Exactly. Sounds like they were broke already 3 years ago... What fascinates me is how there are broke people of 2 ilks: 1) responsible ones who cut consumption until they recover, and 2) Ones in denial who just continue until one day the blow-up happens and the SHTF. Lot more of #2 nowadays it seems... Maybe thats just a function of population.
By using Google earth's street view, some of these houses are not bad at all; above average. Maybe these images are out dated, but these house sure have bigger yard.
I love you Pabst, but i'm in a real good neighborhood on the intracoastal. We had a spate of some 20 breakins, and about three weeks ago, I sat here with a loaded shotgun while the police blocked us in, and the chopper was overhead for at least an hour. The guys down the street are Ft. Lauderdale cops. We have some runners, young women in the neighborhood, and some black asshole was chasing them in the dark, went ahead, stripped, and was jerking off when they went by. I told them to not run in the dark, wait for sunup, and they got all pissed about their "rights". I tried to explain that , when you're chopped up, and thrown in the canal, your "rights" aren't worth spit. So we ran into the Ft. Lauderdale cop, I told him what had happened, he looked at the Dixie Chicks and said, "get a gun!. It's working it's way North, so get over it." That's the Florida I know.
We can't blame the subprime borrowers for blowing up. They're just doing what they've always done that made them subprime in the first place...not pay their bills. You know... when you trade for a player that strikes out a lot and he strikes out a lot on your team....who's to blame?
I think you'e grounded in reality, whereas Pabst's career in real estate sales interjects too much bias into his viewpoint. This is not a garden-variety real estate downturn, cyclical in nature. It's structural.
I'm in Boca in a gated community (when I'm not in Sydney); that's the Florida I know. Even in Boca, you want the gate.
Career in real estate sales? I've never worked a day in real estate. I began working as a runner at the CBOT as an 18 year old and have been trading full time since 1983.
A house at the end of my block just had a break in too. I can deal with an occasional burglary. In Chicago there's a handful of murders each year within a mile radius of my condo. Down here-I'm east of the ICW a block off the ocean-there's often not a single homicide in a given year on the barrier island stretching from Port Everglades through the end of Palm Beach. 40 miles of low crime albeit in a 3 block wide strip. Even armed robberies are rare. Unfortunately in Boca you guys border that stretch in Delray where da hood gets a little too east for comfort. There were only 88 homicides -that figure includes police shooting suspects etc so maybe under 80 "murders"- in Broward last year. For a county of 1.8 million that's pretty darn acceptable.....
Delray a few blocks east of I-95 off the exit at Atlantic is not a good place at night. It's kind of crazy....right off the highway it's like a scene from from a gangsta rap video...then a few blocks down more on Atlantic you have high end restaurants...bars...clubs...then the beach. Very odd...... You make it to GP yet ?