank National Trust took over the complex. Robert Hold, president of Hold Thyssen Inc. in Orlando, was hired by the bank to serve as the property’s receiver and manager. Hold, a veteran receiver for bank-owned commercial properties, proposed that the city drop the fines to $100,000. One Cocoa official said the city could really use the entire $1.8 million, though it soon became apparent that the city had little leverage.”
“‘In one of the meetings, I believe it was the board of adjustment, one of the board members asked, ‘How can we give up $1.8 million?’ Hold recalled. ‘And I said, ‘The owners are prepared to give you the keys.’”
The News Journal. “Many area real-estate professionals understand the area’s housing market will not really improve until the situation gets better up North. Much of the local housing market has depended on retirees selling homes in New England and the Midwest before they can buy a home in Volusia and Flagler counties.”
“ICI Homes was pitching its upscale and gated Plantation Bay Golf and Country Club community in Ormond Beach, which straddles the Volusia and Flagler county line. It offers town houses starting at $169,000, single-family houses staring at $195,000 and multimillion dollar estates. About 30 percent of its 4,500 lots are developed, and there are no more spec houses available around the three golf courses.”
“‘It took us awhile to clear out the inventory, but we have done that and the last ones we did, we did not have to lower the prices any more,’ said Rosemary Messina, ICI vice president of sales and marketing. ‘People are over the shock and are done being mad. Homeowners realize the truth about what their homes are worth up north and that it’s the right time to buy in Florida.’”
The Cape Coral Daily Breeze. “An ongoing noise complaint from one Cape Harbour resident caused dozens of his high-rise neighbors to pack council chambers to defend the mixed use development, which has quickly become one of the more popular places for not only residents but the general public. Just as quickly, the battle between the two sides has grown heated, as it fast approaches litigation.”
“Jim Stevens wants to tone down Tuesday evenings at Cape Harbour, which feature a combination of motorcycles and live music. The noise, Stevens said, is far removed from what he thought he was getting when he purchased his condominium, which he assumed was a quiet, peaceful setting for his retirement. ‘I’m not trying to put anyone out of business,” Stevens said, an oil and gas producer from Michigan. ‘All I’m asking is to take the music inside and pipe it outside so people can dance, and to move the motorcycles.’”
“Stevens has even gone as far to say he was duped when he purchased his condominium, something Laura Straus from Realmark Development adamantly refutes. She said that Realmark offered him another unit, even urged him that Cape Harbour might not be the best fit for him. Straus said that Stevens knew all along that live music was part of Cape Harbour’s goal. ‘We started the live music before his closing,’ Straus said, who closed on Stevens’ condo. ‘We even told him we didn’t think he would enjoy living at Cape Harbour.’”
“Stevens said he’s had the noise level professionally tested, and it reaches levels of 90 decibles. Having fought what he sees as an injustice for two years, he said he will keep pushing until he gets his way. ‘I’m crazy enough to keep fighting,’ Stevens said.”
The Pensacola News Journal. “It’s frustrating to watch the Florida Legislature act as if its members have learned nothing from the recession about the flaws in Florida’s economy. We need to do things differently in the future, but the Legislature seems rooted in the past.”
“Florida needs new industries to replace home construction; the housing sector is overbuilt, and depended on rapid population growth that seems over. With a glut of unsold homes and condos, and rising foreclosures putting downward pressure on prices, home building will likely be depressed for years.”
“Legislators here in the Sunshine State remain nostalgic for a past that wasn’t that good to start with, and isn’t coming back anyway.”
“The mortgage crisis is causing more than just heartburn for homeowners. It’s changing their moral compass. Homeowners are walking away - even when they can afford their payments. Some loot on the way out the door. Others trash the home to ruin the bank’s chances of selling it. Today’s homeowners are tired of watching the lenders who triggered the financial meltdown get bailed out while they suffer. They want revenge. They feel entitled. ‘It went from being a shame to being behind on your mortgage to feeling like it’s a big joke,’ said Jim Kelly, a Tampa homeowner who said numerous neighbors of his have stopped paying. ‘The big talk at cocktail parties is how underwater is your house and how long have you lived there for free.’”
Main Street homeowners seem to have stolen a page or two from Wall Street banksters’ play book.
Or a page from the Dot Coms when they used to brag about their ‘burn rates’ as a badge of pride. The faster you spent other people’s money, the better you were doing!
Yeah, and how did that work out for them?
Those types are too clever by half - but despite their bragging this much is certain: except for a few frustrating exceptions the vast majority of these people will be busted but good.
I can see where the banks/bagholders might hire people who have been “priced out forever”, and/or had some fiscal discipline…..
Then let go of the leash, and have them go after these a$$hats who are partying like it’s 1999.
Or sub it out, to some nasty collections agencies.
Karma can be a bi#ch sometimes.
Animal-Mother: “Better them, than me…..”
You’re more optimistic than I am.
I worked in that environment and remember the jargon and value system vividly. Recklessly fast debt-driven growth was seen as a positive, and I quickly learned what EBITDA meant.
It wasn’t too long before bondholders were calling the shots.
“…‘burn rates’ as a badge of pride.”
It was all good until they burned themselves and their investors all the way to the ground.
It seems many home owners are quickly learning from “the top bank and Wall St. boys” but there is one big differance. The boys at the top always knew they had congress in their pockets and that is why we will never see any one go to jail. Congress knows where there money [lobbying]comes from and the powerful politicians will protect their money source unless of course the public wakes up to this scam. Maybe higher taxes for the middle class will be the awakening call!
Jared Dalto, who deals almost exclusively in short sales, it’s difficult to get lenders to take substantial losses, even with small monetary incentives. ‘When the losses are so big, it’s like climbing Everest,’ Dalto said. ‘When negotiations happen in short sales, it’s all about money.’”
When is it ‘not’ all about money?
How about the first one, it’s difficult to get a bank to lose $200K, even if you incent them with a shiny new quarter. If Dalto wouldn’t have said it, I wouldn’t have ever suspected it! Investigative journalism at it’s finest.
“Homeowners are walking away - even when they can afford their payments.”
Yep. I’ve got a buddy who could pay, but isn’t. Strategic default is where it’s at, baybeeee!
Strategic defaults:
1) Keeps money in the pockets of the previously FB which keeps up consumer spending - at least for a while. This spending adds to the illusion that the economy has solidly turned to the upside.
2) Destroys neighborhood housing prices which destroys bank balance sheets of the banks that hold the mortgages. Banks are money-making machines when times are good but they are money destroying machines when times are not so good. Right now times are not so good and they are scheduled to get even worse (check out the mortgage reset chart).
This ultimately means more bank money destruction, which means those with cash should do whatever they need to do to hang on to it.
“those with cash should do whatever they need to do to hang on to it.”
My buddy’s philosophy exactly.
I read a piece on your point (1) last night. I am curious as to what percentage of people in this town are not paying, because the behavior is picking up momentum, and people are beginning brazenly to admit it. I’m a supporter of jingle mail and walking away from a non-recourse loan if that makes economic sense, but living for free makes me upset. If you’re not going to pay the mortgage, you shouldn’t be living there. This is from the Tampa Tribune article:
“Consider Lutz’s Shawn Aaron. Expensive paintings and flat-screen TVs line the walls of his 5,800 square-foot Cheval home. A Corvette sits in his garage. He paid $1.3 million for the home in Nov. 2004.
More than two years ago he stopped paying his mortgage and thinks a lot of other homeowners should follow his example.”
The article is accompanied by a photo of tanned (actually a bit sunburned) Mr. Aaron smiling in his palace, which is in a development popular with professional athletes. He obviously feels that nothing is going to happen to him.
And the upstanding Mr. Aaron formerly was employed by … the upstanding securites industry. From the Google:
Take the case of Shawn Aaron. The Tampa-based rep joined GunnAllen in 2000 and this June was charged by the NASD with attempting to extort and intimidate Nasdaq SmallCap company Optelecom. Aaron, who was let go by the firm in August, has contested the charges and is awaiting his hearing. The NASD is seeking to have Aaron permanently barred from the industry.
Nummi and Frueh say Aaron, who has “faithfully served his clients for 10 years,” will be welcomed back at the firm if he is found innocent of the charges. While he had no customer complaints when he was hired, Aaron had been prohibited from selling securities for 25 years in the state of Massachusetts in 1998.
Agreed, though I’m pretty certain that The Powers That Be will do whatever it takes to shake out the cash from savers. Can’t reward the responsible - somewhere, there’s a banker who needs a bigger bonus and an F’d buyer who feels like living mortgage free - surely, you won’t mind if we take your money to help them, right? Argh!
