[HN Gopher] My job is to watch dreams die (2011)
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My job is to watch dreams die (2011)
Author : eezurr
Score : 165 points
Date : 2024-09-05 18:43 UTC (4 hours ago)
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| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2011)
|
| Some discussion then:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2959137
| zzzbra wrote:
| we've been online for so long now...
| analyte123 wrote:
| During this same time period I had a project at a part-time gig
| which involved updating document templates and adding a few
| fields here and there for a legal application. The application
| was used by a law firm which specialized in mortgages. So I saw
| the details of various documents one is served in these
| situations: notice of default, acceleration notices, notice to
| vacate, and ultimately evictions and foreclosure auctions. And of
| course you could see thousands of these documents being generated
| and mailed out. For a guy like the one in the post to show up,
| you probably would have had to completely ignore probably a dozen
| of these documents for at least 6 months, not paying your
| mortgage all along.
|
| Sometimes I feel like this experience, especially the idea that
| the entire principal balance can be accelerated if you don't make
| your payments regardless of the value of the house, left a bit of
| a scar on me that caused me to miss out on the ZIRP real estate
| boom II. But I am still happy with the way things are turning out
| overall.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > you probably would have had to completely ignore probably a
| dozen of these documents for at least 6 months, not paying your
| mortgage all along.
|
| Fun-fact: thems the benefits of being a mortgage holder.
|
| If you're a tenant that's renting, you get no such legal
| protections - let alone discretion from whichever faceless
| entity actually owns the property: where I am in King County
| WA, I think, at most you can get 30 days' notice tops (and
| that's if nonpayment is the only thing they allege; it's
| trivially straightforward to make it a 3-day nuisance eviction,
| honestly).
|
| The whole thing doesn't feel right (I don't want to say "class
| warfare", but I haven't heard a better explanation for this
| double-standard).
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Indeed. When I lived in an apparent, got a very angry knock
| at the door. Before I even got up, manager already was
| unlocking the door without asking, with a formal eviction
| notice in hand.
|
| Every month I faithfully put my rent check in an envelope,
| deposited the slot at the office.
|
| That month they accidentally threw away the check after
| opening the envelope.
|
| They really didn't believe I had paid, despite being a good
| tenant for years, always on time. Never caused any trouble.
|
| Marched me to the office and they discovered they had
| photocopied my check but didn't deposit it (threw it away).
|
| That all happened in one month -- no prior
| notice/warning/call about being late on rent.
|
| I'm still shocked at this treatment many many years later.
| Can't even chalk it up to any type of prejudice... just utter
| stupidity.
| jopsen wrote:
| No amount of laws can protect renters from a stupid
| landlord :)
|
| I could certainly see places where using a master key
| without authorization is a stupid move.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is why the "if you have a loan you're just renting from
| the bank" people aren't right - sure, in a way it's true but
| there really IS a legal difference, and it DOES come into
| play when things go south.
| santoshalper wrote:
| Yes, of course, there is a huge difference between having a
| mortgage (you are the owner but the investor has a lien on
| your property) and renting.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| > If you're a tenant that's renting, you get no such legal
| protections
|
| In the USA. Many countries in Europe have renters protection
| similar to that of mortgage holders.
| rayiner wrote:
| Depends on where you are in the U.S. Some places have
| extreme renter protections. Tenants can refuse to pay rent
| for months before you can even start an eviction
| proceeding. Then it takes months more. E.g. New York. https
| ://www.reddit.com/r/Landlord/comments/15nn6o0/landlordu....
| Landlords may forgo six months of back rent just to get the
| tenant out of the unit.
| pkaye wrote:
| How long can renters go without paying their rent in those
| countries?
| alphager wrote:
| In Germany, the process to evict may start after three
| months of unpaid rent.
|
| The eviction process itself takes about two years.
| bgnn wrote:
| That sounds indeed not right.
|
| Here in the Netherlands the renters have the right, but
| mortgage holders do not. I was renting a place the owner had
| mortgage. For some reason the bank wanted to sale the place
| but couldn't evict me. Since this was the owners fault the
| bank's lawyers helped me to get like 6 months of rent back to
| agree to leave. The bank even offered me to buy the place,
| which in the hindsight, I should have done.
|
| Long story short, what you guys have in US feels wrong and
| it's not always like that in the rest of the world.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's very local location dependent. You can find lots of
| horror stories from both the renter and the landlord side.
| And, in a lot of cases, renters can probably get off with a
| lot unless the landlord is willing to take extreme illegal
| measures (which they may).
| lacker wrote:
| TLDR: You pay for the benefits of being a mortgage holder,
| when you make the down payment.
