You know with a bit of work...some wiring....move a wall or two....a
man could actually have a beginning of a workshop in the making.

Maybe we will see a new type of cable series where McMansions can be
converted into something useful.

TMT



Credit crunch ripples into U.S. mega-mansion market By Jason Szep
Tue Oct 2, 8:09 PM ET



There's an indoor lap pool, eight-car garage and four-storey elevator.
But the 26,000-sq ft (2,415-sq meter), Tuscan-style home features
something even more unusual in this ritzy suburb of gated estates and
mansions -- a $3 million discount on its price.

As the credit crisis started to shake global financial markets in
August, the owners of the 22-acre (9-hectare) estate at 309 Taconic
Road in Greenwich, Connecticut, cut their price to $19 million,
showing turbulence in the U.S. housing market penetrating the
wealthiest strata of American society.

"People are looking instead of buying, maybe since the second week of
August," said Julianne Ward, director of fine homes at broker
Prudential in Greenwich, a coastal town of 61,000 about 30 miles from
New York City.

Until recently, the nation's most extravagant homes had defied the two-
year slide in prices and surge in foreclosures roiling the broader
property market, where existing home sales are down more than 20
percent from a 2005 peak, according to industry data.

Ultimate Homes, a publication that ranks the nation's 1,000 priciest
homes, began its survey in 2005 with the cheapest on the list at $7.9
million. That jumped to $10 million this year with a record six homes
now selling for $100 million or more.

"In the last couple of years the most expensive home on the market has
gone from $75 million to $165 million," said Rick Goodwin, the
magazine's publisher. "This market is still very strong. The rich are
doing very well."

The nation's wealthiest communities were largely unscathed by turmoil
in the broader housing market through the second quarter of this year,
according DataQuick, which analyzes data on real-estate markets
nationally.

In California, for example, the number of homes that sold for $10
million or more rose nearly 40 percent between the first quarter and
second quarter, while the number in New York grew 15 percent and
Connecticut's more than doubled, according to public records examined
by DataQuick.

DataQuick mines records where a price or loan amount is available,
which means there can be some gaps, but the numbers are a reliable
indicator of trends, said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage who compiled
the data for Reuters.

"Certainly through mid-summer it appears to be holding up just fine,
and faring better than most other segments of the market," he said of
homes selling at $10 million or more.

CREDIT CRUNCH STIRS CAUTION

Like the Bel Air section of Los Angeles and many other exclusive
coastal communities, Greenwich has a long association with wealth. Its
typical family earns more than $120,000 -- more than double the
national average, while its investment bankers are among the country's
highest paid, taking home on average $23,846 a week -- 28 times the
national average, according a recent government survey.

But the global credit crunch is stirring caution among its newest crop
of wealthy elite. Greenwich is the unofficial capital of the U.S.
hedge fund boom. More than 100 of the private investment pools for the
wealthy have set up in the town. That worries economist Edward Deak at
Fairfield University in Connecticut.

"The hedge funds, private equity firms are taking a hit," he said.

"I'm concerned about what the mortgage meltdown is going to mean for
bonus incomes coming into Connecticut in January '08 and also January
of '09."

DIVERGENT HOUSING TRENDS

Some developers are changing course, or delaying the start of sales or
construction.

"Buyers are doing a lot more due diligence and not pulling the trigger
as quickly," said Ward, who has sold real estate in the town for more
than two decades, as she steered her silver Land Rover past one of
several walled compounds for sale.

A vivid illustration of the divergent housing trends of the last two
years is on display about an hour-and-a-half drive from Greenwich on
Avon Mountain in West Hartford, Connecticut, where local businessman
Arnold Chase is building a new home.

His 53,000-sq ft (4,923-sq meter) estate, complete with 100-seat
cinema, would be New England's largest private home, eclipsing even
the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, that typified the gilded age of
America's industrial revolution.

"At the highest end, there's been no slowdown at all," said Joseph
Beninati, partner and co-founder of Antares Investment Partners, a
private-equity and development firm that caters to Greenwich's hedge
funds.

According to town records in Greenwich cited by Antares, the number of
closed transactions on homes sold at prices greater than $8 million
grew 50 percent in 2006, a record. Beninati said he expects that
figure to rise again this year.

Last month, Antares sold its 15,000 square foot (1,400 sq meter) Two
Fountains Estate for about $11 million. Beninati said. Antares is now
mediating a bidding war on another estate, Stone Chase -- a 17,800
square foot (1,700 sq meter) home with a 10,000-bottle wine cellar
priced in the $10 million range.

"The luxury market tends to be a little isolated from the market
swings. This time around it's a little different because the bottom
half of the upper tier is softening a bit," said Laurie Moore-Moore,
founder of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, a trade body for
high-end property brokers.

The bottom tier is comprised of homes that sell for $2 million or
less, she said. "As the market softens I think we are seeing that
segment of the market falling out," she said.

On Oct 3, 10:14 pm, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
You know with a bit of work...some wiring....move a wall or two....a
man could actually have a beginning of a workshop in the making.

Maybe we will see a new type of cable series where McMansions can be
converted into something useful.

