Even in the Bonfire
-by the Mysterious Flying Miser
As HBB readers will tell you, the state of Florida exemplifies housing-bubble consequence with blistering veracity. And one of the most pointed details of Florida’s economic and literal skyline is the monstrosity of their market in condominiums. It seems the available inventory looms over the state like a giant, ominous, pink flamingo (with beady little eyes), and how could any bank, ANY BANK, possibly anticipate loss mitigation in holding foreclosed condos off the market until an even later date?
Believe it or not, HBB readers, there is still shadow inventory, even in the bonfire that is Florida. It seems that banks, in all their senselessness, will still refuse to foreclose on condominiums and other properties when subject to overdue HOA fees.
According to Ben Solomon, a Florida attorney, there is a substantial number of residential properties in Florida on which the owner stopped paying the mortgage more than 6 months ago, yet foreclosure proceedings have not begun. Says Mr. Solomon, “The main reason is that these units are financially upside down, meaning the amount of the mortgages are significantly greater than the value of such units. The lenders do not want to assume such upside down units because of all of the liabilities associated with them, including the obligation to pay maintenance assessments to the association, late fees, attorneys’ fees, costs, taxes, insurance, etc.”
When asked whether he thought banks were colluding to hold real estate off the market in an attempt to hide the true extent of their REO holdings, Mr. Solomon said yes. “It is likely that many of these financially upside down units have already been internally written off as losses on such banks’ balance sheets, but they are hoping for potential short sales or other opportunities to liquidate these bad assets before having to acknowledge the same to the public and announce such losses to Wall Street.”
Mr. Solomon explains that accumulated HOA fees do nothing to inspire a foreclosing bank to unload its dreary asset. “Due to the fact that the HOA statute (F.S. 720) and the Condominium Act (F.S. 718) both provide significant relief and discounts to qualified first mortgage holders in the amounts they must to pay to the associations when they take title, the law actually provides a disincentive for lenders to complete their foreclosures because they believe that whether they take 2 years, 3 years, or even 5 years, they still only have to pay the association the lesser of 6 months or 1% (under current condo law, although this may change to 12 months depending on laws coming out of Tallahassee) or 12 months or 1% (under current HOA law).”
He believes lenders are acting in bad faith by not aggressively pursuing flagrant defaults under mortgage agreements, to the severe detriment of associations throughout the state. Mr. Solomon also adds, “Associations need to be more aggressive than ever in pursuing all amounts due to them, including interest on past-due amounts (if authorized under the governing documents), all attorneys fees and costs, in addition to the full amounts due to the association. A lawyer must be found who understands the latest legal strategies and preferably agrees to defer all of his or her legal fees until such fees are finally collected from the owner or their successor in title such as the bank (the way our firm does).”
From the Sun Sentinel. “No one can blame stressed Florida condominium owners and association leaders for seeking financial relief, and many are pinning high hopes on condo-reform legislation now on Gov. Charlie Crist’s desk awaiting his signature. ‘This bill contains elements that will help thousands of associations recover from this humongous recession,’ said Dan Mason, a unit owner and former association president of the Country Club Tower, the biggest high-rise in Coral Springs. ‘We are just keeping our head above water’ due to high condo unit vacancy and foreclosure rates.’”
“The bill would require lenders to pay 12 month’s worth of back fees — or 1 percent of the mortgage value — when they take title to a property through foreclosure or deed in lieu of foreclosure. Currently, banks and lenders must pay only up to six months of fees.”
From Barron’s. “If a condominium owner is behind on his mortgage, he usually isn’t paying his condo association dues either. And that, oddly, could be helping to prevent the already roaring rate of U.S. condominium foreclosures from becoming even worse. Condominium preforeclosure actions — the legal maneuvers that must be completed before a property can be seized — rose 37% last year, to 188,617, from 2008’s level, compared with 32% for all homes, according to RealtyTrac. But completed condo foreclosures fell 9%, to 66,506.”
“In part, this reflects an overwhelmed court system, federal pressure to get lenders to work with borrowers and the willingness of those lenders to allow short sales to keep from adding to the number of deadbeat properties on their books. But lenders’ reluctance to pick up condo-association fees also plays a role.”
“In the most troubled markets — think Florida, California, Nevada, Arizona and parts of the Midwest — some condos are three years in arrears on association fees. When a bank takes ownership, it risks having to pay those fees, plus any that accrue until it resells the unit.”
