Real Estate Crash thread

[meatdrink9]

Here's a pretty disturbing video that reveals yet another way we the people are being fucked in a myriad of ways.

[cramer]

I guess the banks releasing them a little more methodically is good news. Either way, FML...Score one for benny.

Tens of thousands of homes in the East Bay are in foreclosure or are owned by banks. Some sit empty; a few are boarded up.

Beyond the squatters and overgrown yards blighting neighborhoods, the glut of bank-owned homes means years of decline in the property taxes on which cities, schools and the state of California depend.

So local governments that already have sent out layoff notices by the hundreds may be forced to make more cuts.

For those losing their homes to foreclosure, the end of the line comes when banks reclaim the house keys.

For governments, that is just the beginning.

Foreclosed houses do not obtain lower property tax assessments until banks sell them. So tax revenue will keep falling until banks sell all the houses they end up with, creating a long-term lower tax base.

In the East Bay, banks own more than 10,000 homes, only a fraction of which are listed for sale. Another 20,000 are in foreclosure, headed toward bank ownership, according to data from RealtyTrac.com.

About one in 20 houses in Contra Costa County is either in the foreclosure process or is bank-owned, according to the data.

"There is no question government services at all levels are going to suffer because of this," said Contra Costa County Assessor Gus Kramer. "It's just one of the trappings of the economy we're in."

The number of bank-owned homes is a double-edged sword. For the moment,


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banks are still paying the higher taxes associated with the original values. So for the moment, local and state governments still receive the higher allocations.

"(Banks) are not dumping all these properties on the market at once," Kramer said. "If they spoon-feed them out, it just spreads out the pain a little bit longer."

The pain is tangible. Already, Concord's city government has lost a quarter of its workforce. Antioch lost a quarter of its entire budget. Hayward passed a tax to dodge layoffs.

Those are among the cities that could be hardest hit by continued property tax declines. By population, the largest numbers of foreclosed and bank-owned homes are in east and west Contra Costa County, followed by Concord and Martinez.

Recently, as Concord City Manager Dan Keen showed the City Council a map of the bank-owned and foreclosed homes there, he said the continuing tax decline would spell trouble for years to come.

"That prolongs the agony" of cuts, Keen said, stretching out his words for emphasis.

In Alameda County, where the housing bubble was less extreme, only Emeryville and Hayward have similar numbers of foreclosed and bank-owned homes per capita.

"Alameda County real estate has not come down like (Contra Costa County's) has because they're so much closer to the job centers," Kramer said.

But most cities will be affected to some extent; even more upscale cities are starting to see more foreclosures.

"In the last year we've noticed that in the central (Contra Costa) county high-end housing there have been significant losses," Kramer said.

Property taxes are allocated to cities, counties, special districts like fire and water agencies, schools and the state government.

"The loss is really going to be spread throughout," said Alameda County Assessor Ron Thomsen. "Public education is going to get hit very hard because they get the majority of the property tax dollar."

But the effect on school districts will be less direct than on cities and counties. Rather than depending solely on property values, school funding is set by complex formulas combining a mix of local property taxes and other state government money.

California's state budget forecasts do not explicitly consider the issue of bank-owned properties because it did not come up in the state's annual survey of county assessors, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the California Department of Finance.

But the state will be hurt by any local drops in property taxes.

The state expects property taxes to keep dropping — by 4.1 percent in 2009-2010 and another 3.1 percent in 2010-2011. Those updated forecasts are bigger than the 2.9 percent and 2.2 percent declines the governor's budget for next year initially expected, according to an e-mail from Palmer.

The root of the problem is the drop in property values.

In April, Bay Area homebuyers paid an average of $370,000 — just over half the region's peak of $665,000 in the summer of 2007, according to MDA Dataquick.

In some areas, particularly in East Contra Costa County, the drop has been more precipitous; many homes are listed for sale at less than a third of the price they sold at a few years ago.

A new wave of foreclosures may be on the horizon, Thomsen said, as interest rates jump upward on another set of adjustable rate mortgages.