“Blue balloons, featuring the Realtor’s ‘R’ in white, will denote those homes that are part of the statewide open house campaign. Balloons will be on display simultaneously at open houses from the Panhandle to Key West.
Will these be helium balloons? If so, I have this vision of the entire state of Florida tearing loose from its moorings, and floating away over the rainbow. On the wings of a prayer…and Realtor balloons.
No, we’re huffing the helium down here. It’s a real gas!
Hey Palmy, don’t any of the miscreants down your way have BB guns, sling shots?
They talk like they’re huffing nitrous oxide.
Leave the He alone. I need it for my cold temperature research.
Roidy
Liquid He? Man, THAT’S some cold. Makes my friend’s liquid nitrogen icecream party look lukewarm.
Used to have a lot of that at the place I used to work (particle accelerator.)
I see local tech divers crying about the helium prices, but help is on the way. New plants are opening in the USA.
“Used to have a lot of that at the place I used to work (particle accelerator.)”
Sorting out this FIRE fiasco isn’t exactly splinting atoms…
or is it ?
Sadly, if hot air could cause problem areas to float away, DC would have drifted out to sea ages ago, which is just a dream…
“Becker showed up Monday at a public forum on how Florida should use its share of federal Hardest-Hit Fund dollars designated for states most severely impacted by the deteriorated housing market and economy. He didn’t get much in the way of answers or reassurance. He still has no idea if he’ll qualify for whatever help Florida tries to offer. ‘There was no sense of urgency,’ he said after the hearing.”
LOL! I feel bad for the guy, but these programs are a huge joke. They’ll be used to create a bureaucracy, offices with furniture, office equipment and phone numbers, a few PSAs, some forums like the above, some paper, etc.
Who benefits? Well, whoever rents the office space, office furniture companies, equipment leasing, the phone company, an advertising agency, and affirmative action employment.
Life’s good.
Florida’s Education Bill: Charlie Crist, sucks to be you!
Yes. If he vetoes it, he picks up a few teachers. However he gives Rubio even more ammunition against him with fiscal conservatives and independents. To those of us in Florida forced to send our kids to private school because the local public school is terrible, pay for performance doesn’t sound so bad. The status quo isn’t working.
I must admit, I’m enjoying seeing Charlie twist. He hasn’t been half bad as governor, I’ve said before that he is a fairly good manager and it could be a whole lot worse here. He blew chunks as attorney general, though. Real timid, afraid to offend, etc. Just sat back as floods of illegals and developers hoovered up all the oxygen.
He probably should switch parties if he wants to win. He might actually be successful if he does that. But he’s pretty much toast with Republicans. Rubio’s their boy. Charlie was a huge supporter of this legislation and now is considering vetoing it?
I guess I’m enjoying his discomfort because he’s such an obvious career politician. He’d never have a future as a lobbyist and knows it, politics is all he’s got. Becoming Senator is the prize, the culmination of a career of sucking up, the brass ring of permanent pay raises, perks, fetes, hand-jobs from lobbyists, etc. I’m sure he’s watching that prize slip away daily and it’s GOT to be killing him. I’m waiting for Jeb to deal the death blow.
Yes. And a few weeks before the primary, Rubio will start hammering Crist on his failed campaign promises to lower property taxes and hurricane insurance.
It’s really hard to do good and durable tax reform when property tax income is falling like a rock.
Is it flat tax or v.a.t time?
The paint is on the floor and Fl.is in the corner.
“….the local public school is terrible, pay for performance doesn’t sound so bad.” Yeah right, so it’s the teachers’ fault? Nothing pisses me off more than misdirected anger, it solves nothing.
Speaking as the offspring of someone who taught in public schools for 22 years, I’ll have to say that they (meaning the public schools) do the best they can with what’s tossed their way. In my mother’s school, they had to deal with kids who’d been thrown out of various private schools. With good reason. They were no easier to deal with in the public schools.
Same goes for the kids who’d never been parented for a day in their lives. Mom had lots of stories to tell about them too. Especially when, on parent-teacher night, she got to meet the parents. How she restrained herself from becoming an ax murderer, I don’t know.
If anything, her experiences as a public school teacher made me swear off any desire to follow in her footsteps. She had to put up with way too much guff.
Speaking of insurance. With no hurricanes for at least the last two years, Citizens Insurance (the state-owned entity) now has adequate reserves that have actually been set aside and not spend by the legislature. Right? Right?!
With all due respect you know nothing about this bill, and as a private school parent (my 3 are in public elementary school) you don’t have to deal with curriculum that is solely focused on teaching the FCAT. It’s a lousy bill. Pay for performance only ends up hurting the children in the worst school districts - because nobody will want to teach there. And then my kids suffer because your kids will have a better education than them - b/c they were actually taught things, where mine were taught to take a test.
““Its key finding: Most people fell into foreclosure not because of a single major life event — such as job loss or serious illness — but a cascading combination thereof. Those homeowners tended to be married with children, well-educated and better-paid, the study found. … More than half of Florida homeowners in foreclosure had attended or graduated from college. And more than two-thirds earned at least $50,000 a year.”
I bet these asshats felt sophisticated when they liberated the equity trapped in their homes. Especially in Miami appearance is everything. Got to drive a Mercedes or BMW, nice house, trophy wife, big screen TV, boats, exotic vacations, etc. I was looking for a new ride for my girl. Went to the Audi dealership to test drive one of those TDI (turbo diesels). Nice car but a bit pricy @ $35K. Sales rep said he ordered it for a friend who decided to buy a more expensive Audi S4 ($50K) after his girl said “Be a man, step it up, buy a real car”. Most of these clowns make less than I do. Somehow I get by with a paid for Toyota Yaris and a paid for home whose equity is still trapped where it belongs.
It’s fascinating to drive through Hialeah and see tiny houses with 5 Mercedes out front. Four cousins to a bedroom, but each one has a luxury car. I think that Miami, one of the poorest cities in America, has the largest Mercedes and BMW dealerships.
That’s one social sign of the housing bubble: a 1,000 square foot house with two imported luxury sedans out front, generally signifying a DINK yuppie couple who bought thinking they’d be priced out forever.
Anything that looks like Versailles is almost guaranteed to be associated with someone employed in the real estate industry.
‘a 1,000 square foot house with two imported luxury sedans out front’
Last spring some friends drove me around La Jolla, CA. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I remarked on how tiny the (old, IMO) houses and lots were, and that the cars were all imports and/or expensive looking. Plus, most were parked on the street, as there was little or no driveway space. The seals were cute though…
I think often times in the hood they have used luxury cars, older models. Perhaps shady financing, but really not that expensive. But they take care of them (at least on the surface) so it looks new, modern and expensive because they are clean.
… but I remarked on how tiny the (old, IMO) houses and lots were, and that the cars were all imports and/or expensive looking. Plus, most were parked on the street, as there was little or no driveway space. The seals were cute though…”
That somes up Central Maryland. Lots of tiny, old houses lacking central air or driveways, with cars and huge trucks (gotta have trucks since Maryland is such a “wild” state) piled up in the street out front. Now and then, there’s variety: we also have grossly oversized McMansions, too.
My current driver is a US-made Caddy Seville STS……was five years old, and had 50K miles on it when I bought it (at a STL area Cadillac Dealer).
Paid 11K for it……which was cheaper than an equivalent Honda Accord. And no, the engine is fine, it isn’t leaking oil.
One of the big jokes around here is the new, $40-50K 4×4 pickup truck, sitting in front of the $35K mobile home.
Nobody just makes up steroetypes.
To X-GSfixr:
Nice choice on the Caddy, I have a 2000 Seville STS myself. If yours has a Northstar, leaking oil isn’t the problem, head bolt threads in the block failing are! (I had to tear down and install a stud kit in mine to fix that problem a few months ago.)
They are great cars otherwise…
“$40-50K 4×4 pickup truck, sitting in front of the $35K mobile home.”
The first time I encountered that was in Middle Tennessee in the late 90’s. A lot of foreigners had multiple, tricked out speedsters next to single-wides.
True story from my stomping grounds:
I’ve already regaled you with the tales of my next door neighbors. During last year’s dustup over my water line replacement and its alleged ties to the failure of their house’s electrical system, a fellow HBB-er dubbed them The Inebriates.
They’re the folks who seem to go through shiny new cars and pickup trucks the way the rest of us go through tissue during allergy season. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but, hey, it’s allergy season. Got to put it to some good use.
Well, this past Easter Sunday, they had their annual family gathering. Where the goal seems to be to celebrate the Resurrection by consuming mass quantities of beer. And by showing off the shiny new trucks and SUVs that they all seemed to be driving.