“For lenders, the simplest way to delay — or avoid — paying the dues is by postponing foreclosure until a buyer turns up who’s willing to shell out the accrued dues if the property is priced low enough. But in the current market, especially in the worst-hit areas, that can take a very long time.”
“Says Andrew Fortin, a vice president of the Community Association Institute, a national organization that represents 30,000 single-family-home and condo associations: ‘A lot of banks just aren’t foreclosing, but leaving people to live in their property two years without making payments to their associations or on their mortgages.’”
“Pompano Beach, Fla., lawyer Peter Wallis, who often represents condo associations, says this is understandable because the lenders ‘aren’t really getting hurt’ any more than they would be otherwise by delaying foreclosures, but that the associations are ‘getting mauled.’”
The News Journal. “At the peak of the area’s housing boom four years ago, Chicago native James Dolan bought a unit at the nine-story Oceanside Inn here when it converted from a hotel to a condo-tel. But, since then, the housing bust has cost him plenty. The owners association recently passed its second special assessment, on top of monthly maintenance fees, to make up for other owners who are in foreclosure or walked away and are not paying their fees. ”
“‘It ticks me off that I had to pay $6,000 above the asking price to get the place and then they let these deadbeats buy with questionable financing and now the place is in debt,’ Dolan said.”
“Circuit Court Judge Richard Graham recently approved the appointment of a ‘blanket receiver’ for the Oceanside Inn. It’s the first such ruling in the 7th Judicial Circuit, attorney Jason Harr said. ‘It’s groundbreaking in this district. It’s been approved in other districts, but it’s never been asked for and the court has never approved it here prior to when we did it,’ he said. ‘It’s given a life preserver to the association that was in dire straits.’”
“Owners associations by law are able to foreclose on the owner of a unit that is behind in fee payments. But the association has to file separate claims for each unit and owner. The cost is usually prohibitive for an association already under financial stress, Harr said. The blanket receiver order allows the association to include all delinquent units in one filing.”
“Similar blanket receivers have been approved in just a few Florida jurisdictions. They are not binding and have not been challenged in an appeals court, said Kevin Miller, head of the collections and foreclosures division for Becker & Poliakoff, a large community association legal firm in Fort Lauderdale. Most blanket-receiver cases involve large condos that are in significant financial stress and need emergency relief.”
“‘It’s up to each judge to interpret the statutes in each case,’ Miller said. ‘But, it’s a new strategy, a new argument, novel and it is catching on.’”
“‘It ticks me off that I had to pay $6,000 above the asking price to get the place and then they let these deadbeats buy with questionable financing and now the place is in debt,’ Dolan said.”
For a condo-tel??? An even worse idea/investment than time-shares…
Walk away dude.
Which is worse…A pig in a poke or an expensive bag of condo-association fees and special assesments…?
“This is your captain speaking and I’d like to thank you for flying and doing inside loops with CONdo Air. On behalf of the airline, the crew and your RE agent, please join us again for another wild ride, thrills and a big let-down on your next Boom and Bust Vacation. Fell free to kiss the ground after the sudden stop and big “SPLAT”. Thank you.”
I agree with 2banana here. “Investing” in a hotel room? These people deserve to get fleeced.
A few years ago, I got a call from one of those hyperventilating sales types. If you’ve been in business for longer than five minutes, you’ll have the pleasure of dealing with such people.
But Mr. Breathless wasn’t trying to sell me something. Rather, he was asking about my services as a graphic designer. For his condo-tel investment scheme.
Well, if there was any way for my telephone to convey an aroma, it would have been wafting Eau de Skunk into my studio. Something about this conto-tel thing just didn’t smell right.
At the time of this phone call, I was a fairly new HBB-er, and I’d already read some not-so-nice things about condo-tels. Based on what y’all had been typing, I figured that I would have had a tough time getting paid for my work.
So, I passed on this condo-tel graphic design project. And, oh, am I glad I did. Thank you, HBB, for saving my…
…posterior.
Slim,
And that saddens me. Assuming these people/developments delivered as advertised, a condo-tel ’should’ be the best thing since sliced bread.
Perhaps at some point in the future it’s something I might actually consider? We’ve all long been in agreement that having an utterly vacant home “on the coast” 50 weeks out of the year is a total losing proposition! I have no argument there.