"We're going to have the same situation that we had a year ago," he said.

That will affect the rest of the housing market and local economy.

"It's going to take quite some time to recover," Thomsen said.

[cramer]

lovely...

Next door, nearly knee-high grass leads to a boarded-up window.

No one lives in this house owned by Deutsche Bank. On the other side, Williams' neighbor is another bank.

Houses on Montgomery Avenue used to sell for $600,000; now, they might fetch $200,000.

"I think half the houses on this block are empty," Williams said. "It's like living in a ghost town."

Squatters have lived in some; one that caught fire in October remains boarded up.

In the East Bay, banks own more than 10,000 houses, and more than 20,000 are in the foreclosure process, according to RealtyTrac.com.

Cities in east and west Contra Costa County have the most bank-owned and foreclosed homes per capita, followed by Concord and Martinez. In Alameda County, Hayward and Emeryville have similarly high per-capita numbers.

Not all bank-owned houses are vacant; previous owners, who are now tenants, and new renters occupy some.

In addition, houses can end up vacant for other reasons. Bonnie Glennon, a Realtor with J. Rockcliff, said she had clients who made a short sale offer on a Dublin house in October. It was accepted this month; the house sat vacant for seven months.

Some of the empty houses attract trouble.

Squatters and gang members have taken over many of the vacant properties in Richmond, said Tim Higares, a code enforcement manager. Workers sent in to clean the houses find them stripped of copper wire and toilets,


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littered with condoms and needles, and stained with feces and urine.

Higares said Richmond tries to clean and board up empty houses, but the sheer volume overwhelms the city.

"Every time we think we gain a little headway in this crisis, a new challenge presents itself," he said. "Really, what we're doing is putting a Band-Aid on a bigger issue. "... The banks aren't stepping up to the plate and selling these properties and stabilizing the communities."

Many times the properties are a mess before banks even take ownership, leaving the banks to do the heavy lifting of cleanup, said Chuck Burks of the Southwest Servicing Group, a company that rehabilitates bank-owned properties for banks.

"I think they really are doing the best they can," Burks said. "The previous owners just didn't care any more, and so they leave (their houses) in pretty bad shape."

It has taken banks some time to adjust to the explosion in the number of properties they own, he said.

"I don't think the banks are in the business of being property managers," he said. "They're bankers."

Squatters can be quite creative in finding ways to stay in abandoned houses, Burks said.

Richmond neighbors say an empty Craftsman-style house in the 1700 block of Roosevelt Avenue had become a haven for the homeless. Police rousted the squatters half a dozen times over seven months, said Camille Shortridge, who lives around the corner on 17th Street.

"As soon as the police would leave, it wouldn't be an hour before they'd be back," she said. "They go around the neighborhood from house to house. They basically homestead it and take it over."

Earlier this month, city workers hauled out truckloads of furniture and personal belongings, Shortridge said. But despite the padlocks and neatly painted plywood covering the doors and windows, people still are trying to get in, she said.

Shortridge also blames the banks.

"I feel the way the banks are leaving them it's creating an eyesore, which draws the people in. I think the banks should be fined if they aren't keeping it up," she said.

In Concord, many of the houses where Williams lives on Montgomery Avenue have neatly manicured lawns; one has a sale-pending sign.

Five houses on the block are owned by banks; three more are in foreclosure. Some obviously are empty. One stands out with its collapsed roof and unpainted plywood covering the garage and front doors. Weeds grow around the trash in the front yard.

It burned in October after its residents left; the firefighters' report said it appeared that squatters had been there. A paper taped to the smoke-stained window warns against unauthorized entry.

In 2005, that house sold for $570,000. It is up for auction June 1.

In another house down the street, squatters lived for about seven months before getting kicked out, neighbor Emil Ramirez said. Ten or 15 people stayed there, he said. "It's been pretty bad around here," said Ramirez, who lives one vacant house away from Williams. "Really bad."

In Antioch, police have been called to vacant houses for teens partying, squatters, Craigslist scams and burglaries, police Sgt. Diane Aguinaga said. At one house, squatters actually activated PG&E service, she added.

