Minnesota's new ghost towns

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/17932454.html

Minnesota's new ghost towns

There are few trees or hills in this flat, predominantly rural county to obscure the evidence: Rows of vacant and unfinished homes, often with lockboxes on the front doors and foreclosure notices taped to the windows. Realtors call them "see-through houses," so empty of furniture and curtains that it's possible to see right through them.

"Based on what I see out here, we're headed for the Great Depression," said Dan Frie, a sales agent with Wright Sherburne Realty in Monticello, who has been in the business nearly 30 years.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

1. Careful

National Geographic is still licking its wounds over an article about ghost houses and dead communities in the Dakotas, to which Dakotans reacted with swift anger and resentment.

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. just looked at the article online. Thanks for the heads up.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/emptied-north-dakota/richards-photography

[Adsos Letter]

19. That National Geographic photo essay...

touched a real emotional nerve with me. Seeing old, abandoned homes in the rural areas where I live always brings feeling of...I don't know, sadness? ennui?

I always wonder what life the people had there. Was it good? Or was it tragic? The lady in one of the captions mentioned, regarding her deceased father's collapsing home, that it didn't bother her because "it's the way life is." I wish I knew how to be at peace with that sense of realism... :(

[wellstone dem]

2. Interesting

this was one of the fastest growing counties in the state, and I believe the nation. It was a very attractive place to buy.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. Dan's right

We're already in a Depression, but no one dares call it that, just like they can't say "civil war" in Iraq.

"Recession" seems to be prevailing code word, but it's wrong. It's a depression, with worthless money - what there is of it - and hunger and homelessness and the rich getting richer, while Nero in the Oval Office continues to fiddle.

See-through houses. That's chilling.

[Fumesucker]

7. My brother has five acres here in the Southeast..

It was almost rural until in about the last year to year and a half they subdivided all around him and built McMansions on fairly small lots..

Almost all of them are still empty.

A lot of the builders got caught holding the bag on this economy.

[Liberal_in_LA]

8. homeless ranks grow while mcmansions sit empty

[MikeNearMcChord]

18. I wonder how long will it be?

When we hear stories of conflicts between builders and squatters, I am afraid it may get violent. Military training in urban warfare may get its use here.:-(

[Fumesucker]

24. Bro bought the land and built two houses...

With his own hands, even drew the plans with pencil and paper, six inch thick walls with blown in cellulose insulation..They are almost too tight.. He built to live there for the rest of his life and that's exactly what he plans on doing still.

They are both about 1300 sq ft and he rents one out and lives in the other..

Our home is just over 1000 sq ft with a garage and basement underneath on a half acre lot in a lower middle class subdivision.. I have the basement about 80% built out and I have a feeling we're going to have to finish it and rent it to make ends meet.

I'm seeing a lot of selling in my neighborhood but since the homes are very reasonably priced they are being bought up pretty quickly.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

10. Good for your brother

Holding on to his land was a smart thing to do.

I am so sick of those huge, ugly houses known as McMansions. They were blights from the moment of their conception, and yet, millions of people saw them as "dream homes."

I must admit, I'm appalled that builders went ahead and kept building right up to - as you say - a year and a half ago, when it was already clear that this was happening. A lot of places in this area - the Washington DC suburbs - were under construction as condominium housing, but most of them are now advertising as rentals.

[Selatius]

12. In the future, many of these buildings will be torn down or turned into two-apartment duplexes.

The simple fact is with gas being what it is, it is becoming prohibitively expensive to live far away from the urban centers and commute to them. The whole basis of surburbia is to live away from work and the noise, but that is built on the assumption that energy prices will remain affordable.

[Nitrogenica]

4. Oh that does not look good at all.

[SoCalDem]

5. and a few years ago, those acres probably had FOOD growing on them

or at the least, were a useful habitat for the critters who still need a place to live..

[alfredo]

14. Towns tend to spring up over the most fertile land.

[mike_c]

9. real estate values HAVE to come down-- this is the only way to do it, I'm afraid....

This is the result of a cycle of greed that WAY too many people bought into, and not all of them were unscrupulous real estate speculators or big money developers. I have friends and neighbors who have either lost value on their homes, and in one case lost her home altogether-- but as painful as that is, those folks helped fuel the greed back in the early days of the housing bubble. I am SO glad I didn't succumb to the temptation. If real estate prices ever return to some semblance of sanity, maybe, but I'm hoping to see home prices lose half their value or more. There is simply no other way for normal working people to afford their own home without becoming house destitute or worse.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

13. Exactly

I've been predicting this for the past four years to anyone who would listen. "Your home is not your investment. It's your home." But all I heard was how much it would appreciate in value, how much profit they'd make, how much MORE they could buy with that profit, and on and on. The mortgage lenders were ever so happy to collude in this delusional thinking. Enablers, they were.

Don't forget, too, that those houses were purchased with dollars that were worth a lot more than they are today, making the debt even worse.

I think you're right, Mike, that houses will lose half or more of their "value," which might start to set things right. But, without jobs, and with money almost worthless, I don't know how that will happen. Will we see a new CCC?