I guess the only way to have it done correctly would be to do it yourself. But when you’ve got reic’sters planning on early retirement after (1) “deal” kind of cuts your odds down a bit.
Jeez what disaster. The games, extend and pretend, etc.
Isn’t bankruptcy the very mechanism to get past the trainwreck noted in this post? Isn’t bankruptcy an option for HOA’s? Could that be the strategy of those who hold the collateral(the poor banks!)? In addition, the housing transaction system appears entirely seized up because the banks (the poor banks!) plain and simple refuse to take a loss.
What happened to removing friction from transactions? All these very basic fundamental elements of economics are being ignored because our slave masters (the poor banks!) think they are owed, just like the deluded sellers.
Why would the association go bankrupt? Yes, it can’t collect the monies owed to it right now, but it still has them as an asset on its books. And it sounds like the condo laws allow it to collect them from the first solvent person to take ownership of the unit, so they can’t be written off as bad debts. If they tried to get rid of their obligations to various contractors that take care of the building, they aren’t going to get anyone to ever do work for them again. Declaring bankruptcy would get them into court, but if the law doesn’t already allow them to force the current owner to pay, I doubt the judge could force it. I just don’t see what bankruptcy gets the association at all.
Polly,
It’s really not that simple. A couple of years back I wrote a rather lengthy missive on this blog about Condos and Florida Condos in particular, from past experience of housing crashes. Most people have forgotten about the Savings and Loan collapses from the early 1980s. I haven’t.
We had lots of overpriced Condos that were built to supply current “demand” (artificial as we witnessed most recently). When prices started to correct, people started to bail. Same story. The first payments to stop are the condo dues. Then repairs get delayed. The condo gets into disrepair and makes selling the oversupply of units all the more difficult……at any price. Who wants to buy a condo in a complex that seems to be going down the tubes?
Then the tempers flair with the existing owners who are forced to come up with the cash for necessary repairs. They banks don’t really want to “Loan” them money on the assessments that havent’ been paid. They other owners want to sue the deadbeats. They can’t, so they sue……….the condo association. They attach fees from their lawyers who seek relief from the already bankrupt and overly indebted Association.
That takes whatever reserves they may have had and gives it to lawyers who resolve nothing, but collect a bunch of fees for their trouble. It takes years and huge price reductions to get the property back into solvency. I saw beachfront condos that had sold for $140,000 in 1980 go for $30,000 in 1986. And that wasn’t at a time when we had HUGE overvaluations and massive speculation. It was high, but it was an order of magnitude of difference from today.
CONDO’s are the BEST investment for “Flipping” since you can usually unload without taking possession. They are the WORST if you didn’t get out before the price turn-around. This is how real “Democracies” work. Everyone is looking for someone else to pay the bills and the “government” gets sent the bill. The owners just don’t see themselves as the government. They think they can “walk away” and leave the city holding the empty sack while they leave town with whatever loot they think they can abscond with.
There just isn’t enough loot to go around. It’s all gone, already.
“Extend and pretend” is the accounting revision that enabled the banks to fully value mortgages and MBS’s that are tweaked to appear “performing”. They aren’t.
My two cents:
1) The banks try to appear to be healthy when they are still Zombies. Think about the movie “Dawn of the Dead” where Zombies are congregating at The Cross Roads Mall because they have a “memory” of their former selves. They are still Zombies and even know they are Zombies. The banks are pretending to be “alive” but they have no chance or choice. They take deposits, service clients, pay huge bonuses, and generally try to appear ok. They aren’t.
2) The revised accounting procedures success is wholly dependent upon all mortgages continuing to be paid, and does not account for “walking away”. “Walking away” is the new “House Flipping.” I wonder when the TV show is coming? Congress: “Gee, there’s a problem here? Did we miss something when we had those hearings that bullied the accounting standards people to write that rule change?” Hmm, Ya’ Think? Frankly, I really like POTUS Obama. It’s the Congress that drives me nuts.
3) It is crystal clear that a gigantic “air pocket” supports the whole system -consumer spending, bank lending, balance sheets, the world stock markets, etc. I’m convinced that we hit a “Deep Water Horizon methane bubble” on Thursday of last week. It was “stabilized” but think of it this way: Who is really buying the rally this morning? Prudent, considerate, long term investors? Of course! The computers and traders buying with the Fed’s Funny Money would never buy into that kind of silliness. This is why I’m sure it will end well. I just know it will work. Optimism will always come through in the end. (Please explain that to those HBBers who are “sarcasm challenged.”)
