Did you notice that every property this week had HELOC abuse? Today is yet another long-term homeowner who spent it all.
Irvine Home Address … 14952 N Gainford Cir Irvine, CA 92604
Resale Home Price …… $420,000
Late at night Im takin you home
I say I wanna stay, you say you wanna be alone
You say you dont love me, girl you cant hide your desire
`cause when we kiss, fire
Fire — Bruce Springsteen
Something restarted a fire in me; HELOC abuse is starting to make me angry again. (BTW, we have added Housing Bubble News to our sidebar.) Perhaps it was a full week of HELOC abuse posts. I didn’t seek them out; HELOC former HELOC abusers represent many of the houses for sale right now, particularly at lower prices.
Day after day of $250,000 or more of mortgage equity withdrawal and you become numb to the whole idea. Have you ever stopped to ponder how much spending $250,000 of extra disposable income really is? It pays off the typical American’s credit card debt more than 12 times over. It is probably more take home pay than many of these people had during the same period.
Our cartoon debtor in red is staring at $18,654, which is a typical families debt load. Many people will burn through a pile like that in just a few years and spend forever paying it back — or seek out ways to avoid paying it back at all.
Then lenders Innovated and found ways to liberate people’s equity. The HELOCs — which often represented all real and imagined accumulated equity — became very large, and people were able to massively add to their personal debt. In 2000, California home sellers took out a median net cash gain of $80,000… In 2005, the amount had climbed to $220,643.
Think about some irresponsible shopping sprees you have gone on (we have all done it). When the bills came due, and you had to deal with the financial hangover, imagine if you had the magic money machine that kept making your cash pile larger, even as you worked to make it smaller. What could be better than that?
What do you think would happen if every borrower in California had the same idea? and they borrowed the equity in their homes?
Our individual HELOC abusing homeowner in the red shirt is the little speck on the left side. The rest is the stack of pallets loaded with bundles of consumer debts consolidated into mortgages through refinancing and mortgage equity withdrawal.
How big is the national problem?
OK, OK, the debt is big. So what?
Well, the lenders lost much of that money, and when lenders lose money, it ceases to exist in our financial system, and we end up with deflation, zero percent interest rates (real interest rates are still high), and a stagnant economy. The worst part is that US taxpayers are being stuck with the bills. We will end up paying for this mistake for a generation.
In short, we will all be working — and paying our taxes — to pay off the spending sprees of HELOC abusers everywhere.
They got to have all the fun and spend irresponsibly while you worked hard, denied yourself indulgences and saved. They didn’t pay the borrowed money back, so now you have to pay it back for them. How do you feel about that? And what has this done to our society?
At least we will have some uses for our money.
Irvine Home Address … 14952 N Gainford Cir Irvine, CA 92604
Resale Home Price … $420,000
Income Requirement ……. $77,302
Downpayment Needed … $84,000
Home Purchase Price … $265,000
Home Purchase Date …. 9/22/2000
Net Gain (Loss) ………. $129,800
Percent Change ………. 58.5%
Annual Appreciation … 6.5%
Monthly Mortgage Payment … $1,804
Monthly Cash Outlays ………… $2,390
Monthly Cost of Ownership … $1,790
Redfin Property Details for 14952 N Gainford Cir Irvine, CA 92604
Beds 3
Baths 2 baths
Size 1,116 sq ft
($376 / sq ft)
Lot Size 5,096 sq ft
Year Built 1971
Days on Market 3
Listing Updated 10/7/2009
MLS Number S592003
Property Type Single Family, Residential
Community El Camino Real
Tract Wl
According to the listing agent, this listing may be a pre-foreclosure or short sale.
