This story along with countless other "despair" stories are all horse shit IMO. Expectations in this country are WAY high. Every talentless, non educated fool thinks they DESERVE to live in 4 bedroom, 2 car garage, Mcmansion with a BMW in the driveway to boot. Fuck them.
I don't think it's just a problem of bad expectations Yes all these sob stories are BS But it's also a problem of the system We live in a system that conditions you that the only way to live life is through perputual debt The prime example is our government I may be debt free butbi still have a 500k bounty thanks to uncle Sam They teach you to borrow for your school, car, home No one teaches you the richest man in Babylon or money Mangement And the scams continue now with reverse mortages I say fuck the banks they provide little social benefit and wheneve their product line goes nuclear we have to eat he losses
We live in a system that conditions you that the only way to live life is through perputual debt ------------------------------------------------ Let's rephrase that. Living life with OPM. This country is obsessed with how much money the other guy has. We don't want to work like him, we just want what he has.
I got two I'll unload, but they are in a gated country club community in Boca Raton, and you may have to add a digit or so to the price (to the left of the decimal). But still ... a bargain. Great bagels nearby, too!
The article says, And then there is Ms. Chilson. She lost her house partly because of the boom (if not for easy credit, she might not have refinanced her mortgage a few years ago), the bust (which led to her husband being laid off from his pest control job) and overspending (which led to more than $20,000 in credit card debt). They really skim over why many of these people are in their bad situations. The poor lady and her husband took out alot of money on their refi. If the author of the article stated the facts of these peoples circumstances (how much money the took out of their homes), many readers would not be so sympathetic.
I'd like to know the properties to tell you what I really think about your assessment. I'm being serious. If you want, PM details to me. Total confidentiality between you and I, and that's something I have never broken my word on in my life - I've never broken my word, come to think of it, as I rarely give it out (it means something). The reason I'm pressing this is I have a 24 year old cousin who got into a BR deal I told him to stay away from two years ago, and now he tells me every time he speaks to me how badly he wished he had listened...
All the New York/New Jersey retirees and snowbirds are the reason why Florida's real estate prices got out of whack. There are also a ton of Brits in central Florida that certainly helped jack up the prices. Just look at the average household income in Florida. It will tell you everything you need to know. Even the white collar jobs don't pay shit. The only reason to live there is for the beach pussy.
If you want to play in real estate in Florida at this point, it needs to be prime and differentiated. Cookie cutter stuff has a ways to go. A poster above pointed out that the coastal stuff will have high maintenance and taxes, but I would comment that it is these same properties that have somewhat of a floor via the rental income they can attract.
This has been going on cyclically for at least 50 years. Banks, when money is loose, lend money to fools for hyped up assets; the banks know they aren't going to get the money back, and they accept that and plan to either someday take back the house (and do it all over again) or they lay off the risk in advance in the secondary market. The later is the preference. Either way, though, the originators get fees, payments, possibly the asset back at a much more reasonable price. Banks have been screwing people this way for ages. Trust me. I know a lot of them. They joke about this. It's the huge leverage blow-up among the people who bought these mortgages in the secondary market that is the new catastrophe (Bear, Lehman, ML, many large originators, too.) Basically, all these people buying the debt leveraged up 30-1 and blew up. They did a Neiderhoffer only using mortgage bonds and derivatives instead of stock index options. They blew up, all of the, Simple as that. If I did that, my account is wiped out. But as we all know, the game is rigged, bankers make the rules.