Being "Suzanned" would be (from HP'er Area 51):
*Man sees bubble and balks at joining the frenzy.
*Wife lets nesting instincts and desire to look fabulous get the better of her.
*Wife browbeats weak husband into making the worst financial decision of their lives.
*Suzanne gets paid.
*Couple's finances and life are ruined.
Dammit, I so got totally "Suzanned" on this damn house! Or "I can't believe I let myself get "Suzanned". Now I'm ruined!
Here she is, in all her glory, followed by a review in Slate.
As for "The Debate": It's terrifying. The problem lies in the performances. That beleaguered husband, dough-faced and weary, seems highly sympathetic as he expresses a few doubts about this major life decision.
Meanwhile, the wife (who looks like a more hostile Mary Louise Parker—though she lacks MLP's patented bone-dry delivery) just knits her eyebrows at the guy like he's unfathomably dense. Later, she jabs him with an accusatory "What?!"—her eyes wide and wild, her neck muscles flexed, her head twitching in disbelief at what a ninny her husband's turned out to be.
The capper comes when their real estate agent, who we discover has been listening in on what should be a private and delicate moment, takes sides with the wife and thereby crumbles the husband's defenses. Don't listen to her, John. Of course your agent wants you to buy a house you can't afford—she gets a bigger commission!
June 24, 2007
HP'ers - Have you, or someone you know, ever been "Suzanned"?
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44 comments:
Modern day version of "hen pecked?"
Suzanne is now the madam of a Nevada brothel named "The Ex-Wives Gentleman's Club". She and her employees have found their true calling.
I disagree with Seth in that I don't find the husband really that sympathetic. He's just too weak. He reminds me of Ned Beatty in Deliverance, except instead of "Squeal like a pig, boy!" it's "What, what."
I love the description of the husband..."dough-faced and weary". Isn't that what every guy becomes after marrying a woman like that, especially the "weary" part?
well you see what men do just so they don't have to sleep alone......damn shame isn't it?.......
Kiplinger.com featured a story of a mortgage broker and wife who KNEW this bubble was driven by unsound fundamentals, and sucessfully sold their house at the peak so they could rent and ride out the tsunami of depreciation.
However, the little wife wanted her nest (even though she's well past laying eggs) and wanted the security of "owning" (wink, wink: as if they would be able to do that) one's home. So she arm-twisted hubby to buy another house instead. No word if "Suzanne" helped with the scheme...
http://tinyurl.com/2yu6s7
And this financial incompetence, from a mortgage broker? This is someone who should be handling millions of $ of OPM?
Well, one thing is for sure: you can count on bush to stand aside and let the people get slaughtered.
Real life story of someone who got "Suzanned".
http://tinyurl.com/yu4jh3
Yea, when I was a young punk I got Suzanned in Los Angeles. After I got slammed she moved to another town. I lost $100,000.00 on the house because I trusted her and assumed she had a fiduciary duty because of the magnitude of the transaction. I learned my lesson; I don’t agree with socialism, I am a free enterpriser. Now I stick it to Suzanne every chance I get.
"We can do this" - that's the scariest line in this ad. The presupposition is that the only thing to think about in buying a house is whether you can or can't do it. Used car dealers try to get you to buy the very most car that you can afford and this is what realtors do too. They don't care that you won't be able to afford a vacation for the next 10 years or that you won't have money to go out for dinner on your anniversary or mother's day.
And then the poor buyers trust the word of the used-car dealer, yup, suzanne researched it and she says we can afford it. So it must be true.
How about thinking for yourselves for once?
I would say buy some ball but now your broke gotta try and grow some.
equoia512
Any so-called "man" who lets a woman bitch-slap him like the guy in this video....is no man.
Men lead...women follow.
It is the natural order.
Deal with it.
"That's not the Point!"
"What is the point?"
"The Point is that I'm a cun% bit#@ whore with a pussy whipped limp dick husband. I and the realtwhore make the decisions around here, do you get that- you indecisive fat male slob!
Sincerely
Guy laughing at the Flippers
I don't think women deserve extra blame based on one commercial, no matter how notoriously awful it was.
If you look inside this bubble, I bet you'll find at least as many men were hunting caves, cribs and bachelor pads as women demanding nests.
I like the part right after he mentions that the kids are 3 and 1 where she challenges him with a "what" (remember, none of his doubts matter) and then shakes her head like a cobra prior to striking! Truly terrifying!
Move forward 24 months later to the next Century 21 commercial after he's lost his job and shes screwing the poolman......Cut to henpecked husband..slowly climbing the stairs..his wife and her lover upstairs,desecrating the marriage bed.......shovel in hand......mumbling under his breath...."Great, now I can get to work"!
Oh yeah, Keith, nice Mary Louise Parker reference!