The whole mess is overdue for a “lean over the porcelain” session and great, big “yawn in technicolor” to round things out.
The Zombies are at The Cross Roads Mall. They are dead but don’t know what else to do. Heck, they even know they are dead. So does everyone else.
Now what?
Roidy
Funny, and agreed. I’m just not sure what bearing holding units off the market and not following through on these foreclosures really has either way?
The net impact isn’t bound to be meaningful. Otay, we’ll go ahead and file for FC. Now what? It’s still empty and ‘not’ collecting fees for maint. etc.
If they foreclose, then someone else can buy it from them at a lower price, and hopefull stay in it.
Get rid of Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment act. Bingo !, problem solved.
Most comments I have found on “extend and pretend” relate to commercial real estate and the valuation of securitized mortgages. Some of the “shadow inventory” is doubtlessly included in commercial mortgages; loans to builders and particularly condos that cannot be sold. Lenders can presumably roll construction loans over at book value so long as their contractual interest payments are being met and the contractor/borrower need not actually make sales which might impair the underlying value of the collateral.
A more serious issue is whether the relaxation of FASB 157 in 2009 also relaxed the rules for reporting residential mortgages in arrears during mortgage re-negotiations but before foreclosure auctions take place that might set a new market value. Some interpretations of this even rule suggest that such auctions may not be fair value events. Why not?
Seems to me that questions to the regulators regarding the role of FASB 157 in residential mortgages might be useful in identifying sources of the shadow inventory. Regulators say they are just following FASB, but has FASB changed materially?
Watch it boys,
You can tell it’s a serious recession when the old “girlfriends” now in deep financial trouble, call the biggest monster in the known world, yours truly, out of the blue, claiming that they made a terrible mistake and the “You were the best thing that ever happened to me in my life”
Run Monster, Run
OH NO!
Yes, I agree, Run Monster Run!
Roidy
Once a man asked a woman to marry him.
The woman said no.
And the man lived happily ever after…
play along get a little action but keep the wallet locked in a safe….
They’re not called “old flames” for nothing and even dense mikey learned that grabbing something to hot to handle teaches the intense lesson that “Pain Hurts”…a lot!!
lol…Here, look at all my little singed fingers…
“The lenders do not want to assume such upside down units because of all of the liabilities associated with them, including the obligation to pay maintenance assessments to the association, late fees, attorneys’ fees, costs, taxes, insurance, etc.”
I think this simple economic fact holds true in AZ as well. While looking for a home, we see 90-95% of the homes on the MLS are “short sales”. Many of these homes are vacant and I can only surmise that the “owners” mailed in the keys.
Legally speaking, when does the bank take ownership? When they foreclose or when the prior owner gives up and moves out of the property?
(1) The bank takes ownership as a result of a foreclosure auction (”trustee’s auction”) where no other bidder meets their reserve price. The bank does NOT get ownership of any property without first attempting an auction, because the law provides that if anyone will buy the property for MORE than what is owed to the bank and other lienholders, then the former owner gets that excess money. Another possibility is for the bank to bribe the “owner” to move out leaving good condition AND maybe the owner signs a quit-claim deed so no auction is required.
(2) I don’t immediately believe the assertion (even though it came from Barron’s) that the mortgagee (bank) owes the condo association in Arizona. The last time I repossessed a trailer-park lot that was held with a condo-like title, my lawyer told me I did NOT have to pay the back HOA dues. I paid them anyway, because I hold notes on various parcels in the same park and it behooves me, therefore, to get along with the HOA.
“my lawyer told me I did NOT have to pay the back HOA dues.”
Probably true, as far as it goes, but the back HOA dues are not void either. They attach to the property, so whoever bought it from you would be an idiot if they did not insist that you pay them at closing. Otherwise, they would eventually have to pay them.
Wow, 90 to 95%. That’s mind boggling. We had Mum’s day at the in-laws just outside Salem, OR and they were laughing at how many of the homes in their “upscale” n’hood are empty.