TMT

Credit crunch ripples into U.S. mega-mansion market By Jason Szep
Tue Oct 2, 8:09 PM ET

There's an indoor lap pool, eight-car garage and four-storey elevator.
But the 26,000-sq ft (2,415-sq meter), Tuscan-style home features
something even more unusual in this ritzy suburb of gated estates and
mansions -- a $3 million discount on its price.

As the credit crisis started to shake global financial markets in
August, the owners of the 22-acre (9-hectare) estate at 309 Taconic
Road in Greenwich, Connecticut, cut their price to $19 million,
showing turbulence in the U.S. housing market penetrating the
wealthiest strata of American society.

"People are looking instead of buying, maybe since the second week of
August," said Julianne Ward, director of fine homes at broker
Prudential in Greenwich, a coastal town of 61,000 about 30 miles from
New York City.

Until recently, the nation's most extravagant homes had defied the two-
year slide in prices and surge in foreclosures roiling the broader
property market, where existing home sales are down more than 20
percent from a 2005 peak, according to industry data.

Ultimate Homes, a publication that ranks the nation's 1,000 priciest
homes, began its survey in 2005 with the cheapest on the list at $7.9
million. That jumped to $10 million this year with a record six homes
now selling for $100 million or more.

"In the last couple of years the most expensive home on the market has
gone from $75 million to $165 million," said Rick Goodwin, the
magazine's publisher. "This market is still very strong. The rich are
doing very well."

The nation's wealthiest communities were largely unscathed by turmoil
in the broader housing market through the second quarter of this year,
according DataQuick, which analyzes data on real-estate markets
nationally.

In California, for example, the number of homes that sold for $10
million or more rose nearly 40 percent between the first quarter and
second quarter, while the number in New York grew 15 percent and
Connecticut's more than doubled, according to public records examined
by DataQuick.

DataQuick mines records where a price or loan amount is available,
which means there can be some gaps, but the numbers are a reliable
indicator of trends, said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage who compiled
the data for Reuters.

"Certainly through mid-summer it appears to be holding up just fine,
and faring better than most other segments of the market," he said of
homes selling at $10 million or more.

CREDIT CRUNCH STIRS CAUTION

Like the Bel Air section of Los Angeles and many other exclusive
coastal communities, Greenwich has a long association with wealth. Its
typical family earns more than $120,000 -- more than double the
national average, while its investment bankers are among the country's
highest paid, taking home on average $23,846 a week -- 28 times the
national average, according a recent government survey.

But the global credit crunch is stirring caution among its newest crop
of wealthy elite. Greenwich is the unofficial capital of the U.S.
hedge fund boom. More than 100 of the private investment pools for the
wealthy have set up in the town. That worries economist Edward Deak at
Fairfield University in Connecticut.

"The hedge funds, private equity firms are taking a hit," he said.

"I'm concerned about what the mortgage meltdown is going to mean for
bonus incomes coming into Connecticut in January '08 and also January
of '09."

DIVERGENT HOUSING TRENDS

Some developers are changing course, or delaying the start of sales or
construction.

"Buyers are doing a lot more due diligence and not pulling the trigger
as quickly," said Ward, who has sold real estate in the town for more
than two decades, as she steered her silver Land Rover past one of
several walled compounds for sale.

A vivid illustration of the divergent housing trends of the last two
years is on display about an hour-and-a-half drive from Greenwich on
Avon Mountain in West Hartford, Connecticut, where local businessman
Arnold Chase is building a new home.

His 53,000-sq ft (4,923-sq meter) estate, complete with 100-seat
cinema, would be New England's largest private home, eclipsing even
the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, that typified the gilded age of
America's industrial revolution.

"At the highest end, there's been no slowdown at all," said Joseph
Beninati, partner and co-founder of Antares Investment Partners, a
private-equity and development firm that caters to Greenwich's hedge
funds.

According to town records in Greenwich cited by Antares, the number of
closed transactions on homes sold at prices greater than $8 million
grew 50 percent in 2006, a record. Beninati said he expects that
figure to rise again this year.

Last month, Antares sold its 15,000 square foot (1,400 sq meter) Two
Fountains Estate for about $11 million. Beninati said. Antares is now
mediating a bidding war on another estate, Stone Chase -- a 17,800
square foot (1,700 sq meter) home with a 10,000-bottle wine cellar
priced in the $10 million range.

"The luxury market tends to be a little isolated from the market
swings. This time around it's a little different because the bottom
half of the upper tier is softening a bit," said Laurie Moore-Moore,
founder of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, a trade body for
high-end property brokers.

The bottom tier is comprised of homes that sell for $2 million or
less, she said. "As the market softens I think we are seeing that
segment of the market falling out," she said.

Your posting was very interesting, I guess we need not send these
moguls any care packages. The following anecdote is off topic but its
worth a few moments to read.
(Originally told by Jack Bogle, founder of the Vangard investment
organization.)

At a party thrown on Shelter Island (Pricey summer resort off east end
of Long Island, N.Y.) The host was the head of a private equity firm
and reportedly received $147 million as last years earnings.

