WatchAfter several years of encouragement by readers, I've decided to take their advice and write a short (100 page) self-published book based on my original rant at http://patrick.net/housing/crash1.html
Any suggestions for the title? I'm thinking of "The Housing Trap".
And what should the cost be? I'm thinking $14. Has to be somewhat high to make it worthwhile. Unless I can sell a zillion copies.
Speaking of selling, I'd be grateful for marketing advice. I've got Patrick.net, but how else to sell it?
It might make a very good gift that friends can give to friends who are about to be trapped in a bad mortgage.
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The Prison Rape Economy:
A Housing Market Run by Psychopaths
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Patrick says
I can only think of one but everyone here knows it
"Suzanne Researched This"
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Patrick says
Poobah Pat,
Great list of crimes that Realtor®s initiate any time they've got a property to list - but you also forgot the massive laundry list of scams they animate when they're tag teamed with mortgage brokers.
A Realtor working alone pitting every side against their own interests is the twisted reality of a thoroughly criminalized market space. Realtors colluding with other Realtors to fuck the marks at the table is all you can expect of a marketspace ruled by diabolical criminal scum. But the satanic majesty of a Realtor® aligned with a mortgage broker proffers the grim promise of a criminal opera composed, scored and staged by bug-eyed, cackling psychopaths.
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Patrick says
1) Refuse to look at any house that is not FSBO. Use the services of a savage, blood-relative attorney and savage, blood-relative general contractor to help you manage risks related to buying a house.
2) Cash only. A mortgage broker is likely even a more criminally oriented psychopath and they often work in tandem with Realtor®s if you read the sentencing memos from the US AG's office.
3) Call your state and federal elected representatives and demand the NAR and all trade associations related to housing be disbanded and that mortgage fraud be reclassified as a capitol offense - retroactive to 1990 - and that every real estate transaction involving a Realtor® be investigated for fraud.
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as that applies to housing, 'everybody knows' that a house is a great investment,,,,but is it? To tie oneself to 30 years of debt bondage, essentially spend 1/3 of your lifetime of income, before you've even worked those next 30 years, doesn't sound like much of an investment, it sounds like "a death pledge" (to borrow the one posters tag that the etymology of mortgage is death pledge)
hopefully you leave the reader of your book with the information that allows them to decide if homeownership (via the traditional merican way of levering oneself to the hilt, shopping to a monthly payment, and using longterm mortgage) isn't really an investment at all. Sure, eventually the house is paid off. however, if wages are stagnant as the TI part of PITI rise over time, you are left with no more PI, but a burdensome TI bill, and increasing maintenance. Not to mention, in order to realize the gains from an investment, you have to actually sell it. So how great of an investment is buying a 150k house, paying 300k for it over the next 30 years, and then selling it for 200k (you're already down 100k), and leaving yourself with nowhere to live and dollars that have been devalued like a mother fucker, to buy necessities like food, shelter, health care, that have all outpaced your housing cash gains.
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Patrick says
You should, imho.
You may consider going for a bigger picture and cover mechanics of bubble formation using housing as an example. "The Club of Greater Fools"?
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Baby, Let's (not) Play House -- How to Avoid the Cult of Residential Real Estate
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Biff Baxter says
How about "Realtors® Suck"?
That's more concise, and it makes me chuckle.
I could have an asterisk and note at the bottom: "Patrick Killelea is not associated in any way with the National Association of Realtors®, duh."
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Or how about "Don't buy it!" as the title.
Has a nice double meaning.
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I like the Housing Trap for the title. It tells readers right away what the book is about. It's short and snappy and (for us old-timers) easy to remember!
Great idea, Patrick. I hope you sell a million!
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I would buy it for sure.
You might email Jacob of ERE fame about the blog/book setup. He has done well and basically you just promote the book via your site, many do this as an Amazon affiliate too. Very popular model these days.
Very smart move i believe. The book should do well for you. I would pre order.
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elliemae's website
Title: How I survived the housing bust (and you can too)
TMAC54 says
You do know what's better than a dozen roses on your piano? Tulips on your organ...
(I'll be here all week, try the veal! Tip your waitress!)
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Patrick, I'm so glad you are doing this. You may not know this, but you saved me and my family from buying at the top. We sent your articles to our extended family who were practically yelling at us to buy a house. All our friends kept saying that we better get in, that the Bay Area never goes down, get in or be left behind, and lots of other wonderful pieces of advice. All those friends lost a lot during the crash. Mind you, a lot were rich children of rich Silicon Valley parents, that were bummed, but not left destitute, but others lost their homes and savings. I will gladly buy your book, promote it on my FB page and recommend it to any friend in this area I see planning to give away their life savings on a dump in the Valley. Thank you Patrick for your honesty, integrity and community spirit. You're the real deal.
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elliemae's website
I think it's great that he's gonna fsbo his book. :)
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ok, here it is and I hope it fits, I had to finish while it was fresh in my mind.
I, David Banas, give Patrick Killelea the exclusive right and permission to use this writing and story
for his book, edited or unedited, with no legal binding for either party.