The blowout went well into the evening hours, and I jokingly told myself that it was time to take myself and my good book to the back bedroom so I’d be out of the line of fire when the shooting starts.
Party finally broke right before 10 p.m., and I drifted off into peaceful slumber.
Monday mornin’ came bright and sunny, and I noticed that the man of the house was home. Musta been too hung over to go to work.
I was working with a handywoman on some much-needed shoring up of my elderly carport roof. I want to hang gutters off of that roof, and the old fascia boards had, shall we say, seen better days.
During the afternoon, I was sealing some lumber, and that was when the rhetoric started heating up next door. The catalyst seemed to be the arrival of what I took to be some relatives.
As things got more heated, I heard someone yell, “I’m outta here!”
To which I said to the handywoman, who’d already been briefed on their post-electrical outage antics of May 2009, “Is that a promise?”
She thought that was pretty funny.
Then I heard one of the visitors call Mr. Inebriate “a blankety-blanking drunk.”
To which I said to the handywoman, “It’s unanimous!”
The argument spilled out of the house and onto the front patio. The handywoman got concerned, so she went out to my driveway to see what the heck was going on.
Seems that Mr. Inebriate was threatening his lady, who owns the house next door, and my U.S. Marine veteran handywoman had two questions:
1. Are you all right, ma’am?
2. Is he allowed in the house?
Next door lady said she was okay, but, according to my handywoman, the children of the visiting family looked terrified.
A few minutes later, I heard someone from next door repeating the second of my handywoman’s questions. Then I heard Mr. Inebriate’s shiny new pickup, with the monster exhaust, firing up. It left.
He came back on Tuesday with a friend. Someone got in the vintage Jeep, which is his other pride and joy, and the two of them drove off. He hasn’t been back since.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, I hope. The neighborhood’s better off without him. And it’s nice to see that, at least for now, the next door lady has a backbone.
Sounds like my neighbors. Only they constantly go through motor homes, ATV trailers and 5th wheelers. One time the husband got kicked out and I think it was for buying so much crap. He’s back but now the new 5th wheeler is for sale.
That happiest day I’ve had in recent memory is when I saw the moving truck pull up at my (former) neighbors house.
Partying at 3AM on a Tuesday (and this is a 40 year old couple) on the back porch (right next to the bedroom window), letting their dog poop in my yard.. Coming over at 11PM to “borrow an egg”. Total trash; it was a joy to see them go!
Last month, a trashy family moved out of their house down the street. For some strange reason, they left their nasty barking dogs at the property. And a guy who hadn’t been a tenant of this house was coming around late at night and early mornings to tend to them.
Guy looked a lot like the fellow who started hanging around this house in the summer of ‘08. His presence attracted a lot of unsavory types to that particular address.
Tucson Police Department paid ‘em a call in late September ‘08. Within days of their visit, the guy and his sketchy pals stopped visiting that house.
Any-hoo, back to last month. Property’s unoccupied by humans, but nasty dogs are still there.
That’s enough of a red flag, but what really got me going was the night the aforementioned dog-tender came around with small children. At around midnight. And he and the kids (who weren’t his offspring) went into the vacant property. I couldn’t see if they went into the house because there’s a six-foot wall around the property.
I was worried about what was being done to those kids, and
let’s just say that I have some buds in law enforcement and prosecution. They were quite interested in what was going on. Within less than a week after I contacted one of them, the dog-tender and the dogs cleared out.
Landlord’s family has been over there, doing a major cleanup. Something tells me that the trashy family really left the place in a shambles.
A tell tale sign of the insanity of the housing market in Silicon Valley was driving through the parking areas of those massive rental apartment complexes, and seeing quite a few newer Ferraris parked in the carports. People could afford a Ferrari but not a modest suburban house. There’s something just wrong about that.
Miami is also one of the wealthiest cities in America. There is a large poor population and also a very large wealthy population. How do you know that these are not the wealthy relatives from Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Key Biscayne, Palmetto Bay, Aventura or Weston visiting?
Because wealthy people from Coral Gables and Key Biscayne don’t have relatives in Hialeah and Homestead!
My equity is trapped, too. Help me. Help me, it cries……..I’m stucco in the walls and i can’t get out! Which I’ve found to be a false plea, as we have seen that “equity bandits” have found countless ways of prying the various dollar embedded fixtures loose from the houses they now occupy.
But seriously, reading the whinings of the well-educated, better-paid, more sophisticated losers of the real estate scams, I can’t help but focus on a Single factor that would have saved every one of them from any life changing disasters………..a Savings Account.
Where is the savings?
After all, they made so much more money than the rest of us. Where did it go? Was is all “consumed”? Invested? I think not. Neiman Marcus perhaps? A shiny new car?
Saving 20% of one’s income would mean a YEAR long stint of unemployment without ever having to cut back in the luxuries of life.
Where’s the Money? There is none. They spent it all and borrowed even more. Educated? In what? Lifestyles of the rich and famous?
Savings account would only have helped a little. The prices people were paying for houses were astronomical. And I’m sure most of these “smart”, married couples had the conversation before buying: “well, it’s a bit above our range, but…”
And then unemployment, divorce, bad health happens, and it’s all over very quickly. It’s one thing when your house is 100K-150K and something happens, it’s another when it’s 500K.
How are all the “smart” recent buyers who responded to the $8K tax credit and Fed-engineered subprime-buyer-incentive interest rates by purchasing a home going to feel when they figured out their low interest rate came at the cost of an unaffordable purchase price? Moreover, there is never an opportunity to refinance in a rising rate environment, as your home goes deeper under water at the same time that loans become less affordable.
U.S. 30-year mortgage rates jump to 8-month high
Thu Apr 8, 2010 10:11am EDT
NEW YORK, April 8 (Reuters) - Rising bond yields sent U.S. 30-year mortgage rates to the highest level in eight months, home funding company Freddie Mac said on Thursday.
The 30-year loan rate average jumped to 5.21 percent in the week ended April 8 from 5.08 percent in the prior week and from 4.87 percent a year earlier.
The last time the long-term fixed borrowing rate was higher was in the week ended Aug. 13, 2009, when it averaged 5.29 percent, Freddie Mac said.
Mortgage rates “followed bond yields higher amid a positive March employment report,” Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said in a statement.
The economy added 162,000 jobs in March, the largest monthly gain in the past three years, and the employment in the two prior months was revised higher.
Treasury yields, which have been rising on signs of economic improvement, are used as a peg for setting mortgage rates.
Mortgage rates were also widely seen trending higher after the Federal Reserve pulled the plug March 31 on its 15-month program to buy more than $1.4 trillion in mortgage-tied debt aimed at keeping home borrowing costs low.
Just wait til rates go up and all the btl mortgage go into repo. Only a matter of time. Lots a good deals thought..
And I’m sure most of these “smart”, married couples had the conversation before buying: “well, it’s a bit above our range, but…”
A coworker told me that her in-laws were realtors and their advice (some 15 years ago) was to overextend themselves when buying that first house. After all, their income would only go up and it would give them a head start on the property ladder.
Funny how it didn’t turn out that way. At least they unloaded the house and are renting now.
I always love that bit about “income only going up!”
Really? In what world? It must be nice to live in a fantasy world where one gets a raise every year of whatever size one needs. Need to double your (already high) income to make the house payments? Don’t worry about it - of course it’ll happen! This is ‘merika! Think positive!
My ex- “cut me off” for three months, when I refused to sign up for that program. (Yeah, it was rampant in flyover too.).
Had:
A) No desire to go $300K in the hole to fulfill her “horse ranch” dream, and
B) had even less desire to be an on-call, unpaid stable hand.
Which is why, among many other reasons, she is now my “ex-”.
No desire to go $300K in the hole to fulfill her “horse ranch” dream,
I think people have been taught to the “follow your dream” program much too seriously. “It’s always been my dream to ___” has become an excuse for a lot of stupid ruinous decisions.
I think people have been taught to the “follow your dream” program much too seriously. “It’s always been my dream to ___” has become an excuse for a lot of stupid ruinous decisions.
In response to the “Do what you love, and the money will surely follow!!” theme, there’s this:
“Do what you love. Then live in a van by the river.”
I think a savings account is symbolic of the attempt to get and stay solvent. People should open one even if they think they’re too far in debt, and contribute token amounts as least, because eventually they’ll take a proprietary interest in that little pile and realize it’s more important than all the day to day crap they feel like buying to entertain themselves. They may start to re-orient their thinking.
Worked for me.
Bought my first home in 1952, Broker looked at my income and would not show my any home over the 3 times my yearly income!
Told my he had a going business from people who overbought, had money problems, got divorced, and he got to sell their home!
