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bearishgurl
Participant[quote=Blogstar]The principal at one of my kid’s schools got transferred. He is amazing too. I don’t think it ever occurred to parents out here to try to stop it. Must be that sense of entitlement thing.[/quote]
Yes, the Districts have the final say on EVERYTHING. CA PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS run the show, folks! Their rights to do this are long-steeped in state law.
As a parent, if you don’t like their decisions, you can always pay for private school for your kid(s). It’s a free country.
Participant[quote=6packscaredy]plus 80,000 in menifee.
i hesitate to make any predictions for 30 years out, since I’ll likely be dead.
however, I predict temecula will be ok.[/quote]
scaredy, Chula Vista grew from two zip codes in 1986 with a 52K population to five zip codes today with a 277K population and it is STILL HANGING IN THERE.
The SD South County Superior Court can’t possibly support the population influx without inordinately long delays in EVERY SINGLE SERVICE but CV (the “real” CV) hasn’t fallen into the bay yet. It is still all there and (save for a few tall weeds in several medians) seems to be doing fine 🙂
As much as I lament here on the demise of the “Golden State,” I have to admit that its employees at every level seem to be handling a LOT MORE PEOPLE in the best way they physically can.
Just try to take this same population and place it in the middle of a “flyover-state county” with the same number of employees and it would probably be complete chaos as their “systems” aren’t set up to deal with the sheer numbers of residents as we have here :=0
And I figure I’ll surely be dead by 2043. But WHO KNOWS? Maybe I’ll trudge over to the nearest “Cal Bullet Train” stop with my walker and bifocals and board one with my senior-citizen discount just to view the cities along the SR-99 corridor in action and disembark in Stockton only to see it built into a *new* modern downtown megalopolis with its (2013) BK filing a distant memory :=0
http://piggington.com/land_for_mcmansions_are_we_running_out#comment-208045
Grain elevators be damned.
Participantflu, I don’t personally know how SDUSD or DMUSD handle their transferring administrators and teachers, but CVESD and SDUSD move their principals from their post every 2-3 years … like clockwork. This is “common practice” in Districts all over the state!
Don’t take it personally. Principals need to experience running as many schools as possible in the District in the course of their career. Principals and teachers work for a DISTRICT and are at their behest (with union-negotiated ability to “pick assignments” based upon level of seniority). School office and lay employees work for the DISTRICT but typically stay at at the school where they began employment for the District as they are lesser-paid and typically live in the attendance area of their “home school.” However, these employees have the right to put in for a transfer to another school in the District if they wish to and there is an opening for them.
No parent can fix this. They need to suck it up and live with it. In your case, your kid has a l-o-o-ong way to go yet in the public school system.
Participant[quote=6packscaredy] … we were down in san diego this weekend and I was thinking, san diego kinda sucks in many ways. just looking around. gritty and gross…no disrespect, Imean but people’s houses are hanging over major thoroughfares. it just seems sort of desperate, crowded, packed and too much. but that’s justa highly subjective viewpoitn of one dude at one distinct moment of life.[/quote]
scaredy, not sure where you were in SD, but when the houses you were looking at were built, the “thoroughfares” they “hung over” likely weren’t even a twinkle in any city planner’s eye for decades afterwards. Most were likely two-lane roads surrounded by orchards and canyons.
“Temecula” doesn’t have this problem because it is too new. I remember leaving at 4:00 am on weekends to drive up to Big Bear to go skiing and there being only ONE exit in the Temecula area, “Rancho California Rd” which had ONE gas station/mini mart and ONE fast-food joint on its dead end (west side of SR-395/I-15). That was the ONLY exit for miles around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_15_in_California
That was only about 30 years ago.
The majority of Temecula thoroughfares were partially or completely built by private developers with MR bonds as a condition of their obtaining subdivision permits. Thus, these thoroughfares were already in place and as wide as they were going to be at the time they were built.
Not so in SD. No one knew in 1930, 1947 or or 1956 how many freeways SD would need in the year 2000 and no one at that time had any idea that subsequent City Councils and County Boards of Supervisors would become greedy enough to “sell out” nearly the entire region to Big Development (with the assistance of MR bonds) and thus create a “need” for several more freeways.
