From the Moonie Times: "SUV trade-ins are no longer welcome"

they tried to trade the toyota for the Chevy and at the time the dealer offered them around 17,000 but they wanted 18,000 so they kept the toyota and still bought the chevy--no shit. Ok so they have the toyota for sale for a couple of months, finally someone comes along and offers them 16,500, nope, no deal---no kidding, i shit you not. Ok so now it's been 10 months and every time someone came by to see it they liked until they heard it was 2 wheel drive which won't go in the snow and since many people that drive those things want to go to Tahoe a 2 wheel drive isn't going to butter the biscuit.

The finale, their daughter turns 16, they've pretty much just given it over to her but they pay for the gas and she drives all over the place, i really do not know how they afford to pay for fueling 2 large suv's and a ford mustang.

What fucking idiots.

As this recession drags on with permanently high gas prices, people will be lucky to get 5 grand for a mid-2000s SUV. The reality has clearly not set in yet with some of these people.

about the trade in price and some of the options on the new chevy so had his deal undone and did her own thing, she wanted some kind special seats, i think it had a "Memory" setting--so important i guess and she took the toyota back, so in the end when it was all done they paid $45,000 for the chevy and got stuck with the toyota. The only way they could pay for it was because they borrowed $110,000 against there house, $70k for a pool and $40k for the new suv. Btw the pool, somehow the cost of the deck got overlooked and that cost them an addition 7k.

He was told by the appraiser for the bank they were getting their loan from that the market value of their house was $525,000, and even a year and half ago when things were starting to tank here their house was no way worth that amount of money. He has a job but he's not making enough to support their lifestyle.

It boggles my mind why people with moderate incomes go to such lengths of borrowing just to have such a poser lifestyle.


I bought my 5 year-old Ford Escort Wagon (30+mpg) for cash, and spent less than 3K in repairs in the 5 years I drove it. That's a total of $6k for 5 years of good driving with low fuel costs.

If I had been rich, maybe I would have bought a Honda Civic, or even a Prius, but only if I could have paid cash.

I would feel sorry for your neighbors and the inevitable economic day of reckoning they are going to face, if they weren't so damn stupid.

right after they the loan but they sat on the money for awhile. He did get a new job that pays 70% f what he was making, his wife told me this btw and i asked her "Should you really be telling me the details of your financial situation?" but girl likes to talk and she was on a roll. Anyhow they decided to put the pool in, big mistake imo to spend that amount of money in this neighborhood, i have a pool but it was $25k including the deck and we paid for it, we also haven't taken any money out of house so we're doing ok. But the final mistake was the Car, she didn't need it, the Toyota was a 2003 and there was nothing wrong with it, i don't knw if it's keeping up with the invisibles Jone's that must live on my street or what but $45,000 for something you do not need seems a little foolish to me especially when your daughter is heading to college in 2 years.

And no, the fact that I'm having a beer has nothing to do with it!

The big question I have - when did "Home Equity Loan" get band-aided over its earlier name - "Second Mortgage"?

:eyes:

they would start leaking out detail about what they were doing and then after he lost his job i thought for sure they'd figure out a way to void the the thing and just try and live on his new salary so when tey ahead with the pool i was surprised and that's when it started sinking in that they weren't just caught in a bad place but they were also stuck on stupid. They will literlly have to live there for the rest of their lives just to break even---shudder. I am 6 years awy from having my mortgage paid off and then i am getting the fuck out of here.

Eight or nine percent already in extra payments, and we will only have been here three years this Thanksgiving. Old school, no?

Stuck on stupid? Maybe, but I'm inclined to say "marinated in stupid" might be a better description of your neighbors.

Just out of curiosity, how old are they? 40s? 50s?

uber graphic but i'd have explosive diarrhea on a daily basis never mind the ulcers.

Part of his problem is that he is outgunned by his wife, she's not super bright but she knows exactly how to game him and quite frankly he enables it. they bought their house a month before i bought mine, we all live in a charmless subdivision and we were the last street built, i paid $209,000 for my house in may of 2000, it's 2079sf on a 6,000sf lot and we put 25% down, their house is 2498sf on the same size lot and they paid $225,000, they had a 10% down payment and they got a va loan, they have refinanced 3 times, the first 2 times were for a new truck and expedition, 2nd time was for the Mustang and the Toyota and the 3rd time was for their current cluster fuck, pool and suv.

I think all totaled they've pulled out between 200 and 250k out of their house so i imagine their mortgage is fairly large and honest to god i do not know how they can pay for everything, i'm guessing they use credit cards. He makes somewhere between 70 to 80k and she works part time, like very time and she makes about 20 dollars and hour.

AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Brain turning to oatmeal! Unable to comprehend galactic financial stupidity!!!!

Must . . . reach . . . utility . . . belt for copy of . . . Benjamin . . . Graham!!

sale price $370,000, now granted there was no pool but you will never recoup the full value of a pool, maybe half if you're lucky. Tey will never be able to move unless they can take that kind of hit and i don't know about you but we couldn't, we'd have nothing left but the clothes on our backs and big note still owed to the bank. My friend Donna was here one day when his wife stopped by and she was talking about it all very matter of factly and i swear the color drained from Donna's face, "Does she understand how fucked they are?" nope.

Must return to parallel universe . . . where Spock has beard . . . Gugfurrrrhgggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!

officially not in a recession because this first quarter had an upturn in the economy--a slow upturn but it upturned nevertheless.

i feel so much better now--don't you?

I confess, I do have a 4x4 SUV. However, it's not your avg. guzzler. Hyundai Terracan. Having said that, gas is $1.25 here, I usually have 5-6 in the vehicle when I go anywhere, and my biggest commute is about 2km to the kids school. I got SUV for the family size, the BAD roads in the UAE (the roads ate up my Peugeot), and the ability to go offroad in the desert and mountains. Once the metro is built in Dubai, I plan to take the short drive, or perhaps future bus ride, to the Metro station once it is complete when there are long-haul trips to take.

Trust me, sitting in Dubai traffic offers no rewards!

to expensive to fix...no one can afford to fix them after they hit 100-150 thousand miles. the second and third car market buyer can`t afford the gasoline nor the repair costs..yes they won`t be able to give them away.

...and we told the dealer that we wanted to trade in our Range Rover.

He said he didn't want it and that he wouldn't take it, despite the fact that it's in
mint condition with 50,000 miles.

We told him we had a Nissan Altima that had more than 100,000 miles on it, and he
told us that he'd rather have that.

Doh!

gas needs to get to atleast $4 a gal in order for its inelasticity to degrade. Maybe we are approaching that point.

...non-California neighborhoods, we're closing in fast
on $4.00/gallon gas.

Tesha

I feel bad for her that she has to drive that all over. At least she's close to work. now her folks want to give her their Jeep something-or-other that runs on diesel! Even worse. Although I suppose there are worse things than being given a used car.

My boss was telling us about his Jeep Commander. 8 cylinders with 3 rows of seats and him with no family. He said it was such a good deal, they took so much off the price, he couldn't pass it up. Now he's going "what the hell was I thinking!?"

I traded in my little Chevy S-10, and now I'm driving her old 2002 Corolla.

The Prius, a 5 passenger sedan, with all kinds of room inside, gets better gas mileage than my Harley Davidson! Figure that one out!