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Illegal Aliens And The Real Estate Meltdown
By Greg L | 1 April 2008 | Illegal Aliens, Prince William County | 43 Comments
The linkage between the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and illegal aliens, and how Prince William County demonstrates this linkage is the subject of a fascinating post by a retired stock broker and blogger from Oregon by the name of “Mover Mike“. Mike lays out the cause and effect of bad policies, shady real estate professionals, and lawlessness by illegal aliens to convincingly demonstrate that it’s not opposition to illegal aliens that’s behind the real estate market’s problems, but their presence in the first place. Here’s a teaser:
The tenor of the discussion in the mainstream media is to blame the local communities that discourage illegal immigrants. And that is very mistaken. The illegals committed a crime by entering this country without documentation. Other Hispanics committed fraud by luring their fellow Latinos into mortgage arrangements that were destined to fail, and by misrepresenting credit credentials to the lending institutions. Immigrant homeowners of record violated the local zoning laws. Employers of these illegals were complicit by hiring them against federal law. The mortgage sellers were duplicitous in lending money on paper to clients who clearly did not qualify. The banks were unscrupulous, knowing that they could skim a profit and package and resell the paper before the scheme crashed. The Wall Street buyers of the paper defrauded their investors by making bad judgements in buying these mortgage packages from the banks. Now, in the face of all this corruption, our federal government has reached its sticky-fingered hands into all of our pockets for the billions of dollars needed to keep these reprehensible outfits afloat.
I am amazed that someone way out in Oregon could peg the situation in Prince William County with such clarity and put it in a national context. If you want to get a handle on what really happened, and not the story that the mainstream media is trying to force-feed you, this post is a must-read.
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This foreclosure problem has been occuring long before the Rule of Law resolution took effect. And yet the illegal alien apologists want to blame the foreclosures on the resolution. I was always amazed how someone who works for a painting outfit or trim outfit could afford to buy a house for over $400,000.00. There needs to be an investigation of loaning practices in this area. I think this probably started around the year 2000. When we were selling our TH some group came an overbid on our house. I lot more than I thought it was worth. There has defintely been some shady lending practices in this area. You can blame that for the trouble we are in now.
I live in Vienna, which is a town in FFX Co. FFX co. has no “rule of law,” but we’ve got a lot of foreclosures AND illegal aliens.
My area of town is totally crapped up by the illegals. Our Town Council sucks and won’t do jack about it. My husband contends that nothing will change because Vienna people want their houses cleaned and yardwork done for a bargain.
Voenna Gal,
Sell your place and come join us in Prince William County. There are some bargains here and we ARE doing something about the illegal alien problem.
Glad someone finally said it. From what I have seen in the NOVA area, the areas hardest hit by foreclosures are those hardest hit by illegal migrants.
Hey if I could sell my house, I’d move to PWC.
I’ve got houses full of unrelated illegals on my left, right, and across the street. The only chance I have at selling my house is if I advertise in Spanish Language papers and get myself a Spanish speaking realtor. And oh yeah, if I sell my house for half of what it used to be worth, before the illegals came.
Less educated people seem hardest hit by foreclosures, from what I have read, because someone was able to pull the wool over their eyes. Patty, I agree with you to a point that the wheels were in motion long before the resolution. It is a national problem. However, we just became what someone in blogland described as the perfect financial storm.
I also heard that the federal government has been prosecuting those fraudulent lenders but there are simply way too many to ever nab them all. Sooooo….no consequences for many who got sassy and rich off the backs of others.
We all saw this coming. How many of us had talked about the absurdity of how much our houses were appraised for? You know something like that can’t last forever. We aren’t Silicone Valley where a Sudley house would go for a million and a half and my little pin oak tree that is a skinny 20 feet tall would be for 60k. I am just glad I can sit back and wait this real estate crap out. It will stabilize. Actually, my house is probably valued for what it is really worth. It certainly isn’t a half million dollar house by any stretch.
Greg, what happened at the BOCS meeting earlier today? Over at antibvbl.net someone is saying Corey Stewart “threw you under the bus” (I think that’s the quote) as a racist. Something like that anyway. Where you there? Did you get a chance to respond? Where’s our usual update?