|
| Think of it from the bank's point of view. A bank can afford
| to be patient with mortgage holders because there's an
| underlying asset. There's a $300,000 house and the owner
| still owes you $150,000. If you repossess right now as
| opposed to a few months from now, either way you're getting
| repaid from the value of the asset, minus the cost of dealing
| with everything.
|
| Whereas when renting, if someone misses rent one month, if
| you evict them immediately you're out a month's rent. If you
| wait two more months before evicting, now you're out three
| months' rent. The longer you delay, the more it costs you.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| There was a Planet Money story about Zombie Mortgages. Home
| owners thought a second mortgage had been annulled, sometimes
| even being explicitly told that. Years of no statements being
| sent and suddenly collections was asking for money on what the
| home owner thought was a done deal. Even the bank was claiming
| it was some weird fraud attempt. So of course you could feel
| safe ignoring that paperwork. Until they came and sold her
| house out from under her.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2024/05/10/1197959049/zombie-second-mort...
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > For a guy like the one in the post to show up, you probably
| would have had to completely ignore probably a dozen of these
| documents for at least 6 months, not paying your mortgage all
| along.
|
| I find it interesting that in all of these discussions it's
| treated as known that the person at hand is ignoring the
| notices and just pretending they aren't in danger of losing
| their home, just like in issues of evictions for rent, it's
| treated that for some reason the tenant has decided they don't
| need to pay. When IMO, in both of these, it's much more
| reasonable to assume they _can 't pay._
|
| Maybe it's just a reflexive self-protection thing in people.
| It's easier to watch/envision a family being forced out of
| their home via state violence if you assume they were just
| stupid/inept in some way, that they did something wrong. That
| the very same thing couldn't happen to you because you would
| never just not pay your mortgage. And I mean, same. I would
| never not pay my mortgage. But I can easily conjure all kinds
| of nightmares that would render me _unable to pay my mortgage._
|
| Maybe people just don't like thinking about that.
| brudgers wrote:
| People often moralize about money in ways that are personally
| beneficial just like they often moralize about other things.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| the reddit post doesn't assume that.
| howard941 wrote:
| I worked the other side of this thing, as a debtors' bankruptcy
| attorney. Sometimes I could save the house but usually it wasn't
| in the cards: The income wasn't there and the bankruptcy laws
| were skewed by GWB. Fortunately there were many times when - if a
| house wasn't an issue - the debtor was much better off without an
| albatross around his neck. Overall it was a rewarding occupation
| - not monetarily, the rules kept debtor's attorneys on a very
| short leash - but morally.
| coding123 wrote:
| There needs to be some standard addendum attached to homes as an
| option that anyone selling a home can attach to the sale.
| Something like:
|
| This house cannot be used as an investment vehicle. It cannot be
| sold by a real-estate agent with a contract of more than 1%. It
| cannot be used as a rental. It cannot be sold for more than
| inflation would allow.
|
| Anyone found violating this addendum may be sued. All proceeds
| from the lawsuit (after fair lawyer fee of 40%) shall be used to
| build new homes (as in it can only be used to fund actual
| building materials, not generic non-profit companies).
|
| This might not be the best approach, but we need a home
| renaissance that redefines home ownership across the world so
| that no one has to be homeless anymore.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Or, you know, just actually build enough houses for people to
| live in. I feel like that would be a better start than suing
| people into bankruptcy because they made 5% off a house sale
| instead of of 4.5%.
|
| Houses are only an attractive investment vehicle in the first
| place because there is a massive shortage of housing.
| peterldowns wrote:
| (Ignoring the obvious problems of how such an addendum could be
| written and enforced.)
|
| Why? When would it make sense for someone to attach this
| addendum to a sale? All these penalties and restrictions would
| only mean getting paid less for the same property. On the buyer
| side, why would anyone want an asset like you've described?
|
| I live in a home that I enjoy in part because it is a fantastic
| investment that is highly-leveraged (through a mortgage) in a
| way not possible for other types of assets. If I need to I can
| rent out rooms or the entire property. I can sell it to whoever
| I want, whenever I want. I can borrow against my partial equity
| in the property. My mortgage is 30-year fixed, but I can always
| refinance (with no prepayment penalty) if rates go down below
| my locked rate.
|
| I wouldn't want to buy a house without these benefits, and I
| don't know who else would. If this became standard it would
| reduce demand for this asset class, and therefore make it less
| profitable to build new housing, which is exactly the opposite
| of what you want.
| coolspot wrote:
| Homelessness is mostly caused by drugs and/or psychiatric
| illness.
