Category Archives: Duck Dynasty

Get Ready for the Housing Crash!

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In the past I’ve shared with my friends my fears about the coming tsunami of world economic collapse and a housing bubble unlike any this country has ever seen. My degree is in Political Science and not Economics but I am a successful investor and money manager. I also do a lot of reading about economic issues.

So, what’s my concern today? A new CNBC report talks about coming interest rate increases and how that will cause ‘massive volatility’ in the markets. The interest rates that are coming will crush the mortgage and housing industry.

After years of moderating and running this blog and years of writing and researching my book, “Neighbors At War,” I firmly believe that people in Homeowners Associations are going to be the first ones slammed by the coming mortgage crisis. I’ll list the reasons why HOA properties are Bull’s Eye Number One.

1. Potential home buyers are getting a whole lot wiser about the dangers of HOA living. The HOA industry has done no favors to homeowners by earning such names as ‘the lawn Nazis,’ ‘HOA Nazis,’ ‘the HOA Mafia.’ People aren’t stupid. They read these stories of the bullying of people in Homeowners Associations, the assessing of ludicrous fines, the abusive (if not illegal) practice of artificially running up legal fees in an effort to get homeowners to try to stand their ground against bullying. The more a homeowner tries to assert his property rights in a dispute, the bigger his financial fall when the HOA wins. This kind of knowledge in the hands of homeowners and home buyers means HOA property values can only go down.

2. A massive wave of foreclosures hurts HOAs more than non-HOA property. An HOA which has 15 to 25 percent foreclosures is pretty close to bankruptcy. Lose 25 percent of your dues, you have to savage the remaining owners for dues increases. If not, the community swimming pool turns green, the lawns don’t get cut, and the roads don’t get plowed. A potential buyer won’t make an HOA investment when he sees the neighborhood falling apart. On the other hand, non-HOA property owners have no problem surviving when a large number of foreclosures hits a neighborhood. Those properties are quickly bought up, especially in neighborhoods where homeowners have voluntarily worked to keep their properties looking good.

3. HOAs which restrict the percentage of rental property do themselves no favor. Being able to rent your condo or house in an emergency is a great escape valve for a homeowner. It saves his equity and he doesn’t have to turn the property over to foreclosure. HOAs with ‘no rentals’ regulations will be the first to suffer catastrophic collapse.

4. Idiotic court decisions like the recent one in Nevada, in which a super priority lien (HOA fine) can extinguish a first deed of trust (the bank’s mortgage) create a lose/lose situation for mortgage companies. Why would they invest in such a state? Why would mortgage companies not demand massive down payments and arbitrary monthly dues to handle an HOA’s excesses. Such new mortgage requirements will crash property values, and the coming financial tsnami will ensure those neighborhoods crash first.
Readers of this blog will have many more reasons why the approaching economic collapse will hit HOAs first, and I encourage you to leave those reasons on our comments page.

(link to CNBC article on coming collapse)

 

 

Crooked Pennsylvania Judges

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All too often among people who frequent this blog, we’ve seen injustice by virtue of actually having been dragged into a court of law to argue one side or another of an HOA case. I get lots of email from homeowners who feel they’ve been looted, not only by an abusive HOA but by judicial rulings as well. And I’ve spoken with attorneys who feel their homeowner clients did not seem to get fair and balanced rulings from the bench. Indeed, only a tiny fraction of HOA court cases ever come down on the side of the homeowner. Logic would tell you that such rulings would favor approximately half of those who stand before the bar. Instead, rumor has it that homeowners have about a one percent chance in court against an HOA.

The massive impact of the CAI (Community Associations Institute) cannot be underestimated. True, the CAI lobbies legislatures on behalf of Homeowners Associations. This is kind of a half truth, since CAI really lobbies on behalf of the vendors of Homeowners Associations, e.g., the lawyers, the property managers, the suppliers of HOA services. And they blatantly lie when they testify, as they often do, that they represent homeowners. But judges, many of whom, are well-connected and live in Homeowners Associations, cannot possibly be ambivalent about their support of the HOA system. Judges are human beings, and human beings are all ‘little walking bundles of bias.’ And many of those same judges are closely linked to law firms where fellow attorneys make a great deal of money from suing homeowners who live in associations.

So, when our friend in Pennsylvania sent us the following link about the spreading scandal among judges in her state, the immensity of the scandal set us back on our heels. Cash for kids, child porn sent from one judge to another, it just takes your breath away. We, as homeowners, want only to have a chance of fairness when we enter a court of law. If we’re forced to stand before the bench, while feeling contempt for the lack of human decency sitting there in judicial robes, well, it just demolishes our faith in the system.

(link to news story of scandals in robes)

 

Health Problems, Computer Problems, & a Dash of Old Age!

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In complaining the other night about health problems, age problems and computer problems, I completely forgot the main point of bringing all of this up in the same post. It was a way of directing you to one of the funniest commentaries on old age that I’ve ever seen. It was a speech to the Conference on Aging done by a well known California weatherman.

You may end up with some laughter-related medical problems of your own. 

 

 

The Ghost of Christmas Past

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guest blog by Dave Russell

In 2011 a friend of mine sent me a news report about 3-year-old Cooper Veloudis who has cerebral palsy. Cooper’s therapist suggested that a playhouse be built in the backyard of the family’s home. The playhouse cost about $5000.

However, the Andover Forest Homeowners Association in Lexington, Kentucky, said little Cooper’s house had to go because the HOA says it’s a structure and is prohibited. Cooper’s parents were fined $50 a day until they complied. What the HOA didn’t say is that there are other such structures in the same development. But nobody seemed to really care about those.

This story literally kept me up at night thinking that little Cooper was basically being foreclosed upon by the HOA. Where were the folks down at Fair Housing or the Americans with Disabilities Act people? Couldn’t anyone have stepped up to the plate and defended this little tykes therapy house?

As usual, the Homeowners Association won, and little Cooper’s playhouse was ‘foreclosed’ upon by the big, bad and powerful HOA. Somehow, this story still haunts me like the Ghost of Christmas Past, but also reminds me to be a little more understanding with the children in my own HOA community.

I sure hope I’m not the only one who’s haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Past. In time, just like in the Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens, each board member and the pond-scum attorneys who represented Andover Forest Homeowners Association deserves a visit from one of Dicken’s ghosts.

If you are going to watch the news report linked below, you might want to have a Kleenex handy. I sure needed one.

(link to disabled boy’s therapy home on KTSM-TV)

 

Amazing Thanksgiving Story

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Because of my family’s long association with the military, I will occasionally do non-HOA stories and links on this website. I hope you’ll forgive me for taking the occasional side road. Just remember that intentionally taking side roads is the key to happiness and fulfillment in this life we lead.

Don Brookins was one of my longtime photo-journalists while I was working in the TV news business. During long stakeouts in my undercover van he used to tell me stories about his dad and his connection with the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. I was moved by his story and hope you will be moved, as well.

(link to story about the American Saint Nick)