Took his advice to heart, and never paid more than 2 time yearly income since!
The money was spent keeping ‘merika strong!
After all, when we have a consumer-based economy yet seem unable to produce any more stable or long-term jobs than Walmart-greeter or realtor, the money has to come from somewhere! So, peel away that stucco and let the equity free?!!
Hey - Minivans can be way cool…
Yeah, I’d get one. If I ever buy another car. But the one I’ve got is only 14 years old.
And so, apparently, are velcro shoes and pants with stretchy waistbands? Face it, when you buy a mini-van, you are announcing to the world that you don’t care about being cool anymore. And that’s fine! Just don’t think that it’s cool.
At least you don’t have to grow a crappy moustache, wear skinny-jeans, ride a fixie and pretend to be cool. [You folks in the bay area will know what I'm talking about. Don't know if this hipster iteration has spread elsewhere]
At least you don’t have to grow a crappy moustache, wear skinny-jeans, ride a fixie and pretend to be cool. [You folks in the bay area will know what I'm talking about. Don't know if this hipster iteration has spread elsewhere]
Oh, brother. That affectation is rampant in Tucson.
And I ride a crummy old mountain bike laden with panniers. Among the other things I love about my bike, it’s a great way of showing the hipsters how old and uncool I am.
I COMPLETELY don’t understand the fixie fixation. There are VERY GOOD reasons that they invented coaster ratchets and multiple gears.
I don’t understand it either. One of the big problems is the lack of brakes. And the lack of the bike rider’s ability to handle his/her machine when a sudden stop is required.
Tiny handlebars, oversized plastic sunglasses, no gears, no free-wheel, no helmets and a U-lock in your back pocket. So COOL! And I can’t even imagine doing my twice weekly bike commute from Larkspur to SF without 24 gears.
Then again, they don’t have to replace their front derailleur cable like I do this weekend. [Not very handy here]
I’m a non-conformist. MINI VANS ARE COOL!!
They’re a godsend for musicians and other people who have to carry lots of stuff they don’t want out in the elements.
Plus, you can live in it if worse comes to worse.
I like MINI VANS also.
There’s been a couple of great commercials airing about the Sienna Toyota and how cool it is to own one.
My favorite mini vans are the ones that offer the stow-and-go feature (seats can fold down into the floor)
My husband always replies when asked about cars:
“My favorite car is one that’s paid off.”
Well a full sized van (like my E150 club wagon) only costs a little more, but has about twice the capacity of a minivan. Although the mileagae is a bit worse, it’s harder to park and instead of clever fold-away seats, you’ve got heavy and awkward removable bench seats.
when you buy a mini-van, you are announcing to the world that you don’t care about being cool anymore. And that’s fine! Just don’t think that it’s cool.
But not caring about being cool can be cool too right? Before I moved to Brazil we had a minivan for a bit. I remember driving around the Bay Area in 07 buying stuff for our house we would build in Rio. We were buying brand new white appliances from new home-buyers tearing out the new white stuff to put in stainless steel. I guess white wasn’t cool. One day I had a new/used washer, dryer, dishwasher, and 2 ceiling fans in the minivan at the same time.
$400 for $2,000 worth of stuff that’s now in my Brazil house. That 2K stuff would cost 4K here. Now that’s pretty cool.
We slept in that thing a few times too. (the mini-van, not the dryer)
A lot of these people thought that they were the smartest guys in the room.
I hope that the Orkin man sprays a lot after the Repo-man carts them off.
“Will no one rid me of these turbulent RE roaches?”
You know, I understand the whole strategic default, let’s live rent free for as long as we can thing. I don’t necessarily AGREE with it at a moral level, but the motivation is understandable. But really why trash the house? How can people feel SOOOO entitled that they they’re ANGRY at the bank for foreclosing on a house that the mortgage isn’t being paid on? Did they imagine somehow that the banks weren’t going to want their money? Why would anybody think for a MOMENT that the bank was EVER interested in ANYTHING other than getting their money back with interest?
I would bet there’s a huge correlation - those that put almost nothing or nothing down are the ones most angry and most likely to trash the house. The equity they planned to “liberate” from the house was their God given right, and when they didn’t get it they got cheated.
Agreed.
The naive purchaser will react emotionally when the fantasy turns into a nightmare.
If the purchase wasn’t well thought out, you can’t expect a rational exit plan.
“If the purchase wasn’t well thought out, you can’t expect a rational exit plan.”
That’s the wonderful thing about the nanny state - whatever you have done to yourself can be undone by the Government and paid for by the Taxpayers, whatever they are.
I hung around some naive lowlifes early in my youth. They were irrational and tribalistic too. There is no thought there, just visceral reaction. Don’t question their premises or they’ll turn on you fast.
Equity: (after being pried out of the house and “liberated”)
“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty! I’m free, at last!”
HomeBuyer (after being pried out of his house and “liberated”):
“That God[d.. _:] bank!~ I could have stayed in there and really been settled in good! I was living large and FREE………!!
Last to be Freed! Last to be Freed! GaDammit~@! I’m Freed”
Well with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it appears that the respons of equity to being liberated was similar to that of Iraqis- a week or two of cheering and looting, followed by years of civil strife, kidnappings, and car bombs.
It has to do with how they were raised, and if they respect other people’s property or not.
The same kids that didn’t take care of their pets, or trashed their first cars, just moved up to houses.
Trashing the house is standard procedure in Miami. Whatever else is left will be salvaged by the scavangers that come by after the house sits empty for a while. Copper pipes, kitchen sink, electrical lines, light fixtures, air conditioner, anything that can conceivably be turned into money to buy some crack.
I have seen a once beautiful house right at the golf course in Miami Shores, MIMO style (early 50s), absolute gem turned into a ruin. The roof of this REO property has been leaking, ceilings collapsed in 3 rooms, AC, copper pipes, anything of value stripped out of the walls. Last sold in 10/2006 for $750K, now the carcass is left to rot.
10650 NE 10 CT, Miami Shores, FL 33138
well that is -one- way to remove excess inventory!
And I bet it is still valued at $750K on the bankster’s books!
Gotta keep real estate prices high, even when valuing falling apart ruins!
I wish you would post more. We’ve had some tremendously entertaining WPB bloggers here, but not nearly enough giving a ground-level view from Miami.
Wow, search this one on Zillow and look at the bird’s eye view! Are those holes in the roof? Zillow gives a value of $476K.
Now on sale for $199 k
http://www.findire.com/Property_For_Sale_Miami_Shores-Florida-United_States/House-Home_For_Sale__bed/1/0/0/534977.html
Mike, is the Google Maps street-view of that house in Miami Shores accurate? It looks like a pleasant older neighborhood with reasonably-sized houses. I tried to zoom in on the house to see if the upstairs window was broken, but the resulting image was too blurry.
But wow, $750k at the bubble peak. It’s time to trot out that HBB-favorite quote from the Miami realtor saying that high prices there are going to continue indefinitely.
I think we’ve gotten accustomed to being protected from everything and anything.
In the normal course of affairs, disregarding certain rare disasters, no matter what irritation or setback might befall a person, someone or something is there to bail us out.
It’s a rarity to face a problem which we alone must deal with, and not knowing what to do, a person’s true nature tends to exhibit itself.
I wonder what the Wall Street banksters would have done if it were not for the TARP — jumped off the top of high buildings?
“wall street banksters”?
Have we combined banks and wall street into one supreme evil being?
I was referring to Wall Street banks that received a TARP bailout. Sorry to have confused you, Joey.
He was already there b4 you came along GS.
I kinda like TARP..
How often do taxpayers get a chance to lend money to banks and make a profit? Probably won’t happen again for a million years..
Goldman Sachs said they were doing the work of some powerful, supernatural being, but I don’t think God was the one they really had in mind…
You don’t seriously buy that crap, do you?
JoeyinCalif- If all, or even a vast majority, of it gets paid back, you will be right. But it looks like many of the companies that paid it back were those that never needed it in the first place. The Treasury persuaded them to take it largely to cammouflage the need of the others. We’re NEVER going to see much of the money that was given to AIG back in the hands of the Treasury.
Jim,
AIG’s counter-parties ranged from bondholders, businesses and major banks, to municipalities in every State in the union that held GIAs. They owed almost everybody tons of money.
The feds did not have the authority to take AIG into conservatorship and unwind it slowly. It was either bail them out or let them go under..
As with any diversified portfolio you’ll have some winners and some losers. Sure, strictly speaking AIG might be seen as a TARP-portfolio loser, but what effect did that bailout have on the rest of the portfolio?