Kurt Vornagat, the late science fiction writer, was in attendance as
was Joseph Heller. Vornagat told Heller that the host made more money
in one day than Heller received as the total proceeds from writing
Catch 22.

Heller said, that may be true but I have one thing that he hasn't got.
I have enough.
Joe G

On Oct 3, 9:14 pm, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
You know with a bit of work...some wiring....move a wall or two....a
man could actually have a beginning of a workshop in the making.

Maybe we will see a new type of cable series where McMansions can be
converted into something useful.

TMT

Credit crunch ripples into U.S. mega-mansion market By Jason Szep
Tue Oct 2, 8:09 PM ET

There's an indoor lap pool, eight-car garage and four-storey elevator.
But the 26,000-sq ft (2,415-sq meter), Tuscan-style home features
something even more unusual in this ritzy suburb of gated estates and
mansions -- a $3 million discount on its price.

As the credit crisis started to shake global financial markets in
August, the owners of the 22-acre (9-hectare) estate at 309 Taconic
Road in Greenwich, Connecticut, cut their price to $19 million,
showing turbulence in the U.S. housing market penetrating the
wealthiest strata of American society.

"People are looking instead of buying, maybe since the second week of
August," said Julianne Ward, director of fine homes at broker
Prudential in Greenwich, a coastal town of 61,000 about 30 miles from
New York City.

Until recently, the nation's most extravagant homes had defied the two-
year slide in prices and surge in foreclosures roiling the broader
property market, where existing home sales are down more than 20
percent from a 2005 peak, according to industry data.

Ultimate Homes, a publication that ranks the nation's 1,000 priciest
homes, began its survey in 2005 with the cheapest on the list at $7.9
million. That jumped to $10 million this year with a record six homes
now selling for $100 million or more.

"In the last couple of years the most expensive home on the market has
gone from $75 million to $165 million," said Rick Goodwin, the
magazine's publisher. "This market is still very strong. The rich are
doing very well."

The nation's wealthiest communities were largely unscathed by turmoil
in the broader housing market through the second quarter of this year,
according DataQuick, which analyzes data on real-estate markets
nationally.

In California, for example, the number of homes that sold for $10
million or more rose nearly 40 percent between the first quarter and
second quarter, while the number in New York grew 15 percent and
Connecticut's more than doubled, according to public records examined
by DataQuick.

DataQuick mines records where a price or loan amount is available,
which means there can be some gaps, but the numbers are a reliable
indicator of trends, said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage who compiled
the data for Reuters.

"Certainly through mid-summer it appears to be holding up just fine,
and faring better than most other segments of the market," he said of
homes selling at $10 million or more.

CREDIT CRUNCH STIRS CAUTION

Like the Bel Air section of Los Angeles and many other exclusive
coastal communities, Greenwich has a long association with wealth. Its
typical family earns more than $120,000 -- more than double the
national average, while its investment bankers are among the country's
highest paid, taking home on average $23,846 a week -- 28 times the
national average, according a recent government survey.

But the global credit crunch is stirring caution among its newest crop
of wealthy elite. Greenwich is the unofficial capital of the U.S.
hedge fund boom. More than 100 of the private investment pools for the
wealthy have set up in the town. That worries economist Edward Deak at
Fairfield University in Connecticut.

"The hedge funds, private equity firms are taking a hit," he said.

"I'm concerned about what the mortgage meltdown is going to mean for
bonus incomes coming into Connecticut in January '08 and also January
of '09."

DIVERGENT HOUSING TRENDS

Some developers are changing course, or delaying the start of sales or
construction.

"Buyers are doing a lot more due diligence and not pulling the trigger
as quickly," said Ward, who has sold real estate in the town for more
than two decades, as she steered her silver Land Rover past one of
several walled compounds for sale.

A vivid illustration of the divergent housing trends of the last two
years is on display about an hour-and-a-half drive from Greenwich on
Avon Mountain in West Hartford, Connecticut, where local businessman
Arnold Chase is building a new home.

His 53,000-sq ft (4,923-sq meter) estate, complete with 100-seat
cinema, would be New England's largest private home, eclipsing even
the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, that typified the gilded age of
America's industrial revolution.

"At the highest end, there's been no slowdown at all," said Joseph
Beninati, partner and co-founder of Antares Investment Partners, a
private-equity and development firm that caters to Greenwich's hedge
funds.

According to town records in Greenwich cited by Antares, the number of
closed transactions on homes sold at prices greater than $8 million
grew 50 percent in 2006, a record. Beninati said he expects that
figure to rise again this year.

Last month, Antares sold its 15,000 square foot (1,400 sq meter) Two
Fountains Estate for about $11 million. Beninati said. Antares is now
mediating a bidding war on another estate, Stone Chase -- a 17,800
square foot (1,700 sq meter) home with a 10,000-bottle wine cellar
priced in the $10 million range.

"The luxury market tends to be a little isolated from the market
swings. This time around it's a little different because the bottom
half of the upper tier is softening a bit," said Laurie Moore-Moore,
founder of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, a trade body for
high-end property brokers.

