A Bandage On A Blown-Out Tire
The Gazette reports from Colorado. “When Kelly Deutsch and her husband began having financial trouble late last year, they did what many families have tried to do - refinance their two mortgages, both of which have adjustable rates. Deutsch lost her job as a medical assistant in September. Her husband brings in about $2,000 a month. Their initial house payments to Countrywide had been roughly $1,000 a month, but their rate has jumped twice, raising the payment to $1,180 a month and then to $1,300. With the second mortgage, the couple, who has a 9-year-old son, was looking at $1,700 a month in mortgage payments. That left almost nothing for groceries and other bills.”
“After months of asking for a loan modification that would lower the payments, Deutsch was finally told by a Countrywide customer service representative in December that she didn’t have to send a check in that month, and that she qualified for a payment program…A month later, Deutsch said, she found out she’d been lied to. A letter from Countrywide arrived Jan. 2, informing the Deutsches that they didn’t qualify for reduced payments.”
“Deutsch was told she should be ‘ashamed that we can’t make our house payments.’ Deutsch said a service rep named Marguerite, who wouldn’t give her last name, said ‘that they would rather take the keys back to the house than let us keep it,’ and that the Deutsches’ loan ‘means nothing to (Countrywide).’”
“When Deutsch asked about being told in December that a payment wasn’t necessary, she was told by yet another customer service rep that there are ‘a lot of liars in the company.’”
“The Deutsches are two months behind on their mortgage payments and even selling wouldn’t get them out of a hole: they owe $25,000 more than their home is worth in today’s real estate market. On Friday, Bank of America, which has taken over Countrywide, announced at least a three-week moratorium on foreclosures on all its mortgage loans.”
“For Deutsch, the bottom line on Countrywide promising to help borrowers is simple. ‘I just don’t trust them.’”
The Arizona Republic. “Phoenix grew into the nation’s fifth-largest city through a reliable pattern: Build affordable homes on the metro area’s edges, welcome waves of new buyers, and then roads, schools and retail centers follow. Home buyers relied on that pattern. Buy an affordable home on the edge, watch it quickly appreciate, then sell at a good profit and move again to a bigger home in an established area.”
“One reason the current housing collapse has been so brutal in Phoenix is how suddenly that pattern broke down. In only a couple of years, the breakdown trapped people in unfinished communities much like a fast-moving landslide buries people in their tracks.”
“‘We have too many empty and foreclosed homes in our neighborhood and not enough stores and jobs. I have to do a lot of my shopping online,’ said Jennifer Barber, who lives in Goodyear’s Estrella Mountain Ranch. ‘The way we are growing is not working. We aren’t getting many of the basic things we were promised.’”
“On the same streets where stranded homeowners watch home values plummet, builders can’t sell the vacant homes next door. Businesses that did move in are struggling. Others have decided not to come. Cities and towns that counted on tax revenue from new residents and business have seen their budget plans fall apart.”
“‘We can’t keep doing this,’ said Shannon Scutari, Arizona’s policy adviser for growth and infrastructure. ‘Our method for growing is broke, and there’s no quick fix. We must have sustainable growth and solid ways of tracking and supporting it.’”
“(A) Goodyear shopping center on Estrella Parkway, has only one tenant, a pizza parlor that opened last year. The center sits near hundreds of new homes. The next closest place to shop and eat is a few miles away along Interstate 10. Karen Madison lives in the neighborhood. She shares a car with her husband, who works during the day.”
“‘I feel stranded most days because there’s nothing close enough for me to walk to,’ said Madison, who sometimes walks a few miles, pushing her daughter in a stroller, to fill prescriptions. ‘We were so excited when we saw the shopping center go up just a few blocks away. But there’s nothing there.’”
The Arizona Daily Sun. “The trouble started when Vice Mayor Al White uttered the phrase ‘urban growth machine.’ White said members of the ‘machine’ rarely needed to worry about affordable housing, while teachers and police officers consistently struggled to stay here in Flagstaff. ‘The machine isn’t a bad thing — it just is. It is the Realtors, it is the homebuilders, it is the architects, it is the engineers, it is utilities, it is the chamber boards, it is title companies. And when they can, by electing council people, it is also government,’ White said.”
“Added White: ‘When we identify the people who are on the affordable housing list and we ask who they are, firemen, policemen, teachers, mid-managers come up. Who is conspicuously absent from that list? Builders, Realtors and those folks.’”
“This brought an angry response from Councilmember Scott Overton, a contractor. ‘You stereotype me, you are putting me in a group that, in your opinion, has done things that are bad,’ he said. ‘Al, I go to work every day, I make about $40,000 a year, and I feel the pinch, too.’”
The Nevada Appeal. “Declining apartment rents and increasing vacancy rates have property managers across the region scrambling to keep existing tenants and provide higher levels of tenant service — and some property managers are even reducing existing rents to keep or lure new tenants. Len Ramos, first vice president with the multi-housing group with CBRE, says managing occupancy is of utmost importance in a time of declining rents and rising vacancies.”
“‘That is the key; maintaining occupancy is the bottom line,’ he says. ‘Managers are saying they are meeting more with their tenant base and are just staying closer to them to make sure they don’t leave.’”
“Don Wilkerson, president of Gaston and Wilkerson Management Group, says the most typical concessions are a month off a year lease, or a reduction in required deposits. And in worst-case scenarios for property owners losing tenants to other properties, managers are cutting rents unbidden. ‘I have heard of managers that have gone to their residents and say, ‘I am going to lower your rent by $5 or $10 for remainder of your lease. In case of one owner they were losing residents to other properties that were offering big discounts.’”
“‘Amateur hour is over. What is it going to take to keep apartments full is good strong property management, and that is more than collecting rents and paying bills,’ he said.”
The Reno Gazette Journal from Nevada. “Some folks dream about making it big in a big city. Others pine for fame and fortune. In the case of 33-year-old Erika Hernandez, her dream stands on an acre and a half of land just north of Reno with three horses and a miniature pony in the back. For more than five years Hernandez and her family have called their Red Rock house home — a source of shelter and pride for Hernandez since 2003.”
“‘This house means a lot to me,’ Hernandez said. ‘When I look at it, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, I did it.’ It’s like a dream.’”
“What Hernandez did not know is that the price for keeping her dream was about to get steep. Acquired through an adjustable-rate mortgage, Hernandez was informed late last year that her monthly house payment was set to jump from $1,785 to as high as $3,200 once her loan fully resets.”
