San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Well, we knew most home borrowers with ARMs were doing this. I just didn't know some of the evil ones had a forum.

Just randomly hit one story:

"Before this mod, my interest rate was 6.25 and my payment including escrow was $1,208. I asked them to bring my payment back down to $1,088 which was what it was when I first bought the house. My interest rate is now 4.8 (FIXED) and payment is $1,087, including escrow. But they have extended the loan to a 30 year note."

All that stress for 120 a month savings. And here we have people with $600-1000/month utility bills. Guess it depends where you live. In SD you can get 120/month for walking a dog, but in parts of this country you have to shovel all the snow from a college campus to get $120.

BTW, the best line from Malice (which nearly got me booted from the WSJ for comment on harassment lawsuit) has gotta be this:

"I have an M.D. from Harvard, I am board certified in cardio-thoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trama from postoperative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, _Dennis_, and you go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn't like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God."

homeowners. sheesh.

the freeloading mentality is just, well, kinda staggering. those threads are way freakier and more pragmatic than these threads. i guess they have a game they can play. we're just sitting around watching the people in charge make up rules as they go along.

there cannot be a bottom in the housing market with this kind of nonsense.

Where have all the people able to tell themselves "no" gone?

I guess the most galling thing is that they don't feel like they did anything wrong. The maximum expression of guilt is along the lines of "Yeah, it was stupid of me..." or, "I should have known better" (i.e. I was tricked) The comments are wrapped in language like "I'm trying to save my home" (from what? from whom?) and how greedy/evil the lenders are.

Here's the thread with our "shadow inventory".

Thanks, Cabal. It's good to see my tax money hard at work, continuing to price me out of a home so irresponsible people can have it instead.

Thank you, Barney, thank you Ben, thank you all.

Thank Bush and Obama as well.

That's the problem with the US, the mob and corporations rule.

It's not really too late to buy. If you are waiting for 1980's prices, forget it. Settle for 90's prices at today's APR and you are in good shape.

See here for how to land a bank owned house:
http://piggington.com/a_good_deal_in_poway

Or if you want downtown try here:
http://piggington.com/vantage_pointe_cut...

Let them have these rotten houses. Actually, the more I think about it, being mobile may be worth more than having a home. In my many years of working in the software industry, very few places that I've worked are still around. Several shut down while I worked there, still others were bought out and moved elsewhere. In my line of work it seems to pay to be able to pack up and move to where the work is. Sucks but that's the way it seems to be.

That will work as well. Always good to be flexible.

PadreBrian, I agree that Bush was very culpable. Obama is reacting to a really nasty situation. He's making mistakes in my judgment, but I don't honestly get the same sense of "me and my buddies first" that I got from the Bush group. I'll wait a while before pronouncing Obama guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Now Larry Summers is a disaster, and....

I think your characterization of "mob and corporations" is pretty close, except I would add a professional class of politicians and lobbyists and consultants that has its grubby fingers all over the national economy's controls. They take in influences from the rabble, and money from special interests, and take a little off the top in return for helping people arrange to be fed from the public trough.

Interesting find with the loan mod forum.

I've been browsing agentsonline.net for more raw intel on the broker/agent side of the story. I ran across warnings about bogus "all cash" offers from out-of-town "investors" that invariably fall through and waste everyone's time. This certainly explains all the REO listings I've seen go pending then relist a week or so later.

"Buyers are liars!" some say on that forum. I'm sure lots of them are, but so is everyone else in the increasingly sordid real estate business right now. I'm sure that listing agent had no idea there were multiple lenders on that short-sale property, or that the seller really thought his old-growth vinyl flooring was solid hardwood.

I thought I was educated about real estate before I started my home search. Since then I've learned (a) I don't know jack; (b) everyone lies, even when it serves no purpose; (c) you will find dry rot with your feet long before you find it through a visual inspection; (d) never open a refrigerator in an REO property.