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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)

#121

Post by throwaway2037 »

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…

Are there any highly industrialised economies in the world where real estate agents get only 1% fee? I find it hard to believe. That would mean a 500K USD home would result in an agent fee of only 5,000 USD. Even if they sell one per month (unlikely), their revenues would only be 60K per year. It seems impossible, as expenses (company car and small office) would eat up a lot of that revenue.

Also: Take a look at housing in France (outside Paris), Germany (outside Berlin), and Italy (outside Milan). It hardly changes faster than inflation. How do they do it? Low population growth, combined with careful community planning (new housing starts, etc.)

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

#122

Post by jaggederest »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #118
howard941 wrote: post #6

I worked the other side of this thing, as a debtors' bankruptcy attorney. Sometimes I could save the house but usually it wasn't in the cards: The income wasn't there and the bankruptcy laws were skewed by GWB. Fortunately there were many times when - if a house wasn't an issue - the debtor was much better off without an albatross around his neck. Overall it was a rewarding occupation - not monetarily, the rules kept…

Thank you to share your first hand experience. > bankruptcy laws were skewed by GWB Can you explain this more, including "GWB"?

GWB is George W. Bush, president from 2000 to 2008.

Relevant wiki article about the act he signed that changed bankruptcy laws:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_an...

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

#123

Post by csours »

I helped a co-worker evict a guy who had been missing and short rent payments on and off for over a year. Less than a year later the evictee passed away living rough on the street and unsheltered.

His wife had divorced him a while earlier, and by the time he was evicted the carpet was filled with dog poop and pee, some partially cleaned up, some not.

The guy was an accountant. One would assume that a professional like that would be able to get access to help; would be able to figure out what's going on and change course.

I don't know or remember enough of his story to really make a point. It sucks that he died. It sucks that I'm part of a chain of events that accelerated that. It sucks that people get drawn into things like gambling and drugs. It sucks that people are unhoused in a country with access to a surplus of resources.

By the time someone gets to intensive care in a hospital, a nurse can 'save their life' 5 times in a night, just for them to die the next day. This guy could have lived more years, but it's really hard to know what those years would have been.

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

#124

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

nullindividual wrote: post #115
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you probably would have had to completely ignore probably a dozen of these documents for at least 6 months, not paying your mortgage all along. Fun-fact: thems the benefits of being a mortgage holder. If you're a tenant that's renting, you get no such legal protections - let alone discretion from whichever faceless entity actually owns the property: where I am in King County WA, I think, at most you can get 30 days…

Depends on where you live in King County and on the property. In Seattle, certain property owners must inform the City 90 days prior to sale (“Intent to Sell” city ordinance). These laws are hyperlocal and making a sweeping statement about the County, State, or the US will ultimately be providing incorrect information.

Yes, you are correct; though I got my info from the King County website; there wasn’t any indication it varies.

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

#126

Post by firesteelrain »

dhosek wrote: post #48

When my ex-wife and I were first house shopping in Chicago, we looked at a handful of short sales¹ and I am still haunted by the site of one defeated homeowner sitting on the sofa of his home as we looked around his home deciding if we wanted to buy it.² ⸻ 1. For those who don’t know, a short sale is one step up from foreclosure: The homeowner and lender agree to a sale for less than the outstanding balance on the mo…

During the mortgage crisis, taxes were waived.

Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 allowed for the exclusion of taxes on forgiven mortgage debt. Many people used that law in conjunction with HAFA or HAMP. Myself in particular conducted a short sale during this time and did not pay taxes on the difference.

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

#128

Post by ToucanLoucan »

naming_the_user wrote: post #95
frmersdog wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredibly heartless take, and also one not aligned with the nuances lurking beneath the surface of what "most people accept" (banality of evil and all that). The rent you "agreed" to pay may have been set or raised under circumstances ranging from ethically-fraught to soon-to-be-illegal-but-not-yet-litigated. Your income stream, likewise, might have been disrupted by someone else's malfeasance. Neither th…

Who’s talking about rent here? The article is about mortgages. When you buy a house you know what you’re getting into. Sorry, I don’t subscribe to the pessimistic “landlords bad, capitalism bad” viewpoint of the world, not that this has anything to do with that anyway.

> Who’s talking about rent here? The article is about mortgages.

I brought up rent. While the long term consequences of paying rent and mortgages are quite different (equity, credit, assets, etc.) ultimately both are equal in that you are exchanging a pre-arranged amount of money on a schedule for a place to live.

Both are also equal in that failure to maintain such a schedule results in houselessness, one notably faster than the other.

> When you buy a house you know what you’re getting into.

A dubious assumption. Tons of people caught up in the 2008 housing crash were sold loans they couldn’t afford by financial professionals who knew damn well they could not afford it. Notably none of those families were made whole, and the banks who facilitated the crash were, because they effectively were wearing economic C4 vests and standing in the center of Wall Street, ready to blow the entire thing to bits.

> Sorry, I don’t subscribe to the pessimistic “landlords bad, capitalism bad” viewpoint of the world, not that this has anything to do with that anyway.

Yet you brought it up.

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

#129

Post by ToucanLoucan »

hirvi74 wrote: post #86
naming_the_user wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a bit less dramatic than that really - most people accept that the world we live in has both rights and responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is that by paying for the loans you take out, in exchange you get to keep the things that you've bought using them, permanently once you've paid it off. I might, one day, be unable to pay my mortgage. That's a risk I'm taking. People tend to get super emo…

> One of those responsibilities is that by paying for the loans you take out Sure, if one is a commoner. If one is a large bank, then the American taxpayers can be forced to foot the bill for the government-funded bailout. Take an out student loan? One is on the hook until the loan is paid or severely disabled/dead. Take out a PPP loan? Ah Hell, just keep it. No worries.

I wonder how many people who had a PPP loan forgiven complain about student loan forgiveness. I’d be willing to bet it’s nearly all.

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

#130

Post by dhosek »

firesteelrain wrote: post #126
dhosek wrote: post #48

When my ex-wife and I were first house shopping in Chicago, we looked at a handful of short sales¹ and I am still haunted by the site of one defeated homeowner sitting on the sofa of his home as we looked around his home deciding if we wanted to buy it.² ⸻ 1. For those who don’t know, a short sale is one step up from foreclosure: The homeowner and lender agree to a sale for less than the outstanding balance on the mo…

During the mortgage crisis, taxes were waived. Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 allowed for the exclusion of taxes on forgiven mortgage debt. Many people used that law in conjunction with HAFA or HAMP. Myself in particular conducted a short sale during this time and did not pay taxes on the difference.

I went through a short sale in 1996 and as it turned out, the taxes that I ended up owing were identical to how much I was behind on my mortgage. One of the things that I had been told over and over back then was that I didn’t want to declare bankruptcy, but in retrospect, it turns out that declaring bankruptcy would have been exactly what I wanted to do.

I remember thinking during the mortgage crisis when folks were often underwater by $100K or more that the taxes would end up killing them on short sales. I wasn’t paying enough attention to know about the 2007 debt relief act since I was a renter at that point.

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