Oh there’s a FS sign out front and all ( but let’s be honest, they’re abandoned! ) We had the first nice weekend since Sept. and you could’ve heard a pin drop. We were basically the only people outside?
Dinor! I wish you had been with my husband and me when we visited this house in a 200k neighborhood asking close to 500k and telling us this house was a “Lifestyle!” Exactly! As in we don’t WANT to pay for you LIFESTYLE! I looked the house up on Realtytrac and foreclosure.com this last weekend, and low and behold, lookie who’s there. 2010 and really, there is still that much spiked kool-aid out there?
Athena!
And hello to YOU dear! Yeah, I could’ve used a laugh. Please… can I fund ‘your’ Lifestyle? Have you been running the Sonoma Bubble Blog? What’s going ON down there!
The overall appearance of this once upscale dev. was getting a little tough to deny? Overgrown lawns, neglected common areas? Vacant lots in between homes totally out of control.
As we predicted, the lots have plummeted in price and you’d think that would be a Godsend to builders but it isn’t. It was the outrageous mark-ups on the lots “Starting in the low 200’s” that enabled all the fraud. Absent the easy up front money ( what’s the point of being a ‘builder’? ) Good to see you as always!
DinOr,
Where the heck have you been? Hope everything is going well for you and your family.
Whoops. Please ignore, read about what has been going on further down line.
SFBAGal,
I probably missed a golden opportunity there? I should have told everyone that I’ve gotten my Relitters Lic. and have been going coast-to-coast looking to “do some deals” you know, snappin up infestment properties and whatnot?
house in a 200k neighborhood asking close to 500k and telling us this house was a “Lifestyle!”
That’s funny…I’m not really into the “slavery lifestyle”.
Hi DinOr!
Good to see you too! I have been derelict in the SHBB due to really having just a whole lot of “told you so” to post. Though, MoonValley and I have thought up some interesting angle and example posts, but wanting to get a better list up so we can keep the flow going. Things are still unwinding pretty slowly here… lots more on the pretentious side of town ending up in foreclosure, but still sticky on the way down due to banks taking 5-18 months to even process the foreclosures and kick them out, and still having funny money flowing. Can you believe Fannie isn’t going to start qualifying people based on the fully amortized amount of their loan until September 2010? WTF?
“When asked whether he thought banks were colluding to hold real estate off the market in an attempt to hide the true extent of their REO holdings, Mr. Solomon said yes.”
What I don`t get is why they don`t check the people not paying their mortgage and still collecting rent. I am in my second rental that the LL is doing this and I know of 3 others personally and many others I have been told about. My last LL got about 2 years rent while not paying the mortgage, the place sold for about $190,000.00 less than he owed and as far as I know he walked away free and clear.
Well what could they do anyway? If they haven’t filed and gotten any kind of judgment they have no rights to the rent payments anyway. Or, they have right to some money but not that specific money which could be squirreled away or spent while the bank is foreclosing.
Unless there is some equitable action they could bring that I’m missing here..
Perhaps on the theory of “unjust enrichment”?
No doubt. Banks have created a new way to earn a living for a couple years for anyone who wants in. Buy a house, don’t pay the mortgage, rent it out, and make a killing. Why would a bank want to encourage this behavior?
OH YEAH, I remember now. It’s because the government is paying them to do it. Forgot.
William Zanzinger (immortalized by Bob Dylan) collected rents for YEARS on houses the county had seized for non-payment of taxes. Heck, he even took tennants to court for non-payment of rent on houses he no longer had title to.
And now, a word from our sponsor:
“A lawyer must be found who understands the latest legal strategies and preferably agrees to defer all of his or her legal fees until such fees are finally collected from the owner or their successor in title such as the bank (the way our firm does).”
His advice is good, though. However, good luck finding an attorney who will defer his fees. Legal fees can break a condo assoc or HOA. Been there, done that. Never again.
A condo association or HOA is only as good as its weakest, most dubious member. One troublemaker can break a small association. I was president of a HOA way back in the day. Although most of the people who lived there were decent folks, we did have a couple of criminal types who caused no end of trouble. It really isn’t worth it to have to deal with these folks. We didn’t get a thin dime from one unit that went into foreclosure, either, until the unit sold and the bank paid us back fees owed.
pametto,
Agreed, and sometimes I feel like I’m giving our Prez a hard time simply b/c I can. But when he bends over backwards to make sure we don’t go after the builder or the lender, yeah I’m recruiting.
