Posted on 06/07/2004 9:53:30 AM PDT by Willie Green
The cleaning crew and real estate agent arrived early. An Allegheny County Sheriff's deputy was there, too, watching Joyce and Konrad Schachner run back and forth from their North Side home of five years to the U-Haul truck that now carried their lives.
"Why are the cops here, Mom?" asked 5-year-old Konrad Jr., standing wide-eyed in front of his house on Van Buren Street.
"Because we gotta go," she answered. "I told you, we gotta go."
And within 45 minutes the Schachners were gone, driving to a relative's home for lack of other options. In the wake of their eviction, everything they decided to leave behind -- toys, furniture, clothing -- had been discarded.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Don't look to ca. Taxes are only 1% but considering an out house will run about a million, that would be $10,000 on your out house.
Maybe these people didn't ask the right questions of their lender or didn't understand the purpose of an impound account. Otherwise it sounds like a good reason to start a property tax revolt.
How on earth can someone buy a home and NOT know that they have to pay local taxes? That's just sheer idiocy...sorry to seem cruel, but it's true.
The real estate boom has to subside eventually...
Well pittsburgh really isn't in a housing bubble, particularly in the low end properties like this article is about a 40-50k house.
What you did have happen though was two fold, 1 an insanely high interest rate, and the fact that refi loan did not include taxes and insurance in escrow. This left the borrower with an extra $100 a month beyond the payment they had signed up for owed for taxes.
No small amount of money for those in this income bracket.
Pittsburgh is an unbelievable depressed area economically, there is very very little economic activity here. Local and state taxes destroy any incentive for businesses to move here, even though we have a relatively well educated employment base, and a cost of living and housing that is far far far below the national average.
Maybe someday the people of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County will vote some city and county leaders in with some vision and not the same old tired nonsense that's been destroying this area for 30 years at least.
At one time the city and county had money hand over fist, then the steel mills left, and the money mostly left too.. unfortunately the local governments and yes even the state government hasn't realized the money's left and scaled themselves back appropriately as well... they just keep spending and running programs like the money's still here, and its not.
I've been here only eight years, and my property taxes have doubled. No improvements, mind you -- we have a well and a septic tank, and do our own snow removal and lane maintenance -- so I'm at a loss as to where the $ goes.(Well, not really. I go to Chicago twice a year to visit it).
Nearly everyone in the world would love to live in the USA....there will be NO real estate bust.....sheesh...get a grip. The ONLY problem WILL BE the TAXES....not the real estate.
In San Francisco we pay about $5,000 per year in local property taxes.
I wonder if:
1. they did not make out better by owning rather than renting because I bet they never paid some months. Owning is better than renting if you plan not to pay. You will be evicted sooner if you are a renter.
2. like you say they could have actually purchased without a reasonable estimate of what their monthly payments would be. I have done 3 purchases in the 11 or 12 years and I had a "good faith" estimate each time.
3. how someone can even rent for less than this mortgage payment? I know you would be hard pressed to rent a decent place for that here.
It seems to me that all of the money is going to Chicago so King Daley can have his pretty parks...
Yeah. It'd be a rounding error here in Gotham City.
This story is NOT a hard luck story. It is a story about simple stupidity.
A federally insured loan may soon be an entitlement.
BUMP
I'll make a deal with him -- he can come visit my woods if I get to keep some of my money.
I guess you observed the vacant houses in Katy, TX back in 89-91. It was amazing to see the rows of houses vacant.
How could someone not know that there will be taxes and insurance? When we got our mortgage, it was thoroughly discussed with us what the taxes would be, and that we needed insurance. I shopped for insurance and notified the lender before closing of what company we had selected. We were given the option of having the taxes and insurance amounts included in the mortgage amount, placed in escrow and paid by the mortgage company or paying them ourselves. How could you not know?
Oh, but you are forgetting that everyone deserves to own their own home. Liberals (and the mortgage industry) insist upon it. ;)
My parents moved here to NC a year after I did. The new home they bought here is valued at more than 3 times what the NY home was worth and the tax bill is less than half of what it was in NY.
Sub-prime, also called B/C lending does not required escrows nor does it have PMI.
That's why they're called lenders, not Givers.
Dave Mustaine/David Ellefson - Megadeth from Countdown to Extinction
Rise so high, yet so far to fall
A plan of dignity and balance for all
Political breakthrough, euphoria's high
More borrowed money, more borrowed time
Backed in a corner, caught up in the race
Means to an end ended in disgrace
Perspective is lost in the spirit of the chase
Chorus
Foreclosure of a dream
Those visions never seen
Until all is lost
Personal Holocaust
Foreclosure of a dream
Barren land that once filled a need
Are worthless now, dead without a deed
Slipping away from an iron grip
Nature's scales are forced to tip
The heartland cries, loss of all pride
To leave ain't believing, so try and be tried
Insufficient funds, insanity and suicide
Chorus Solo - Dave
Now with new hope some will be proud
This is no hoax, no one pushed out
Receive a reprieve and be a pioneer
Break new ground of a new frontier
New ideas will surely get by
No deed, or dividend.
Some may ask "Why?"
You'll find the solution, the answers in the sky
Solo - Marty
Rise so high, yet so far to fall
A plan of dignity and balance for all
Political breakthrough, euphoria's high
More borrowed money, more borrowed time
This is probably just the beginning of foreclosures around the country. People who have lost their high paying jobs to outsourcing are either in foreclosure now, or they soon will be.
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