| santoshalper wrote:
| I have spent about 20 years in the mortgage and housing industry,
| a decent amount of that in servicing and default. I have seen
| some shady shit including borrowers who committed mortgage fraud
| and lenders who made loans they knew would ultimately blow up in
| someone's face (not theirs!).
|
| That said, 99% of defaults are very simple: At the time of the
| loan, the borrower could afford to make the mortgage payment.
| Later down the road, something changes in their circumstance, and
| they can no longer afford to make the monthly payment (or
| anything close enough to work out a deal). The most common
| reasons are a loss of income or severe medical issues.
|
| Mortgage servicers and investors almost never want to foreclose
| on a home. An extended default leading to a foreclosure is very
| costly, and the servicer is usually fronting the money to the
| investor the entire time. Everyone loses when a foreclosure
| happens (though only one party doesn't have a home anymore).
|
| I am profoundly sympathetic to anyone who gets evicted, but
| lenders only make mortgage loans because the property is
| collateral. How else would someone front a normal borrower
| hundreds of thousands of dollars?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > thieves don't grin at them through the kitchen window while
| they disconnect a running air conditioner
|
| Not in Texas, they don't.
| tomrod wrote:
| Yep, the robbers just shoot you or wait for you to be asleep.
|
| Or smile at you through the kitchen window while they
| disconnect the running air conditioner.
|
| Despite our bravado and ammosexuality, it turns out Texans are
| people like everywhere else.
| istjohn wrote:
| After Uvalde, that Texan braggadocio looks sillier than ever.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Don't mess with Texas (unless you have a gun).
| RGamma wrote:
| So this must be (one of the undoubtably many reasons) why our
| transatlantic friends are trying to push the self-destruct button
| since 2016. Reads like dystopian fiction. Canis canem possidet.
| mminer237 wrote:
| Where do you live that you don't have foreclosure sales?
| RGamma wrote:
| It's not about foreclosure sales. It's about the desperation,
| the ruthlessness, the intense pressure, the instant legal
| armament. Some other commenter here mentioned 3 day eviction
| notices (when renting) are a thing. Come on...
| sandspar wrote:
| I've seen a few sides of money. Raised upper class, lost it all
| and became underclass, then made it back. I'm always amazed at
| how limited rich people's worldview is. The average software
| developer, coastal liberal etc. They've never felt terror, the
| visceral feeling of being terrified. They've never been predated
| upon. They've never been used and discarded. The underclass lives
| with this stuff every day, 24/7, and rich people never experience
| it even once in their whole lives. And the rich people presume to
| talk down to and lecture the poor. I have a great deal of
| contempt for people of my class, the rich.
| silisili wrote:
| I was just discussing this with a friend last week. In my case
| at least, it was too easy to forget. I grew up low end of
| middle class at best, and after high school was dirt poor.
|
| Getting overdrafts weekly, in that era where they reorder
| transactions to really turn the screws. Sleeping early because
| it's cheaper than eating. Working two jobs and still not
| getting ahead. The shame of having to ask to borrow a few
| bucks, but trying to hide it so you didn't seem ingenuous.
| Having better off people talk to you like a child, giving you
| unsolicited one liner advice that they probably read on a
| motivational poster at work that morning, like they're doing me
| a life favor.
|
| The thing is, I got a lucky break in my mid 20s and haven't
| struggled a day since. Now it's been almost 20 years, and I
| find myself acting like the rich person you describe. I guess
| like all things, appreciation wears off with age and becomes
| the new normal.
|
| I don't ever want to struggle like that again, but I'd love to
| experience the feeling and appreciation I had for the first
| couple years after climbing out of it. It's easy to forget.
| UberFly wrote:
| Many of the comments in that Reddit thread are heartbreaking.
| Ouch.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| I've had a handful of lemons thrown at me during my life. One of
| the most impactful ones as far as I can tell is that through a
| weird chain of coincidences I ended up first in line to purchase
| a foreclosed home. From what I understood, the couple was going
| through a nasty divorce and couldn't agree on who would get the
| house and ultimately didn't pay anything for a while, so I picked
| it up for 80k, which back then was probably 50% of what the
| market value was. This was hige for kme because as a kid my
| family was actually evicted from the house we were renting (not
| for financial-related reasons) but it was sudden so home security
| has always been important to me.
|
| Having been able to pay off my house has had the most tremendous
| postive impact on my mental health I think. Sure, it's a small
| house, and it's old, and the kitchen is small, and so on... but
| man, I'm so glad I never have to worry about making a house
| payment.
| typeofhuman wrote:
| Reminds me of a friend of mine who had a job serving final
| eviction notices to people living in single-family houses. This
| was during the 2008 financial crisis in the United States.
|
| He said it forever changed him.
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