VoyT
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2005
- Messages
- 445
but the loss is only on paper until you go to sell. Like I said, the RE bubble is just noise. It is real, but the impact of it popping will only impact people which need to sell.
Ah, but when it comes to foreclosures, the cost is far more than the finances.
Ever have to deal with the problems a vacant house can cause in a neighborhood? We've got one in my very small subdivision. House has been empty for close to 3 years while the foreclosure process has gone on. (it finally sold to some company that has it up for sale)
The neighbors periodically have to call the cops because of break-ins: Teens using it as a hangout, in one case, squatters (and since the utilities were turned off long ago, I gotta wonder about the bathrooms.)
Fortunately, the neighborhood association arranged to have the grass cut, or we'd have the problems (and the eyesore) that go along with overgrown weeds and lawns.
We're probaby lucky this is a stable neighborhood -- in some areas, vacant houses tend to draw drug dealers.
Now multiply that one house by 10 or more (and yeah, it's possible; at leat 4 ZIPcodes in my city made CNN's top 500 foreclosure list.) What happens to those neighborhoods? What happens to the folks who remain, who have jobs and played by the rules? They get trapped in a depreciating asset?