Thanks! I found the article. It says IB is “arid, hilly.” I’m thinking about the flat part of IB near the beach–is that a good long-term investment?
“… On a sunny day last month, Gutierrez knocked on doors in Imperial Beach, an arid, hilly town just south of San Diego. There were three Imperial Beach houses on the spreadsheet provided by the mortgage servicer that was selling them [mortgages]; none of the borrowers had made a payment in months. Gutierrez was “driving” the neighborhood, as he calls it, to determine what he would bid on the pool.
In Imperial Beach, 15 homeowners lost their properties to foreclosure in the first three months of 2008, compared with four in the same period last year, according to DataQuick. The town’s population is about 26,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The median single-family resale price in town fell 19 percent in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, DataQuick said.
Gutierrez said that because of the legal fees, he avoids foreclosing except when he has to “clean” the title of liens or other legal judgments. He said he never collects borrowers’ monthly payments because he doesn’t want his life to get too “complicated.”
At a one-story, L-shaped stucco house in Imperial Beach with four-foot-tall rose bushes and an American flag hanging from the garage, 62-year-old Armida Leos answered the door. Her 73-year-old husband, Gilberto, a former U.S. Border Patrol officer, had to quit retirement and get a job as a security guard when their monthly mortgage payments jumped to $3,200 from $2,400, she said.
`We’re Losing It’
“I feel really bad for my husband because he worked his heart out to get us into this house and now we’re losing it,” Leos said.
Gutierrez’s spreadsheet said the Leos family owed $455,000 on their mortgage. Leos said she and her husband spent $50,000 fixing up the house when they moved in three years ago. They had just received notice from San Diego County that their property tax was being reduced because the house had been assessed for $193,000.
Back in his pickup truck, Gutierrez said he was prepared to offer Leos and her husband $5,000 to move out. He made note of the town’s falling home prices and how the house didn’t seem to be that big.
“That’s not a real selling point,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Ivry in New York at [email protected].
Last Updated: May 15, 2008 00:01 EDT
