patrick.net

Sounds like they might have a chance at "adverse possession"...

I don't like the term deadbeat as it only gets applied to individuals or famlies. You want to see a deadbeat, find a Bank of America branch. Until we stop judging business decisions by banks and corporations less harshly than personal decisions, we'll continue to be duped. While waking up isn't going to change anything, it's a first step.

The system allows these deadbeats to behave this way with no consequences. That's the root of the issue.

I know a deadbeat too. The term fits by the way, and he was not a "victim" of any bank. He was a victim of his own greed, or "his reach exceeding his grasp".

I like the rating system used on IHB (Irvine Housing Blog), describing how horrible the FB's mortgage equity withdrawal was.

I guess some folks could learn a thing or two from these types a guys. THEY ARE FOLLOWING THE SYSTEM!!! They are not breaking any laws.

if I told you I could GUARANTEE you that you would make 100000 dollar by sitting tight and just living in your old house, you mean to tell me you goody goods would have a problem with it ?? I am sorry I don't buy it. People do wat is right for themselve and their family members and their loved ones. You can not really get upset when you look at it this way. Same with the bank bashers. These banks payed back all the money and gave us interest at that. Pretty good deal in the end and that is where you keep your eye on. The end game!

I don't think the people the OP describes are deadbeats.

Evidenced by the fact they have saved in the six figures.
It's also good they are happy, why shouldn't they be?

Are they gaming the system? Perhaps they are perhaps not it's in the eye of the beholder.

What I can say is that Wall Street and most major corporations do these "gaming the system" scenarios all the time.

I say more power to them! Obviously you haven't realized it's a zero sum game.............

Nope I agreed and I say so to. Stelaing is not stealing if every one is doing it. What wall street did they payed back for. These poeple will pay back by spending that $$$$ in the economy on every thing from school clothes to tithing to envestment properties.

JodyChunder says

Nope I agreed and I say so to. Stelaing is not stealing if every one is doing it. What wall street did they payed back for. These poeple will pay back by spending that $$$$ in the economy on every thing from school clothes to tithing to envestment properties.

I was referring to the original poster Jody not you.

My neighbor: combined income of $200k+. Mortgage note of $600k, house now worth about $300k.

They quit making payments two years ago, and have been living mortgage free since.

They drug a lawyer into the deal - so this could go on forever. Bet they'll end up with principal forgiveness or some 50% off deal.

Congratulations. They will be millionaires in three years if they play there cards right. Keep quiet and just drag it through the courts.

I can GUARANTEE any folks on here that this deal is not done. If you buy today, you can have the same deal as your neighbor.

Better if they could rent part of the residence out even just for a year.

It's a zero sum game people.

Get all you can while you can , legally that is :)

This is the new U.S reality................

Wall Street is doing it why not you?

The Banks, Washington, and the Real Estate are all in a precarious position, and so for separate selfish reasons, they are not only allowing this but encouraging it, as a short term solution.

If you want to see a Victim, just wait until there's a 180 reversal on this policy. When the Washington, the Banks, and Real Estate sales willing, the three of them are going to go around to these dead beats like an angry lynch mob.

Washington will find a way to tax them for it,
the banks will be willing to sue them.

GOP There will never be a reversal in your life time. I wish I could place a bet with you. This is the beginings of a new way of life in our fine country. We are just seeing the crown of this new baby.

The GOP says

The Banks, Washington, and the Real Estate are all in a precarious position, and so for separate selfish reasons, they are not only allowing this but encouraging it, as a short term solution.

If you want to see a Victim, just wait until there's a 180 reversal on this policy. When the Washington, the Banks, and Real Estate sales willing, the three of them are going to go around to these dead beats like an angry lynch mob.

Washington will find a way to tax them for it,

the banks will be willing to sue them.

William E Baughb

If they are smart they will be stashing the money in a manner it cannot be easily recovered, such as buying real estate cash or moving it outside the country.

It's a global economy!

Armando148 says

they are smart they will be stashing the money in a manner it cannot be easily recovered, such as buying real estate cash or moving it outside the country.

It's a global economy!

This is the right stuff. I suggest investment property. Put it in your daughters name or your in law's name. Buy some land. Buy a carwash. Gold and silver and put it in a tennis ball canister or a thermos and keep it in your septic. Sounds gross ok but it is affective I assure you

JodyChunder says

Stelaing is not stealing if every one is doing it.