Beautiful single story detached home. Remodeled Kitchen with large dining area with breakfast counter and bar with granite. Bathrooms were also remodeled in 2005 with new cabinets with granite counters. Laminate flooring in front room with tile in kitchen. All ceilings are scraped and textured. Vaulted ceiling in the living room with a nice cozy fireplace. Crown molding in master bedroom. Garage attic storage w/hide a ladder. Over 5000 sq ft large lot with newer fence. Gas built in range. Newer roof. No Mello Roos or HOA’s. Close to Heritage Park Library and community center.
Today’s featured property is an interesting study in how coupling can lead to HELOC abuse.
- This property was purchased on 9/22/2000 by a single man for $265,000. He used a $251,750 first mortgage and a $13,250 downpayment.
- On 4/12/2004 a wife appears on title, and together they refinanced the first mortgage for $315,000. Paid for the honeymoon, right?
- On 9/16/2004 they refinanced again for $381,500.
- On 3/30/2005 they opened a stand-alone second for $50,000.
- On 1/5/2006 they opened a stand-alone second for $50,000 and a $20,000 HELOC.
- On 8/2/2006 they refinanced one last time with a stand-alone second for $119,100.
- Total property debt is $500,600.
- Total mortgage equity withdrawal is $248,850.
The guy goes 4 years without touching his equity, then he gets married and spends $250,000 in just over 2 years. Cause and effect? I don’t know, but it is an interesting change in behavior coincidental with the marriage. You decide… not that it matters….
{book5}
I was reading Mish’s blog yesterday, and he posed a hypothetical question I believe I can answer:
What Did We Get For The Trillions Of Dollars Spent?
Sadly,
for all the 14 Trillion expansion in the Fed’s balance sheet, the $1+
trillion in various stimulus programs, and monetary printing to the
tune of $1 trillion as well, the economy has nothing to show for it
other than a stock market rally.
The wealthy have been bailed
out, while the middle class and poor are stuck without a job in
underwater mortgages, hoping for scraps of mortgage payment reductions
when many would be better off walking away. Meanwhile boomers are
headed into retirement, underfunded and scared half to death.
What did we get? We paid off this former owner’s $248,850 in HELOC abuse — that’s what we get.
To make matters worse we’re supposed to outbid others and overpay for this piece of (whatever) to “support the economy”.
And Bonnie and Clyde just get to walk away, as the latest news reports..
“There are no firm statistics for it, but many industry watchers claim the percentage of REOs caused by borrowers voluntarily walking away from their homes is skyrocketing.”
http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/15/real_estate/foreclosure_crisis_deepens/?postversion=2009101507
What’d we get?
Goldman’s quarterly profit rises 73 percent
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33324165/ns/business-earnings
Goldman, Merrill Collect Billions After Fed’s AIG Bailout Loans
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTzTYtlNHSG8
Sounds good to me. Are you complaining about something?
What did we get? Not only people spending money they would never pay back, but also other people taking jobs that depended on HELOC and refi money. Those jobs disappeared when the bubble popped. Baffled construction workers, former grocery baggers who had become mortgage brokers, and the 1 in 13 adults in CA with real estate licenses all wondered what happened, and how they would pay their bills.
Those people could have been doing something more productive. They wouldn’t have been as likely to be out of work. The people who sliced and diced MBS and CDOs could have done something more useful.
Investors could have invested in something more productive, rather than hoping trees would grow to the sky.
Those MB/RE, internet packagers, M/A, Investment bankers, LBO and speculators significantly increased the GDP more than productive worker would have. The GDP increases were more of a flash fire that later burned someone else later, e.g., taxpayers and labor now.
Remember,
late 1980’s Just Do It vs. Just Say No
1990’s It’s the Economy Stupid vs. Character Counts. Buy these stocks before they go up. Everybody is making money. vs. Where’s the earnings?
2000’s The New Era (computers) have created a new ecomony vs. Where US manufacturing?
2001- War on Terror vs. Where are we as a country?
2002- Make an replacement RE bubble to replace the internet bubble. Buy the house before your priced out of the market. Everybody buying a house is making money. vs. Who can make the long-term payments.