Parts of SD undoubtedly look a bit “gritty” to a visitor because there are way too many people using those thoroughfares who do not reside anywhere near them. They are using them to commute on and do their errands on because the local freeways are frequently clogged … yes even on the weekends :=0
If you were a LL on one of these “gritty” SD thoroughfares, you wouldn’t spend to much fixing up your house either as you wouldn’t be able to recover enough monthly rent to warrant spending the money, due to the level of traffic in front of the house.
Because of these stupid, short-sighted decisions by its PTB, the “lustre” wore off of “America’s Finest City” long ago, IMO. It’s a dirty shame as there will never be another SD.
I drove thru TV recently (during rush hour) and I-215 was at nearly a standstill going both ways for about an hour. It now appears to be eight lanes wide in both directions, incl the commuter lane(s).
scaredy, you and your brethren Piggs residing in TV have also been sold a bill of goods by your PTB, IMHO. Why don’t you get back to us in another 30-40 yrs (if you and I are still around, lol) and tell us how TV’s infrastructure and quality-of-life is faring 🙂
Participant[quote=SK in CV][quote=bearishgurl][quote=SK in CV] . . . I think they (the lenders and loan servicers) really are that bad at managing distressed assets.[/quote]
How did they get so bad?
[/quote]
They were always this bad during RE bubble bursts. I didn’t have any direct knowledge of it during the bust of the early ’80’s, but I was told it was the same. I know it was just as bad with the bust of the late 80’s. I worked pretty closely with a bunch of former RTC asset managers when I did a lot of bankruptcy work in the early 90’s, liquidating lender portfolios. The incompetence in the process is truly incomprehensible.
I don’t think political pressure was ever a meaningful factor, except to the extent it caused some small delays, eventually everything returned to the norm.[/quote]
If your theory is true, should the “cat get out of the bag” that RE lenders, on the whole, are incompetent at nonjudicial foreclosure, and have always been, this doesn’t bode well for CA lenders going forward as their borrowers, in the back of their minds, will believe they can squat into oblivion before being foreclosed upon so many will have few qualms about defaulting, whether involuntary or otherwise.
Depending upon the solvency of the individual borrower, the “tipping point” between delinquent trustors taking a big hit on their credit report for defaulting will be offset by being “unjustly enriched” by the “length of squatting-time granted them” by their lender.
The delinquent trustors of modest means who never had anything to lose by overborrowing were the winners in this game, as it is actually the “length of time squatting granted” that lenders allowed delinquent trustors which has been and will be to the lenders’ detriment more than the borrowers.
Participant[quote=SK in CV] . . . I think they (the lenders and loan servicers) really are that bad at managing distressed assets.[/quote]
How did they get so bad?
Was it the fact they were only “servicers” and had little or no financial stake in the mortgages they immediately sold to GSE’s, instead of holding in their portfolio (as lenders in the past did)?
Was it the quality and/or inexperience of their workforce who may have had an inferior public education to their predecessors?
Was it the sheer volume of defaults (both involuntary and strategic), which overwhelmed their employees and they couldn’t hire fast enough to get new employees up to speed?
Or was it the political pressure to initiate a “workout” with all these deadbeats, who, sensing the political pressure on the lenders, worked the “system” to bleed it for all it was worth?
OR, perhaps it may have been a combination thereof.
I still don’t see any of these reasons as an excuse to allow a defaulting trustor to “squat” for THREE YEARS or more, as many of them were able to.
That’s enough time to get a “wayward trustor” thru law school, without any living expenses except for utilities!
This little “experiment” wasn’t fair to the poor slobs who hung in there and kept making their house payments on time (even during hardships).
Participant[quote=SK in CV]As I said BG, they’re incompetent. They are ill equipped to deal with distressed assets. Keep in mind, for the most part, we’re not talking about banks, we’re talking about loan servicing organizations. They get paid a tiny margin for collecting payments. Because they are not (always) the investor, they have little motivation to complete mods. They make more on foreclosure but they don’t have the manpower. (hence the robo-signing, mostly in judicial foreclosure states.)[/quote]
Nevertheless, paying trustee fees early on represent but a very small portion of total loss to an aggrieved lender compared to them letting a trustor squat for months/years causing them to also have to pay their back taxes, poss back HOA dues and unpaid homeowner’s insurance premiums upon the filing of a (very late) trustee’s deed. This exacerbated loss was all due to the lenders’ sitting on their hands … for YEARS.
