I don't know zip about L.A., but the fact that this is a small house on a small lot gives me hope that it must be close to somewhere and might some day be worth something, if its neighborhood ever turns around.
Whereas those large homes on large lots proximate to the epicenter of nowhere may one day be looked back upon as an intrinsically bad idea.
Crikes, that house reminds me of some of the places I've seen in the dumpier parts of Latin America.
Replace that fence with a wall featuring broken glass fragments jutting upwards for security, add a big old pig rummaging through the garbage, and this dump would be right at home in Lima, Caracas or Rio.
The endless arguments and qualifications on what/who is a walk away.
The most convincing was the couple that were getting a reset for a dumpy LA place. It was on video.
This place is another that you wouldn't just walk away from, you would run away from.
OK....I'm sure the facts are complicated. However regardless of the finances of the current or FC'ed owner, this just isn't the kind of place that you sacrifice to keep.
I dont think this is the worst part of LA... There are many worse... as for C_S's comparison to SA... That's half of SoCal, shoot when you're lost you have the same likelihood of pulling over and finding someone who speaks english..
as for the location i checked out google street view and that house isnt there...
The window bars ARE charming.
Not Charming is when the front of the property has a 6ft plus fence with spikes on top, and a heavy bolt-cutter impervious chain on the front gate. It's when the only place that doesn't have weeds is the "drug runner trail" going through the backyard, connecting pried open fences on each side - this allows the runners to avoid any unpleasant suprises from automobile passengers. That low fence is a sign that this is a family neighborhood. I bet kids actually play outside during the day, and maybe only lockdown at night.
Did I really see bars on the upstairs windows in #11 (Pomona)? And what about that Pasadena "Colonial" (#2)? It's not New England colonial; maybe it's more like Uganda colonial.
If you don't like bars on the windows on some of these, perhaps the real estate agent will throw in an incentive of an AK-47. You never know.
I'm currently reading "Planet of Slums," and this house looks like the US version of every sprawling impoverished city described in the book.
Granted, a US slum is going to have major differences from a slum in the Third World. For example, in the US, a sector of the city could degenerate into a slum rather than (in the Third World) start from the bottom and stay there.
This is the kind of post that adds a valuable extra dimension to all of the statistics. Thanks, CR.
To the folks that say it's like 'Latin America' - one exception, in a lot of Latin America houses like these would be well maintained objects of pride.
I got lost in Juarez on my way to a factory once and ended up in neighborhoods like these - flower pots, well painted, clean kids playing, friendly people. Small stucco row homes on narrow streets but in nice shape - small local 'hole in the wall' groceries & paneria's about every block. Very habitable.
We then ended up in a squatter village - literally stones piled on top of one another to make walls with tin & plastic for roofs, street sewer - not so nice.
We eventually made it to the factory without incident (amazing considering we didn't speak Spanish)...
I asked our contact about the difference between squatters & the nicer neighborhoods - she said the squatters were all 'temps' - coming up to the Maq's to work, save some money and go home (or sneak across the border & make even more money)... she said they won't pay a peso to rent if they can help it & stay only as long as they have to to make enough to buy a place 'back home' - farther south in Mexico. they have no pride in ownership up there - maybe farther south somewhere though.
I wonder how many of those beat up LA joints were the US equivalent of those squatter huts I saw in Juarez?
Just picture the lender's appraisal report from 2007 @ ~$500K. A lender lent out that money. That's a 1/2 MILLION DOLLARS. And those are STRONG DOLLARS, when inflation was under 2%!
$294K LMAO!
Better send this to Hank Barney Frank and Ben, just so they get a little better perspective on what chance their bailout plans have of supporting this market. It has so far to fall there's no bottom in sight...
Elvis writes:
dryfly,
In Mexico, they care about what is inside the walls. They don't care so much what is outside the walls. It is a cultural thing.
Elvis | 05.09.08 - 12:10 am | #
Even then - many of the neighborhoods had nicely painted homes, clean fronts. Cleaner than mine now...
The squatters were unimaginable - seriously - stones piled up to make walls with tin over the top.
BTW I've wandered other parts of Mexico too - Chetumal area for example... again quite habitable. A far better lifestyle than these joints in LA.
Ummm,
I'm pretty familiar with East Los Angeles..This is a very tough neighborhood and is controlled by one of the more violent latin gangs in the city. The police don't like to hang out there too much at night and thier was a recent shootout between then and the gang that was a mini war according to police officers.
They call it a trap because of the L.A. river, freeways and hill to the northeast. You better know spanish and carry a .41
All the more reason to call the whitehouse and make sure GW hears from his constituents to make sure he veto's anything coming out of congress.
I used to hang there with my homies. The gang members would pester me, but I reminded them that I had used my 7-11 wage to purchase time with their mothers, and that shut them up. It turns out that gangbangers are sensitive about the fact that their moms get around. Just thought you should known in case you buy this house and you are threatened.
Jaurez is one tough town, you were fortunate. I spent a lot of my youth in Baja and the mainland pacific coast during 70's and 80's. Drugs and plastic bags really messed that countryside up. The wind is thier garbage truck.
There is a large amount of 'resistance' at the $320,000 level in LA. I check redfin every day and watch sites like RadarLogic and Housingtracker.
I rent. And I live in one of the ten-most expensive neighborhoods in the country (for $1,900 per month in rent).
Take my $1,900 in rent and capitalize the annual $ amount by the rate at which I could secure a mortgage; say 6.5%; and my rental is 'worth' $350,000.
But $350,000 to live in an amazing neighborhood by the beach in LA, versus buying inland for the same amount and living in a older townhome (not to mention HOA and the eventual cost of selling).
