Posted on 10/01/2007 12:51:04 PM PDT by 2banana
What did he do with the equity pulled out? If he by chance invested it...he might be fine, but it doesn’t sound as if he did.
I won’t be a barrista anytime soon, and even if I did leave the biz, with a college degree and 7 years+ experience in sales and finance I think I could do better than Starbucks.
;-)
Sometimes I really hate the internet. Most people say “here where I am” as if I can read their minds or see their zip code identified in their post. Is it laziness? Is it paranoia? Why can’t people say “I’m selling here in Mudzilla, Puerto Rico”, instead of giving us an incomplete and therefore meaningless picture.
I have no freaking clue if they are in downtown Manhattan or living on Montana’s Canadian border.
You would think intelligent people of the caliber who post on Free Republic would realize the rest of us can’t possibly know where “here” is in all the various posts anytime someone refers to the location they live or work.
Very frustrating. All I will say is home prices are still very high here and sales are still relatively OK. See how worthless it is when I don’t say “here in San Francisco...”?
Please, if you are going to post relevant information about your neighborhood, could all of you please give us some tiny clue as to where that neighborhood is, be it a Dallas suburb or the heart of a Colorado rocky mountain ski resort. It kind of helps. SHEESH!
Well, here in Oceanside, NY (11572), our house values climbed substantially in the last two decades. The home we bought during the Reagan Administration (1984) for $129,000 was appraised for $650,000 in 2003 when we took out an equity line of credit to buy a new/old boat (1987 silverton 34C).
The boat cost $40,000 and we took out an additional $60,000 for some home renovations. The boat has been a wonderful home-away-from home for us. It’s like having a beach house, except a beach house here on Long Island costs several million dollars.
Being a do-it-yourselfer, the home renovations are moving along at a snail’s pace so we haven’t drawn upon any of the original $60,000 yet. I just pay for supplies out of current income and do the labor myself. I’m nearly finished with the renovation now and that $60,000, placed in very conservative investments, has nearly doubled.
I’ll probably draw some of the money in the next few weeks to pay for granite and ceramic work, but I’m still miles ahead.
Nope. Used it to live on. Lives in San Fran and makes barely over 6 figures with a SAHM and 4 kids.
I consider myself very lucky. We decided we wanted to move south to Aiken SC and built a home starting last Oct.which we moved into yesterday.
I put my present home on the market (east of Cleveland in the burbs) in July and it sold in three weeks. Others in the area are sitting with their homes for over a yr. The secret was, I spent about $500 and staged it and the most important thing is I priced it right. There was a home in my subdivision that she listed at $466,000 by owner (nothing in that area has sold for more than high 300’s)and she is still sitting with it. I put mine on at $389900 and took $375,000 and I’m done with it !!!! The Gods were looking out for me. The Ohio market is dead.
I hear ya-I got my eye on some houses in Ocean City. Hoping the market just absolutely tanks.
Our former unscrupulous deal with a seller’s agent was much more simplistic than that.
I had insisted on getting a survery done, and the seller’s agent scoffed at me, saying it wasn’t necessary.
But the three lots had never been surveyed, and I wanted reassurance that everything was legitimate at sale.
The day of the sale we sat in our attorney’s office. Both the selling agent and her broker were seething with anger... because I was wasting their time. They had tried to talk me out of getting an attorney to represent me at closing.
We waited and waited for the survey results. But the surveyors records and the tax records did not coincide with each other.
When the surveyors went to survey the lot, they did find it was on three plots of land. We knew this.
But the title deed was fashioned using old tax records. And it was found that the house sat on the center lot. But the other two lots weren’t part of the sale. In the county records only the center lot was shown. And all of the paperwork was drawn up using these no longer valid records.
This is why we had hired an attorney. We needed to protect our investment, and if we hadn’t, we would have lost the other lots and forfeited any access to the road or the pump house.
To make a long story short, our lawyer made the selling agent and her broker revise all of the paperwork... to ensure it was clear that we were buying all three lots, not just one.
The interesting part of all of this was that the selling agent was the homeowner. She had tried to force an illegal sale, to her benefit. She wanted the other two lots to remain hers.
If we hadn’t caught it at time of closing, she would have owned the other two, and we would have been out of luck.
Needless to say, I don’t necessarily like realtors in general. I don’t trust them.
We live in Forsyth County, Georgia, home to the “McMansion.” We’ve lived in our house 10 years, and have a HELOC, but we’ve never gone over 70% loan to value. We have no plans to move, so we can sit on the current downturn with no problems.
I’m amazed at the new subdivisions near us that have homes starting in the 600’s. They’re practically empty, because now people can’t afford the houses. I know builders that are being sued right and left because they can’t pay their bridge loans.
I don’t know how my B-I-L does it. One can only imagine what the payment is on a 1.2 million mortgage.
Moral of the story: If you think a real estate agent is acting in your best interests (seller or buyer agent, it doesn’t matter), you are badly mistaken. The book “Freakanomics” has a nice example of the incentives at work.
Brokers of any kind are looking out for their own interests and their interests are advanced by turning deals quickly.
Nobody looks out for your interests better than you!!!!
FREEPERS should know this basic axiom better than anyone.
Self-reliance and looking out for ourselves are at the heart of conservative philosposhy.
When I bought my house the seller had to come to the table with $14,000. I basically captured all of his equity. When he and his realtor found out my realtor was giving me a kickback of 1/3 of her commission they were furious. C'est la vie.
Except that if you offer it for sale you have to accept any offer that comes in at your selling price - you can't legally reject a legitimate offer from anyone.
Except that if you offer it for sale you have to accept any offer that comes in at your selling price - you can't legally reject a legitimate offer from anyone.
When the bank finally has to take a loss on this home, and they will, it will be far greater than it should have been. If I were a shareholder I’d be taking them to task for losing more money than they should have.
Here’s a little secret:
Banks can hold homes in their inventory indefinitely without taking a loss.
And here’s a related secret:
The banks can rely on the Fed to figure a way to get $$$ to homebuyers to reduce the stacked up inventory of homes.
Fed’s real purpose is to keep its member banks solvent.
Good for you. Lucky for your family you are a smart cookie.
Something the article touches on is somthing I've noticed - People just don't drive junker cars anymore. Even if you drive through West Philadelphia you're more likely to see a 2007 Camry than a vehicle from the 90's.
Ocean City (NJ) real estate is bleeding. Have you been down there lately? EVERYTHING’s for sale. But they’re still listing at more than a million more than a block off the ocean! I think it’ll be two years before it really tanks and people will just take anything at that point to get rid of their albatross shore investment property.
What you describe is very close to exactly what my husband and I did. We lived in our first home for 11 years and so did have all the closing costs covered and 20% down for our second (current) home..........and I drive a ‘97 Escort :)
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