Reply #23: I believe the trigger was Katrina. [View All]

[bvar22]

I owned property in New Orleans, and went there shortly after the storm.
My property was only mildly damaged (western suburbs).

I contacted a Realtor from a major agency to discuss prices. When she came out to the property, she was much more interested in the pre-storm appraisal than the actual condition of the house. She had a binder full of pictures of houses, and she would point to the picture of a house and tell me what it was worth. It made no difference to her that the picture she was pointing to was of a house that was destroyed. She told me that the pre-storm appraisals set the value of the property because THAT was what THE BANKS said they were worth.

I realized then (2005) that The Banks were holding tons of worthless paper...several square miles of worthless mortgages. I believed at that time that the crisis would be contained to the Gulf Coast. Never-the-Less, it scared me enough to cash out, move to The Woods, and plant a garden.