Friday, January 11, 2008

Home is where the Heart is ......



Are people losing their homes in your area ? Do you have empty homes on your block ? Do you have alot of For Sale signs ? Does the Media in your area cover the Situation? Do they do stories on Predatory Lending ? Over Christmas it really hit how empty our neighborhood is and how many people have left......and lost their homes.

( Photo is from 1930's Depression WPA project- no credit)

email : enigma4ever@earthlink.net , I am having horrendous Blogger troubles.

8 comments:

Fran said...

Hi E~ No, I have not noticed such a wave here-- but a house that is *for sale* because it *foreclosed* might not look any different than any other house on the market for sale.

I think some of the high end homes preyed on owner's promising people lowered monthly mortgage payments, but the fine print showed it was an adjustable rate with balloon payments.

Slick sales people said you can pay less rent now...
and the buyers should have read it all the way through.

I would never do a variable rate or ARM mortgage.
Lock my in to a rate-- if the rate gets better down the road, change it to be lowered but don;t risk it going up.. or going up substantially.

The lenders got greedy & sloppy , but buyer beware is always key in big ticket purchases.

I think I will really get a better sense of the picture when we have to sell my Mom's house this year.
How long will it take to sell it, and how low do we have to go on the price.

Of course we only NEED one buyer....
but when it is a buyer's market they can be more demanding. In our case, the sale will be used for my Mom's care, so we need to get the best price.

Larry said...

I travel all over the country and I see lines of people at day labor centers hoping for a days work.

My sister-in-law has a land title business that is virtually vacant since noone is buying.

This spring it will be really bad with millions of balloon payments coming due, and credit is getting very tight.

enigma4ever said...

There are 3 Million due...It will effect renters and owners....it is also in my area middle class folks that waited forever to save to able to buy....the houses go quietly empty with shaggy grass and empty windows...it is sadder than sad...and it is alot of older folk and families...

I lived in a loft apt buliding downtown- it was foreclosed last winter- that is why I moved in the middle of winter when it was zero...but I was lucky because I found a place to move to...

I dread what happens next....

for all of us...

Fran said...

The scumbag lenders who fudged the mortgages with junk backing or cooking the books to make it look good on paper are not likely to get much legal consequence under the current administration-- just a smirk, shurg, & oh well.

Damned shame.

Mauigirl said...

A neighbor of ours had his house go into foreclosure before the crisis hit; he was getting divorced and I guess couldn't make the payments alone. Now we have 3 houses for sale around the corner on the next block. Could just be they're selling them but why would they sell when the market is so bad...

D.K. Raed said...

On Bill Maher tonight (new season premier), Tony Snow was acting like the economy isn't so bad "because people have their homes". Catherine Crier almost had a heart attack. For how long, she asked. She presided over many cases during the S&L crisis, so she is all over this subprime crisis. She said this yr will see the largest loss of home ownership ever. Worse, because the subprime market is, well, subprime (generally people who didn't qualify for regular mortgages because their income was low/unstable & no other assets/savings for dwn pymt), the people who will be foreclosed on because they can't pay their montly mortgage pymt are no more likely to be able to afford much rent either. In fact, after they've racked up a bunch of late fees & penalties for letting their mortgage pymts slide & finding out their subsidized subprimes mean they now owe more for the house than their original loan amt, yet the house is worth less due to the bad RE mrkt, there will be many bankruptcies. So we are looking at a whole new class of truly homeless people. As the recession deepens, you can bet repubs will be blaming it all on the incoming dem prez. I feel like the Debbie Downer character on SNL.

enigma4ever said...

DK:

They won't be able to blame it on DEM prez, sadly it is all due to hit by March....June at the latest....what makes no sense is that the people are just kicked out- and the houses sit empty- not even rented- they could atleast be rented- if Someone told the banks to work out some kind of payment plan - but there has been no regulation or monitoring....the other mess that has yet to be revealed- is the Sallie May and Fannie May mess- and Country Wide is just one Entity that once the Foreigners purchase they will have bigger picture of the trampled economy that bush has been hiding...like very dirty underwear....well, eventually there is a stink...

Maui:
Many try to sell when they know they are facing foreclosure...and then after awhile,...there will be a notice on the door, Auction..or somethime they just sit...here in cleveland...they eventually are abandoned...and then the metal men come and take all the metal and squatters also come...or they just sit empty....it always bothers me to see homeless on one corner and then empty houses on another....

Fran:
I hope there is a Special Hell for the Predatory Lenders...

TomCat said...

Portland is only now starting to suffer the fate of the rest of the country. We have stronger TIL laws, so Big Finance has not been able to get away with as much consumer fraud.