Monday, December 31, 2007

Hahn Family

Hahn Family (Jeff, Vanessa, Jonah); House "Buyers" / "Owners"
Yet another family featured by the San Francisco Chronicle. I'm not sure if we're supposed to feel sorry for these people. After you read the stories you invariably say, "What?", "Huh", "Nobody is that stupid." There were many comments at the Chronicle in response to this story, but I stopped after the second one. Here it is:
sfbaylover wrote:
Let me get this straight... Two grown adults can make the largest - most important purchase of their lives which is a home. You purchase a home that you clearly COULD not afford at 100% financing. But that was not enough - as you compound the sutation with a line of equity for a business loan. Did you even take a moment to do the math OR READ YOUR LOAN PAPERS? You must have - right? You signed and had your paperwork notorized, right? and now that you have lost your house and have almost $20K in credit card bills, you move into a $2,700 a month RENTAL. You clearly have not learned a SINGLE lesson. WHY not move into an AFFORDABLE rental, in a city that you can afford. YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED, YOU ARE supposed to be RESPONSIBLE. You are a VICTIM of your own actions, and clearly you are still making the wrong decisions. Leave California and live in a place that can offer you an affordable standard of living. NO MORE EXCUSES- grow UP !

2007-12-31: MORTGAGE MELTDOWN: The Hahn family
Jeffrey Hahn, 31, car-parts importer; Vanessa Hahn, 24, gymnastics coach, and Jonah, 2
House: Four-bedroom, Fairfield, purchased in 2004 for $495,000; after home-equity loan and cash-out refinancing, the total owed was $570,000.
Then: In July the Hahns were several months behind on payments and had the house on the market for $555,000. They were in the process of moving to Los Angeles where Jeff Hahn had a job offer.
Now: No buyers expressed interest even after several drops in the asking price. No payments were made on the mortgage. House was sold at a foreclosure auction Dec. 17, reverting to the lender for $474,750.

"The number of hate comments we got just floored me," Jeff Hahn said. "This wasn't something we chose to have happen to us. I just don't get how these people can judge me like this and think we completely took advantage of the system. The system took advantage of us. We're the ones losing our house; we won't be able to rebound from this."
----
Note to Jeff: You never HAD the house.
($570,000/$60,000) = 9.5 ! ! ! Borrowed 9.5x their yearly gross. Wow!

1040 Hickory Ave
Fairfield, CA 94533
Sale History:
10/29/2004: $525,000

Given their ages this doesn't surprise me. I encounter many 20-dumbthings and early 30-dumbthings that possess an overwhelming sense of entitlement. I believe it is from upbringing by baby boomer jackasses. There's a good dialogue about this story at Ben's Blog.

1 comment:

Stair ClimbLunatic said...

Zillow is such a joke. The "Zestimate" is $547K. Come on, this shack isn't worth more than $200K, if that. It's truly astounding how idiotic people were buying in at the peak. No one ever thought about how they could possibly repay the massive loans they took.

I equate the decision making process to that of looking over a menu in a restaurant for which dinner to order. They treated THE MOST important purchase in their life as if it was ordering a Baked Potato with their steak.....

MIND BOGGLING!