Scary signs
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.
Related Websites- The Simplest Personal Finance Advice to Newlyweds My older brother got married on Friday, so to say the least, last week was nuts around my parts. I gave him a very generous...
- If you're renting now and want to buy, don't worry! A friend at work chatted with me earlier this week about a early-twenty-something couple he knew that were renting and really wanted to buy a...
- Lessons from Consistory One of the ways I volunteer my time is to serve on my church's consistory. It's essentially the Board of Directors, making decisions about budgets,...
