You may have read this the other day: New York Times economics reporter Edmund L. Andrews is about to lose his house:(I)n 2004, I joined millions of otherwise-sane Americans in what we now know was a catastrophic binge on overpriced real estate and reckless mortgages. Nobody duped or hypnotized me. Like so many others — borrowers, lenders and the Wall Street dealmakers behind them — I just thought I could beat the odds.There are so many statements in the article that set off my BS meter, the least of which is the idea that a reporter who should know better signed on the dotted line for a ticking time bomb.
I saw a comment on a message board somewhere about Andrews that I thought was so good I copied it. My apologies to the person who wrote it, I didn't catch your name.
I'll consider buying his home from the bank. I can pay way more than he ever will because I have been responsible with money. Foreclose, reduce the price, buyers in this area (Greater D.C. area) will flock to a home in that location.I don't believe in karma, and I don't believe in kicking people when they're down. But I am getting a little tired of being kicked around because I live within my means and millions of others don't. Sticking me and my children with enormous future tax burdens is certainly a kick in the face, while the only penalty Andrews and the rest will incur is a ding to their credit rating for a few years.
Ridiculous that bailouts using the future earnings of my 10 month old daughter are keeping zombie banks alive and deadbeats like this guy in his house, when here I am saving 22% of my income a month, and paying $1850 a month in rent in the same area.
So yes he is rewarded for being irresponsible (no housing payment for 8 months!), the banks are being rewarded for being irresponsible (with everyone's future earnings!), and here I am living within my means, paying my obligations, and living in a much worse place and not able to afford a house because prices are artificially high because banks aren't foreclosing in a timely fashion.
To the NYT reporter - you should be ashamed of yourself.
To the banks - you should be ashamed of yourselves.
To my government - you should be ashamed of yourselves.
You are all living off my hard work and the future hard work of my family.
Final note - I'm not buying his book, I hope no one else does either.
(Update: New HatzerzCast.)
14 comments:
"Our stately little house looked increasingly trashy: peeling paint and broken screens on the front windows, crumbling concrete on the front stoop, a lawn that was mostly crabgrass."
They spent $700 at J. Crew one month for clothes. Meanwhile, it only costs a buck or two each month to put gas in your lawnmower, screens cost a few bucks to fix yourself, and just maybe they could scrape and paint their "trashy" house on their own for a couple hundred dollars worth of paint?
I don't buy his story one bit.
I checked Maryland land records and the guy lives at 323 St. Lawrence Drive in Silver Spring, just outside of the Beltway. This is about 2 miles due west of a house my wife and I tried to buy in February 2004, but we wouldn't chase the price. There were at least 20 people inside the house when we showed up to look it over. We retreated to Columbia where we could buy a larger, more modern house and we didn't have to engage in a bidding war.
I laughed when I saw the picture of the house because it was so predictable. There are thousands of 1-story and 2-story brick houses that were built in Silver Spring just after World War II ended, and they all look the same.
It's pretty clear that the guy is ramping up the drama to sell his book. By the time I got to page 4 in the article, I wanted to punch my fist through the monitor. The $700 for J.Crew clothes was the tipping point for me.
Absolutely. NO bank bailouts. NO personal bailouts. Manage your s* responsibly, read things before you sign, or learn an expensive life lesson. The really sad thing is that there will be so many people with wounded credit in the coming years, the banks will just adjust their underwriting standards again so they can lend to them anyway the credit score wont matter. So in the end there will effectively be no personal consequences besides the continued collective bankruptcy of our national treasury. I dont see nearly enough people headed to prison for this debacle. Lets start at the top and work our way down to the brokers who faked the income numbers on the loan apps.
It doesn't matter if you like it or not. Bush/Paulson, Obama/Buffet, Goldman Sacs, Timmy Tax Geithner, Greenspan, have and will decide.
Your job is to work, and pay, and have kids so that Treasury notes can be sold on their backs.
Keep the economy churning!
I don't believe in Karma either. I believe in the Golden Rule. But I still like the idea of Karma.
I totally agree with the comment you lifted from the story. It bothers me a whole lot that my kids future work is being tapped to subsidize bad decisions.
Thanks for the address and info, Chris. I followed up a bit more with other county records.
The man is a financial idiot. As excerpts from the records below should show, he appears to have bought the house with interest-only loans, the dummazz.
Interestingly, his rates didn't appear to suck, yet he got out early and got snookered into a refi in mid-2006 at a horrendous 8.5%! Why?!?! Perhaps he needed "Casey Cash Back".
Then he must have thought better of the bad deal he took out and refi'd yet AGAIN just months later -- no doubt to the glee of the county clerk collecting thousands in taxes every refi he does! This time he went for the $417k Fannie limits for the first and for a second on top.
His latest mortgage might be a regular amortized one, but all his other ones, judging from the paydown record, indicate that he generally can't even manage to pay down a single dollar of principal!!! And they're out shopping at J Crew???
I haven't read his article yet. Maybe I should not. Maybe it would make me into a raging homicidal maniac, knowing that my kids will have to pay for this guy's blundering stupidity and greed.