“By the time February rolled by, all the stress and shame about potentially losing her house, compounded by cuts to her hours at work, left Hernandez emotionally shaky. ‘I can’t sleep,’ Hernandez said. ‘I’m afraid my husband would divorce me because he’s really stressed about it and he’s always blaming me (for the loan). He says, ‘You’re the one who speaks English. You should have read what you were signing.’ It’s been really tough.’”
“Last December, 54 percent of all closed transactions for homes in the area involved bank-owned properties, said CalNeva Realty owner Mitch Argon, who tracks and publishes a report on local foreclosure inventory. Add the 12 percent accounted for by short sales and you have distressed properties making up 66 percent of closed transactions for the period, Argon said.”
“‘Banks are really motivated to sell these properties, and it’s reflected on their price and the disproportionate amount of activity around them,’ Argon said. ‘Banks are really reducing prices aggressively.’”
“Even the best designed loan modification, however, can’t solve one problem: unemployment. Ultimately, the overall health of the economy may have a bigger say on the true impact of resetting Alt-A’s than the ARMs themselves, said Mark Carrington, director of analytics for First American CoreLogic. ‘People think it’s the loans causing all the problems, but the real trigger event is the economy,’ Carrington said. ‘Job loss is the biggest reason that people can’t make their mortgage payments. It always has been and it still is.’”
“Hernandez, who has spent the past few months fighting to keep her house, knows full well about the impact of the current recession. A waitress who works in the now struggling casino industry, Hernandez has seen her hours cut and a week’s vacation taken away along with her holiday pay. The bad economy also means customers don’t have as much disposable income, causing Hernandez’s income from tips to nosedive.”
“Hernandez also finally got some good news on Feb. 9 while shopping for groceries. The person helping her with her mortgage called to say Wells Fargo approved her loan modification. The increase in her monthly house payment was less than $200.”
“‘Oh my God, I could sleep now,’ said an ecstatic Hernandez over the phone shortly after hearing the news. ‘It just shows that there are people out there who will help you. I love this house, and I was willing to do everything to keep it. Now I just want to cry. Oh my God, I can’t believe I saved my house.’”
The Las Vegas Sun from Nevada. “Boosters of down-payment assistance programs that had benefited poorer homebuyers before they were abolished by the Bush administration are lobbying for their revival, saying they could help rejuvenate the distressed housing market.”
“Under the programs, the buyer’s cash burden is eased because the seller contributes from 3 percent to 6 percent of the purchase price toward the buyer’s down payment and/or closing costs, and the nonprofit organization donates up to 3 percent. But the Bush administration reasoned that if homeowners didn’t use their own money for down payments, they were less financially committed to their homes and thus more likely to default.”
“The Housing and Urban Development Department lobbied Congress last spring to stop insuring loans where the programs were used, and Congress did so in July. The ban took effect Oct. 1.”
“Area real estate agents who specialized in such down-payment assistance programs say their reinstatement would also stanch their falling incomes…Agent Teresa McCormick says, her income has dropped by two-thirds. McCormick disputes the notion that down payment dictates the odds of default. ‘I put a lot of money down on my house, but I can’t pay my mortgage right now,’ she says, noting that she’s two months behind. ‘If I can’t pay the bills right now, I can’t pay the bills. It doesn’t matter how much you put down.’”
“New homeowner Susan Nagata concedes the seller of the four-bedroom house she bought through Nehemiah last year probably tacked the closing costs onto the asking price, but doesn’t regret the transaction. At about $1,000, her monthly mortgage is $300 less a month than what she and her husband had paid for an apartment. Had the Nagatas looked for a house today, Nagata is convinced she and her husband would still be renting.”
“‘I had figured I’d never own a home again,’ the 58-year-old says, noting their $1,500 savings at the time they bought the home.”
In Business Las Vegas form Nevada. “Signature Homes founder Richard Plaster is calling on the federal government to use its power of eminent domain to help ease the housing crisis. Plaster says he is worried about home-owners walking away from their homes en masse because they are underwater - they owe far more than the homes are worth.”
“If something isn’t done, that will add to the large number of foreclosures already on the market, he says. He adds it makes no sense for a homeowner to stick around when they are underwater by more than $100,000, as many people are.”
“‘There is going to be real social change where people walk from houses on a wholesale basis,’ Plaster says. ‘What I am concerned about is when (the homeowner) wakes up because so many people feel so dutiful about debts that they need to repay them. But I am afraid if something is not done immediately, that characteristic of paying your debts is going to be meaningless to somebody who is totally buried in his house.’”
“Plaster calls himself ‘a little left wing’ and big supporter of Democrats, but says something must be done. ‘We have a treacherous couple of years, and unless public policy gets in there and saves, to my mind, what has made America great - this ability for people to be flexible and to grab a piece and be optimistic. What we are doing right now because of the way this housing bubble burst is that we are getting people to a very pessimistic state of mind. That could be disastrous for us. So what undoubtedly will be a difficult two years, could be a tough 10 or 20 years, and I don’t want to see that.’”
The Review Journal from Nevada. “Las Vegas home foreclosures declined 20 percent in January to 2,609 from 3,283 the previous month, Foreclosures.com reported Friday. However, the number increased 48 percent from 1,763 in January 2008. Las Vegas had 31,416 real-estate owned, or bank-owned, homes in 2008 and some analysts are projecting as many as 50,000 foreclosures this year.”
“REO specialist Troy Kearns of Gavish Real Estate said he took on 60 new foreclosure listings in the past week and now has 350, up from 250 a month ago. He has two properties in foreclosure at more than $1.5 million. ‘What happened is Fannie Mae’s moratorium is over and they flooded the market,’ Kearns said. ‘I know some guys who got slammed who are handling Fannie Mae properties and they hadn’t done anything for two months. Watch February and March take off.’”
“Las Vegas-based research firm Applied Analysis also reported a drop in lenders taking back homes. January foreclosures totaled 1,124, down from 1,712 in December, but up 16.2 percent from 967 in the same month a year ago. There were 6,171 active foreclosures, or units in the foreclosure process, but the title has yet to go back to the bank. ‘That tells us there’s a significant number likely to be taken back,’ Applied Analysis principal Brian Gordon said. ‘Looking at the data, it would appear foreclosures remain elevated and we haven’t seen a significant correction yet.’”