[N4457S]

28. Yeah...

...even my landlord (who has one of those John Galt bumperstickers on his SUV) says it has to revert to the mean. He says "...oh, they'll all top out around one million..." but if you know anything about recent economic history, you understand that can't happen because it's never happened. Not ever.

There's no way out of it. People only earn so much money at their jobs and there are only so many rich foreigners coming into California to buy these properties.

Even Paulson has said repeatedly that deregulation has failed and something has to be done to stabilize the markets.

What I think they're gonna end up doing after the election is probably to regulate the living, fucking shit out of residential real estate.

[N4457S]

17. You Should...

...tell the people in the Bay Area. The house we're living in right now was purchased by the current owner in 2001 for $400K and would now sell for somewhere in the high nines. My wife and I are waiting for a year or two before buying but I can't possibly afford to buy in Danville or Alamo or maybe not even in San Ramon.

Yes, the prices have to come down...but if these Baby Boomer assholes all decide to sit on their properties, what can we do?

And we make good money. My wife and I are both seasoned IT professionals with more than a decade of experience.

[Adsos Letter]

22. Depending upon where you live...

housing prices may not drop much at all. As the cost of necessities continues to climb, the cost of fuel to get to and from work will be an increasing subject of concern. If you work in The City, and don't live close to mass transit, then housing prices are not likely to drop dramatically, as that property has found a new source of value, overpriced though it certainly is.

I would predict perhaps a 10-15% drop, but nothing of the magnitude occuring elsewhere.

[Adsos Letter]

20. I understand where you are coming from mike_c...

at least to the degree that you have expressed it.

I have no sympathy for the greedy; I do have sympathy for those I know who bought hoping to build a stake in life for retirement that their current jobs would never be able to afford them. The folks I am speaking of bought at the wrong time, when houses were way overpriced, and struggled to make payments hoping to relize equity down the road, and to get the mortgage interest tax deduction.

Uneducated investment? Yes. Poor planning? Yeah. Guilty of greed? In these cases, I don't think so...simply looking for a way to secure a future in an economy wherein the potential for realizing that is rapidly disappearing for many.

Still...hosing here in California (as you well know) is out of all proportion by any common-sensical definition. This bursting of the real estate bubble will provide many with new opportunities for a long-term goal of some stability in retirement for those who had the foresight to wait things out.

[dflprincess]

11. I skimmed the article in today's paper

and, while certainly credit problems are the main reason for this, one thing I didn't see mentioned is gas prices. Wright County is a long commute to where the jobs are though there are plenty of people who do it. I just wonder how many people may be rethinking making that kind of drive twice a day.

[SoCalDem]

15. The beautiful house we rented for $300 a month in Belen NM

was in a walled-in community on the mesa, overlooking the Rio Grande..it had a country club INCLUDED in the $300 a month.. The house was about 2500 sq ft. with a kitchen so big, I had empty cupboards (and I have a TON of kitchen stuff)

why so cheap???

The community was built well south of Albuquerque, and after the 73 oil embargo, people decided they could not afford to live so far away, in case another one happened..so Rio Communities was left high and dry...partially finished.. with homes being rented out for next to nothing... We rented there in 79 & 80.. so 3 -7 years after the crisis, the town had not rebounded..

[fudge stripe cookays]

16. You know, I feel bad and all, but...

Jon Colvin, 38, a telephone network technician and father of six children, had just informed CitiFinancial that he would be unable to make his March mortgage payment, and would probably miss April's, too.

Here's an idea. Maybe use some birth control, making it easier to live within your means? Just a thought.

[Adsos Letter]

21. Birth control is a necessity our planet can no longer overlook...

too many people, too few resources, to be able to justify uncontrolled population growth.

[Sal Minella]

23. I wonder if anybody managed to mention this to Il Popo while he was here.

I keep thinking the fastest solution to the shortage of priests would be ordaining women instead of fast-tracking all RC women onto the brood-sow track.

[fudge stripe cookays]

25. Of course not.

It's one of the things that he and George have in common.

Keep women secondary citizens, no birth control, no abortions, and thereby breed more fundamentalist whackjobs to eventually outnumber we secular humanists, dontcha know.

[Adsos Letter]

27. It always makes me very, very nervous...

to see the Pope in all his regalia, and all that get-up is intended to signify.

I belong to a Protestant denomination that would certainly be considered heretical by the Pope and, since The Church has always considered itself the arbiters of "legitimate" Christianity, any approach of religion to temporal authority makes me cringe.

This is not to deny the danger posed by religious theocrats to secular humanists, or any other metaphysical understanding;it is real, and it is frightening, and to be resisted at all costs by all lovers of Freedom and Liberty. The Church just seems to reserve a special authority for itself when it comes to heretics, as opposed to non-believers.

Absolute seperation of Church and State...it is the only way to protect and expand freedom of conscience, and equal protection under the law, for every human being.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

26. Why?

Mother Church, as we all know by now, condones pedophilia, especially with little boys, so who needs birth control?

You're so silly .........