patrick.net

appropriated? What do you mean buddy?

If the relationship sours it can be taken back for free, pretty much.

Oh, but it might just be a big hole. I guess it would be a deeper port than before, that would be good, but we couldn't use it for 50 years.

DP,

Now real winners in that situation. Somehow having to share a house w/ 3 other families isn't my idea of "affordability"?

The neighbors? Sheesh, guess that means your folks won't be stopping by the old neighborhood this Memorial Day!

Unless your folks moved to 'Washington's Mexico' (Oregon) it's doubtful they're very happy either.

I don't know WHAT the answer is here. When I was kid (in Cicero, IL) any bank mgr. that loaned to black families (however qualified) would have been ousted in short order. Other families (Polish and Italian) would have simply taken their money out of the bank in protest! Clearly that was not right, but I believe that people DO have the right to know that a SFH sold in their neighborhood is a SINGLE FAMILY HOME! Is that so much to ask?

Now real winners in that situation. Somehow having to share a house w/ 3 other families isn’t my idea of “affordability”?

It is if your previous home was living in a tent.

By the way, is that [the picture] one of Betty's friends?

Bap33

it’s directly caused by this nanny state the libs created. without all of the tax payer funded goodies that are enjoyed by anyone that staggers over the border, the invasion would have never happened.

The blame goes to both sides, yours is not at all without sin. Sorry. Who, exactly, do you think has been enticing them to come here in the first place? It wasn't that the states created social assistance programs *before* they came; that was a reaction to them already being here and growing in numbers.

No, someone was paying them. Didn't god-fearing Wal-mart get in a bit of a row over something like that a while ago?

But thanks for highlighting for everyone the reason this problem will *never* get solved until every single last partisan culture-wars extremist on the left *and* right loses their sway in this country. Until then, enjoy the Randi Rhodes and Anne Coulter show and authentic tacos.

"a SFH sold in their neighborhood is a SINGLE FAMILY HOME!" Yep, it's a race to the bottom. The argument that illegal aliens should have the right to live the American Dream is bogus. Many of them want the right to live as 3rd world as they did back home, chickens and all. And what is stopping them?

Ben Franklin,

(Wish I saw more of you)

Yeah, the terror/mort. fraud link was VERY interesting. Again, why run the risk of blowing the doors off a bank vault when it's so much easier to "rob your own home"? When we've made it just that easy to get a mortgage should this type of abusive behavior surprise any of us?

SFWoman said:
Ah well, Sonoma is in deep doo, and the Press Democrat had the skyrocketing foreclosures and decreasing prices as its lead story on Sunday. I expect the city to follow.

Let us know if any property near by comes up for sale cheap. Maybe we can start a patrick.net commune. Or just park one of these on your lot and tend your chickens as "ag workers". On second thought, I'm not sure I'd want to sign the paperwork your husband would draw up...
I'm going to side with Randy and think that Betty's story may be a bit too neat, although it is clear (from reports by people like SQT and FAB) that stuff like this does happen.

CHAIRMAN: You're not just tellin' us what we wannahear?
HI: No Sir, no way.
SECOND MAN: 'Cause we just wanna hear the truth.
HI: Well then I guess I am tellin' you what you wanna hear.
CHAIRMAN: Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?
HI: Yessir.
CHAIRMAN: Okay then.
(H.I. before the parole board in Raising Arizona)

LSR,

Like Randy I suspect I'll be in a position to have my mother live with us shortly. Then again, I've known her all my life. I don't think anyone would have any objections there.

It's when people that are totally unrelated all dog pile into a SFH more based on where they work and simply for economics and convenience that bugs me.

It’s when people that are totally unrelated all dog pile into a SFH more based on where they work and simply for economics and convenience that bugs me.

So long as they do not affect their neighbors I do not care how many families live there.

Indeed DinOR. Some of those 'families' are quite large. "Flop This House" is the reality show of the future.