Insane psycho-looking biatch
Yes I know someone that was in a "suzanne" situation. Wife was hell bent on buying a house in the worst bubble area - Las Vegas. I sent the husband links to this site, plus other data sites showing that housing is crashing. She didn't care, then instructed husband not to talk to me (that "housing pessemist") about housing anymore. Well I found out later, just as they were being approved for 100% financing, the husband caught the wife cheating on him. He wound up leaving her.
Whether he realizes it or not - it's the best thing that's ever happened to him.
Please don't post that video anymore it gives me nightmares!
Damn, it is like they had one ball each, and were squeezing and squeezing.
I like this quote from Samuel Johnson: "nature has given women so much power that the law has wisely given them little". He has a point - women frequently have us by the balls. But none of us, men or women, should ever let our partners brow-beat us into being Suzanned. You gotta stand up for youself and for financial prudence, male or female.
That is a creepy commercial - especially with the dark setting and the realtor listening in on the call. She might have grabbed a knife and castrated him had he not complied and signed the papers.
*******************************
Agents of change?
I believe it! Because that's all you'll have left......change!
Area 51,
I watched the video in your link and they discussed strategies for selling a home in todays buyer's market.
She suggested the 3 three C's. Clean, de-Clutter, and get it in good Condition.
I have better advice for would be sellers. Try using the 3 D's!
Drop the price.
Dispose of the house at its 2001 price.
Decide to accept the much lower offers being made by savvy buyers.
The 3 D's will lead to a guaranteed sale. Yet no mention of this in the video.
I wonder how many females have found their way to HP? Or if they are still out there looking for that "nest".
Maybe it's time for a poll Keith?
I almost got Suzanned, by my Mom!
Since about 2 1/2 yrs ago she has been pressuring me to buy a house. I think she thinks it will help me get married and have kids. She doesn't realize that my girlfriend and I do not want to get married OR have kids....but I digress. She even agreed to help me pony up some cash to come up with the 20% down to get a place in a good area.
All I can say is I can thank my own skeptism for making me resistant to the idea initially, and triple thanks with sugar on it to the HPers of the world for making it all too abundantly clear to me that buying a house would be the worst financial decision of a lifetime. My savings would already have evaporated.
One extra addition to the 'D's, Don't be so Damn Greedy!!
Mary L Parker should never be used as a symbol for a bitch.
She's da bomb. Makes me almost want to be hetro.
Adam Smith said...
Kiplinger.com featured a story of a mortgage broker and wife who KNEW this bubble was driven by unsound fundamentals, and sucessfully sold their house at the peak so they could rent and ride out the tsunami of depreciation.
there's something screwy about that scenario (other than the stupidity of the guy listening to his wife)....it says they sold their house in '06 for a big profit...then a few months later they can't make the payments on the cheaper new house the wife pressured the husband to buy !!??
Macaca
My sister in law and husband plunked down $950,000 for a little shit hole in the S.F. Bay Area in October 2006. "Real estate always goes up, or is at least always a good investment", is their mantra. They put $100k down and got a 10-year interest only loan (fixed rate), because they were stretching so much. Combined income only $190,000. Now she's pregnant, and the house needs a new $35,000 roof. Their monthly nut is HUGE. TERRIBLE financial decision. All because she tightened the clamps on wanting to nest, and he is / was a clueless, ballless, wonder.
The best is when he accepts the giant foreign object up the ass at the end and goes..."did you see the size of that garage".
How realtors still exist is beyond me.
I was talking to my sister and mentioned the condos in Ft Myers dropping 50% in two years. She responded by saying that RE always goes up. DUH!!! Another successful brainwashing by the realtors.
Haha, doughy-faced and weary indeed. Ever notice how the only role men ever play in TV these days, in marketing especially, is the "adult infant" who seemingly can't tie his own shoeslaces without his wife, much less make a signifcant decision? It's a blatant reversal of the old patriarchal sexism that still flies somewhat under the radar. Marketing scumbags love to reinforce the lie that only one person makes the major decisions in a family, ever. If that person should be a nesting-minded, style-obsessed women high on feminism brainwashing, all the better.
Just another typical daily scene that plays like a scratched record in Temecula, CA.
Yellow Hummer, CHECK.
Insurmountable Debt, CHECK.
Mans Balls In Wifes Purse, CHECK.
Suzanne Rape Job, CHECK.
I wonder if they've received the NOD notice yet?
I sold in Oct06 and have been disappoited with the minimal price drops in the area I am looking (San Gabriel Valley in Socal).
I am seriously close to being "Suzanned". The wife has been giving me hell for the last few months and has refused to talk to me for three days now.
