OS visited dear friends last week in western Ohio, and recommends the experience to all his readers. This part of the world is hands-down, take-yer-breath-away beautiful.
OS always enjoys his journeys to Cincinnati, once he survives the scary downhill approach from the bluffs of Kentucky down to the Ohio River bridge. It's a great city with an inspiring history of commerce, industry, education, fine arts, and as one of the linchpins of the 19th century's Underground Railroad, which ushered slaves to freedom.
The area north and west of Cincy are a mix of agriculture and industry, and the wealth that has been built there over the years is impressive. Two hundred years ago, it was the prairie, just being settled. OS drove some back roads, through one lovely little town after the other.
The downturn, however, truly truly has hit them hard. Always, there have been upturns and downturns, but OS's friends explained that this one has been different, and it will take a long time to come back, to recover from the closures and departures of industries. On the upside, there is a highly-trained workforce, plant already built, and city and state governments eager to welcome businesses in. OS didn't see any signs of real decay in the little towns he drove through--as in vandalized and boarded-up storefronts and the like. The folks there are a tough bunch, and kept the culture intact, even as the economy faltered. Think old-school-Lutherans, to get an idea of the vibe. Lots of civic pride, no despair.
Everybody knows everybody else in these little towns, back to three generations at least. Solid people.
But the pain is real. The state budget cuts are being announced. The Stimulus did not work, and there will not be a Stimulus 2 to helicopter more cash down to the local level. The money is not there. Period. The public employee unions still don't believe it, but that does not change the facts.
On the way home, OS stopped for gas just north of Dayton, and picked up a copy of the Dayton Daily News for March 11. Nine pages of foreclosure sales, and 72 listed for March 11 alone.
The sheriff's sale listing is here, for those who wish to view for themselves.
It's a loooooong list, dating just from late February.
A transition is underway, and this will be the gritty part for the next year or two.This part of the world will come back, having reinvented itself again.
It's Ohio, not a place for sissies. They've got the culture-economy sequence right.
Showing posts with label foreclosure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreclosure. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
10,000 GMAC Foreclosures Stopped Dead In Their Tracks--By A Group Of Law Students
HT Denninger.
If the fraud is so obvious that law students can convince a court of it, then all those sharks attempting to foreclose homes with robo-signature docs, and no proof of who owes what to whom are in some deep doo-doo. As is GMAC, which is a Ward of the State.
This makes for entertaining reading, and will make for interesting times once the implications play out. That's two states in one week, both of them Deep Blue, with the courts just saying no to perjured documents.
Remember when GMAC was melting down? It was an auto-finance company that decided it was a mortgage lender. Then when it needed money to stay alive, presto-chango, the Treasury and Da Fed decided it was a friggin' bank! Even has a front--Ally Bank--that runs goofy ads, pretending to be a bank. It's still GMAC, and it's still an insolvent scam. That we will end up eating the losses on.
One person (who appears to speak from the political Left) left a comment on the article is worth quoting, and he cuts straight to the ethical heart of the matter:
Instead of helping the distressed homeowners whose lives are being ruthlessly and systematically ripped apart by the criminal banks, the President had the unmitigated gall to accelerate and facilitate the unlawful forfeitures by the banks with his incredibly bogus HAMP program and then topped that disgraceful act by blaming the victimized homeowners for causing the crisis.
What kind of a man is Obama who would dare to use a nine-year-old dead girl as a stage prop to make a point about the need for civility in our dealings with others during a national speech, when he is assisting the criminal banks to steal millions of homes in the United States...?
What kind of a society are we when the only people fighting for justice are law professors and their students working for free?
At least, sir, we have them. And, there is a glimmer of hope out there, if these folks are willing to take on a GMAC.
Next time you donate and vote, sir, remember this day and these events.
Now, let's make certain Congress does not again cave, and come to the rescue of the criminals. The full court press will begin shortly.
If the fraud is so obvious that law students can convince a court of it, then all those sharks attempting to foreclose homes with robo-signature docs, and no proof of who owes what to whom are in some deep doo-doo. As is GMAC, which is a Ward of the State.
This makes for entertaining reading, and will make for interesting times once the implications play out. That's two states in one week, both of them Deep Blue, with the courts just saying no to perjured documents.
Remember when GMAC was melting down? It was an auto-finance company that decided it was a mortgage lender. Then when it needed money to stay alive, presto-chango, the Treasury and Da Fed decided it was a friggin' bank! Even has a front--Ally Bank--that runs goofy ads, pretending to be a bank. It's still GMAC, and it's still an insolvent scam. That we will end up eating the losses on.
One person (who appears to speak from the political Left) left a comment on the article is worth quoting, and he cuts straight to the ethical heart of the matter:
Instead of helping the distressed homeowners whose lives are being ruthlessly and systematically ripped apart by the criminal banks, the President had the unmitigated gall to accelerate and facilitate the unlawful forfeitures by the banks with his incredibly bogus HAMP program and then topped that disgraceful act by blaming the victimized homeowners for causing the crisis.
