Friday, May 04, 2007

$14,000 per year field worker buys $720,000 home

I posted this story over at the Bakersfield Californian Blog: , interesting comments...


Despite making only $14,000 a year, strawberry picker Alberto Ramirez managed to buy his own slice of the American Dream. But his Hollister home came with a hefty price tag - $720,000.

A year and a half later, Ramirez has defaulted on his loan, and he's hoping to sell the house before it's repossessed. And according to many housing advocates and civil rights groups, Ramirez is not alone. As mortgage foreclosures rise, many minorities are suffering.

Brown said the language barrier (Ramirez, a native Spanish speaker, is not fluent in English, and spoke to the Free Lance through a translator) can also play a big role."When you go into Washington Mutual ... you can't always get someone to speak your language," she said.

"The real estate boom covered a multitude of sins," Simmons said. "Once the market started depreciating, the rug was pulled back to show the rot underneath."


Hollister Free Lance

9 comments:

Rob Dawg said...

"$14,000 per year field worker buys $720,000 home"

Only one? No wonder this is news.

xs10shell said...

How did he even make it for a year and a half? Not to mention property taxes and insurance. And I'd just love to see a copy of that loan application.

xs10shell said...

here's kinda the opposite. $225k per year and they can't afford a house in LA

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/

AnalysisGuy said...

Went to the two auctions today.

PAX Auction House

House #1 (see link above) was 3650 sf in Shilo Estates. It sold for $545K + 10% to PAX. That puts the total price at $599.5K ($164/sf)

House #2 (also see link above) was 2050 sf in Shilo Estates. It went to the absentee bidder at $300K + 10% to PAX. That puts the total price at $330K ($161/sf). The interesting thing was no one there was willing to go over $175K so the auctioneer got mad and pulled out the absentee bid.

I still feel both prices were little high, but the second house sold for $120K LESS than it sold for just a year ago. Yes Zillow the house and you'll see it had sold for $450K last year!

thebubblebuster.com

Bakersfield Bubble said...

AG-

Thanks for the update. These are significant declines for this area. WOW!

rrastronomo said...

yes, thank you, analysisguy. that is the kind of blogging I appreciate. Bismark once said, "Even fools learn from their experience let us instead learn from the experience of others."

redink93312 said...

Does anyone have up to date news on Local Mortgage Offices Closing?

Bakersfield Bubble said...

RED-

Have you heard something? Also, I get an email with every post, so sometimes the readers only check the newest posts. You might have to ask this in the top post.

Thanks

Anna Nonymous said...

New blog resumes the First NLC saga:
http://lastnlc.blogspot.com/