Tell their stories here.
Oh, what a party it was. Boats. Cars. Trips to Cancun. New furniture. Hookers & cocaine! Free money that never had to be paid back! We're rich! We're rich!
Never again folks. Never again.
September 08, 2007
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went to the theatre tonight, and it was almost empty. are people running out of money, or maybe 3:10 to Yuma is too much of a reminder about the sadness of debt and evils of greed?
Murst! Sure I do, Keith:
Smartmoney - A recent study commissioned by Oakland, Calif.-based Bell Investment Advisors, found that seven out of 10 60-year-olds consider their home part of their retirement plan. Of that group, almost one in five — 24% to be exact — said their home's equity represents half or more of their total savings.
Surprisingly, this is a snapshot of the considerably well-off: The survey questioned investors with at least $1 million in investable assets — and that's not counting their homes. The state of "average" soon-to-be retirees, however, doesn't appear to be much different from their richer peers. Other than Social Security, which represents 42% of household wealth among baby boomers, the home is the single largest asset that the Average Joe has, accounting for 21% of their total net worth, according to the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finance, the latest available. Back then, home equity was nearly three times the size of what the household held in defined-contribution plans, such as 401(k)s or IRAs.
Future gains will be unremarkable:
It's widely known that real estate does appreciate. But what's always easy to forget, especially during this past housing boom when median home prices were up nearly 50% nationwide — and exponentially more in many local markets — is just how unimpressive that appreciation ends up being over the long run. The median price of new homes in the United States has gained an average annual 5.9% since 1963, only slightly better than the returns of low-risk Treasury bills over the same period, according to the Fidelity Research Institute. Factor in inflation, and your average gains are only 1.35% a year, compared with 5.95% (after inflation) for equities.
Not sure if this counts as it's actually a sad story. Buddy of mine took out a 150k home equity loan to start a business. Lived relatively frugally, but business failed.
Lost house -- is now in the process of declaring bankruptcy.
I suspect there's a lot of that in the pipeline too.
Yuh. One of my co-workers did that. he used to say, "Why not? It's free money.".
He bought last year at the top of the market in Blowmont, California.
Then he got a city slicker job up in Silicon Valley. After getting ready to move his realtor announced the max he could reasonably list his house at was 399k (He paid 450k). Boom. 50k in the hole, just like that.
This was in July, before the credit market got kicked in the nuts. He's probably 100k underwater now. Last I talked to him he was going to just continue to pay the mortgage, even though no one is living there.
Since sellers are refusing to lower their prices, here is the scenario I predict, and this is just what happened in Japan.
House prices will continue to decline slowly for 10 years. People will cling, paying an 800,000 mortgage on a hose that will be worth 300,000 in 2017. Every year they pay they put more skin into the game, pour more of their income and future into a bastard child that will only reward them in the end with a 500,000 dollar heartbreak.
And the smart seller who sold to the dumb buyer near the top, God Bless Him. Exploiting the stupid should always be praised.
I always wondered how people who complained about $3 and 50 cent gas had 4 SUVs in the driveway with a boat,motorcycle and of course an ATV for the youngins
Livin in White Trash Mass Jay
Yeah, my friend has taken out about 150k. Thinks his house is worth 500k with a 350k mortgage balance. When his house goes to 300k, he'll be 50k underwater. Then 200k!
The closed housing ATM is killing the economy that has been propped up on ficticious paper money. Looks like the USA is BK.
What else were people supposed to do? Aint makin mo money
i had a bunch of co-workers who did the exact same job i did for similar pay (less than 5% difference) but lived vastly different lifestyles. they all owned 2 SUVs, wives did not work, had 3+ kids, took lots of expensive family vacations.