On second thought, maybe flop houses are the way to finally bust this bubble? :)

Malcolm Says:

Thank God someone else is noticing it is not just Mexicans that are illegal. Those filthy Irish have been causing problems here for 200 years.

Why, that'd be just askin for a wee kiss from my shillelagh!

Patrick

I had to move out of Mira Mesa because of that nonsense. One small 2 or 3 bedroom house would have like 6 crappy cars, and of course no garage to put any of them in because it was either illegally converted, or it was crammed full of crap.

Actually I quite like the Irish, I'm just sick of the racism associated with illegal immigration. No one seems to complain about the Irish illegals (and there are many) but it's easy to pick on the brown people.

Malcolm

Me too.

There are probably nearly as many illegal former au pair 24 year old girls running around SF and Marin as there are illegal Mexicans. But who's gonna get upset about nubile French and Swedish white girls?

(In fact, there's a whole underground network of "expired J visa" au pairs around here, many of whom you'll see targeted in CL ads for "nannies" which only fit foreign au pairs, of course none of which can be here longer than 24 months on a sponsored visa, so they'd never answer such ads, right?)

Randy, technically, being illegal present is not the same as having entered without inspection, although those with expired visas may face serious immigration consequences.

Again, I am not a lawyer.

Randy, technically, being illegally present is not the same as having entered without inspection, although those with expired visas may face serious immigration consequences.

Again, I am not a lawyer.

Sweden is a much nicer place for the Swedes.

California is special.

Betty is right about them buying SS#'s. I have spoken to some illegals and they told me all about it. They don't have to though, they don't need a SS#, they could just get a TIN (tax id number) from the IRS that doesn't even require a background check. Read this article from 2003.

The illegal aliens buying houses is nothing new, it has been going on for many years. They just were lending more to illegals every time the market started slowing down. The illegals are actually more credit worthy than the legals with the low fico scores because the illegals are willing to rent out all the rooms (even create more) and live like what we call pigs. This is why banks love to lend to illegals and the gov seems to like them too; there are stories all over the net about this.

The worst credit risks in the US are concentrated in Appalachia, which last I checked had a fairly low concentration of illegal immigrants.

If you include defaults on farm and agriculture related real property loan defaults, then the Midwest and Plains are worse credit risks than the border states.

But white midwestern farmers don't fit the reactionary world view of societal free loaders. Witness what is set to soon become the largest government subsidy program (of funds directly distributed to individuals) in modern world history: corn-based-ethanol.

Allah says:
"The illegals are actually more credit worthy than the legals with the low fico scores because the illegals are willing to rent out all the rooms (even create more) and live like what we call pigs. This is why banks love to lend to illegals and the gov seems to like them too; there are stories all over the net about this."

So, banks are abandoning the FICO Score system, and basing their decision to lend money to illegal immigrants, on their own appraisals of character, and previous illegal, or at least questionable activity? Please point to one of these stories.

I can see having people "shoe-horned" into a SFH for short periods of time and this was done in "the old neighborhood" as well. The difference was we didn't actively seek a warm body with a paycheck to fill a bed/couch/spot on the floor during the off shift.

The Enrons and Worldcoms did not cause the internet bubble. They tried to illegally exploit the pre-existing bubble. Same here. The illegals are trying to game the system that was already broken.

But it still pisses me, and this is not the first time I am hearing such stories. I had a hard time getting my permanent residency like many others - in spite of (or maybe because of) following the law to the letter and to the spirit. I take pride in my being a good citizen and raising my kids to be so. As an immigrant I feel I have a lot of responsibility to prove myself.

Then I hear such stories and I feel like a dumb, dogmatic, impractical person stuck in some old value sets. I am too old to change, but maybe I shouldn't preach these values too much to my kids.