I know everyone likes to give LA grief over becoming a third world country, heck even I wondered about it myself back in the seventies when the best way to the LA Forum for concerts was to take the shortcut through Inglewood. (Imagine if you will four very naive suburban teenaged girls driving through Watts at three am after a very ummm... smoky Jethro Tull concert. Boy were we shocked by what we saw.) But as bad as LA can be, we got nothing that compares to driving through streets with shelled out looking buildings in the Bronx in broad daylight and passing a completely stripped car - sans wheels - burning on the side of the road. Or driving past the projects in Baltimore, afraid to slow down anywhere close to the speed limit, just in case a stry bullet was headed our way. Or even being dropped at the Newark train station by a female friend who was afraid to come to a complete stop, in case one of the bums tried to hop in and catch a ride if she did. That being said, I don't imagine houses in any of those areas were selling for a half million dollars, even at the height of the bubble. So I guess you could say LA may not have the "worst" bad neighborhoods in the US, but we sure a sheck do have the most overpriced bad neighborhoods.
as bad as LA can be, we got nothing that compares to driving through streets with shelled out looking buildings in the Bronx in broad daylight and passing a completely stripped car - sans wheels - burning on the side of the road. Or driving past the projects in Baltimore, afraid to slow down anywhere close to the speed limit, just in case a stry bullet was headed our way.
Yeah, I and two other friends - all of us very middle class and very white - got lost once in Baltimore. It was barely a step above those shelled neighborhoods in Beirut you see on the evening news/CNN.
I don't imagine houses in any of those areas were selling for a half million dollars, even at the height of the bubble.
Perhaps not but it's really astounding what some homes which must have been 'flippers', sold for. Evidently everyone was so busy cashing in and finding the next sucker that nobody bothered to drive by and look at the place. Or, the appraiser was amazingly crooked.
Dropped a friend off at her Mom's house in Yonkers, by way of the Bronx. Visited an uncle who lived in the Maryland countryside, and needed to take the train to D.C. for business. I was always passing through on my way to other places. Lucky for me. Those were some damned scary places.
Those appraisals weren't necessarily fraud. That's what 800 sq ft crackshacks in the hood were selling for at the height of the bubble last year. People were just stupid enough to believe that's what they were worth.
People were just stupid enough to believe that's what they were worth.
it's amazing how greed can blind people. The dot-com bubble only burst about 7 years ago. I used to think 20 or 30 years had to pass between investment bubbles, but it seems that we just go from one to the next. This is no way to run an economy.
LA is overpriced, but it is only a small fraction of the country. There are many beautiful houses in North Carolina that I am buying right now. They are really cheap, if you can pay by cash. The bears get it wrong, when they give examples of the most overpriced neighborhood to describe the country.
Actually century blvd in the 70's wasn't too bad or in early 80's. Laker game shortcut worked more than once..
I think if you headed to watts, compton and north long beach you would see similar settings to everywhere you mentioned. Just more spread out. They found my stolen Q45 in Watts burning and stripped at 9:00 pm. The officer told me to come down the next morning, it was safest time.
L.A. was great in the 70's..
Did you know that your not supposed to go into the ocean for 72 hours after it rains because every disease outside of malaria is hanging out in the surf after being washed down from points thru-out the city.
Clean water, less surfers, showtime at the forum and good music at the whiskey. S.California at its best..
Yes they were, good luck down there. Most all my friends live behind the it's different here OC wall. I like L.A., more culture, better dining and straight forwardness. I used to dive off palos verde near marineland at night with my dad and come home with 10 lobster a night during season. Ate better then..
I escaped from behind the Orange curtain years ago, for much the same reason as you. Got tired of counting houses, just to figure out which one was mine. I grew up in Irvine, the mother of all "it's different here" thinking. My best friend still lives there. I love her in spite of it. Though you couldn't pay me enough to move back.
Wells Fargo, aka Buffets Bankruptcy.
Buffet has been wrong many times in the recent past; and WF is the albatross that will wake up his mom & pop shareholders to the fact that they have not bought a piece of sainthood, and it's now time to clean their clocks, too.
Criminey, I've said ever since 2005 that Buffet would wear the triple albatross necklace with his stake in Wells Fargo. Over at the housingbubbleblog.com, those folks have pointed out for years that WF was one of the largest sub-prime and Alt-A mortgage generators.
And what did WF say? "Oh, we're doing great; don't look at us."
The curtain is now pulled back. Hello spectre of Christmas Now. Remember the line, "Fear ignorance most"??
For those who believed in Santa Buffet, this WF position (and plenty of others in their portfolio of pretty's) stinks from rotting bird flesh.
It is already too late to say "Look!". For those who refused and continue to do so, there is and will be a steep price to pay. Oh, but Buffet will rescue you later? Nodda chance as the entire economy is moving south and his most recent purchase from the Pritzkers, and his unloading of silver point to a guy who should be emeritus, and fast.
Warren Buffet - Wells Fargo to Experience Unusually Large Losses & BofA May Cut Dividend
Posted on May 8th, 2008 in Mr Mortgage's Personal Opinions/Research
[Check out the article; you may decide that fading Buffet is a very smart play; but there are many much stupider prophets who deserve to be shorted along with or first.]
Sebastian writes:
LA is overpriced, but it is only a small fraction of the country. There are many beautiful houses in North Carolina that I am buying right now. They are really cheap, if you can pay by cash. The bears get it wrong, when they give examples of the most overpriced neighborhood to describe the country.
With all due respect you have no f-ing clue what is going to happen to north carolina when Wachovia and BofA are revealed to be insolvent. Sorry but all the furniture, textile and manufacturing jobs left north carolina, and NC leveraged up on finance jobs............OOOOOOPPPPPPSSSS!!!
And houses that are cheap can get much much cheaper
I pretty sure that's fake Seabass; the real one tries to make points that are simple minded, not nah-nah neener-neener.
And for the comments about calling for more regulation, ins't the question shouldn't have regulators have been doing their effing jobs?
I ask this with all seriousness: How would Glass/Steagall have prevented CFC or Downey? Securitization of mortgages had been going on well before the repeal, so had CDOs.
IMO,
1: the speed at which securitization took place due to increases in computing power
2: greed
3: EZ money
4: lax regulatory enforcement is what led to this particular market failure.
Maybe more regs is what's needed, but let's look cast a more jaundiced eye at the latter two, because the 1st two will always be around.
Now I see why house prices are collapsing out west...not only were the houses ridoinkulously overpriced, but the housing stock is horrid. I especially enjoyed the teal minicastle with the ivy growing up the side, for that authentic castle look.
