[bearishgurl]

I’m noticing the CA API scores listed by USN&WP are 2010 scores, NOT 2011. Maybe it took them a while to do the study. Most of the CA schools’ API’s improved in 2011. Not sure how all states rank their schools … or even if all of them do.

[bearishgurl]

Dublin High in my old stomping grounds came in 4th – has a VERY low student to teacher ratio ….

DHS used to serve THREE towns back in the day …. it’s certainly come a l-o-o-o-ng way, LOL.

[bearishgurl]

I got a gas cooktop at Worst Buy Online last fall for less than $200 incl tax (clearance) and am very happy with it.

I second UCGal on Sears Outlet (Sherman St just west of Morena Blvd). I’ve bought several appls there over the years which didn’t even have dings and they were all good (two built-ins were just missing minor installation hardware/mouldings which were easily replaced). Delivery is a little pricey there so bring your own truck!

[bearishgurl]

GE Profile makes at least one model of a cabinet-depth S/S Frig. Wherever they sell GE Profile or can order it would be the place to buy one from.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=harvey]I think our national economic policy should be designed with the single goal of alleviating the burdens of people who are “forced” to rent because they cannot afford to buy a house that they like.[/quote]

LOL.

I was just back on sdlookup in several zip codes today. Your tongue-in-cheek statement supports my argument that there is plenty of inventory out there to buy. This leads me to the conclusion that buyers who are complaining about lack of inventory are either too picky and/or want to buy into an area at a deeper discount than the sellers in it are willing or able to sell at.

There are areas in SD County for buyers in ALL price ranges. The caveat is that a prospective buyer has to be willing to accept what is on offer in their price range. The days of buying RE which is a few notches up one’s actual current “station in life” are gone.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=harvey]If our public pension system doesn’t change by the time my kids are out of high school, I will encourage them to apply for city firefighter jobs and do so every year they are in college. If they get the firefighter job, even after a couple of years of college, I will recommend they drop out of school and go with the firefighter job.

I have no doubt that someday, when they are 50 years old, my comfortably retired firefighter children will visit my grave and thank me. Because their former classmates – who were foolish enough to study accounting, science, engineering, etc. – will be still facing twenty more years before they can stop working.[/quote]

That’s if they don’t have a heart attack or stroke from stress, inhale too much smoke and burn their lungs, get second or third degree burns and have to go on prolonged disability, or get trapped on a hillside and perish trying to save a neighborhood. The possibility exists that YOU could outlive them.

Stranger things have happened…

[bearishgurl]

SDR, can you post a link of the details? All I could google was a March 2010 BAC forgiveness program available only to Countrywide subprime customers for up to 30% of the loan balance. In this program, the bank would forgive up to 6% per year for five years as long as the homedebtor kept up timely payments.

[bearishgurl]

…Rob Magnotta, a real estate agent, recently listed his two-bedroom Irvine condominium for rent on Craigslist for $2,300. He had six applicants within 24 hours, including one who wrote a poignant letter about losing a home to foreclosure.

“It was almost too easy,” said Magnotta, who chose another renter. “I know the rental market was strong. But until you are actually renting the place, I think you are surprised it is that strong.”

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-renters-nightmare-20120506,0,7137775.story

Yada, yada, yada …. whine, whine.

“Foreclosure victims” ALL have “poignant stories” (as do those who have done what it takes to keep their properties above water and hold onto them).

It’s the credit score, stupid! Why would ANY “foreclosure victim” think THEIR credit score would win out on a rental application over other prospective tenants who didn’t over extend themselves??

[bearishgurl]

Questions for HLS, ctr70 or Pigg in the lending biz:

Re: the “pick-a-pay 30 due in 5” I/O and/or subprime programs, what was the last year this program was offered, and;

Re: the “pick-a-pay 30 due in 7” I/O and/or subprime programs, what was the last year this program was offered.

Thanks for your expertise!

[bearishgurl]

[quote=HLS]We are witnessing the slow painful breakdown of the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world.

So many people still don’t get that BANKS do not own most of these loans, they are SERVICERS.
They make more money by dragging out foreclosure due to contractual agreements.

