Irvine Housing Blog

Now, this is just too bad. You can bet the lender will move very briskly to foreclose and move these people out, because the lender is at absolutely no risk here. They will not be stuck with a nonrepayable loan for a property worth two-thirds as much.

It’s unfortunate that these people put so much of their wealth into their house. If they’d bought smaller and kept a large supply of cash in low-risk instruments, this would not be happening to them. But here in the U.S., you are considered strange if you don’t live up to every dime, and interest rates kept artificially low further discourage savings and prudence.  This foreclosure is a demonstration of the wisdom of living below your means. These unfortunate buyers were not profligates or gamblers or debt addicts, but only doing what most Americans do, which is pretty much living up to their entire income and buying as much house as they could afford. This is certainly no crime and it is what most “prudent” folks do, but it renders you much more vulnerable to the vagaries of the economy and life’s misfortunes.

That is why Americans will not weather a prolonged downturn as well as the Japanese, who are much more resilient because of high savings.

I believe that the generation just now coming of age will take a lot of lessons away from this disaster, and that they will return to the caution and super-frugality of the generation that came of age C.1930. An economy of savers and little debt will not experience the wild fake “growth” that we thought we had, but it will be a much more resilient and sustainable economy, and downturns will leave far fewer people in the lurch.

A little Saturday humor, courtesy of The Onion, on how to write a real estate listing

YOU CAN’T MISS THIS HOUSE!!!

After 14 weeks, this horrible property has attracted no interest, SO THAT’S WHY WE’RE USING ALL CAPS AND FAR TOO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!! Yes, we’re willing to write in italics and underline at random to get you to notice this abysmal HOME!!! We’ll even spout uninformative buzzwords like MEGA-DEAL, ***WOW***, and <> just to get your attention!!!! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE STOP BY THIS DUMP-HEAP TODAY!!!!!***

I think you’re right IR… it’s not like Yahoo has to actually locate the person. They can just send an email to that account saying, “please contact us within 3 days or this account will be closed”... No response/close account. Simple!

I think I’m going to change my passwords today. I too use the same pw on multiple accounts (there are SO MANY to remember these days!).

The Middle Class Two Income Trap

Larry,

We recently had I.D. theft in our household and when we called the police, they recommended we report it on this website:

http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Regarding Yahoo’s instructions for you, I know it may seem like a hassle for the burden of proof to be on you, however I would look at this way—if they put the ball in the account holder’s court and that person was then able to produce a bogus ID to “verify” they are you… then what? I have read they go to quite some lengths to continue this scheme, so I wouldn’t put it past them. At least this way, you have the opportunity to put the kibosh on it with relative ease. Sorry you had to go through all that. Good luck, IR.

OT

Reading MISH today, there was an advertisement for the Astoria Condos in Irvine.

Pretty funny considering I’ve never seen a larger group of anti-condominium people.

IrvineRenter: “I have contacted Yahoo about the situation, and they actually want me to verify my identity and send them a copy of my ID and a statement that it isn’t me. That is wrong.”

No, it is not.

To report a crime you have to make an official statement. An anonymous statement is not good enuogh. So verification of your identity is required by legal procedure.

IrinveRenter,
From Yahoo point of view, who is the real Larry.  Since they don’t personally know you, it going to be hard to tell.  Try contacting your local police on identify theft.  Since Irvine has relatively low crime, they are more likely to help than a high crime rate area that has bigger fish to fry.

As for learning from history, the only history for history is people don’t learn from history.  People default to old habits.  Teach your children for they will be following in your foot steps and the habits you establish for them.

I can’t say that I feel too sorry for them.  There were a lot of nice homes in the area in 2004 for $540k.  They could have paid cash for a house, had no payment, and would not be facing foreclosure.