Interestingly I bought my house from a fairly high up (they have a "head of" title) person that defected to LA to work for Quibi. At the time my wife, who is in media, thought that it was a great move that was pretty much guaranteed to be a home run.
I wonder how they made out on it all. they had reasonably good track record prior and likely had a reasonably good cash component, but any equity they had must be wiped.
I feel bad saying this, but I thank Quibi for my lovingly renovated house. No backsies!
They weren't the original builders, with the realtor and seller first directly mentioned under point 1 and again later on. This does seem to be something folks miss, given the other comments under the article.
That said, it does look like the franchise the original person hired was both incompetent and fly-by-night, given the comments, and then the original person patched things up just enough to pass muster and got out while they could.
They didn't view the house before bidding. They didn't get somebody else to view/appraise it for them. Their bid went from $480k to $560k in one step. They hired a cowboy without checking credentials, who went on to almost destroy the house. They hired a cowboy mortgage broker who reneged on a deal (or they're lying about it).
I really don't care how much money they have. Whether or not it's "privilege" or not. It is but that's not the point.
They were idiots. They deserved everything they got and —frankly— got off lightly.
They used money from individual investors to obtain a loan to buy the property. The loan takes priority over the investors and they had to sell at a loss. So the little guys got wiped out.
It’s funny, I rented a unit in one of these private houses. It was complete shit, no kitchen, renovations, I just needed a place to stay. They listed the property ‘as-is’ totally un renovated (creaking stairs, roaches, no kitchens in some units, just a crap hole) for 1.8m. I was in the apartment and so the realtor always gave me a call as a heads up before showings, and I was curious who would buy this place or the type of person that would take on this much leverage (and possibly just have all cash). So far it’s been and old Chinese couple who didn’t exactly look like they made their living in Finance, more so a laundromat, and a Mexican family with a kid. I don’t want to be THAT judgmental, but the people that viewed didn’t look like they just cashed out on vested stock options. They didn’t even know English.
So what’s going on? Are they honestly getting their whole family together to make a massive 300k down payment and take on a fucking 1.8m dollar loan? I thought blue collar workers don’t make so much, but maybe I just don’t understand.
Our system is more warped than people realize. Most likely these houses go under some relatives name. Most likely the people that bid on this stuff still collect government welfare of sorts, disability, food stamps, child tax credits. The underclass found a way, because I haven’t seen the supposed ‘overqualified’ buyer walk in yet.
I understand enabling people to buy homes, but these people are bidding on a 1.8m dollar one. What in god’s name is going on?
"The house, which is still unoccupied, was commissioned in the late 1990s by a friend who sold the property to an anonymous group of investors after the project dragged on and costs mounted."
The question is whether they bought that housing for themselves because they're being moved or if they bought it to resell at a profit because they had internal knowledge of this neighbourhood being used for HQ2.
I wonder if the company actually took ownership of the house or just managed a purchase for the employee. I knew someone who worked for the federal government and relocated for a job and took advantage of this kind of benefit. But I don't believe the federal government actually took ownership of the house - I think it was more like, they found the best quick cash offer, and then paid out the amount between that and the appraised value. So the employee gets rid of their house for the appraised value, the employer gets the employee where they're needed and some house flipping company gets some inventory.
I watched a coworker completely change modes after buying a house in the Bay. He questions nothing the organization does anymore and it’s almost like watching a politician speak the way he talks about anything in meetings. It’s very transparent and rather chilling. I can only imagine he’s now terrified of losing his job now that he has a ball and chain of a mortgage payment.
There was a house for sale close to where I live. It was at a fairly comfortable price, a normal family could have potentially gotten a normal mortgage for it and paid it over time, eventually owning it. It was a modestly sized house, perhaps around 70-80m² enough for a couple with one kid and a dog. It needed some repairs, not anything serious, but some work over time; and the homeowners could live in it, perhaps get some savings over the next 5-10 years before starting the costly repairs. I was hopeful. I did consider it, but I thought if I didn’t get it some other nice working class family could move into it.
Alas, no mortgage agency would loan for this property, there was no central heating system, and the roof was suboptimal. Only people that had $200k at hand could possibly consider it. And off course a cash offer came from a rich family who lived there for a week, did some renovations and sold it again for more then double the price, more then anything that a normal family could afford, even with a mortgage.
It's likely they bought the house from the home builder e.g. something like Toll Brothers. So the alternative is to take their hundreds of thousands of dollars and buy another house.
It’s not self dealing if you really love the building I guess. To be fair it was a matter of time before somebody loaded them up with debt and wiped equity. Might as well do it yourself.
Back in 1999, an acquaintance of mine became a paper millionaire of a dot-com and bought a 2.3M home in Boca Raton, Fl, and put in a further half million renovating it. As he was driving me and a few friends through the neighborhood, he indicated that if you don't like the style of house, it could be demolished and a new home built, and pointed out a few homes that were new, the old having been demolished.
He also said that it cost him something like $10,000/month to live here, what with the mortgage and huge electric bill (he had three multi-ton A/C units to cool the almost 10,000 square foot (900 square meters) home.
Back in 1999, an acquaintance of mine bought a $2.3MM home in an exclusive neighborhood. As he was driving me and a few friends through his neighborhood, he explained that all the houses could be knocked down and rebuilt if desired. The price included location, security (theater really, but hey, it sells), footage, looks and fancy appliances. Not quality.
I wonder how they made out on it all. they had reasonably good track record prior and likely had a reasonably good cash component, but any equity they had must be wiped.
I feel bad saying this, but I thank Quibi for my lovingly renovated house. No backsies!
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