Malcolm says:
"...I’m just sick of the racism associated with illegal immigration. No one seems to complain about the Irish illegals (and there are many) but it’s easy to pick on the brown people. "

Agreed. But it may be in part, a product of where the focus is. Our southern border has been portrayed as an open back door, and even a battle zone, in recent MSM reports. And all the pictures we are shown, usually depict dark skinned, poor, Hispanic people, being arrested, detained or running through the desert.
The association is a strong one.
But I would point out that being Mexican is more a nationality than an ethnicity.

@DinOR
Now real winners in that situation. Somehow having to share a house w/ 3 other families isn’t my idea of “affordability”?

I don;t think they know any better. It's the norm to them...

The neighbors? Sheesh, guess that means your folks won’t be stopping by the old neighborhood this Memorial Day!

They stop by every so often to see old friends. It't definitely not the same neighborhood.

Unless your folks moved to ‘Washington’s Mexico’ (Oregon) it’s doubtful they’re very happy either.

Actually, we told them to sell it. The neighborhood got so bad that we felt they were safer someplace else. Got the highest amount possible for the place because it was at the peak of the bubble. They are retired and living in a nice place in Hawaii. They had a second home there. Of course, they are not close to their kids and grandkids but we see them often.

What’s important in your life is you yourself. How other people fare shouldn’t matter, as long as they don’t directly harm you. In theory, of course.

Exactly.

The worst credit risks in the US are concentrated in Appalachia, which last I checked had a fairly low concentration of illegal immigrants.

But white midwestern farmers don’t fit the reactionary world view of societal free loaders. Witness what is set to soon become the largest government subsidy program (of funds directly distributed to individuals) in modern world history: corn-based-ethanol.

I am no fan of corn-based ethanol (which arguably consumes more energy than it "produces", so is actually more of an energy sink, not a viable energy source).

But... to address Randy's main point here: the fact that lots of bad loans are being made to poor, white Midwesterns, or that white midwestern farmers are receiving more government subsidies than they should does *not* excuse lenders for knowingly providing mortgages to illegals here. And --more importantly-- it does not excuse our so-called "leaders" from not enforcing the law and doing something about it.

As HelloKitty pointed out, if we're just going to selectively and arbitrarily enforce laws, based on whatever the banksters/CEOs decide they want the law to be *today*, then why should anybody care what the law says? When a large % of the population can regularly break the law and suffer no ill consequences (or even be rewarded for breaking it) what happens to our hallowed "rule of law"?

The most foolish thing you can do in a society where the law means nothing is to follow the law.

So, banks are abandoning the FICO Score system, and basing their decision to lend money to illegal immigrants, on their own appraisals of character, and previous illegal, or at least questionable activity? Please point to one of these stories.

How about this one?

What’s important in your life is you yourself. How other people fare shouldn’t matter, as long as they don’t directly harm you. In theory, of course.

Exactly.

Not quite. There are externalities to consider, the consequences of which can be just as important or even more important than how something "affects me directly". We are not isolated individuals living autonomously in our own personal fiefdoms, with our actions having zero impact on other people. As the Depeche Mode song goes, "everything counts in large amounts", and harmful actions repeated on a large enough scale can have consequences that impacts everyone.

How many regular readers of this blog have been priced out of the housing market in the past several years --and probably will be for years to come, simply because the Fed, Congress and the GSEs decided to engineer a housing bubble? How many "individual" flippers or $0-down NINJAs loans does it take to triple house prices in your neighborhood?

I don't have to directly participate in or be victimized by fraud and identity theft for it to affect me personally.

A (perhaps handsome, perhaps not, just like Larry Page) google multi-multi-millionaire comes along and wants to take her away. She shows some interest. Would you let her go? You know if you truly love her you would release her from the chain and let her have a better life. Think about it.

Other than magick, you do not have many legal options to keep her from leaving you anyway.

C’mon. Be manly. Some men would fight to keep her, i.e., by going into startups themselves or by digging up dirt on that lucky guy.

Fight? How? It is a battle that cannot be won. Digging up dirt (short of pretexting) sounds good on paper but he can do the same to you.

