Coto Housing Blog

47 Lexington Way

Really, why bother to even list a home for sale when one could borrow more than the home could sell for and then one could just stop paying?  One does not have to clean up for showings or open houses.  One does not have to pay agent commissions or closing costs.  One can pull out all one’s equity and more and then live rent and payment free for a couple of years.

But that is in hindsight, isn’t it?  I doubt that anyone who used their home as an ATM or serial refinanced or even bought at the peak thought that they were buying or borrowing at the peak of the market and their home would soon be worth much less.  It wasn’t that no one knew.  Greenspan, Bernanke, Bush, Rubin, Summers, Geithner, Hank Paulson,  the NAR, etc. all like to say that no one could have known, but they are wrong or lying.  There were many who predicted the inevitable; John Paulson, Noriel Roubini, Jim Sinclair, Marc Faber, Jim Rogers, Bill Fleckenstein, IrvineRenter, Mark Hanson, cdcrez.  And many acted on their observations, most notably John Paulson who actually shorted the mortgage debt market.  And maybe there are a few who used their home as an ATM and figured, ‘Why not?  What is the downside?  What is worse that can happen?’

The first scheduled trustee sale for 47 Lexington Way is today.  The published bid amount is $657,274 from the 1st mortgage holder.  As of this writing, there was no opening bid showing.