A repeated theme was make a bubble and bale.
If an influnential group gets caught holding the bag, the taxpayers will make them whole. The little guy will not be made whole. Just the same old scams with a new name and the taxpayers left holding the bag.
Well put
I didn’t know they had many of these small 3/2 one story ranch houses in Irvine. Very common out here in Riverside, but Irvine is mostly newer-you are expected to go into a condo for this amount of square footage there.
Why is the paper bag on his head on fire?
No reason, I just thought it was a funny picture. It looks like the guy is freaking out over his baghead being on fire. There are no pictures of the inside of the house, so it was up to my imagination to fill in the second picture. I am a visual person, so finding pictures to help tell the story is fun for me.
That picture is hilarious.
I also love the pic. I’m not brainstorming on how I can be this for Halloween.
Today’s song could be Burning Down The House, but probably you’ve already long since used that one. Great song, oyu could get away with using it again.
Cara, what’s going on with the short sale house you are trying to buy?
Funny that you should ask.
We just decided this weekend to pull out of it, and hold out for something with more space. So, we should get our escrow money back next week (there’s a 3 day notification period for “intent to void” if the seller doesn’t show written proof of bank approval).
Everything right now with more space is also $75k-$100k more expensive, but I’m hoping some of those might accept low-balls after Nov 1st, and that there will be more distressed listings coming on this winter/early spring.
While we waited our downpayment fund is now fleshed out for 20 down + 3% closing for up to $300k, and will continue to grow while we look. So, since we can afford a purchase of $325k on one salary (they’re almost identical) we decided we were being a bit ridiculous settling for a piggy-back TH style condo, regardless of how good of a value it was.
Well I guess the saying is true.
Women don’t need men to have everything their hearts desire.
They just need their houses.
I am very thankful that my wife is so fiscally conservative. When we met, I had $1500 credit card debt (had to get Nitrous for my Mustang :)), and she made me pay it off ASAP. Two years later we got married, and we honeymooned on Mackinac Island for about $500 total. She’s happy to drive a used minivan, and is not into bling at all. Since she is so thrifty, we get by on just my income, so our two daughters can come home from school to their own mom. On Thursdays, she hits the garage sales to get kid’s clothes and stuff for $1.00. In November she’s due to have our third baby, and we have $10K in the bank to cover the medical bills. Things are pretty bleak at my manufacturing job, but thanks to her prudence, we’ll get by.
I enjoy stories like yours.
http://www.grouptraveldirectory.com/directory/upload/editor_files/Mackinac-Island.jpg
Looks like you made a wise choice.
Congratulations on your new one and good choices.
My well is dry. I can’t care anymore.
Over the past couple of weeks it occured to me I have 3-4 years left in SoCal and then it’s back off to Heatville for me. With that timeframe, even if I thought it penciled right now (and in my ‘hood, it doesn’t) I can’t buy a home and take the interest rate risk of trying to sell in 3-4 years, nor do I have any desire to become an absentee landlord.
As much as I love it here, I need to move home to be closer to my aging parents and the family farm.
Three years before my daughter finishes Uni… then I’m blowing Irvine… I’m tired of the fascist cops and small minded HOAs.
Likely I won’t sell my house but rent it to some small minded petit bourgeois who will generate plenty of cashflow for me and the wife.
I wanna be somewhere where I can practice target practice from my back porch wearing my boxers and drinking coffee or beer…
I’m getting fed up with the arrogant lying nazis at the IPD. In my experience you can beat their lies in front of a judge but you gotta get an attorney first.
25 years is long enough for an intelligent person to put up with the conformity of the mass idiots. Let them watch America’s Funniest Videos, I want to shoot the fuzzy rabbits that eat my tomatoes and the skunks that feed on the HOA’s brains.
Tonye,
When you find such a place tell me where it is.
CO and WY were that way until too many Hollywood types or wantabees move there.
