I think dumpster diving comes next for our realtor friends. If you see a realtor picking through the trash, someone give the poor guy a quarter, OK? Or some ramen noodles.
Here's a sign-of-the-times article from LA. Troubling, disgusting, predictable and real. The housing crash is here. And watch realtors move from screwing homedebtors into a house to screwing foreclosed homedebtors out of a house.
Picking jewels off of the dead. Yup, that's the next step for realtors.
Some analysts contend the shakeout is already over. Others maintain it hasn't even begun.
Hennigan and the company he works for, Home Center Realty, don't have the luxury of waiting to see how the story will play out. They need to make a living now, and they're betting that things are going to get worse. Maybe much worse.
During the four-year boom that ended last summer, Home Center expanded from 15 agents to 80 in three offices. The roster of agents has since sunk to 52, only about half of whom are active.
"The rest are looking for side jobs at McDonald's," said Home Center President Jason Bosch. "It happened overnight."
Hennigan works in the Norco office, a small building set on a hill off Interstate 15. He's been full-time since August 2005, when he quit his job as a route salesman for Peet's coffee. He gets a salary to help run the place, but to pay his own mortgage he still needs to earn commissions buying and selling houses.
An agent's best prospect for a sale is someone who must act now — a homeowner told by a lender to pay up or get out.These owners are in crisis. They need to refinance if they can or sell and move into something affordable. If they had an easier option, they wouldn't be behind in their payments in the first place.
Bosch, on the other hand, thinks the residential real estate market will soon revisit the horrible days of the mid-'90s — and then get worse."I have no doubt that we are entering the next phase of an unprecedented market," he says. "One that Southern California has never seen.
27 comments:
This story has it ALL, with a cherry on top! RE Agents working at McDonalds, foreclosed properties on every block. . .I was beginning to think the meltdown would never happen, but now that the HSBC Sub-prime meltdown is front page financial news (and another suprime went BK today) the cat is out of the bag, and bankers have closed the mortgage window to all but the rich. . .remember 20% down??? it will be the norm again.
It didn't happen over night unless you were in denial. As a small time builder in tune with local re agents and other builders, the warning/tell tale signs have been out for over a year! Denial will hurt you!!!!!!!!
Can you say, 'Would you like fries with that'?
.
Keith,
I used to always say, "you should never judge the homeless". But in the next few years when you see the middle aged homeless guy dressed in Dockers and Kennith Cole's. You will know he used to be a realtor!
That's a picture of the average chemistry graduate student at the last academic lab where I worked.
The people in biology were lucky. At least they could eat their experiments.
The house next to me in Riverside sold in Aug 2006 for $525,000. It is 2150 sf, and just a 4 bedroom, three car, 2 bathroom stucco box. It was built in 1997 - a nice master planned community. The neighborhood has the largest little league in the U.S.A.
Anyway forclosure.com says it has a tax lein against it and it is in preforclosure.
Now in August 2004 the same house sold for $425,000 with a 100% mortgage - 80% on the first and 20% on the second. The lender then was the same company that LEND (Ticker symbol) just bought. The new mortgage for $525K is a 5% down with the rest loaned by Ameriquest.
Do you think the 5% down was a con man's good faith money, in order to get rid of the 425K mortgage and siphon off another 100K?
All of the renters who live there speak English as a second language and are about generation away from living in a rainforest jungle.
It just dosen't seem right to me that young people should have to spend $525K for a stucco box, albeit a nice neighborhood.
Norco??/ Ex-urb close to where I live!! That town was a shithole horse town 5 years ago. People still ride horses on the side walks!
Like that loser agent, there are THOUSANDS of bandwagon-ing RE fools in this area. The guy was selling coffee before this? This guy has no business buying a home! Especially since hes in a declining industry. What a douchebag. Reminds me of my brother in law in Fontana near Norco(aka..Fontucky). He used to drive a milk truck. Now hes lives in an interest only McMansion. AND HES A LOAN OFFICER. No business overextending themselves these people. Friken IDIOTS. HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH
watch rental prices. home prices will fall, and later rental prices. when rents bottom house prices will bottom. then it's time to buy.
Naw, let us further refine the last quote.... "This is one that NONE of us has ever seen". Ahh, that's better. Oh, and my quote? : WE ARE ALL SO F* SCREWED.
They aren't making any more land! Up-and-coming suburbs of major metro areas, like Barstow, CA; Aurora, CO; and Maricopa, AZ are still white hot with young families and shrewd investors buying at a feverish pace. Interest rates won't stay this low for long!