Although every situation is different, I disagree with this statement. Stealing is still stealing, some people can live with it and some can't.

Travis Bickle says

I think someone should just take this city and just... just flush it down the fuckin' toilet.

An idea for New Orleans.
Not a toilet bowl, but it all ends up in the Mariani Trench anyway.

Me too. Don't know anyone who won over 4 digits in a lotto, but I know and have met several living for free. Temporarily anyhow.

JodyChunder says

GOP There will never be a reversal in your life time. I wish I could place a bet with you.

Nothing is permanent but change. Just as soon as the Lawmakers can figure out away to get out from under their upside-down positions in RE.

They'll know what's best for the rest of us.

JodyChunder says

Stelaing is not stealing if every one is doing it.

Murder is not murder if everybody murders everybody ?
I have to stop playing Grand Theft Auto.

(do I need to note the sarcasm)

The mentality during the time the bubble was growing was innocent greed. Those who now find themselves upside down, foreclosed on with no place to go, have nothing left to lose. Why not milk it ? What are their options ?
What could be worse than owing hundreds of thousands without any means ?

Opening statement in the book "LIFE INCORPORATED" talks about the author being robbed (at gunpoint) in his own neighborhood. His neighbors were angry at him as he filed a police report because this might reduce their property values.
Are you sure you want to call them FREELOADERS ?
WTF happened to "LOVE THY NEIGHBOR ?

bgamall4 says

it is not immoral to walk away from an underwater house even if you can afford to pay.

EXACTLY !!!
You only signed a contract. a bilateral a contract. Your Guarantee of returning the property in lieu of non payment fulfills YOUR obligation. THAT was the BILATERAL agreement. YOU took a risk, the LENDER took a risk. The Moral issue is just marketing by the lenders. The lender would not give you the sweat off their nether regions if you were dying of thirst and THAT is IMMORAL ! The FED gets that sweat !
DON'T sweat the banks ! Plan NOW for your families future ! or

Clara says

The system allows these deadbeats to behave this way with no consequences. That's the root of the issue.

These people make stupid choices and than claim that they are victims of society. These deadbeats are nothing more than sociopath self righteous liars.

Isn't it the real fault of the process though? It's not as if the family there can sell the house..and technically any upkeep is with them.

I used to know a guy that didn't pay his water bill...why? Because the house was part of a odd camp and physically nothing was installed for a meter. For years he had free water. It wasn't his fault he wasn't paying but there was no way to estimate the usage..and the realtor didn't say anything about it. Later one was installed.

Here we go with people defending the deadbeats as "victims of circumstance" when everyone knows that human greed was the fuel of the California real estate bubble.
I heard it over and over from people here. "My house is worth $650K!" "My house is worth $1.4 million!" "My house (670ft2) cost me $450k, but it's already worth $500K!"
Want to know whether greed was involved? HOW many trillions of dollars were taken out of the "home equity" before the crash?
Everyone wants to be rich, and everyone wants something for nothing. They believed that they could borrow 90% of the price of an asset, control it and then profit from the rise in value of the asset.
I don't argue the right of people to try this, but they should assume 100% of the RISK, not the US Taxpayer.
Everyone who shifts blame to the banks misses the point. The banks are of course ALSO greedy and were making money from no work also.
Summers, Rubin, Greenspan, Clinton and Congress repealed two 30's securities laws which then allowed banks to have "trading desks" so banks started making money trading CDS and whatnot. This was very profitable at first.
Those deadbeat house buyers are guilty, and the banks were enablers. Who is to blame, the junkie or the heroin dealer? A pox on them both.

bgamall4 says

It is not stealing to walk away from a ponzi scam. That word is thrown around incorrectly for social security, etc. But the housing bubble was a ponzi scam because of the massive amount of easy money loans allowed, pushing prices up artificially. The banks knew exactly what they were doing. Alan Greenspan even advocated an adjustable mortgage as a "better deal", in Feb, 2004.

Gary Anderson strategicdefaultbooks.com

If everyone was that entitled and walked away the country would fall apart. No one forced those people to get a house loan, and to put it up against their business. They gambled and lost.

Hopefully in the future people won't be allowed to escape from their bad decisions so easily. Even better, they won't be allowed to make those stupid decisions in the first place.