What kind of a man is Obama who would dare to use a nine-year-old dead girl as a stage prop to make a point about the need for civility in our dealings with others during a national speech, when he is assisting the criminal banks to steal millions of homes in the United States...?
What kind of a society are we when the only people fighting for justice are law professors and their students working for free?
At least, sir, we have them. And, there is a glimmer of hope out there, if these folks are willing to take on a GMAC.
Next time you donate and vote, sir, remember this day and these events.
Now, let's make certain Congress does not again cave, and come to the rescue of the criminals. The full court press will begin shortly.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
There Has To Be A Hell To Hold These Lawyers For Eternity
NPR reports one of the most abusive real-estate scams ever: Homeowners associations with non-judicial foreclosure language in their covenants, which allow the association to foreclose and sell 300k homes over a $300 delinquent monthly payment of HOA dues.
Capt. Mike Clauer was serving in Iraq last year as company commander of an Army National Guard unit assigned to escort convoys. It was exceedingly dangerous work — explosive devices buried in the road were a constant threat to the lives of Clauer and his men.
He was halfway through his deployment when he got a bolt from the blue — a frantic phone call from his wife, May, back in Texas.
"She was bawling on the phone and was telling me that the HOA [homeowners association] had foreclosed on our house, and it was sold," he says. "And I couldn't believe that could even happen."
Clauer had a hard time understanding what his wife was saying. His $300,000 house was already completely paid for. Could it be possible that their home was foreclosed on and sold because his wife had missed two payments of their HOA dues?
In many states it is not difficult for an HOA to foreclose on a member's home for past dues even if the amount owed is just a few hundred dollars.
"I was really in a hurry trying to get home before my family was living on the streets," Clauer says.
Sold For A Steal
But by the time he got back to Texas, it was too late. The Clauers' four-bedroom, 3,500-square-foot home had been sold on the courthouse steps for just $3,500 — enough to cover outstanding HOA dues and legal costs.
The new owner quickly sold it for $135,000 and netted a tidy profit.
Millions of dollars are being made on this particular scam. All the HOA management firms have to do is monitor, swoop in, and clean up. Assign the collections to a friendly law firm, use straw buyers to pick off properties, quickly auction them off, everybody walks away with their pockets lined. Sure as hell beats working for a living!
OS noted some deeply reduced prices for beachfront condos outside of Jacksonville. Lots of empty units laying around these days. If the covenants include this sort of nonsense, they need to stay empty. The developers (and their bankers and lawyers) can eat them until they starve.
It's about the culture. An economy based upon 'I-get-to-scam-you-cuz-I-can' will inevitably grind to a halt, and this may be what we are witnessing.
OS realized over the past few years that he had simply become inured to it, bit by bit, one scam after another, actually had unconsciously trained himself to look for the scams hidden in the sales pitches and legalese. Some were simply breathtakingly audacious.
More than once, he found he had stumbled into business situations that were fronts for laundering drug money; learning in retrospect that these respectable folks in their nice big houses, members of large local churches, were in fact up to their hips in it, and had not a moment's pause over it. All that mattered was the money, pure and simple. Lives were disposable, money was precious.
There has to be a hell. Pastor Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa, Archbishop Cranmer, Muggeridge, Lewis, Dickens and a whole unnamed host of saints cannot possibly be sharing eternity with the lawyers who drafted and enforced these covenants against this family.
Capt. Mike Clauer was serving in Iraq last year as company commander of an Army National Guard unit assigned to escort convoys. It was exceedingly dangerous work — explosive devices buried in the road were a constant threat to the lives of Clauer and his men.
He was halfway through his deployment when he got a bolt from the blue — a frantic phone call from his wife, May, back in Texas.
"She was bawling on the phone and was telling me that the HOA [homeowners association] had foreclosed on our house, and it was sold," he says. "And I couldn't believe that could even happen."
Clauer had a hard time understanding what his wife was saying. His $300,000 house was already completely paid for. Could it be possible that their home was foreclosed on and sold because his wife had missed two payments of their HOA dues?
In many states it is not difficult for an HOA to foreclose on a member's home for past dues even if the amount owed is just a few hundred dollars.
"I was really in a hurry trying to get home before my family was living on the streets," Clauer says.
Sold For A Steal
But by the time he got back to Texas, it was too late. The Clauers' four-bedroom, 3,500-square-foot home had been sold on the courthouse steps for just $3,500 — enough to cover outstanding HOA dues and legal costs.
The new owner quickly sold it for $135,000 and netted a tidy profit.
Millions of dollars are being made on this particular scam. All the HOA management firms have to do is monitor, swoop in, and clean up. Assign the collections to a friendly law firm, use straw buyers to pick off properties, quickly auction them off, everybody walks away with their pockets lined. Sure as hell beats working for a living!
OS noted some deeply reduced prices for beachfront condos outside of Jacksonville. Lots of empty units laying around these days. If the covenants include this sort of nonsense, they need to stay empty. The developers (and their bankers and lawyers) can eat them until they starve.
