Posted on 08/21/2005 11:40:06 PM PDT by ex-Texan
bflr = bump for later reading
Quote: What amazes me is it's only 4 or 5 years after the last bubble and all the same rhetoric is being rehashed.
There are at least 2 new TV shows about home speculating. One is called "Flip this house" and the other is similar but I forgot it's name.
Yes. Many mortgage agreements have that provision. If the value of the home goes below the amount of the mortgage they can pull the mortgage. I think all interest only agreements have that clause.
During the last bubble in Massachusetts they pulled so many mortgages that the housing market collapsed. The banks didn't want to pull them because there was such a glut of houses on the market they couldn't get their money out. The Feds came in and forced the issue because they were getting stuck with failing banks, the Bank of New England for one.
It was a GREAT time to buy. Those times are coming again. Cash will be king.
Thanks. Although a very worrisome piece of information.
I remember the real estate collapse in NYC in the early 1990s. Folks were mailing the keys to their condos to the banks with polite notes, basically saying, "Catch me if you can."
Hmmmm... what if gas prices don't "retreat"?
The same thing that Will Rogers once said about land also applies to petroleum. I can only foresee prices going _higher_, not lower. Of course, I could be wrong....
Actually, I expect the housing bubble to burst long before the petroleum bubble (if there indeed _is_ one). I expect to see gas prices at $10 per gallon before I'm gone, and I'm not that young anymore.....
- John
That's part of the problem as I see it. (That and the fact tha the agents forget who they are working for as soon as you sign the papers).
This ia another sector ripe for being totally replaced by the Internet, and you are starting to see it already.
We've been seeing some of the effects from uneducated speculators around here recently, and the effects are quite funny (probably not for the speculators, but certainly for the locals). Some bigwig investor from the bay area or LA will buy a house for $500,000 unseen and turn it over to a property management company to rent out for $2,000+ a month. Since the average wage around here is still below $40k, the house will sit empty and unoccupied for months (in one case a block from my home, more than a year because they're demanding $2,600 a month and the AVERAGE around here is $1,200). By the time they do flip their houses, they've typically lost a substantial portion of their profits to both mortgage payments and home devaluation caused by long term neglect.
For the people that actually live here, we may shake our heads and laugh at these idiots, but these homes can become problematic. They often get trashed by criminals, they become hangouts for neighborhood kids, they're occupied by the homeless and druggies, and the meth labs LOVE them. The property management firms don't usually do anything more than mow the lawn every month or so, and replace broken windows that face the street (non street facing windows get boarded over).
I've seen stunning 4000 sf suburban minimansions reduced to something out of an inner city slum because an investor putchased it without looking at the rental market and the house became derelict. I know of several other investors who've lost their homes to fire and vandalism. An empty house attracts criminals.
Blame Congress. It's all their fault.
What did the banks know about The Housing Bubble? When did they know it? Did they know about it when they pushed Congress to amend the Bankruptcy Act?
Having grown up in Boone since the mid '60's, it's truly amazing. The very things that made Boone so attractive to me as a kid are gone now. We never locked our houses and cars even in downtown while shopping until the early 80's. ASU had a student population between 6,000/7,000 then and crime was practically unheard of except for drag racing and a few drunks fighting. I think there were 8 killings (all adults) in 5 years in Watauga and immediate surrounding counties 1965-170. A lot more people died from running off the mountains in fog and rain or icy roads than murder, and if someone killed someone , they knew them and most likely a score needed settling.
Kids, teenagers, college students and the poor walked everywhere until they were able to catch a ride. No one had a need to go to the gym with the walking, hiking, shoveling snow, snow skiing, trout fishing, gardening, raising livestock, splitting wood, then going to work/school. Most fat folks existed because of bad knees or ankles for the most part or past 75 years.
A kid could hitchhike anywhere without worry. We never passed up a hitchhiker when it was cold. We never new when it could be us stranded in the 'Boonies' at night or in subfreezing weather. I wished the f'n tourons hadn't decided to stay. I wish the majority of the FReepers could step back to 1965 to Boone, NC when I was only 8. They'd get fighting mad about the changes now in society. They'd simply cry.
And this is a problem because??? If people are stupid enough to buy houses they cannot afford, get themselves in over their heads and pile up debt, they deserve to take a beating financially.
Enjoy your 600% high property tax bill now that you bought at the top of the market.
In CA, stuff appears to be falling out of escrows and homes are sitting.
I think the bubble is starting to hiss a little.
Hope to God you didn't finance with an interest only loan.
Good luck, and don't forget the new bankruptcy laws go into effect in two months, so you can't leave your debt. :-)
Is that old trailer without the wheels in the back of the picture the guest house?
You have the money in bonds paying X% and you are paying Y% on your mortgage, where X is about 4 and Y is at least 5. Am I off?
Good post!
One additional point: all the talk about the Fed managing interest rates overlooks one very large fact - that the Fed has NO control over LONG-TERM interest rates - the market decides that.
And the market might decide that 8 or 10%, or 20% for that matter, is necessary to make a market. Then watch the Big Clearance Sale of mini-mansions.
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