Squatters Rising.
Jim the Realtor takes a walk on the woozy side of the forclosure mania in California and illustrates how wildy inconsistent the market has become in the Age of REO. Not only is Bank of America finding its will to move the losers with severe short sales ($600k foreclosed offered at a short sale of $423, no takers so far), but also foreclosed properties are passing into the hands of cons and squatters who use jailhouse tricks to intimidate neighborhoods. From the anecdote of the squatter, the police are indifferent or overwhelmed. How commonplace is this petty criminal squatting? Have California blocks been cut loose from civic authority? The Bank of America short sale is next door to what looks to be a luxury home with a pampered, serene pool complex. High-end, gated neighborhoods drifting into vacancies and abandonment? Once in a Blue Moon, but it goes on into 2010 and perhaps 2011 and 2012?
When it all begins to break down... (in gated communities even)
I watched the ball drop on TV last night. The accompanying palaver was rather dour. There was definitely a sense that our country is in deep do-do. There’s no hiding it anymore. What was interesting to me was that no matter what channel I was watching, they weren’t talking about the year that had just passed. Instead they talked about the decade – the lost decade; the ‘decade from hell’ (as some in the print media referred to it).
It’s yet another entirely predictable ploy to absolve Barack Hussein Obama – the media darling of all time – from blame and say it’s all Bush’s fault. In fact, Bush screwed things up so much, not even the messiah will be capable of fixing things (even if he wanted to).
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/