Wonkette
NATION OF UNDERWATER HOMEOWNERS: According to some estimates, about 20 percent of people with mortgages owe more on their homes than what they’re actually worth. Your mileage may vary depending on whether there are a lot of foreclosures in your area, because fire-sale pricing will naturally depress surrounding home values even more than just a gradual dropoff in the sales price of non-foreclosed homes. Also, owing 105% of your house’s value is a hell of a lot better than owing, say, 200%, but both count as “underwater.” The bottom line is this: if you own real estate of any sort, you are DOOMED, forever, to an eternity of anal invasion by Mortgage Demons bearing poison-tipped pitchforks. [Wall Street Journal]
I owe more on the refrigerator box I live in than it is worth, also.
How do you feel about Souter’s New Hampshire shack in the woods now?
Well, fortunately we are not in that boat because we were lame & boring & decided to buy what we could actually afford. Still, it sucks to be them.
How does being DOOMED, forever, to an eternity of anal invasion by Mortgage Demons bearing poison-tipped pitchforks(tm) compare to your run of the mill anal crucifixion.
Texan Bulldoggette: Of course, everyone in the Republic of Texass is of sober mind.
Anal poisoning??!!1 Zounds! Rush was right!!!
Really? Here in Jerry Springerland, (FL), my house is worth less but I’ve yet to see an adjustment, (down), in either property taxes OR insurance, wonder why? And yet, if I buy a boat, or and airplane??! for more than $500,000, I get a ginormous tax break. Republican legislature you say?
“you are DOOMED, forever, to an eternity of anal invasion by Mortgage Demons bearing poison-tipped pitchforks”
Sounds like a fun weekend!
You wanna see a fucking underwater homeowner?
http://s389.photobucket.com/albums/oo336/brontie2/?action=view¤t=HPIM3587.flv
A little paint and staging will fix that right up.
CrunchyKnee: Nah, there are plenty of folks here who bought $350K+ houses on an $60,000 income. I hope living in their mcmansions was worth the agony of opening their interest-only loan statements when the dive came.
Sodoes this mean using your biggest personal investment as a cash register was, like, a bad idea?
A few years back, new homeowners were a lot like Amway salespeople, trying to lure me into making the same choice they did. Now, with foreclosures and underwater mortgages, my little apartment (that has a limit on the amt the rent can be raised in a year)is looking like a much better decision.
“…as many as five million homeowners whose loans are owned or guaranteed by government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can refinance their mortgages, but only if the mortgage loan is a maximum of 105% of the home’s value….Government officials are considering an increase in that limit.”
Oh, sure. Because gambling with money we didn’t have certainly didn’t get us into this mess. Holy fuck, what kind of lobotomy does a person need to run the economy? Prefrontal seems like it would leave too many working brain cells.
And if homeowners still have jobs and can still afford their current payments, and weren’t just being gold-rush speculators to begin with, is this even a crisis? Or are banks playing some sort of angle to get more bailout money? No, that would be underhanded, unethical and completely incon — oh, nevermind.
Who wants to buy a 600k condo in Rockville now?
Texan Bulldoggette: We locked in 5% for 30 years back in 2005 when all the banks were begging me to go with an adjustable rate mortgage. I’m not the most prudent person in the world but reason says good times don’t last forever. Now we have a lot of equity (not that it would do any good since there are no buyers) and payments low enough that we can still make ‘em even though I got laid off.
That said, one major sickness once COBRA runs out and we’re fucked. Almost nobody except bankers and hedge-fund managers deserve to be foreclosed upon.
Hey! We bought what we could afford (on a fixed-rate mortgage), yet that didn’t stop all our equity from being pretty much erased over the last year! Bailout please! also.
*gets on roof of nearly submerged house with paddle and lifejacket* Woot! I’m rowing this motherfucker to Tuscany!
Texan Bulldoggette: Same here. I also resisted the temptation to take some cash out to buy useful, cutting edge items like a solid gold Segway.
Custerwolf: Oof — that hurt to watch, even at my level of abstraction from the event. My condolences. At least you got your menagerie out okay, right?
I’m not sure I see the problem with anal invasion.
ChernobylSoup: I know we bought in 97 for 8% but re-financed in 02 for 15 years at 5.5%. All these dumbasses who just had to get into these big houses on adjustable rate loans & interest-only loans (biggest legal scam there is) have to be hating life about now.
And yeah, I’d love to have me a shiny new home but no one will buy our little hovel, so we’re stuck. But hey, in 8 years it’s all ours (& William County’s since you pay property tax forever in TX & it’s kind of nice that the appraisals have quit doubling every damn year!).
Texan Bulldoggette: Yep. Guy across the street from me moved out of his $150k ’50s ranch house (which had two mortgages on it) in northeast Atlanta three years ago, and built a $500k McMansion on two acres out in the exurbs. He’s a deck builder and general contractor who was working on house-flipper projects for a construction company at the time. Now he’s extremely unemployed, as is his accountant wife, and the small house has no rental tenant. So they and the two kids are giving EVERYTHING back to the bank and moving in with their parents back in Philly. Living the dream.
