Government reports FORECLOSURES are down for the seventh straight month. Well that makes sense. After all the foreclosures began, what, 3 years ago at extremely high rates. The wealthy bought these foreclosures for pennies on the dollar. Three years of foreclosures, eventually the supply of houses to foreclose on has to drop. After 3 years of foreclosures we are probably getting down the the last of the people who still have jobs, and are able to make their payments. Let me point out that not all foreclosures were due to the actual mortgage payment. Many were due to our government greed. Like my house the government raised my taxable property value to twice the actual market value. Which meant I was paying 12.85 times more than my neighbors. I was told the reason my taxes were so much higher is because my house is brick. Not a brick facade, but 3 brick thick. This raised my mortgage payments by over $250.00 a month. Now my Income did not match that kind of increase. Eventually my attorneys, advised me to spend the money for an independent appraisal. This showed the true market value. I took it to the clerks office for an appeal. I won and they finally lowered my tax value to my market value. I was still paying more than my neighbors. Then a year ago,, they finally reached the levels my neighbors were paying. But now with property values falling all around. (In fact our county government raised our tax rate because the property values had fallen so much. But my house remained the same as 3 years ago when they agreed to the independent appraisal value. So my property tax is on the rise. (good thing I always pay extra to my escrow account), But back to the foreclosures, the report said that ONLY 69,532 houses were foreclosed last month. Isn’t that still quite a few houses. Fewer houses to foreclose equals fewer foreclosures. Now that the wealthy have the foreclosed houses, they are more people are renting. According to the recent report I read RENTS, are rising more than the cost of owning a house which is finally falling. We’ll just have to see where this trend takes us. Sorry if this was hard to follow. BUT anyway That Is How I See It. more than Post Views: 97
Category: Loans
New Car or Old Car
My newest vehicle, other than my motorcycle, and project sports car. My daily driver is a 1995 Ford Explorer. I don’t know how many miles it has on it. The odometer doesn’t work. It had 150,000 miles on it when I bought it 3 years ago. I know I average 20 miles a gallon with it. I chase my kids and their kids in sports. I bought the Explorer 3 years ago, and have put about 75,000 miles on it. I paid $1500.00 for it then. I pay the minimum in my state for license. We have an excise tax added to plate cost each year, until the vehicle is X years old or bottoms out on value. I pay only for Liability Insurance. The insured value would be less than I paid for it. I don’t count in the usual expected expenses for maintenance. Tires, Oil Change, etc. These things come whether you have a new car or old. I was fortunate that that the Explorer had been taken care of and had no rust, or excessive wear on the interior. I subscribe to these beliefs as far as vehicles are concerned. A vehicle is to get me from point A to point B. Do I need a new car for this? NO! If I were to buy a new car, (and I have had a couple. Three to be Exact. the last one I had one year, before I got laid off, seems my vehicle had already lost 50% of what I paid for it. I was able to keep it with the help of my brother. Do I want to take that kind of loss again. No way. If I were to buy a new vehicle payments would run, probably between $250-$350 a month. that would be a minimum of $3,000.00 a year in payments. for about 5 or 6 years. So I figure if I can keep my Explorer on the road for $2000.00 a year I am ahead of the game. Knock on wood I have had to spend $0, beyond the usual maintenance costs for the these 3 years. So at $500 a year ($1500 divided by 3 years equals $500 a year). Well as you can see I have thus far save $2500.00 a year on payments alone. That is $7,500.00 I have saved. I know most of you think you have to have a new car for appearance sake, or mistakenly think you will spend more for maintenance. Think of it this way If you had an older vehicle YOU would still have put more money in your pocket. I had a cousin who only bought a new car every ten years. But he could afford it. By buying only every ten years he was able to pay cash. Pretending to make payments.(putting the money aside), he was able to take his family on many fulfilled vacations with the extra money. Why Buy a New Car when an Older one is just as good at getting you from Point A to Point B, at a huge savings. That Is How I See It, Post Views: 300
Social Security Shortage
The GOVERNMENT keeps harping on the fact the Social Security Fund is running out of money. Why? Because we have more people drawing Social Security. Well that is a partial truth. This is what I have learned. 1. There is no Social Security Fund. The money collected for Social Security actually goes into the General Fund. 2. We have more people drawing upon our Social Security that have never paid into Social Security. These are the two big drains. The way I have been informed is the Government makes “LOANS” from the General Fund. That is to say MONEY is taken out but rarely if ever is paid back. I surmise that if pressed to do so, our Government could not even account for all the money taken from the General Fund, which was intended to be Social Security Funds. The money has been so intermingled, ‘LOANS’ to other agencies, not actually accredited as coming from collected Social Security monies. Poor Bookkeeping???? Our Legislators spend this money with only an IOU then rely on taxpayers to pay off the IOU. It is a vicious circle Whether the Government will admit it or not there are many Illegal Aliens, and probably others that collect but do not contribute. Is there an answer? YES! Our Government needs to track all of these “LOANS” and have the agencies, or whoever borrowed the money pay it back with INTEREST. Track down the non-contributing recipients, collect the money, with INTEREST . Will this ever happen. NOT LIKELY, That would probably make too much sense. The way our Government operates they would probably spend more money researching, diagnosing the research, discussing the diagnosis, and paying someone to pretend trying to collect the money, than would be recovered. Any way We The People will PAY. That Is How I See It. Post Views: 120