Foreclosures

I think you'll be fine, Rob, and I congratulate you on your purchase. I was just trying to provide some perspective. Enjoy your home. Money comes and money goes...

 

Haha...that's not what I want to hear! I'm hoping it's more like money comes and more money comes.

 

Sure, okay. Your house is going to double in value, property taxes are going down, and the Greenway is going to voluntarily lower the toll for you. Merry Christmas, Rob! :boogie:

 

Steve I have to admit I love your poetry and I am not joking I moved back here from California around 97 and I remember a builder buddy of mine giving me the grand tour. There were unfinished homes from bankrupt builders in countryside. I also remember on the star streets in the farms a couple of unfinished homes from a builder that walked away. and even a few lots left in a neighborhood I designed back in the late eighties just before I left for california. In river creek a builder was going under at that time actually a year or two later and we finished those homes. Steve this was all in the 97 to 99 year range and yes we just started to pull out from the problems of the early nineties. Building was starting to happen again tho a bit slowly then 911 hit and wham things exploded and we were off to the races. Until the last couple of years. Yes the dot coms were doing well but nothing compared to the magic 911 date. I wonder how many here owe their jobs to 911 directly or indirectly????? BTW commercial and residential don't always follow the same path in boom times.

Lee j

 

I was just watching an economist on TV and he says what I have been saying bottoming out end of 2008 or 2009 and an extremely slow recovery for the next ten years. So you amateur foreclosure artist be careful as they will be no quick riches in this recovery.

Lee j

 

I do believe that most people who try to predict markets' future courses are usually talking out of there . But because of tremendous pressures the housing market can clearly be heading downward even though one may not see it completely in falling prices. So I do believe that the real estate market is likely to continue downward. Oil prices or the Dow, I have no idea.

Steve is right about housing. It was booming before 9/11. I remember the peak of the last market being about 1989-1992. The following years were a bit of a bust with static to slightly falling prices in this area until about 1999. I remember buying my first townhouse in Fairfax in the summer of 1998 which was about the end of the static to slightly falling market. When we sold very early in 2001 our house had already appreciated almost 50% in 32 months.

I don't think that 9/11 defense spending drove the housing market around here, there are many markets that had similiar or greater housing bubbles whose economies have almost no relation to defense contracting.

 

I don't disagree with your prediction of the market over the next several years, but you don't have to be a deep pocket investor to make money with foreclosures, even in this market. People will continue to buy houses even though the market isn't what it once was. If you can offer a house for well below fair market value it will sell. There are a lot of ways to mitigate your risk. Two keys are OPM and having a buyer lined up before you close. My fiances father has been doing it for well over twenty years and has never had one deal go wrong.

 

Rob don't take this personally but for me to profit off someones misery just does not sit well with me. I rather see the people that owned the home come out with something and ideally be able to keep their home. By the time it is in foreclosure it is many times too late for the homeowners to have any kind of something. Homes are personal far different then commercial. There are for many so many happy memories and for it to end in foreclosure well that is as sad as it gets for a family. Now when it comes to people that bought homes for investment or flipping which artificially raised home prices and eventually wrecked the industry well foreclosure is not the same as it is for a decent family.

Hey I have nothing against people that are in the foreclosure business, it just seems to me there is too much unhappiness left in the home at least to me to profit from someones misfortune only from the family point of view but not if it is a foreclosure on a person or investment home that was bought for profit only not for someones family.

Very sad to hear these foreclosures on good families that ran into a bit of bad luck. I really do believe in these homes have bad karma on the people that buy them. Then again maybe I have been designing too many homes lately that a lot of old world customs and traditions added to them lately. who knows????

Lee j

 

I guess it all depends on how you look at it. In my opinion it is a mutually beneficial relationship. Selling your home to an investor before it goes into foreclosure will benefit the homeowner by keeping the foreclosure off their credit. Now they won't have to wait 3-7 years before they can get another loan. If there weren't investors out there buying pre-foreclosures, many people would be much worse off than if they were foreclosed on.

 

Rob what you are saying could be an win win.

Different then what I have been saying. Although right now people have several options in saving there homes that many don't know about.

One banks don't want to foreclose and will do a lot to help people save their homes. Just call the bank the moment you think you are having a problem or even if you anticipate a problem. Don't wait until it is too late. People will be surprised how far banks will go these days. My banker told me they have let people go as long as 9 months or more without making a payment and they just rolled the back payments back into the loan. Many will work with you to keep the interest rate lower, instead of jumping up.

My problem there are many vultures out there that take an advantage of people in trouble and don't make them aware they have many options to save the home. The vultures basically scare or talk their victims into selling at extremely low prices under the pretense it will save their credit. Give me a break. Most likely their credit is in a shambles anyway if they are in trouble, so the vultures are just plain stealing these peoples homes. And yes bad karma will set in those cases. Besides there are laws against predatory stealing of peoples homes, which in many cases telling people it will save their credit when their credit is already in a shambles can be against the law.

