The Housing Stupidity Does Not Stop

So you heard about the woman who bought a house in foreclosure on eBay for $1.75, right? And you heard me banging my head against a wall, right?

Yeah, it was a couple of months ago. What can I say? I just recovered from the concussion. And even I learn, because I ddn't concuss myself reading this shiny happy bull of how those cheap, cheap houses are screamin' deal and GOOD for people. Even in East Cleveland!

(For those of you unfamiliar with Cleveland geography, East Cleveland is east of the city and was originally a seasonal area, and is now filled with drugs and decaying buildings. We're not talking 5-10 years decay. We're talking about white flight from the 1960's era decay. We're talking counting the caved in roofs from the Rapid decay. I don't know how you comeback from no jobs, drugs, and a lousy school system in that area. I'm thinking The Talkin Heads' "Nothing But Flowers.")

So here's why you should care about this: This woman basically bought a pig in a poke thinking "oh, hey it's so cheap how can it not be a bargain?" Well, it's not. Michigan is dead. There's no money, no jobs, and tons of these abandoned houses around. She may think the $1.75 plus the $1,000 for the back taxes and city fees was nothing, but what about the $50,000 to put the house back in livable condition since it's probably been stripped of everything a scrap dealer would pay for? Not to mention, was it a meth house? Somebody have a great party there? She bought this off a bank/investment company--they know nothing. They don't care. They're just trying to dump these properties as fast as they can to anyone who will take responsibility for them.

She may have thought that speculating with her grocery money was painless, that she could get a house she could rehab and rent out for a little cash, but it doesn't work that way, people. And if she can't rehab it, then Saginaw is going to bill her for the $6000 it will cost to bulldoze the property when it eventually gets around to that house on the list.

See how it works?

And this is why I'm scared, and tired and frustrated thinking about finances, goverment oversight and my fellow man. Because here's the thing--I'm being punished, with the loss of my retirement savings and my inability to sell my house, along with everyone else. The corruption started at the investment banks and was fed by the government, and in a sick way that says a lot about me I can accept being screwed on a grand institutional level by larger entities. I'm Slovak/Irish--this makes sense to me.

But when it's my fellow man signing up individually to get screwed, standing in line not thinking and bringing with them their HGTV-fueled dreams of granite countertops and extra bathrooms they can't afford--my misanthropy takes over. I try to be charitable. I try to count my blessings and think how I'm lucky to be smart and fearful and thoughtful. But God almighty, when I get screwed over by other people not thinking...

When I broke my arm, people were all like "It was an accident! Why are you so upset?" And I had to think it through. I wasn't blaming the driver of the car I was in (although when I found out he'd been driving without insurance I went through the roof) because he hadn't caused the accident--he hadn't been speeding, he had a green light, and he hit the brakes when the minivan driver turned in front of us. It was the attitude that the minivan driver had done something that was automatically forgivable, something pardonable without question, something we'd all done, that fueled my fury for the next year. Because I can't accept not thinking about how your actions might affect others as an excuse. The reason, sure. Reasons are different from excuses.

And weirdly, this is why I keep paying the mortgage and hoping the TARP funds come through to homeowners--I don't want to be someone who adds the the mess through foreclosure, but that's the way it is going. Because if I have no equity and the house won't sell, holding onto it for 5-10 years until I have equity for a sense of honor makes no sense.

You know, when the eminent domain controversy hit my town, I was behind the city when it passed the blight law. I wanted retail redevelopment in my neighborhood.
And I was happy when the Supreme Court eventually backed these plans. Would this have helped anything? Maybe not. But a while back I was talking to Dusie about this and she voiced the opinion that the main purpose of government is to ensure there are jobs and business creation (remember, I come from conservative stock--she voted for Obama though).

Another thing to ponder is what will happen with all these dying cities across the upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions. Detroit has joined Buffalo (and really, all of upstate NY) as places Cleveland feels superior to, but the hourglass is running out on how long that emotion will buoy the area. Yeah, I think Cleveland's plan to rebuild houses in certain neighborhoods is a total waste--people will move into the city when they can use the school system and/or have enough services, businesses and infrastructure to support lifestyle. Rehabbing houses in a vacuum is not going to help. Maybe the recycled housing movement will provide jobs and building material and a feel-good "green lifestyle" choice, but honestly--there is so much housing stock out there it is a drop in a bucket. You have no idea of the history and beautiful decay of these towns until you see it in person. It's a continually unfolding reminder that people live in places in cycles, small deaths of old homes that are reborn again.