Yes… Hunter S. Thompson kept fighting the dilettantes that kept pouring into Woody Creek, CO. By ’81, when I spent time in Denver, Colorado had been overrun by refugees from the North East and the typical asses from Hollywood.
I’m thinking of a cabin on Big Bear abutting the national forest. I can raze the cabin and put a nice prefab double wide (some of them are nice).
Other than that it’s Idaho… my own Private Idaho. Hmmm.. no… too many retired LAPD and then there’s Pocatello. Ever been to Pocatello? Don’t bother. Same for Eastern Washington.
Or Nevada.. actually, I like Nevada, around Carson City, Reno and lake Tahoe. Close enough to spend some weekends in SF if we feel like it.
But effectively far away from the crazies in Sacramento, SF and OC.
I like northern NV too. Reno land is expensive. Rent multipliers of 200x monthly. Harder to maintain with the hot summer and cold winter. There lots of building restriction there. Not much water without the Truckee River. Land is expensive, but have not checked for a year. Was physically checking on-site twice a year when I lived in the bay area.
Haven’t been to ID. Isn’t eastern Washington mostly desert? They pump water from the western side to the eastern side.
Big Bear and southern Ca have lead restrictions. CA need to allow for steel rounds. NV or WA coast seems the best for me. Baja would be great except for the govt. and anti-foreign ownership laws. Why doesn’t the US and CA have reciprocal restrictions?
Northern Idaho is sweet. Insanely bubbleicious prices however, in places like Sandpoint.
It is amazing to me how the MSM can take an article full of horrendous news and take the one bright piece of spin and use it for a headline:
Foreclosures fall for second straight month
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. mortgage foreclosure filings fell for a second straight month in September, but remained near a record high, amid ongoing and sweeping efforts to keep borrowers in their homes, a report released on Thursday showed.
Foreclosure filings — including mortgage default notices, house auctions and home repossessions by banks — were reported on 343,638 properties in September, down 4 percent from August, but up 29 percent from the year-earlier month, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said.
September’s decrease was much bigger than August’s month-on-month drop of less than 1 percent from July’s all-time high, indicating foreclosure prevention efforts may be gaining traction.
Despite the monthly decrease, September’s total was still the third highest monthly total since the RealtyTrac report began in January 2005, behind only July and August of this year, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac said.
Foreclosures that were delayed by various state and federal moratorium that mostly ended in March have been pushing through the system and analysts say the Obama administration’s housing rescue plan has been slow to take hold.
REOs, or real estate-owned properties, rose to 87,821 in September from 76,134 the previous month, RealtyTrac said. Activity in the third quarter reached a record level.
Foreclosure filings were reported on 937,840 properties between July and September, a 5 percent increase from the previous quarter and an increase of nearly 23 percent from the same period a year earlier, the company said in its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.
One in every 136 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the third quarter — the highest quarterly foreclosure rate since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in the first quarter of 2005.
IR, I couldn’t agree more. Everyday, CNBC pulls some ‘highlight’ headline out of their arse when the entire article is actually describing a deteriorating picture.
If you repeat a lie enough and loud enough people will beleive it.
Remember the news media job is now to help BO accomplish his goals. What happened to reporting of the news and being a watch dog.
It was a casualty of the Iraq war.
REO properties increased by 14% — from 76,134 to 87,821 — in just ONE month? Do I read that correctly? If so, that is very grim news indeed.
I heard some agents working with bank directly to sell foreclosure-to-be home before the property go to foreclosure. This is happened in Northwood and NorthPark communities.
This business model works as following: a $900,000 debted home, from similar home’s selling record, now only worths $680,000. And these agents track foreclosure-to-be house in the specific communities and contact bank as listing agent, and put house on market for $730,000. Because the market now is warmer than couple months ago, so this selling strategy seems working.
This is very bad news, basically if this is implemented in the entire Irvine, then the prices will not go down anymore because no more foreclosure and bank-owned house.