Lee j

 

There are vultures in all types of business who prey on the weak. I don't disagree with what you're saying and I believe that homeowners should be made aware of their options.

 

I see this much differently then many because I have designed homes for people since I was 15 years old. I designed my first home while still in high school in dallas texas. I see the joy and happiness people have when I draw that initial sketch then see them move in and many times become friends with my clients and see how my design has brought much happiness to them over the years the good times the memories and yes even the bad times. You don't get that in other businesses. The personal joy a home brings a family is so much more then any business on the planet. There is nothing like it. And see vultures strip that away is well a crime. My favorite organization is Habitat and look at the joy they have brought to many many families that probably thought home ownership was out of reach. They just built three homes right here in Loudoun with the last of the three almost finished. And there is more on the way. Absolutely the one of the best organizations in the world with no high priced executives like many other charities. You can visibly see the happiness they have brought thousands and thousands and thousands of families then you have the vultures swarming to take the happiness away from thousands for nothing more then persoanl gain. Personally I think there should be laws against making profit off families misfortune or they should split evenly whatever profit with the vulture makes with the family.

Lee j

 

Anyone know how much money banks typically lose when a home goes into foreclosure? I'd be interested to know what their financial hit is. It can't be good.

 

The banks lose big time especially in this market, and there is why they will go to great lengths most of their time to help people save there homes, but it takes intuitive from the homeowner first. And most people don't know this because they are scared to death especially people that never have been in trouble before.

Silence just look at the billions the banks are losing right now the billions wall street is losing now and the billions lost when the banks go under. We are better off to save as many people as possible from foreclosure because it is going to cost us all big time if we don't.

And there is a brand new crisis you all are going to hear about by next summer that is related to this mess if we don't save as many foreclosures as possible. Don't forget the vultures are not helping anyone but their pockets the homeowner still takes a loss and so does the bank so does wall street and then your tax dollars and the only potential winner is the vulture if he or she is savoy enough but many foreclosures end up in a loss for the person that buys the foreclosure especially if too many are dumped into the marketplace at once.

If we don't stop this and help people from foreclosure the worst is yet to come with a second crisis that will effect everyone that has invested in wall street. Stayed tuned. I heard this from my banker and they are trying to keep this quiet for awhile this new related crisis not to panic the market into a recession. Much worse could be around the corner and when your stock investments start to get hit then nobody will be immune from financial disaster. I still can't believe what I heard how bad this can get. They don't even know where the bottom is yet.
Just read the wall street journal today about the surprise hit to bear stearns. And much more to come.

Lee j

Lee j

 

Lee,

Have you ever considered starting a tabloid newspaper? It's funny how you believe EVERYTHING your friends tell you.

-Rob

 

Rob I am deeply rooted in the building business not someone on the edge waiting to swoop in and steal peoples homes for my own personal gain. I went to bat for Stevens Miller big time because I thought when I first met him and still believe he will do an outstanding job as our new County Supervisor. I took a little flack from some people in my industry for supporting a slow growth candidate especially for residential building. You know what, I have principles and I made an oath to myself that I would never profit from a families misfortune and spin it that I am the one who is helping these people while you go running to the bank profiteering off their hardship under the disguise you really are helping them. Please!!!!!

Business profiteering from another business is one thing. Profiteering off a families hardship is disgusting.

But running around trying to convince families before their home is sold on the courthouse steps that they should sell the home to you or anybody is wrong unless you split the profit you make with them. Telling someone whose credit is most likely ruined anyway that you all are saving them is nothing more then a con job and legalized stealing. Split the profits you make with them and I might find some new found respect.

You would be surprised who some of my friends are in the building and banking industry, far from tabloid news.

Mark this post and come back to it at the end of 2008 and 2009 and I will say 2008 will be even worse in the building industry then ever and some tough new laws will be passed regarding foreclosures in the next several years.

There will be a new crisis brewing regarding the industry that right now is it it's infancy. So sell those foreclosures quickly or you may end up like the flippers during the boom times with nothing. This building crisis is like non other and even the pros are having a hard time figuring it out, much less the amateurs.

Lee j

 

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It's always someone elses fault that people make poor decisions....It's the governments job to protect us from ourselves...Typical bleeding heart liberal rhetoric.

You've designed a couple homes so somehow you're deeply rooted in the building industry? Give me a break. I've yet to meet an architect who isn't full of himself. The people I work with on a daily basis are much more deeply rooted in the building industry in the Washington D.C. metro area than you will ever be.

If you have some fantasy that Stevens Miller is different than any other politician, you're more naive than I thought you were. They all tell you the same thing... exactly what they think you want to hear. Talk about vultures?

One thing I've learned about you over the months I've been reading this board is that you're all talk and no game. 15% of the statements you make might be true...the rest is hogwash. Have you ever considered running for office? You would fit right in.