Scot, there is some extra visual in that pic, you usually post a cropped one, you been holding out on us?

 

Yes.

Lots of blame. Builders quailified people not worthy, so did the big morgage banks, especially Countrywide. Tons of pressure to approve loans just to sell sell sell. Banks held lots of crappy paper and were able to sell it to uniformed buyers when brokerage houses pushed it. Yada yada.

But in this case it was just the builder. It was a Pulte home, and a Pulte mortgage orginally. I was one of the last five houses in the development and, not to diparage my neighbors, but none of the four houses closest to me seem to be occupied by people who can afford them.

They tried to get me into the development across the county road which sold for an additional $200k, but the wife and I like to have a mortgage at less than our annual income. I walked in as a single guy at the time with 50% down because I cashed in on the top of the bubble. Apparently the exception to the rule.

Out of about 200 new houses in the development about 10 seem to be for sale or empty all together due to forecloseure. And I have been looking out the window at this third house all day and they appear to be clearing out. Was there some kind of law passed that gave a blanket extension to the beginning of July or something? I thought I had heard something like that was in the works. Seems funny that two people are clearing out within days of each other.

I feel bad for them. Tough to lose the homestead. Especially must be hard to tell your children you have to move.

 

You're blaming the builder for a systemic issue. The enablers of this mess (Greenspan & co all the way down to idiots buying twice as much house as they could afford) all played a part. Not saying the builder doesn't hold some blame, but they were just making a profit where profit was available. Huge reward, no risk to them.

 

[QUOTE=WestSideBilly,Jul 7 2008, 02:25 PM] You're blaming the builder for a systemic issue.