I have a friend, a school teacher. Her brother (who has something like 4 or 5 kids) bought a house in Sac in 2005. He walked away from that house in 2009 but not before buying another house (with my friend's sig as a co-signer). I emphatically advised my friend NOT to do this as not only was she giving up any benefits as a first-time home buyer but also putting her credit in jeopardy.

I checked in with my friend recently and she tells me her bros house is now worth $100K less than he paid for it in 2009. Brilliant!

I think each and every one of these fuckers that walked away from their mortgages SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENTIRE AMOUNT. And their credit should be ruined for 7 years.

Am I bitter? Yes, I am bitter as fuck. I was looking at small 900sq ft. bungalows in Oakland in 2004 and after being told again and again by used house salesman to submit the highest possible bid I could afford I said "Fuck this" and kept renting.

Now I read about all these deadbeats getting free money and free rent. That is fucked up! The banks fucked us. The used house salesmen fucked us. The appraisers fucked us. And now the gov't is fucking us.

Fucking me in particular as my income is taxed almost 40% and my very conservative investments are tanking (yet again) because of volatile markets.

And the well-connected and wealthy are getting richer and the fucking deadbeats get to live rent-free or still have their toys (luxury cars, boats, whatever - I even know of someone who bought a condo in another country with a HELOC).

Makes me sick to my stomach and it certainly has altered my personal moral compass. If everyone else is scamming money, why the fuck shouldn't I? Except as a hard-working, small business owner paying a shitload of taxes there is no way for me to scam the system.

Malkovich says

Now I read about all these deadbeats getting free money and free rent. That is fucked up! The banks fucked us. The used house salesmen fucked us. The appraisers fucked us. And now the gov't is fucking us.

Well it's good you have realized this, your next step is to realize this has become a zero sum game.

The deadbeats you refer to are ahead of the curve and maximizing their opportunity some on accident others on more calculated basis.

This country the one you read about in the civics book the one you hear politicians talk about on Television is over. It's a new day in America and you must adapt, all the traps are set for the people who want to do things "right", you will never get ahead doing that because that's where all the traps are mostly the debt trap.

The person who bought the Condo in another country with the Heloc is a perfect example of playing it right. This is what Wall Street and the Solyndra's of the world are doing at the moment and laughing all the way to the bank.

Go out there are get yourself some!!

bgamall4 says

t is not stealing to walk away from a ponzi scam. That word is thrown around incorrectly for social security, etc.

Only DO NOT WALK AWAY... you stay put and collect your damages owed to you.

malcom : I do understand your pain but you hav eto consider that this is not personal. nobody is taking money out of your pockets friend. I would help more but lots of swearing does not help.

elliemae says

Although every situation is different, I disagree with this statement. Stealing is still stealing, some people can live with it and some can't.

yes. honey i understand your way of PHILOSOPHY .you are thinking like how you were TAUGHT to think about this tho. think about it. you got to adapt or you dry up.

TMAC54 says

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JodyChunder says

Stelaing is not stealing if every one is doing it.

Murder is not murder if everybody murders everybody ?
I have to stop playing Grand Theft Auto.

No way you dont drag muder into this. murder and making $ that does not hurt a soul is not the same way.

I did once have a parrot that would make pal with my two cats. just goes to show you.

It is natural that people will take advantage of a situation if the other party doesn't have the same information. Information asymmetry.

During a town meeting a new town center project was displayed. After the meeting I asked why the local video store wasn't on the new plans. They said the lease was not renewed..ok...but no one at the meeting bothered to tell any of the employees of the place...and their bosses didn't know either.

Thinks like this happen all the time. Just like there's plenty of people that invest but have no clue about the real statistics of it because they don't use the internet to look it up.

bgamall4 says

Listen Clara and FT Wayne guy, if you sell a crap car as a used car salesman, and someone buys it who is at fault? If you sell a crap loan to someone who buys it, who is at fault?

You know who is at fault, the person who provided the crap product. EVERY TIME.

The only legal application of buyer's beware regards property. A bad toxic loan IS NOT PROPERTY.

Gary Anderson strategicdefaultfordeadbeatftardloserbooks.com

Your analogy shows your intelligence perfectly, my friend.

When you buy a used car, you look it over with a fine-toothed comb. If you are not knowledgeable about cars, then you take it to an independent mechanic. You research the model of car you are buying extensively. You learn everything you can about that car. Then you research the used car dealership (for any customer problems) extensively before you make the purchase. Get it? YOU are the one with the money and YOU are the one making the decision to buy the car. How in the heck is it the car salesman's fault if you don't know what you are doing when buying the car?