Cities do what they can, with inspectors, fines, liens, and their own maintenance workers.

Richmond fines banks $1,000 per day for unkempt properties. Hayward adds the cost of inspections and repairs to the properties' tax bills. Concord finds and bills the banks or owners.

Last year, Hayward sent an inspector to each of its approximately 1,800 homes in foreclosure, said Stacey Sorensen, the city's neighborhood partnership manager. About 300 of them had code violations, which consisted mostly of overgrown weeds. Sometimes it was broken windows, or graffiti, or trash.

The city locks up houses and replaces broken glass, Sorensen said, and quick action almost always keeps squatters out.

Concord deals with violations at about 10 vacant houses per month — usually just weeds, said Margaret Hernandez, the city's neighborhood services manager. About five houses a year are a more serious mess, often reflecting departing residents' anger, she said.

"They push all their junk and debris (into the yard) and leave it there," she said.

These extra demands on cities come as city budgets are shrinking. As banks gradually sell these houses, local governments' property tax revenue will continue to drop, because the tax assessments do not fall from their bubble-inflated price until the bank sells the house. So, cities and school districts may have to make more cuts in the coming years.

Sometimes, however, banks make improvements on their own.

On Montgomery Avenue in Concord, the house where squatters lived for months has been cleaned up. The driveway has been replaced with decorative pavers. The lawn is lush and neatly trimmed.

Neighbors can thank the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.

[liv2ski]

Cramer, was that a current piece? Listening to NPR this morning they said CA was up in value over the last 12 months with San Diego up 12% from last year at this time. I am assuming that means homes in the same neighborhood are selling for 12% more than they did last year and not that the average county sales price has increased 12% (as I suspect). Looking at my neighborhood of high end values, I can tell you asking prices are at least 20% lower than they were a year ago. There are homes here, that have been on the market 2+ years that started at $2.9M and are down to $2.2M asking price and still haven't sold. I have noticed a lot more closed escrows in the last 3 months than the previous year, as sellers are finally letting the $2.4M place sell for 1.8M after a year on the market. So ya, in SD County, high end stuff is still coming down, maybe the low end has stabilized/improved though.

Edit: Meatdrink, I am certain that is just the tip of the iceberg of all the sweetheart deals the banksters have made over the last 2 years. Luckily for them, the general population is lulled into senselessness with Dancing with the Stars, Lost, American Idol, etc, so the chance of anything every threatening the way the game is played is 0. I just find it all so amazing. But maybe this is the way it has always been, will be.

[grrrr]

News today reporting Bellingham values down 7.5% from a year ago.

[meatdrink9]

Edit: Meatdrink, I am certain that is just the tip of the iceberg of all the sweetheart deals the banksters have made over the last 2 years. Luckily for them, the general population is lulled into senselessness with Dancing with the Stars, Lost, American Idol, etc, so the chance of anything every threatening the way the game is played is 0. I just find it all so amazing. But maybe this is the way it has always been, will be.

It's just crazy the shit that goes on. Banks basically get to invent money and charge interest on that fake money. They make commissions when they lend it to you, they make money when they sell your loan down the line, but that's not enough. The odds are beyond stacked in their favor. Then they have these sweet deals in the background where the fuckings continue.

If you had no soul you'd track down every underwater property held by OneWest bank and offer them pennies (lord knows they'll take it as they make money from the gov anyway) and then flip it for a nice profit. I'm sure there are people at One West (or buddies) buying their own houses for nothing, getting paid buy the gov for the loss, and then selling them for a profit. It's too obvious.

I'm to a point where I'd like to see capital punishment for white collar crime. Drag these fucks into the street and hang them from the gallows. If you rob the country or investors of untold millions of dollars you should be offed. This shit is just common place now. Seriously, what is the total lifetime sum of money earned by the average US employee? 1-2 million? These people work 40 hours a week for the majority of their lives. If you steal that amount or more it's like you've stolen an entire life's work (sometimes from hundreds of people).