Greg, sorry about that last post. In a rush I missed the open thread on the meeting.
Clearly immigrants and government caused this problem. We all know that the eliminating onerous regulations on the private sector and letting the free market work doesn’t cause problems, it solves them.
I would not characterize this as “immigrants”, as that’s about as accurate as saying “business people”, or “homeowners”. Some are complicit in this, and others are not.
I think a more accurate way to describe this is that some folks who carried with them social mores from other cultures that aren’t particularly helpful, and either had resigned themselves to a black market or underground existence, or felt they could take advantage of those who did, played a big role in this mess.
If we really want to lay blame here, it’s time all of us to collectively look in the mirror. We allowed the conditions to fester that made this possible. Had we exhibited the moral courage to not draw these illegal aliens here, and a little more courage to deal with the problem when it started getting out of control, this would not have happened. Our lack of national resolve to control our borders is the ultimate cause of this mess.
So really, it’s not immigrants that caused this mess. We caused this mess. Now we have to clean it up.
Some may have failed to control our borders, but the failure to enforce strictly the law does not excuse its violation. The alien is still a criminal violator under 8 U.S.C. 1325. Others have consistently called in vain for the law’s enforcement. If we are going to allocate blame, don’t forget Mexico, the source of a plurality of illegal aliens, which aided and abetted their illegal entry, had its diplomats interfere in our internal political affairs in efforts to frustrate immigration law and profits off illegal aliens by obtaining its second largest source of foreign exchange from their remittances.
What Greg L said on 2 Apr 2008 at 3:00 am
Well said, sir! I hope BVBL and HSM provides moral leadership to the community as we clean this mess (that I agree we created) up.
Look at a map that shows county by county the worst foreclosure areas in the country. All of these areas are heavily populated by illegal immigrants. I have only scratched the surface with this analysis, but it seems like Prince William is not an anomaly. The mainstream media either does not want to report or will not report that illegal immigrants getting mortgages was indeed a problem that led to the ridiculous upswing and subsequent collapse of the housing market.
What Anonymous said on 2 Apr 2008 at 8:16 am “The mainstream media either does not want to report or will not report that illegal immigrants getting mortgages…”
They are probably not reporting that because it’s not the case. These wild assumptions that Illegal immigrants are the root cause of all of America’s problems are truly racist. They cause problems; however, not every problem. Our Financial system is a mess, the dollar is dropping around the world, there’s a war on, jobs are being shipped overseas by America’s largest companies, and we continue to offer jobs to illegals. It appears any analysis that you do will be biased to support a foregone conclusion (there’s a lot of that going around.)
I could draw some uncomfortable comparisons with other countries who blamed a specific race for every possible ill that befell them; however, I think the comparisons are self-evident.
I would suggest we get off wild and unsupported accusations regarding Illegal Immigrants and follow Greg’s advice on 2 Apr 2008 at 3:00, roll up our sleeves, and clean this mess up. There’s a chance to provide some Community leadership here (for those interested).
Dolph said on 2 Apr 2008 at 1:01 am:
You are right we are not Silicon Valley and look what happened to them in 2000. This has been coming and happening way before the rule of law resolution. It is easy to say the resolution caused this because many of those in foreclosure are illegal aliens that were taken advantage of. I think something should be done about it and harsh penalties should be handed out. I do not think I, as a tax payer, should be responsible for bailing these people out.
Dolph said on 2 Apr 2008 at 1:01 am:
Less educated people seem hardest hit by foreclosures, from what I have read, because someone was able to pull the wool over their eyes. Patty,
A large percentage of the foreclosures in the Sudley and Westgate areas were people who were scammed by their Latino bretheren realtors. On my street, every house that is now foreclosed was “bought” by a Latino. They may or may not have been less educated as you seem infer. Two houses I personally know of on MY street were sold and then two weeks later wer re-sold at a very, very high profit (over $20,000 more than the first buyer paid (who was Latino.) The new buyers were also Latino. Something smells! Check the for sale signs as to who is handling the now foreclosed properties. I think in most cases you will find once again, Latino realtors or companies. They made a bundle selling and re-selling homes and are still at it.