The last time we looked at a house with our realtor they ganged up on me with the "throwing money away on rent" argument. Our rent is currently $2000. Compare that to well over $3000 in property tax and interest for buying what I want at current prices. That even takes into consideration the large down payment I have.
If anyone thinks I am doing the right thing by holding out, throw me some encouragement. I could really use it.
Damn, it is like they had one ball each, and were squeezing and squeezing.
I'd like to point out that this sort of thing doesn't happen to Muslim men living in an Islamic Theocracy...
I think it should be DOH!!! faced and weary....I mean it looks like this guy went to the Homer Simpson school of relationship management.....Now he has the overpriced house, the hummmer etc......DOH is right....
In my cuntry dis beesh wood hev 2 bleck eyez.
2ndgearscratch said...
I sold in Oct06 and have been disappoited with the minimal price drops in the area I am looking (San Gabriel Valley in Socal).
I am seriously close to being "Suzanned". The wife has been giving me hell for the last few months and has refused to talk to me for three days now.
The last time we looked at a house with our realtor they ganged up on me with the "throwing money away on rent" argument. Our rent is currently $2000. Compare that to well over $3000 in property tax and interest for buying what I want at current prices. That even takes into consideration the large down payment I have.
If anyone thinks I am doing the right thing by holding out, throw me some encouragement. I could really use it.
June 25, 2007 8:10 PM
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Hell yeah, you're doing the right thing. First of all, money spent on rent isn't "thrown away" any more than money spent on food or other necessities of life. To compare the costs of renting and buying, one must consider:
(1) Mortgage principal and interest,
(2) Property taxes,
(3) Maintenance,
(4) Insurance,
(5) Opportunity cost (foregone investment returns) on your downpayment, and
(6) Depreciation as home prices return to historical norms in terms of price to rent and price to incomes.
It sounds like if you add up (1)-(5), you'll be throwing away at least twice as much money as you're currently paying in rent. OK, the mortgage principal is technically not thrown away, but that's going to be a pretty small percentage of a typical mortgage payment. SoCal is one of the most overpriced areas in the country, so (6) is also likely to be very significant. The price drops have started, and much, much more are to come, but it will take time. Housing crashes in slow motion. Just check out Japan (or SoCal 1990-1997 for that matter).
Oh yeah, and the supposed "tax benefits" of homedebting are grossly exaggerated, too.
Good luck, bro.
You are doing the right thing 2ndgearscratch. My wife nagged me from 2004 through the end of 2006 for not buying. Now that prices have begun to come down, she doesn't say much about buying. If I'd given in and bought, I'm sure she would have blamed me for the money we were losing as prices drop.
FSORenter
2ndgearscratch, Just do a Coby. Give her a $5 million diamond and she will forgive you and put up with that apartment you rent for at least a week!
2nd scratch.
Man up bitch. Ultimately the HUSBAND should make the final decision in matters like this. And dont give me any of that 50/50 shit. Yes, its ok to let her 'voice' her opinion but you run the show. Or did you not lay that law down form the get go? Look..just tell her like this 'you have 2 choices: A) pay 500k for the shitshack now or B) pay 420k for it 6 mths - 1 year down the road'.
Leykis 101!
Everytime I see this video I thank my lucky stars I had the foresight to bail out of a 20 year "marriage" I was in with a woman who is very similar to the gal in this video. My equity from the previous "home" (if you could call it that) went into a money market account in 2003 and I crashed in a cheap apartment close to work and "Einstein's" went into a new pooky princess subdivision land McHouse complete with all new trappings. Have you noticed the price reductions in all things "homey" as of late? Discounted furniture, reduced prices on t.v.'s, sales on new counters and siding? I dodged a bullet that had my name on it.
Smug Bastard
I've been Suzanned before, I confess. My wife was tired of paying rent and wanted to buy.
The compromise was that the mortgage + property taxes be around the same as the rent. We decided on a modest 1400 sq. ft. home.
I penny pinched on every single upgrade. No hardwood floors, we do our own painting, we finish the rec room and basement ourselves, etc.
Good news is that since then (early 2004) housing prices have almost tripled, our salaries have doubled as well. We're also aggressively prepaying the mortgage and she agrees that we should never upgrade to a 4000 sq. ft. McMansion.
The stink of this is you absolutely KNOW for a fact he didn't even get laid that night!
Yes, she did have that look like a cobra prior to a strike.
What an incredibly creepy ad.
It takes men a lifetime to learn this, but women don't respect weak, mallable men. They just don't. Human development has conditioned women to be attracted to powerful, decisive, moderately aggressive men.
The modern metrosexual, milquetoast, Nancyboy isn't going to be what they dream about. Even South Park did an episode on this.
I'm not saying you need to be an ass, jump on sharks, dodge poison darts, or shave with a chainsaw, but being someone that has a little self confidence goes along way with the womenfolk.
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