Irvine Housing Blog

This may be at rental parity at $1600 per month.  It’s a nice 1 BR with garage, but I don’t think it’s cheap enough.  Who would want to live here for a long time?  If you were on a fixed income wouldn’t you want to either get more for $250K or pay less for a 1BR?  Maybe a single mother with a kid?  Still seems like it would make more sense to rent.

The original price is completely WTF.

Debtors who leave pets to die are scum bags.  The debt mistake I can over look, killing an animal for no reason is morally wrong.

Its a slippery slope, you start by rationalizing the shirking of your respnsibilities to banks.  And some people end up rationalizing shirking their responsibility to living creatures.

Leaving them locked up is about the worst of all the bad alternatives that they could come up with.  Putting a bullet in the dog’s heads on the way out the door would have been more humane than leaving them locked up to starve.

IR,

Some stories about your Vegas adventures would make for some good weekend posts.  That keeps it separate from the Irvine content, and would be a good replacement for the missing patrick.net news links.

Personally, I think the Vegas play is a somewhat high risk investment. But bubbles get formed when everyone has the same opinion about what makes a good investment, so it is interesting to see how a contrarian play works out.

Thank you for helping the poor, defenseless animals. The photos were heartbreaking.  For the life of me, I don’t understand this behavior.

There are organizations focused on post-foreclosure pet issues. Here’s one I found this week:

http://nopawsleftbehind.org/paws/Home/Main.aspx

Too bad those dogs didn’t eat their masters before they skipped town.

My .02c.

Soylent Green Is People.

Where’s Lee?
I thought he’d be all over the fact that Shawn Green cut the listing price of his Shady Canyon home from $17.495M to $10.9M
Grab your checkbook PR

Good for you for saving those animals.  What F#cking slime leaves a living creature to starve to death?  They would have been better off roaming the streets than entombed in that yard.

I am blinded with anger over this story.

The bank FC on a property not a home.  At least for the contracts I’ve signed, I have the option of not paying and the bank has the option to FC if I don’t pay.  If you can afford to pay, it time to consider moving. 

It just not right for folks to HELCO out above the purchase price and then sell off appliances or trash the place.

It’s also not right for the banks to pawn the losses onto the taxpayer via loan transfer, loan modifications and inflating the sales price by restricting the supply.  The banks took the profits before the cake was baked.  Now they not accepting the loss.  It’s cronney capitalism—Privatize the virtual profits and socialize the real losses.

I see these 1 bedroom Quail Hill units going down even more in the near future. $445K down to $249K
in 5 Years? Nice investment. I have the same size one Bedroom down the street IAC for $ 1600. And no association dues, property tax, Etc, Etc.

This unit in another year will be under $ 200K.
Almost down to rental parity. Thats if rents dont fall faster.

It seems to me that when it is a speculative investment, there are none of the moral considerations in play when it comes to strategic default. However there should be plenty of fraud considerations, if the place was represented as a primary residence on a liar loan. Hiding among millions may let them sneak by though.

When it really is the primary residence, and there is a family, there may be more regret and family strife to a default. Then I guess you see more people hanging on while their resources drain away until the “strategic” part no longer applies, or they see it coming and drag out the foreclosure process as long as possible to conserve or build up some cash for survival afterwards. Survival has got to trump moral appearances for most people though.

So more strategic defaults coming, as the rich get their bonuses and the rest see their grip on middle class fading away or gone already.

As for those dogs or any other animal abandoned and locked in to starve, probably the cities and states have too many deficit problems to spend money on prosecutions and prison time. Fair might be to make the owners live in the backyard for a couple of weeks with their animals. Put an adequate-sized bowl of food on the ground for everyone to share. Make sure the smallest and hungriest get to go first, in case they are too weak or intimidated to insist.

I spent the past weekend in LV visiting some friends and saw several condos advertised for less than the price of my car. I haven’t seen the condition and don’t know the state of the HOA finances, but it was still a shock.

I also saw many *gorgeous* homes for sale in decent neighborhoods that are very affordable for me. Unfortunately there are absolutely ZERO jobs in my line of work. I’m still debating the positive cashflow rental idea, but in all the places where I’ve seen nice homes at good prices, I see tons of FOR SALE and FOR RENT signs that have been up for the past 9+ months.

Good job saving those dogs.

Interesting tonight’s column is focused on strategic defaults. I’ve been thinking of another type of strategic default. Walking away from CC debt. Why?
Well..first this bank pisses me off with their service and has not helped me resolve an issue. Secondly, I may lose my job, therefore if they won a court order garnishing my wages…well..good luck. I have other sources of income: possible early retirement, rental properties, etc.
Let’s say I have a 15k line of credit. I suppose I could negotiate w/the bank before they have to turn it over to credit agencies after 6 months. I could probably pay a third of that debt. I’m thinking 10k is not bad to ruin my FICO. I could give a rats ass about it as I have a low low home rate and intend to keep my home and don’t need a loan for a car. My car is paid for, I would use cash if I need another one. So I’m thinking of rolling the dice. I can handle the phone calls. I realize this is not non-recourse debt like a house but has anyone done this and willing to admit it?

True IR, but I don’t have a problem w/credit card debt. I can pay it off. Nor do I want to declare bankruptcy. Maybe after reading so many stories I want a share of the pie and I want a strategic default but instead of a house it’s on the CC. I could still use another CC or debit cards. Again, trashing my FICO seems like a good exchange for 10k or more. I also wonder how many people have done this. Let’s face it, banks would not want people to do this en masse.

thanks sherriff for adding your insight.
Ca is a communal property state so technically they could go after my spouse’s income though I tend to doubt it. I will only default if I am let go (fired) from my current position which I’m fighting w/a lawyer about. Once they fire me I will use the CC for regular expenses including lawyer fees and walk when it’s maxed out.
The money I have saved I can hide and use for other expenses.
People put so much emphasis on maintaining their credit and FICO but other than a house and a car (which you should pay cash for) what else do I need it for? It’s overrated and I have a screw the bank attitude right now.