Same thing with all these sob stories about people getting foreclosed on. Hey, if you are too stupid to know how the loan works (ARM, interest only, etc.) then why are you signing? If you are so F-ing stupid you don't know what you are signing then you find a friend, an independent source, or whoever to look over the paperwork and spell it out in kindergarten terms to your pea-sized, feeble, dinosaur-like brain exactly what you are doing.

I do not feel a shred of sympathy for these deadbeats or people who contact the newspapers or TV stations with their "woe is me" stories. Fuck them. If the market had kept going up these would be the same fucktards that would be bragging about how savvy they were about real estate and how their home is now work x dollars more (I knew plenty of these people in the mid-2000s - they are either underwater or back to where they started depending on when they bought - some of these are my friends - I just bite my tongue and don't say anything as there are other qualities about them I value and would like to keep them as friends).

This is just another example of privatizing gains and socializing losses. The people who have stopped paying the mortgage and are socking away the savings have all kinds of excuses why it isn't their fault. Of course if the property had gone up in value they would have no problem banking the profits. In the end though, some of these people may be in for a surprise b/c the IRS can come after them and the banks can easily get default judgements for any loans that weren't purchase money loans (in California); In other states the banks can get a judgement for purchase money loans also - and some states allow up to 20 yrs to collect. Sometimes what goes around comes around and some of these people will have unpleasant surprises in the future. If you sat through the bay area housing boom and didn't partake of all the easy money it's easy to feel like a chump. I'm not angry at these people and I don't second guess my own decision not to take part in the scam b/c in the end it was way out of my comfort zone and my integrity is important to me.

integrity is just a word. a liability. sorry

bgamall4 says

clambo says

Here we go with people defending the deadbeats as "victims of circumstance"

So if you buy a lemon car we will make sure to blame you for greed and for buying a defective car. Then we will let the guy who sold it to you off scott free.

Gary Anderson strategicdefaultbooks.com

How is this the same situation? If we talk about the OP's post, it's like the guy borrowing money for a Lamborghini, then deciding to drive away in his new car without paying for it. Until the bank finally gets around to taking it back, he drives around in a free sports car.

Just because the system is set up that you can rob the country by getting a huge loan then walking away from it doesn't mean you should do it. Some people do have morals, I for one could not look at myself in the mirror in the morning if I was that slimy. Someone is getting hurt every time a loan falls through and it isn't the banks, it's the taxpayers who aren't defaulting and living within their means.

If a bank forgot to lock its doors at night would you go rob it? Your mindset seems to be that the bank is evil so we should steal as much money from it as we can. What you're promoting is equivalent to robbing the bank through a legal loophole. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right. I don't want to live in a country where people have no morals.

Yes, banks are slimy, but dammit, everyone knows this and they still gamble on huge loans because they want nice things NOW and just can't wait any longer. They are not innocent in this. They know exactly what the banks will do if they can't afford payments but sign their lives away anyway.

bgamall4 says

So if you buy a lemon car we will make sure to blame you for greed and for buying a defective car. Then we will let the guy who sold it to you off scott free.

Again, an incorrect analogy. I've owned about 15 vehicles in my life and none of them were lemons. If one were a lemon it would have a minimal affect on my finances. You cannot even begin to compare the purchase of a car to the most important purchase of a person's life (a mortgage).

bgamall4 says

Then we can call you a loser. Maybe your car will be too weak to withstand a truck and we will say that you didn't do due diligence in buying a stronger car.

Aww.. poor baby.. did I hurt your widdle feewings? You are just digging yourself deeper and deeper. I was criticizing your opinion and now you are wishing me bodily harm?

Let me be very candid with you: I see you as a very small-minded, weak person, probably with very few friends, and I really, truly feel sorry for you.

Give your mom a call. I'm sure she'll help you feel a lil better about yourself, even if it is just for few hours.

Ta ta!

Malkovich says

Let me be very candid with you: I see you as a very small-minded, weak person, probably with very few friends, and I really, truly feel sorry for you.

Give your mom a call. I'm sure she'll help you feel a lil better about yourself, even if it is just for few hours.

Ta ta!

mr malcovich : I suggest you cool your boots. you appear to be educated and well spoken. please refrian from disgusting attacks on people who disagree. it is beneath you good buddy. go cool off and come back on here and discuss this like a man