“The Obama administration announced a $50 billion initiative this week to help strapped homeowners. Some say banks are worsening the foreclosure crisis and undermining the government’s efforts to keep people in their homes.”
“‘I don’t know how that’s going to play out,’ Kearns said of Obama’s plan. ‘If it slows things down, it’s only a bandage on a blown-out tire. At a certain point, you’ve got to let the market correct itself. Things are selling. People are still buying homes.’”
“The…tax break for homebuyers approved by the Senate last week should help to revitalize the downtrodden housing market, said Sue Naumann, president of the Realtors association. A bigger issue, she said, is for banks to release their stranglehold on lending practices.”
“‘We’ll have to see what transpires. Just like everything, when the government tries to get in the middle with intervention, they don’t know the business,’ Naumann said. ‘I don’t see how they could stop a foreclosure. That would be contractual interference. The only thing they can do is make it easier to refinance at a fixed rate and keep more people in their homes.’”
‘Hernandez also finally got some good news on Feb. 9 while shopping for groceries. The person helping her with her mortgage called to say Wells Fargo approved her loan modification. The increase in her monthly house payment was less than $200′
No offense to this lady, but IMO she’ll likely be backin the same hole in a year or two. And as prices drop further, there will be even less motivation to hang on.
‘Phoenix grew into the nation’s fifth-largest city through a reliable pattern: Build affordable homes on the metro area’s edges, welcome waves of new buyers, and then roads, schools and retail centers follow. Home buyers relied on that pattern. Buy an affordable home on the edge, watch it quickly appreciate, then sell at a good profit and move again to a bigger home in an established area.’
This is what is so aggravating about the situation in the west:
‘Buy an affordable home on the edge, watch it quickly appreciate, then sell at a good profit and move’
The housing bubble was a temporary anomaly. It’s just that it went on so long that people came to think it’s how things would work indefinitely.
Here’s a novel thought; let these prices fall to where we don’t need downpayment assistance. We shouldn’t have to have a land trust in Flagstaff. Being ‘landlocked’ by government land is no justification for median prices at 10 times the median income.
“‘Buy an affordable home on the edge, watch it quickly appreciate, then sell at a good profit and move’”
“The housing bubble was a temporary anomaly. It’s just that it went on so long that people came to think it’s how things would work indefinitely.”
Buying in the path of development worked for a *very* long time.
It went on from about 1955 until 2006, with a few hiccups along the way. That’s longer than many people have been alive and most of the lifetime of many adult people’s parents.
So it’s not that surprising that people expected it to continue. And it may very well start working again after the eventual recovery of the market and renewed economic growth.
Obviously I am not in the camp that thinks we will never recover from this depression.
‘it’s not that surprising that people expected it to continue’
Yeah, but can anyone expect that trees grow to the sky? It was very easy to reason that prices had grown way too fast by 2005 in Arizona.
‘ I am not in the camp that thinks we will never recover from this depression’
Neither am I. And this is what I don’t understand about the current debate and policy positions we see. Lower land/housing prices are the only real road to recovery, IMO. That and the related function of allowing the economy to return to something other than selling each other houses.
Nobody can turn back the clock on the housing bubble. It’s going away and won’t return.
Oh, Ben, you meanie. Are you implying that the Arizona economy should be based on something other than building houses for people who are going to come here and sell houses?
Amen… however, as we all know, an economy built on housing is easy and doesn’t require lots of intellectual or industrial capital or investment to produce results… yes, those results are short term, but we’ve got a 4 year (or, at most, 8 year) time horizon on our making major shifts in our economy in this country, so housing is always the lowest and easiest fruit to pick, and the politicians on both sides of the isle have fallen all over themselves to keep the scam going.. it’s a crying shame.. kill housing I say and force investment (esp in technology and edcuation) elsewhere…
it will take great courage and leadership for Obama to change the course we’ve been on for the past 15-20 years, but that’s what he should be doing.. I voted for him, but have been isappointed so far, to be honest… he’s surrounded himself with too many knuckleheads who got us into this mess…
“…..knuckleheads who got us in this mess.”
Caught Bill Moyers this weekend on PBS (normally someone I don’t bother to watch, but…). Guest was Simon Johnson, Professor of Economics at MIT. Had a roster of all the guys filling slots in Washington, who are from Wall Street.
Professor Johnson said he didn’t mind this, if the “poachers turned into gameskeepers”, but so far, it appears that everyone is more interested in protecting Wall Street.
Mr Johnson called for new anti trust laws, because he said that the bank CEO clique just laughs at the governments, their puppets.
By the way, tomorrow, Tuesday, on Frontline: ‘Inside the meltdown’.
“Nobody can turn back the clock on the housing bubble. It’s going away and won’t return.”
I agree. Recovery and a healthy market do not look anything like the bubble we just experienced.
Fixing the economy will take a lot more than just getting housing prices back to a sane level. The related function (as you call it) of creating a productive economy is actually the primary issue, as I see it. I see the housing bubble as a symptom of deeper economic problems, such as:
1. Easy money, leading to chasing of unproductive activities that create velocity without creating lasting value.
2. Insufficient productive opportunities for human effort due to the transition to a post-industrial economy.
3. And of course, the economic and cultural problems created by the consumer focus of the economy and mass entertainment.
‘creating a productive economy is actually the primary issue’
I agree, which is why I keep hammering on the idea of understanding the concept of a housing bubble. Think about it; this mess has thrown the global economy into chaos, yet these people calling the shots rarely mention this giant mania.
The great distortions we see are largely due to housing and land prices. Why were hundreds of thousands of largely useless condos built all over the world? Prices distorted the supply. This stuff was explained in my first economics class.
Put up the razor wire and guard towers, and turn them into minimum security prisons. (One on the Las Vegas Strip would be especially nice……..torment the formerly high rollers by making them watch the high/medium/low rollers)
or
Reopen all the military bases closed in California, and have the Defense Department buy up a bunch of houses as base housing.
“The great distortions we see are largely due to housing and land prices. Why were hundreds of thousands of largely useless condos built all over the world? Prices distorted the supply. This stuff was explained in my first economics class.”
Exactly. This several million dollars per acre crap is nonsense. The only way to profit was to build residential towers up into the sky, and charge prices which no average citizen could afford.
SM_landlord, you’re forgetting one thing about that quote reagrding Phoenix. Look at it again.
