Florida: People Squatting in Multi Million Dollar Seaside Mansions
March 9th, 2008“Owner occupied defaults.” What a country!
Via: Big Picture:
“There is a very important phenomena that is occurring that has only been covered in an only “glancing” manner. Beyond the concept of “jingle mail” — which suggests that folks who can pay their mortgages may just choose to walk away given the dramatic loss of equity due to housing’s collapse — consider the following: As a developer, I had stepped to the sidelines and rented beginning in 2005, because I was sure that housing was unsustainable and was bound to collapse; it took 2 more years for it occur.
Nonetheless, as I have followed several of the homes that my wife and I were interested in a few years back, they are all on the market now. What is shocking, that in each and every case, I have been told by brokers and banks that the owners, have ceased paying their mortgages in some cases for nearly 2 years and have continued to occupy these homes. Now, these are homes in excess of $2,000,000 in the very best neighborhoods in South Florida. Brokers have added that these buyers further complicated things by putting huge home equity lines on top of their mortgages and now have no possibility of selling their homes for amounts needed to cover their accumulated debt.
This may not seem like news, but understand what this means: There is currently an 8-10 month wait to get a court date to have a foreclosure filing heard in Dade and Broward counties. The bankers have non-performing loans on their books to the best heeled borrowers in multi-million dollar amounts with no immediate means for recovery; with a non-secured second mortgage in place, there is no possibility for a “short sale” that will satisfy all of the borrower’s debt. They are reluctant to take a haircut knowing that they have the home equity debt still around their neck and are likely to frustrate any near-term sale.
There is no clean way to sell the home that would guarantee “clean title” hence a foreclosure is the only means to separate the property from the dead-beat speculator/squattor. Banks do not want to spend the $50,000 required to take a home through a foreclosure and clear the title — only to put the house back on the market for a deeper loss afterwards. Most likely, they have not revealed these owner occupied defaults to their shareholders, thanks to the sheer numbers of non-performing loans on their balance sheets, and the daunting task of foreclosing on all of them. This is the ultimate seizure and full stop of the market whereby everyone is standing in a stalemate. As one broker said to me, “these bums sitting in $3,000,000 homes overlooking the water are likely to be left alone by the banks for 2 years before the banks even get serious about foreclosure.”
So here is the difference between “walking away,” these folks are doing anything but walking away, they are sitting on lounge chairs sipping martinis living cost free! (not to mention that they have ceased paying property taxes and insurance). I can only imagine what this market will look like in the coming years . . .”
Research Credit: Scott
and on top of all that (or beneath, so to speak), Countrywide is now under formal FBI invastigation for securities fraud? to add insult to injury, that story is tangental now and of less import than this one. in any case, here’s the link to the New York Times FBI/Countrywide news:
Countrywide Said to Be Subject of Federal Criminal Inquiry
The government’s stupidity in South America also comes face to face with itself this week.
Then there’s the Iraq war. gee, if we hadn’t spent all our money there, we could help with this mortgage nonsense …that the government caused…
the forces of stupidity in general have never had such advocacy, such championing. despite all patent duplicity and failure it doggedly marches on. this is crazy, crazier than crazy. it’s historically phenomenal…
we, of all countries, have perfected the whole totalitarian shtick. it’s beyond totalitarianism, it’s the cause of Stupidity asserting itself as never before.
—the news taken as a whole is worth a major news article.–
kevin, what do you think? am i making sense here?
never have the realities and the propaganda clashed so hard, so baldly. who can write of it in a cogent and factual way?
this tipping point of mass absurdity is utterly across the board.
so let’s see, it’s looking more and more that I’m an idiot for taking out a reasonable mortgage fixed for 30 years on a house that i could afford. While I currently actually have equity in this house, for how long? If I had mortgaged to the hilt, bought more than i could afford with little down, I too could be living for free, off of the banks mistakes for a few years in an ocean front mcmansion. God I’m a dumb ass.
And yes zuma we’ve gone past the point of mass absudity, up is down, best of luck to us all in the next few years
Hey Kevin, looks like you are missing all the fun in So Cal:
“Southern California home sales dipped below 10,000 transactions for the first time in more than 20 years last month as most potential buyers and sellers appear to be waiting out market turbulence, a real estate information service reported.”
http://www.dqnews.com/RRSCA0208.shtm
And Zuma, to maintain sanity, you have to step back a few thousand years and see that war, money battles, and deception are more the norm than our little blip of peace for a while.
It is just more efficient now, and our cavemen brains are not adapted to this intense a flow of information.
Read Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
For cogent and factual, I also recommend this other amazing blog:
http://elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com/
If you have not, you MUST read Waiting for Clarity at the Brink of Oblivion. Kevin is a genius at getting you to focus on taking action to protect yourself instead of falling into a dreamland of thought. Don’t be a deer in the headlights.
Zuma and Scarletfire:
We really are “Through the Looking Glass” at this point, aren’t we? 2+2=5! War is Peace!