Purple said on 2 Apr 2008 at 8:40 am:
I personally do not think the housing crisis is to blame on illegal aliens specifically. I blame the lenders and real estate people that put people into more house than they could reasonably afford. Their greed has caused this and I think they should bear the costs of a bailout since they made the profit from it.
Vigilant1 said on 2 Apr 2008 at 9:21 am:
The ones still at it need to be the ones paying for it!!!
Greg L said on 2 Apr 2008 at 3:00 am:
I agree we need to start cleaning it up. However, we are at a crossroads with the apologists and others claiming that the clean up is (pick the name of the day). Until we get rid of the carrot encouraging this illegal behavior (jobs), we can expect this to continue. Until we have more serious consequences for crossing the border, this will continue. We may not need the fence if everyone that crosses is placed in the tent city in AZ for 3 - 6 months and deported.
It is my understanding that the tent city is paying for itself and other services. Sheriff Joe has quite a “business” going on down there. I read an article where the county humane society budget was reduced to 3M a year from close to 15-17M a year. The inmates run the shelter now. The 3M a year is for the facilities, utilities and building upkeep. That is a HUGE savings for the tax payers down there.
I am hearing the Pelosi and some of her far left demoncratic congress persons are trying to kill the SAVE ACT by attaching an ammendment to it from the Hispanic caucus which will in effect give amnesty over five years to all illegals (estimated to be 12-20 million.) Apparently some of the demoncrats who signed on for the SAVE ACT are having some second thoughts
/\/\3|)iç 64 (Winner of the BVBL 40k and 50k post award) said on 2 Apr 2008 at 9:41 am:
It is my understanding that the tent city is paying for itself and other services. Sheriff Joe has quite a “business” going on down there.
Well, summer will soon be here. Nothing wrong with pitching a few tents at the ADC to take care of the overflow.
Foreclosure, auctions, then what’s next? With the immigrant labor community departing, who is left to reside in these abandoned homes either through ownership or leasing. Will amnesty reflate the housing collapse?
In my adult memory we have had the S&L crisis, the junk bond crisis, the tech investment bubble, and now this sub-prime scheme, which along with illegal immigration and government complacency has led to this housing bubble.
I wonder what fraud-bubble crisis will be next - cap and trade/energy bubble?
The fact that immigrants , legal or not, are a significant percentage of the failed mortgage holders is more a matter of numbers than anything else. Many people who bought homes in the eighties and early nineties watched their home values drop yearly after the last housing slump. When the recovery started to kick in the market needed to accelerate the home values in order to move up existing home owners in to the new home market. One other factor was the need for entry level purchasers to buy these existing homes. Not all, but many of these entry level buyers were found in the immigrant population. Many of these potential buyers, domestic or import, could not easily qualify so the industry got creative financing for the entry level market. Where was the great public outcry when they came up with the no money down-interest only -doomed for failure mortgage? A totally ridiculous concept but widely accepted due to one thing. Greed. This is a parallel to the savings and loan scandal the American taxpayer will still be paying on for many years. Like before, the ones that conceived of it and profited the most will be the least likely to pay for clean up.
So really, it’s not immigrants that caused this mess. We caused this mess. Now we have to clean it up.
Greg That is one of the most honest and frank statements you have ever made and such a pleasure to see you make it.
The mess in real estate is caused by GREED. Greed of the home owners who think they should be making a100 grand in one year on the house they bought. The lender who knew they buyer could not make the payment. the lender who thought they would get the borower when the adjusment came due. Wall Street who is the greedest of all for thinking they were going to put to everyone and walk away with billions and billions in fees and bonuses. one has to be careful for you can choke on greed and many have passed on because of that. It has caused much suffering and the inocent have had to pay as well as the greedy and that is the worst thing about this. It will be another couple of years before it bottoms out completely. We will not see the rampant increase in prices for a long long time. It will be more gradual as it should be. anyone who blames the illegal imagrants has their head in the sand for this total mess.