“Buy an affordable home on the edge, watch it quickly appreciate, then sell at a good profit and move”
Prior to the year 2002, houses in Phoenix did not appreciate quickly. I bought my house in South Scottsdale for $140,000 in 1996. (This is the blue-collar part of Scottsdale, not the expensive part.) The previous owners paid $102,000 in 1982. That works out to be an increase of about 2.3% per year over those 14 years.
Then, roughly between 2003 and 2006, the value of the house doubled. If something doubles in 3 years, it grows by an average of about 26% per year. That was not sustainable and prices are now falling, probably back to where they were in 2002.
That article in the AZ Republic misses the point. The bubble drove house prices up to absurd levels. Builders responded by building too many houses. Many of those houses are now empty. The fact that they built them in the sparsely populated fringes of the valley is not really a relevant part of the story. Anyway, where does the AZ Republic think that builders would build new developments?
“‘Buy an affordable home on the edge, watch it quickly appreciate, then sell at a good profit and move’”
I once heard of an interesting variation on this…
buy a self-serve car wash or build an RV park out beyond the edge, and then let the business make the mortgage payments until some developer offers you megabucks for your acreage.
‘Phoenix grew into the nation’s fifth-largest city through a reliable pattern: Build affordable homes on the metro area’s edges, welcome waves of new buyers, and then roads, schools and retail centers follow.’
The problem with this statement is they are mixing definitions. The CITY of Phoenix is the 5th largest city, but when they talk about buying on the edge, they are talking about buying on the edge of teh PHX metro area, which in almost all cases, is NOT the city of Phoenix.
We’re somewhere between the 14th and 16th largest metro area depending on how you define metro area.
The city of Phoenix itself is in deep, deep trouble. It has a huge core of older neighborhoods that will be hit the hardest in the downturn, combined with a lion’s share of overpriced, destined to be disaster condo projects.
I fear for Glendale with its massive tax burden of Coyotes Areana and Cardninals Stadium, but atleast it has some nicer suburb areas that may survive. I think the city of Phoenix core areas will soon resemble the worst areas of Detroit. I think they’ll be giving houses away for $1 + pay up the back taxes.
I think the city of Phoenix core areas will soon resemble the worst areas of Detroit.
Except for the blinding snow and numbing cold.
Now if a warming climate and drought make it impossible to live there, that might make the difference.
It might be frozen but at least it’s water.
I would have thought the core Pheonix areas would do the best, but I haven’t been there in 15+ years. My college roommate grew up in Pheonix, they lived in an 1950’s neighborhood (pre-AC). The neighborhood had nice trees, a nice unpretentious feel, and nothing was too far (traffic was already very bad in the city).
Why would the exurbs do better than the core, is there an urban ghetto I missed?
Depends on what neighborhood your talking about, but I can say from experience many of those nice neighborhoods are long-dead (see my other post in this thread).
Even the Historic homes district in central phoenix is a not-so-nice place these days. You’d be shocked how many of those cute 50’s bungalo’s have bars on the windows.
Might not want to take a walk at night…..
Doesn’t this go for every US city? Some nice areas downtown, but the city is mainly a no-go zone after dark. Some nice suburban areas, with some not so nice. And lots of empty houses built during the bubble.
Trying to beat down on Phoenix or Las Vegas sounds to me like inverse of ‘it’s different here’ mentality.
Isn’t that the truth.
The old core neighborhoods have been in steady decline for a -long- time though. This boom let them spruce up the place a bit and hide the nastyness in a successful effort to sell 60,000$ cinderblock homes with a swamp cooler for 200,000$, but it’s still the same old nasty neighborhood. I cant even imagine how many people are letting those turd-buckets go back to the bank.
I remember growing up our family owned a home in Maryvayle (west of central phoenix) out by what was then Desert Sky Pavillion. It was a nice neighborhood, cheap homes, friendly people, grass in the front yard. We moved away from there clear back in the 80’s because of the rapid destruction of everything that made the neighborhood nice. Criminal element set up shop, illegals moved in, grassy lawns gave way to cars on blocks and gang bangers, the nearby mall lost almost all of it’s tenants. Everyone with half a brain got the hell out of there.
I took a drive out past my old home recently, it had been stucco’ed up to hide it’s cinderblock roots but still had an ancient rusting swamper on the roof recently painted white (probably the same one I fixed the drive pully on with a coat hanger all those years ago). The lawn I helped plant and care for was reduced to bare dirt. I’m sure they laid carpet down over the old asbestos tile that made up the floor. It was forclosed on of course, empty. Next door six shady looking guys leaned on a beat up car on jack stands. My wife looked at me with a crinkled nose and said “you used to live -here-???”.
Neighborhoods change, time marches on.
Offered by lender, 78,000$. My family sold that house back in 2000 after a decade and a half of renting it out for around 90K. Zestimate = 138,000$, hahahahahahaha. A big part of Phoenix is going back to nominal 90’s pricing, and fast!
Don’t you wish you could move in? Suzanne researched this right?
b..b..Ben …think of the Hernandez PONY…her poor pony !
The 4-step program to follow:
1: Grab your house keys
2: Place keys in addressed, stamped envelope
3: Seal envelope
4: Mail keys to lender.
That might be too much work and require too much information gathering for your average FB.
Better to just leave the keys sitting on the kitchen counter, right before you po0p in the middle of the living room rug, deface the walls with poorly spelled grafitti, and then drive away to your new digs in your mother-in-laws’ basement.
+1 LOL!
called some clients in OH and MI and they are doing ok
savers………………
I have plenty of clients who are doing just fine, TYVM.
And, as for the doom and gloomers who seem to be so prevalent, let ‘em keep complaining. While they’re so busy doing that, I’m seeking new business.
This sentence says it all:
Area real estate agents who specialized in such down-payment assistance programs say their reinstatement would also stanch their falling incomes.
To which I say:
A few years ago, my own business income was in need of some assistance. In other words, it was falling.
Did I hope and lobby for the reinstatement of some sort of government program that used to mean good times for my business? Nope. I got on the phone and started cold calling new clients. And, over time, the business came in. (Yes, I had to live like a church mouse until that happened. Matter of fact, I still live like a church mouse.)
I also got busy with upgrading my skills so that I can command higher fees. I’m also quite a student of what getting better entails. (Clue: It’s not done by plotzing yourself in front of the TV all weekend.)
