A chat with South Florida real-estate casualty

[El Pinko]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/columnists/sfl-ralph31sbjan31,0,3638250,full.column


A chat with South Florida real-estate casualty

Ralph De La Cruz
Lifestyle Columnist

"At 16, I was making mistake after mistake," Laura Richards said in the living room of her two-bedroom Boynton Beach apartment Monday. "By the time I was 21, I had three children and was on public assistance. A drain on society."

....

"I turned it around," she continued. "Did everything I was supposed to do. And now, I'm back full circle — at 37 — right back to where I started. Being a drain on society."


Richards has spent most of her adult life working in the real estate business. In 14 years she had gone from receptionist to processor, and finally, a senior mortgage loan underwriter/analyst.

....

Now Richards survives on $1,100 a month unemployment. She moved out of a $1,700-a-month three-bedroom apartment in Delray Beach to a two-bedroom place in Boynton that costs $1,100.

[Mountainman]

1. I feel for people who are hurt by this. But we all are responsible for wanting immediate financial

gains.

Home owners like me loved the increase in equity that came for free. Luckily I did not borrow much on it.

People loved getting into houses they thought they never could afford and now they can't.

Realtors and mortgage lenders made money while the merry go round whirled.

Investors made money churning the loans.

Speculators made money flipping houses.

Now it is time to pay the piper.

I have a house on the market that isn't selling. I've been reducing the price since a year ago. I'm renting and paying a mortgage.

When will we learn to stop living in the short run?

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I can see how losing her job was a blow. However, why , if 'everybody saw it coming', didn't

she take some action prior to the housing market bust. The story said she'd been making between $80K and $100K a year, yet she and her kids are uninsured and she defaulted on her student loans. Her rent still seems to be higher than needed.

[El Pinko]

3. $1100 is pretty low-end in S. Florida.

Any lower than that and it would either be a studio or in a high-crime ghetto.

[RebelOne]

9. In 1989, when I lived in South Florida,

I paid $400 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in Virginia Gardens, a suburb just north of Miami. And it was a very nice area. Rents couldn't have jumped that much since then.

[El Pinko]

13. I lived there until 2004, and yes, they have.

My duplex was bulldozed to make way for more high-end condos in Brickell. Rents were going through the roof even on modest apts. when we left Miami.

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. Yes, but if she was making 80k/yr, she should have some savings

[El Pinko]

14. This woman definitely made some BIG errors.

My heart goes out to her because I really think she's naive and had poor budgeting skills.

But unfortunately a lot of people are ending up like her - a lot of people in their 30s have never endured the job market in serious recession or had to really curb their spending, so it's a wake-up call for them.

[Javaman]

8. Many people while standing on the train tracks see the train coming

and still don't get off, in the hopes that it will stop before it hits them. They think that they are special.

[izquierdista]

4. Something smells here

If she saw it coming, then why is she in the state she is in? Why is her car about to be repossessed? With what she WAS earning, it wasn't good enough to own a modest car outright, she had to be making payments? Why is she in an apartment? With what she WAS earning, couldn't she have bought a modest place? With all that money that she WAS making, couldn't she have paid off her student loans?

Oh, I understand, it's the modest part that got her. She was going to continue to fly high, even while everyone else was crashing. She knows how money works? I don't think so, chocolate pudding between the ears and dumb as a stump.

:nopity:

[flamin lib]

6. Reality check here.

$75k Job went to China in 2002.

Invested $15 in getting RE license and $10k/year building the business.

Had three modest years before the bust.

Now bankrupt.

And yes, I had a modest car bought used and my home is one I bought in 1980.

Take your violin and put it someplace warm and dark.

[El Pinko]

7. Sorry for what you're going through.

I feel less sympathy for the people that succumbed to greed and the whole flip-this bubble insanity, but this woman was not a speculator or a flipper, she's just like a lot of Americans - making good money but not really making good financial plans - she was probably complacent and thought it wouldn't happen to her.

Sure, there was a lot she could have done to ease her plight, but a lot of people are not good with money and she was probably emulating a lot of people around her.

Good luck to you in getting back on your feet.


I'm paycheck-to-paycheck myself, with 2 kids and trying desperately to figure out how to boost my income to afford something better than mere subsistence. It's tough.

[izquierdista]

10. My job left in 2003

So I know what you are going through. I know what she is going through. But after having it rough in the Reagan years, I told myself I would ALWAYS be ready for things to come crashing down tomorrow. If you can't make yourself recession proof with a few years at $70K+ a year, then you aren't paying attention. There's thousands, no millions of ways to fritter away your hard earned money, and no one telling you to put it away for a rainy day. Unfortunately, the forecast now is for a lot of rainy days.

[flamin lib]

12. I've got close to $ Million in retirement but ya' know what? Ya' can't

touch it without giving half of it to taxes. If you pull it out during bankruptcy the court wants the rest of it. I had close to $45,000 in personal savings and un-protected stocks that the court got all of. Yeah, I bit the bullet and forewent the big boat and the rest. So what? If I'd used the $45 grand and some of the Mil for fun I'd at least have great memories and some pictures.

So don't give me this shit about knowing better and personal responsibility, OK?

BTW, how's that violin feel?

[bemildred]

5. Bush is a drain on society.

Enron was a drain on society.
Washington DC is a drain on society.
This woman is not a drain on society.