AIG’s payment (stolen from the taxpayers) to Goldman Sachs was an example of Goldman’s socialist Utopian dream.
Socialist Goldman felt it was entitled to steal taxpayer money because as a lazy monopoly, Goldman couldn’t compete in real free markets.
Therefore it went crying to big brother for hard earned taxpayer money.
There’s a great picture floating on the internets, of a woman standing on Wall Street in front of the flag-draped NYSE. She’s holding a sign that says
JUMP
You F*#$@ers
[edited version]
It’s creepy that they drapped that big flag over the NYSE. I once read about some countries that drapped flags over everything, but I forget which ones, somebody help me out…
Funny thing about the flag, it’s harder to see through than a steel plate or a stone wall.
I think we’ve gotten accustomed to being protected from everything and anything.
I disagree. I think the housing bubble mania was part people’s reaction to NOT being protected. “We better make some dough or we’re in trouble because we’re on our own”.
Compared to equally “rich” countries we’re not protected at all. (and who should I compare ourselves to? Mexico? Russia?)
Our safety nets have been dismantled about as fast as our job base.
Our housing is not protected but designed to exploit us and ruin us. Our health-care is a joke as far as protection. Our jobs are really protected huh? Our pensions are so “protected” I don’t even know what one is.
Yea, we’re overly protected.
hmm.. Maybe you wouldn’t be aware of things like unemployment insurance because they can’t be seen from the vantage point you have chosen for yourself.
Hmmm. Maybe I’m more aware of things you are clueless about.
“But really why trash the house?”
Think of it as a manifestation of the anger phase of the housing bubble stages of grief.
The trashing of the house really gets my goat . The lenders were just middle men for deceived investors actually . It could be your mothers 401 k or pension plan that’s getting creamed . Just because Lenders retain the servicing of loans doesn’t mean they own the loans .In fact I think there was some major Pension Funds that were invested very late in the housing bubble . Yes, some lenders got left holding the bag on their positions when the secondary market dried up ,but much of the MBS’’s were sold during the boom .
When Insurance Companies suffer major losses they just raise rates and everybody pays . The whole money system is based on using other peoples money while the investment houses and lenders take their
% off the top as the arrangers that use leverage by fractional reserves to make a killing . Just like the real estate agents take their % when a sale is made .
We put people in jail for crimes amounting to small amounts of money yet homeowners that create 25K ,50k,75k 150k in damage are looked at as just getting their Justice at everyones expense because of the bail outs ? There is something very wrong with this picture and that is why they never should of started this bail out nonsense . Were dealing with major bucks here and they are treating it like it was peanuts . The Power that Be created every moral hazard that could of taken place by the way they handled this crash .
The problem is that the damage is done while the perp has their name on the title. It’s not against the law to poke a hole in your ‘own’ wall, or strip out the pipes of your ‘own’ house, etc. Thus, pragmatically, that sort of behavior cannot be prosecuted.
I’m just thinking of those parties where we have to endure these intolerable folk sticking it to renters yet again:
2005: Look at all the equity I made! You renters are suckers.
2010: Look at all the mortgage I’m not paying! You renters are suckers.
Apparently it’s okay to lose the house as long as you can show off the toys. Luckily, I live in a recourse state. They’re pretty quiet when the toys are threatened.
Is Florida a recourse state? One of my brothers co-owns an “investment” condo down there that has been a money pit since they bought it. My other brother and I have been counseling him to walk away, but to find out if the lender can come after any other assets. Not that he has many, the double whammy is that he’s an airline pilot and his salary has literally been halved. The triple whammy is that the condo building he lives in is being abandoned by the snowbirds at the same time as a $15,000 per unit special assessment for mold remediation. That investment condo should be the least of his worries.
‘they’re ANGRY at the bank for foreclosing on a house that the mortgage isn’t being paid on’
I could tell a lot of stories about this. It’s so common that it takes something unusual to even notice it. The dishwasher; what the heck is the value of a used, ripped out DW? More trouble than it’s worth, IMO. The little stuff is interesting. Light bulbs. Ceiling fans. Smoke alarms, or the batteries in the smoke alarms.
Then there is the straight out vandalism, which isn’t actually very common here. One guy got under the house with a hammer and busted all the PVC water pipes. He left a print out of an Orange County Register article on the kitchen counter, that was about some subprime lender. Another broke a water line to the toilet upstairs and walked out, causing major water damage to 80% of the house.
It’s my understanding that legally, many appliances AREN’T part of the banks “interest” in the property.* But most of these people are, I suspect, moving into rental property that HAS appliances. So it’s not as if they have any USE for the appliances. Moving is a pain. Major appliances that you can’t use just make it a bigger pain. And since FL is a recourse state, the more the bank loses, the more they can sue you for in a deficiency judgement.
*explained to me as “If you need no tools to remove it, it doesn’t belong to the bank.”
Yeah, if it’s ‘fixed’ to the property it’s a part of the RE. I can’t say for sure, but I haven’t seen any indication of people getting sued for this stuff.
All in all, I chalk it up to the approach that has been taken to this mess. ‘It’s not your fault, you are a victim. No one could see it coming.’ Never mind that so many of these foreclosures are refi’s, where they borrowed huge amounts of money and spent it.
And there are plenty of “poor foreclosee” stories that never manage to really talk about where the equity went. Even when the mention it in passing, it’s just “paid off credit cards,” or “did some landscaping.” So many people are simply not being called into account for their basic inability to live within their means. Our polity is to a large degree, simply these individuals multiplied a hundred million times. I’m betting that when the profligate tendancies of the federal government reachs is logical conclusion, few of them will realize that THEY were the ones who ELECTED politicians who promised everything and demanded too little in return to pay for it. They’ll blame everybody else, and the politicians will continue to blame “unforseeable” events. As if repaying loans (whether mortgages or treasury bonds) wasn’t “forseeable.”
Even when the mention it in passing, it’s just “paid off credit cards,” or “did some landscaping.”
Oh, for pete’s sake! Landscaping isn’t that expensive. Especially if you go to your friendly local library, check out some how-to books, and buy the materials and plants at a nursery. No need to have them delivered.
Next, you can work on your landscaping project as a family. It’s a great learning experience for the kids and it’s one that will stay with them for a long time. Sure did for me. What I learned as a 10-year-old landscaping helper for my mom and dad served me in good stead after I moved into the Arizona Slim Ranch.
Ah yes the law of fixtures. It’s hard to nail this down, pun intended…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixture_(property_law)
Years ago most appliances went with the property except for the refrigerator. The refrigerator could simply be unplugged and wheeled away. What about the refers with icemakers? Those have a small water line plumbed into the house, and you need a wrench to detach said water line. Should the law distinguish between refers with and without icemakers? What if the icemaker is broken?
“And since FL is a recourse state, the more the bank loses, the more they can sue you for in a deficiency judgement.”
Exactly. Unfortunately, many lenders aren’t bothering to go after the FBs, and now some states are trying to exempt these folks from paying taxes on their “forgiven debt”, just as the federal government has done. IMNSHO, these “perks” (no deficiency judgement and tax forgiveness on both state and federal levels) should be tied to leaving the property in as pristine condition as possible.
Early warning sign: Remember the post a couple of years ago about a guy up in the PNW (maybe somewhere in Oregon) who left behind a couple of pigs in the house with the doors locked? That struck me as a rather creative way to express his anger over losing his home…
Isn’t the internet wonderful?
Pigs found trapped in vacant, foreclosed Oregon home
By KATU Staff
Three pigs have been ransacking a four bedroom home that was repossessed in January in Oregon’s Clackamas County. Detectives believe the former owner was upset and put the pigs there to get even.
Story Published: May 27, 2007 at 12:53 PM PDT
Story Updated: Feb 19, 2010 at 2:50 PM PDT
EAGLE CREEK, Ore. - A home here has been turned into a pig sty.
…
Talk about turning your house into a pigsty.
Sometimes, my daughter’s bedrooms looked worse
This story really upset me! Those poor pigs. I’m trying to find out what punishment the person who did this got. If were up to me, he’d spend the rest of his life behind bars. The sad reality, is he’ll be declared a “victim” and get a hug from Barney Frank.
What’s even more obscene is people aren’t being charged, tried, and convicted for trashing the bank’s property. It’s bank robbery, plain and simple.
I saw a relatively new 2,800 sq ft house for sale in a Phoenix suburb two years ago that was described as a shell. Curiosity got the better of me. Hearing and reading about about this stuff is interesting, but seeing an example really was worth the effort. I had seen old houses before, beat up by decades of weather and hard living. But I had not seen a three year-old former model house stripped and vandalized.
