My Neightborhood -- Part II

If there is one thing most of us understand in the realm of physics is that eventually bubbles burst if they keep growing.  Maybe someday we will have a bubble material that expands endlessly, but not so at this time.  This applies to that housing bubble back in 2008 where the market growth and collapse brought the good and the bad down together.  Banks loaned money that should not have been lent and then sold the bad paper to another.  In the case of my neighborhood, a builder bought a piece of land that had a reality like a dark cloud hanging over it that he did not see. I wisely saw the housing collapse ahead of time if not being able to pin point its exact fall or extent.  I don't get much right in this world and this was a lucky call.  We sold our big house to move down here in a bit of a rush (I was not yet retired) because I was worried about the real estate bubble and being unable to sell my house.  I rented in the city for over two years and put my furniture in storage before I left my job.

If you read my prior post you note that there are some very wealthy people living here.  In most cases they are people that grew up here, earned their wealth here, and decided to stay.  There are also other people, like my husband and I, that while not rich, would be considered upper middle class by most standards, although our house is the smallest in the neighborhood --- so we just squeeze in there.  There are also a number empty lots in my neighborhood sitting idle because they claim a price to high to justify the type of house that would need to be built.  There is one large house on the water, the one with the tennis court, that sits idle as the owner rarely stayed here and has now passed on and his children may be deciding what to do with it.

Now, back to our builder.  When we bought our lot where we built I would drive by that builder's lot at the front end of the turn to our neighborhood a number of times.  They had cleared the land and I was wondering what was going to be built on that place.  Then a hurricane came through shortly after the clearing of that lot that brought down about 15 big pine trees on one side.  Building came to a halt while those trees were cleared away.

Finally, slowly, the house began to be built.  It was a big colonial which is popular in my state.  It was nicely landscaped and the builder seemed to have a good design.   It is all brick which is another step up in architecture where many homes have brick facing only.

It sat for some months after it was put up for sale and eventually the builder moved in.  He parked his big trucks, his boat, etc. in the driveway and the for sale sign still sat on the road.  The next year I was walking by and met a young woman with a toddler in front of the drive.  She explained she was the builder's sister and he had allowed her family to move in to help with expenses.  She was clearly delighted to be in this nice house.  More months went by.  I do not remember seeing any real estate agents showing the house, but I live a half mile down the road.  The asking price was in the high $400,000s.  This is not an outrageous price for this area, but the market had collapsed and there were no buyers anywhere. 

And then one day as I took my walk I saw the house was empty.  No cars, a few strewn toys, and padlocks on the doors.  Another year went by and the house was showing its neglect.  The neighbors and I tried to track the paperwork to see who owned it, but the mortgage had been sold and re-sold and now belonged to some conglomerate on the other side of the country!

As time passed, the house began to be robbed of its various parts and later used by others for overnights.  It does not take long before appliances, copper pipe, etc is gone! "They -- who now own the paper" put a log across the driveway which seemed to reduce the vagrancy.

This week I saw the log had been sawed into chunks and the driveway was open once again.  Maybe an investor has purchased it and has the capital to re-dress this grandam to her former glory.  I hope so, because I worry about fire in my woods and do not like to see such sadness.

The story of lives in distress, having no place to hang a hat, and craftsmanship destroyed is very depressing.  I could mourn the issue of my property values being compromised, but that hardly seems fair as this is a microcosm of happenings elsewhere, some far worse.  Seems we have forgotten this issue in our current election where bathrooms used have taken center stage.