patrick.net

lol, thanks George.

My patience tends to wear thin when I'm negotiating a deal with a telecom. Telecom guys know how to elevate obfuscation and perturbation to an art form. Sometimes I just want to turn on the light and show them that not only are none of them wearing any clothes, but none of them are anything close to emperors either.

RE: McAlbatross squatting, Boston has an interesting historical perspective on this. The South End was basically a late-19th century development: rows upon rows of similar-appearing, albeit much better construction than today's McMonsters, brownstones. They were built for the growing business class in the city. Then the financial center of gravity moved more towards NYC, and these buildings eventually fell into disrepair 1930's-1970's. They for the most part got rented out, and the city bought many of them and currently still rents some as low-income housing. Then the gentrification-yuppification of the 90's happened, and now they are for the most part luxury condos.

Wouldn't it be funny if this happened to your nearby McMansion Toll Bros. development?

HARM,

In ways, (through NO intent on our part) renting=squatting? The difference being if we remain current on our monthly obligation we are MUCH harder to "evict". Having some sort of buyer's option built into your agreement basically would give us squatters 'first right of refusal' when the Casey's of the world go belly up.

Was is Spike66 or HITB that said they don't even look for "rental homes" in the paper anymore? They simply show up at open houses, get the realtor on the side and ask "Would the owners be open to renting this place/palace?" Without exception they've been told "everything is on the table!"

After several months/years of gushing neg. cash flow, we'll basically take over by default anyway. At the new greatly reduced price of course!

skibum,

You just covered about 100 years worth of history in a single paragraph! It made me think though, look how things have changed. It used to take generations for a neighborhood to change from "owned homes" to rental homes and now it's whoever shows up first gets their deal!

You're buying? I'm your seller's agent!

You're renting? Meet your new landlord!

What have we done!

HARM,

Your squatting idea depends on a legal doctrine known as "adverse possession." Adverse possession wasn't originally designed to permit squatters to acquire free houses, although some homeless advocates in NYC have attempted to use it for this purpose.

The real purpose of adverse possession is to avoid problems caused by erroneous surveys, etc. I.e. I hire a surveyor to tell me where the boundaries of my property lie. He makes a mistake and says that my property includes three feet of my neighbor's land. I build a house on my property, and the south wall is positioned on the neighbor's land. Four years later, the neighbor has a survey done, discovers that my house is located on his property, and sues me for tresspass, demanding that I tear tear my house down. The law of adverse possession was designed to solve problems such as this, basically by declaring that if you tresspass on your neighbor's land for long enough, you'll get away with it.

I am not really familiar with the California law of adverse possession, but I do know that many states have a requirement designed to prevent people who intentionally tresspass on another's property from acqurinig title to the property. It is known as the "claim of right" requirement. The person doing the tresspassing has to have an actual, good-faith belief that he or she is entitled to occupy the property before he or she can invoke the doctrine of adverse possession. This prevents someone who is an intentional tresspaser from using the doctrine to acquire title.

In your case, you would need to establish a "claim of right" for occupying the McMansion. I believe that if you got an opinion from a California lawyer which says that you have a right to occupy the property, that would suffice to establsh your "claim of right."

Now don't sue me for malpractice over this, but if it helps, I am hereby willing to tell all patrick.netters that squatting in an abandoned McMansion is perfectly lawful in the State of California. Just move right in -- you don't need to buy the house, or lease it or anything. It's like, you know, free. And if you live there long enough, the house totally becomes yours. You know how California is liberal, right? Well, we have these really amazing laws here which just let anyone live wherever they want. It's all perfectly legal. Perfectly.

Again, if for some strange, totally unforseen reason this doesn't work out for you, don't sue me for malpractice. I can't, you know, like guarantee that it will work.

I myself do not plan to use the adverse possession strategy described above, but I have thought of buying a trailer, renting a vacant lot in a ritzy neighborhood with a good school district, and registering my kids for school. When the district tries to stop me, I'll sue them for violating the "civil rights of the homeless" or some such BS. I've thought about this on more than one occasion. The ordinances in one town I am thinking of don't expressly forbid what I am trying to do, so...

The San Francisco Tenants Union (bloody nut cases) have a blurb on squatting on their website.

Hmmm... I have to decide which is worse: animal "rights" activists or homeless rights activists?

Hmmm… I have to decide which is worse: animal “rights” activists or homeless rights activists?

Do you think there are homeless animal rights activists? Someone has to protect the rights of panhandling marmots.

SFWoman,

Now that makes sense. One of the reasons my suggestions regarding "lease w/option" have been criticized is b/c what options would you have when your LL (Casey S. in this instance) loses any claim to the property?

(Let's not laugh here, most speculators aren't in much better shape).

Up until recently I'm told that lenders didn't want anything to do w/FB's in arrears. It was just "too hot" a market to play that game so rather than work w/them they just let the property fall into foreclosure and RE-SELL it at an even higher price! That is sooooo 2005!