My wife and i had 1 car (5 years old,- omg, how embarassing!), i rode my bike to work, always had my own lunch (why don't you treat yourself?), vacationed locally, and generally lived within my means.
i asked them how they could afford all of this...their answer was "Re-Fi...just pay it off over 30 years." and these were supposedly intelligent managers in the company! they rode the housing boom into $1 million homes but kept taking equity out along the way to finance their lifestyle. i imagine they lived about 15% above their means and financed it with their house.
when i took a transfer to another country, i sold my home and they said i was crazy. i put the gains into my retirement fund.
a lot of these guys were pressured by their spuoses to keep up appearances with other people who were leveraging themselves to the hilt.
if there is any good that comes out of this crash, let it be the death of excessive consumerism and obsession with material goods.
I've been looking at ton's of homes in some state of foreclosure. Absolutely mind boggling the number purchased 10-15 years ago for less than half what they're getting foreclosed for. Now I'm sure there are few who had legitimate refi's for illness etc but you can go to the bank that most were over indulging.
I have a friend who is in the process of getting divorced who had opened a HELOC as an emergency source of money. He had a decent job, nothing too affluent, and could cover the mortgage payments, but had to live frugally to make it all work.
The only problem was that his wife had grown up in an environment of unrestricted spending and insisted that she be in charge of the finances.
While he worked to put equity into his home, she used the HELOC like a bottomless ATM card without actually telling him she was doing that.
Expenses went up as whenever she got bored (she didn't work, so she had plenty of time to get bored) she would go shopping. Eventually, he had to start working a lot of overtime to meet the ever increasing bills.
It finally exploded when she started to feel neglected since he was always working and demanded that he spend more time at home and make more money.
Wish I could work less and make more. Let me know if you figure out how to do that without a Ponzi scheme.
#Andrew
Maybe your coworkers will turn out to have been smarter then you were, as inflation wipes out their debt and your retirement fund.
My neighbors here in a Tampa suburb turned their houses into ATMs in order to buy toys and, in one case, an "investment" condo.
Now that the market is falling apart, the people who are most deeply in debt are attempting to implement new HOA rules with the thought that, by turning our neighborhood into a fascist police state, they can reverse the declining property values.
"if there is any good that comes out of this crash, let it be the death of excessive consumerism and obsession with material goods."
not going to happen! I think the system intentionally creates a set of new winners periodically who binge.
«Yuh. One of my co-workers did that. he used to say, "Why not? It's free money."»
But for "subprime" borrowers that is exactly true: they are subprime because they are essentially bankrupt to start with. For them buying a home with free money can only have an upside: if the market goes up or they get bailed out, they got free money, else they go back to where they were before.
For the Republicans this is also a no brainer: it is well documented that home owners tend to vote Republican, so every subprimer that manages to become an asset owner is more voted for them, and those who fail would not have voted Republican anyhow.
«Maybe your coworkers will turn out to have been smarter then you were, as inflation wipes out their debt and your retirement fund.»
That's also what I expect to happen: the government and the Fed have two choices, to make housing prices revert to the mean in nominal/absolute terms (ferocious deflation) or merely in real/relative terms only (wild inflation as house prices stabilize and every other price goes up).
Given the colossal impact of the oil price rises in the past few years and of the food and materials price rises, the Fed has already chosen to finance those with easy, easy money, as there are two wars going on and home front morale has to be considered.
I don't know much about mortgage banking. I'm an aero engineer (and feeling quite lucky for that lately).
About the mortgage biz though, I had thought that the greedy little devils would have to get a refi, arrange for some heloc cash, then start partying like Kanye West.
Something I read recently though made me realize that's not exactly how it works. What happens (as I understand it now) is you throw a bunch of debt into a new loan (mortgage, credit card debt, etc).
If you know you'll refinance in 6 months, you don't need to wait for the party to start. You break out the plastic and buy now, no problemo.
So a shitload of debt gets racked up then, SURPRISE, no refi for you! Gotta to continue paying an obscene rate on the card.
Talk about a magnifier to the mortgage troubles.
Just keep buying gold.