I hope one day Greg that you might have a Blog to Save Prince William County not just Manassas and have it include so many other things that are wrong with our government and the rights of people with out a political party affiliation. An example would be the way the BOCS advertised a Tax Rate with out knowing the most basics of what is need to do so. They did not know the value of assesed property in the county. They did not know how much they were going to spend. They did not and still do not know how much money was coming from the state. They knew nothing what so ever but they some how knew what tax rate to advertise for which meant nothing. As you said you do not operate your life or business on that bases but our politicians do. The projected income to the county will be less then what they hope for because the economy is not going to be as good as they hope for. this means that before the end of the fiscal year the BOCS will have to cut even more and not do the job they promissed with the newe budget. What do they care anyway for it is not their money .
Why was special zoning passed to protect the Korean Dry Cleaners Assoc and to eliminate the Fixed Price Dry Cleaners out of regular retail zoning. Every time a citizen of PWC has something dry cleaned they pay some 40 or more because of the BOCS actions. What other business will they do this for at the expense of the citizens?
floodguy said on 2 Apr 2008 at 10:55 am:
Foreclosure, auctions, then what’s next?
Believe me, there are those out there already planning the next “big one.”
I agree Vigilant1, I think it will be the oil and gasoline pricing. The reason I say this is because the oil companies were on the hill yesterday. They are under a microscope now and should be. Why should a company with billions in profit get a tax break? I liked on of the questions I saw posed to the Exxon executive; “What part of the profit you have made has gone to fund renewable energy or renewable energy sources?” The answer…….More sidestepping rhetoric that didn’t answer the question. Basically, NONE!!!!
This situation is one I have suspected for quite awhile. If you look through land records at the court house, you find the same names with multiple purchases of real estate. It is too easy to walk away from these mortgages when you get a no-doc loan, use different names, etc. Don’t forget that employers of illegals sometimes buy properties to house employees.
Greg,
I think you wanted to include a link to the original blog up in your post. You mentioned you were providing a “teaser” quote from the blog, but it doesn’t appear you ever provided a link to the blog you were quoting….
Bob,
By the way we didn’t sell our TH to the people who overbid on it. Fortunately, we had an honest real estate agent. She suspected something fishy and we did too. Some honest banks at that time wouldn’t appraise it for that much. But evidently some dishonest banks, appraisers and real estate agents found each other and started fueling this and it appealed to the greed of human nature. I’ve always thought this was wrong and I knew something like what we are experiencing now was around the corner so to speak. Does this have parallels to the stock market crash way back when? My mom always said that we were ripe for another depression. She saw this coming too.
Thanks for pointing out that I forgot to include the link. The post has been updated.
Come on, people! This foreclosure mess was not caused by illegals. Have you not heard this is a national problem? This is not just a Prince William or Northern Virginia problem. This country is in a financial crisis. Balloon mortgages, ARM’s, and so on caused this mess. The housing market was over inflated for years and it had to level out some time. So people bought when the market was high and got some pretty creative financing. Then the market started to decline. When the balloons and arm’s came due, homeowners could not refinance because they owed more on the house than the assessed value. Payments were then too high for the homeowner to make the mortgage each month. Blame the people who qualified the buyers. They qualified buyers on the lower payments and not the higher payments.
I received my real estate assessment today. It only went DOWN $81,100.
FHL said on 2 Apr 2008 at 1:54 pm:
Come on, people! This foreclosure mess was not caused by illegals. Have you not heard this is a national problem?
I guess PWC and NOVA are the only places that have illegals in this country so they have no hand in the foreclosure mess in other areas of the country. THEY ARE INVOLVED UP TO THEIR EYEBALLS (OJOS) IN THIS MESS.
I received my real estate assessment yesterday and it went down by 110k. I don’t blame the illegal immigrants, but I blame the federal and state government for lack of over sight in keeping banking institutions honest. I feel local politicians are using this issue as a mud slinging technique to justify their public position of trust as well incite the locals. I seem to recall somewhere a long time ago in the state of Pennsylvania the local population had the same issues with migrant workers. Eventually, the industry that the migrant workers supported died out because they simply moved out of the County and State as a result of an awkward political policy and public hostility. We all live in Prince William County and I am pretty sure more than half of us enjoy the wide open spaces compared to neighborhood towns like Loudon or Fairfax County.
I agree there is something wrong with our financial system and from what I have seen; a free market can correct itself. After all, the dollar bill is still seen as the most trusted currency in the world. Why do you think China is hording trillion of US dollars in currency funds? At the end of the trading day, the Europeans and the Asian markets still lookup up to the US for direction.