The bottom tier is comprised of homes that sell for $2 million or
less, she said. "As the market softens I think we are seeing that
segment of the market falling out," she said.

Anyone for a new shop in Az?

TMT



Boom, bust in area beset by foreclosures By ADAM GELLER, AP National
Writer

Out on Phoenix's suburban fringes, where cement mixers are fast
colonizing what's left of the hay and cotton fields, the day is
winding to a close. The home hour has arrived.

But sundown gives away a troubling secret: Behind dark windows and
many unanswered doors, it's clear nobody is coming home.

The ranch home on Via del Palo where the newspaper in the driveway has
been sitting unclaimed since April. The house at the corner of 223rd
Court with faded fliers stuck in the door. The two-story on Via del
Rancho with the phone book on the step.

They're all empty, left behind by a rising tide of foreclosures.

This neighborhood has a still-unfolding story to tell, and it is not
always a comfortable one to hear.

Not long ago, builders were raising home prices here thousands of
dollars week after week. Families pitched tents in front of sales
offices and waited for Saturday morning lotteries to win the right to
buy. Buyers - including more than a few speculators - gambled with
loans whose risks were obscured by euphoria.

This is the tale of how America's real estate boom came to a seemingly
ordinary subdivision called the Villages at Queen Creek, where the
whipsaw of easy credit has led to some extraordinary times.

They were the best of times, for a while. The empty homes, though,
raise serious doubts about what comes next.

As the nation confronts skyrocketing foreclosures, and policymakers
try to contain a symptomatic credit crunch, what is happening here and
in scores of similar neighborhoods is worth considering.

Because while the pressures at work in Queen Creek were extreme, the
choices people made - and the consequences of those decisions - are
not so different from those faced by thousands of other homeowners and
their neighbors.

"Honestly," says Joy Kessler, a mother of three boys standing on the
doorstep of the house she and her husband are surrendering to
foreclosure, "if you were in this situation, what would you do?"

___

In June of 2004, Dave Gustafson took time off from his job as a
supermarket produce manager, and the family headed to Arizona to visit
relatives. The buzz of construction - and word of low home prices -
convinced them to have a look around.

Dave and his wife Maryann liked what they saw.

Back in California, they had contented themselves with less than 1,100
square feet. But salesmen here showed them floor plans that would give
them 2 1/2 times the space for half the price.

The place they liked the best was a subdivision called the Villages, a
crescent-shaped warren of streets cradling a golf course, quickly
filling with sand-colored stucco homes. The local schools had a good
reputation. It was affordable. There was an extra-big lot on a cul-de-
sac, with enough room in back for a pool.

"The sales person was saying that they (homes) were going up $1,000 a
week," Dave Gustafson recalls. "So when we came to look, we signed
right away."

Builders made it easy. A downpayment of $2,000 to $5,000 was all it
took to get started. Buyers could borrow at low teaser rates,
requiring payments of nothing more than interest.

As promised, home prices were going up faster than the houses
themselves.

By the time the family's new home - a two-story model called The
Starling with a cathedral ceiling in the living room - was completed
the next spring, the $179,000 base price had climbed to $220,000.

"We were making money while we were waiting," Dave says.

The Gustafsons picked out Corian counters and maple licorice-finished
cabinets at the builder's design center, and opted for a pool and a
whirlpool bath, adding more than $50,000 to their loan. The interest
rate was fixed for only two years, but they didn't worry. With prices
rising so fast, they could always refinance. And in five or six years,
the Gustafsons figured, they'd sell for $500,000 and downsize.

They hung a plaque over the dining table: "Home is Where Your Story
Begins."

They were hardly the only ones feeling optimistic.

Kris Rowberry was ecstatic when the value of his home in nearby
Gilbert started to take off. So he bought a second one in the Villages
as an investment.

"I was thinking, man, if I could have 10 properties, I could just kind
of retire ... and kick back and live off the income," says Rowberry, a
nuclear safety inspector.

But the speculative mind-set confounded buyers like retiree David
Pickering. When Pickering and his wife left Pennsylvania in August of
2004 for a new home in the Villages, they'd never heard of interest-
only loans and the idea of buying a home as an investment hadn't
occurred to them.

They were simply buying a place to live, hopefully for a good, long
time.

Around them, though, such notions began to look very old-fashioned.

___

The American Dream is a myth overdue for revision.

"There's been a huge shift in the way people view their houses," says
John Karevoll, who tracks real estate for DataQuick Information
Systems. "Your house now can basically be used as an ATM."

Twenty years ago, families celebrated when they got a mortgage and
again when they retired the loan. A home meant security. The financial
commitment promoted both pride and neighborhood roots.

But Americans have become much more mobile, and looser lending has
made it easier to buy a home and to borrow against its value.

Now a home is more - or less - than a place to live. It is an
investment - a way to make money and finance a lifestyle, says Robert
Manning, an expert in consumer credit and debt at the Rochester
Institute of Technology.

The housing and lending industries encouraged that transformation,
promoting not just subprime loans but mortgages requiring little or no
documentation of income, no money down, and interest-only payments.

