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bearishgurl
ParticipantIIRC, a CA title company’s “short-term rate” applied to the most recent transaction on the same property with them occurring up to three years ago.
Call your old title company and ask if you are still eligible for their “short-term rate” but I am guessing no.
Participant[quote=joec]Having those policies would be the same as not having insurance at all.
Like if someone sold a home policy and covered nothing, what’s the point to even buy or sell it? Just a scam.
The problem for me is that medical insurance is a required evil unless we want people dieing in the streets. It’d be nice if there was a very very basic policy coverage with limited advanced treatments (which is probably the expensive stuff we have here) so stuff like cancer, you can get no treatment or whatever other countries do to keep their cost down. Sad we aren’t doing everything we can to save people, but doing everything would be too cost prohibitive…[/quote]Agree, joec, due to Obamacare essentially doing away with High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP’s). Prior to Obamacare, these (PPO) plans covered catastrophic events, such as a cancer diagnosis with a typical $5K deductible for an individual (very fair). They also covered at 100% an extensive physical exam each calendar year (incl any blood work ordered by your GP) + 100% of different routine prophylactic exams required annually by males and females as well as diagnostic exams at nearly 100% for those who had a genetic predisposition to certain cancers (ex. a colonoscopy every 1-3 years). For a 50 year-old in good health (proven, previously thoroughly vetted by their carrier), the typical HDHP premiums started at about $175-$200 month.
Sadly, the ACA (Obamacare) has no longer allowed those plans to be sold since 12/31/13. And six of the major US carriers who previously offered them in CA have since left the state’s individual market on that date. A few scattered “grandfathered” policyholders whose carrier remained in the individual market in CA after the passage of the ACA were able to retain their HDHP until 12/31/14, but that was the end of HDHPs as we knew them (because they are not “ACA compliant”).
Currently, the only way to obtain a similar type of insurance (sans all the “100% payments” for diagnostic exams) is to take out “minimum essential coverage” (catastrophic coverage) through a state exchange as SK has suggested here. But one must be 29 years of age or younger (at the time of sign-up) to legally do so.
The rest of us are “trapped” into ever-escalating premiums each year which are beyond our wildest prognostications. Especially those who have individual plans with the state exchange who were 58-64 years of age at the time of signing up for (or attempting to “renew”) their plans.
Hence my argument on this forum ad nauseam why “Obamacare” should be repealed forthwith and I will vote accordingly in the General election (changed my voter registration to “R” last week). I’ve been (and currently am) paying premiums through the nose because my carrier now can no longer by law reject my “brethren’s” applications for coverage … many (most?) of whom now display major health problems of their own making (due to their earlier “lifestyle choices”). I strongly feel that this should not be my problem because of the intensive scrutiny I was put through at “middle age” in order to be accepted into an HDHP (with a reasonably priced monthly premium) by a major US health plan which has since left CA’s individual market in the wake of Obamacare. As a direct result, I was summarily “dumped” onto the state’s exchange with a pool of much “sicker” people than I am who just so happen to be in my age group. At the end of the day, you gotta ask yourself …. why and how did this end up happening to ME??
ParticipantKeep it as bald and laced out as possible … and buy a good shop vac and a fan leaf rake.
You’re going to need them. Set aside 2-4 hrs month to remove/rake the leaves.
Sadly, if the tree is too close to the house, I would have it taken out and the stump ground down. But that is just me. I would be afraid of having to have a new sewer lateral re-dug if the tree is in the front yard, due to tree roots growing through it (if this hasn’t already happened). And also afraid of replacing lifted sidewalks and crumbled driveway … now a very expensive proposition.
Eucies tend to be messy and very time consuming and literally grow wild in the SoCal region.
Congrats on your recent home purchase, rhapsody!
Participant[quote=njtosd]. . . In terms of selling houses to lawyers-I guess it depends on where you want to sell houses. I would estimate 1/10th of the houses in our general vicinity got sold to lawyers, and all seems well. If you would prefer to cut out that portion of potential buyers that’s certainly up to you . Our worst experience trying to purchase a house was from a real estate agent 🙂 . We discovered after entering into the contract that she, in fact, did not actually have title to the house. It had been transferred (as I recall) to an irrevocable trust for her adult children. Had she not been a real estate agent, I might have assumed it was accidental, however in this case I’m sure it was not. She wanted free assistance in getting her ex-husband out who was squatting in the house and figured she would work out the details later.