It JUST DOESN’T TAKE a rocket scientist to figure out how to get the proper minimal paperwork to a trustee to initiate foreclosure. Lots of folks in CA (possessing only GEDs and HS Diplomas) have been performing these duties for decades.
At the point of 111 days of default (141 days in recent years) it doesn’t matter what the market value or even the condition of the property is. The property will either sell at a trustee’s sale for more than the opening bid amount or it will revert back to the foreclosing beneficiary.
Both are perfectly fine remedies.
There’s NO NEED to make a 15-page report or even get an appraisal. At that point, an appraisal is moot. The aggrieved lender’s only focus should be recovery of the asset as soon as allowable by law. Even if it takes Sheriff’s deputies setting the trustor’s belongings on the sidewalk and changing the locks after the trustees’ sale.
That is a partial description of the statutory scheme of the law. Period.
It is a lot easier (and cheaper) to hire people to clean up and dispose of an asset you have full control over than to endlessly play games with an asset a (nonperforming) “owner” (in name only) has control over.
Participant[quote=SK in CV]BG, none of these programs “bailed out” lenders. There have been over a million permanent loan modifications to date, and not a single one of them resulted in the lenders being made whole. And none of the programs motivate the lenders to allow homeowners to stay in their homes without making payments. Indeed, to the contrary, if a homeowner has stopped making payments and a loan modification is being attempted, the motivation would be for the lender to get the agreement in place as quickly as possible. . . .[/quote]
SK, why do you think the bulk of delinquent trustors were permitted to “squat” for many months/years before their lenders approved for them permanent modifications (or foreclosed on them) if the motivation was to “get the agreement ASAP?”
I personally witnessed delinquent trustors here in CA having their application for mod in suspense for up to ten months before they heard anything at all from their lenders. Meanwhile, they were “squatting” and also not paying taxes and homeowner insurance premiums.
Two of these squatters were foreclosed upon by the “left hand” (trustee) simultaneous to the “right hand” (lender’s collection dept) accepting their mod applications and asking for further documents :=0.
Lenders took severe unreimbursed losses only because they were unwilling to foreclose in a timely manner to which they were allowed by law and there was absolutely nothing stopping them from doing so.
There is obviously a very good reason why a Big Bad Bank is completely unwilling to go get their asset which is not performing so they can recover as much as they can for it and get it off their books. And that reason is NOT “incompetence.”
ParticipantI just noticed the findlaw link I posted above doesn’t work.
For those who don’t belong to myfindlaw.com, here is a free way for the public to get a CA opinion:
http://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/CACourts/
Click the box that you have read and reviewed the terms and conditions and click “begin searching opinions.” Click (search) “by citation” in the upper LH corner of your screen and then fill in the cite for Gomes: 192 [tab] Cal.App.4th [tab] 1149 and click “Go.”
Your cite will show up in Lexis Nexis.
Here is a very concise holding (in laymen’s terms) for Gomes v. Countrywide:
Participant[quote=SK in CV]BG, do you have any evidence that lenders “thought” they would be reimbursed by the federal government for allowing delinquent borrowers to remain in their homes? I’ve seen no evidence this was ever suggested, or even discussed. Nor do I think this was ever a motivation for their failure to act. It’s much more likely they were simply incompetent. Not only did they not get fully reimbursed. They never got partially reimbursed.[/quote]
At one time (2008-2009?), lenders were being “pressured” to modify their delinquent borrowers’ mortgages by the PTB. Supposedly, TARP funds were dangled in front of them as incentive for lenders to do so. Some lenders permanently modified the TERMS of their delinquent borrowers loans and a few (very few) modified the principal of their delinquent borrowers’ loans. I hear stories like the one below and can’t help but think that the poster isn’t privy to the what really happened:
[quote=evolusd]Great story related to this topic…
Had a friend who bought during the peak in Murrieta – a $600k house with 100% financing. Market crashes and house declines in value to $300k. They ‘strategically default’ and somehow partake in one of the mortgage modification programs and the bank reduces their balance to $300k and lowers their interest rate.