Until something drastic happens to curb this stuff we'll (and our kids) continue to get stuck with the bill while those with too much, unfairly take more. I've got nothing wrong with the wealthy and those who have worked hard and earned it fairly, but this crap is over the top.

Craziness.

[skier666]

^^^^^^

I hear ya'...pisses me off as well, but so does the fact about the people stripping the house because they bought a house they should have never bought in the first place.

Rents are slowly increasing in the apartment rental business here in the land of Apple Computer....not by much, but a wee bit.

April housing numbers...heh...wait until the May numbers roll in. That $8k housing credit is gone so I'm expecting a flat summer buying season.

All in all, I still love Real Estate as an investment. Its tangible, unique, but you also have to do the research, and buy in areas that people 'actually want to live in.' Location, location, location has never meant more than today.

[365wp]

If you had no soul you'd track down every underwater property held by OneWest bank and offer them pennies (lord knows they'll take it as they make money from the gov anyway) and then flip it for a nice profit. I'm sure there are people at One West (or buddies) buying their own houses for nothing, getting paid buy the gov for the loss, and then selling them for a profit. It's too obvious.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/business/04penny.html

Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s former president, and his team have been buying up delinquent home mortgages that the government took over from other failed banks, sometimes for pennies on the dollar. They get a piece of what they can collect.

“It has been very successful — very strong,” John Lawrence, the company’s head of loan servicing, told Mr. Kurland one recent morning in a glass-walled boardroom here at PennyMac’s spacious headquarters, opened last year in the same Los Angeles suburb where Countrywide once flourished.

Mr. Kurland has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from big players like BlackRock, the investment manager, to finance his start-up. Having sold off close to $200 million in stock before leaving Countrywide, he has also put up some of his own cash.

[4matic]

News today reporting Bellingham values down 7.5% from a year ago.

The Northwest was late to the bubble and lagging the decline. They are just catching up.

[LeeLau]

I'm to a point where I'd like to see capital punishment for white collar crime. Drag these fucks into the street and hang them from the gallows. If you rob the country or investors of untold millions of dollars you should be offed. This shit is just common place now. Seriously, what is the total lifetime sum of money earned by the average US employee? 1-2 million? These people work 40 hours a week for the majority of their lives. If you steal that amount or more it's like you've stolen an entire life's work (sometimes from hundreds of people).

Until something drastic happens to curb this stuff we'll (and our kids) continue to get stuck with the bill while those with too much, unfairly take more. I've got nothing wrong with the wealthy and those who have worked hard and earned it fairly, but this crap is over the top.

Craziness.

I'm with you (so is skier66 evidently). The frustrating thing is:

1) Banks are basically doing what you just described ie using the Fed money basically offered free to only them.

2) So few people understand what is happening that the outrage you feel won't be shared. Try explaining what's happening to friends/acquaintances etc. Most people's eyes glaze over after a minute or two.

and it (the systemic abuse I mean) is getting worse, not better.

Side note - there is a historic parallel to this in the recent past. The S &L crisis - where most of the abuse didn't happen when the original S&Ls went into conservatorship. Most of the abuse happened when the Feds offered a bailout and sharp operators took advantage of the bailouts to line pockets. What is different here is the sheer scale.

[meatdrink9]

^^^^^^

I hear ya'...pisses me off as well, but so does the fact about the people stripping the house because they bought a house they should have never bought in the first place.

Rents are slowly increasing in the apartment rental business here in the land of Apple Computer....not by much, but a wee bit.

April housing numbers...heh...wait until the May numbers roll in. That $8k housing credit is gone so I'm expecting a flat summer buying season.

All in all, I still love Real Estate as an investment. Its tangible, unique, but you also have to do the research, and buy in areas that people 'actually want to live in.' Location, location, location has never meant more than today.

I agree on all counts. People who trash properties or stay after they've quit paying are thieves too, but on a lesser scale.

I too love Real Estate as an investment. Despite this total meltdown all of my investments are going strong. I'd have another 6 places up and running by now if everybody had been behaving responsibly.