‘Area real estate agents who specialized in such down-payment assistance programs say their reinstatement would also stanch their falling incomes’
Note to media; bomb makers like war too, but really, what the hell do you expect these people to say?
These were people with a high school education and a couple hours of real estate training, making $5K, $10K, $15K for the equiv of a day’s work. All because they had access to the wonderful thing called MLS.
You don’t actually expect them to go get a job working 40 hours a week for $20K a year, do you? Seriously?
They are better than that!
“Church Mouse Slim”…it has a certain ring to it
Slim: conservative, healthy, sexy.
gets in and out of tight spots.-quietly but so efficiently with just a wiggle of whiskers.
“‘I had figured I’d never own a home again,’ the 58-year-old says, noting their $1,500 savings at the time they bought the home.”
Way to plan for your retirement, chickie. Two more lifetime wage slaves.
A lifetime savings of only one and a half mortgage payments? Why not put down first and last month’s rent?
“…noting their $1,500 savings at the time they bought the home.”
We’ll show those Japanese savers a thing or two!
Just heard or read rather, on the internets/tubes that 2 banks are putting foreclosures on hold.
Got to go read the article and post.. back in a flash.
Government-controlled mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and major banks JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp. said Friday they are halting foreclosures through March 6.
But you guys already knew this tidbit. I am sure!
All their execs will be busy resort hopping with bailout money until then.
“…it’s only a bandage on a blown-out tire.”
If Ben ever writes his book about this episode in financial history, I hope he devotes a section to metaphors for failed rescue attempts. By now, I believe there have been enough already to fill an entire chapter.
Like “drink the kool aid”, “got popcorn?”, etc.
Roidy
“This brought an angry response from Councilmember Scott Overton, a contractor. ‘You stereotype me, you are putting me in a group that, in your opinion, has done things that are bad,’ he said. ‘Al, I go to work every day, I make about $40,000 a year, and I feel the pinch, too.’”
Oh, so whaaaaaat. Satan has a job, too. He goes to work every day, too, doesn’t He? Sure! He probably complains about getting up early and moans about the jerks in accounting and everything. Although I don’t know what He makes. Probably more than 40K a year. And I seriously doubt He’s feeling any pinch.
Look, whatever, my point is this: Scott, I’m afraid I shall join with Mayor Al and go ahead and lump you in with all the other greedy assh*les. Just because you look like one.
Now, there’s an accounting position for you. “Me? I work in Hell’s Accounting Department.”
I hear they always have openings in collections.
I work in the complaints department headed by Helen Wait. If you have a complaint, please go to Hell and Wait.
The Hell’s Accountants motorcycle gang is infamous for their vicious gang-audits.
(from the same article)
And when they can, by electing council people, it is also government,’ White said.”
Boy, I hear yer there! The Olympia Master Builders try to buy seats around here EVERY single election; they just shovel wads of cash out, then make up PAC’s so they can go over campaign spending limits and shovel out even more cash, they indulge in smear campaigns…lovely, wonderful people, all of whom I hope will one day meet Satan. When He’s in a really super bad mood.
Whoooo HOOOOOO! Speaking of those OMB wretches, lissen a this! I just right now picked up and read yesterday’s paper, the Sunday Olympian, and came across this enchanting article!
‘Stark forecast for homebuilders’
http://tinyurl.com/dkxf5n
‘Kimbrough said the one statement that got everyone’s attention was a prediction that the slower real estate market will result in 70 percent of small builders in the region going out of business by the end of 2009. Britsch could not be reached for comment.
“You could’ve heard a pin drop,” Kimbrough said as Britsch highlighted some sobering facts that builders face.
.
Drebick, owner of Adroit Contractors Inc., said the building market is the worst he has seen it since he started in 1987. There’s no money and no demand, Drebick said.
“You can’t get financed right now,” he said.
…”Our (OMB) association is going to look a lot different in a couple of years,” he said. “(The presentation) was really rather gloom and doom, but it was reality.”
—————————————————————
Oh, oh….oh, the joyyyyyyy…
“You can’t get financed right now,” he said.
Who can’t get financed dingle berry? People with good credit and a down payment can, or course I know that’s not fair, but suck it up, and meet the brave new world of finance.
Yeah. Echoes of the Wall Street Whizzes who get in your face and tell you nobody works as long or as hard as they do. I’ll bet the illegals who took less than three days to bang out an interior paint job on a 2500 sq ft house in my ‘hood last summer also work 80 hr weeks but don’t pull in a high six-figure annual salary. At the end of the day, the illegals actually produce something tangible, too; and on the whole, I really would trust an illegal doing backbreaking labor long before I’d trust any of the Whizzes in their wingtips.
Don’t be so quick to trust ‘em, Jimbo. Look at the quality of their work, and you’ll find that it leaves a lot to be desired. The biggest problem I’ve seen is that the illegals work fast — and they’re sloppy.
True, but I’ve found even more than sloppy they’re just plain unskilled. A lot of the contractors cranking out McMansions during the boom had the same criteria for workers as the did for borrowers–”CFUM” (Can Fog Up Mirror). They produced an unsurprisingly shoddy product.
That’s like saying poison ivy is better than poison oak.
RichardPlaster@SignatureHomes.com
OK, I’ll bite.
What are we supposed to write to this guy?
Given the common nickname for people named Richard, I’m sure we can think of something.
You could write, “Hey Dick! Are you plastered yet?”
But that would be juvenile….
I have a proposition. Continually, we see propositions that will bail out stupid people and encourage more recklessness. I propose that, instead of these propositions, we reward those that have not been stupid and reckless, and give each of them 100k from the Treasury. Everyone who was stupid will see their tax dollars given to those that were not stupid - a sheer and complete reversal in US monetary policy. Didn’t we elect Obama for change? All of the stupid people will then see that it is good to not be stupid, and will either change their reckless ways or accept that they belong in a lower societal class. Rather than re-igniting the housing market, which is the continual focus of our (stupid) politicians, this will reignite capitalism, as people will be taught that it is good to be not stupid with their money. Stupid people will be identified by public records of houses and SUVs purchased between say 2002 and the present.
you can’t fix stupid
…we reward those that have not been stupid and reckless, and give each of them 100k from the Treasury
The logic is delicious.
But I have a problem. I was smart from 1984 until 1999, then got stupid for the years ‘99-’05, then got smart again since then.
