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My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

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Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#101

Post by fred_is_fred »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #78
hunter-gatherer wrote: post #33

I've had a handful of lemons thrown at me during my life. One of the most impactful ones as far as I can tell is that through a weird chain of coincidences I ended up first in line to purchase a foreclosed home. From what I understood, the couple was going through a nasty divorce and couldn't agree on who would get the house and ultimately didn't pay anything for a while, so I picked it up for 80k, which back then wa…

>> Having been able to pay off my house has had the most tremendous postive impact on my mental health I think Agree on that. I own my house with no mortgage since before the pandemic and it doesn't make much financial sense to pass up a 3% mortgage but it makes mental health sense. Yes, I owe property taxes. Yes, the city could raise them. If I completely stopped paying them today, it would take them a decade to kic…

I'm at 2%, no reason to pay extra (and not much left anyway). But I am curious, where do you live that property tax foreclosure is 10 years? Most places do NOT mess around. They sell your liens for 3 years at auction and then you're done. Counties are ruthless in general I've found, especially in some states.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#102

Post by coding123 »

coolspot wrote: post #37
coding123 wrote: post #9

There needs to be some standard addendum attached to homes as an option that anyone selling a home can attach to the sale. Something like: This house cannot be used as an investment vehicle. It cannot be sold by a real-estate agent with a contract of more than 1%. It cannot be used as a rental. It cannot be sold for more than inflation would allow. Anyone found violating this addendum may be sued. All proceeds from t…

Homelessness is mostly caused by drugs and/or psychiatric illness.

Which is caused by falling deep into debt and realizing you won't have a home in a bit.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#103

Post by coding123 »

coding123 wrote: post #9

There needs to be some standard addendum attached to homes as an option that anyone selling a home can attach to the sale. Something like: This house cannot be used as an investment vehicle. It cannot be sold by a real-estate agent with a contract of more than 1%. It cannot be used as a rental. It cannot be sold for more than inflation would allow. Anyone found violating this addendum may be sued. All proceeds from t…

I love how no one replied to the last sentence, almost like that doesn't matter, the part where you restrict my right to rent matters more than anything.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#104

Post by hervature »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #59
santoshalper wrote: post #13

I have spent about 20 years in the mortgage and housing industry, a decent amount of that in servicing and default. I have seen some shady shit including borrowers who committed mortgage fraud and lenders who made loans they knew would ultimately blow up in someone's face (not theirs!). That said, 99% of defaults are very simple: At the time of the loan, the borrower could afford to make the mortgage payment. Later d…

Maybe you have some insight over something that's always confused me. During the 2008 crash, I heard of a lot of people seeing their home value plummet, end up underwater on their mortgage, and decide to just abandon it. I've never understood why someone would do that, rather than ride it out and keep paying while the value recovers? I could MAYBE understand going "Nope, I'm out" if you had an adjustable-rate mortgag…

@dreadmorbius already mentioned nonrecourse loans but even recourse loans it should be obvious that if something made your property worth $0 (say Chernobyl real estate) then paying any amount of money to the bank is just a waste. Now, it may not be worth it to declare bankruptcy to absolve yourself of the loan, but the example is meant to illustrate that if the value loss is large enough, the recovery slow compared to other investments, and the payment is large relative to your income, then walking away can be the right choice.

> Whether I'm paying $2,000 to the bank, or $2,000 to some landlord (Really, I'd be looking at $2,800/month for a house like what I have now), I'm paying $2k/month. So why not just keep paying my mortgage, even if the value is less than what I paid?

I think you're missing the point that in a crash like 2008 the market rents would go from $2,800 to $1,400. Also, a reminder to anyone reading this that you cannot compare mortgage payments to rents. The down payment could have gone into another investment (like a tax-advantaged 401k) and so you need to take into account the opportunity cost of not getting S&P 500 returns. In the US, this is normally offset by the fact that the government tries to make mortgage rates very close to the Fed rate and the fact that the system allows you to lever up 4x (20% down) to 99x (1% down) to minimize the opportunity cost of other investments. In general, if you plan to live a house for at least 5 years, you should probably put it on a mortgage.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#105

Post by dmd »

mcphage wrote: post #94
dmd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a handful of lemons I'm having trouble parsing this. A lemon is a bad thing that happens to you, but this seems like it was a good thing for you?

