bostonbubble.com

[Hard Rain]

"“After renting an apartment in Chelsea for 16 years, Alarcon bought a house for about $330,000 four years ago. She used $35,000, her life savings, as a down payment. She received an adjustable rate mortgage from a local bank, but it was not considered a subprime loan.”

“The mortgage payment first was $2,000 per month. After two years, the interest rate adjusted, and the payment climbed to $2,300. It then adjusted again, hitting $2,700 last year, she said.”

“At the same time, business at her restaurant also declined, greatly reducing her salary, she said…She sees little hope in reversing her misfortune. ‘I saved for 20 years to buy a house,’ Alarcon said. ‘Now I have nothing.’”

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/06/in_one_year_foreclosure_rate_tripled/

Sounded good, hard working immigrant loses life savings reaching for the American dream, Unfortunately it appears to be a flip gone bad. First flip netted a quick 30k in 2002, bought a property for 365k in June and sold one month later for 395k. Worst case scenario she loses the money she made on the first flip. I'll keep looking.....

[SD1]

What strikes me is why if you can do such a simple backround check to discover the previous flipping, why the globe missed it? Did they not look, did they find it and ignore it. Are they biased due to ad revenues? This has got to be some of the worst journalism ever.

[Booba]

WTF? I'm also hard-working immigrant, so what? I'm not "in trouble" simply because I didn't buy what I could not afford!
It's a good idea for any "hardworking immigrants" to keep two things in mind:
1) It helps if you use your brains, at least from time to time, especually when you make major financial transactions
2) You must clearly understand nothing is free here. If people who clearly make more then you don't buy those houses they probably have a point' huh?
3) It helps if you speak and read English, not only hable Esponiol! It will help you to read and understand what you are going to sign. The see rule number 1!
I fed up listening to stories about idiots immigrants that make $10 per hour, "bought" hals a million bucks properties, and now reporters that cheered "housing boom" justa year ago read "sad" stories about "struggled homeowners"!
Since when in this country a guy who paid ZERO for a house called "homeowner"?????