It's about the culture. An economy based upon 'I-get-to-scam-you-cuz-I-can' will inevitably grind to a halt, and this may be what we are witnessing.
OS realized over the past few years that he had simply become inured to it, bit by bit, one scam after another, actually had unconsciously trained himself to look for the scams hidden in the sales pitches and legalese. Some were simply breathtakingly audacious.
More than once, he found he had stumbled into business situations that were fronts for laundering drug money; learning in retrospect that these respectable folks in their nice big houses, members of large local churches, were in fact up to their hips in it, and had not a moment's pause over it. All that mattered was the money, pure and simple. Lives were disposable, money was precious.
There has to be a hell. Pastor Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa, Archbishop Cranmer, Muggeridge, Lewis, Dickens and a whole unnamed host of saints cannot possibly be sharing eternity with the lawyers who drafted and enforced these covenants against this family.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Bulldozing The House, And Leaving It To The Bank
HT to Calculated Risk.
Well, this guy didn't fly a plane into the bank and murder employees.
Still, it did take some chutzpah to take a bulldozer to one's own house before the bank seized it.
If the land was worth, say 50K, then this guy just blew a 300K hole into the local bank's balance sheet.
No 'extend and pretend', if the house no longer exists! And since it was bulldozed for the cameras, and the story is broadcast, no way to spin those facts away, either.
Undoubtedly, the bank may attempt to sue or prosecute over this, but do they really wish to be subject to discovery and have to try the cases in front of a small-town Ohio jury? What might come to light that would be of interest to the bank inspectors? Will they give twelve citizens the opportunity to draw their own knives on the bank, all completely legally? And endure the press coverage of the trial and subsequent jury nullification? And watch customers take their business down the street?
News travels fast in small towns!
Cheaper to hire a cleanup crew, and quietly haul the remains away, upon reflection.
The anger is building out there. Murder is not an option.
Creativity, however, can be highly effective.
Well, this guy didn't fly a plane into the bank and murder employees.
Still, it did take some chutzpah to take a bulldozer to one's own house before the bank seized it.
If the land was worth, say 50K, then this guy just blew a 300K hole into the local bank's balance sheet.
No 'extend and pretend', if the house no longer exists! And since it was bulldozed for the cameras, and the story is broadcast, no way to spin those facts away, either.
Undoubtedly, the bank may attempt to sue or prosecute over this, but do they really wish to be subject to discovery and have to try the cases in front of a small-town Ohio jury? What might come to light that would be of interest to the bank inspectors? Will they give twelve citizens the opportunity to draw their own knives on the bank, all completely legally? And endure the press coverage of the trial and subsequent jury nullification? And watch customers take their business down the street?
News travels fast in small towns!
Cheaper to hire a cleanup crew, and quietly haul the remains away, upon reflection.
The anger is building out there. Murder is not an option.
Creativity, however, can be highly effective.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
So, How Does The Real Estate Mess Play Locally?
This is a local example of the bigger problem.
You'll see the local bank's front page, quaint as it is, with a list of properties for sale. This has been a recent addition to the web site, by the way.
Look at listing #7, asking $108,000. I walk into the bank, and it's advertised in a circular on the table where customers fill out their deposit slips--zero money down, bank financing at 5%, 8K tax credit for first-time home buyers, the whole shooting match. No takers, the flyer has been there for many weeks, updated with the tax credit offer.
Visit the house, and you find it's a block off a busy highway, overlooking used car lots, the back side of the former Wal-Mart location, a tattoo parlor, surrounded by weedy lots, eroding at a healthy clip. A true Jim-the-Realtor moment.
This could never have been intended as an owner-occupant property. With mortgage, insurance and taxes totalling well over $750 a month, no one can rent it for a profit.
Something will have to give, (like about $50,000 off the asking price), and it will be a rental for some person of very modest income, or it will have to be torn down.
The list on the bank's site is growing.
And this is Tennessee, not California.
You'll see the local bank's front page, quaint as it is, with a list of properties for sale. This has been a recent addition to the web site, by the way.
Look at listing #7, asking $108,000. I walk into the bank, and it's advertised in a circular on the table where customers fill out their deposit slips--zero money down, bank financing at 5%, 8K tax credit for first-time home buyers, the whole shooting match. No takers, the flyer has been there for many weeks, updated with the tax credit offer.
Visit the house, and you find it's a block off a busy highway, overlooking used car lots, the back side of the former Wal-Mart location, a tattoo parlor, surrounded by weedy lots, eroding at a healthy clip. A true Jim-the-Realtor moment.
This could never have been intended as an owner-occupant property. With mortgage, insurance and taxes totalling well over $750 a month, no one can rent it for a profit.
Something will have to give, (like about $50,000 off the asking price), and it will be a rental for some person of very modest income, or it will have to be torn down.
The list on the bank's site is growing.
And this is Tennessee, not California.
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