Predictably the guy that was the driving force behind ‘our’ little end of the debacle has been diagnosed terminal. So now he gets to be the recipient of all that empathy when what he ’should’ be getting ( and God forgive me ) is a jail sentence.
DinOR, one of my fave posters! Where’ve you been, or have I just not been paying attention? Are you doing OK?
palmetto,
And you one of mine! No I’ve just been busy, I was fighting tooth and nail to not get “medically discharged from the Guard and I was changing broker dealers so it was like my whole life was up in the air.
I hope I’ve gotten most things settled down by now and on the family front I’ve had to tell a number of people to stop relying on us so much. Sadly we’re at a point where we’ve done about as much as we can for folks and it’s really come time for us to focus on our own futures.
Hi DinOR,
I figured that you moved the time machine back to those hot summer days and drinking cold sodas on the steps of country store in Willow Springs again or something.
Welcome back
mieky,
Hey! Yeah, just too much going on. In the Pre-Bust world my medical condition for poor hearing ( like show me someone that works on the flightline that -isn’t- DEAF! ) wouldn’t have been an issue at all?
I would have been moved over to chaplain’s asst. or base legal office etc. But given the New Normal, there were SO many people applying ( and yes PT is now considered “having a job” ) it was difficult to find an opening. ‘Any’ opening.
So going thru the appeal process was really time consuming. I’m just glad it’s over. This upcoming weekend the wife and I are going to look at some property just outside of Yreka, CA and are pretty excited about it. Land is as cheap there as it is on the OR side ( only it’s about 2,000′ lower elevation ) so their weather is totally different. So, we’ll see.
Sorry to hear that you had so much up in the air with your career. I’m glad you have things under control now.
My younger best friend just pulled the pin a couple of years back. He started as a Navy Seaman and ended up a Army 0-5. Sheesh…it wasn’t EZ but he made it through and is very happy. What a hastle for him and his family those last few years.
Now he has a hearing aid and he’s laughing at me because now they’re monitoring my right ear because “my friends” tried to drop an artillery round on my head when I was a kid.
Who needs to hear the soft voices of women and small children giving you directions and instructions when you’re driving a car.
I take my commands from a noisy GPS, and I have places to see and things to do without minor distractions and little image killers.
Stay “Forever Young”…or fake it the best you can!!
mikey,
You’ve nailed it. It wasn’t like I was language translator ( read spy ) or orchestra conductor? And w/ 16 yrs. in why would I be trying to get kicked out? That’s for homesick bootcamps w/ 19 1/2 yrs to ‘go’.
Actually when it all started I was fine, then ( again economy/bubble/bust driven ) they changed the regs. and I was painted into a corner. Lots of us actually.
“Show me someone who works flightline who ISN’T deaf…”
Ever notice how the first frequency ranges that you lose, are the exact same ones as the ex-wife’s bi#ching”?
X-GS,
LOL! Yeah, I was a little amazed they were even making an issue out of it? You could pull random crew chiefs and get the same result.
Anyway, what’s up in Flyoverland? I think the point I was trying to make earlier about who cares if they foreclose on that swath of condoze in FL is that, nobody in their right mind is going to LEND on them anyway!
I realize ( in theory ) getting that inventory moved, and hopefully this time to “end users” ( not psycho d!ckhead infestors ) would create new comps etc. etc. But, I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem all that.., important right now?
Wow S-GS, I can see why you’re divorced. No new girlfriend, I assume?
DinOR, Big V, what is this? A class reunion?
I even saw HARM post last week.
Dine Or
Nice to have you back. A few things to know about Yreka.
1. Every weekend you’ll go to Medford for the shopping, no 9% sales tax.
2. There is absolutely nothing to do in Yreka.
3. In the summer it’s hotter than the Rogue valley.
4. In the winter, it can get brutal with the snow and cold.
5. All the restaurants are in Ashland.
DennisN,
Seriously! HARM!? Sorry I missed that and hey to V too! God I miss HARM’s positively -brutal- sense of bubble-humor. ( Could that man shut down a troll or what! )
Rancher,
Thanks for the heads up, there’s just so much we have to learn about the area. A few of the guys from my Unit live there FT and no, “excitement” is hardly the first thing that they’d describe it as?
