Scary signs
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While driving around today I passed 3 signs that made me pause and do a doubletake.
The first one was a handlettered sign that explained that someone was selling their house to the highest bidder on Sunday. The bidding was to start at $242,000, and the house was appraised at $400,000. I’d heard of things like that before, but was still surprised to see a sign like that. The sign got me into the “thinking about the housing market” frame of mind, which is probably why the next two signs caught my eye:
Sign #2 said “Get out of A.R.M’s. 40-50-60 year loans available”.
#3 said “100% financing with FICO score of at least 500″.
Is it just me, or does that sound like predatory lending to anyone else?
Those two signs were out in a newly developed area (an area where an enormous number of houses had been built in the last 3-4 years, and where new construction sales were going like crazy a little over a year ago). To give you an idea of how things stand now in that area, while driving down 3 blocks I saw approximately 9 houses for sale, many of which said “reduced” and at least one that was clearly empty.