How will inflation wipe out savings? If he invests in stocks, they will go up with inflation. If he invests in foreign equities, he will do even better. How will the Fed force wages to inflate? They can't because the jobs will simply go overseas. The workers will suffer with increased expenses while their pay is stagnant, eventually leading to more foreclosures.
"Now that the market is falling apart, the people who are most deeply in debt are attempting to implement new HOA rules with the thought that, by turning our neighborhood into a fascist police state, they can reverse the declining property values."
Many of these HOA's are toast. As the members go into foreclosure they stop paying their fees, and with their properties being upside down the HOA has no way to recover the loss.
How then will they pay for maintenance of the private roads, street lighting and parks.
Maybe your coworkers will turn out to have been smarter then you were, as inflation wipes out their debt and your retirement fund.
Ah, but you missed the part where he said he took a job outside the country, so he may be ok (provided he's somewhere with a sane currency).
Yeah. They plan on dilling the locks on vacant homes, turning on the electricity, and living rent free until they're chased out. Then onto the next place.
My brother is a schoolteacher and his district has an option where he can be paid all 12 months of the year in a level-pay program. Instead he opted to be paid only the 10 months he actually works, because the level-pay plan wouldn't give him enough money each month to pay his bills. He's been putting those 2 month of living expenses on his HELOC for years.
Then he bought a new house in Sept. 2005, right at the peak, and paid off that HELOC. He got a new HELOC simultaneously with the new mortgage and is continuing to put every summer's living expenses on it. Plus, he didn't realize his new mortgage didn't include an impound account. Within weeks of moving in, he put his fall installment of property taxes on his HELOC!
He got an Option ARM that doesn't reset for 10 years - 8 years left to go. I don't particularly want rampant inflation, but the only other way I see him and his family of five to make it come 2015 is to move into my garage. It's a tough choice --- inflation, brother in my garage, inflation, brother in my garage --- maybe inflation is a better choice?
Never again?
Never is a long time.
There was an equally idiotic housing boom in Florida back in the 1920's and now a mere 80 years later we get a nationwide one.
Once all the suckers from this time die we'll be ripe for another land bubble.
History repeats because people don't change, they can't. You learn from experience and after 70, 80, 90 years of gaining that wisdom you croak and your dumbass grandkids proceed to do the same stupid stuff you did thinking they're being so original and edgey.
A few folks learn from history maybe 5% of the total population tops.
Im in the banking industry in phoenix. People here have absolutely no fear of debt. I see people come in all too frequently with 40k to 100k of credit card debt. The scary part is that they really don't realize how much debt they have until you show them. Then they aren't even shocked or surprised when you start going through the debts 1 by 1. It's really unusual. I saw a person who made 60k per year and had 100k of cc debt and a 300k house. They lived in one of the fringe cities where values are dropping really quickly and the house was upside down. It's going to get really ugly.
RE: Know anyone who went on a spending spree with a bunch of cash-out mortgage refi loot (aka Housing ATM or HELOC's)?
Unfortunately, I know a young couple who's refi-spending binge consisted of using their "free" money as a springboard to buy more overpriced houses. They thought they could just buy and flip and buy and flip.
Now, they are maxed out on seven credit cards and in default on two of their four properties.
Everyone tried to reason with them, even as far back as two years ago, before they had gotten in too deep. Now, none of their houses will even come close to selling for what they owe on them.
Bankruptcy seems to be their only option at this point.
V.L.
Did you freaks see the back to school numbers? Everyone up huge year over year. Walmart, Target, Saks, Macys, Neiman Marcus all up big year over year same store sales.
All this while this supposed housing/credit crash is happening.