Do we factor in my years of stupidity vs. smartness to figure out how much Treasury Smart Bux™ I get, or am I just plain out of luck?
Can yoy say “Pro-rate”?
Here’s a simple, more serious, way to do it:
Hand out a stimulus check based on the amount of money you saved last year (or percentage of money saved).
The Government has been keeping interest rates artificially low so Harry Homedebtor can stay in his house another month.
If we are to believe that handing out money will stimulate the economy, then handing money based on percentage of income saved is the fairest thing to do!
“Hand out a stimulus check based on the amount of money you saved last year (or percentage of money saved).”
Ummmm…. Wouldn’t allowing interest rates to increase accomplish this quite naturally? In other words, that’s what we normally call “interest”.
The problem is that those D*mn Savers ™ tend to save the return on their savings as well—-e.g. zero stimulus effect.
This was my contention at the time of the first TARP. Why give money to banks that fucked up? Why not give that umpteen billion dollars to banks that did a good job? Find responsible solvent careful banks and give them 20 billion dollars and say “here, lend this out, willya?”
Not a dime for citi.
The secondary market is the problem. It’s constipated. So, since banks can’t sell they must hold their own securities.
Whatever loans that good bank makes, that money is still stuck in a mortgage for 30 years.. it doesn’t circulate and benefit the economy by adding liquidity. A tiny trickle of monthly P+I is all that will flow.
But what about the seller of the property. They get a big chunk of money.. isn’t that injected into the economy? Well, if you were the seller, would you spend or invest that money in this environment? …or would you hide it somewhere safe, like in a bank account?
we’re back to square one..
One more thing.. if i recall, the original TARP money was more of an attempt to assure depositors that banks were stable and govt deep-pocket supported, than to help the economy recover.
Among the bad news, there had been a run on Indymac.. partly due to some loose comments by Chuck Schumer. IIRC, some $11 billion was withdrawn in about 3 weeks and caused the bank’s reserves to fall below what’s allowed by the FDIC. So, it “failed”.
Had that run not happened, Indymac would likely still be in business along with all the other banks which are currently in aproximately the same position, but have survived so far.
So, if viewed as an attempt to stabilize the banking system, TARP #1 should be seen as a success, although it was not by means of well targeted, fundamental monetary support.
The Hernandez woman in the Reno Gazette Journal story about her being able to keep her “ranch” was lieing and withholding vital facts.
In the comments section for that story at rgj.com it was revealed she did not buy it in 2003, she received it thru a quit claim deed a couple of years later. She briefly had a much lower mortgage payment then used a HELOC to get a second mortgage of $66,000. No mention is made of what happened to all that money.
Horse lovers know a plot of slightly over an acre (which is what she has) is far too small for one horse, believe she has 4.
Nevada casinos outside of Vegas are almost 100% non-unionized and regularly use the fire-at-will law to create regular turnover of staff. Hernandez works at a casino, she should have focused on upgrading her employment before buying.
This article highlights the very poor quality of newspaper reporter we all must endure. If this reporter had merely checked with the county recorder’s office Hernandez could and should have been confronted with her lies and omissions. Reno’s real estate depression is worse than Vegas, it is just too small a market to get national attention. Reno suffers with a morning low freezing temperature from Halloween to mid-april, leading to high heating costs. Renorealtyblog dot com a great resource.
This article highlights the very poor quality of newspaper reporter we all must endure
Tell me about it! Did you see this caption under a photo of rooftops accompanying the RGJ story?
“During the housing boom in the early part of this decade, adjustable rate mortgages were used to make houses more affordable.”
ARMs didn’t make houses more “affordable”!!!
They turned them into toxic, ticking, timebombs.*
Sheesh.
*Man, I love alliteration
“No mention is made of what happened to all that money.”
It went for horses, hay, horse trailer, vet’s bills…and a pony!
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Actually, there is.
A boat or motorcycle quits eating money when you park it in the garage, or along side the house (unless you borrowed to pay for them)
The purchase price of a horse is just a tip of the biggest freaking damn iceburg you’ve ever seen.
The horses eat and produce crap whether you are riding them or not.
Right now, you can’t GIVE a horse away. I know. My daughter has been trying to “sell” hers for 6 months.
“Right now, you can’t GIVE a horse away. I know. My daughter has been trying to “sell” hers for 6 months.”
Tis true. You pretty much have to give them away around here, and that might not even work. The price of hay skyrocketed last year.
Can she eat it?
“In the case of 33-year-old Erika Hernandez, her dream stands on an acre and a half of land just north of Reno with three horses and a miniature pony in the back’….‘This house means a lot to me,’ Hernandez said. ‘When I look at it, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, I did it.’ It’s like a dream.’”
Ah, you can go home again:
“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to have their dreams because some people out there in our nation don’t have an acre and a half and I believe that our ponies like such as in Reno and the Sparks everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our homes over here in the Nevada should help the ponies or should help Reno and should help the banks and the Africans so we will be able to build up our future.”
Luv,
Jen
classic miss south carolina(?) !
“and I believe that our ponies like such as in Reno and the Sparks everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our homes over here in the Nevada should help the ponies and…”
OMG, stop channeling Palin!
Polly Peachum Lucy Brown
O the line forms on the right dear
Now that Jen’s back in townnnnnnnnnnnn….
I truely fear for the future of AZ.
I did a quick look up of our Ag department for 2003 and 2008.
2003: 4 million cartons of citrus exported from AZ.
2008: 2.25 million cartons
2003: 31 million cartons of iceburg lettuce exported from AZ
2008: 22 million cartons
There are similar declines across all areas of our Ag business. We plowed under the farms and cut down the groves, and replaced them with sub-divisions and shopping centers.
Arizona could always start exporting used building materials…
Agreed. Outsourcing the nation’s food production is a national security issue. No, I am not kidding.
From Yahoo
Dairy cows head for slaughter as milk prices sour
LOCK, Calif. – Hundreds of thousands of America’s dairy cows are being turned into hamburgers because milk prices have dropped so low that farmers can no longer afford to feed the animals.
Investigators in San Joaquin County are trying to determine who dumped 30 dead bull calves on country roads to avoid rendering costs or hauling them to auction, where they fetch $5 each but cost hundreds and hundreds more to bottle feed special formula. The group Farm Sanctuary is offering a $2,000 reward for the culprit
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090216/ap_on_bi_ge/farm_scene_cow_slaughter_2
But those California cows are so happy!!!!!!
