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Vultures Are Circling Over Distressed Properties
The Washington Post ^ | October 20, 2007 | Kenneth R. HarneySaturday

Posted on 10/21/2007 4:56:10 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20

Call them grave dancers, vulture funds, turnaround specialists or the more euphemistic "opportunity investors." However you identify them, the deal is the same: When hyperactive real estate markets lose their sizzle, or property owners no longer can afford to hang on to their houses, well-capitalized investors smell blood and move in.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: forclosures; investors; realestate
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For shame!!!! These horrible people are actually going to buy up distressed properties, keep the banks from losing their depositors' money, keeping the neighborhoods from becoming rotten slums, and maybe even [GASP! SHUDDER!] make a profit.

Oh, the horrors of capitalism. Boo Hoo Hoo.

1 posted on 10/21/2007 4:56:12 AM PDT by Turret Gunner A20
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To: Turret Gunner A20

LOL - sorry - I see opportunity.......the banks that floated this nonsense are the ones to blame...not the investor or those who were prudent with thier money and now see a window of opportunity


2 posted on 10/21/2007 4:59:28 AM PDT by Revelation 911 (prov 30:33)
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To: Turret Gunner A20

What’s the bank to do, give away the properties to those who didn’t live up to their end of the financial agreement? Good heavens, the Washington Post is such a devious rag.

The investors come in to help liquidate the properties. That is a good thing.


3 posted on 10/21/2007 5:03:59 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Old Chinese Proverb (well sorta) say dance with the one who brung ya. Yes we very much like Crinton.)
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To: Revelation 911

It’s too early in the game to jump in.

The real money to be madde will be in a year or two.


4 posted on 10/21/2007 5:05:08 AM PDT by dalereed
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To: Turret Gunner A20

Typical pap from the blood-sucking socialist leeches at the Post.

This is also an opportunity for responsible people who have saved money to buy a nice home at a reduced price.

But we can’t write a story with that scenario, can we?


5 posted on 10/21/2007 5:06:29 AM PDT by sergeantdave (Tofu burgers are the last gasp of a dying society)
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To: Turret Gunner A20

Unfortunately for the Cincinnati area, this type of market is the beginning of the end for a neighborhood. The LLC type buyers move in Section 8 housing. The people that can still afford to flee do so in droves. The only people who benefit are the moving companies...


6 posted on 10/21/2007 5:13:24 AM PDT by chadwimc (Proud to be an infidel ! Allah fubar !!!)
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To: Turret Gunner A20

Blaming the vultures is like blaming the stadium cleanup crew for what the fans left behind.

The fault lies with those who were buying the loan packages. They have learned their lesson, so now there is this so called credit crunch. The banking institutions could have avoided this mess by showing more respect for their customers to whom they sold the bad loans to.

The banks are the bad actors here, not the birds.


7 posted on 10/21/2007 5:15:20 AM PDT by Mark was here (Hard work never killed anyone, but why take the chance?)
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To: Mark was here

WWJD?


8 posted on 10/21/2007 5:21:43 AM PDT by maineman (BC Eagle fan)
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To: Turret Gunner A20

CNBC has been hyping this ‘mortgage crisis’ story for over nearly two years - with analyst after analyst forcasting doom and gloom.

Buyers eventually became skittish, just as a big supply of new homes and even existing homes hit the market.

Of course, real estate increased nearly 80-percent in the five years prior — which means the only people who were really hurt were speculators, plus a small percentage of REAL home-owners who just happened to buy at the top.

I truly believe the lib-dominated CNBC is desparately trying to create a recession BEFORE the 2008 election, in hopes of derailing the GOP.

I can’t wait to get the new FOX BUSINESS CHANNEL. But Comcast has put it in the UPPER TIER, which means I would have to pay an extra $30 a month just to get FBC.


9 posted on 10/21/2007 5:41:17 AM PDT by Edit35
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To: maineman
Jesus would want those who bought the houses to make promises that they were prepared to make, these people were not prepared for the most part to make the balloon payments.

Those who made promises they were not really considering to keep were being deceitful, I do not believe Jesus wants his followers to be deceitful. YMMV.

10 posted on 10/21/2007 5:47:29 AM PDT by Mark was here (Hard work never killed anyone, but why take the chance?)
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To: Revelation 911

Exactly—those idiots at the bank invented these insane mortgages that made them look real good for a year or two, and then crashed and burned. And then the MSM blames the guys who are trying to pick up the pieces. At least these “vultures” are using their own money—not counting on some trillion dollar bailout by the Government.