My real estate story begins in 1993 before patrick.net came onto the internet. My first friend in California, a native, dear, and late friend Diane had always told me to watch for spikes and subsequent declines in the California real estate market. 1993 in my observations was post a small bubble, home prices had declined and there were real estate auctions in the newspaper, one of which caught my eye, a new building in Van Nuys, California, all the units were 2 bedroom and 2 bath, bright white paint, skylights, and new gray carpet, very urban chic. I registered with the auction company; an end unit on the second floor fell out of escrow. I got it. What I remember most is driving up to my new home and Steve Winwood, 'The Finer Things' was playing on the radio
and this fit perfectly.
Life was ideal for 10 months until January 17, 1994 at 4:31am, the Northridge earthquake. My father and brother were visiting me, scoping out California, they were in the living room, I was in my bedroom, and my roommate was in his. I remember waking up and seeing the walls moving back and forth and thought 'this is a large quake'. The violent back and forth and up and down motion grew even stronger, the sounds were indescribable, the rocks grinding beneath us, the building screaming from the inside, glass shattering, clunks and bangs from objects falling. There was a huge jolt, the windows had turned into diamond shapes as I watched the wall in front of me split in the middle spewing out the drywall chalk. Then I thought, 'So this is how I will die?' and it was strange to me that I would die this way. The shock waves kept coming, and the armoire in front of the bed flew away from the wall, landing on top of me, cutting my knee through a bed comforter. This is when I started to scream. Then I heard my dad say, 'Hang in there David', not that I ever doubted it, but the thought came to me that I knew he loved me. What seemed like an eternity but the shaking did stop along with the sound of the grinding rocks, yet, the building keep swaying for a few seconds slowly coming to a stop as I watched my stereo speakers dance by themselves.
Property values tanked after the quake, people just walked away from their condos, and I was upside down in my mortgage until the year 2000. At that time, I was in no hurry to sell, it was just nice to know I could if I wanted too. 2001 arrives, the condo is worth a bit more, nice. 2002, wow, that much more than I paid? 2003 I'm seriously considering selling and have invited a couple realtors over for a price evaluation. 2004, omg.
2005, or there about, an astute, intelligent, and articulate young man named Patrick launches the patrick.net web site. I never posted at the time but even then remember telling people about this real estate web site that has these great articles gathered from different sources on the internet every day. I agreed with and resonated with many of the articles and viewer posts.
Yes, I had tried being a Real Estate agent at one time in the late 1990’s, so I knew vacant places sell better. All these years in Los Angeles and I had never actually lived in the city, so at that time and market frenzy, I rented a studio apartment in a nice section of Hollywood just north of Sunset Boulevard. Even with my ditzy realtor, the vacant condo sold in about a month. This was a happy time in my life, walking to the grocery store, a jazz club, restaurants, or the gym. Of course, over the next two years, my realtor would call, ‘David, there is this one bedroom for Three hundred thousand dollars, it’s just fabulous’. True, it was nice, but I was still reading the articles and postings on Patrick’s web site and just wasn’t interested. Just because, I rented a different studio with a view of the Hollywood sign in the same neighborhood. I liked it there.
As with everyone, life changes, it’s now 2006, my employer at the time is going bankrupt, yet, the last open house I went too in West Hollywood was a one bedroom and den for four hundred ninety nine thousand dollars. It didn’t’ have a view, but I remember it had a nice, large balcony. Even then, the economy and the housing market seemed really out of whack. My realtor still calls. People still think Patrick is crazy that this is not going to last. I start to look at homes in other states on the internet. Hmm, both coasts, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, all expensive. I have to look for a job soon anyway, wouldn’t it be great to own a home outright? Dallas, Texas, right in the city I see online this condo complex built like a French Chateau. I research the job market, I buy a plane ticket. Hotter in the summer, colder in the winter, but not quite as humid as the east coast. The people are friendly and I never really had any business at the Beverly Hilton, there are Targets, grocery stores, and active nightlife in urban Dallas. I buy another plane ticket and write a check for a 2 bedroom, 1 and ½ bath, one thousand square foot condominium in the complex I want. Within two months I land an IT contract for more money than I had ever made in my entire life. Needless to say, I am on cloud nine. I continue with the IT contracts in Texas and other states with companies I am proud to say I have worked at and gain valuable skills doing so.
The financial crash of 2008 spared no one. The phone went dead. I moved back to
California and stayed with my father.
Life, it’s all about choices and you need accurate information to make informed decisions. What if I had purchased the 300k or the 500k condo? I had the down payment and a job. Someone would have given me a sub-prime mortgage to make the financing work.
Worth mentioning, even on this side of the housing bubble, I have again avoided
financial mishap by say purchasing a coastal property in 2009 or 2010 by continuing to follow Patrick.net with it's intelligent followers and many times with laughter.
Not going to go into the political, financial, and inner workings of the real estate market here. Go read the articles and postings on Patrick.net, join a conversation if you like. I did and I think I won. This is just my story. Again, as always, Thank you so much.
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How about:
The Housing Trap: How Buyers Are Captured And Abused
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I hope there are a lotta pictures.
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I don't have a Paypal. I bet my daughter does. I will ask. Otherwise, what about some old school $$$ in envelope?
You gotta have a frontispiece picture, Patrick. Preferably, something dramatic and brooding. You are in the Bay Area so maybe work in some windswept gloom..this guy has the right idea...
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"Good morning, liar". How to greet your realtor in the morning.
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Patrick says
I like the double meaning, and it reminds me of Abby Hoffman's Steal This Book. If it does well, you could follow up with a sequel about urban homesteading, titled SQUAT.