I'm looking to buy a new primary residence right now. I'll post pics once I close and again once I'm down remodeling. I'll grab an old mansion (roughly 5,000 sq ft.), pimp it out, and be into it somewhere between 200-300K when all is said and done. I've actually lost two bids recently, but a couple of other properties of interest have come up. The places are cool. Old railroad tycoon mansions with crazy woodwork, but in need of updating.

[cramer]

Cramer, was that a current piece? Listening to NPR this morning they said CA was up in value over the last 12 months with San Diego up 12% from last year at this time. I am assuming that means homes in the same neighborhood are selling for 12% more than they did last year and not that the average county sales price has increased 12% (as I suspect).

ya, bottom of the barrell, the 250K and below, there has not been much action either way. My house was down about 10K in 2009 (per zillow). I am now 5K above (per zillow) this year. So there has been a 15K swing in the last 8 months or so. I can tell you in my direct market for comparables, not a whole lot going on. Only thing out there is short sales now.

What scared me about that arcticle is the amount of foreclosures the banks are holding. From reading that though, it looks like they will methodically put those on the market this time and not just flood the market. Which is good news for us who own houses. I would imagine alot of those are higher end. People who tried to weather the storm but finally just said fuck it as they saw their 800-1mil house drop to 500K in value.

I would think those figures are for the county. So i think the higher end sales are driving that figure up. The houses selling in my neighborhood that are comparables are selling for exactly what i paid in dec of 08. Hopefully good news to me is they just built 28 brand new houses, extending my neighborhood. These were lots already with foundations poured before the original builder foreclosed. They just had the area fenced off. If they are building, that tells me that the supply of foreclosures has dried up here and its time to build. Brand new houses my size are selling for 299K. I paid 223K but mine was built 5 years ago.

[Benny Profane]

Cramer, was that a current piece? Listening to NPR this morning they said CA was up in value over the last 12 months with San Diego up 12% from last year at this time. I am assuming that means homes in the same neighborhood are selling for 12% more than they did last year and not that the average county sales price has increased 12% (as I suspect). Looking at my neighborhood of high end values, I can tell you asking prices are at least 20% lower than they were a year ago. There are homes here, that have been on the market 2+ years that started at $2.9M and are down to $2.2M asking price and still haven't sold. I have noticed a lot more closed escrows in the last 3 months than the previous year, as sellers are finally letting the $2.4M place sell for 1.8M after a year on the market. So ya, in SD County, high end stuff is still coming down, maybe the low end has stabilized/improved though.

You answered yourself in a way with that paragraph. Beware of the math in the next few years, specifically, the word "median". You may hear about the "median" sales price actually rising in many areas of the country, especially high priced neighborhoods, as foreclosures and walk aways increase, and say, huh? But, think of what's happening. The carnage has been concentrated in the low end up to maybe six months ago, and now the million dollar MacMansion market is cracking, and, with all of those expensive homes, even at maybe half price, flooding the market, it actually brings the "median" price up. Probably even the average in places like my neighborhood.

[skier666]

Cramer - I really wouldn't use Zillow as a reliable source. To give you an example, its showing a 'zestimate' for my condo in SF that we purchased on 11/19/09...at...wait for it....25% higher than we paid. There is no way in hell it would sell for more than we paid 6 months later.

I would just look a recent sales figures for comps. I haven't seen much of anything going over list in my research....if so, the property was on and off the market for many years and at the lowest listing, it got a few bidders in a war.

[cramer]

Cramer - I really wouldn't use Zillow as a reliable source. To give you an example, its showing a 'zestimate' for my condo in SF that we purchased on 11/19/09...at...wait for it....25% higher than we paid. There is no way in hell it would sell for more than we paid 6 months later.

I would just look a recent sales figures for comps. I haven't seen much of anything going over list in my research....if so, the property was on and off the market for many years and at the lowest listing, it got a few bidders in a war.

ya i know. I talked about comps later on in my post. They are going for exactly what i paid. So nothing has really changed in my area in the last 1.5 years. Which isnt suprising, everyone i know and their mother bought a foreclosure. Also there was a good 50 in the neighborhood next to me. They are all sold now. So it makes sense prices have been stabalized for awhile here.