I have read a lot about how Wall Street (including banking) operates the last couple of years. Make no mistake: it isn’t Capitalism! It is the equivalent of a big Ivy league fraternity. These guys play fast and loose with other peoples $$, pay themselves big salaries and even bigger bonuses, and then get their other buddies in Government (Federal Reserve, US, EU, UN, etc) to bail them out when they get in hot water—all the while getting cover from their other buddies in the MSM (Cramer at CNBC comes to mind). Sure, they have PhDs from all the best schools developing these elaborate financial models—but in the end it is all based on wishful thinking and false assumptions (garbage in, garbage out).

If you screw up on a big enough scale, as these guys often do, you become to big to allow to fail. That + their friendships is what these guys count on. I would call them bozos, but the game is rigged in their favor—they can make horrendous errors in judgement, and still walk away rich. Is it any wonder than Wall Street is now turning Left?


11 posted on 10/21/2007 6:08:07 AM PDT by rbg81 (DRAIN THE SWAMP!!)
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To: Turret Gunner A20

The old spy-novel cliché is that the Chinese word for “crisis” is made up of two ideograms — “danger” and “opportunity.” ‘Twas always thus.


12 posted on 10/21/2007 6:11:01 AM PDT by ReignOfError
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To: Mark was here

“The banking institutions could have avoided this mess by showing more respect for their customers to whom they sold the bad loans to.

The banks are the bad actors here, not the birds.”

During the Clinton administration, the gov’t changed the lending guidelines for low end buyers who had no business borrowing money. Lenders had to write loans to those new specs.


13 posted on 10/21/2007 6:59:09 AM PDT by Poison Pill
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To: Poison Pill
"Lenders had to write loans to those new specs."

They then should have labeled these loans as being practically noncollectable before selling the contracts to their customers, the investors. Because the banks sold loans they knew to be bad to investors the Banks are indeed bad actors and deserve to suffer. Those who took out the loans knowing they could not pay them back as specified are just as evil and rotten as the banks, neither party is a victim here.

14 posted on 10/21/2007 7:07:21 AM PDT by Mark was here (Hard work never killed anyone, but why take the chance?)
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To: Turret Gunner A20
These buyers are jumping in too soon if the discount is only 50%. A individual here in my home town acquired a couple of S &L's back when that industry blew up thanks to a congressional change in depreciation on those properties. He was a small town lawyer and within a few years he runs a company of 500 with assets over a billion dollars.

He has invested some of the money here where his corp offices are and has transformed a blighted former timber town almost over night and created even more jobs. The best part of this man is the fact he is a big time Republican supporter plus he buys up many properties the invirals covet!

15 posted on 10/21/2007 7:18:42 AM PDT by tubebender (My weight is perfect for my height... which varies...)
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To: Turret Gunner A20

All your house are belong to us! Thank you for shopping at Warmalt!


16 posted on 10/21/2007 7:23:50 AM PDT by stboz
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To: Turret Gunner A20

This must be stopped! Bailouts for banks and borrowers alike! NOW!


17 posted on 10/21/2007 8:41:48 AM PDT by jiggyboy (Ten per cent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: Turret Gunner A20

I clicked through and read that drivel to get to the part where the writer acknowledged that vulture buyers are an integral part of the market and they provide a necessary function in establishing the market floor.

He never got round to it. Just pure class-envy nonsense, stem to stern.


18 posted on 10/21/2007 8:55:05 AM PDT by gridlock (ELIMINATE PERVERSE INCENTIVES)
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To: Mark was here

I agree. We just purchased a house in Louisville that was in pre-forclosure. The bank was going to get their money, but kept asking us to pay additional costs, taxes, closing costs etc. Even after they accepted our offer and the closing date was two days away, they asked for another $900. Our realtor and theirs didn’t even tell us, and just took it out of their commission. At least we helped the couple we bought the house from, as they don’t have forclosure on their records. And we are fixing the house up to live in not to rent.


19 posted on 10/21/2007 9:06:02 AM PDT by KYGrandma (Kentucky girl who wants to go home)
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To: chadwimc
Unfortunately for the Cincinnati area, this type of market is the beginning of the end for a neighborhood.

Southern Ohio/Northern Kentucky = lots of cheap land to build on. Its a little different here in NJ.

20 posted on 10/21/2007 9:11:11 AM PDT by Clemenza (Rudy Giuliani, like Pesto and Seattle, belongs in the scrap heap of '90s Culture)
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