Ahhhh, back in Sac, the little town that hasn’t. Did you know Sacramento ranks #5 in the country in foreclosures? Yeah, we’re pretty proud of that. I get to come back home to news stories like the one about the people who are vandalizing the homes they can’t afford anymore (that they couldn’t afford in the first place, actually, and now if they can’t have it, no one can.)
Wishful thinkers disguised as talking heads tell us that we’re close to the bottom and things should get better next year. It’s amazing how the media coupled with mob mentality can be so effective in creating mass delusion. People have a short memory, and believe what they want to believe.
I’m not bitter or anything, but a few years ago flippant flippers swooped in, raped and pillaged, and scrambled out, all the while proclaiming that home prices were going to climb forever. “…and you can just get this interest-only loan with a zero down payment….” What could possibly go wrong?
And now housing market optimism hype spreads like teenage STDs.
But the fact is that there are still plenty of 3 or 5 year adjustable-rate loans that have yet to reset in 2008 and 2009, not to mention all those “liar loans” dotting the financial landscape. (For those of you who haven’t fallen asleep yet, liar loans are no-doc loans or stated income loans where the borrower is simply asked to state their income, and taken at their word.)
Foreclosed homes remain vacant, and many are vandalized, creating neighborhood hazards described with words like blight, disease, and poverty. These conditions take years to recover, if they ever do. What part of all that allows the market to “turn around” by next year?
I thought blight and disease were reserved for trees. Granted, houses are made out of trees and Sacramento is the City of Trees. We should we change our motto to: Sacramento - The City of Blight and Disease (which rhymes with trees, by the way).
Kinda makes you want to bust out your AAA Travel Guide book and arrange a trip to the capitol of California right away, doesn’t it? Yeah, and if you’re interested we’ve got a McMansion or two or twelve for sale, dirt cheap. Come on down.
… IN OTHER NEWS …
Nanny Goats would like to step off the soap box for a second to give mad props to Onedia In The Ozarks. This beautiful blog, run by the Super D Duper Miss Onedia, has been generous enough to not only link to Nanny Goats, but to also throw it into the “Laugh Out Loud” category. Thanks, Onedia!
Hey, y’all-I’m the treasurer of that there FRNA. And Steph-she used to be the Veep. We know blight when we sees it.
floridian - I found the story on Time.com you mentioned. The neighborhood association that they refer to (FRNA) was our neighborhood and I had joined the group, although we bailed out of the area shortly thereafter.
Ugh! We had a nextdoor neighbor who did that very thing you speak of… bought a house she had no business buying, rented out every room to an assortment of thugs, then when she was foreclosed on she vandalized the crap out of the house and left us with the eyesore. It took a year to sell the damned thing and now we finally have neighbors that we enjoy. I could strangle the people that do this. Grrrrrrr!
Well, I did that also in San Diego . Bought in 1988 then started to try to sell in 93 and finally sold in late 94 at a considerable loss. So, my little yellow house is just great as there is plenty left after the payment and we did it on a no down which has been so since that San Diego house.
Onedia - I envy you. We had a McMansion for a whole year, then took a whole year to sell it, taking it in the shorts. We bought high and sold low. We’d be a lot better off financially if we’d done the zero down payment thing, and walked away like some people we know, but instead we lost the huge down payment we did put in. So, you know, I’m not upset about it or anything. But right now, my grapes are sour and I’m vowing to never buy another house as long as I live. We’ll see how long that attitude lasts though.
Big piece on Elk Grove in Time magazine, 100 Most Influential People issue. Not news to you, maybe.
Nanny, Just putting in your place. Enjoy this post and agree so much. When I worked in property management there would be people who had credit scores that were okay at best buying homes because after all they could pay the same amount for the mortgage as rent. They didn’t want to hear about maintenance, insurance, utilities, etc.
I also remember how hard I worked to keep my Oregon McMansion and was too tired and stressed to enjoy. But for once I was on the right end of selling if not buying.
boy, you sure got up cranky.