[Benny Profane]

And the Aussies think it can't happen here because this time it's different.



Insanity Down Under: ING Says Thanks to Capital Appreciation, Paying Principal on Mortgage Loans is Unnecessary


Myths that home prices rise forever and interest rates stay low forever are alive and well in Australia. Please consider this amazing story of corporate insanity as described in the Sunday Telegraph - Revealed: The home loan that could save you a fortune.

ING Direct, Australia's fifth largest lender, is preparing to sell loans that have no fixed term and no requirement to repay any capital along the way.

At current rates, the interest-only loans would cut repayments on a $300,000 mortgage by $5000 a year.

"People are needlessly being denied the chance to buy a property while prices spiral rapidly out of their reach" ING Direct CEO Don Koch said. "There is an urgent need to provide more affordable options and borrowers should be able to choose whether they want to repay the capital, or not."

Mr Koch wants to position the bank as a "mortgage partner for life", with borrowers carrying the same interest-only loan from property to property for as long as they wish, accumulating equity from rising house prices as they go.

Then, as they near retirement, they could sell their property for a big enough profit to pay off the original loan and buy a smaller place outright, leaving them mortgage-free. Or, they could keep the mortgage going and repay the original capital from their estate, after death.

Banks already offer interest-only loans, but borrowers often are allowed to keep them only for five to 10 years. Then they must start paying the capital.

But ING says this preoccupation with paying off the loan is unnecessary.

"There is no economic reason for banks to insist on regular capital repayment," Mr Koch said. "It just makes the loan more expensive for the borrower.

Financial comparison website InfoChoice CEO Shaun Cornelius said the move was a welcome innovation: "Depending on the size of the loan, it could add hundreds of thousands of dollars to a borrower's cash flow over their lifetime."
Economic Idiocy

Koch's proposal, seconded by CEO Shaun Cornelius of InfoChoice, is economic idiocy at its finest. No one "saves" anything by not paying down mortgages, the money is simply spent (most likely wasted) elsewhere. Moreover, home prices do not perpetually go up.

The US housing market has without a doubt proven both statements.

Ask any homeowner in the US who is headed for retirement and severely underwater on their home what they think of Koch's hypothesis.

With so many underwater mortgages, only a complete fool think estates would be in a position to repay the original capital from their estate, after death, especially in countries where the bubble has not yet popped, such as Australia, Canada, and China.

Of all the proposals to keep the housing bubble alive in Australia, especially in light of what has happened in the US, this idea from ING needs to go straight to the top of the idiotic ideas list.

ING Direct CEO Don Koch is testament to the idea "there is always the greater idiot who never learns a thing from history, who instead proposes to do something that the market has recently proven preposterous."

Simple Questions

By the way Mr. Koch, I have a few simple questions for you:

Are you aware of what interest rates were in the 1970's and 1980's?

"What happens when interest rates rise, perhaps even double, and your borrowers struggle to make even the interest payments?"

Alternatively, "Are you dumb enough to offer low rates forever?"

Either way. Mr. Koch, you and your banks are screwed, and it should not take a genius to figure that out.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

[liv2ski]

All in all, I still love Real Estate as an investment. Its tangible, unique, but you also have to do the research, and buy in areas that people 'actually want to live in.' Location, location, location has never meant more than today.

When the world was a normal "Leave it to Beaver" type place I was with you. I sold some Real Estate after the tech bubble, thinking the World was going to go down, ala Argentina and I wanted the cash for the scary days ahead. It never turned out that way for the USA, as Greenspan dropped rates, loosened up all the lending rules and we were off to the races with the great R.E. boom of 2002-2007.
Now, with all the craziness going on world wide, I am really fucking concerned the world is in for a massive hit of defaults and then deflation of rents/values, ala Argentina. I would really love to sell all the remaining real estate we have and split from the country, but my wife thinks I worry to much. I am really praying to baby jebus she is right, as I don't want to tell her, "I told you so".
I don't know where to put money to work right now, but if I had a choice, I would limit my investment into R.E. to 20% of my net worth at this time.

