patrick.net

Thanks!

The one that always gets me is "stop throwing your money away," as if renting a safe and weather controlled roof over my head is throwing my money away.

Haha right Astrid, we don't pay for any other disposables, like food, do we?...

Here is the one I'm waiting for:

"HOMEOWNERS! Stop throwing money away on your negative amortization mortgage! Late payments? Pre-foreclosure? No problem! Mail in your keys, dump the albatross and sign a new lease with Sunnyslope apartments and the first month is free! *some restrictions apply--income verification required."

income verification required

Sweet!

I'm always amazed by "quaint".

Where I'm from, "quaint" usually means something that looks (and generally is) about 350 years old and is haunted. By Dick Turpin and the Hound of the Baskervilles. And made of wattle-and-daub, fresh from the nearest farm...350 years ago.

Or, regarding plumbing (an English specialty...) it normally means an outside toilet (yes, they still exist. Though many people use them as kitchen extensions nowadays),
Or a two-foot long bathtub. Or an immersion heater that was old before WWII and dribbles rusty tepid water at a rate of a gallon an hour. Guaranteeing that, by the time you've finished running your bath, all the water in the tub will be cold simply by being in there for so long, wating for the rest to catch up.

Or of a house, that the rooms are tiny and bear no sane relation to what anybody would want. falling through florboards. Having a rope as a bannister.
Staircases to nowhere. Doors with walls behind them. Bedrooms too small to fit a baby cot in. Being woken up at 4am by the family of badgers in the attic..

OK, maybe I have a very negative image of "quaint". Frankly, it scares me.

I wonder why realtors(tm) over here use it so much?
Possibly the same reasons the English do?
Or, are there uniquely American horrors that await me, when being shown something "quaint"

Exactly my point.

Why doom any chance you have of selling your house by describing it as quaint?

I thought quaint is what people resort to if they live in the sticks, in a tiny lot, with eccentric neighbors, and nothing to do. Quaint is what people say about their own houses if there's nothing substantively good to say about it. It's kind of like calling a person "nice" because you're trying to be polite and can't think of anything else good to say about the person.

speedingpullet:

by free association, you have forced me to remember the overuse of...

cute.

As in, Annette Funicello is cute!

Astrid:

Aha, pretty much what it means in England, then...
in a hands-over-eyes kinda way I was hoping that American 'quaint' would be different (not better, just dfferent).

As for 'nice'. 'Nice' used to mean 'precise'. As in "a nice point, touche".

What's the deal with 'copper plumbing'? I keep on seeing that everywere.

There are uniquely American horrors, I assume. I only associate "quaint" with the 350-year-old wattle-and-daub image, or at least the Carmel-by-the-Sea implementation thereof, so new abuses of the term are especially unwelcome to me.

I’ve been seeing a lot of
‘under market value’

What they really mean is under bubble value. Which is higher than the true fair market value but lower than comp value.

Highly controversial:

http://foreigndispatches.typepad.com/dispatches/2005/11/the_korean_econ.html

Here's a hint to sellers:

If your home is listed at a price, then it cannot be "under market value", by definition. Unless you are psychotic or under coercive threat of physical harm, then YOU AGREED TO THE LISTING PRICE! That means, your price IS THE MARKET PRICE!

As this is a Thursday and I'm full of Ikura and Sake, I'll interject a learning from the great X:

"Fucking get over it and suck it long, suck it hard! You priced your fucking overpriced stucco shitbox this low because you're afraid everyone can see the emperor's wang dongling in the wind now, and you're screwed."

Maybe you can pay your mortgage payments using your credit card...

Ikura and sake are a reasonable and most sophisticated pleasure...

Athena -

it's called schadenfreude

What is the name of the emotion that kind of news triggers?

If you don't like them, then Shadenfreude. If you do, then Mitleid. But since you are generally übel, I'd have to go with the first one.

...or the defintion of Schadenfreude for grammar masochists.

wait… I just met someone that told me they paid last month’s mortgage payment on their credit card.

That's a great idea - I've heard of rich kids in college whose parents paid for a year of tuition via their credit cards (private schools.) Just think of the miles/points/rebates you would rack up.

Of course, these people would either:
A) First make sure the credit card had a 0% interest teaser rate or...

B) Pay off the card at the end of the month.

That's what the person you overheard did right? Pay their last mortgage bill with a credit card so that they can earn points and then pay off the bill at the end of the month.

Pretty smart if you ask me. Just like lawyers and doctors getting interest only loans. It's a great idea.

Bap33 Says:

athena, for fellers the reaction is commonly called “a chub” …. or chubby ….

And for gals its normally known as a 'wide-on'.

Or at least in my neck of the woods.

OK, going now...

On that note, I'm going to bed too...

That reminds me of another favourite - "potential", as in that beautiful collapsing barn at the top of the page has a lot of "potential".

Custom graphic courtsey of HARM-X Inc. ®

Shhhhh. Folks, be quiet.

If those folks do not rake in credit card debt, the credit card companies will not make any profit and cancel all their rebate/point/rewards programs.

I personally use only Citi Dividend. 5% cash back on groceries and gas. 1% on everything else. For me nothing beats cash.