I live in south Orange County and on occasion I have gotten off the freeway (usually due to horrendous traffic) and have driven through these neighborhoods. If I didn't know any better, I would prefer these tiny cracker box houses to the no lot, stuck together, look in your neighbor's windows houses that are so common in the newer, cleaner, safer, whiter developments.
These older homes have some sort of character that is lacking. It's the crime, real or perceived, that's the real deal breaker.
Please, lets be accurate: "OREO" is the correct classification for foreclosed property held by banks. "Other real estate owned," not "REO." REO is a broader classification that includes all bank properties.
I have found all sorts of interesting ways to check out a property, given an address.
The Aragorn Avenue house sits on a tract which is 97.71% minority... Hispanics account for 3040 of the 3364 total residents. Household income median is 71% of the MSA's median, with over 22% below the poverty line.
If you do buy the house, be sure to make friends with the four sex offenders with crimes against children, or the rapist, who live within a few blocks of you. Also, be sure to secure your possessions, as a house just around the corner was burgled just this week. You might want to put some extra anti-theft devices on your car, too... jus' sayin'.
It makes no sense whatsoever for them to try to sell this with an ad written in English, unless they are absolutely desperate.
Ah, I just got home from work--love the site, love the comments..love the humor. Saw this post with the accompanying picture. Know how extremely retarded CA real estate has been. Got to the second comment from ron, listing the year upgraded and blew my delicious ale all over my laptop. Bless you all.
Replace that fence with a wall featuring broken glass fragments jutting upwards for security, add a big old pig rummaging through the garbage, and this dump would be right at home in Lima, Caracas or Rio.
Well, maybe not Rio; the neighbors don't speak Portuguese.
485K ? 300K ? In Toledo, that sort of dough buys you neighbours like heart surgeons, a house the size of a small castle and school system that send kids to Harvard and MIT. Is LA really that special ? Is Toledo really that bad ? Did I mention there are no bars on the windows either ?
Now if you like bars on Windows, Toledo has some areas too, but now your talking $4850 (no zero missing).
Cleveland blogger Bill Callahan has been writing extensively about foreclosures in the Cleveland area. Some time ago he did a post with pictures of a number of HUD-owned homes. Recently he updated one of those reports. Take a look.
Has anyone else noticed how so many of those buildings' main feature is the HUGE GARAGE DOOR? There's one in one of those galleries that has no windows on the street side at all. Just two fuck-off big garage doors.
Meanwhile, if you take Gmaps to that address, use the Street View option, and swing around to look north, there's a real horror of a building on the other side, but fortunately it looks like the crash hit before it got finished..
Actually Manson lived in rugged non-urban hillside and countryside that abuts LA and the Valley areas, specifically at the Spahn movie ranch area Spahn Ranch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I lived close to that area for 3 years - that's how I know. ( just for completeness, he also lived across the 118 and more NorthEast for some time too).
I also love LA, warts, ThirdWorldish conditions in many areas and chainlink fences and way overpriced houses 'n' all.
-K
That is just about the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. Half of those shacks with bars should be demolished. Anyone involved in valuing these properties at around a half million dollars (which is where most seemed to be previously) should be in jail. How greedy can we be? How many people have to be complicit for this crap to have had happened for so long?!?! It is depressing, mind boggling, and simple disgusting. You reap what you sow -
The listing must be in error. It must be 294,900 pesos. Or is that the equivalent of $294,900 these days?
Three possible ideas for this house: 1) raze it and make more money growing vegetables, 2) turn it into section 8, 3) make it either a mini-police neighborhood substation or a neighborhood mini-jail, so as not to waste the bars.
If none of those ideas work, maybe the bank can just sell it for scrap metal. Might get more $$ that way.
I know the climate is great there....much, much better temperatures than Austin, Texas for instance.
So...looking at that house, it seems worth about $70,000-$100,000, depending on interior and back yard, etc., to me personally, if I wanted a place in CA.
From $485K down to $95K would be an 80% drop though.... :-0
Yeah, that one's by Dodger Stadium. Not the greatest area. I recall seeing houses in Logan Heights (long regarded as one of the worst areas in San Diego) being snapped up for $300-$350K back in 2002 or 2003. No idea what they eventually got up to and probably don't want to know.
the racism and classism made
evident here is astonishing.
Hmmm....not sure who you are directing this at, but since I'm mostly hispanic mutt, and helped move my sister-in-law into the place I described near the top of the thread, which really does have a death by shooting in the neighborhood every two weeks, I'll just say that you may be confusing motivation with facts. I'd like to move my sister-in-law from where she is, to somewhere with a waist high fence. It really is a sign of a better neighborhood. I'm not kidding.
"...as bad as LA can be, we got nothing that compares to driving through streets with shelled out looking buildings in the Bronx in broad daylight and passing a completely stripped car - sans wheels - burning on the side of the road. Or driving past the projects in Baltimore, afraid to slow down anywhere close to the speed limit, just in case a stry bullet was headed our way.
Yeah, I and two other friends - all of us very middle class and very white - got lost once in Baltimore. It was barely a step above those shelled neighborhoods in Beirut you see on the evening news/CNN."
I am really happy to see Baltimorgue get the "respect" it deserves. A bomb-out pit is an accurate description of the place, where gunfire is exchanged regularly between gangs and cops in a random mix, where visiting the city, riding the bus, etc. are deadly choices, and where the projects fill lifeless street after street, half of them boarded up and ready to burn down, and there isn't a single tree or flower to ruin the monument to humanity's greed and stupidity.
Oh, and yes, houses in Baltimorgue can go for $500,000, but only in the "nice" areas. What they neglect to mention is that in Baltimorgue, the slums are everywhere in pockets of misery, so you're "nice area" with its stupidly overpriced house may be only a few streets over from gang-banger central. But, in the land of Realtors, that doesn't matter!
i had a house with bars on the windows (we took them off) myself. filled with kids and families. some people just can't afford upper middle class-landia
This house is in between Mt Washington (an up'n coming neighborhood on the edge of the barrio) and Dodger stadium.
This is a BAD neighborhood where people get shot regularly. Family neighborhood? Try gang neighborhood.
So, unless you wanted to rent it out, you would be risking your life to live here. Not to mention, since they converted the garage your nice car is likely to get lifted.
