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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)

#41
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. When I lived in an apparent, got a very angry knock at the door. Before I even got up, manager already was unlocking the door without asking, with a formal eviction notice in hand. Every month I faithfully put my rent check in an envelope, deposited the slot at the office. That month they accidentally threw away the check after opening the envelope. They really didn’t believe I had paid, despite being a good…

No amount of laws can protect renters from a stupid landlord :) I could certainly see places where using a master key without authorization is a stupid move.

Some landlords have a HUGE superiority complex which makes them look down upon or even despise their tenants for no reason at all.

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

#42

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…

Variations of this concept exists many places.

It's not bad.

But does lead to people unable to move. Because they don't earn enough from the sale to buy a new house. And buyers can't get a property nobody is selling (so you risk corruption too).

Could also cause a bit of market distortion. Probably not a huge problem.

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

#43

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…

Or, you know, just actually build enough houses for people to live in. I feel like that would be a better start than suing people into bankruptcy because they made 5% off a house sale instead of of 4.5%. Houses are only an attractive investment vehicle in the first place because there is a massive shortage of housing.

YIMBY. Preach.

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

#44
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of laws can protect renters from a stupid landlord :) I could certainly see places where using a master key without authorization is a stupid move.

Some landlords have a HUGE superiority complex which makes them look down upon or even despise their tenants for no reason at all.

Logically thinking: if you are a landlord, most of your interactions with tenants aren't with easy tenants who pay on time and don't make unreasonable demands.

A stupid landlord might not realize that easy tenants are worth gathering.

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

#45

During this same time period I had a project at a part-time gig which involved updating document templates and adding a few fields here and there for a legal application. The application was used by a law firm which specialized in mortgages. So I saw the details of various documents one is served in these situations: notice of default, acceleration notices, notice to vacate, and ultimately evictions and foreclosure a…

> For a guy like the one in the post to show up, 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. I find it interesting that in all of these discussions it's treated as known that the person at hand is ignoring the notices and just pretending they aren't in danger of losing their home, just like in issues of evictions for r…

I'm aware that many of these people couldn't pay, mostly for lamentable reasons outside of their control, but pretending nothing is wrong usually doesn't help a bad situation. Ignoring letters from the IRS doesn't make you not owe them taxes. Ignoring letters from your lender or their lawyer doesn't make you owe less money. You still owe the money and it costs you interest and time that you could use to negotiate a settlement or forbearance. Perhaps if you make your situation bad enough, it's easier to file for bankruptcy and start over, but I doubt that people are thinking that far.

In any case, it's a big stretch to call eviction "state violence". When they're even involved, the sheriff is mostly helping to enforce a private contract between the homeowner and their lender. The only conceivable alternative to this situation that still allows lending or private property to exist at all is for the police to not exist and everyone enforces their own contracts with their own violence.

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

#47
post #22

[flagged]

After Uvalde, that Texan braggadocio looks sillier than ever.

It's exceptionally rare for me to watch sports, but when I do (usually just because it's on a TV at a restaurant), I always root against Texas if they're playing, no matter who they're playing against, just because I think people from Texas need to be taken down a couple notches.

Texas has the best BBQ in the country, I'll give them that, but everything else about their state pride is just weird to me. Especially their ridiculously stupid power grid that I don't understand why the voters haven't done something about.

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

#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 mortgage. The buyer must not be related to the seller and the seller does receive a few thousand dollars of the sale proceeds. On the flipside, the amount of the mortgage that is not paid off is considered income and the seller must pay taxes on that.

2. We ended up not buying any of the short sale homes in the community where we were looking, but instead purchased a home that was a traditional sale.

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

#49

I've seen a few sides of money. Raised upper class, lost it all and became underclass, then made it back. I'm always amazed at how limited rich people's worldview is. The average software developer, coastal liberal etc. They've never felt terror, the visceral feeling of being terrified. They've never been predated upon. They've never been used and discarded. The underclass lives with this stuff every day, 24/7, and r…

One sad element of society is the expectation that a poor person has a duty to rise above poverty and if they don’t it’s their personal moral failing. The middle class have no such obligation to jump to a higher tax bracket.

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

#50
My parents build a big ass house in the middle of nowhere around the year 2000

It was a nice place! rooms for the kids, a pool, etc.

Then 2008 hit. WOW. We went from a prosperous family to NOTHING incredibly fast.

This asset was so toxic the bank wouldn't even fucking take it. It was an albatross for YEARS and my parents had to liquidate their 100 year old family business, and all other assets before they could wiggle out from under it in 2014.

For little podunk rust belt towns, there was no "recovery." The car parts plant was gone. The tire plant was gone. The steel casting plant was gone. EVERYTHING went to Mexico. Why buy a nice place if there is no job to support it?

That house now sits empty out on a lot next to a closed down golf course. So it goes

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