Some friends in Orlando bought a house in 2004 and by spring 2005 were bragging how they paid $300k and it was now "worth" 450k. I expressed by bubble concerns at that time and he even agreed with me that it was ridiculous. His wife stays home with the baby and he has a decent job but not setting the world on fire by any means. A month later I went up to visit and they had a brand new gigantic Infiniti SUV in the driveway and a new home theater that must have been $10k. The used a HELOC to buy all of it and he claimed "I'll always have my equity". Well, they are lucky if their house is worth what they paid at this point. They seemed a bit distressed the last time we spoke....
A little OT but...
Last night I was out with 4 friends. All of us well educated in our mid 30s, and making $100K+, some I'd guess $200K even. We all live in different parts of the country and get together 2-3 times a year for a weekend to play golf, drink too much and well just get away from the wives for 3 days, lol.
As inevitably happens the conversation turned to housing. 4/5 own, I rent. I did own, sold at the peak and have been renting since. For the past 2 years I have been preaching the HP battle cry to them at our get togethers. All to more or less dead ears.
However last night to my surprise 2/4 guys said straight out, you were right man, we should have listened and followed your lead. The other 2 are still living in la-la land and think renting is throwing money out the window, think I'm nuts for missing out on the tax deduction and of course convinced their area of the country is immune to the crash because.....it's different here.
Progress sure but still a while to go until the masses finally get it.
The media and propaganda of the REIC is so strong and so ingrained in the psyche of the country that even with the past month of nothing but bad news, people still don't get it.
"Maybe your coworkers will turn out to have been smarter then you were, as inflation wipes out their debt and your retirement fund."
It only works if they took fixed for many years! Many of these homeowners did not take fixed and with inflation, rates will jump up.
Have you ever seen what a few % points does to your mortgage payment before your salary gets to benefit from inflation?
Many will lose their jobs before the wages reflect new inflation expectations and I don't care how eroded your debt becomes, if you don't have a job, you will have trouble making your payments.
OK, next.
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There is a street where we live than on a typical day, there are 7-10 cars for sale. on the weekends maybe 15-20.
Today there were 37 cars
(some pretty new and high-end) 4 motorhomes, 3 motorcycles and one glider on a trailer.
.
Back to school numbers from Neiman Marcus? When I think school supplies I think Neiman Marcus.
It's like shooting trolls in a barrel...
i may or may not be smarter than my co-workers, but i also think intelligence has little to do with wealth creation. my co-workers are smart people but just make financial decisions with too much emotional input. i don't plan to retire for 35 years if i ever retire at all. i moved the money out of the country and into the EU.
my decision was not about making money in the short or even the long term. my decision was based on my desire to be free of an illiquid and depreciating asset that prevented me from doing things i wanted (like moving to another country,and being free to get up and move to a new place whenever i want).
I also did not want to be dependent on my employer. those guys are tied to their jobs because they will never find another job in that city that pays them enough to fund their current lifestyle.
in 10 years they will still be in the surburban McMansions if they manage to hold on to their jobs and not go insane from boredom.
life is too short to be some over-mortgaged suburban commuter.....
all those "diferent" areas shall be "theirs" for a very long time or until they are assessed and taxed out....hope they enjoy owning them...
I have a friend in Westchester, a burb of LA, who has been taking out HELOCs to pay for private schools, etc. for her kids, as they have been miserable in the LA school system. They had bought their home reasonably, at the beginning of the bubble, around 500K, but now their mortgage payments are over 6K/month. Although her husband is employed, I have trouble thinking of a scenario in which they wouldn't lose their home. Nice, nice people, really bad financial "planning" and a really unfortunate credit situation.
It is so refreshing to see this mindless self-indulgence coming to an end. I have always said that stupidity should be painful, now it will be.
1929 All over again
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Within the last 18mos., a friend purchased a sandrail (dunebuggy) for $75k, a toyhouse trailer to go with it $35k
A custom powerboat $175k and trailer, and a smaller boat for his son $75k
A gold Rolex yacthmaster with custom bezel and rubies...$27k
Custom fishing poles, antique rifles, artwork, diamons for the wife, elaborate vacations!