When easy borrowing combined with a run-up in prices, speculators
joined the fray. In Arizona and other Sun Belt states where
foreclosures are rising fast, homes not occupied by their owners
account for an outsized portion of foreclosures, according to the
Mortgage Bankers Association.

But the rise in interest rates and drop in home prices has put the
most pressure on people who live in the homes they own, and who hadn't
counted on the market shift.

It used to be that when things got tough, Americans did everything
possible to protect their homes. But now, faced with foreclosure, many
have reordered priorities - making payments on things like credit
cards while neglecting mortgages, according to the credit scorekeeper
Experian.

That is at least partly a matter of psychology. When people who bought
almost entirely with borrowed money see that worth disappear, there's
little incentive to hold on, says Stuart A. Feldstein of SMR Research
Corp., a Hackettstown, N.J., research firm.

Few players, though, seemed to appreciate the chance they might get
caught.

"Lenders never said no," says Jay Butler, director of realty studies
at Arizona State University. "Nobody expected this to continue, but
they hoped it would just long enough to get out of it - and they were
caught up in the whirlpool."

___

By late 2004, the Phoenix real estate market was roaring.

The euphoria reached Queen Creek, so far out the freeway hadn't
arrived yet. If you couldn't afford something closer in, real estate
agents told buyers, "drive until you qualify."

The town's population almost quadrupled to 17,000 in just five years.

Buyers lined up for the chance to make a downpayment in the new
subdivisions. Rowberry joined 200 people one Saturday morning for a
chance at 15 lots. He snapped up builders' price lists. Every week,
the homes cost $1,000 to $5,000 more.

Meanwhile, skyrocketing prices in California and Nevada sent investors
to greater Phoenix in search of the next great deal.

"I'm just one guy and it wasn't unusual to get three (calls) a day"
from speculators, says John Wake, a real estate agent. "A lot of them
weren't sophisticated. They'd never invested before."

In the Villages, already half completed, remaining lots looked too
good to pass up. One Southern California investor, Alan Jullien,
bought three homes. A flight attendant, Angela Nazario, bought a two-
story house even though she lived by herself and was frequently on the
road. A local real estate agent, Sean Bacon, bought two.

Homeowners who bought earlier were feeling good. The market spike
turned the Gustafsons' $235,000 home into one worth $380,000.

Across the Valley, homeowners watching their home values shoot up,
borrowed against those gains.

"Talking to a lot of co-workers, everyone was doing the same thing -
taking out lines of credit, milking it for all it's worth," says
Matthew Berends, a homeowner in Surprise, another Phoenix suburb where
prices soared. His home is now in foreclosure. "In one year for a
house to go up $80,000, it's like too easy."

But some relatively modest purchases would prove to be risky gambles.

Greg Giniel and his wife moved into a home on East Sanoque Drive
bought by a friend, with Giniel as a silent partner. What Giniel
hadn't counted on was that the friend had also bought three other
homes around the Valley, all financed with adjustable rate loans that
were bound to rise.

One street over, the Kesslers paid $279,000 for a house in the fall of
2005.

With $25,000 down and an interest-only loan, it seemed like a wiser
deal than their old rental.

There was a problem, though, obvious only in hindsight. A market that
had skyrocketed was about to take a plunge.

___

It takes time for a homeowner to get into trouble, but sometimes not
all that long.

In the summer of 2006, the Gustafsons fell behind on their mortgage
payments. Their interest rate was set to jump. In August, their lender
started foreclosure.

Meanwhile, problems began to snowball. High gas prices prompted people
to rethink the idea of owning a home on the outskirts. Investors
rushed to sell.

In 2005 - a record-best year for Phoenix real estate - just five homes
in the ZIP code containing the Villages were lost to foreclosure,
according to Information Market, a Phoenix real estate research firm.

Last year, lenders claimed 15, nearly all in the final two months of
the year.

So far this year, 75 homes have been claimed by banks. But with the
market so soft and more adjustable rate mortgages about to reset, that
could be just the beginning.

In the Villages, many of the homes where foreclosure is pending are
already empty, a sign owners have given up.

In a big subdivision - about 1,400 homes - the problems aren't always
obvious. The golf course remains carefully watered, the playgrounds
neatly swept. Many streets, particularly in areas built before prices
spiked, are filled with families who take walks with strollers in the
evening or grill burgers in backyards overlooking the greens.

But on other streets, the presence of homes without curtains in the
windows, with dirt and cobwebs collecting in doorways, is almost
eerie.

Even when the market was good, some Villagers were troubled by the
large number of investor-owned homes, empty or filled with renters.

Then late last year, moving vans began to pull up to some homes at odd
hours. Auction notices were posted on front doors. The oleander and
mesquite trees that do so well here in the desert sun turned brown in
yards left without water.

In May, the house to the left of the Pickerings' on Calle de Flores
went to foreclosure. Two weeks later, the house on the right followed.
Both had been empty for months. It made David Pickering vaguely
uneasy. He couldn't help wondering whether empty houses might attract
vandals.

"The weeds in the back are getting so tall now that they are growing
over the separating wall into my yard," he e-mailed, alerting the
homeowners association to one of the vacancies. "Something must be
done about this. ... The property must be under financial
responsibility of someone."