I completely agree with the outrage but what nobody seems to understand is that if foreclosures were all completed ASAP and homes were put on the market and listed at current market prices, it would push prices down further leading to even more underwater borrowers which would lead to more people walking away leading to even more distress sales.

There are not enough QUALIFIED buyers to buy these homes at current levels. At lower prices houses will get sold.

It’s a vicious cycle that if allowed to happen would cause the economy to collapse.

It’s a Catch-22 for the govt. They are counting on more people to be stupid & worried about their credit scores and having an emotional attachment to a house rather than being financially intelligent.

There are govt idiots making decisions but even they are aware of what the consequences are.

The money simply does not exist to buy all these homes. The derivitives market has been built on a shaky house of cards, based on risky loans.[/quote]

HLS, I DO understand that it is gubment manipulations that have made the housing market what it is today. People started defaulting in SD County en masse in early 2007 which was more than five years ago.

I believe if lenders had foreclosed promptly on the defaulters beginning in 2007, and continued to do so thereafter, we would already have worked our way thru the bulk of distressed inventory by now and the sold comps would have been now stabilized or well on their way to doing so. This in itself would have lessened the incentive to strategically default. When underwater homeowners in CA see their friends, relatives, coworkers and neighbors default and then get promptly foreclosed on, they will either continue to pay their mtg, give keys for cash and walk, or “squat” up to 141 days (3.5 months, not 3.5 years) until they have to leave.

This BS about “playing the game” to obtain a mod is just a tactic used by defaulting trustors to buy more time to live free. It’s only a game that’s being “cooperated with” because they don’t have to make mtg payments for many months while they’re in the throes of “applying” and “reapplying.” During all this, they were hoping (and rightly so) that there would be another bailout waiting for them if they could just pretend to be interested in a loan mod that they didn’t qualify for. Meanwhile, some successfully sold short and the balance of their debt owed was “forgiven.” The vast bulk of these short sales generated even lower sold comps than REOs did. Short sales are a scam on the defaulted-upon lender as well as all property owners in their surrounding area, IMO. If potential strategic defaulters saw that they wouldn’t be able to sell short and they would lose their properties to foreclosure in 111-141 days, they would have done the “cash for keys” thing (if offered to them) or let their lenders take their property in foreclosure. Yes, the sold comps in 2007 thru as late as mid-2009 would have fallen to sh!t but we would been able have seen the light at the end of that tunnel by now.! As it stands, we are five-years-plus into these never-ending gubment manipulations and all they have done is string out the inevitable and unjustly enrich many, many undeserving scumbags. The many homeowners who purchased pre-bubble and never cashed out are now left holding the bag on this debacle with significantly artificially-lowered home values as a byproduct of this “social experiment,” which caused the market in late 2011 to crater to ’99 – ’02 values in many areas. These years were long before “loose lending” became the norm.

I’ve posted here a few times that I don’t believe in “short sales,” except for those who purchased at the height of the boom and never extracted any cash from their property. In general, underwater “owners” have “too many options” in my book, NONE of which were listed on the trust deed(s) and note(s) that they signed. The only ones benefiting from short sales are RE brokers, agents (and their buyer-friends and relatives), mtg loan brokers and RE ancillary services. The scumbag debtor comes out of a SS with a slightly higher credit score than if he/she had been foreclosed upon plus the cash (or what they bought with the cash) they extracted from their property.

I think there WAS in 2007 and IS NOW enough private money available to buy REOs in bulk. I would not have been opposed to timely foreclosing benes lowering their prices of several REO SFRs in one tract to be sold in bulk 3-5 yrs ago or even now! Those deeply-discounted sold comps of yesteryear would have been behind us now. I also think there are more qualified buyers out there today than there are listings or “desirable listings” so more REOs flooding the market would add more inventory to select from.

In sum, underwater homeowners who are potential strategic defaulters now see and hear all of these things going on around them:

* short selling and excess debt being forgiven;

* defaulting and pretending to apply for a mod whilst squatting for 28-38 months;

* receiving a “trial mod” at artificially-low interest rates (=<2%?) and making the new payments while still retaining ownership of “their” property;

* each indiv on title file for BK in succession to temporarily stave off foreclosure and live free longer;

* hire a scumbag attorney to “prosecute” a MERS lawsuit on their behalf (past tactic), again, to live free longer;

* and, stop paying on trial/permanent mod granted to them to see how long it will take their lender(s) start the foreclosure process all over again (again, buy more time to squat), etc.