Mortgage data follows:
From land records, book 28151, pp. 283-306
Bought on or about August 14th, 2004 for $460,000.
$2829 in recordation tax.
$4600 in transfer tax.
$333,700 adjustable rate 30-year mortgage from
American Home Mortgage Acceptance:
5.625% for 5 years, then float at 2.25% above 6-month LIBOR.
[Paid down to only $333,699.63 by 2006]
$80,300 fixed for 15 years from American Home Mortgage
Undetermined interest rate.
[Paid down to only $79,143 by 2006]
________________________________________________
From land records, book 33505, pp. 146-167
Refi transaction recorded on June 12th, 2006
$469,800 Adjustable rate balloon for 40 years.
Monthly payment $3,444.08
Interest rate 8.5% (!!!)
Then floats at 6.279% above 6-month LIBOR (ouch!)
after July 2008, capped at 14.5%, never less than 8.5%.
_______________________________________________
From land records, book 33309, pp. 133-160
Refi on September 29th, 2006
$2877 + $365.70 recordation taxes
$417,000 fixed rate mortgage from Vertex Financial Group
Second mortgage refi
$52,800 fixed rate 15-year balloon mortgage
The commenter's name was simply "m".
the comment can be found here:
http://www.hoocoodanode.org/node/6850#comment-770372
Danke, Jean.
Paul notes,
In 2007, nearly as soon as she was eligible, Patty Barreiro/Andrews filed again in Montgomery Country. When called for comment yesterday, Andrews was unavailable, but there is no question that it is his wife: his income and occupation are prominently featured in the docket.The New York Times. Can't die soon enough.
When I first read the original article I was extremely sceptical, then when I read Megan's article, I was outraged.
I have personally experienced the stupidity of overextending myself with credit (when I was young and stupid).
I worked so freakin' hard to pay off all that debt and went through such personal hardship to do it (income cut in 1/2 for one year due to an injury at work), that it makes me sick to read about these fools that work the system.
Hey, tool? She may be the love of your life and good in the sack, but she's got a seriously warped moral side and you do too for going along with the 2007 bankruptcy and cramming your comingled debts into it. I will never take you seriously as a writer again.
But, tool? Explain to me how one spouse declares bankruptcy in 2007 after being married for three years and gets approved, while the other spouse making $120k+ outside income doesn't have to go into bankruptcy or owe for their share of the comingled debt?
Hey, tool? Hey, chief economy writer for the NYT? How do you repudiate debt you owe and sleep at night? Now, that might be a story I'd pay to read, but your fantasy tale of being taken advantage of? No fucking way.
Jesus, people used to insult a similar fellow everywhere he went on the internet, assuming that, if they could only reach him, he'd begin to understand what he was doing was wrong. Thanks for proving Casey Serin right, it's not about education, it's about avarice and screwing over our fellow citizens.
I feel so goddamned stupid for paying for the cars in my garage, the clothes on my back, the furniture in my home, the food in my refrigerator, and for paying off my mortgage.
You douchebag non pareil?
Just how much (in dollars) have you scammed between those two bankruptcies and your unpaid mortgage payments? Are you over or under confessed scamster Casey Serin's $2+M?
You do realize, I hope, that you are exactly the kind of subprime buyer who killed the US economy and cost millions of hard working people their jobs? I don't give a shit if the banks lent stupidly, I give a tremendous shit about stupid fuckers who borrowed money they knew they couldn't pay back.
After all, the banks bet it all on their full faith that that Americans repaid the money they borrowed, (which used to be our pride and joy and hallmark of our credibility) while people like you knew they could never pay it back. Who's the opportunistic shark in this scenario, Mr. Victim? To me, it looks like you.
You and your wives benefitted from cheap credit and now you want to profit from the end of cheap credit. You sir, are a disgrace. The fact that you are still employed by the NYT is a disgrace.
Seriously, a disgrace. You're the senior economics writer for the NYT? You're in foreclosure, you've been in bankruptcy, you haven't even attempted to make a house payment in eight months and you're the best and brightest the Times can come up with?
You need to be in job loss mode. Now.
Here is Andrews' response to Megan McArdle:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2009/05/ed-andrews-responds-to-critici.html
As some of the comments mention, this still leaves unanswered questions regarding Andrews' wife, particularly why she needed to file the first bankruptcy, and why she needed the money that led to the second bankruptcy.
Found this through a pipl search.
Crazy stuff. The pipl was linked under her former married name from a link to this blog post http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/nytimes-magazine-my-personal-credit-crisis/
That was mentioned Megan's blog.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15752809/Patricia-Barreiro-2007-Bankruptcy-Filing
Oops, he's got 1998's up at scribd too.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15752959/Patricia-Barreiro-Sisson-1998-Bankruptcy-Filing
I drove by the place on Saturday before I went shopping. The neighborhood seems nice. There's a park and elementary school close by, and there were a lot of kids and parents at the playground. Most of the houses are not fancy but they are well maintained and landscaped. The streets are quite narrow and there was very little traffic.
However, Mr. Andrews' house and yard was about as plain as it gets. Virtually no trees or shrubs. No cars in the driveway and the windows were slightly open. Definitely had that neglected look to it.
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