For most people the purchase of their home is the single largest legal and financial commitment they will take on other than their children. I would never recommend that a non-attorney enter into such a significant contract without representation of his or her own whether the other party to the contract was a lawyer or not. In the case of a nonlawyer contracting with a lawyer, it’s clear that the lawyer has the home-court advantage and you are correct that you enter in to such dealings (unrepresented) at your own peril. Had you hired attorney of your own, as is done in most other states, perhaps it would have gone more smoothly. When it comes to such significant transactions as houses, I am surprised that Californians rely exclusively on brokers/agents who I feel can have a conflict of interest and generally don’t have much experience with the issues that arise in litigation over real estate contracts. More importantly, attorneys get paid whether you buy a house or not so they have less incentive to downplay the negative aspects of the property.
When we first moved here my husband’s company reimbursed up to $1000 in attorneys fees in connection with the purchase of our home. We wanted to talk to one just to see whether there was anything we would not have been aware of ( having moved from outside of California). We did this even though both of us are attorneys. He was able to provide us with a lot of interesting information about developers who were in financial difficulty, issues associated with canyon view lots, problematic areas of the California Association of realtors purchase agreement and a lot of other info. In retrospect we would’ve done it even if we had to pay for it ourselves. It was less than $1000 which represented a fraction of a percent of the purchase price. Well worth it in my opinion.[/quote]Excellent post, nj! I agree that it can be a minefield out there for the CA homebuyer, especially one who thought they could get their offer taken more seriously by engaging the listing agent of their desired property as their own agent (“dual agency,” which should have been banned in CA long ago).
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi] . . . OMG, George Washington was a philanderer too!
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/the-founding-philanderer_b_93181.html
[/quote]Ha ha, just saw this thread and I think the above link is great and very well written!
It could have described almost to a “T” movers and shakers of “gubment(s)” much, much closer to home but I’ll just leave it at that, lol ….
Thanks for sharing brian!
ParticipantKeep us posted, svelte. It would be good to know if your friend is able to have surgery.
We in SD County, CA are very fortunate to have some of the best coordinated cancer care and the finest cancer doctors in the country. This is not the case for cancer patients residing in many other jurisdictions.
Participant[quote=njtosd] . . . Regarding cancer generally, “checkpoint inhibitors” may really turn around survival rates. They are getting a lot of attention in bio-techie circles:
http://blog.dana-farber.org/insight/2015/09/what-is-a-checkpoint-inhibitor/%5B/quote%5DInteresting link and website, nj. These “checkpoint inhibitors” (unlike the newer “targeted” therapy, which doesn’t exactly hit JUST the bullseye) supposedly don’t damage healthy tissue. Chemo and various “targeted therapy” or “biologic agents” DO often damage healthy tissue permanently can very easily be deadly to stage 3.5 and up gastrointestinal cancer patients, imho. Of course, every patient is a little different, but, for example, some of these newer agents seem to make the cancer cells go horribly astray very fast in a gastrointestinal cancer patient. Within 3 days to a week of the first infusion, they have managed to cause tumor blockage in the route from the kidneys to the urethra (causing a 2-3 month prognosis with a catheter) and/or at the duodenum (usually causing a painful 10-25 day prognosis with a stent) due to the patient almost always being inoperable. In other words, these strong deadly agents have been known to severely curtail the quality of life for a terminal patient and also shorten their lives by 2-4+ months.In my mind, it’s not worth it for a patient with advanced cancer to undergo chemo in the absence of surgery. I’ve seen too much with too many advanced (inoperable) cancer patients over the years (relatives and friends) who were grasping at straws for hope and “fell” into a chemo regime as a last ditch effort to buy more time . . . and it never did, Instead, it complicated their disease exponentially.
I’m glad to see that what appears to be truly “targeted therapies” are now being investigated, even if it is at present on just two types of cancer in clinical trials. At least it is something. Cancer research is a very slow process and I can understand all the reasons why this is so.
