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COMMENTS
Texas Gov. Rick Perry Rents Home, Taxpayers Foot the Bill
May 18th 2010 @ 11:00AM
This is a story about what I call America One versus America Two. In America One, only a very small fraction of the millions facing the prospect of losing their homes to foreclosure are actually helped by the Obama administration's mortgage modification programs. While in America Two, a fat-cat politician (well, OK, so he happens to be the governor of Texas) gets to have taxpayers pick up the tab for what the Associated Press refers to as a "sprawling rental home in the hills above the capital."
If you live in America One -- that would be most of us -- you might be one of those homeowners who have come to the conclusion that it is more cost-effective to default on your mortgage and walk away. Because: Why try or a loan modification for a house that you are unlikely to ever afford -- so long as only interest and not the principal of your loan is what is modified?
On the other hand, if you live in America Two, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry certainly resides there, you not only do not have to concern yourself with annoying things like mortgage statements each month, but you get to have the public pay for a pad with five bedrooms, three dining rooms, seven bathrooms, and wood floors the color of pecans roasted in the Austin sun. (I know politicians are dirty, but, come on--seven freaking bathrooms? What is he doing, baptizing himself in all that money?)
Five years after the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, real estate players are predicting that BP's oil spill has the potential to hinder the Gulf Coast more severely than that epic storm.
You know how when you were a kid, and you maybe did something you shouldn't have done? But you had to go back to school the next day, so you really hoped and wished and prayed that somehow, magically, you would be rendered invisible to your fellow classmates when you walked into the room? That you wouldn't be noticed? That you could just get through the day without calling attention to yourself?
Forget about unrest in Athens, or whether some idiot broker might have sold billions instead of millions of shares -- helping to send the stock market into a thousand-point plummet. This is the story of how a cupcake, or in this case, cupcakes, may breathe new life into Chicago's real estate and rental markets. 
Think of Cuba, and what comes to mind? Castro? Of course. Revolution? Naturally. Political prisoners? Certainly. Exploding cigars? Sure. ( I still love those handy CIA smokes.) But what if I said: "Golf courses by foreign real-estate developers"? Would you think I had slipped on a banana and hit mi cabeza?
It apparently isn't enough that people all across America are losing their real homes to foreclosure because their real jobs have vanished. Now, we have people going to court suing over virtual-property rights. 
What do Americans do best? Why, shop and spend lots of money fixing up our homes, of course! If a new survey is correct, we the people are about to do both during the rest of this year. That is, provided we have jobs and an income.
The conventional wisdom has it that the soon-to-expire government tax credit for home purchases was a success. After all, it drove people back into the real estate market and helped to ignite a fire under a still-nascent recovery. 
Like many parts of the nation, but especially here in Southern California, the neighborhood known as South Los Angeles is pockmarked with foreclosed properties, the result of aggressive subprime lending. But unlike some other parts of town, house flipping just may save South L.A. from what would otherwise be a bleak destiny.
It's amazing how this technology works: Spread out before me on a single, neat page is a whole list of available nearby homes and condos, and even rental apartments. Is it on 
Often when couples split a big point of contention is -- who gets the house? In the case of CNN talk show host 
Foreclosures can devastate entire neighborhoods. In addition to leaving people homeless, foreclosed houses that sit empty often fall into disrepair, posing safety risks, lowering property vales and decreasing a community's tax revenues. Now, add a new problem to the list: giant raccoons.
Say it ain't so. If a prediction from a leading research firm turns out to be accurate, three of the country's biggest banks are poised for colossal losses of up to $30 billion -- this time because of their exposure to home-equity loans.
It's good to have cash and a shrewd ability to spot a deal in a downturn. Just ask Manuel Moroun, a businessman who has become the Detroit area's biggest private landowner. Moroun owns an estimated 600-plus parcels of 