I would suggest that for anyone looking into this option to come up with as little (preferably ZIP) on the front end and not concern yourself with "building equity right away and stop throwing your money away on rent!" Pffft. I've got plenty of worries right now but "building equity" isn't one of them! For me, it's more about finding exactly the home you like and having the right agreements in place to follow up on once the market and what you might be willing to pay intersect.

Oh, you meant (((homeless animal) rights) activists), not (homeless (animal rights) activiests).

Bear Stearns agrees to buy subprime origination unit
Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:43pm ET
ST. LOUIS, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Bear Stearns Companies Inc. (BSC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday it had agreed to acquire ECC Capital Corp.'s (ECR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) mortgage origination unit.

Under the agreement, Bear Stearns' mortgage bank subsidiary, Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage Corp., will purchase the subprime mortgage origination platform of ECC Capital's subsidiary, Encore Credit Corp.

Encore Credit specializes in originating mortgages for borrowers with less than stellar credit ratings.

@Joe Schmoe & SFWoman,

Thanks! I'll need to do some more research on local ordinances in the specific community where I decide to, uh... become a non-paying tenant... but that really helps!

Oh, you meant (((homeless animal) rights) activists), not (homeless (animal rights) activists).

How about Homeless Animal Rights Militant (HARM) ?

Thanks! I’ll need to do some more research on local ordinances in the specific community where I decide to, uh… become a non-paying tenant… but that really helps!

HARM, is that ethical? What would the moral imperative suggest? :)

Encore Credit specializes in originating mortgages for borrowers with less than stellar credit ratings.

Now there's a euphemism for sub-prime borrower - if by "less than stellar" they mean a FICO in the 400's.

How about Homeless Animal Rights Militant (HARM) ?

LOL :lol:

HARM, is that ethical? What would the moral imperative suggest?

"ethical", "moral imperative"...? What are those? You are using unfamiliar terms; please re-phrase in New Paradigm phraseology.

*unlurks*

Re: mortgage backed securities

I had a rather interesting and personal experience with these. In my old job, I'd do a lot of building condition reports for finance purposes (2002-2005) Commercial building owner decides they want to refinance into those new lower rates , or they're just plain getting a new mortgage (recent purchase?). Part of the process is that they need a building condition report and an environmental survey of some kind. my company would do hundreds and hundreds of these in my office alone. Clients were Royal Bank CMBS (commercial mortgage-backed security) Group, or GMAC, GE Finance, hell, GE's Equipment Finance unit (guess they did mortgages not just vendor-finance for their manufacturing units?). All of our reports would have wording giving reliance to all sorts of parties who might be involved in an MBS issuance.

On the other side of things, my parents (being retirees) would get emails every two weeks with "New Issues" from their discount broker. The paper being peddled? GMAC commercial mortgage-backed securities, Ford TBIRDS (asset-backed, if not real estate mortgages then the cars), etc. etc. We saw a lot of GMAC and Ford on those emails, probably because private equity and pension funds weren't interested in them so they tried to sell them to ordinary retirees?

Anyway, this work we did for CMBS people and the paper I saw being sold through discount brokers to retail investors were part of the scene that twigged me on this marvelous credit bubble / liquidity that enabled the housing bubble. I told my parents not to buy that paper (they didn't) but who knows what retirees have a GMAC or Ford Finance long-dated commercial paper due to implode when either GM or Ford go belly-up, or when those mortgages start defaulting...? I sure wouldn't have advanced a mortgage on some of the buildings I looked at...but I was only supposed to comment on how good or bad shape it was in!

Oh, Astrid, did you still want recommendations on Toronto-area restaurants for your parents? It's probably too late (you posted Sept. 26, I saw it a week later) but I'm all caught up now ..... if so specify cuisine, neighbourhood (if you know), etc.

*relurks*

“ethical”, “moral imperative”…? What are those? You are using unfamiliar terms; please re-phrase in New Paradigm phraseology.

Ok...

Is it fun? Can you liberate equity from the house being a non-paying tenant?

I wonder what the Equity Liberation Front (ELF) will say about the MBS situation.

I still prefer my friends at this blog.

My wife could not stop laughing at the "jail" thread with the excellent graphics.

But I find it really entertaining to read Randy’s remarks over there too. There’s always some idiot who thinks they can challenge Randy on some point and then he has to make them look like the fool they are. Really fun.

I do like to challenge Randy because I am a self-confessed fool.

TOLurker,

If I had a nickel for every e-mail I got for that garbage paper! It wasn't just the discount houses peddling that cr@p. Seems like everyone was. I looked at it early on and it looked like a duck etc.

This has to have been one of the ugliest distributions to the street I've ever seen. Bad ju-ju.

Between the IRA and the Militant Vegetarians we had to worry about being blown up if we were to open our mail directly.

I condemn all terrorist organizations, especially those who are not even fighting for humanity.

I believe the primates lab at UC Davis was under threat too. It is just inconceivable that someone will hamper critical researches in the name of kindness.

I believe the primates lab at UC Davis was under threat too. It is just inconceivable that someone will hamper critical researches in the name of kindness.