After having attended over two dozen funerals since 1992 (vast majority cancer deaths), I have been feeling a profound sense of loss in recent years. The death of my good friend of over 40 years last fall (103 days after diagnosis with pancreatic cancer) hit me very hard. I have been endeavoring more than ever now to do whatever I can to limit my cancer risk and be grateful to wake up each day and tackle my to-do list. I do agree that we should all do in life whatever makes us happy (especially if we no longer have daily responsibilities to other family members) and am working my way towards that end.
svelte, I hope your friend is able to get surgery which is the only (albeit often temporary) “cure.” (In my experience, Stage 3 and up cancer patients can often get another 3-8 years with a relatively good quality of life if they are able to get surgery.) If not, I hope their last months/weeks/days are as painless and comfortable as possible.
I’ve bookmarked the Dana Farber Institute and will follow it on this development. Thanks for the link, njtosd.
Sorry for the somewhat “morbid” post but in my experience, doctors often talk in circles to their newly-diagnosed terminal cancer patients because they are not yet ready to hear the truth. Unfortunately, a diagnosis of cancer (Stage 3.5 and up) almost always means the cancer will win … and probably sooner than later (which, in most cases, is a blessing).
ParticipantI’d really, really like to see reliable tests or scans be developed to diagnose gastrointestinal cancers (incl ovarian cancer) much, much earlier than they currently are and go “mainstream” as part of annual physical exams of susceptible adults with a family history.
Early cancer diagnosis (Stage 1 and 2), along with surgery, are really the only “cure” (or can at least buy the patient another 5-20 years of good-quality life until it returns in some fashion).
Participant[quote=spdrun]I disagree. If people know that they will be foreclosed on if they don’t pay their loans (without a damn good reason), they’ll be less likely to take overly high loans in the first place.
Banks are not in the business of providing comfy places to live to trailer trash. 2008 was as much a fault of the losers who took the loans as of the banks and Fannie.
Lending standards were about right in the 80s. If you couldn’t show 20% down and income or assets, no deealio.[/quote]Agree, spd. This is a very apt description of the problem in CA.
Fortunately, a borrower can no longer choose to take a “overly high loan.” The lender they applied to will tell them how much they qualify to borrow and this is how it should have been all along.
All this “trailer trash” can do what they do best after foreclosure … that is, go find a well-used trailer to buy and a place to park it and skirt it. OR, just go rent a trailer that someone abandoned and left in an established trailer park. Um, unfortunately, for them, that won’t likely be in a CA coastal county but this isn’t my problem, either.
Participant[quote=harvey] . . . There’s no reason for anybody to take a reduced rate without a principal reduction. Because owners in this situation have much better alternatives . . . [/quote]
Ummm, no harvey, “owners in this situation” DON’T “have much better alternatives.” Many of them have been “scamming the system” for so many years now that their credit is beyond shot!
This group will be extremely lucky to find a landlord who will take them in the tight CA coastal market but that is not my problem.
It is LENDERS who should be calling the shots here, NOT the recalcitrant, slovenly fools who have borrowed themselves into oblivion and will now sign up for any program that promises to “save them” from their stupidity (and, of COURSE, “forgive” the debt they already spent for their vehicles and vacations, etc).
FORECLOSURE is the answer, so the rest of us, who paid our mortgages on time all these years, no matter how difficult it was for us, can finally recover from the “great recession.” Some of us need a revitalized neighborhood with a higher calibur of more well-heeled and credit-worthy homeowner-borrowers to come in and take over these monstrosities at any price and begin rehabbing them after being let go to waste by longtime squatting “hopeful short-sellers.” Yes, all-cash purchasing flipper teams are also welcome. Bring on the foreclosures!
ParticipantI’ve been down there a couple of times in the past 5 years and saw the newer, larger apt/condo complexes on the beach. However, I have never seen the newer building in TG’s link. The Navy already has a lot more enlisted housing on the Strand than it used to. It remodeled its old enlisted duplexes about 20 years ago and later added multifamily buildings (8 units to a bldg, I think) all surrounding Strand Elementary, which is within the (preferable) CUSD. Yes, there ARE Navy personnel and their families living in IB, but the rent on those beachfront condos exceeds their typical $2000-2200 month housing allowance so they are usually found living a few blocks inland. In addition, they get all utilities paid in military housing except for cable or satellite TV, internet and landline phone (if desired). This makes the (now behemoth) Strand military housing complex even more attractive to enlisted Navy personnel and their families stationed on Coronado, even if they have to sign a 6-month lease somewhere else upon arrival in SD and get on the waiting list for it.