I guess I’ll have to get my milk from surly, PO’d at the world, Midwest cows.
I could give you the long story about Monsanto and their anti-trust racketeering of American ag, but that would take too long.
I read the article a while back in Vanity Fair. What a disgusting company. When crap like that starts happening, is it any wonder people want to take the law into their own hands, especially when “the law” is used as a weapon against them?
Mark my words, CEOs, Boards of Directors, managers and shareholders (yes, shareholders) really need to knock it off with their vicious crap. When people have nothing to lose, the blowback will be nasty.
anti trust? You know, when they allowed BGH, congress said that a consumer can decide whether to buy it, the milk will be labeled. A couple of years later, Vermont farmers are labeling their milk as ‘no BGH’, and then they are forbidden to do so, by same congress, because ‘it constitutes unfair competition’. Monsanto must have lobbied hard. I hate these people. Was there not something about Basmati rice and Indian women fighting for their seeds.
I would buy BGH - less Vermont milk, every time.
Monsanto recently sold its bovine hormone unit. It will die off soon. Paradoxically, food irradiation has never caught one, and there is a reason for its existence.
Caught on.
iPhone keyboard smaller than Fed’s collective brain.
In Business Las Vegas form Nevada. “Signature Homes founder Richard Plaster is calling on the federal government to use its power of eminent domain to help ease the housing crisis. Plaster says he is worried about home-owners walking away from their homes en masses because they are underwater - they owe far more than the homes are worth.”
I wander when Mr. Plaster last time landed in our planet Earth? When he successfully was selling his crap to those masses and making big buck he did not question the astronomical prices that his houses had, now he thinks that we taxpayers ought to rescue his business…
“The…tax break for homebuyers approved by the Senate last week should help to revitalize the downtrodden housing market, said Sue Naumann, president of the Realtors association. A bigger issue, she said, is for banks to release their stranglehold on lending practices.”
Stranglehold = conventional lending standards
The entitlement mentality is infuriating, especially given the fine mess it created. Apparently anyone who wants a mortgage should get one, and if that’s not happening, it’s a stranglehold.
I have not heard of anyone that cannot get into a 30 year fixed rate conforming loan on a single family home if they have good credit, put 20% down and attempt to get a mortgage for less than 2.5X their annual salary. If there are such stories, I would be interested.
“I have not heard of anyone that cannot get into a 30 year fixed rate conforming loan on a single family home if they have good credit, put 20% down and attempt to get a mortgage for less than 2.5X their annual salary. If there are such stories, I would be interested.”
Exactly! But for realtors who are desperate to make more than one sale this year, that’s considered a “stranglehold.”
In Temecula the only thing pretty to look at was the wonderful old orange groves up on the hills. The housing bubble took care of that and instead of orange groves we have master planned communities 1/5 built. The roads are in, the parcels are devided, the first row of block wall (footing) is in place and then they stopped, 2 years ago.
Oranges are $3 a pound in Temecula now and the surrounding hills are ugly and scarred.
Thanks Temecula city hall, great planning!
How many empty houses are there in Temecula ?
Trekula, ugh. They turned a beautiful valley into a strip mall CF. All for a fugly 4,000 sf stucco box and a 2 hour commute.
“People think it’s the loans causing all the problems, but the real trigger event is the economy,” Carrington said. “Job loss is the biggest reason that people can’t make their mortgage payments. It always has been and it still is.”
This is incredibly sneaky.
It was the loans, because the bad loans dried up credit which put the brakes on consumption which led to layoffs.
Sing it in rounds:
“There’s a hole, there’s a hole, there’s a hole in the Econ-O-Mee!
“…and the bad loans swirl all around all around, the bad loans swirl all around.”
Like that, only with more connective verbiage and such.
‘I’m afraid my husband would divorce me because he’s really stressed about it and he’s always blaming me (for the loan). He says, ‘You’re the one who speaks English. You should have read what you were signing.’ It’s been really tough.’”
I am thinking that she is to blame.
Did he sign too? If so, he’s even dumber than her for signing a contract in a language he doesn’t understand. If not, he’s still not the brightest bulb in the candleabra for standing by while his spouse entered a contract which (at best) would suck up a big portion of their marital assets for decades to come, to which he was not party, and which neither of them understood. Either way, neither of these two genuises is going to escape this one through the blame game (or the divorce courts).
Being at fault does not mean that blame should be assigned by one’s spouse. Unless you’re itching for a fight.
Recriminations are often a waste of time (unless one’s spouse refuses to accept blame, in which case it is an educational exercise).
I bet their realtors and mortgage brokers were also Spanish-speaking Latinos who would NEVER screw over fellow members of La Raza. Until they get the opportunity, that is.
Bloomberg
Obama has committed at least $50 billion in guarantees for lenders that negotiate new mortgage terms, and proposes putting taxpayer funds at risk for half of $444 billion of loans that would be modified this year. Fifty-eight percent of the modifications made during the first quarter of 2008 ended up back in default, according to the U.S. Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Unless lenders cut principal owed to reflect the current market value of properties, the same thing may happen this year, Miller said.
“Unless lenders cut principal owed to reflect the current market value of properties, the same thing may happen this year, Miller said.”
Wow, an adjustable-principal mortgage! Cool! Now does this mean that lenders can up the principal to reflect rising prices, also?
$50 billion is $10K per each of the 5 million houses already in default.
We would need something closer to $500 billion just to stop the current defaults, with $2-3 trillion to follow.
Don’t give them any ideas darrell.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601213&sid=aIex9YRATOo8&refer=home
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said it expects 2.2 million loans with an average size of $200,000 to be modified this year. It assumes a re-default rate of 33 percent and 1.5 million fewer foreclosures.
The FDIC’s two-month-old “Mod in a Box” program, adopted by Citigroup Inc. earlier this month, puts the emphasis on using fixed rates to reduce payments to as low as 31 percent of borrower income. The guidelines can be used to adjust mortgages that have been packaged and sold in securities, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup and Bank of America Corp., recipients of more than $115 billion in government bailout funds, have committed to modifying at least $230 billion of mortgages. JPMorgan and Citigroup said today they will suspend foreclosures until mid-March to give the Obama Administration time to complete details of its loan modification program. Almost one of every five U.S. loans was “underwater” at the end of the third quarter, according to data compiled by analysts at San Francisco- based First American CoreLogic Inc.
