Maine Real Estate Sales in January - Not a pretty picture (Portland: foreclosure, insurance)

[McMar]

Don't get me started Shuffler. Those house flipping shows are so misleading it's ridiculous. Shows like this prompted people to buy, renovate (usually poorly), then watch their investment homes sit on the market for months or years, while they bled $5,000 a month mortgage payments until they finally sold the home at a loss.

I renovate homes, and people seem to think that I must make a lot of $$ because of what they see on TV. NOT realistic. I work long hours and make little money - less than any of my friends. But I do provide a quality home for someone and I don't have to sit in a cubicle every day. This makes me happy, and hopefully my little business can survive this market downturn. If not, then I suck it up, go back to an office job, and put every extra penny into my Moving to Maine fund.

[Shuffler]

Originally Posted by McMar

Don't get me started Shuffler. Those house flipping shows are so misleading it's ridiculous. Shows like this prompted people to buy, renovate (usually poorly), then watch their investment homes sit on the market for months or years, while they bled $5,000 a month mortgage payments until they finally sold the home at a loss.

I renovate homes, and people seem to think that I must make a lot of $$ because of what they see on TV. NOT realistic. I work long hours and make little money - less than any of my friends. But I do provide a quality home for someone and I don't have to sit in a cubicle every day. This makes me happy, and hopefully my little business can survive this market downturn. If not, then I suck it up, go back to an office job, and put every extra penny into my Moving to Maine fund.

I hear you. And hey, having skills in a valuable trade might be worth something if things keep falling apart (literally and figuratively) in America. I think you'll be gainfully employed for a LONG time.... Me, I sit in a cubicle most days...

[Maineah]

I don't feel sorry for the real estate brokers and bankers in all of this. When the boom started every bored yuppie housewife with time on her hands took a course and received their real estate license. Any one of them who actually used their license did pretty well, some did exceptionally well starting brokerages on their own and making tons of money. Now that the banks have tightened up and the number of homes being sold is lower there are a number of real estate agents feeling the pinch. Boo Hoo!Everyone was quick to ride the wave and now that it's subsided there are a good many standing around scratching their heads and wondering what happend! Competition from flat rate brokers is also taking the wind out of the big brokerage houses sails. Folks who are now selling for much less than they paid are reluctant to hand over a chunk of it the their broker. A flat rate of $2900 begins to look pretty good.

[7th generation]

Ultimately , it wasn't the brokers or lending institutions who forced buyers to purchase.
It's like going into a candy store with a handful of change when you were little. You'd grab as much candy as your hands could manage and mom would say, "Now little Johnnie, you don't have enough money to buy all that."
"But M..o..mmmm...," in a whiny voice.
"Now you put half that candy back," she'd reply.
Guess these folks who over extended should have brought their mothers.

[K-Luv]

Originally Posted by maine4.us

J-Luv: Bankers have always protected us from ourselves before. They got greedy, threw away all the rules, and now it is a mess. The people didn't care that they couldn't afford a home, if the bank thought they could afford it, they bought it. Little or nothing down and a 40 year mortgage.

Bankers never protected us from ourselves, they just made sure to always cover their own as* first. By that, I mean that even though the money is insured, they wouldn't dare lend it to anyone who didn't have the means to pay it back. In the last decade someone figured out away around the rules that would not hold the lenders responsible (and of course, they still got paid). Most people jumped at the chance to buy a home under this new lending practice mainly because they 'believe' that owning a home is the greatest thing that any American can acquire (by the way, until you pay off your mortgage-which could be in 15 or 20 years-the bank OWNS your home, not you), with all of the jazz about building equity and such. On a slightly smaller scale, but something that had a huge impact, is that I am sure that a majority of these first-time home buyers didn't realize that they would pay property tax along with their mortgage. Whoops. Did somebody forget to mention that? (You wouldn't believe how many people out there actually believe that property tax is included in the monthly mortgage, or that you don't start paying property tax until after you pay off the mortgage.) What ever the case, most of these home owners where duped into buying (as you pointed out by extending the mortgage to 40 years, and then doubling the payment after a couple of years), but then again, they were too ignorant about simple economics in the first place to know any better.