It’s really the result of an “expanded search” and we’re kind of excited about it. As the crow flies ( if I ‘were’ one ) it’s actually pretty close to the base. I-5 is another matter? Although I think K’ Falls had a little snow -today-. Remember, we lived in Molalla, OR for years so we’re kind used to the remoteness etc. We wouldn’t spend any time there during the winters anyway and actually, I really miss the heat. ANY… kind of heat.
No, as I’ve oft said, for me, this is about May and October! ‘That’ way, we could have an actual summer just like ppl in ND have? It’s a 4 hour drive from our front door and all but 11 miles of that on I-5. The most “expensive” property we’ve looked at was ten grand. I’ll let you know what Mom thinks of the place.
Wow. Funny how I happened to pick tonight to do a little lurking. Sometimes things happen for a good reason, I guess. DinOR, I’m feeling the love –and right back at’cha! Ditto for BigV, SanFranciscoBayAreaGal, az_lender, DennisN, Palmetto, Mikey, Diogenes, Athena, … and all the rest of the old gang.
My current job is keeping me on the move and plenty busy these days. But… for all you fellow Bay Areans out there, please keep me in mind if Ben decides to do another “coast-to-coast bubble tour”. It’s been far too long.
The percentage of American single-family homes with mortgages in negative equity rose to 23.3 percent in the first quarter from 21.4 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the Zillow Real Estate Market Reports.
Link ??
cnbc.com
I’ll post about it when mine gets there.
I rented a condo in Orlando FL from late 2007 to mid 2009. In early 2009 we started receiving threatening notices from the HOA about not paying the HOA fees. We turned this over to our property management company who rented us the apartment. Then we had foreclosure/litigation papers delivered to our doorstep. Once again we contacted the property management company. As it turns out the owner of our unit, had never paid one dime of HOA fees. He had also only paid 2 months of the mortgage and the entire time we had been paying him rent, he was not paying anything on the mortgage. We left the unit immediately and found a new place to live not wanting to be stuck in the middle of it. We STILL receive copies of foreclosure paperwork at our new address showing the bank has still not taken the unit. For all we know they have rented the unit to somebody else. Meanwhile these condos have plummeted from 189,000 to less than $50,000 each. The crook who owned this condo essentially paid nothing since late 2006 when he purchased, collected my money and STILL HAS THE CONDO IN HIS NAME!
The crook who owned this condo essentially paid nothing since late 2006 when he purchased, collected my money ??
Doesn’t the IRS have some kind of program where you can get a percentage of what they collect from a tax cheat ??
From an attorney’s website comes this link that describes the IRS Income Tax Reward Program. Hope it’s useful to you.
And, courtesy of our friends at the Infernal Revenue Service, here’s another fun-filled link that answers the following question:
How Do You Report Suspected Tax Fraud Activity?
Notice the timeline on this one though? Late 2006. That was like a totally different world, planet. It’s just amazing how long this thing has been grinding on.
Might want to check the old credit and make sure your name hasn’t got drug into this thing too. This is exactly what I’m talking about, all of the innocents that cattle prodded into this meat grinder too.
Anyone really think that the IRS will politely just go away ?? How far can they go back now 7 years ? I think there will be a lot of people quite shocked that their “water under the bridge” HELOC and flipping ventures rear their ugly head many years later…
scdave,
IN…teresting! Actually yes, I ‘have’ seen evidence of that. There have been a number of articles on Yahoo Finance etc. where they prominently ‘mention’ the Lifetime $100k cap.
You know, the one everybody and their long lost brother completely blew OFF the last decade or so?
With technology the way it is now I got to believe there will be no escape unless you leave the country…They will take their time and wait for the people that “lost it all” to stabilize a little bit…Then, here comes the IRS….
scdave,
Oh… I think that is -precisely- The Plan. There won’t be any point in going after the MB’s for not informing their borrowers ( those that remain anyway ) and ultimately it ‘is’ the responsibility of the tax payer!
You’re absolutely right. Personally I can’t wait for it.
Wonder if he’s been claiming the rent money as “rental revenue” on his taxes? I kind of doubt it.
Another draw back of having these CDO securities is that it takes a lot longer getting a resolve on a foreclosure because of these trenches of investments in which different trenches are in
conflict of interest with each other . Another faulty design by the Money Changers .