The kitchen was gone. Sinks, cabinets, oven, dishwasher, even the island. The guy took the staircase hand railing, two a/c units, every sink, every toilet, the shower/bath fixtures, the water heater, and lord knows what else. Plenty of drywall holes, and undoubtedly the swimming pool and/or its pump system were sabotaged.
The best part were his confession/diatribes written in marker on some of the walls. He named his loan processor and RE agent, and also attacked the builder. He recounted his purchase price and the approximate value at the time of his rampage (around 35 to 40% down at the time). Finally, he further justified the damage by suggesting that it would provide someone else with employment to repair it. I probably still have some photos stored on my old computer.
“While other states focus on a different energy future, legislators here in the Sunshine State remain nostalgic for a past that wasn’t that good to start with, and isn’t coming back anyway.”
Yep, I called my state senator about this yesterday. Florida is the “wanna-be” state. Used to “wanna-be” California, now with oil drilling in the Gulf rearing its ugly head, it “wanna-be” Texas or Louisiana. LMAO! Florida has never assessed its strengths and gone with its strengths. No, instead it wanted to have tech and movie production, like Cali. Both of which went over like a lead fart.
Florida could, however, develop things like solar, as the writer pointed out, water resources, beef up the agriculture, develop more of its biotech & geriatric research, also marine biology, aquaculture, climate research, etc. All things compatible with the Florida environment.
Florida should capitalize on the (relative) fiscal weakness of other states. If they can figure out a way to LOWER taxes while the state income taxes of California, New York, and New Jersey go to 20%, businesses and their employees would be crazy not to move. We know these states have a crappy backhand, so let’s keep hitting to that side.
I must say, I have to agree with this. I know of a person or two who switched residency status from Connecticut to Florida after the income tax passed up there. Doesn’t mean they live here, though.
Your mention of aquaculture sounds right. Why are we importing shrimp from Thailand when they could put up shrimp pens along the Florida gulf coast?
Beats me, Dennis. I used to know a fellow who owned some land along the Indian River. Smart guy, in a cynical, sharky sort of way. He attended some state sponsored aquaculture seminar up in Tallahassee, something about financial incentives, tax credits, whatever, to get involved in aquaculture. He was gearing up to do it, too. Liked what he heard. But I don’t know whatever happened with that. Hillsborough County used to be lousy with “fish farms”, but most of it was ornamental, tropical fish. The bottom fell out of that with a succession of freezes and the housing bubble. So I don’t know whatever happened to Florida’s fliration with aquaculture.
Gee, were fish farms like ostritch breeders? Where the main market was other budding farmers/breeders? Tulips all over again, I say.
Every so often Wisconsin or Minnesota comes up with some plan to farm something new.
There was a Buffalo Farm on the freeway in Mn on my way to my family’s home. Between the critters always excaping and the wannabe cowboys chasing them up and down the hwy, you had to be careful. Little woodland critters are one thing but you never want to smack into a buffalo or a moose in the morning fog.
At one time Wisconsin was gonna use a lot of gutted dairy and hobby farm barns to raise trout. I guess the trout farming went south when you had to heat the barns and shallow water at -20 below.
We’re were missing a few elk and Llama’s from some western counties critter farms during hunting season because as you know in Wisconsin, “If it’s Brown..It’s Down.”
At one time, we were farming Bed n’ Breakfast’s everywhere. Everyone was gonna grab n’ rehab an drafty old victorian mansion in the sticks and get rich. Nobody came.
The exotic farming list goes on…
The exotic farming list goes on…
I can remember the chinchilla craze. Seems like all I have to do is just sit here and do nothing, and I will be richer than all these suckers. I guess people just get bored and have to glom onto these schemes to keep going.
For the same reason the oranges at Publix come from South Africa. This country will be non-competitive until we do something to address labor, environmental, or regulatory arbitrage.
So “Kathy” in Bradenton lost her house to foreclosure 2 years ago, lives with a friend, and can’t make her car payments. In other words car payments are the only payments she now has, and she can’t do it. And of hundreds surveyed, she’s the one that they highlighted? What’s the solution for someone that doesn’t even have enough money coming in each month to cover a car payment? Free house? Well that won’t help, she also needs a free car, homeowners insurance, taxes, maintenance, electricity, ….
Month after month we get articles showing these “victims”, yet none ever show anyone who just needs a little help, for example a little lower rate. They always have someone who took out every penny of equity, or someone who needs a salary of $100K but doesn’t have a job.
SFC …I have also noticed that the party hardy equity extractors and
low down payment boom investors are the ones screaming for bail-outs and in truth they were just investment gamblers .
People who can’t obtain new jobs can’t be helped unless they get similar employment that matches the income they qualified for the loan at .
Looking at the re-default rate after modifications ,it doesn’t appear that this has been very helpful ,so it goes back to motive for buying the house to begin with . It’s turned into one big milking the system feast by Lenders and borrowers . I remember Ben posted a thread about a couple who took equity of about 300 k out of their house and they were trying to tell the bank what they were willing to pay monthly and they had been living in the house for free for two years crying the blues that they might lose the house that was in foreclosure (that they had already put on the market with no luck .)
The people who could benefit by a reasonable loan modification out of a toxic loan seem to be choosing default instead in thousands of
cases . Now the Bankers and the Borrowers are upping the ante and want major bail outs including support through long term unemployment .
Well I don’t think people that “just need a little help” are typical of this RE bust. Can’t pay and won’t pay are most of it. Can ALMOST pay seems to be whom HAMP and and other programs were aiming at and they’ve discoverd it’s a VERY small target.
Can ALMOST pay seems to be whom HAMP and and other programs were aiming at and they’ve discoverd it’s a VERY small target.
And, sorry to say, I think that some of the government critters recognized this from the get-go. However, being government critters, they had to get with the program and do something! anything! to help the struggling homeowners.
As we’ve said many times, many of these strugglers were shady gamblers who bet heavily, then lost. As in, can’t pay and won’t pay.
I kind of feel sorry for “Kathy’s” friend. Imagine taking in a friend on a temporary basis - trying to help someone out and do a good deed - only to get rewarded by being bombarded with calls from collection agencies. And something tells me those calls will continue well after “Kathy” moves out.
If nothing else, “Kathy’s” friend will learn a valuable lesson.
And that is, be very careful about who you choose to let into your life. As a friend, lover, what have you. For those who you allow into your living space, be even more careful.
A 600k house that I drive by 5 days a week has removed their for sale sign. Cannot find any record of a sale, so it seems they just took it off the MLS. They had started out at 650, but came down in price 6 months ago with no luck. It was still way overpriced for the area, even after the reduction. I guess a locked gate on the end of your street gives you freedom to charge what you want. Like that did them any good!
I guess a locked gate on the end of your street gives you freedom to
chargeask for what you want. –There, I fixed it for you. ‘Cause if you nobody agrees to pay it, you’re not really charging it.appreciate it, you caught my rental mentality freudian slip!
Brings up an interesting problem….
How do you sell a house in a gated community? The average house hunters driving around on a Saturday are excluding from doing a drive-by inspection. I’ll bet FSBOs in a gated community are difficult.
I think the same thing. On that same locked street (dead end with about a dozen houses behind the gate) there is a for sale sign on the very furthest one. So far away you cannot even make out the phone number. At least the one I pay more attention to is next to the gate. That far one has been for sale 18 months and counting now, and that is only since I moved here. No idea when it first went up for sale. But if you can’t even get in front to read the sign or check out the yard and roof…. well good luck selling it!
Hey all, in case you didn’t hear - the recession is over and nothing but blue skies ahead (sarcasm). Check this out:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/How-To-Tell-When-The-usnews-3534693407.html?x=0
Yes, the employment picture is slow, especially if you did anything related to construction. as an anecdote, i have sent out over 100 resumes in the past few months. About a half=dozen came back, undeliverable, as the business went out of business.
Of those that got to the addressee, i guess they thought i was just joking…………not a single note, call or acknowledgment. In the old days, often i would at least get a contact that they didn’t have any openings, but they would “keep me on file”.
Now…..
I’ll always remember in the 91 recession applying to OTIS Elevator for an engineering job. They actually mailed me my resume back saying that I would get more use out of it at another company, since they had ZERO plans on hiring anybody in the near future. I was insulted at first, but then appreciative as it saved me another trip to kinkos (back in the day!). Now I see it as a classy move when I hear your story.
In new eCONomy, jobs are not needed!
Rising stock market will make everyone rich! Stocks only go UP!!
Rah, rah, shish, boom-ba!
The government “geniuses” are changing from being cheerleaders for the housing “recovery” to the economy “recovery.”
