This is a very interesting story. One of Hillary Clinton's Congressional superdelagates has had one house foreclosed, and is facing foreclosure on two more.
Housing woes mount for Rep. Laura Richardson
I don't want to see anyone in financial trouble, but I am having a hard time feeling much in the way of sympathy or empathy for her.
I'm in San Diego, and I'm a lawyer. In 2000, we had moved back here after some time away. I'd gotten ill, and I wanted to be near a doctor I really liked, after having spent a large amount of cash on treatment (due to having a pre-existing condition). It was the money I would have used for a down payment, so we had to rent.
It was very hard to find anything to rent around here in 2000. We got beat out a bunch of times, often by a few minutes. Just as I was becoming very depressed, we did find a place, an old 2 bedroom 1 bath Craftsman house built in 1925 on a lot with a nice yard and a granny cottage in the back. Our luck did seem to turn a little, because a couple of months later, our landlord came to us and offered to buy out our lease and move us to another house, because they were selling. We took the deal, and we're in the same place now, a house in a canyon that feels as if we're in the country, even though we're two miles away from Downtown.
We've scrimped and saved, and we thought about buying, but no matter how far we got, the market kept it out of reach for us. Houses in our neighborhood were on the market for two hours, and then sold for $20,000 above the listing price. Yes, we could have bought a condo, or a house in the boonies, but I equate Homeowners' Associations with small fascist dictatorships, and I felt that the price differential in housing 50 miles from here did not offset the cost in gas, auto upkeep, time and aggravation from spending 3 hours a day on Interstate 15.
Meanwhile, we were in regular social contact with others who felt otherwise. It seemed as if they were buying ans selling houses on a weekly basis, and they were frankly quite smug about it. I got very tired of being kidded about my ancient Aerostar by those who had used their equity to get that Z3 they wanted.
It went on for years, and the market became increasingly surreal. A house down the street (another 1920s 2BR/1BA on a corner lot with no driveway), sold for $825,000 in the summer of 2005. I figured there had to be an end to this madness, yet those people in the BMWs told me I was wrong; we had to get in the market or we would never have anything.
You know how things have gone since. That $825K house has changed hands at least 3 times since 2005, and has been in foreclosure twice. A bank owns it now. The banks own a lot of places in our neighborhood.
As it is now, I am doing relatively better. Not so for the BMW crowd. They don't seem so smug anymore. I've been trying to help some of them now, but it isn't very easy to do some kind of a workout when there is simply no way that a person's income can support his obligations.
Congresswoman Richardson's situation is uncannily familiar to me. There is nothing in the story that is particularly remarkable, except for her having been a state legislator and now a member of Congress. Look at those houses. How could anyone have thought they could be worth a half million dollars?
It just seems to me that there is a parallel between the supposed inevitabliity of housing appreciation and the inevitability of the Hillary Clinton presidency, and now the bubble has burst for both of them.
That's all I have to say. Enjoy your holiday, and please take some time to remember the sacrifice of the million brave people who gave their lives in military service to our country.