On a side note, I find it amazing that no one (to my knowledge) is holding the lenders accountable for this fiasco. Also, they amount of people who are walking away from their homes and mortgages, gladly risking a ruined credit report to get out of the hole that they dug themselves into, is pretty amazing---especially if they took out a loan over the value of the house and have somehow managed to make a 'profit' from the ordeal. Ugh.....

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by 7th generation

Ultimately , it wasn't the brokers or lending institutions who forced buyers to purchase.
It's like going into a candy store with a handful of change when you were little. You'd grab as much candy as your hands could manage and mom would say, "Now little Johnnie, you don't have enough money to buy all that."
"But M..o..mmmm...," in a whiny voice.
"Now you put half that candy back," she'd reply.
Guess these folks who over extended should have brought their mothers.

Well put, but if someone says you can have the best of the best and pay less for it than your poor struggling neighbor who has a fixed APR of 7% on his 30 year loan you might just take the gamble! Dont forget banks wanted to load up these loans and really pushed people into taking them whenever they could. In other words people were not just offered these deals they were sold them. The banks didn't care how many of these loans they made as they were selling off the loans to the big mortgage houses. Individual banks came out of this thing virtually unscathed. There is certainly enough irresponsibility in this mess to go around. In the end greed won out and the taxpayers will end up footing the bill.

[mainebrokerman]

Originally Posted by Maineah

Well put, but if someone says you can have the best of the best and pay less for it than your poor struggling neighbor who has a fixed APR of 7% on his 30 year loan you might just take the gamble! Dont forget banks wanted to load up these loans and really pushed people into taking them whenever they could. In other words people were not just offered these deals they were sold them. The banks didn't care how many of these loans they made as they were selling off the loans to the big mortgage houses. Individual banks came out of this thing virtually unscathed. There is certainly enough irresponsibility in this mess to go around. In the end greed won out and the taxpayers will end up footing the bill.

maineah,,a few years back, 3 rather large people tried to sue mcdonalds "for making them fat"

thank god the judge dismissed it,,because if they got the right jurors,,(like the o.j. jury) they would probly been given a huge settlement,,

did mcdonalds force these 3 people to come in and eat three big macs a day??
this was the most ridiculous thing ive ever seen

whatever happened to PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY?????


its not in anyones best interest if a house goes to forclosure,(cept maybe a buyer)
the banks can lose, the owners can go into bankruptcy


one thing we will see more and more of is the "short sale"

[K-Luv]

Originally Posted by 7th generation

Ultimately , it wasn't the brokers or lending institutions who forced buyers to purchase.
It's like going into a candy store with a handful of change when you were little. You'd grab as much candy as your hands could manage and mom would say, "Now little Johnnie, you don't have enough money to buy all that."
"But M..o..mmmm...," in a whiny voice.
"Now you put half that candy back," she'd reply.
Guess these folks who over extended should have brought their mothers.

But if the candy store told you that you had ten years to pay it off, then it would seem that it was doable. On paper, at least.

[msina]

One practice I noticed that I thought was wrong "Piggyback Credit" an example would be ,.. A young couple go to buy a house, they get their parents to put them on a credit card as an "Authorized User" ,.. this gives some a much better credit rating as the bank actually uses the parents credit rating to guide the mortgage. The kids get a bigger mortgage they really couldn't afford.

[Bydand]

But I never tried to buy $700,000+ worth of candy on credit. The problem is that a lot of those loans were NOT doable on paper. They depended on several factors that there was no remote guarantee were going to happen. If there isn't/wasn't a guarantee that somebody could be making the money that would be needed to cover the ARM when it reset, then it was irresponsible to enter into the financial agreement in the first place.