Who knows what else?
All of that in the last 18 mos!
.
You folks got any Idea when this bush built scheitt sandwich comes in full force ala 1929?
I think after the 2008 elections when the dems steamroll the supply siders into extinction. This will be the time the real scheitt sandwich comes...
Kinda like a gift, from you know who.
there is an old song by the temptations called the Jones, I think (it's been a while) there is a line in there that says bill collectors, tranquilizers, and getting deeper and deeper in debt, you'd better leave the Joneses alone. I commute 30 miles everyday and there was a time in my little 98 plymouth neon I couldn't see the traffic in front of me, big trucks, suv's, van's. After that first hit with gas going to nearly 4 bucks a gallon (i'm a cali girl)the size of those vehicles came down to commute size and now 2 years later (hurricane katrina inspired gas prices, or so they say)there are alot more commuter cars than suv's, van's and trucks. There are also alot of fly by night used car lots that have tons of expensive cars and suv's and trucks (used to be alot of old cars nobody wanted)now those old cars nobody wanted are back on the freeway. I do one of the worst commutes in the country (although I just don't believe we could ever be worse than Los Angeles, they have commute 24 hours a day). Just like the housing bubble deflating slowly everything else is comming down slowly too.
As far as sales going up in August, it is because school started in most places in August. Last year I had to buy supplies for my son maybe spent 50 dollars well this year it was over a hundred dollars (at Wal-Mart no less and I wondered where were the deals at, I might as well shop at the local grocery store the prices were the same.) I bought my son 2 pairs of shoes 150 bucks and these were on the low end and 5 outfits he grew a few inches 300, and I was shopping at discount stores not even listed. No clothes at Wal-Mart only underwear. The only reason these places are posting a profit is because they are raising the prices of goods so they can meet earnings quotes. Once the school buying season is over trust me the numbers will stink again. Then they will start blitzing you with buying for Christmas, are you so sure people aren't tapping the last of the credit cards? There is going to be a lot of Charlie Brown christmas trees and Tiny Tim christmases for a few years. I think people are going to to start hanging onto money just in case something terrible may befall them. Was it not on this blog that mentioned Wal-Mart was complaining that illegal immigrants were not shopping as much as they used to and their profits were going down (they did say they were going to scale back the size of stores). Now people feel they are to good to shop at Wal-Mart (I quit a while ago the products were so inferior that after a few days or months but always at a year they quit working or half worked). The clothes are often out of style within days or they lose viability after a couple of washings.
Things are slowing turning around but as in most cases, it may be too late.
Re: hyperinflating the debt away
Sounds nice on paper. Reality can be a little messier. Argentina. Weimar Republic Germany. Zimbabwe (12,000% Inflation!!!).
NO FREE LUNCH. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Blissex said...
«Maybe your coworkers will turn out to have been smarter then you were, as inflation wipes out their debt and your retirement fund.»
That's also what I expect to happen: the government and the Fed have two choices, to make housing prices revert to the mean in nominal/absolute terms (ferocious deflation) or merely in real/relative terms only (wild inflation as house prices stabilize and every other price goes up).
-------------------
If They inflate things like the FB's can only hope, then the same problems will not go away. SO WHAT if They "inflate" things?? The new commers STILL will not be able to afford any of this crap!
Inflating the way out of this mess will only work if they inflate our WAGES also. And Lord know They don't want to do that! I would need a 25% - 33% after tax increase to make enough to AFFORD an un-updated home in a good hood in Chicago.
But guess what the Greedy Sellers will do then? They will jack their asking price by the same amount!
They can try to bend the Law of Supply and Demand, but they won't be able to break it!
The other 2 are still living in la-la land and think renting is throwing money out the window, think I'm nuts for missing out on the tax deduction and of course convinced their area of the country is immune to the crash because.....it's different here.
--
Sounds like the entire City of Chicago!