For a couple of months, landscaper Nick Bourque - who lives next door
to three foreclosed homes in a row on Via del Palo - made a point of
keeping the abandoned yard bordering his free of nutsage and old
newspapers.

"I just figured after a while, the heck with it," he says. A real
estate agent scheduled an auction of the home, but found no takers.

On Via del Rancho, Christelle Palmire watched as the home next door
was abandoned to foreclosure. It stayed empty, too.

This Halloween, Palmire plans to take her son trick or treating in a
friend's subdivision where she knows most doors will be answered.

"You drive around this subdivision and there are 'For Sale' signs
everywhere," she says.

The problems become self-perpetuating. Researchers say that each
foreclosure chips away at neighbors' property values. But foreclosures
here compound a larger problem.

Builders continue adding homes to the market at reduced prices.
Investors are trying to sell. Lenders are seeking buyers for
foreclosures. Homeowners whose financial troubles might be solved by
selling can't compete, real estate agents say.

"Sometimes the neighbors don't like you so much because you're one of
the reasons the values are declining," says Kim Gordon, a real estate
agent specializing in foreclosures who is listing two homes in the
neighborhood. "But everyone has got their part in it. The homeowners
overextended themselves."

In many ways, the Villages is lucky because so much was built before
the market soared, says Amanda Shaw, president of Associated Asset
Management, which administers it and 300 other Arizona subdivisions.
The company, which once saw two foreclosure notices a month in its
communities, now fields three to five each day, and some of its
subdivisions have been hit much worse.

But it can be difficult to know when homeowners are in trouble.

"There are people who think they don't have an alternative ... other
than to turn the lights off at 1 in the morning, hop in the U-Haul and
just leave," Shaw says.

Now, says Ed Stutz, who lives in the subdivision and pastors the
nearby Family of Faith Fellowship church, at least three Queen Creek
homeowners call each week asking for help paying their bills. That
never used to happen. In September, the church decided to offer
budgeting advice.

"They saw a lot of home for a pretty decent price and I don't think
they saw the handwriting on the wall," Stutz says of his neighbors.
"People took a gamble and now it's hurting."

___

It's worth much less than it used to be, but it's home, Dave and
Maryann Gustafson decided.

In May, their lender agreed.

The company modified their loan, temporarily trimming the $1,000 a
month increase in their payment to $400. It's a stretch, but will keep
the Gustafsons in their home at least until the modified terms expire
in two years.

Greg Giniel is not so sure. His home, owned by his investment partner,
is scheduled for a foreclosure auction in November.

"I've got to figure out how to buy my own home back," Giniel says. "If
God doesn't pull me out of this one, I don't know where else I'm going
to go."

Things looked just as uncertain to Joy and Paul Kessler, until they
did the math.

They could fight to save their house. But what was the point? It's
worth at least $40,000 less than they paid. They can rent in this
depressed market for a fraction of their monthly payment.

"It's sad to say but honestly, we don't feel like there's anything
worth saving in this house," Joy says. "Financially, we've got nothing
to show for it."

So the couple decided to let the place go. Everyone said it was the
right thing to do.

Still, it doesn't sit right with her husband, a painter and
construction worker. When times were good they made a commitment, Paul
tells Joy. Somehow, it doesn't feel right to just walk away.

"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message

Homeowners who bought earlier were feeling good. The market spike
turned the Gustafsons' $235,000 home into one worth $380,000.

Across the Valley, homeowners watching their home values shoot up,
borrowed against those gains.

"Talking to a lot of co-workers, everyone was doing the same thing -
taking out lines of credit, milking it for all it's worth," says
Matthew Berends, a homeowner in Surprise, another Phoenix suburb where
prices soared. His home is now in foreclosure. "In one year for a
house to go up $80,000, it's like too easy."

I hope the government raises our taxes so we can bail out these people. It
would be the right thing to do, don't you think?

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message

Homeowners who bought earlier were feeling good. The market spike
turned the Gustafsons' $235,000 home into one worth $380,000.

Across the Valley, homeowners watching their home values shoot up,
borrowed against those gains.

"Talking to a lot of co-workers, everyone was doing the same thing -
taking out lines of credit, milking it for all it's worth," says
Matthew Berends, a homeowner in Surprise, another Phoenix suburb where
prices soared. His home is now in foreclosure. "In one year for a
house to go up $80,000, it's like too easy."


I hope the government raises our taxes so we can bail out these people. It
would be the right thing to do, don't you think?


\mantra mode on\ No New Taxes!! \mantra mode off\
We can borrow the money from the People's Republic of China.
barrrrrrrumph,
j4

jo4hn wrote:

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message

Homeowners who bought earlier were feeling good. The market spike
turned the Gustafsons' $235,000 home into one worth $380,000.

Across the Valley, homeowners watching their home values shoot up,
borrowed against those gains.

"Talking to a lot of co-workers, everyone was doing the same thing -
taking out lines of credit, milking it for all it's worth," says
Matthew Berends, a homeowner in Surprise, another Phoenix suburb where
prices soared. His home is now in foreclosure. "In one year for a
house to go up $80,000, it's like too easy."