-RE.Agent
"Let them eat cake"...
It is hard to be sympathetic for the architects and shills of the biggest ponzi scheme in history.
The BIG question is how they could NOT see this coming.
But there is hope ye sinners....repeat this mantra over and over and soon it will be so...."Welcome to WalMart"
great picture there keith. i love it.
The real estate clerks will be fighting tooth-and-nail to defend their dumpster against the three hundred thousand mortgage brokers who will also be thrown out of work as the bust continues.
Of course we cannot forget the twenty thousand former Home Depot/Lowes workers, fifty thousand title company employee , countless appraisers,furniture salespeople,construction workers and Best Buy/Circuit City floor-walkers who will all be in contention for the Micky Dee's job.
This is gonna get a whole lot uglier. Soon
"They'll be defending their dumpster.........."
ROFL! I love it. Brilliant!
But I think the more likely scenario is that they will lease the dumpster or sell dumpster time-shares. After all, the key to a truly great, livable, long-term investment dumpster is location, location, location. Besides, dumpsters never go down in price, they always appreciate! IF you can't make your dumpster payments, you can always sell your part-interest to the hedge fund employee whose fund lost its shirt in CDO's last week.
Oh, and they're not making any more dumpsters in CALIFORNIA!
Bill
Bill, are you telling us to lock in to our dumpster NOW........
or be priced out forever?
You think the gains are permanent?!?!
:-)
Norco, Riversippi and Fontucky. Three gems of the IE. When these crappy houses starting popping up 6 to 7 years ago the builders sales offices used to have handouts explaining the smell of "agriculture" in the air was not known to be harmful. Well folks - bull shit is bull shit and these 500- 600k Mcmansions will be in the 250-350k range by 2010.
I would be interested in seeing stats that indicate that many younger individuals or even adults going back to school, shit canned their college plans to go into RE. I'm sure many felt why get a better education when I can flip homes. I wonder if we will see an influx in college enrollment, though I can't see this as many don't have money, and I'm sure they screwed themselves in applying for gov't tuition assistance. Or if we will see fighting amongst the traditional lower end jobs (ie McDonalds, etc.) that HS students at one time had, then shifted to illegal aliens, now flippers?
Do you simpletons not realize how stupid you sound talking about dumpster defending while the unemployment rate is 4.5%?
Guess not.
"Do you simpletons not realize how stupid you sound talking about dumpster defending while the unemployment rate is 4.5%?"
You do realize that most REIC jobs are not counted in the government number, don't you?
If you work for yourself or are commission-only, you are not an employee.
"Do you simpletons not realize how stupid you sound talking about dumpster defending while the unemployment rate is 4.5%?"
Ouch! Must have touched a nerve there! Did Suzanne take the best corner/reserved/alleyview dumpster while you were posting on the job at Starbucks?
Anyway, all us simpletons know that unemployment is a lagging indicator. (And don't look now but the Q42006 GDP is about to be revised to 2%. Ooops!
Just kidding.
Love,
Bill
Southern. Cal. use to be a great place to live! But no more! I have been here all my life with brief stints in other states and countries. I am now planning to leave this "dump". It is becoming s sespool of "scum, illegals, and other losers, it looks like that bar scene in Starwars.
On my vacations I'm checking out new locations, and so far most are better. Now I have to narrow it down to the right on, and good by "Arnold". All this tax money spent here will just have to go to one of those illegal alien kids!
My dad and grandfather must be turning over in their graves! That Purple Heart my dad earned to defend this country was for nothing, those fools in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento are just giving our country away to those illegal aliens. But they are trying to build schools for the Iraqi kids! When their country falls they will be fleeing here for a free hand out. Just like the Viet Namese prostitutes, drug dealers, and corrupt politicians.
Scotty! Beam me up! There is no more intelligent live here!
While the thought of former real estate types serving McMuffins is no doubt appealing, the smart ones will move on to the next scam and keep preying on the gullible.
The ones who will end up in the service industry, are probably the same ones who came from the service industry.
"That Purple Heart my dad earned to defend this country was for nothing, those fools in Washington, D.C. and Sacramento are just giving our country away to those illegal aliens."
If our granddads could have seen where this country would be today, they'd have stopped right there on the shores of Omaha beach, unmanned themselves with their own rusty bayonets, and surrendered.
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