SayItWithWookies: Oh yes. And thank you for asking.
Cape Clod: Yep, for the longest home equity loans were illegal/not available in TX. But once that flood gate opened, lots of suckers waiting in line on that. We didn’t touch that with a 10-foot pole.
Tired of that underwater mortgage? Why not move to Detroit where you can buy a house with the change from under your couch cushions.
bureaucrap: me neither.
earnestcivilservant: Because then you’d be living in Detroit?
Real estate = Anal Crucifixion
Custerwolf: wow, I mean, wow. Where was this and what naiads did the neighbor’s piss off?
Lazy Media: There’s always a catch.
The silver lining: fewer creepy realtors staring at you from their ads on the grocery store shopping cart.
Terry: Sounds like socialist rent control to me. Who’s going to redecorate John Thain’s office if your rent doesn’t go up every year by an uncontrolled amount?
Custerwolf: ..underwater homeowner..
is that your place? oh crap. How close were you to that river?
And I thought a blog about tax policy was boring. But no, there’s always property value to talk about.
MarieDeGournay: This was my house (in the cascade foothills of WA) back in January. After a smaller flood in November, we were trying to take the house apart in order to salvage what we could, but January snowmelt and rain killed the whole damned thing.
qwerty42: About this close:
http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/oo336/brontie2/house1.jpg
(however, when the house was built back in the 50s is was way further back from the river)
I owe 18% of the value of my home.
Fortunate or complete dumbass? You decide.
I’m paying 1.85% on a three year open mortgage, and the Bank of Canada has guaranteed that rate. I owe just over $40,000 on a $700,000 house, and I’ll own it in three years. That’s how we do it up here in Canada City
42 million dollars was spent in the first quarter of 2009 from companies such as OH I DON’T KNOW WE’LL SAY “BANKS” trying to qualm the possibility of legislation which would bring old “bad” loans down to the current market value of a home, thereby creating a miracle umbrella for home owners and reducing the threat to OH I DON’T KNOW WE’LL SAY “them keeping their house.” Fuck this. We give the fucking assholes a bailout and this is how they thank us.
GRAB YOUR FUCKING PITCH FORKS.
And in Toronto, the suburb of Canada City I live in, we don’t have:
Floods
Hurricanes
Volcanoes
Droughts
Tornados (maybe just small ones)
Brush fires
Ice storms
HERE:
http://firedoglake.com/2009/05/05/over-42-million-paid-to-lobbyists-to-defeat-cramdown-in-1q-2009/
REFERENCE.
Good. “LOBBYING” is awesome. Everybody should learn to “LOBBY.”
Custerwolf: Oh Damn! What did the insurance company do for you?
Custerwolf: FOR SALE: 2bed 2bath DDBlWD, grt rvr vu, needs TLC Call Custerwolf 425-432-9876
Custerwolf: Ouch. That had to hurt. Especially in such a beautiful area. My wife and I had to give up a home in the Sierras near Lake Tahoe, and we still miss the forests and water. Are you hoping to rebuild, someday?
What a planet.
Hot tubs, jet skies, home theaters, time shares in Aruba. The money’s not in the houses, people, its in all these essential basic items, like Bob’s custom harley over here, or Jane’s 2 carrot diamond ring.
V572625694: Nothing but teh buttseks will satisfy you, huh?
Texan Bulldoggette: We did that too. Christ are we dumb. Could got the house with the mink sinks and the central dog polisher. And then beg the bank for an “adjustment.”
But hey, the Dow is up to almost 8500 and the S&P has wiped out all its losses for 2009, ya crybabies. Happy days are here again…..
Cape Clod: Cancel our policy 3 years ago.
Lascauxcaveman: Thanks for the free advertising bud. I can throw in a Mexican pig with the deal - wait, he’s Vietnamese, never mind.
proudgrampa: Oh Tahoe is sooooo beautiful. Yes, we are in the process of rebuilding now. Unfortunately that meant taking down a couple of beautiful cedars to make room for our new cabin (we live very simply), but we also have a more attractive area for deer now. We are very grateful to live where we do.
Boo, your supposed to by a house that you can afford. Speculating on real estate is a game for professionals…like the investment bankers.
Wait minute…oh never mind.
Custerwolf: Good for you.
The value of my house is gone? I wouldn’t know, haven’t checked. If so, I’ll need to turn more tricks as a gigolo, obvs.
Haha, should have taken the glass beads.
http://rlv.zcache.com/native_american_indiansare_seeing_karma_in_action_bumper_sticker-p128327433188057297trl0_400.jpg
Custerwolf: Typical. Pay for years and then, when it begins to look like you might need them, they chuck you under a bus.
Ass cancer is too good for them.
What’s everyone complaining about? As someone whose childhood heroes included Jacques Cousteau and Jules Verne, an underwater home sounds great to me!
And hurricane season starts in June so . . .