“This is very bad news, basically if this is implemented in the entire Irvine, then the prices will not go down anymore because no more foreclosure and bank-owned house.”
If this were happening at the end of the foreclosure crisis, I might agree with you, but the increased efforts on short sales and loan modifications are merely working the fringes of a much larger problem. Until all of the bad loans are purged from the system — generally with foreclosure — prices will not rally on a sustained basis. That plus the shadow inventory that has not been dealt with yet make any sustained market rally very unlikely.
I feel that people really need to loose money on a large enough scale. Recent infusion of buyers who waited on the slide lines haven’t taken a lose on significant enough scale to scare them off. I figure the increase in Fed funds rate, the stopping of Fed RMBS purchases and the movement of cash to more stable markets will be the nail in the coffin. Beginning next Summer, new bottom Fall of 2011-Spring 2012. Right on schedule.
Is this supposed to be a news discovery? I don’t think so. It’s the same short-sale scenario. Either the house will be sold as a short-sale or as a foreclosure, but will end up on the market just the same; however, a short sale will likely shorten the time the bank has to wait to get rid of the property. You are right about one thing: So far the lenders have been able to hold off supply and thus keeping prices from going down further… so far.
Personally I find the goings on around my neck of the woods more disturbing. REO’s only sell to cash buyers, who relist with pergraniteel 1 month later for $100k more, short-sales come up at 0 days, already under contract…
There’s some really shady stuff happening.
This property in virtually sitting on the train tracks. There are bunch of similar properties around train tracks that are up for sale. I can hear the passing train from Westpark. Around these properties, it must be aweful.
Where to begin?
40 years old, 1K SF & 3 bedrooms (bet they’re just big enough for bunk beds), adjacent to train tracks…
And all for the paltry sum of $420K? Do you take a check?
No kidding! What a POS. Those pictures are terrible.
I miss the old days on this blog where everyone commented on the house being profiled rather than the economy in general.
I’m looking to rent and visited a house located close to train tracks (didn’t know it was close to them until I got there). During the conversation, I of course asked about the noise of the train going by and the landlady actually said she found the “sound to be soothing.” Uhhh…sure. Sure you do.
That’s because she probably wears silicon earplugs.
Last year I moved out of a house that was two blocks away from train tracks. If it was the rattle of the wheels waking me up, it was the !@#$! whistle. Silicon works wonders on blocking out noise. I could have laid down beside the rails and snoozed in comfort.
Actually, you CAN get used to it; mostly because it’s predictable. I’m a light sleeper; used to rent near both the Caltrain tracks AND a concrete factory that worked 24/7. The trains didn’t bother me at all after the first night, but the concrete-sawing noises occurred at unpredictable times, and woke me.
If I loan somebody $1M collateralized by their $1M house, they buy 4 $250K Lamborghinis(1 for mom,dad,son,and daughter), stop making payments to me, I take their house and sell it for $700K. Obviously I lose $300K, but does any money actually “disappear”?
The money does not disappear but it relocates to Italy! But even then, it does not disappear but adds to the trade imbalance!
In your case, no; in a bank’s case, yes.
The money the bank loaned was created out of thin air by fractional-reserve lending. When they do not get repaid this magic money at the end of a loan, they must write this loss off against real money. That is where it ceases to exist. The total quantity of money in circulation declines.
In your scenario, the money was just transferred to the owners of the Lamborghinis where it will slowly disappear through wear and tear (true depreciation).
A bank creates the money via FRL. They write the loss off against real money. But the Lambo salesman got his cut, the dealership got their cut, etc. They now have that money in their bank accounts and/or are spending it, no?
I fail to see how it disappears.
Well, $300K goes onto your books as a loss, and then it’s gone. You don’t have that money to pay people from whom you may have borrowed. If you’re a small bank (or an individual), that spells trouble. But if you’re a bank that’s Too Big To Fail, you can ask the taxpayers to pay it.