Did you freaks see the back to school numbers? Everyone up huge year over year. Walmart, Target, Saks, Macys, Neiman Marcus all up big year over year same store sales.
All this while this supposed housing/credit crash is happening.
***************
people have no savings, are losing their homes to foreclosure at record rates, are losing their RE-related jobs and have huge debts and you think rising consumer spending is a GOOD THING?
"Many of these homeowners did not take fixed and with inflation, rates will jump up."
not only that, but they couldn't handle the regular payments anyways. they'll have to sell the boat, the benz, the rims and the plasma(s).
after that, sell the stocks! that'll do great for the stock market. too bad nobody saved anything.
HELOCS are subject to call provisions. As in, the bank can call you up and say "hey - we would like that money back." Effectively, a margin call.
It's usually in the paperwork somewhere. I think as bad as it is now, if the banks and lenders get serious about the call provisions, we'll hit the wall right quick.
Commercial loans are already starting to get called.
http://buttonwood1792.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-long-before-beazer-goes-to-z-e-r-o.html
"Maybe your coworkers will turn out to have been smarter then you were, as inflation wipes out their debt and your retirement fund."
So, their utter stupidity instantly morphs into intelligence? Please do not equate possible dumb luck with intelligent thought and/or acts.
10:35, I've got a good friend that did the same thing - pulled $300 k out to start a business which he had no idea how to run without quitting his full-time gig, which he was afraid to do, and the business has now sucked all that and more out of him. Now he owes $650k on a house he bought for $350k in '00, and has convinced himself it can't be worth less than 800k, now or ever, because his little OC burg is "special." {Sigh}
Jeez, that would describe just about everyone in Scottsdale. I had a meeting in Phoenix this week so we went up to north Scottsdale for a night to visit family and it was just terrible. Everyone still has the attitude and rude demeanor and they're cruising around in their ghettoed out H2's and BMWs with rims that look like they're right out of Compton. We stopped into a Starbucks for some caffeine before we got back on the road to CA and just couldn't believe the cheesiness and attitudes of the fake wannabe people there. It's wonderful to be back at home which is so normal and family-oriented and grounded compared to Scottsdale.
"Inflating the way out of this mess will only work if they inflate our WAGES also. "
It's called wage and price controls. Nixon did it, and our 21st century version of Tricky Dick, Hillary Clinton, will do it too.
Of course it never really works too well, but that is how wages will rise along side of prices as they print funny money and use it to pay of all the bag holders.
Anon said: "It finally exploded when she started to feel neglected since he was always working and demanded that he spend more time at home and make more money".
Yes, it always ends this way....
If he invests in stocks, they will go up with inflation.
Oh, really! Like they did, say, between 1969 and 1982? Here's what happens during inflationary times: Interest rates go up, and so does the discount rate applied to future corporate cash flows. This causes the present value of corporate shares to get crushed.
If you don't believe me, take a look at the stock indexes in 1982, which was when inflation's back was finally broken. If you think inflation is going to help stocks, you're even dumber than the people who paid $500,000 for those $150,000 houses and then spent their "equity."
after that, sell the stocks! that'll do great for the stock market. too bad nobody saved anything.
Fortunately, most of these morons don't own any stock other than their 401k's. They invested everything else in Vegas vacations, plasma tv's, spinner rims and authentic Italian cuisine at the Olive Garden.
I bought my son 2 pairs of shoes 150 bucks and these were on the low end
Dude, you're getting ripped off. I get Reeboks or Skechers at the mall for $30 a pair. Where the hell are you shopping, Saks or Neimans? For clothes, try Marshalls or TJ Maxx. They have designer clothes for half the price. Teach your kids how to stretch the dollar, because it's shrinking fast.
My former neighbor:
Built their home around the same time we did-in 2000. Except they built the biggest one-- the same as the "model" home (except it was a big empty box) We used our own plans and built a smaller but exquisitely finished house. She (an office manager) and he (a washer dryer repair man) are about 62 years old.