“Before the local housing market crashed, ‘Kathy’ had a ‘very comfortable income,’ a healthy savings account balance and no outstanding credit card debt. Then came a divorce and the housing slump. Kathy, whose last name was withheld, fell behind on her mortgage and lost her Sarasota home to foreclosure in mid-2008. She now lives with a friend, is barraged with calls from creditors and their lawyers, and lives in constant fear of losing her car for non-payment.”
“She was among hundreds of Floridians surveyed as part of The Face of Foreclosure, a Florida Realtors research study that was released Tuesday. ‘I have found this entire experience to be devastating,’ she told researchers. ‘I am in total financial ruin.’”
Without knowing more I would guess that this was the result of a series of bad decisions that put her closer to the edge of the financial cliff than anyone should be. I also believe that her decisions may have been directly influenced by the advise or even choices made by the professionals she probably trusted for the information she used to make her decisions. Remember the “Susan, she researched this” ad?
It sounds like Kathy was in decent shape with good income, savings and no debt. It would be of interest to know if there was a reset or job loss as a trigger and where all the events were on a time line. We all know divorce is a costly and terrible thing to go through so if that was the trigger or a secondary event it would have stressed her either way. But while the article alludes to a constellation of triggering events it really does not give me enough to conclude anything beyond the apparent fact that after some series of events occurred Kathy had put herself in a risky place financially.
Did she lose her job? Did the ex runnoft with her savings or did the lawyer get it? Did the mortgage reset?
My concern is that when we go to a used house seller with a budget range that even the most ethical will give you the listings at the top end of your budget. The less than ethical will ignore your budget entirely. This, I believe, is driven by the desire to maximize income. We all do it within the boundaries of our profession. Who passes up overtime if they can get it? It’s why we budget and clip coupons too. We all want o put or keep as much of the money in any transaction on our side of the table. But there are legal and ethical boundaries.
It is foolish to steal a $50 tool and risk a $20,000 a year job. The impact of that is personal. But is it foolish to sell someone something they cannot afford? Is it unethical to say you represent the buyer, when in fact you have no true concern with the risk the buyer will be taking on. But it’s the buyer’s responsibility to know and set the proper boundaries. Yes, but what if they seek help? I posit that it is unethical to promote oneself as an expert with the best interest of a client and then fail to actually put those interests ahead of your and/or the other parties interests in the transaction.
So in my opinion the problem is that the client hires an expert for their advice, but to be safe must become enough of that expert to know if they are being misled by the expert or if their own best interests and boundaries are being ignored. Has it always been this way?
It says she had a “healthy” savings account. What does that mean?
If the couple had put down a healthy down payment on their house, then a “housing slump” would be no factor in bringing them financial ruin.
They would just sell off the house and get on with their lives. But like all other Pretenders in this life, she apparently didn’t have any of those things. She most likely had a “lifestyle” that depended on a steady stream of money to keep the “credits” piling up. No wealth. Just debt.
But the article said she had no credit card debt. That is inconsistent with what you are saying if I understand your position properly. I would have expected to see her credit cards maxed out like so many other FBs.
I suspect that the couple bought too much house based on two salaries, that either one lost a job and the stress led to the divorce or one left the marriage for other reasons and she kept the house but could not afford to do so.
I keep circling back to a house that was not truly affordable for this couple, let alone one of them.
My BIL and SIL got divorced about two years ago. She INSISTED on keeping the house, even though she was a stay-at-home-mom (at that time) with no way to keep it going. Fighting for the house had to be an instinctive gut reaction on her part, because the bubble burst was clearly underway and she obviously didn’t do any of the math. She still lives there with one of the kids, and I don’t know how she does it (unless she is one of those FBs who are living free waiting for the bank to foreclose).
IMHO, real estate agents should not be on commission. They have a complete conflict of interest and just want to sell you the most expensive house possible. That is bad for the buyer and - as we’ve seen - bad for the economy. Worse, they are allowed to pass themselves off as “experts” and people trust them.
Ooookay, then do they get paid by the hour? Same pay whether they bring buyer and seller together or just sit around surfing for porn on the computer and eating Cheetos?
“…or just sit around surfing for porn on the computer and eating Cheetos.”
Not a healthy thing to do. I know a guy that did just that and he said after awhile his “unit” turned orange. Mr. Stevens sounds the type…
…”Straus said that Stevens knew all along that live music was part of Cape Harbour’s goal. ‘We started the live music before his closing,’ Straus said, who closed on Stevens’ condo. ‘We even told him we didn’t think he would enjoy living at Cape Harbour.’”
People like Stevens are the ones who move next to an airport, school, highway then complain about the noise and want them shutdown/moved.
Zeus, I used that line from the joke that was posted here a week or two ago. I’d never heard it before and it left me ROTFL.
a joke last week? Dang…I missed it.
Did it involve David Learah?
One time I looked at a house for rent and the realtor had his laptop propped open to a daytrading website. He also looked like he had ingested a certain white, powdered stimulant to get him through an obviously boring day.
“Kelly paid off his mortgage 17 years ago and never tapped his equity – even though he saw the appraised value jump a couple hundred thousand dollars. One of his neighbors bought a house 25 years ago for $80,000, took out home equity loans, and bought new furniture and went on exotic trips. They now owe $250,000 and stopped paying the mortgage. ‘It’s a moral issue,’ Kelly said. ‘You borrowed the money and because of the world credit issues that have nothing to do with your house, you think you’re entitled to something.’”
It is hard to tell who is at a better place at this point in time…
That is how screwed up America is right now.
Yeah but these jokers have a big surprise coming their way. They still think it’s all about houses - when this is so much more than that. They give nary a thought to the sesmic social and economic waves rippling across the globe. Let them have their springtime.
If he goes around at neighborhood parties and says things like “17 months? I haven’t made a mortgage payment in 17 YEARS,” I don’t think he’ll be invited back. But he can certainly THINK it real loud.
I have mixed feelings about this…
On one hand, many of these jokers gladly turned off their brains and bought into the Bubble lie. They fully expected to make a fortune by basically ripping off somebody else by selling them an overpriced house. They strutted around, awash in arrogance and greed, during the Bubble, and now that reality is coming back, they feel they have the right to destroy somebody else’s property - it’s not like they every paid for the place! On a deeper note, since the taxpayers are going to pay for all this, in a way they are destroy our property.
On the flip side, I can understand the rage. The bankers created this mess, sold the worthless mortgages, and destroyed our economy and were rewarded with taxpayer money for their crimes. They don’t care who they destroy so long as they get paid, so the desire to get some payback, even if it is trashing a foreclosure, is totally understandable, especially since there’s no other way to deal with these crooks.
If there was justice, everyone involved would receive their appropriate level of punishment.
But the US is now sorta like a union shop. If you can’t administer “equal” punishment, then no one gets it.
What I fear that is nobody will be punished officially, but when living standards really crash here, we’ll all be “getting it” - except that in such environments, the smart, immoral scumbags will (again) find a way to live like kings as the expense of others. Without personal accountability, this mess will not improve, IMHO.
Hey Pondering, we’re busy setting a new Official Moral Standard for America here…
I believe that big business and gov’t morals are at the level of a small garden snail today.
Just read on Yahoo! that the recession is over. That was right after I read that the unemployment rate of my home county is 17.8%. Doesn’t sound like a recovery to me.
Are the local banksters getting their bonuses? If so, the recession is over.
Alright ladies, help me devise a plan to approach Mrs. Muggy about ditching our offer. The house is nice, but the cheapo in me in creeping back in.
I’m not worried about the legal parts, we have enough outs in our contract and no money into it, I’m worried my wife, uh, well, finally snapping.
It may be manipulative mugster, but can you find one thing about the place that she does not like and you cannot change? I take it you do not feel comfortable using the inner Scotsman to identify points for backing out.
Muggy-
My husband told me “let’s pass” on a beauty because he had cold feet for personal reasons (one being the price- born Irish, thinks Jewish). This home had french doors into a formal dining room, kitchen to cook for, pool, spa, cazebo, 1/2 acre, circular driveway, built in 1945. I was drooling.It took me 3 days to get over it, but trust me, he paid (think earplugs). Then I moved on. I thought about single beds, but why punish myself
Oh, and Muggy, we’ve owned two homes so far, and both times my husband had chest pains and had to go get checked out during the process of buying. Mind you, he was in his mid-30’s the first time. Both times the process stressed him out. It’s scary to go into debt, so your cold feet is normal. The ER doc even joked about it not being his first encounter with it. Putting 100% down this time around, I’m bring a defibrillator to the signing table:)
It was so exciting when I bought my first house. I was never happier. Plus, it was in town and cheaper than rent. But then, it was only 21K and I could make the 223 payment with my odd jobs while going to school.