Search LAPD crime stats for that area and there are regular assaults and robberies.
I lived in a nieghborhood like this when I was little (61st and Randolph in Huntington Park). Being one of the only white kids on the block, I can say what side of racism I experienced living there and it wasn't fun.
A bad neghborhood is a bad neighborhood. Property values never should have risen in that area and the current offer prices are confirming.
You shouldn't confuse people discussing the facts about a neighborhood with racism. They are totally different things.
That's an iffy neighborhood. It's block by block, some ok, some not. The area is under improvement though but still, it borders two different gang areas. The bars aren't a good sign as it usually means the house or one nearby has been broken into.
It's been stuccoed so an even bigger problem is what's underneath. Likely termite damage because it's really an early 20th c. bungalow masking as a 1980's generic box. Windows and doors aren't original. I'm going to guess original wood floors have been either ripped out or covered up. Trim is probably gone. It was once a typical SoCal cute bungalow though.
If you're white, your opinion is only worth 3/5ths of that of a nonwhite person, so be sure to admit your guilt upfront so you don't mislead anyone into thinking you have the right to a full opinion.
Sebastian writes:
LA is overpriced, but it is only a small fraction of the country. There are many beautiful houses in North Carolina that I am buying right now. They are really cheap, if you can pay by cash.
First off, LA is a large part of the US and CA is even bigger.
Second off, judging by your writing abilities and the fact that you post on this blog, i doubt that you are buying houses in NC especially for cash.
TMoney writes:
485K ? 300K ? In Toledo, that sort of dough buys you neighbours like heart surgeons, a house the size of a small castle and school system that send kids to Harvard and MIT. Is LA really that special ? Is Toledo really that bad ? Did I mention there are no bars on the windows either ?
Now if you like bars on Windows, Toledo has some areas too, but now your talking $4850 (no zero missing).
Ditto for Akron and Canton Ohio. Public school systems there put the entire Florida public school system to shame.
Yogurt, I'm from Vancouver originally. 689k for a house in the downtown east side? Umm, yikes. That's not the worst neighborhood in Vancouver, it's arguably the worst neighborhood in Canada. You're close to downtown, but you WILL have heroin addicts for "neighbors". You probably won't get shot, but leaving anything in your car in that neighborhood is a signal that you no longer want it.
Good god are people so brainwashed about the need to 'own' a home that they would actually consider dropping $290K for that shit box....let alone over $400K? Go rent a nice place...where you dont have to worry about your kids making it home alive.
The seller gets cash whether the buyer pays cash or just borrows the money, so just how does paying cash get you a better price than someone who isn't? You're all buying in the same market.
The person buying stocks with cash does not get a better price than someone buying on margin.
This sounds like great deal to me. I'll get back to you when it's lower.
jo6pac
The Race to the bottom ?
More wine, please.
Residence: Single family --
Bedrooms: 2 --
Bathrooms: 1.0 --
Sq ft: 648 --
Lot size: 2,200 sq ft / 0.05 acres -- sq ft / -- acres
Year built: 1911 --
Year updated: 1913 --
Stories: 1 --
Total rooms: 5
The bars on the windows add that final "charming" touch.
Yikes...
Makes you wonder what a reasonable offer is. I'm pretty sure any I'd be willing to make wouldn't be accepted.
Are there pot plants inside?
Do you get to keep all the lead buried in the walls from the drive bys?
Could make for a pretty good arbitrage opportunity.
From the LA Blog site:
« Zillow: 72% of 2006 home buyers in L.A. now under water
pretty impressive.
I want to make that crack house a crack home!
I don't know zip about L.A., but the fact that this is a small house on a small lot gives me hope that it must be close to somewhere and might some day be worth something, if its neighborhood ever turns around.
Whereas those large homes on large lots proximate to the epicenter of nowhere may one day be looked back upon as an intrinsically bad idea.
Just sayi
Crikes, that house reminds me of some of the places I've seen in the dumpier parts of Latin America.
Replace that fence with a wall featuring broken glass fragments jutting upwards for security, add a big old pig rummaging through the garbage, and this dump would be right at home in Lima, Caracas or Rio.
That nice man Mr. Bernakie will more then likely be glad to take that off the banks hands he might even give them a finders fee.
The endless arguments and qualifications on what/who is a walk away.
The most convincing was the couple that were getting a reset for a dumpy LA place. It was on video.
This place is another that you wouldn't just walk away from, you would run away from.
OK....I'm sure the facts are complicated. However regardless of the finances of the current or FC'ed owner, this just isn't the kind of place that you sacrifice to keep.
I dont think this is the worst part of LA... There are many worse... as for C_S's comparison to SA... That's half of SoCal, shoot when you're lost you have the same likelihood of pulling over and finding someone who speaks english..
as for the location i checked out google street view and that house isnt there...
734 Aragon Ave., Los Angeles 90065 - Google Maps
Odd....
The window bars ARE charming.
Not Charming is when the front of the property has a 6ft plus fence with spikes on top, and a heavy bolt-cutter impervious chain on the front gate. It's when the only place that doesn't have weeds is the "drug runner trail" going through the backyard, connecting pried open fences on each side - this allows the runners to avoid any unpleasant suprises from automobile passengers. That low fence is a sign that this is a family neighborhood. I bet kids actually play outside during the day, and maybe only lockdown at night.
just fyi on REO's ...
a REO --must-- be owned by THE lender,
or it is NOT a REO.
Don't listen to those who say otherwise.
It has legal implications regarding
defect disclosures and terms of sale
(and possibly others).
KnotRP touche! People dont know good SoCal living...
Is the half-starved pitbull living inside free?
Did I really see bars on the upstairs windows in #11 (Pomona)? And what about that Pasadena "Colonial" (#2)? It's not New England colonial; maybe it's more like Uganda colonial.
If you don't like bars on the windows on some of these, perhaps the real estate agent will throw in an incentive of an AK-47. You never know.
ha hahahhaahaaaa
yea you just have to get by him...
Nothing like being on the wrong side of Chavez Ravine.
Garage was converted.
Into what, a lab? Or would that then qualify the place as 'commercial real estate'?