In 2005 we decided to relocate to a nicer area. We put our house on the market FOR SALE BY OWNER. We had Realtwhores HARASSING us constantly. We sold the house at a $400,000 profit in June 2006. Our out-of pocket costs? $1,200 to the attorney who handled all the paperwork for us and $20 for a "For Sale" sign. We paid $0 in closing costs because we told our buyers we weren't paying points, closing costs or anything else. Now the former neighbors have a HELOC and house prices have dropped there by close to 20%. One of my old neighbors called me this week and told me those same neighbors now have a brand new Mercedes in their driveway. Don't these people ever want to retire?
Funny thing is that we now have the cash from the house sale (thank goodness) but can't find anything to buy-a building lot or otherwise. The housing inventory consists largely of McMansions in cookie-cutter developments which is not what we want.
Anyone interested in selling a beautiful house or building lot in zip code 20186?
All I can say is
"Ladies and Gentleman the Fat Lady"
>>>Did you freaks see the back to school numbers? Everyone up huge year over year. Walmart, Target, Saks, Macys, Neiman Marcus all up big year over year same store sales.<<<
And yet the Dow still dropped 250 Pts. Go Figure!
Foreign stocks you morons!!!
I know someone who this month took a HELOC to open a furniture store.
.
told ya borka had a limited vocabulary!
I work at an escrow/title company. I'll I've done these past 5 years, is sign re-fi docs with borrowers and process open/closed escrows. All I can say is Santa Maria CA is home of BMW's, Escalades, Navigators. And most are NOT owned by rich whites. I've been amazed at the amounts of money cashed out. I've seen our clients at Costco, loaded up with stuff. I told my mom 3 years ago.. "this is going to end so ugly" ... So many double payments in the TIL after 2 or 3 years (you in the industry know what that TIL is) but as I explained the terms VERY CLEARLY to the client, they seemed unbothered, they just said they'll re-fi or sell when the loan re-sets.... oh well, they were stupid and I don't want to bail them out, and you shouldn't either. I know one broker here in town, his wife opened some rinky dink plastic flowers decor store, all of this guys' clients say they work at the store in a variety of positions, but the kicker is the 1003's state they earn 8, 9, 10 grand a month. Where o where is the IRS when you need them? Its more ugly sitting here in the industry than anyone can even imagine. Santa Maria Times has the real estate industry so up their ass they won't even acknowledge the carnage in this town. One Realtor is hosting a seminar on positive thinking... he says "don't allow others to influence your thinking!" Dumbass! Didn't you influence your clients thinking when you sold them down the river to buy a house they could lose a few years later, Mr. Rosing???? Liar!!!!
"Many of these HOA's are toast. As the members go into foreclosure they stop paying their fees, and with their properties being upside down the HOA has no way to recover the loss.
How then will they pay for maintenance of the private roads, street lighting and parks."
If you do pick up a "bargain" here in Florida as the bubble deflates, read the HOA agreements carefully and research media on the neighborhood carefully. In some cases, death threats against dissenters have been SOP for out-of-control boards in communities in my area.
The question is do I know anybody who didn't?
I was always wondering how some of our friends and family members seemed to buy buy buy new stuff all the time. I was the "odd man out", having paid off my mortgage several years ago and living off cash. Yes, my wife stayed at home with the kids and theirs worked full time, but the 2nd income was generally eaten up by the new cars their wives needed to drive to work, gas, food purchased out, insurance, etc. Now I know - refis and HELOS to pay for the toys. And I love the "you're missing out on the tax advantages" gig. Since when does paying a 6% plus interest on a McMansion override the pathetic tax breaks that can be taken away?
As for inflating our way out of this mess, don't count on it helping the average American. Wages cannot rise here because we would then not be able to manufacture products to sell, and if they do rise, unemployment will rise with it - that you can bet on.
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