Hey, maybe it’s a price thing…
In Montana
We’re in So Ca, so maybe you’re right. When it comes to home purchases, he’s a wreck.
Where and when (home price $21K)?
Bro’, you need to play on her sympathies and you’re in perfect position to do it at the moment, what with the abuse you’ve suffered at the hands of the educational system and the physical therapy. Cry, if you have to. Women hate to see a grown man cry and will agree to anything in order to stop it. Trust me, I know.
Cry, if you have to.
It ain’t worth that.
Talk to her about your being beat up by a student.
That one would get my vote. What woman wants to see her own kids go to the same schools as monsters who beat up their teachers?
Muggy,
I can’t tell you what to do other than be very vigilant, especially if she suddenly wants to take out a large insurance policy on you and starts talking to a strange guy named Rocco on the phone.
Haha! I once joked with her, “just don’t let me catch you with the poolboy.” And said…
“Oooh! We’re going to have a pool?”
Having never been married.. is simply telling her you’re having second thoughts out of the question?
No, that is the route I think I am going to go. Renting for one more year allows us to bank some coin, see how the FL education issue plays out, while simultaneously obtaining credentials for NY state, and seeing how it all plays out up there.
Muggy,
Sounds like your inner voice is speaking to you. Usually it’s right. She’ll get over it. In the meantime, I would suggest hand streghtening exercises.
Buyers remorse! A common affliction.
Why not tell her what you just said in your post?
“Hold, a veteran receiver for bank-owned commercial properties, proposed that the city drop the fines to $100,000. One Cocoa official said the city could really use the entire $1.8 million, though it soon became apparent that the city had little leverage.”
“‘In one of the meetings, I believe it was the board of adjustment, one of the board members asked, ‘How can we give up $1.8 million?’ Hold recalled. ‘And I said, ‘The owners are prepared to give you the keys.’”
OMG, that is hilarious!!Either reduce the fine to basically nothing or the bank is going to stick the city with the property. How times have changed.
They really didn’t “want” the property when the bubble was fully inflated. They just wanted the ability to tax it.
But you are right……..this stuff is getting better every day. A nationwide game of “Who’s the Bagholder?”
The process:
When the homeowner defaults on the mortgage - the bank takes it
When the bank/homeowner defaults on the taxes - to city takes it.
The city (theoretically) sells the property for the back taxes.
However, in the meantime - THEY WILL BE THE LANDLORD.
Now fix ALL those code violations!
Well - err…ummmm - never mind.
A follow up to a post I had written a few weeks ago.
Background: I’m currently renting a property that the accidental landlord is interested in selling to me. The property is in Wesley Chapel, FL, is 1800sq ft 4/2/2, and has a current tax appraisal of about $145K. The current rent is $1000, and there was supposed to be a rent to own payment starting next month (the purchase price and escrow account were not specified in the current annual rent contract).
I spoke with my landlord and learned the following:
1) She is willing to sell the property at the market price prevailing at the time of purchase. However…
2) She currently owes $172K on the property (first + heloc), which given the current market comps puts her upside down to the tune of $29K.
3) She claims that the current rent payment of $1000 is enough to only cover the mortgage (both first and heloc are with the same lender), and that she has to cover everything else (taxes, insurance, and HOA) out of her pocket.
Given that reality, for her to sell to anybody would be a short sale at this point, but she doesn’t want to do that (she says her credit rating is good, and doesn’t want it damaged by a short sale).
I see the following realities:
1) She will be stuck doing a short sale sooner or later.
2) I’m in no hurry to buy the place, as the current rent is less than the cost of owning, prices are still dropping, and the economic factors (interest rates going up, shadow inventory, impending mortgage resets, etc.) indicate that prices still have a lot of dropping to do.
Given that, I plan to delay (or better yet, cancel) putting any money toward a lease purchase of this property.
Thoughts?
Prices will drop as you say, so why should you buy now and be the one to eat the loss? The owner is subsidizing your lifestyle now - sounds like a sweet deal to me. Send her a nice batch of cookies and keep on renting.
Keep renting at your current rate. Any additional money you would have paid on a rent-to-own contract can be put into savings. Then down the line you will have built a small down payment which you can then apply to any house you want.
The problem with doing a rent-to-own on an underwater house is that the landlord may walk away at some point, and that means bye-bye extra payments.
Muggy, are you really worried about this new law? Fl politicians are stupid, but are they THAT stupid to not make exemptions for special siuation teachers?
I’m not totally worried about it, just completely annoyed by it. We already have teachers requesting AP/honors classes next year. It’s very simple: if you tie pay to gains, teachers will want the most teachable kids.
I’m already into administration, but I’d like to keep working with at-risk kids, but at the end of the day, if the bill passes, I’ll need to pull rank just to stay in business and put grub in the table. For most people, it’s the opposite of why they got into teaching.
The politicians that get off on saying “business model” for some reason forget that manufacturers can control input. Also, education at its core is collaborative. Seriously, do teachers need to jocky for position to service the brightest 3rd graders?
They’re already trying.
O.k., for those of you that have lived in several different locales… is Florida the wackiest place you’ve lived?
Waaaaaaayyy wackiest for me by far.
without a doubt florida = wacky-city! Beating out Texas, San Dieogo, New Jersey (close second),and Washington D.C.
The old saying is that all the nuts roll downhill, end up here. The crazies in Tim Dorsey and Carl Hiaasen novels are among us, in the flesh.
I’ve never lived in Florida but have spent some time TDY supporting Centcom HQ in Tampa.
Personally, I really dislike Florida. Hot, muggy, and flat. There are no mountains in the state. There are bugs everywhere. There is little industry other than citrus, tourism, and organized crime. However, I’m aware that many people swear by it. Somehow it has become the 4th most populous state behind CA, TX, and NY.
A lot of Florida’s popularity — and high population count — is due to its long-standing popularity with the elderly. It has the nation’s highest proportion of elders. Running a close second is my home state of Pennsylvania.
However, there are at least two big, dark clouds on this sunny horizon. Permit me to elucidate:
1. Today’s elders and near-elders want to remain in close proximity to their children and grandchildren. Especially the grandchildren. We’re talkin’ helicopter grandparents, people.
2. The bounce-back syndrome. Happened in my own family. Grandma, who had lived for her entire life in the Buffalo, NY area, decided to move to Florida for her retirement. Well, she moved in with her sister and the sister’s husband, and, to put it mildly, they didn’t get along. Grandma would have been better off finding her own place, but that’s just my perspective.
After much discord under her Florida roof, the sister kicked Grandma out, and up to Pennsylvania she came. Where my mother was expected to take her in. Mom, knowing how hard her mother was to get along with, found her an apartment.
This is just my family’s experience, but there’s quite a bit of moving to Florida, then bouncing back to northern climes.
as for bounce back, count me IN! I want OUT of here!
Happiness is Florida in your rear view mirror. Actually in our case we were MUCH happier to get out of Pennsylvania in the late ’90s.
We’ve been to Orlando in the eye of the humidity, and oh man, who the h*ll can live in that?
We had to take an emergency stand-by flight out, since I could not breath. No joke. I like Mickey as much as the next gal, but my breathing was labored. What a freak’n nightmare, but we did have fun the first 3 days. Some of the Disney resorts are just beautiful.
Snorting the pixie dust again?
Is “pixie dust” from the Chinese drywall?”
I live in So Ca. Disney World is so much better. Orlando is pretty. It’s funny, we drove parts of Florida in a rental car and saw the high density McMansionvilles. We thought we were in So Ca. Fugly.
So humid I actually pay for yard service. Kills me to pay, but doesn’t kill me as bad as the humidity does.
This, and a bajillion other reasons, is why I’m moving to Hawaii and not Florida.
Next time try Anaheim.
Florida heat and humidity? Meh. You’d find me walking a golf course in July pulling a bag cart behind me. For some strange reason, the greens fees were much lower in the summer.
Families Awarded $2.6M In Chinese Drywall Suit
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125734265
“The 5-foot alligator lurking in the algae-green waters of the community swimming pool was not the worst thing code-enforcement officers have found in recent years at AAA Apartments in Cocoa. Bathrooms infested with mold. Walls with gaping holes where air conditioners had been ripped out. Garbage and trash strewn about the 52-unit complex.”
Bawn and bred in Cocoa. It has been a good forty years since I last visited, but I still remember how humid and downright swampy it is there — perfect growing conditions for mold. I even remember how moldy the walls were in the place where my family stayed at a friend’s house during our vacation.
“He blew chunks as attorney general, though.”
—
What do you expect from a guy who failed the bar exam on his first two tries?