Low and behold, the market recovers and they just sold their house for $500k, rolling over $120k into a new and improved $600k home and…wait for it…cashing out $80k into the bank! All while driving Bimmers and taking Hawaii vacations.
Never put a penny down.[/quote]
I can’t imagine that ANY lender in their right mind would modify the principal amount until their trustors signed a mod agreement giving them the right to a portion of “equity sharing” upon sale. There are no laws in place compelling any lender in the US to modify ANY mortgage they made or make.
The vast majority of mortgage modifications were temporary and the affected borrowers ended up being foreclosed upon application for, concurrent or subsequent to their temporary modifications.
In CA, I don’t buy into the notion that these lenders were “incompetent,” ESPecially after the final remittitur was rendered in Gomes v. Countrywide (2011) 192 Cal.App.4th 1149 (docket nos. D057005 and S191816) and especially NOT those Big Banks who have mortgage business spread out nationwide.
http://login.findlaw.com/scripts/callaw?dest=ca/caapp4th/192/1149.html
Multiple well-known trustees abound in every single county in this state and all any of these lenders suffering from a nonpaying trustor had to do was send a copy of their trust deed and delinquent account to one of these (very competent) trustees (and after Gomes v. Countrywide became law, just the accounting) and let them do their jobs as they have been doing for many decades.
A couple of pieces of paper and one phone call was and is all it took.
Many of these “trustee-outfits” have been in business for ~50 years and KNOW the law and KNOW EXACTLY what they are doing.
Sorry, but the “poor incompetent lender” excuse is nothing but hogwash in a non-judicial foreclosure state, such as CA. A newly-hired HS graduate could send the trustee the proper forms need to initiate foreclosure action if they were first trained how to locate them.
In any case, there was never any excuse to let ANYONE squat multiple months or years in CA … ever. All that resulted from the “excessive squatting” phenomenon was that it created an environment where most of the delinquent trustors were able to take further advantage of their lenders by living for “free” (or collecting monthly rent from an asset that wasn’t costing them anything) while the rest of us paid our mortgages and/or taxes on time.
Both the “squat-mod” group and “squat-SS” group of homedebtors had the same outcome in that they both ended up losing their properties and their lenders lost big time, all due to sitting on their hands. In that respect, the lenders made their own beds causing ALL homeowners to have to sleep in them for a period of time.
ParticipantOh, and FIH, in CA, a “foreclosure remedy” is not negotiable. Virtually all money loaned on real property is secured by a trust deed which has the explicit language in it mirroring state law giving the beneficiary the right to foreclose for non-payment. The trustor(s) MUST sign the TD if they want the money.
Explicit guidelines, long spelled out in state law, detail the procedure for foreclosing a CA trust deed. The PROBLEM was that in recent years, lenders loaning in CA didn’t follow it. They didn’t follow it (and let their defaulting trustors squat for months/years) because they thought they would get reimbursed for their trouble by the Federal Govm’t for allowing them to squat. They didn’t get fully-reimbursed because the losses were too great (all due to “lender malaise”). By allowing prolonged “squatting” and then approving subsequent SS offers and some REO offers which were often below land cost, lenders screwed nearly EVERY surrounding property owner for miles around. Their inaction and negligent action (approving SS and REO offiers 50%+ off in very established areas) caused longtime property owners’ (who were NEVER “underwater”) values to fall precipitously.
In my mind, (both ignorant and calculating) buyers, “sellers” (and their greedy, unethical agents) and lenders were ALL to blame equally for this mess.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]nj, you seem to imply that those who can afford to pay should suck it up and pay.
But the contract doesn’t care what the cause of non payment is. It could be sickness, loss of job.., the bank doesn’t care.
Why inject morality into a contract where there is none?
Would it make any difference if the OP lost his house because he was sick, and now he has the downpayment from an inheritance?
Also, in CA there is the trustee sale bit so no court is involved in the foreclosure. The remedy was negotiated.[/quote]
Yes. It WOULD have made a difference, FIH. The OP would not have had a “voluntary” SS and thus, under FF guidelines, possibly would have been able to qualify for a modest purchase-money mortgage a year or two sooner.
