Entries for June 2008

While the housing bust is threatening to drag the entire economy into a debilitating recession, it's great news for the teenage party scene.

With a wanton lack of sympathy for the mortgage meltdown and ensuing credit crisis, teenagers in one California community are using abandoned foreclosed homes as venues for unchaperoned—and presumably "raging"—drinking parties.

This Old House magazine—which calls itself the "guilty enablers of your old-house addictions"—recently released its list of the dozen "Best Places to Buy an Old House."

From This Old House:

Our top criteria for choosing a winner included architectural diversity, the craftsmanship of the homes, and the preservation momentum in the area. But we were also interested in neighborhood amenities: walkability, services, and community. What we found is that people who live in historic places aren't just lovers of golden-age architecture, but of old-fashioned neighborhood values as well.

Although Jamie Foxx earned critical acclaim for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the 2004 film Ray, Home Front staffers insist that his best work came in his role as Wanda, the hapless romantic of TV's In Living Color.

True fans of either genre will be scrambling to arrange financing for this once-in-a-lifetime souvenir: Foxx's 5,428-square-foot California estate, which is now on the market.

Add former Tennessee Titans defensive back Adam "Pacman" Jones to the Home Front's list of America's least-sympathetic housing crisis victims.

From the Associated Press:

A foreclosure sale has been published involving the home of former Tennessee Titan Adam "Pacman" Jones.

Jones has defaulted on the terms and conditions of a mortgage with U.S. Bank, according to a notice of foreclosure sale published Thursday in The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.

The home and 30 acres, located in a Nashville suburb, will be sold June 27 on the steps of the old Williamson County Courthouse.

Despite some optimistic-looking data released today, economists still don't see the housing market turning around anytime soon.

Existing-home sales rose 2 percent from April to May, beating consensus estimates, while median home prices fell roughly 6 percent from a year earlier, the National Association of Realtors reported.

But the relatively upbeat figures—this is just the second increase in sales in the past 10 months—was less than overwhelming to economists.

While the national foreclosure crisis has destroyed families, shattered neighborhoods, and contributed to the untimely death of at least one Chihuahua (at the hands of bloodthirsty bees), it may well have been a boon for your local marijuana producer.

Last month, we learned of a California man who was arrested on suspicion of using his foreclosed home as a pot farm. Now, the loco weed was reportedly found growing at a foreclosed home in Florida, too.

Gutting one's home just before it's lost to foreclosure has become an increasingly common part of the mortgage crisis. But before you rip out that copper wiring, take a look at this cautionary tale from Pennsylvania.

From the Associated Press:

A former Mercer County mortgage broker who gutted his $1.2 million home before a sheriff's sale has been sentenced to three to 15 months in jail and must pay more than $174,000 to an insurance company.