This is a widespread problem. I hate to be evil, but I think these people should be refused modern medical treatments, as more or less every treatment we use was developed in part using animal research.

Is this a de facto price reduction?

Pretty much. This is why it is nearly impossible for "used" homesellers to compete with new homes.

I hate to be evil, but I think these people should be refused modern medical treatments, as more or less every treatment we use was developed in part using animal research.

Nothing evil about that. They can go back to Nature and receive care from wolves.

Oops, will there be more werewolves then?

My only problem is that it is rare for me to be able to keep up real time, so when I see something that I could comment on, it is old news to you guys.

Just bring them up any time.

SF Woman Said:

> The San Francisco Tenants Union (bloody nut cases)
> have a blurb on squatting on their website.

Then Peter P Says:

> Hmmm… I have to decide which is worse: animal
> “rights” activists or homeless rights activists?

The San Francisco Tenants Union (SFTU) is not a “homeless rights” group it is a “tenant’s rights” group. They protect the “rights” of “tenants” (who are often worth more than the “landlords”) to keep rental units with low rent control rent for years (even if they just use the place a few times month) and fight any “rights” that the property owners have (like the right to move a sick relative in to a building you own). If you hear anyone say that they are an “activist” it is the same as hearing someone say “that they are nuts”…

Tenant rights movements will only make housing unaffordable. It is simple economics. If they truly want to protect tenants they should help repealing all rent control, growth restrictions, and other NIMBY laws.

Does anyone know if there are any legal ramifications to an across the board price reduction by a home builder?

I doubt that. Anyone knows what happened to the Pulte lawsuit in Las Vegas? I was under the impression that it was dismissed. Anyone?

Peter P Says:

> Can you liberate equity from the house
> being a non-paying tenant?

In San Francisco there are lots “tenants” making thousands a month “renting” apartments. When I got out of grad school in the early 90’s most of my friends moved in to renovated apartments in the Marina at rock bottom rents (since the economy was slow and people were still worried about earthquakes). Years late most of my friends are married and own homes in Marin or the Peninsula but quite a few of them rent their rent control units to younger friends making sometimes up to a couple thousand a month profit (others that are doing real well keep them so friends can use them and to have a place to crash when they are in the city). I have a friend from grammar school (who owns a home in Burlingame with his wife) who always asks me how his “investment property” a block away from me is looking when he calls to say hi. He rents the rent control apartment his wife got when she started at Hastings to his wife’s cousin for $1,200 a month more than they pay the landlord in rent…

Just read through all the Patrick.net posts on Casey's latest thread --fantastic stuff from Randy H, astrid, SQT & others. I take back what I said before: PLEASE KEEP GIVING HIM ADVICE (and abuse)!

Casey is very successful in turning a crisis into an opportunity. This we should learn from him.

Does anyone know if there are any legal ramifications to an across the board price reduction by a home builder? i.e. If you are about to close and you find out that they just dropped all prices by 100k, can you demand the same price?

IANAL, but if you haven't closed (signed/completed escrow), then by definition, you're not on the hook yet, are you?

How about after closing? I have read posts that refer to future lawsuits against builders for dropping their prices, but I cannot see any legal standing for it.

Again, IANAL, but like Peter P, I doubt you'd have much legal recourse unless you can prove fraud, misrepresentation or some other legally enforceable type of malfeasance on the part of the seller to break the contract.

Btw, who is J Galt?

In San Francisco there are lots “tenants” making thousands a month “renting” apartments.

More reasons to remove rent control.

btw, how do you use italics? I am new to this…

<i>text</i>

I echo SQT's sentiments. It's like watching a carwreck or a trainwreck in slow motion. I already know how it's gonna end but I just can't keep my eyes away. Casey's self absorption and denial should be written up as a psychology case study of "too much greed/too little brain" syndrome.

I sense that a lot of people aren't even trying to help anymore, they're just egging Casey on because Casey doesn't listen to constructive criticism and lacks a sarcasm detector.

Joe Schmoe,

I think the strategy you described (but has absolutely no legal liability over) would be huge in places like AZ, FL, NV and UT with their acres of speculative property owned by out of staters. (hey, if any of you clowns want to do that, do your own research and figure out your local laws. I'm speculating intellectually and assume no responsibility if you run with the idea).

No wonder the illegal immigrants are staying! They're waiting for amnesty and hoping for a free 4,500 sqft McMansion.

Btw, who is J Galt?

Sounds like a line from a bad Ayn Rand text.

FAB: How does rent control affect sales; i.e., could the owners of Marina properties form a group, pair up properties by equivalent value, and sell them to each other to break the rent restrictions?

tenant's rights are different from squatter's rights - squatters are trespassers per se, but if they stay put for a statutorily determined time period without being eviction by the rightful owner, they can assume the rightful owner's rights under adverse possession

Tenant rights and squatter rights are actually mutually exclusive. If you are a tenant and live in a place with the rightful owner's permission, you cannot gain the property via adverse possession.