I hope the government raises our taxes so we can bail out these people.
It would be the right thing to do, don't you think?


\mantra mode on\ No New Taxes!! \mantra mode off\
We can borrow the money from the People's Republic of China.
barrrrrrrumph,
j4

How about we don't bail them out and neither raise taxes nor borrow any
money from PRC? People took a gamble, people lost -- that happens when
you take a chance. Why should the rest of us who recognized that prices go
up and down and thus didn't jump in and speculate on the rising bubble have
to have our taxes raised in order to bail out those who made poor choices?
I've lost money in investments; I never expected others to bail me out for
something like that. Used to be, people learned from their mistakes and
moved on. Now they get smarmy, sympathy-inducing AP articles written about
them and a government bail-out.



--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

On Oct 3, 9:14 pm, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
You know with a bit of work...some wiring....move a wall or two....a
man could actually have a beginning of a workshop in the making.

Maybe we will see a new type of cable series where McMansions can be
converted into something useful.

TMT

Credit crunch ripples into U.S. mega-mansion market By Jason Szep
Tue Oct 2, 8:09 PM ET

There's an indoor lap pool, eight-car garage and four-storey elevator.
But the 26,000-sq ft (2,415-sq meter), Tuscan-style home features
something even more unusual in this ritzy suburb of gated estates and
mansions -- a $3 million discount on its price.

As the credit crisis started to shake global financial markets in
August, the owners of the 22-acre (9-hectare) estate at 309 Taconic
Road in Greenwich, Connecticut, cut their price to $19 million,
showing turbulence in the U.S. housing market penetrating the
wealthiest strata of American society.

"People are looking instead of buying, maybe since the second week of
August," said Julianne Ward, director of fine homes at broker
Prudential in Greenwich, a coastal town of 61,000 about 30 miles from
New York City.

Until recently, the nation's most extravagant homes had defied the two-
year slide in prices and surge in foreclosures roiling the broader
property market, where existing home sales are down more than 20
percent from a 2005 peak, according to industry data.

Ultimate Homes, a publication that ranks the nation's 1,000 priciest
homes, began its survey in 2005 with the cheapest on the list at $7.9
million. That jumped to $10 million this year with a record six homes
now selling for $100 million or more.

"In the last couple of years the most expensive home on the market has
gone from $75 million to $165 million," said Rick Goodwin, the
magazine's publisher. "This market is still very strong. The rich are
doing very well."

The nation's wealthiest communities were largely unscathed by turmoil
in the broader housing market through the second quarter of this year,
according DataQuick, which analyzes data on real-estate markets
nationally.

In California, for example, the number of homes that sold for $10
million or more rose nearly 40 percent between the first quarter and
second quarter, while the number in New York grew 15 percent and
Connecticut's more than doubled, according to public records examined
by DataQuick.

DataQuick mines records where a price or loan amount is available,
which means there can be some gaps, but the numbers are a reliable
indicator of trends, said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage who compiled
the data for Reuters.

"Certainly through mid-summer it appears to be holding up just fine,
and faring better than most other segments of the market," he said of
homes selling at $10 million or more.

CREDIT CRUNCH STIRS CAUTION

Like the Bel Air section of Los Angeles and many other exclusive
coastal communities, Greenwich has a long association with wealth. Its
typical family earns more than $120,000 -- more than double the
national average, while its investment bankers are among the country's
highest paid, taking home on average $23,846 a week -- 28 times the
national average, according a recent government survey.

But the global credit crunch is stirring caution among its newest crop
of wealthy elite. Greenwich is the unofficial capital of the U.S.
hedge fund boom. More than 100 of the private investment pools for the
wealthy have set up in the town. That worries economist Edward Deak at
Fairfield University in Connecticut.

"The hedge funds, private equity firms are taking a hit," he said.

"I'm concerned about what the mortgage meltdown is going to mean for
bonus incomes coming into Connecticut in January '08 and also January
of '09."

DIVERGENT HOUSING TRENDS

Some developers are changing course, or delaying the start of sales or
construction.

"Buyers are doing a lot more due diligence and not pulling the trigger
as quickly," said Ward, who has sold real estate in the town for more
than two decades, as she steered her silver Land Rover past one of
several walled compounds for sale.

A vivid illustration of the divergent housing trends of the last two
years is on display about an hour-and-a-half drive from Greenwich on
Avon Mountain in West Hartford, Connecticut, where local businessman
Arnold Chase is building a new home.

His 53,000-sq ft (4,923-sq meter) estate, complete with 100-seat
cinema, would be New England's largest private home, eclipsing even
the mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, that typified the gilded age of
America's industrial revolution.

"At the highest end, there's been no slowdown at all," said Joseph
Beninati, partner and co-founder of Antares Investment Partners, a
private-equity and development firm that caters to Greenwich's hedge
funds.

According to town records in Greenwich cited by Antares, the number of
closed transactions on homes sold at prices greater than $8 million
grew 50 percent in 2006, a record. Beninati said he expects that
figure to rise again this year.