The SEALS infrastructure just above IB (in/near the swamp where the transmitter was demolished a few years back) won’t be completed for several more years. Then it will take another couple of years to fully staff it with trained personnel.
There are much more “bucolic” places in CA than the IB area which I have had to outright reject for retirement purposes (ex: Lake and Colusa Counties) due to (very legitimate) concerns I had about the existing physical environment there. I learned that these counties were “relatively affordable” for good reasons.
I wouldn’t move anywhere that had unfixable environmental problems which could impact my health and well being but that is just me. SD County has a lot to offer and the OP has many choices on where to conduct their search for a home assuming (s)he doesn’t need or care to “shop” public school attendance areas.
ParticipantI also noticed that there was a “warning” in the wording to not begin defaulting on one’s mortgage(s) now that this program has been announced (4/14/16). The applicant must have been “in default” on 3/1/16 to qualify for the program.
This is to prevent scamming “strategic defaulters” which happened en masse AFTER the announcements of HAMP I and II.
If Frannie hasn’t learned anything but this since then, then that is at least something :=0
Participant[quote=spdrun]Remember those are 33,000 homes out of 6 million underwater, and this is a “last ditch” program. Past statistics being what they were, maybe 3,300 homeowners will actually get the writedown.
This is a chance for FHFA being seen as doing something while then moving forward on the other homes. And also buying some Dummyquack votes.[/quote]Yeah, honestly, when I perused over the program yesterday, the qualifications for it did not appear to fit the profile of the CA homedebtor/longtime scammer. FHFA’s $250K debt ceiling to qualify for the program will eliminate this group in CA. This is because I feel that in order to have that low of a mortgage balance today, the homeowner who took “cash out” (typically $50K to $250K in one or more transactions) during the “go-go exotic-mortgage boom years” would have had to have already owned their homes for a minimum of 15 years PRIOR to taking the cash out (purchased it in the early ’90’s, or prior).
This (longtime homeowner) group typically didn’t need to take any cash out with horrific terms because they didn’t have large mortgages to begin with, they were already well-established and had paid on their homes for ~15+ years. Those in this group who DID take cash out typically took out HELOCs in the ’90’s (when they became “mainstream”) to do home improvement projects and promptly paid them back less than one year later.
The scamming homedebtors I’m discussing here used their “fake” home equity for cars, vacations, jewelry, college tuition and to generally continue living way above their means for as long as possible. In addition, many of them “bought” homes that were way out of their league because they were able to finance them at 95-100% LTV at the time, using 1-3 purchase money loans … which undoubtedly came back to haunt them in just a few years.
The 33K will come from other states where residential RE costs much less than CA and where the typical homedebtor took out $25-50K in cash in recent years (or just bought their home at the “wrong” time and paid too much for it). And, as you said here, like several failed programs before this, this new program may very well just be election year “lip service” to appear to be helping the “little people” when it ends up only helping ~10% of its intended goal with the current POTUS on his way out.
Of course, we won’t know until a new president is installed because the first notification letters from lenders will not go out until after 10/26/16.
ParticipantFor the record, I’m still surrounded by 35-50 SFR’s in various states of “shadow inventory” whilst the “real, listed as `traditional sale'” local inventory is much, much less than that. These “shadow inventory” homes have NOD’s filed against them which have never been acted upon (why??), are inhabited by “mod-paying homedebtors” with little to no income, are property-tax delinquent awaiting the auction list (some of these also grossly over-mortgaged) and/or have been listed (off and on) as “contingent” short sales for the better part of the last three years. The latter group is in the worst shape, by far.
How is a lender going to qualify a homedebtor for a mod if they have no income and/or they are an absentee landlord collecting rent? And if they’re not qualified, don’t these lenders know the phone number of ReconTrust? It should be on their speed dial but if not, I’ll be happy to give it to them :=0
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