I’m so there with you on this, ctr70. I feel if a newly-minted “short-seller” or foreclosure “victim” is having problems paying rent, then they should move to their parent’s back bedroom (IF they’re still welcome) or to a lesser-expensive housing market. In mobile-home parks in America’s heartland, one can still hookup an RV or single-wide trailer long-term for about $200 mo (incl trash pickup) in many locales!

The reason why all these folks now thrown back in the rental market are now complaining about rents is because they’re not used to paying anything (except utils) to live, having successfully “squatted” for (likely) the last 28-38 months. One would think they were able to save up $$ during their long “strategic default” stretch. But this is a bit hard to do when you’re still paying Cox Cable $271 mo and you have once weekly tee times, nail appts, massage appts, personal trainer appts and the household has $1500 mo in collective auto-loan payments (for their gas guzzlers). So these “victims” finally move out of “their” (lol) house broke (or near broke), plunking down their $3K “walking $$” towards a damage/security deposit on a house. These “victims” can’t possibly go back to living the way they were (renting a Spring Valley condo, etc) before easy money flowed in the streets (enabling them to fog a mirror and buy the house they never really “owned” and then use it for their personal ATM) because their housing “expectations” are so much higher now.

I’m sure many of them are finding out that their $3K “walking money” only got them INTO a rental house, what with their security deposits, pet deposits and such. After that, they actually have to pay RENT every month to stay there. RENT is a disruption of their current “lifestyles” but such is life.

This isn’t the problem of the homeowners/tenants/landlords living within their means. It is a “new world” out there now. I’m of the notion that the “rest of humanity” only need to sit back to watch Darwinism in action unfold in the CA coastal housing markets from here on out.

As it should be, lol … I-10, I-40, I-15 and I-70 beckon eastward …

Lender malaise is truly the “elephant in the room,” here, ctr70. I’ve gotten the short shrift a few times for pointing that out here. Of course you are correct that lenders wasted no time in years past commencing the non-judicial foreclosure process in CA, and the defaulting trustors were given a few days after the recordation of the trustee’s deed to vacate or were evicted by the County Marshal (now Sheriff’s Dept). These defaulters knew their time was up and left without their hand out.

One of the properties on my “default tracking list” finally went back to bene last Thursday after 9 postponements since 2010. Opening bid amount on 5/3 was $924K. Market value is about $500-510K (IF cleaned up, painted and the junk hauled away). It didn’t have to be this way. This lender (a Big Bank) made its own bed here. I will await the trustees deed this week to promptly buy and use for another purpose. As far as I know, the defaulting (opportunist) trustor is still living in the property and its anyone’s guess where he’ll move to.

There is absolutely no excuse for lender malaise. The Big Banks could and can hire competent experienced collectors in short order and make ONE PHONE CALL to their trustee to get each foreclosure process started. That’s what all these homedebtors signed up for when they “bought” their homes.

Anecdotally rents do seem to be creeping up a bit in temecula, according to a friend looking for a place.

Thanks for posting this along with your thoughts ctr 70–my sentiments exactly!

This phony “entitlement society” in which we now live is disgusting on many levels, and it seems to be extremely prevalent in CA–and I’m saying that as a native.

Sadly, for those who buy into living beyond their means–which, in many cases, is what really put them where they are–there will come a day when it will all be over. You just can’t live a lie forever–as many are learning the hard way.

Brian, you completely miss the point, which is about moral hazard. That is when a government, or in this case a company, has a policy that encourages wrong, inefficient, or immoral behavior by another party in a transaction. In this case the squatter profits by delaying departure, perhaps trashing the place, hurting the (foolish) bank that made the loan. Government policies that enable/encourage squatting cost the general public plenty: neighborhood deterioration, houses kept off the market that could lower prices for honest buyers, and the general injustice of deadbeats living free for years.
Brian, you seem to dislike the big bad banks, but the cost will be spread out to all of us. The banks’ losses will be made up over time via higher interest rates or more stringent lending standards, freezing out young families wanting their first house who should be capable of buying now. You think this is OK? Try thinking beyond superficials and look at the deeper implications of what kind of behavioral results occur from the entitlement society you seem to like.

BG, you said the word Utils! My affection for your long winded posts has grown exponentially. My sailboat in SD is titled Utils. It’s a great word that deserves it place in common vernacular.