Last month, Antares sold its 15,000 square foot (1,400 sq meter) Two
Fountains Estate for about $11 million. Beninati said. Antares is now
mediating a bidding war on another estate, Stone Chase -- a 17,800
square foot (1,700 sq meter) home with a 10,000-bottle wine cellar
priced in the $10 million range.

"The luxury market tends to be a little isolated from the market
swings. This time around it's a little different because the bottom
half of the upper tier is softening a bit," said Laurie Moore-Moore,
founder of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, a trade body for
high-end property brokers.

The bottom tier is comprised of homes that sell for $2 million or
less, she said. "As the market softens I think we are seeing that
segment of the market falling out," she said.

Hmmm....Detroit...buy a shop...I mean a house and have money left over
for some tools.

TMT

House hunters find "buyer's paradise" in Detroit By Nick Carey
Sun Oct 7, 3:50 PM ET



Robert Neal is in heaven. "This is not a buyer's market, this is a
buyer's paradise," said the 37-year-old former auto worker as he
waited for a foreclosure auction to start in this Detroit suburb.

Wearing dark glasses, a black baseball cap and a chunky silver
necklace, Neal was a sprayer for 12 years at Chrysler LLC until June -
when it was still owned by DaimlerChrysler AG - when he took a buyout
offer to leave the company.

He wouldn't disclose the size of his buyout -- offers for someone with
his experience were typically around $100,000 -- but came here to buy
one or two houses to rent out to working families. Neal wants family
homes with a market value of up to $90,000 and will pay up to $15,000
for them.

"If the price is right, I'm buying," he said. "When the market
rebounds, I'll probably sell them."

This is where economic misery meets business opportunity, as investors
look to snap up properties for a fraction of their value while the
housing market is in a slump. The auction room in Dearborn is full of
people seeking bargains.

This depressed city had five times the national foreclosure rate for a
U.S. city in August - behind only the three California towns of
Modesto, Stockton and Merced.

"This city has been hit by the slowing economy, the housing slowdown
and the fact that lenders are being much more cautious with new
loans," Dave Webb, a principal at Dallas-based auction firm Hudson &
Marshall, which organized this recent auction of 700 Detroit area
homes, said. "But you also have the problems of the God-danged auto
industry, which just makes things worse."

Detroit and Michigan were further hit recently by budget wrangling
that came close to shutting the state government and by a two-day
strike by United Auto Workers union against top U.S. automaker General
Motors Corp..

"Detroit is just unlucky," Webb said.

The recent auction here was in a Ford Motor Co convention center.
Buyers had to pay a non-refundable $3,000 cash deposit and, in a sign
of the times, Hudson & Marshall repeatedly cautioned prospective
buyers they should have their loans cleared with lenders in advance.

The auction included smaller family homes as well as large houses in
once posh neighborhoods, such as a 3,500 sq ft (325 sq metre) building
in the city's Indian Village. Many homes in the neighborhood were
designed by prominent 20th century architects for the auto barons.

In a leafy area a few miles from the center of Detroit, this 1920s
mansion would be worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the
auction, it sold for just $116,000.

WAITING FOR THE REBOUND

Nigerian-born Robert Festus came here looking to buy homes to rent out
in upscale suburbs of Detroit.

"The homes I am looking at should be worth up to $300,000, but I'm
going to steal them for around $100,000," he said.

Like Neal, Festus said he plans to wait for the market to pick up
before reselling his properties.

Detroit has lost more than half its population in the past 30 years
and has been hurt by rising crime - according to 2006 Federal Bureau
of Investigation statistics it had the third highest violent crime
rate in U.S cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants - failing
schools and other social ills.

At 7.4 percent Michigan had the country's worst unemployment rate in
August. In Detroit, unemployment runs near 14 percent and a third of
the population lives in poverty.

Given the decades of decline here, some might question whether a
rebound will ever happen here.

"The Detroit area will bounce back. It has to," said Joe Tuttle, 28,
who works in medical sales.

He and girlfriend, Carla Kumrow, 26, a buyer at an automotive
supplier, want a home to live in, a rarity at this auction. They want
a specific home in the well-heeled suburb of Birmingham with a market
value of around $300,000. Willing to pay $200,000, they are outbid at
$216,000.

Hudson & Marshall's Webb also says the area will recover.

"Michigan will need to diversify its economy more, which takes time,"
he said. "If investors are willing to hold their properties for a long
time, their investments will pay off."

"I am becoming more optimistic about Michigan's medium-term economic
prospects given that GM and the UAW have agreed on a new contract and
a state budget accord has been reached," Comerica Bank Chief Economist
Dana Johnson wrote in a recent note. "However, in the near term, the
local economy is likely to remain pretty stagnant."

While the market is down, property auctions in the Detroit area are
the stomping ground of people like Pat Karbon, 28, and Dave
Ehrlichman, 27, who buy small family homes valued at around $80,000 to
$90,000 for up to $15,000 then "flip" them - sell them quickly on the
market for around $40,000.

"In five years of doing this I've never seen prices so good,"
Ehrlichman said waiting to bid on a house.