I'm currently reading "Planet of Slums," and this house looks like the US version of every sprawling impoverished city described in the book.
Granted, a US slum is going to have major differences from a slum in the Third World. For example, in the US, a sector of the city could degenerate into a slum rather than (in the Third World) start from the bottom and stay there.
This is the kind of post that adds a valuable extra dimension to all of the statistics. Thanks, CR.
As I look at the lot from google earth, the photo appears to be that the house is the garage conversion.
To the folks that say it's like 'Latin America' - one exception, in a lot of Latin America houses like these would be well maintained objects of pride.
I got lost in Juarez on my way to a factory once and ended up in neighborhoods like these - flower pots, well painted, clean kids playing, friendly people. Small stucco row homes on narrow streets but in nice shape - small local 'hole in the wall' groceries & paneria's about every block. Very habitable.
We then ended up in a squatter village - literally stones piled on top of one another to make walls with tin & plastic for roofs, street sewer - not so nice.
We eventually made it to the factory without incident (amazing considering we didn't speak Spanish)...
I asked our contact about the difference between squatters & the nicer neighborhoods - she said the squatters were all 'temps' - coming up to the Maq's to work, save some money and go home (or sneak across the border & make even more money)... she said they won't pay a peso to rent if they can help it & stay only as long as they have to to make enough to buy a place 'back home' - farther south in Mexico. they have no pride in ownership up there - maybe farther south somewhere though.
I wonder how many of those beat up LA joints were the US equivalent of those squatter huts I saw in Juarez?
Where's the razor-wire and the Rotweilers?
"Planet of the Slums." Ironically, I was just reading "Planet of 90065." It seems that Dillon and Kelley didn't fair so well after Beverly Hills High.
dryfly,
In Mexico, they care about what is inside the walls. They don't care so much what is outside the walls. It is a cultural thing.
Just picture the lender's appraisal report from 2007 @ ~$500K. A lender lent out that money. That's a 1/2 MILLION DOLLARS. And those are STRONG DOLLARS, when inflation was under 2%!
$294K LMAO!
Better send this to Hank Barney Frank and Ben, just so they get a little better perspective on what chance their bailout plans have of supporting this market. It has so far to fall there's no bottom in sight...
Elvis writes:
dryfly,
In Mexico, they care about what is inside the walls. They don't care so much what is outside the walls. It is a cultural thing.
Elvis | 05.09.08 - 12:10 am | #
Even then - many of the neighborhoods had nicely painted homes, clean fronts. Cleaner than mine now...
The squatters were unimaginable - seriously - stones piled up to make walls with tin over the top.
BTW I've wandered other parts of Mexico too - Chetumal area for example... again quite habitable. A far better lifestyle than these joints in LA.
Ummm,
I'm pretty familiar with East Los Angeles..This is a very tough neighborhood and is controlled by one of the more violent latin gangs in the city. The police don't like to hang out there too much at night and thier was a recent shootout between then and the gang that was a mini war according to police officers.
They call it a trap because of the L.A. river, freeways and hill to the northeast. You better know spanish and carry a .41
All the more reason to call the whitehouse and make sure GW hears from his constituents to make sure he veto's anything coming out of congress.
I used to hang there with my homies. The gang members would pester me, but I reminded them that I had used my 7-11 wage to purchase time with their mothers, and that shut them up. It turns out that gangbangers are sensitive about the fact that their moms get around. Just thought you should known in case you buy this house and you are threatened.
Dryfly,
Jaurez is one tough town, you were fortunate. I spent a lot of my youth in Baja and the mainland pacific coast during 70's and 80's. Drugs and plastic bags really messed that countryside up. The wind is thier garbage truck.
The wind must have blown the trash away that day.
holy crap, you couldn't pay me $294,900 to live in that house.
If the pictured house is the one nades found at Google Maps, it's in Glendale a bit off Figueroa Rd.
There is a large amount of 'resistance' at the $320,000 level in LA. I check redfin every day and watch sites like RadarLogic and Housingtracker.
I rent. And I live in one of the ten-most expensive neighborhoods in the country (for $1,900 per month in rent).
Take my $1,900 in rent and capitalize the annual $ amount by the rate at which I could secure a mortgage; say 6.5%; and my rental is 'worth' $350,000.
But $350,000 to live in an amazing neighborhood by the beach in LA, versus buying inland for the same amount and living in a older townhome (not to mention HOA and the eventual cost of selling).
I think prices in LA have another 20% down.
Sorry, that wasn't wind. That was Seb's butt.
It's best to drive in LA on the freeways
or on some of the main streets, even if
it's a lot longer.
Try to get home before dark when you
can, and keep the sound low to hear
the sirens better.
And don't run low on gas in a Latino
neighborhood unless you speak Spanish.
But it's a great time to buy a home.
I know everyone likes to give LA grief over becoming a third world country, heck even I wondered about it myself back in the seventies when the best way to the LA Forum for concerts was to take the shortcut through Inglewood. (Imagine if you will four very naive suburban teenaged girls driving through Watts at three am after a very ummm... smoky Jethro Tull concert. Boy were we shocked by what we saw.) But as bad as LA can be, we got nothing that compares to driving through streets with shelled out looking buildings in the Bronx in broad daylight and passing a completely stripped car - sans wheels - burning on the side of the road. Or driving past the projects in Baltimore, afraid to slow down anywhere close to the speed limit, just in case a stry bullet was headed our way. Or even being dropped at the Newark train station by a female friend who was afraid to come to a complete stop, in case one of the bums tried to hop in and catch a ride if she did. That being said, I don't imagine houses in any of those areas were selling for a half million dollars, even at the height of the bubble. So I guess you could say LA may not have the "worst" bad neighborhoods in the US, but we sure a sheck do have the most overpriced bad neighborhoods.
"But it's a great time to buy a home."
I bought three yesterday! And I'm still wearing no pants! -- Jenna Jameson.
as bad as LA can be, we got nothing that compares to driving through streets with shelled out looking buildings in the Bronx in broad daylight and passing a completely stripped car - sans wheels - burning on the side of the road. Or driving past the projects in Baltimore, afraid to slow down anywhere close to the speed limit, just in case a stry bullet was headed our way.
