the vynsane asylum

I live in an area that's widely acknowledged as one of the worst-hit by this subprime mortgage crisis. I can see four foreclosed houses from my front lawn. There are more that have been bought up really cheaply. I had no idea how bad it was until I looked at the value of my home this morning.

We purchased in summer 2005. Everyone kept telling us prices would keep going up. We knew it wouldn't last, though lenders seemed to be oblivious to this. We didn't expect to make a huge profit (so many people around here got a subprime loan, bought a house, waited five months, sold it at a profit, and got another subprime loan to buy a bigger house). We just didn't want to be priced out of home ownership altogether, because we thought that, though prices would even out, they wouldn't drop super-dramatically.

Within six months came the first foreclosure. However, this was a guy who owned his owned company that installed artificial grass in residential yards. Because everyone wants fake grass right? His own yard looked like shit, and weeds grew through the cheap-ass astroturf they'd installed badly, so we figured his business went under and this wasn't ordinary.

Our home hit a peak value last year of about $30,000 more than we paid for it. By the accounts of most around us, it went up far more slowly than expected.

Here's the "shit a brick" part: Since last year, it has dropped in value more than $150,000, because every house in the area that's sold--all ten of them--has been a repo sold at a huge loss by the bank! We're so upside down that there's no chance of refinancing (which we'd planned to do in 2010) for several years; even when the prices stabilize (which won't be for about two years, by many estimates) it won't be increasing fast enough to be anywhere close to what we need it to be to refinance. The negative equity in our home is actually well more than we could actually buy a house for in many areas. Thankfully, we've got enough money to keep paying on it and don't have one of these really shitty loans (though ours is pretty shitty, due to outright lies by the loan officer), but it's pretty sickening to know you can drop $90,000-$100,000 in a house and not yet have a drop of equity.

Fucking greed. The banks lending to people who can't afford it, and many of these people knowing they can't afford it but wanting more than they need. I'm the last to blame everyone who's in trouble on their houses, but the people who were greedy and irresponsible fucked over a lot of people who weren't.

i know, it's insane.

i feel like a vulture, but we're actually about to buy a house for about half of what it was initially priced at, so we're on the other side of the fence - priced out of all areas by the rampant greed and risky lending practices initially but now picking up the scraps after the fall. sure, the price may go down from here, but we're not looking to refinance or sell any time soon. the only thing we'll be looking to do in the future is an extension over the kitchen, which is a single floor bump-out off the back of the house, and with the economy the way it is, contractors will be hurting so it should be rather cheap when we get there.

I'd rather be in your shoes. Like I said, we expected it to stop increasing, and drop slightly, but had no way to know it wouldn't increase to a point where no one could afford a house. And with Bush in charge and wanting everyone who's not filthy rich to either vanish from the face of the earth or go to Iraq, it didn't seem likely.

Folks like you, anarky, should not fear. I know you're discussing your home on Main Street around the dinner table with Bob and Maggie and Bessie and Little Jimbo, and maybe their friends Spanky and Laquisha stopped by for some of your wife's pancakes, and Barack Obama feels your pain. Mark my words, when Barack Obama is president, you will lose your home. And you will lose it within six months, as will every American. But Barack Obama will show that he is up to the challenge, and he will build you a new home. I mean, that's storybook, man. So come with me to Scranton, where I grew up, and we'll go to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, where I eat every meal, and I'll tell you all about how my father said to me, he said, "Champ, when you lose your home, you have to get up, and the first African-American president will personally build you a new one." It's not about a government handout. It's about standing up for yourself.

I avoided buying a house. I don't know much about real estate, but it seemed to me the boom was caused by the historically low interest rates and people taking out 50 year mortgages. People don't look at price, only the monthly payment. All I know about interest rates is that they had nowhere to go but up, and I remember hearing about double digit rates in the 70s. If that were to happen, pirces would be unsustainable, because you cannot ask for more than people have, and real wages were stagnant throughout the Bush years.

Try not to get too down, if you plan to be in your house awhile, the price will recover, although it will take years (but I think we'll see a very fast initial rebound). Avoid looking at it as an asset and consider it as your home, and you'll feel much better. On the happy side- you are young. This downturn is a nightmare for people in their 60's and those who used all the equity in their houses to pay for vacations and SUVs. Those people are royally screwed.

It just seems that there is no investment these days that is worth anything. My stocks have dropped about fifty percent since May. I'd like to buy in, but every time I think we've hit bottom, we just drop more!

Yeah, that's actually how I look at it. We figured that rent around here is about the same as a mortgage payment, so we bought so that the payments weren't essentially being thrown away. Only now it looks like they were, and will continue to be for a while. Even though we expect to be here for a while, it sucks to know that it is worth more than a year's salary less than what we paid.

If you vote for me and John McCain, I'm gonna help all o' ya. That includes vyn the web designer, anarky the whateveranarkydoes, and Joe Biden the cocksucker. You betcha!

I hope that it bounces back quick for you, Chux. You guys are in an extremely desirable area of the world to live - just give it some time.

A house similar to ours is up for sale, and they're asking $180,000 less than we paid for ours, and no takers. One that's twice as big, a few doors down, and that originally sold for about $60,000 more, is now $150,000 less than we owe.

This isn't that bad (our mortgage holder has already sent a relatively friendly letter informing us that, if we think there'll be any problem at all, to contact them so we can restructure--I doubt it'll be necessary, thank God), but the worst is that all the empty houses are now being sold at auction, and are either going to people who shouldn't be able to afford houses, or who are renting them out. I hate to sound judgmental, but I can already tell that Lanny's extended family has moved into several of these houses. Tonight, two doors down, in a house that recently sold but that no one has moved any furniture into, the new residents (not sure if owners or renters) are having a big party, with at least thirty fucking cars parked up and down the street, and a professional DJ blasting gangsta rap (and not old school stuff, but the new shit like Kanye "Gay Fish" West that sounds like pathetic idiots trying to sound old school) so loud I can hear it inside my house. It's only 6:00 now; I hope I don't have to call the fucking cops, because I don't want to be the asshole neighbor, but, fuck, if it's going strong at 1 or 2 and I can hear it all the way down here, with another house and fence in between us, I'm calling JJ's boys.

And I saw three more houses being vacated when I moved our car off the street (since we don't know these new people, and don't know if the people parallel-parked in front of and behind us would be leaving drunk) and drove down the block to see how many fucking cars are at this party.

To top it all off, the fucking homeowner's association has pretty much given up, since so many houses are in foreclosure and occupied by people who don't give a shit, so the entire neighborhood looks like the inside of George Lucas's asshole, except that I've not seen Rick McCallum hanging out anywhere.