I nearly choked on my omelette while reading this one in the Sunday paper this morning.I'm glad it's done," Gardner said wearily. "I just want to sit down and have some Hennessy."
...
Most foreclosures nowadays are homes purchased just a year or two ago with no money down. But the Gardners' home is different. Joann's parents, Johnnie Gardner, 87, and Estelle, 88, bought the two-bedroom in the Sobrante Park neighborhood in 1954 for $11,500. His salary as an electrician at the Oakland naval shipyard allowed them to make the payments.
But in recent years, Joann and her brother refinanced it several times for increasingly larger amounts.
The final refinance at the end of 2006 left the family owing $454,000. The monthly payments of $3,362 exceeded the household income of $3,144.
What happened to the money from all the refinances?
Gardner can't quite say. Some went to paying off credit cards; some was eaten up in huge loan fees. What is clear is that the family has not made a mortgage payment since December 2006.
Foreclosed family's last goodbye to home
How does someone lose track of $454K?! I'd really like the complete story on this one. Where's the brother who was also involved in these refinancing schemes? Smoking crack somewhere?
22 comments:
I savor sweet stories like this one, it makes me all mursty.
Let me go on to say that if they really did blow through all that money and end up hopeless I will be pleased beyond measure.
Further, I hope the bank ended up with a good chunk of the money by way of fees and mortgage payments and that Joann and her brother have all their retirement in mortagae bonds that go bad and that they end up living penniless, in a van, no, scratch that, a cardboard box, down by the koi cesspool.
Yeah, but what about their hard working elderly parents suffering from dementia who are stuck in the sort of POS "board-and-care home" covered by social security because their pathetic, lazy ass Boomer "kids" used their equity like an ATM?
From the article:
Gardner's elderly parents, both suffering from dementia and other ailments, had moved a week earlier to a local board-and-care home whose cost would be covered by their Social Security and pension checks.
What a terrible thing to do to one's parents yet the S.F. Chronicle is painting this like yet another foreclosure sob story where we should feel sorry for "victims" like the Hennessy drinking daughter who will move in with her boyfriend and maybe consider getting a job.
Oh, did you check out the video?
Not being a car-oriented person I can't say what the make/model/year it is, but it looks pretty nice for a person who hasn't worked in years.
Hey, getting stuffed into a home where they eat canned shit and get beatings thrice daily is what they deserve for raising such azhole children. Hopefully the kiddies end up the same way.
This sob story makes me sick, they blew through more money than I'll make in a lifetime and they're the victims? I'm the friggin' victim here. As an honest citizen I've been raped repeatedly by this deal.
Oh wait, they're black? Sorry, they are the victims, no doubt. Where's Jesse Jackson? Where's the outrage? WHERE'S THE FRIGGIN' OURAGE!
@ Akubi:
In this case getting warehoused like that could be a blessing for the parents. I suppose that the kids could have taken good care of them while draining their equity, but I somehow doubt it.
The car is a mid 90s Nissan Altima, or less likely the equivalent Infiniti. Typical midsize Japanese car. Not an econobox, but not ostentatious either. I never liked that model -- the trunk looks silly.
Also, Ikea sucks but carries the oddly shaped furniture I was looking for, so I guess I can't complain.
Damn the SF Chronicle... I was planning to pull off the same scheme on my parents!! ;-)
Lord knows that an inheritance is the only way I'll ever own a house again...
@Ogg,
So I guess the missing brother ran off with the money and is smoking it?
@Casey,
I was thinking the same thing.
Shit, what is up with all of the sewage spills these days?
I should start a new blog:
23 Years of Being Annoyed By Drew Barrymore.
A few problems might create issues:
1. Aspeth is an incredible writer and I don't have the skillz to mimic her.
2. After too many boring data loads, I'm lazy.
3. I can't write. I stick with sound bytes.
I think I'd have a hard time with a job that involved even a moderate amount of sitting around waiting for stuff. Although I wish I had more time for slacking off, I appreciate the fact that my current looser W-2 job is not as boring as the last.
Please don't emulate Aspeth too much. She writes well, sure, but she doesn't exactly do it on a regular basis.
Also, Bush is somewhat flag-challenged.
Inverted koi find
Bush, on top of being a criminal he is also a major maroon.
The problem w/ the swin bladder is he ain't got one.
Swi(m) bladder, and if he does have one, it's out of warranty by now.
I had that inverted koi in my links of stuff to post when I have a minute, but I never got around to it.
Check out the latest photo Casey posted on his blog!
And Tanta brings us another "housing crisis" story:
Lisa Harris and her husband were entrepreneurs who had recently bought an Evanston laundromat and a Park Ridge tanning salon. They didn't have two years of regular income to report, but their credit score was a high 720, so they qualified for a low-documentation, 30-year adjustable-rate loan.
If I wore contact lenses I'd get these. Wouldn't it be fun to look like an anime character?
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