Yeah, I and two other friends - all of us very middle class and very white - got lost once in Baltimore. It was barely a step above those shelled neighborhoods in Beirut you see on the evening news/CNN.
Trishyla,
And why were you hanging out in these neighborhoods littered across the USA? Uncle Crackie?
I don't imagine houses in any of those areas were selling for a half million dollars, even at the height of the bubble.
Perhaps not but it's really astounding what some homes which must have been 'flippers', sold for. Evidently everyone was so busy cashing in and finding the next sucker that nobody bothered to drive by and look at the place. Or, the appraiser was amazingly crooked.
FRAUD is easy when nobody is watching.
clearly, what we need is more deregulation.
Elvis,
Dropped a friend off at her Mom's house in Yonkers, by way of the Bronx. Visited an uncle who lived in the Maryland countryside, and needed to take the train to D.C. for business. I was always passing through on my way to other places. Lucky for me. Those were some damned scary places.
Hey Renato,
Those appraisals weren't necessarily fraud. That's what 800 sq ft crackshacks in the hood were selling for at the height of the bubble last year. People were just stupid enough to believe that's what they were worth.
People were just stupid enough to believe that's what they were worth.
it's amazing how greed can blind people. The dot-com bubble only burst about 7 years ago. I used to think 20 or 30 years had to pass between investment bubbles, but it seems that we just go from one to the next. This is no way to run an economy.
Let's see ...which appraisal method
for this one ?
-- cost approach ?
-- comparables approach ?
-- rent revenue approach ?
-- kickback approach ?
-- stay-in-business approach ?
-- methlab potential ?
-- crack revenue stream ?
-- do or die approach ?
--money-laundry/straw-buyer approach?
-- I'm-the-real-seller approach ?
LA is overpriced, but it is only a small fraction of the country. There are many beautiful houses in North Carolina that I am buying right now. They are really cheap, if you can pay by cash. The bears get it wrong, when they give examples of the most overpriced neighborhood to describe the country.
S.
Trishyla,
Actually century blvd in the 70's wasn't too bad or in early 80's. Laker game shortcut worked more than once..
I think if you headed to watts, compton and north long beach you would see similar settings to everywhere you mentioned. Just more spread out. They found my stolen Q45 in Watts burning and stripped at 9:00 pm. The officer told me to come down the next morning, it was safest time.
L.A. was great in the 70's..
Did you know that your not supposed to go into the ocean for 72 hours after it rains because every disease outside of malaria is hanging out in the surf after being washed down from points thru-out the city.
Clean water, less surfers, showtime at the forum and good music at the whiskey. S.California at its best..
Hey cd,
Those were the days!
Trishyla,
Yes they were, good luck down there. Most all my friends live behind the it's different here OC wall. I like L.A., more culture, better dining and straight forwardness. I used to dive off palos verde near marineland at night with my dad and come home with 10 lobster a night during season. Ate better then..
Clearly, the bars are for keeping toddlers and pets from falling out the window. This is a family neighborhood, after all.
cd,
I escaped from behind the Orange curtain years ago, for much the same reason as you. Got tired of counting houses, just to figure out which one was mine. I grew up in Irvine, the mother of all "it's different here" thinking. My best friend still lives there. I love her in spite of it. Though you couldn't pay me enough to move back.
Wells Fargo, aka Buffets Bankruptcy.
Buffet has been wrong many times in the recent past; and WF is the albatross that will wake up his mom & pop shareholders to the fact that they have not bought a piece of sainthood, and it's now time to clean their clocks, too.
Criminey, I've said ever since 2005 that Buffet would wear the triple albatross necklace with his stake in Wells Fargo. Over at the housingbubbleblog.com, those folks have pointed out for years that WF was one of the largest sub-prime and Alt-A mortgage generators.
And what did WF say? "Oh, we're doing great; don't look at us."
The curtain is now pulled back. Hello spectre of Christmas Now. Remember the line, "Fear ignorance most"??
For those who believed in Santa Buffet, this WF position (and plenty of others in their portfolio of pretty's) stinks from rotting bird flesh.
It is already too late to say "Look!". For those who refused and continue to do so, there is and will be a steep price to pay. Oh, but Buffet will rescue you later? Nodda chance as the entire economy is moving south and his most recent purchase from the Pritzkers, and his unloading of silver point to a guy who should be emeritus, and fast.
Here's the news...
Mr. Mortgage’s Guide to the TRUTH! » Warren Buffet – ‘Wells Fargo to Experience Unusually Large Losses’ & BofA May Cut Dividend
Warren Buffet - Wells Fargo to Experience Unusually Large Losses & BofA May Cut Dividend
Posted on May 8th, 2008 in Mr Mortgage's Personal Opinions/Research
[Check out the article; you may decide that fading Buffet is a very smart play; but there are many much stupider prophets who deserve to be shorted along with or first.]
Does $294,900 include all the stuff inside?
Sebastian writes:
LA is overpriced, but it is only a small fraction of the country. There are many beautiful houses in North Carolina that I am buying right now. They are really cheap, if you can pay by cash. The bears get it wrong, when they give examples of the most overpriced neighborhood to describe the country.
With all due respect you have no f-ing clue what is going to happen to north carolina when Wachovia and BofA are revealed to be insolvent. Sorry but all the furniture, textile and manufacturing jobs left north carolina, and NC leveraged up on finance jobs............OOOOOOPPPPPPSSSS!!!
And houses that are cheap can get much much cheaper
FYI & Basically OT:
Check out this new way to look at the world, e.g, you can use Google to look around the area this house is in, track Hillary and find Tanta:
Explore Google Maps
Wow, killer pix of this house from Google!!
Google Maps
Sorry, guess you have to plug in the address and do this java load in your own PC, as the house pix isn't a link:
Try the address: 734 Aragon Ave., Los Angeles 90065
using: Google Maps
So bad lawns and chainlink fences are all the rage in LA?
I'm going to have a little talk with my landscape architect.
I pretty sure that's fake Seabass; the real one tries to make points that are simple minded, not nah-nah neener-neener.
And for the comments about calling for more regulation, ins't the question shouldn't have regulators have been doing their effing jobs?