[GeezerSteve]

A new term in commercial RE circles: Extend and Pretend. As loans secured by commercial property become due, owners are unable to obtain financing because rental income is way short of their original pro formas and won't support ample financing. The secured lenders want to keep the loan on the books at full value and abhor REO's. Thus, the banks extend and pretend that the market will recover to bubble values. IMV, extend and pretend is fraud on the bank's shareholders. The fed bank examiners are afraid to come down on it because it would result in massive foreclosures and Chapter 11's, flood the market and pull down prices way the hell down.

[liv2ski]

A new term in commercial RE circles: Extend and Pretend. The fed bank examiners are afraid to come down on it because it would result in massive foreclosures and Chapter 11's, flood the market and pull down prices way the hell down.

Big Steve, I thought I read awhile back that the accounting rules had been changed for banks in 2009 and they were allowed to carry off balance sheet assets (Ya, right) ala extend and pretend to improve their balance sheets. And yes, you are correct, it is fraud in my opinion, condoned by the Treasury, the Plunge Protection Team.

[GeezerSteve]

Big Steve, I thought I read awhile back that the accounting rules had been changed for banks in 2009. . . .

There have been several episodes of fiddling with mark to market accounting for RE lenders, some that made things better, some worse. Further proposed tweaks in the news

[Kevo]

It's hard to look at the current system in place and not come to the conclusion that my generation (24 years old) missed the boat.

Huge unemployment for recent grads. I had a hell of a time finding a job, and now am finally in a position where I have a salary (albeit at 25% less pay than where it would have been several years ago) and health insurance, but fuck...I know so many people that can't find ANY job. They are FUCKED with student loan dept that they can't pay back.

It seems to me that the powers at be will continue to put the baby boomer generation through the ringer until there is no more money to be made from their debt.

But what about the entire generation of recent (and soon to be) recent grads, whose careers will never really launch like we they expected. People graduating now won't have a solid first job on their resume. Their debt will pile up. I'm not sure if some of these people will ever recover to a comparable level to people who graduated just a few years before.

I'm not sure I want to inherit this bullshit mess that the fucking baby boomers are leaving for us. Often times, I'd rather just bail on the US and let it rot.

[GeezerSteve]

It's hard to look at the current system in place and not come to the conclusion that my generation (24 years old) missed the boat.

I had the same thoughts when I graduated from college in 1975, the days of stagflation, no jobs in my field, and the generation ahead of me with all the power and money.

Before you go blaming all the boomers, take note that most of the wealth in the nation is controlled by a few thousand families. Wall Street and multinational corps have sucked trillions of wealth out of Main Street and working people. Fighting two unnecessary wars while giving tax breaks to the rich contributed to a huge deficeit. Sure, there's been a shift in wealth and power, but it's more a matter of class than it is generational. There's millions of boomers out there with no jobs and dead dreams, and there's plenty of trust fund babies your age who will never need to worry about money.

[Hugh Conway]

Often times, I'd rather just bail on the US and let it rot.

everyone else in the first world is fucked too. well, maybe not the Swiss, but they don't want any dirty poor people

[mock vomit]

...I'm not sure I want to inherit this bullshit mess that the fucking baby boomers are leaving for us. Often times, I'd rather just bail on the US and let it rot.

Effective immediately... I hereby officially shift all the blame to "The Greatest Generation".

[meatdrink9]

Kevo, opportunity is always out there. I felt the same way you did when I graduated college. Every ad agency I worked in always talked about the "glory days" of the past. Countless people in the agency became millionaires off Iomega stock and other tech stocks (and sold at the right time). A year after I joined the work force the tech world crumbles, 9-11, etc... Hard to be optimistic at that point. Work hard, work smart, look for opportunities around you. Save your money so you can let it employ you some day. When you do walk from the work force know the business you're choosing to get into. I don't think the American Dream has ever been a freebie (maybe for those that inherit it). There will be plenty of years of hard work and sacrifice to get things rolling, but once they're rolling they're hard to stop.