The new FDIC protocol uses principal deferral –segregating a portion of the loan into an interest-free balloon payment that will keep most homeowners from selling until prices return to pre-bust levels. It doesn’t suggest reducing principal to reflect the current value of the asset securing the mortgage.
We should have Justin Timberlake do the song for the “Mod in a Box” commercials. I think the HBB resident pervs will know which song I’m talking about
:)
Over at your parents’ house a Mod in a Box
Midday at the grocery store a Mod in a Box
Backstage at the CMA’s a Mod in a Box….
One - cut a hole in a box
Two - stick your Mod in that box
Three - make her open the box…
Has any market blown out worse than the Las Vegas high-rise market?
I noticed one listing for the Soho Lofts in lovely downtown Las Vegas for $219K. 1350 square feet, NYC-loft style “home” (not many people outside of NYC would recognize it as a home, but nevermind).
I saw a website dated from, oh, 2006 or so that said that resales in this condo were going “from the mid-600s”. Apparently the original sales prices for these things were “from 500″.
Assuming that there’s any veracity to the “mid-600s” figure, that’s a 2/3 drop in the peak price for that unit.
I think it’s just going to get worse. I don’t think there’s a really limited intrinsic market for such things. I could see the prices for these things drop really really low and these things essentially revert to a type of rental, where the purchase price is nominal and the bulk of home-”owner” cash flow go to paying the HOAs, which are significant.
There were a lot of people smoking dope at the height of the boom, but arguably none more so than those who invested in Las Vegas high-rises.
I am a regular visitor to Las Vegas, two to three times per year since 1990 or so. I have never really minded any of the mega resorts that have gone up over the years, most are very nice and offer a good product.
The effort to pepper the skyline with these awful high rise condo complexes I do have a problem with. They add nothing to the allure of the city and will end up leaving empty concrete skeletons that will have to be razed or completed as apartments. How could the a.. clowns running Vegas have thought this was a good idea?
As soon as “The Donald” came to town, I knew Vegas had jumped the shark.
Any predictions as to what the highest number will be for the percentage of sales that are REO and Short Sales? 66% in the most distressed areas already is rather astounding, but I think it could get up to 85% at the peak two years from now. What say you?
A realtor I trust told me that of the 5100 Jan sales in PHX metro, 4100 were distressed… REO, short-sale, in default…
That is 80%. Yikes!
RE: When we identify the people who are on the affordable housing list and we ask who they are, firemen, policemen, teachers, mid-managers come up. Who is conspicuously absent from that list?
haha…world’s away from here in Mazzholeland.
Public employee union coppers with their $43 per hour flagman detail work, schedule riggin’ hose haulers with their off duty private sector biz, and tenured teachers are all pullin’ in 6 $$$ figures due to no ballz mayor and town managers who always wet their pants at contract time.
Of course the town’s are all busted, but it’s O’Bamie Boy with his $54 billion federal state bail-out monies that’ll keep all these parasites in 100% paid health care and on the path to their monster “high 3″ pensions at the age of 50.
Enplaned:
Yeah, right on point.
Check out the comments by hroller in usa today article “Why zombie stocks like Washington Mutual still trade” under columnist
Matt Krantz. Good read on wamu failure and how JP Morgan came out like a bandit.
“‘I had figured I’d never own a home again,’ the 58-year-old says, noting their $1,500 savings at the time they bought the home.”
There are a few things about the bubble that I can’t fathom and this is one of them. It’s shit like this that says so much that it becomes an obstacle rather than a point of discussion. And I don’t think this quote is the exception… and maybe not even the rule… maybe typical? Typical here on the blog as it is these incredulous statements that I read here… day after day. It’s hard to imagine that this is going to continue through the ALT A resets into 2012? Good Lord…
Las Vegas edged Detroit for the title of America’s most abandoned city. Atlanta came in third, followed by Greensboro, N.C., and Dayton, Ohio. Our rankings, a combination of rental and homeowner vacancy rates for the 75 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country, are based on fourth-quarter data released Feb. 3 by the Census Bureau. Each was ranked on rental vacancies and housing vacancies; the final ranking is an average of the two.
Cities like Detroit and Dayton are casualties of America’s lengthy industrial decline. Others, like Las Vegas and Orlando, are mostly victims of the recent housing bust. Boston and New York are among the lone bright spots, while Honolulu is the nation’s best with a vacancy rate of 5.8% for homes and a scant 0.5% for rentals.
Still, empty neighborhoods are becoming an increasingly daunting problem across the country. The national rental vacancy rate now stands at 10.1%, up from 9.6% a year ago; homeowner vacancy has edged up from 2.8% to 2.9%. Richmond, Va.’s rental vacancy rate of 23.7% is the worst in America, while Orlando’s 7.4% rate is lousiest on the homeowner side. Detroit and Las Vegas are among the worst offenders by both measures–the Motor City sports vacancy rates of 19.9% for rentals and 4% for homes; Sin City has rates of 16% and 4.7%, respectively.
meatson, not that’s it’s a big thing, but when you lift a quote, it’s best to cite it:
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/106587/America’s-Emptiest-Cities
“After months of asking for a loan modification that would lower the payments, Deutsch was finally told by a Countrywide customer service representative in December that she didn’t have to send a check in that month, and that she qualified for a payment program…
So says Deutsch, who from the facts of this account appears to be a typical FB mouth-breather. Of course the Gazette buys her victim spiel hook, line, and sinker, with no critical examination of how her and her husband got into this mess in the first place. Countrywide was a sleazeball outfit, but that doesn’t let the FBs who signed their lousy contracts off the hoodk.
Americas Emptiest cities
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas-emptiest-cities.html
Sammy, I believe that story about Countrywide. The things that lenders and finance companies have done to home”owners” would curl your hair…don’t take my (or her) word for it, take the word of foreclosure and bankruptcy court judges across the country who have totally had it with unfounded foreclosure motions, double foreclosures, sloppy recordkeeping, abusive practices, insane attitudes, and a laundry list of really horrific behavior from lenders.
If you’re an investor, you’re going to get hurt. If you’re a responsible homeowner who lives within your means, you’re going to be fine. There are plenty of affordable homes right outside major markets (seriously, 30 minutes from downtown takes you to places like Goodyear and Estrella) that have plenty of options.
Sure, the market crashed, but that doesn’t mean people can’t own homes, it just takes a bit more looking.