I ask this with all seriousness: How would Glass/Steagall have prevented CFC or Downey? Securitization of mortgages had been going on well before the repeal, so had CDOs.
IMO,
1: the speed at which securitization took place due to increases in computing power
2: greed
3: EZ money
4: lax regulatory enforcement is what led to this particular market failure.
Maybe more regs is what's needed, but let's look cast a more jaundiced eye at the latter two, because the 1st two will always be around.
Now I see why house prices are collapsing out west...not only were the houses ridoinkulously overpriced, but the housing stock is horrid. I especially enjoyed the teal minicastle with the ivy growing up the side, for that authentic castle look.
barf
I live in south Orange County and on occasion I have gotten off the freeway (usually due to horrendous traffic) and have driven through these neighborhoods. If I didn't know any better, I would prefer these tiny cracker box houses to the no lot, stuck together, look in your neighbor's windows houses that are so common in the newer, cleaner, safer, whiter developments.
These older homes have some sort of character that is lacking. It's the crime, real or perceived, that's the real deal breaker.
Please, lets be accurate: "OREO" is the correct classification for foreclosed property held by banks. "Other real estate owned," not "REO." REO is a broader classification that includes all bank properties.
SOC has a good point, but family neighborhood?
Manson family maybe.
I have found all sorts of interesting ways to check out a property, given an address.
The Aragorn Avenue house sits on a tract which is 97.71% minority... Hispanics account for 3040 of the 3364 total residents. Household income median is 71% of the MSA's median, with over 22% below the poverty line.
If you do buy the house, be sure to make friends with the four sex offenders with crimes against children, or the rapist, who live within a few blocks of you. Also, be sure to secure your possessions, as a house just around the corner was burgled just this week. You might want to put some extra anti-theft devices on your car, too... jus' sayin'.
It makes no sense whatsoever for them to try to sell this with an ad written in English, unless they are absolutely desperate.
An oldie-but-a-goodie; always worth a re-post:
Bank of America | Real Estate Center | Find a Bank-Owned Property
When I first started posting this, more than a year ago, I'm pretty sure it was priced above 300K.
Oaktown, all the way.
Ah, I just got home from work--love the site, love the comments..love the humor. Saw this post with the accompanying picture. Know how extremely retarded CA real estate has been. Got to the second comment from ron, listing the year upgraded and blew my delicious ale all over my laptop. Bless you all.
Charming isn't all that it is cracked up to be.
I remember reading this article in the LA Times about the gangs that have plagued the Highland Park, Glassell Park, Cypress Park and Eagle Rock areas.
Chris's Blog Archives: Avenues Gang Overview
central_scrutinizer writes:
Replace that fence with a wall featuring broken glass fragments jutting upwards for security, add a big old pig rummaging through the garbage, and this dump would be right at home in Lima, Caracas or Rio.
Well, maybe not Rio; the neighbors don't speak Portuguese.
125.1
INO Futures and Commodities - Energy - CRUDE OIL (E-MINI) Jan 2010 (E) (NYMEX:QM.F10.E) Price Chart and Quote
Bank of America | Real Estate Center | Find a Bank-Owned Property
the reo i'd like
Here is what 668K gets you in the worst part of Vancouver, Canada
Note bars on the ground floor window. But it's worth it because the Olympics are coming and a rich visitor will buy it.
BTW for the uninformed the Canadian dollar is worth the same as the USD.
Well, if I had any doubt that 99% of the posters here are white non-Hispanic, it's gone now.
485K ? 300K ? In Toledo, that sort of dough buys you neighbours like heart surgeons, a house the size of a small castle and school system that send kids to Harvard and MIT. Is LA really that special ? Is Toledo really that bad ? Did I mention there are no bars on the windows either ?
Now if you like bars on Windows, Toledo has some areas too, but now your talking $4850 (no zero missing).
Cleveland blogger Bill Callahan has been writing extensively about foreclosures in the Cleveland area. Some time ago he did a post with pictures of a number of HUD-owned homes. Recently he updated one of those reports. Take a look.
Callahan’s Cleveland Diary » Blog Archive » Another angle on HUD
Has anyone else noticed how so many of those buildings' main feature is the HUGE GARAGE DOOR? There's one in one of those galleries that has no windows on the street side at all. Just two fuck-off big garage doors.
Meanwhile, if you take Gmaps to that address, use the Street View option, and swing around to look north, there's a real horror of a building on the other side, but fortunately it looks like the crash hit before it got finished..
SOC has a good point, but family neighborhood?
Manson family maybe.
eckalectic
Actually Manson lived in rugged non-urban hillside and countryside that abuts LA and the Valley areas, specifically at the Spahn movie ranch area
Spahn Ranch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I lived close to that area for 3 years - that's how I know. ( just for completeness, he also lived across the 118 and more NorthEast for some time too).
I also love LA, warts, ThirdWorldish conditions in many areas and chainlink fences and way overpriced houses 'n' all.
-K
That is just about the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. Half of those shacks with bars should be demolished. Anyone involved in valuing these properties at around a half million dollars (which is where most seemed to be previously) should be in jail. How greedy can we be? How many people have to be complicit for this crap to have had happened for so long?!?! It is depressing, mind boggling, and simple disgusting. You reap what you sow -
For my sake, I just hope Ambac didn't insure some CDO containing loans for that house
My wife loves Cali. We live in the North east US and I am in no way impressed. I would love to see the prices in the good sections in Cali.
The listing must be in error. It must be 294,900 pesos. Or is that the equivalent of $294,900 these days?
Three possible ideas for this house: 1) raze it and make more money growing vegetables, 2) turn it into section 8, 3) make it either a mini-police neighborhood substation or a neighborhood mini-jail, so as not to waste the bars.
If none of those ideas work, maybe the bank can just sell it for scrap metal. Might get more $$ that way.
I know the climate is great there....much, much better temperatures than Austin, Texas for instance.
So...looking at that house, it seems worth about $70,000-$100,000, depending on interior and back yard, etc., to me personally, if I wanted a place in CA.
From $485K down to $95K would be an 80% drop though.... :-0
..
Ya know, looking at the picture again..... lower my previous numbers above by $15,000, down to $55,000 - $85,000.
