This is a sad but true case of less affluent and less financially sophisticated people buying HIGH on marginal income qualification and selling LOW when things went downhill. Per Zillow, a home on Clarence Ct was bought at $700K (which squares with the $3,500-$4,000 mortgage) in August 2006. Probably with the help of a mortgage broker peddling NINJA loans (No Income No Job (no) Asset verification) loans.
When his mother died and the family income shrank he was forced to sell at (get this!) $231K in Aug 2011. A HALF MILLION dollar loss of equity. At the time of the crisis, Uncle Sam should have directly bought the homes instead of bailing out the banks, and continued to allow homeowners to pay (or defer the mortgage) while letting the banks fail. Instead Uncle Sam bailed out banks and the stockholders who profited from all this, not lower income homebuyers like the Fetu'u family. And if all they had was staying power, today the home is worth $800K more than the foreclosure price. Uncle Sam (and it's shareholders, i.e. all of us) would have made a handsome profit and the family would still be part owners. I personally know a family that works very very hard that bought a home in Sunnyvale right around the same time at right around the same price and lost it 4-5 years later with almost exactly the same scale of loss. Unfortunately, this article seems to be part of a new hysteria to overturn Costa Hawkins and hand over BART lots to developers.
http://extras.mercurynews.com/housingsaga/
When his mother died and the family income shrank he was forced to sell at (get this!) $231K in Aug 2011. A HALF MILLION dollar loss of equity. At the time of the crisis, Uncle Sam should have directly bought the homes instead of bailing out the banks, and continued to allow homeowners to pay (or defer the mortgage) while letting the banks fail. Instead Uncle Sam bailed out banks and the stockholders who profited from all this, not lower income homebuyers like the Fetu'u family. And if all they had was staying power, today the home is worth $800K more than the foreclosure price. Uncle Sam (and it's shareholders, i.e. all of us) would have made a handsome profit and the family would still be part owners. I personally know a family that works very very hard that bought a home in Sunnyvale right around the same time at right around the same price and lost it 4-5 years later with almost exactly the same scale of loss. Unfortunately, this article seems to be part of a new hysteria to overturn Costa Hawkins and hand over BART lots to developers.
http://extras.mercurynews.com/housingsaga/