Randy, I'm surprised. I didn't know about the au pairs but I do know that Russian girls especially will even fake a marriage. Again, who cares as long as they are hot.

I do know that Russian girls especially will even fake a marriage.

Many people fake marriages. IIRC marriage fraud is a felony.

I am not a lawyer.

Steveoh, BTW I dig the handle, I have to say that being Mexican is almost an ethnicity because other Latins look down on them as well. The most offensive thing you can say to a Puerto Rican or a Venezuelan is to mistake them for being Mexican. Another fun stat is that there are more Puerto Ricans in NY than Puerto Rico, and they milk the system too but it's a territory so no one minds.

Steveoh, BTW I dig the handle, I have to say that being Mexican is almost an ethnicity because other Latins look down on them as well. The most offensive thing you can say to a Puerto Rican or a Venezuelan is to mistake them for being Mexican. Another fun stat is that there are more Puerto Ricans in NY than Puerto Rico, and they milk the system too but it's a territory so no one minds.

Different class segments. No need to complain. Greencards aren’t all that precious. I hope that’s not something that you prize.

And I hope you understood that I was not talking about "prizing the green cards".

Are you angry that con artists made tons of money from the dot com bubble and RE bubble?

Yes. I am a very different person than you.

HARM

We agree that there should be a net *reduction* in the number of laws. We are approaching a level where
a) it is impossible to comply with all laws simultaneously as a practical matter
b) it is unwise to even try to do (a)

Laws have always been unevenly directed, however. That's why we have judges and juries. The law was never intended to be an automated, binary "black and white" thing, despite what people often scream in these types of arguments. There have always been degrees of guilt. In some areas there are even still degrees of guilt in capital crimes. And I'm a rare type who doesn't think that's always a bad thing, though it is a bad thing when it becomes a technical loophole mechanism. But "zero-tolerance" bullshit is just as bad. Zero-tolerance equates to a bad Stallone movie where his first name was "Judge".

Let's ignore the broader issues related to immigration, legal and illegal for the moment. Let's just deal with the part associated with bad loans, defaults, home prices, and real property:

In this case, which entities are most guilty of doing the worst societal damage. Who is causing people like you and I the worst pain? Whether a law happens to exist or not -- which itself is largely arbitrary in our system -- who put the biggest footprint on the back of the responsible American saver? In my assessment, illegals from the south are but a minor weight in this societal crime. Midwestern farmers using politics to steal from the public tax till and subsidize their ownership of millions of acres of land at our expense is a bit larger. And dwarfing both of those are the institutions that lend out this money knowing someone else, namely you and I, will foot the bill for the fallout while they keep the profits.

I know, there's no law against that. But I'm far less concerned in debates like this about what happens to be legal or illegal at this moment, and I'm more concerned about how things *should* be. We're talking ideals and abstractions, not specifics. Constraining these types of arguments to legal/illegal now would have also meant one couldn't have championed other changes we now see as right and just (at least most here do) like emancipation and suffrage.

My whole reason for getting irritated has nothing to do with whether loans are being made to illegals, and this is bad. Of course, and of course. That's a straw man. But as others have said, this is just part of the decay that has caused this whole bubble. This just gets people uppity because it touches nerves, not the least of which are racial. But the original author did this on purpose, in my not so humble opinion. I think this because I don't buy her whole accounting. She was just stirring shit up, which takes away important focus from fingering and punishing the true enabling offenders in this case.

It will be fighting about stuff like this that gives cover to our esteemed puny leaders as they bail out the corporations & banks, cover the elite, and sneak in some tax increases, all while claiming they're defending normal working folk.

Not quite. There are externalities to consider, the consequences of which can be just as important or even more important than how something “affects me directly”. We are not isolated individuals living autonomously in our own personal fiefdoms, with our actions having zero impact on other people.

I can say "Exactly" to that :-)