> A lemon is a bad thing that happens to you, but this seems like it was a good thing for you? Probably referencing "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade", not like a car is a lemon.

Yes, thus my question. In that phrase, a "lemon" is a bad thing that is happening to you, which you turn somehow into something good (lemonade).

Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#106

Post by Aeolun »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #52
silisili wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just discussing this with a friend last week. In my case at least, it was too easy to forget. I grew up low end of middle class at best, and after high school was dirt poor. Getting overdrafts weekly, in that era where they reorder transactions to really turn the screws. Sleeping early because it's cheaper than eating. Working two jobs and still not getting ahead. The shame of having to ask to borrow a few buck…

> in that era where they reorder transactions to really turn the screws I cannot come up with the words about how absolutely evil someone had to be to make transactions work that way. How utterly fucked up and sociopathic do you have to be to steal money from the poor?

Of course they weren’t stealing from the poor. It was their boss doing that when they told them to ‘increase profit at any cost’. The only thing they were doing was secure that promotion.

If the world needs to burn to make that happen? Well… that’s too bad.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#107

Post by jarsin »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #59
santoshalper wrote: post #13

I have spent about 20 years in the mortgage and housing industry, a decent amount of that in servicing and default. I have seen some shady shit including borrowers who committed mortgage fraud and lenders who made loans they knew would ultimately blow up in someone's face (not theirs!). That said, 99% of defaults are very simple: At the time of the loan, the borrower could afford to make the mortgage payment. Later d…

Maybe you have some insight over something that's always confused me. During the 2008 crash, I heard of a lot of people seeing their home value plummet, end up underwater on their mortgage, and decide to just abandon it. I've never understood why someone would do that, rather than ride it out and keep paying while the value recovers? I could MAYBE understand going "Nope, I'm out" if you had an adjustable-rate mortgag…

Factor in the fact as the years go by you will see coworkers and neighbors buy houses for way less than you paid.

In my area those that bought the top in 07 are now just back to break even. Think about that for 15+ years everyone around them is making equity while they just dig out of the hole.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#108

Post by HarryHirsch »

rayiner wrote: post #27
Denvercoder9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're a tenant that's renting, you get no such legal protections In the USA. Many countries in Europe have renters protection similar to that of mortgage holders.

Depends on where you are in the U.S. Some places have extreme renter protections. Tenants can refuse to pay rent for months before you can even start an eviction proceeding. Then it takes months more. E.g. New York. https://www.reddit.com/r/Landlord/comments/15nn6o0/landlordu... . Landlords may forgo six months of back rent just to get the tenant out of the unit.

Meanwhile in Alabama the only recourse you have against a landowner who rents you something not habitable is to move out. American law generally is very bad at compelling a party to uphold a contract.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#109

Post by hunter-gatherer »

dmd wrote: post #105
mcphage wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lemon is a bad thing that happens to you, but this seems like it was a good thing for you? Probably referencing "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade", not like a car is a lemon.

Yes, thus my question. In that phrase, a "lemon" is a bad thing that is happening to you, which you turn somehow into something good (lemonade).

Lol. Maybe I've misunderstood this idiom my entire life. I've always taken the lemon to be a sort of neutral player since it isn't always trivial to make something better out of a neutral (ie to see the opportunity) and is even less trivial to make a positive spin on a negative thing.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die (2011)

#110

Post by dartos »

hunter-gatherer wrote: post #109
dmd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, thus my question. In that phrase, a "lemon" is a bad thing that is happening to you, which you turn somehow into something good (lemonade).

Lol. Maybe I've misunderstood this idiom my entire life. I've always taken the lemon to be a sort of neutral player since it isn't always trivial to make something better out of a neutral (ie to see the opportunity) and is even less trivial to make a positive spin on a negative thing.

Lemons are sour and bad.

But you can use them to make lemonade, a sweet treat.

I never liked the saying bc I like lemons by themselves too.

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