Too Close For Comfort

The continued failure of the housing market hit even closer to home yesterday. My across the street neighbor of nearly 4 years quietly moved out of their home, a shock to the rest of us. The couple are/were professionals, very personable and were great neighbors. Being the oudoors type, I thought nothing of the toy hauler that appeared in the driveway a few days back. They owned a nice boat and spent a lot of weekends at house they bought on a nearby lake. They must be doing some back country exploring, I thought to myself.

Then the toy hauler appeared again later that day upon my return from the office. Odd?

That's when I saw the wife loading up a vehicle with household items. Not a good sign. Having a number of years experience in real estate and finance, the earmarks were there for an unhappy ending to this story. Validation came today when, speaking with another neighbor, I was informed that they gave the house back to the bank. Shock and awe, Reno-style.

Now, speculation kicks in. They bought the house around the time we did, which was when the market was just starting to take off. The house did not have the best lot. They must have recieved a super deal from the builder, as we thought this would just remain open space (yeah, that bad of a lot!).

The house seemed to be on the market over a year. Suddenly, the sign disappeared, a few days later, so did our neighbors. Again, this brings the crisis we are in the middle of right in your face. It is dire, it is disruptive, it leaves you a little depressed. I wish there was something I could do, reach out, tell them you can look forward to a fresh start. Not my business, I thought. They didn't offer to confide and it is none of my business. Or is it?

I believe we are all party to what has happened, every one that thought we were all real estate genuises, making all this money for nothing, just buying a house at the right time, buying a few more and play the flip game. Ignorance, arrogance and greed. The hat trick of quick profit and even quicker destitution.

We will crawl our way out of this. We will, again, be back to some semblance of normal. My only fear is that we, again, suffer from short term memory loss.

It is encumbant upon each and every one of us to have the lessons we are learning burned into not only our memories, but our genetic code. This is not the way we want to go out. This is not the world we want to leave the generations that follow.

If this is a little too close for comfort....GOOD! Remember this, make it part of your being. Let us not doom ourselves to repeat this.