Yeah, that one's by Dodger Stadium. Not the greatest area. I recall seeing houses in Logan Heights (long regarded as one of the worst areas in San Diego) being snapped up for $300-$350K back in 2002 or 2003. No idea what they eventually got up to and probably don't want to know.
cd-
you know the official flower of Baja IS the plastic bag.....been that way for years...
Ciao
MS
the racism and classism made evident here is astonishing.
Yeah, but if you buy it, there is a conenant in the deed, that you have to live there, especially on the weekends.
It's difficult not to be racist and classist when reading articles like this on a daily basis in the local paper.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-me-drewstreet30mar30,1,2487293,full.story
you keep on with those rationalizations SOC....
Hmmm....not sure who you are directing this at, but since I'm mostly hispanic mutt, and helped move my sister-in-law into the place I described near the top of the thread, which really does have a death by shooting in the neighborhood every two weeks, I'll just say that you may be confusing motivation with facts. I'd like to move my sister-in-law from where she is, to somewhere with a waist high fence. It really is a sign of a better neighborhood. I'm not kidding.
In case you are wondering, I don't get to pick where my sis-in-law moves...I just help, because I have a truck, and no brains.
"...as bad as LA can be, we got nothing that compares to driving through streets with shelled out looking buildings in the Bronx in broad daylight and passing a completely stripped car - sans wheels - burning on the side of the road. Or driving past the projects in Baltimore, afraid to slow down anywhere close to the speed limit, just in case a stry bullet was headed our way.
Yeah, I and two other friends - all of us very middle class and very white - got lost once in Baltimore. It was barely a step above those shelled neighborhoods in Beirut you see on the evening news/CNN."
I am really happy to see Baltimorgue get the "respect" it deserves. A bomb-out pit is an accurate description of the place, where gunfire is exchanged regularly between gangs and cops in a random mix, where visiting the city, riding the bus, etc. are deadly choices, and where the projects fill lifeless street after street, half of them boarded up and ready to burn down, and there isn't a single tree or flower to ruin the monument to humanity's greed and stupidity.
Oh, and yes, houses in Baltimorgue can go for $500,000, but only in the "nice" areas. What they neglect to mention is that in Baltimorgue, the slums are everywhere in pockets of misery, so you're "nice area" with its stupidly overpriced house may be only a few streets over from gang-banger central. But, in the land of Realtors, that doesn't matter!
knot-
no i was talking to the other folks.
i had a house with bars on the windows (we took them off) myself. filled with kids and families. some people just can't afford upper middle class-landia
Ralph Cramdown:
This house is in between Mt Washington (an up'n coming neighborhood on the edge of the barrio) and Dodger stadium.
This is a BAD neighborhood where people get shot regularly. Family neighborhood? Try gang neighborhood.
So, unless you wanted to rent it out, you would be risking your life to live here. Not to mention, since they converted the garage your nice car is likely to get lifted.
Search LAPD crime stats for that area and there are regular assaults and robberies.
Good luck with that...
dc1000, stop judging people and go back to the Daily Kos website, you won't learn anything here.
Blitzer,
Thanks for pointing out those pics on Google maps.
Wasn't that street featured in the movie "Training Day?"
L.A. slums are deceptively "nice." This is the south side of Chicago with palm trees and hispanics.
As many people have noted here already, you don't want to wander this neighborhood at night.
dc1000,
I lived in a nieghborhood like this when I was little (61st and Randolph in Huntington Park). Being one of the only white kids on the block, I can say what side of racism I experienced living there and it wasn't fun.
A bad neghborhood is a bad neighborhood. Property values never should have risen in that area and the current offer prices are confirming.
You shouldn't confuse people discussing the facts about a neighborhood with racism. They are totally different things.
That's an iffy neighborhood. It's block by block, some ok, some not. The area is under improvement though but still, it borders two different gang areas. The bars aren't a good sign as it usually means the house or one nearby has been broken into.
It's been stuccoed so an even bigger problem is what's underneath. Likely termite damage because it's really an early 20th c. bungalow masking as a 1980's generic box. Windows and doors aren't original. I'm going to guess original wood floors have been either ripped out or covered up. Trim is probably gone. It was once a typical SoCal cute bungalow though.
It's a shame.
If you're white, your opinion is only worth 3/5ths of that of a nonwhite person, so be sure to admit your guilt upfront so you don't mislead anyone into thinking you have the right to a full opinion.
I'd buy that for $65,000.
Nice, dg.
You stay classy.
Sebastian writes:
LA is overpriced, but it is only a small fraction of the country. There are many beautiful houses in North Carolina that I am buying right now. They are really cheap, if you can pay by cash.
First off, LA is a large part of the US and CA is even bigger.
Second off, judging by your writing abilities and the fact that you post on this blog, i doubt that you are buying houses in NC especially for cash.
TMoney writes:
485K ? 300K ? In Toledo, that sort of dough buys you neighbours like heart surgeons, a house the size of a small castle and school system that send kids to Harvard and MIT. Is LA really that special ? Is Toledo really that bad ? Did I mention there are no bars on the windows either ?
Now if you like bars on Windows, Toledo has some areas too, but now your talking $4850 (no zero missing).
Ditto for Akron and Canton Ohio. Public school systems there put the entire Florida public school system to shame.
I think Google's a bit off on the address try "770":
734 Aragon Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90065, USA - Google Maps
Yogurt, I'm from Vancouver originally. 689k for a house in the downtown east side? Umm, yikes. That's not the worst neighborhood in Vancouver, it's arguably the worst neighborhood in Canada. You're close to downtown, but you WILL have heroin addicts for "neighbors". You probably won't get shot, but leaving anything in your car in that neighborhood is a signal that you no longer want it.
Good god are people so brainwashed about the need to 'own' a home that they would actually consider dropping $290K for that shit box....let alone over $400K? Go rent a nice place...where you dont have to worry about your kids making it home alive.
They are really cheap, if you can pay by cash.
The seller gets cash whether the buyer pays cash or just borrows the money, so just how does paying cash get you a better price than someone who isn't? You're all buying in the same market.
The person buying stocks with cash does not get a better price than someone buying on margin.