02-19-2009, 09:43 AM
kj wrote:
All the empty homes (some subdivisions sit nearly empty) around here are large homes (3000sqft+). I would have to say a lot of them never sold at all, though. You need equity to move into a rental? I've never heard of that. kj.
Around here it takes first month's rent, last month's, and a security deposit equal to up to a month's rent before you move in. Now if three months rent isn't "equity"/savings or whatever you want to call it, then I don't know what is. If you had that much, you could still be paying the mortgage, by the time you can't pay the mortgage, you don't have the cash up front to move into a rental. That can be quite a chunk of cash in some areas, there are 2 and 3 bedroom apartments in this area going for over $1000 a month. Nothing fancy either, that kind of place is much more.
Worst case before the housing market bubble burst, if you lost your job and knew you no longer could afford the house you were in, you could borrow against the equity to move into a rental or smaller house and then either turn the house over to the mortgage holder or sell it. Now not even that is available to those "upside down".
As for all those empty homes near you, might want to check on whether they were a development built on spec whose buyers had to back out for one reason or another in the current market. But that is only a portion of the kind of properties going on the block in foreclosure. There are also quite a few less expansive houses going empty now, or about to.