“Families Hemorrhaging Into Homelessness”
November 12th, 2008Via: Reuters:
Families are flooding homeless shelters across the United States in numbers not seen for years, camping out in motels or staying with friends and relatives, homeless advocates say.
“There are lots of families hemorrhaging into homelessness and we need to figure out how to put a tourniquet on the hemorrhaging,” Philip Mangano, the homelessness czar appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002, told Reuters.
There is little time to waste. The U.S. unemployment rate is at a 14-year high and more job losses are forecast, while the Mortgage Bankers Association says nearly 1.5 million homes are in the process of foreclosure.
The U.S. Congress approved a massive housing market rescue bill in July that sets aside $3.9 billion that can be used partly by local authorities to buy foreclosed properties. Those could potentially house homeless families.
Mangano, whose official title is director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, described the $3.9 billion as an “opening salvo” and said the new administration and Democratic-controlled Congress must be prepared to move quickly to invest more money to help homeless families and slow the flood of foreclosures.
Brought to you by the Department of “Gee, Ya Think So?”: American Buying Binge Grinds to a Halt.
Relax…in a few years, being homeless is going to become uber-green eco-friendly hotness.
Just as downsizing your home is now considered cool because of your “lower environmental footprint”…getting rid of your car is hip for reasons which should be obvious to anyone with a real conscience…being “home-less” is only destined to become the ultimate in Haute Couture, daah-ling!
We should all be green with envy.
@lagavulin:
In all seriousness, the one upside I see in the coming collapse is that homelessness will lose much of its dehumanizing stigma once so freaking many people are actual no-BS homeless people.
I’m trying to count on my fingers all the people my mother and I will feed and support in the coming “homeless” age.
Not trying to be a vulture by any means, but would now be the time to buy property in the U.S., or is there much further to go down in value?
I don’t have a sense of what the right thing to do is now.
Buying a property could relieve someone of their debt burden. But I wouldn’t want to make a purchase if it made someone homeless.
Eileen,
Just like the time to sell was when everyone thought you were crazy to sell (as I did in 06) because RE was such a no-lose proposition, you’ll know it’s time to buy when everyone thinks you’re crazy to buy that worthless RE. So it ain’t time yet.
But who’d want to buy a property in Rome while the barbarians are at the gate? Fallen empires are to be avoided. I’d park my cash in gold at Bullion Vault, and then, when the smoke clears and you no longer have elder care responsibilities, FLEE and buy a place overseas.
The weather’s FINE over heah …
Eileen, I’m curious what kind of property you’re looking for, and where.
I would assume you would want a few rural acres–ideally with a large house in good condition.
In general, I don’t see that buying now at lowball prices is being a vulture–though I can see how you might feel bad (maybe a little) benefitting from the collapse in the housing market. But bubble values were inflated (fake) values that were never anything but “hallucinated wealth.” Real market prices reflect realistic valuations.
That said, I recently chatted with a man at our tire emporium, who said he had just purchased a foreclosure for 30 cents on the dollar. That is, he bought a house priced at $100,000 for $30,000.
That’s a decent house, around here.
He did this by playing hardball: He offered 30K (with the bank paying closing costs). They counter-offered for a higher price. He countered again for his original offer.
If the bank won’t take your low-ball offer, you walk. Piss on ’em. Offer on another place.
I suspect the guy a talked with was a cash buyer–but I didn’t ask.
I’m in Missouri, where we have some of the cheapest (and best) farmland in the US. Northern Missouri, near Kirksville (college town), has the largest concentration of ICs of anywhere in the US. It’s also Amish country. Most of the vehicles on the road are buggies.
The Missouri Ozark Mountains are gorgeous.
But I don’t think the price of farmland is terribly depressed. I’m not sure. But I know of people who’ve gotten some deals. I know one family who bought 18 acres with a run-down single-wide for dirt cheap–sight-unseen, via a website. Another young family in my neighborhood bought a one-acre lakefront lot with a run-down single-wide for $4,500–and got a payout. The seller, a friend of mine, was desperate for reasons that are still unclear to me.
You aren’t screwing anyone by buying as low as you can.