Irvine Housing Blog

Yep, I have relatives in the exact same position. If the Fed blows a bubble with printed money and holds the Fed funds rate at less then 1% for the next few years, the 5/1 OARM may work out for them. I will have some egg on my face because I have been saying the OARM bubble buy will end badly.

I finally gave up and got a short sale at 15% under market with a 4.8 30 year fixed. My cost is less then rent. I am not comfortable with the down I have been saving up sitting in cash with helicopter Ben running the show.

Like it or not, what an Irvine Co. 2 BR rents for in the second year of a lease impacts the Irvine housing market.

PR assumes we are in a robust recovery. 

There is downward pressure on rents.  We are in economic contraction combined with rising prices in food, energy, and other goods.  this aenemic(sp?) situation is not conducive to rising rents, maybe in utopian Irvine, but not marketwide.

I tried unsuccessfully to get a load modification.  The bank told me to miss several payments, after I did they told me to pay up or they would foreclosure. 

No way was I going to pay them over 9K only to have them foreclose on me anyway.

The bank and I have been doing the funky foreclosure dance, which ended with the judge quashing their notice of foreslosure after he caught their attorney lying in court. 

Every 4 months the bank sends me a loan mod packet, but it always has an expiration date that expires before the postmark.  LOL

If the bank wanted me out, I would be out.  Well, maybe not, but they don’t want me out anyways.

When it’s all said and done, after I move into my new rent-free digs, I’ll be sure to file a motion to compel the bank to foreclose.  My response will be that I was harmed after the bank took way too long to foreclose. 

They may come after me in a deficiency.  Until then, I’ll ride this out into the sunset using only cash in order to suppress my credit score.

In the end, I’ll file bankruptcy.  I really don’t want this hanging over me…..........

The newest way to collect profit tax liens—-

http://huffpostfund.org/stories/2010/12/wall-street-quietly-creates-new-way-profit-homeowner-distress

When Florida retiree Gladys Walker fell behind in paying taxes on her modest Pompano Beach home, she had no idea one of America’s biggest banks and a major Wall Street hedge fund engaged in frenzied bidding for the right to collect her debt—all $768.25 of it.

“I just couldn’t come up with the money,” said Walker, 67, a former hotel worker who makes do on a monthly Social Security check.

Barely more than a year after a taxpayer bailout of major financial institutions, Bank of America and the hedge fund, Fortress Investment Group, spotted a fresh money-making opportunity – collecting the tax debts of tens of thousands of people like Walker. The bank and hedge fund can add interest charges and fees, and they bundled the debts as securities for investors.

You’re right…..............

So what. 

We do not live in a world of what “should” happen.  THIS is happening.  As long as prices fall people will walk away in droves.  Homes are places to live as well as assets.

Banks should not engage in deceptive practices to get people to stop paying their mortgages, only to find out is has problems with the very same mortgage origination documents it wanted to use as evidence to evict homeowners.  This is laughable at best.

If we as Americans were not so stupid, we would have rioted in the streets against politicians and corprations that act against, and lie to us to vote against our own self interests.

Trust me, if home values drop to zero, the government will find a new way to extract money through real estate maintenance taxes, or some other made up crap.

The home is loan is secured by the property itself.  If the bank wanted to kick out squatters, they would.  This is all part of the albiet corrupt, maket.

By the way, regulations allowed this to happen, and this is why no one has been prosecuted in the greatest criminal destruction of wealth in history.

Just sayin’

You are absolutely right, it’s not only the squatters playing the game.  Irvine Renter has talked about the issues of moral hazard before and in the bigger picture, that’s what I’m railing about. 

Back in the day I chose NOT to buy, because I was prudent and realized I couldn’t afford what I wanted.  If someone had told me I could purchase with zero down, then stop paying and live rent free while continuing to build my own nest egg—I might have said no anyway. Why?  Because it was wrong.  It goes against all the principles I was taught as a child.

But, here I am, the one paying rent while others live for free.  Heck, this activity is getting easier and easier to justify as I see people (yes, corporations too) getting away with egregious behavior.  There are absolutely no consequences to those that bought and are now squatting irresponsibly and no consequences to those that lent irresponsibly. Never, in a million years, would I have EVER thought this would happen in America.  What a disillusion.

And I confess, I have no moral high ground to stand on, because even in my anger, I can say that if an opportunity presented itself to me again in a different form - I might go against what I was taught and simply benefit myself with little thought to what is morally right. What’s the difference anyway? That Chicagowalkaway-DB doesn’t care, the bankers paper-pushing loan mods they know aren’t going to close don’t care, so why should I? 

—on a tangent: after the tsunami in Japan, when people were standing in long lines to get food at the grocery store, there were no restrictions.  The only requests made from employees was that you should take what you need and leave some for your neighbor.  That is a culture known for returning CASH to lost and found, for crying outloud.  I used to think America was that way, but I guess I’m growing up, because this country is not living up to my expectations.

And Chicago-mud-pie: I do live in Irvine, which thankfully has plenty of families chomping at the bit wanting to buy a reasonably priced home, so I don’t fear a lot of riffraff at the moment.  But those families can’t buy because squatters haven’t been forcibly removed by the banks.  So, you #win. Feel smug all you want about walking away from your debt and living rent free—cheers to you.