But I’m wondering why the PMI companies and those type of insurance entities
would put up with this sort of slow drawn out foreclosure process when they have to pay out on the claim . Maybe those insurers are
just claiming fraud and not paying . But there would be a duty for the lender to market the foreclosure quickly at the highest and best price just for the fact that the liability could go to the borrower as a tax bill on forgiven debt .
The Lender sure did market the short sale quickly with the Widow down the street who called up the bank and worked with them . They had that place on the market within one month of her moving out and they sold it within one week . The foreclosure that happen a couple of years ago on my block took about 16 to17 months to get
sold based on them moving so slow, which cost the lender a bundle . That borrower/investor moved out in the middle of the night and
it took the lender at least 8 months to even get out there and repair the water damage and start to market the property . That was a property in which I kept the lawn up for all those months
because I couldn’t stand the eyesore .
Are lenders turning in claims to insurance companies on these damages on properties or what ?
Wizard, FYI, it is tranches, not trenches.
PMI companies such as AIG? Government pays them. That’s yer collusion in full force, IMO.
In Milwaukee the lenders WON’T foreclose. The City can then go after them for back taxes and ‘other’ City costs !
Almost more interesting to know whether he has been claiming the interest portion of the mortgage payments and HOA fees (neither of which he is paying) as deductions.
By the way everyone, as a general rule, tax years close after three years. I think they can go to 7 years on an item that you fail to mention at all, though I’m not sure if it matters whether the IRS got told about it by someone else (hey, that procedure class was a long time ago!).
polly,
Good points as always. I think there was a lot of “fail to mention” goin’ on? Will they be able to make the case that their MB “never told ‘me’ about that stuff” ( when we were equity skimming our home for all it was worth? )
Homes still sinking, 44.3 percent in South Florida underwater
by Kim Miller
A first quarter report from analysts at real estate research firm Zillow found that 44.3 percent of homes in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties were underwater during the beginning of 2010. That’s a small increase from 2009’s 4th quarter statistic of 41.2 percent.
Nationally, 23.3 percent of all single-family homes were underwater, meaning the borrower owes more on the loan than the home is worth.
The report, released this morning, also found a continued decrease in home values. The Zillow Home Value Index for Palm Beach County was $158,900, down 5.6 percent from the same time in 2009.
Zillow analysts said it could be up to five years before home values begin climbing.
“We suspect that the homebuyer tax credits are, for the most part, stealing demand from later this summer, rather than creating new demand,” said Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries. “Even with the tax credits in place during the first quarter, inventory levels were rising, and home values continued to decline at a steady clip, rather than steadying.
“Because of these factors, we believe national home values are more likely to reach bottom in the third quarter of 2010, rather than in the second quarter, as we had hoped. When we do get there, we expect the high rates of negative equity and foreclosures to keep national home value appreciation near zero for some time, possibly as long as five years.”
This entry was posted on Monday, May 10th, 2010 at 8:20 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
“We suspect that the homebuyer tax credits are, for the most part, stealing demand from later this summer, rather than creating new demand,” said Zillow Chief Economist Stan Humphries. “Even with the tax credits in place during the first quarter, inventory levels were rising, and home values continued to decline at a steady clip, rather than steadying.
Ummm, if memory serves correctly, didn’t I read something similar to describe what post-9/11/01 zero percent financing did to auto sales?
Slim,
Hey, don’t knock it! Just getting reic’sters to admit there ‘is’ such a thing as “stealing demand” is a big, big step in the right direction for once.
After a short break, I now see the REIC as an open door asylum. They need our help, not our scorn. With years of therapy and a lot of expensive drugs we can begin their rehabilitation into once again being productive citizens. Maybe.
Are you sure we can just tie concrete blocks to their feet and see if enough of them piled up down there can plug up the BP leak?
Or do you think that’ll just make the gulf oilier?
Banksters and the Condo/Home Owners Associations working on trying to screw each other……
Like watching your piece of crap (but insured) car go over a cliff with your PITA mother-in law.
Gee Fixer, bitter lately?
When Big V tells you you’re too angry, it’s saying something.
Bink,
Hi. I heard you are going to Hawaii. I am planning on making a pineapple upside cake in your honor. Aloha and Mahalo.
Thanks. I’ll probably be spending more time in your area, as it will be the closest civilization to me.
…And her yappy POS fluff on a string dog…..