Kossacks, I am outraged. Again.
Due to the course of the events of my life, I am fortunately not in serious immediate danger of losing my home to foreclosure. So my anger is not for me, it is for the many who are in the situation I came close to.
I've talked before about my views on foreclosure. This week, it's coming to a head. Follow me over the fold for the bile.
Sunday morning, in the Mouse household, we do three things: drink at least one pot of coffee, listen to MPR, and read the papers (MPLS Star Tribune, and the hometown rag).
Today's article in the venerable STrib: Auctioneer's gavel signals one dream lost, one found.
Low prices and interest rates became an opportunity for buyers at a sale of foreclosed homes.
Banks are willing to take a loss on foreclosed properties. From the comments:
It originally listed at $199K. Went to $169K. Didn't sell. It went to auction and I purchased it for $39K.
You think the bank would have let the original buyers keep the house for $39k? Does anyone believe that the bank would have negotiated that rate for the occupants?
Heide Lidstrom-Olson and her husband, Tarryl Olson, of Eagan, didn't allow the sizzle of the auction to distract them. They were there on business. Veterans of similar auctions, they bought three houses in St. Paul that they plan to turn into rental homes. They had bought five residential properties at earlier auctions.
On Saturday, they paid $57,500 for a house that once had sold for $310,000.
Tell me how this is helping anyone. Tell me that this is in any way, shape, or form a moral action. Foreclosure is forcing people out of their homes and clearing the way for speculators. For investors. Look, I don't know or care if the people who were forced out of the above property could afford it or not. I'd be willing to bet they might have afforded $57,500, though. It's just pure-dee wrong.
The only spot of good news in this story:
About 40 to 50 protesters, organized by the Minnesota Coalition for a People's Bailout, gathered outside the convention hall Saturday to call for a moratorium on foreclosures.
Here in Minnesota, at least one story on the local news detailed a community that got foreclosure relief money. They're using it to tear down some foreclosed homes, homes that are now uninhabitable.
Yeah, that's relief. That saved some people from disaster. Kick 'em out, tear 'em down, and sell the land to another developer. Great.
I was talking to my best friend, out in Sacramento, a man I've considered family for more than 25 years. "What's going on with the tent city out there?" I could hear him shrug. "They're moving it to Cal Expo."
Yeah, that's a solution to the problem. Move the homeless to the fairgrounds and arrest them if they disrupt the Boat Show.
People, please. I beg you. Don't buy a foreclosed property. Don't advise anyone to buy a foreclosed property. In a normal market, foreclosure is a part of the deal, a way to allow the lender to be able to recoup their investment if the homebuyer defaults. In a normal economy, in a normal market, that's part of the price of admission.
But this is not a normal market. This is not a normal economy. This is the beginnings of the New Hard Times. The system was stacked to churn out high profits, and to reward those who bet on failure. In essence, the country was sold short.
Don't let them profit from others' heartbreaks. Don't let one person realize the American Dream by becoming a landlord on the backs of two or five or ten families who lost their dream. If you want to be a landlord, buy a new house that's sitting empty because no one bought it.
Don't profit from others' misfortunes. Please.
On the other front: I'm still not working, but I'm OK with that for now. My buddy who I was meeting with every week for MUSS (Mutual Unemployment Support Society) got a part-time job as a projectionist -- great gig, really. I'm just waiting for it to warm up here. I'm far enough above the river to not have any worries on that score (I'm a couple hundred miles from the terrible events on the Red River Of The North). I have been flooded out in the past, so I empathize with the people of Fargo/Moorhead and hope everything turns out well for them. I hope they managed to protect their homes. Even when it doesn't get defined as flooded, too much water will destroy your house. Flood insurance only pays if water covers the floorboards on the first floor, you know. Three feet of water in the basement does not count, and will make a house unlivable -- can you say destroyed furnace and water heater, and mold, mold, mold.