DO NOT TELL people to pay off their credit card debt. I need my cash back.

Athena,

I'll bet this lady is one of the people who used an equity line to pay off all their credit cards....now the house is underwater and (ironically) they are loading up the plastic again to make the payments on the house and praying for more home appreciation to bail them out... not gonna happen!

Fortunately, there is a solution for people in this situation. It is called declaring bankruptcy and moving back in with mom. Those of us who took out too many student loans don't have that luxury.

Very nice barn, HARM, I would have added one myself, but it seems I can't upload images to the server. Oh well, yours was perfect!

tsusiat,

Np. Yeah, Patrick limits image uploads mainly to conserve on file space. If you have an image you'd especially like to use next time, either email it to me or post the link here and I'll upload it for you.

Glen,

"Fortunately, there is a solution for people in this situation. It is called declaring bankruptcy and moving back in with mom. Those of us who took out too many student loans don’t have that luxury."

LOL! Did your law profs ever tell you the story of why student loans are no longer forgiveable? With all this homeowner credit abuse, maybe this country can make some moves towards no forgiveness for mortgage loans.

Afterall, at least you're trying to improve yourself with student loans. When a FB buys a house, they're doing zero good for it. Back to debtor's prisons for unpaid personal loans (excluding medical costs, which, damn it, US ought to be providing for free like the rest of the goddamn civilized world).

HARM,

Great picture. This June, I was hiking past condemned 19th century cabins that were in better shape than that house/barn/wreck/fixer upper.

I searched for Main Street Media on the web and this is what I found:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1627684/posts

A quote from from that link:

]]Do take note that the last guy who kept bringing up inevitable civil war got banned despite his standing as a former SEAL and patriot.

It is getting worse by the day, just go to Los Angeles or San Jose if you have not been there in a few years and you will see that is exactly where things are headed.

Hm, somehow I doubt he's referring to overpriced houses...

Astrid,

Nah...debtor's prison or unavailability of BK is too harsh. I actually have some compassion for some of the ignorant fools...some of them are my friends.

Plus, I think BK serves a useful social function. It lets people start over again, hopefully wiser than when they took out all that debt in the first place. Many people go on to great success after emerging from BK. I think the benefits of the BK system outweigh the moral hazard. If we didn't have a BK system for homedebtors, my guess is that participation in crime and the "underground economy" would be a big net drain. Plus I would guess that alcohol and drug abuse, divorces and suicides would increase quite a bit.

I think when this gets really ugly we will all kind of feel sorry for some of the FBs (at least the ones who were just financially illiterate, if not the greedy flippers). In all seriousness, I expect that a lot of them will be relieved when they file their bankruptcy petition. And I will be more than happy to assist their creditors by making a lowball offer to the bankruptcy trustee on the home of my choice.

Glen,

Maybe not debtor's prison (prisons are never a profitable business for US taxpayers) but why not lifetime debt? The pre-20th Century view of personal bankruptcy was essentially fraud. If we are forced to carry a lifetime debt burden for higher education (and really, US is about the only developed country with such a high education cost burden) then why not housing?

I guess the current BK law will find many people stuck in either a chapter 13 reorg due to income restrictions (I think of it as "shouldn't a high earning professional like you know better" restriction) or fraudulent representation. However, I'd like to see how these laws actually get enforced when the crush of foreclosures and bankruptcies come.

Astrid,

It won't happen. FBs will get away with their wanton excesses. This is a democracy. Politicians make a living out of pandering to the public.

Besides, FBs are not all that bad people. They have been merely optimizing based on low interest rates and rising RE prices, although the optimization is very local and short-term.

We have a nanny state. Children are absolved of their mistakes. It's the parents' fault.

Astrid,

It won't happen. FBs will get away with their wanton excesses. This is a democracy. Politicians make a living out of pandering to the public.

Besides, FBs are not all that bad people. They have been merely optimizing based on low interest rates and rising RE prices, although the optimization is very local and short-term.

We have a nanny state. Children are absolved of their mistakes. It's the parents' fault.

athena,

How good to have you back O Godess of Common Sense!

I don't know how many times I've used your phrase "No, I am not interested in buying your maxed out credit cards" (on the blog and in my day to day conversations! People really seem to be able to connect with that. But then you have so many wise sayings!

Randy H,

I'm not so much surprised by your penchant for sake nor your X like rant (however concise) but on a THURSDAY night! Tisk, tisk.

Discipline has gone right out the window here folks.

(Can I get you a glass of water?)

Conor,

Why the sudden shift? I'd heard it was as high as 43%? just last night. New jobs won't come out for a couple of hours?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hiring slowed in July as employers added just 113,000 new jobs, propelling the unemployment rate to a five-month high of 4.8 percent and providing fresh evidence that companies are growing cautious amid high energy prices. Wages grew solidly.

GC,

Thanks! Still had the sound down.

I do agree, not ALL FB's are "bad people" but from my perspective it really doesn't matter that much. Once painted into a corner they will all likely respond pretty much the same. Blaming everyone but themselves and seaking solutions that don't require "anything out of pocket" to them. Including outright lies to their listing realtor, lenders and potential buyers.