Why wouldn’t potential strategic defaulters want to give this game a whirl? It’s “worked” for so many … why not get a piece of this pie for yourself??

Every single tactic used by these opportunist home-debtors is employed for one purpose only. That is to be able to “squat” as long as possible. It has nothing to do with “worrying about their credit score” or “emotional attachment.” I could see becoming “emotionally attached” to a house with a Mills Act contract or one that you bought as a hull and spent 3000 hrs of your own backbreaking labor putting back together yourself. But NOT on a “late-model” tract mcmansion that looks like every fifth house on your street!

The rest of us “head-down” owners just want it all over with so we will be able to move on with our lives without losing our downpayment of 10-20 yrs ago. At this rate, it will take another decade-plus to transfer all of the “distressed” inventory into stronger hands. The hands it transferred out of will have to hit the road to find a cheaper locale to rent in if they can’t afford to rent here.

That’s the way its always been.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=jstoesz]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.[/quote]

jstoesz, the asking prices for Pt Loma (SD) houses are a good bit lower now than when you were living on your boat there. And I think you once posted that you’re pretty handy and could take on a “fixer.” Why don’t you take a look?

http://www.sdlookup.com/Real_Estate-Point_Loma-Houses_For_Sale-92106

Is there any possibility that you could get your old jobs back (or new ones) in SD? We all just have ONE life to live!

[bearishgurl]

[quote=squat250]Squat n shower at la fitness, live in a van, read at the library, gas insurance, sundries. I think I could have fun on 30k a year.[/quote]

scaredy, as for your “solo” plan to “live in a van”, I think it would be a bit of a hassle if you chose to do this in an urban or suburban area. You can only park for 72 hours in any one spot and there should be no evidence visible from the outside of your van that someone is actually “living” in there.

If you move from spot to spot on the same residential street every 72 hrs and do not live on that street, the neighbors will ask the cops to “investigate” your vehicle.

If you cover the windshield at night so no one can see you have set up “house” in your van, the neighbors will likely believe someone IS living in it and call police.

The places you may end up having to move to for the night may or may not be convenient to libraries and LA Fitness (or even conducive to your safety).

Once the cops get wind of you favoring to spend the night in your preferred locale (close to your library and LA Fitness), they will broadcast your license plate number to all their units in the division to be on the lookout for illegal lodging.

I would be best to have a late model, clean, dent and sticker-free van which is moved frequently so as not to arouse any negative suspicion to pull this off most successfully. And do NOT exit your van in the morning all rumpled in your pajamas and slippers.

And under no circumstances should you string an orange extension cord from your van, even if you park in front of a vacant house with outside receptacles and utilities turned on. It’s a dead giveaway :=}

PS: A better idea would be an RV/5th wheel or travel trailer parked long-term (up to 3 mos at a time) in a county park and have a moped or small car to travel around in.

http://www.co.san-diego.ca.us/parks/Camping/info.html

The “Sweetwater Summit” Park isn’t too far from a library with free computers and LA Fitness, even possibly a bike ride. Your low rent could include utilities (opt), access to bathrooms with showers on the premises and even sewage dump if you need it. There, you will only have to address moving every 3 mos and could have another park in “system” already reserved when the time comes to move. Surprisingly, lots of seniors who sold their homes live in these parks and move quarterly. Pets are welcome … even horses :=]

[bearishgurl]

I have learned over the years that “looks” and “demeanor” can be VERY deceiving. None of these has anything to do with the amount of wealth, brains, common sense, resourcefulness or integrity one possesses.

[bearishgurl]

Both good posts. If RP loses at the primaries, I will reregister back to an “independent” and vote for Gary in the gen’l election … that is, if my *new* Republican ballot coming in will preclude me from voting Libertarian for Prez.

I won’t vote for Obama OR Romney.

[bearishgurl]

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.

[Author]

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