But that’s not what happened here. Acc to the OP, he would well afford his mortgage when he purchased the property, he would well afford his mortgage all during the time of his ownership and he could well afford his mortgage after he decided to strategically default and “squat” for as long as his lender would allow him to. Since he could well afford his mortgage all during his default period, “squatting” enabled his household to save even MORE money for a downpayment for their “dream home.”
Just ONE+ month after he closed his unclean SS in a solidly middle-class area (sorry folks, but most of SEH is NOT “upper middle class,” nor is SM), he was here on this forum stating that he was “new to SD,” lamenting the dearth of listings and asking Piggs for recommendations for listings on 1 AC lots, no less :=0, in three of the most expensive communities in the county.
It is crystal clear to me that at the time he decided to “strategically default,” he believed he could “trade in” his home in a middle-class community (where he was supposedly $200K “upside down”) for an upper-middle class or upper-class community without so much as a blip on the radar screen!
Not only is this carrying an “entitlement mentality” thru the stratosphere, but it clearly demonstrates a delusional thought process, in my book.
I’m sure the OP is not alone in this regard. I know a person who tried this (initially “successfully”) with SEVEN homes in successively more exclusive areas here in SD South County (incl Coronado). She has now lost them ALL except one (which is rented out because it is still “upside down”) and is currently living as a “roommate” in another homeowner’s home because her credit is beyond shot. This person was a longtime CA RE LICENSEE and should at all time have “known better” but was delusioned with ever more grandiose ideas about what she thought she “deserved” and could afford and the availability of easy money undoubtedly enabled her.
As we all know, there’s no free lunch, folks.
Participant[quote=new to SD] . . . * Ask your self if you would you hand the bank the property if you had a mud slide, sink hole or uninsured catastrophic earthquake[/quote]
new to SD, a victim of a natural disaster is a true victim (unless he/she repeatedly rebuilds in the same spot after receiving ins claim/FEMA proceeds, such as on the bank of the Mississippi River). You can’t compare your (former) “situation” to that. YOU created your own problem and are not a victim.
Given your posts, I still feel that you would have been better off to hang onto your old property with your 6% mortgage and might very well have been right-side up by 2014. In addition, you would have still been able to save 30% (or more, depending on how much your current rent is) of your salary for a future downpayment on your “dream” home after you successfully sold your own house “cleanly” and got out above water.
The severe dip in values in recent years was ALL artificial, 75% caused from “short sales” (like yours, many of them fraudulently sold for land value or less) and 25% from REO sales owned by lenders who did not properly manage their inventories to get top dollar.
You claimed here that you strategically defaulted because you couldn’t refi out of your 6% mortgage. But that (IMHO) is a smokescreen, since you are now willing to take a 9-11% mortgage for a higher amount.
I came away from your posts with the feeling that you very deliberately calculated that you could somehow “trade in” your SM home for a home in a much better locale without so much as a bump. And I know I am not alone.
new to SD, why did you post here that you had were new to SD and were shopping in those (premium) areas on October 31, 2012 after losing your local house in September 2012 if you “knew” it would take at least three years to right your credit score? Did you have more cash then (immed after your SS) than you do now? Has your income doubled or tripled since your SS?
I’m sorry to have to relay the bad news but the areas you “aspire to” and the area you lost your home in last year (yes, SS has the same result as foreclosure) are night and day from each other.
With the resources you are describing here, I don’t see your “dream” as being feasible for several more years … if then.
Participantsdsurfer, I’ve owned several homes in SD County and all of them have been about 1750 – 2200 sf (all 4 br/2 ba).
All but one were on oversized lots and all were big enough for my family.
However, I am considering moving out of SD County and downsizing next year, when my youngest leaves for college.
I myself plus my pets can easily live in 1300-1400 sf but I really think 1700 sf is the smallest I would want for two people. In any case, for me, a one-story with two-car garage and at least 6000 sf of the lot being flat and entirely useable is mandatory (incl a completely flat driveway). In addition, I want at least 18 feet between my future home and my neighbors on the same side of the street and wouldn’t mind if I didn’t have any close neighbors.
For a variety of reasons, I never have and will never accept a property which is a PUD, condo or has Mello Roos.
For just myself, I wouldn’t mind an (SFR tract) HOA as long as the dues are payable on an annual basis and do not exceed $400 per year.
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