{"id":2751,"date":"2008-03-12T01:14:18","date_gmt":"2008-03-12T08:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2751"},"modified":"2008-03-12T08:09:03","modified_gmt":"2008-03-12T15:09:03","slug":"four-photographs-from-a-day-spent-looking-at-houses-two-of-them-are-tragic-but-the-other-two-are-infuriating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2751\/four-photographs-from-a-day-spent-looking-at-houses-two-of-them-are-tragic-but-the-other-two-are-infuriating\/","title":{"rendered":"Four photographs from a day spent looking at houses: Two of them are tragic — but the other two are infuriating"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m working this weekend with an out-of-state investor. I don’t know that Phoenix has hit the bottom in what is the ninth quarter of declining home prices, but we’ve shed enough value that newer suburban tract homes can once again throw off positive cash flow as rental properties.<\/p>\n

That’s the happy news. The sad news is that many of the houses that seem to be attractively priced to investors are in some stage of the foreclosure process, from negative equity to short sales to lender-owned properties.<\/p>\n

If you do this job long enough, you see just about everything. If you’re good at drawing inferences from artifacts, you can figure out the story of the home life in just about any house — family structure, recent financial history, reason for moving — whether or not the survival machine that is a home is functioning properly.<\/p>\n

But in a normal market, in a normal time, in a normal neighborhood, the tragic stories don’t come so thick and fast. Who hasn’t seen a skip? Who hasn’t seen an eviction? Who hasn’t seen the sad tell-tales of divorce? But it’s a rare thing to see these awful signs twelve or fifteen times in a single day.<\/p>\n

Look at this:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I saw kids’ bikes left behind in several garages today. Not enough room on the pick-up truck, the truck packed to bursting with everything the family could carry. Children are so easy to hustle. I can hear the fake enthusiasm behind the lie: “We’ll get new bikes! Better bikes! You’ll see!”<\/p>\n

That’s sad, but it was those ceiling valences that got me, those fabric clouds in a girl kid’s sky. That’s a mother-daughter thing — “What can we do to make this your<\/i> room?” Not too much money to spend, but just the right touch, just the right expression of a budding young lady’s individuality. Abandoned in the rush to get gone. Will that little girl ever be able to look at a ceiling and not<\/i> miss those fabric clouds?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I see this all the time, and I never get over it. That’s a man trying to kick down a door so he Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m working this weekend with an out-of-state investor. I don’t know that Phoenix has hit the bottom in what is the ninth quarter of declining home prices, but we’ve shed enough value that newer suburban tract homes can once again throw off positive cash flow as rental properties. That’s the happy news. The sad news […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29,6,9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-egoism-in-action","7":"category-group-therapy","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-photography","10":"category-real-estate","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10221,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10221\/fannierents-taxpayers-are-now-going-to-own-all-these-houses-fannie-mae-should-have-unloaded-its-going-to-cost-a-fortune\/","url_meta":{"origin":2751,"position":0},"title":"FannieRents: “Taxpayers are now going to own all these houses Fannie Mae should have unloaded. It’s going to cost a fortune.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Yahoo News:Can't pay the mortgage? You still might be able to stay in your home. Government-controlled mortgage company Fannie Mae is going to give borrowers on the verge of foreclosure the option of renting their homes for a year. The change announced Thursday could give a temporary break to thousands\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2626,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2626\/is-there-actually-a-sky-up-there-anymore\/","url_meta":{"origin":2751,"position":1},"title":"Is There Actually A Sky Up There Anymore?","author":"Allen Butler","date":"February 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I listen to misery and woe almost daily. There are plenty of Chicken Littles out there reporting that the sky is falling. And it is! There's no doubt that the real estate market is in the tank in many places in the country. It certainly is in my neck of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18162,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18162\/overnight-news-why-are-hedge-funds-still-buying-rental-properties-at-the-top-of-the-market\/","url_meta":{"origin":2751,"position":2},"title":"Overnight News: Why are hedge funds still buying rental properties at the top of the\u00a0market?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"As noted below, hedge funds are still buy-and-hold buyers. Do not ask me why. We have not worked on the buyer side of an investment deal in six or seven years. My style of single-family property has been upside down for a long time. But we sell to them, happily,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1519,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1519\/new-york-times-works-hard-to-put-the-fizz-in-fsbos\/","url_meta":{"origin":2751,"position":3},"title":"New York Times works hard to put the fizz in FSBOs . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"June 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"My own personal experience with For-Sale-By-Owner sellers is pretty limited. I've never farmed them for listings, so I know nothing of that part of their lives. I've called a bunch of them to try to show their homes, but only once have I successfully gotten into one with my buyers.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8815,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8815\/8815\/","url_meta":{"origin":2751,"position":4},"title":"The mortgage situation for nonresident buyers","author":"Phil Hodgen","date":"June 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Tom Vanderwall chimes in here on BHB regularly and helpfully about the mortgage situation. I look forward to his interpretation of the spins we get from DJ Bernake and crew. I handle foreign real estate transactions and here's what I'm seeing right now. What follows is all buyer-side stuff, because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Lending"","block_context":{"text":"Lending","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/lending\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12732,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12732\/gettin-listings-sold-playin-hide-the-pea\/","url_meta":{"origin":2751,"position":5},"title":"Gettin’ Listings Sold – Playin’ Hide the Pea","author":"Jeff Brown","date":"July 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I've never really cared much about the infinite number of sites 'marketing' listings for real estate agents. It's always struck me as oversold at best, and a con at worst. I'll let you gentle readers gimme your experience in the comments section. I have done a kinda sorta poll in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dirty Laundry"","block_context":{"text":"Dirty Laundry","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/dirty-laundry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}