It seems most Americans have a very selective memory when it comes to national crisis like we are currently faced with i.e. mortgage industry. I don’t know about you all, but I seem to recall my parents not too long ago were paying mortgage interest rates up to 22%. And they were both professionals in the area of commercial aviation and teaching.
We are turning a mole hill to a mountain and we are unnecessary expending resource and time.
Just my 2 cents.
I want to mention that in CA, you must provide your fingerprint at settlement. Is that because they have already learned that people use multiple names, no doc loans, fictitious SSN’s, and walk away from their loans? We need another Resolution.
Hey anonymous my assesment dropped from 360 to 297 in one year. Luckily we bought our home as a long term investment at a fixed rate. I have to agree with Bob and others, much of the bubble here was created by greed. I have a friend whose employee was talked into buying a house way out of her price range. She was approved for an 800,000 mortgage on a 56,000 salary. How? Needless to say it was a huge subprime loan. Today? She rents the single family home to 23 people in order to make the mortgage payment.
re: Greg L said on 2 Apr 2008 at 3:00 am:
Greg,
I think you are correct here. I have been saying the same thing for a while and have been labeled as an apoligist, a leftie, an aider and an abetter.
We created the Illegal Immigrant mess with our need to have things that we cannot afford (because we Want them). Yes, it is true - the want of cheap labor is what brought the illegal immigrant to NOVA and elsewhere. This is true around the world (demand for labor). Most of them do not come here for benefits - they come here for cash - and it is our very own neighbors and friends that hire them, and pay them. So, yes, it is our problem that we caused - I agree.
The best way to combat the issue, is to remove the carrot that brought them here - cash. I am hearing rumblings that there will be no charges brought against the owners of the Concreate company in Manassas that had the ICE raid. THis is wrong - there should be charges brought against them - do that a few times, and business owners will not look the other way so often.
I live in Falls Church.
We’ve had about 10 homes foreclosed in my neighborhood.
100%, not kidding, 100% are Hispanic.
That’s sad, but the good news is about 2/3 of them were turned into immediate boarding house slums.
We have been in constant communication with Fairfax Zoning Enforcement.
We are beginning to see positive results and, for now, are winning this battle to save our neighborhood.
I’m not kidding about this…..it’s all true.
Why is it that unemployment is going up, construction jobs way way down but there are still a 1000 Mexicans a day trying to sneak into America???
It’s not about jobs. It’s about life in America - which has a much higher living standard. A living standard caused by a lot of highly educated and highly paid workers.
That living standard will fall if we let the flood of illegals continue.
Don’t believe me. Well….look at Mexico.
Why is their standard of living well below ours?
The US can only absorb so many poor, uneducated workers before it brings the whole system down.
Before we are similar to Mexico in quality of life.
Think about it.
Fred,
The average illegal immigrant works at a job that pays cash. They are not counted in the overall employment numbers.
Are the landscapers reducing business - no.
Residential construction is down, but commercial is up.
Cleaners - residential and commercial - same.
They are not coming here for the benefits -(at least initially) they are coming here for the cash paying jobs.
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/20420.html
Legal2,
Thanks for the info about CA requiring fingerprints at settlement. We definitely should be doing that. We could cut out the multiple identify scams. We could also see who is wanted by the police. If only we had been doing that a few years back. . .
Hey , all you Prince William County haters ! What a great concept to attract all those home buyers of foreclosed property ! “Prince William County Virginia, where the only crime of the future will be by white racist criminals “….Sure to attract lots of tax paying business. By the way,…how are you going to pay for your schools, teachers , police , firefighters , health services (especially for your elderly, because not many intellegent young professionals would consider the option of locating there), parks , environmental controls, trash pick-up, county road up keep, animal shelter, funding of county retirement ? ,….not to mention funding county building maintenance , school bus fleet , police car fleet , building inspection, restaraunt inspection..(oh,…. that’s right…fewer of those to inspect…out of business…due to mass emigration…..no pun intended,…my bad)…without raising your property and other taxes?…YES!
Locate to Prince William County , where there will only be white crime and BIG taxes!!!!!!