A Sucker is Born Every Minute - Foreclosures

If you are heading to the next foreclosure auction you would do yourself a favor by taking what little money you have and burning it in your fireplace. The only people getting rich in foreclosure are these so-called foreclosure "experts" selling homes on television for $70,000.

Just think about it. If the median price home in your state is $250,000 then what in hell can you get for $70,000 dollars? The answer is quite clear, a shack, an empty shell and four walls...no sinks, no toilets, no bath bubs, no plumbing, no water tank, no heater and certainly no windows. You get four walls, many of which have had major holes pounded into the plaster by hostile former owners who went out of their way to destroy the property.

Homeowners who destroy their property in foreclosure should be sent to jail... but our liberal politicians and courts believe that personal property rights allow owners to destroy what they can no longer afford to pay for. It is a clear sign that capitalism and the judicial system are running amok.

I know of some cases in which former owners had parties on the eve of their evictions in which they invite their friends to bring hammers and chain saws to break through plaster walls just for the fun of it... such criminal destruction of property should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And until we do, these crimes will continue. A $70,000 bargain is not such a bargain if you need to put $150,000 into repairs and $20,000 into new appliances in the foreclosed property you just purchased.

The barkers on these foreclosure shows never tell you that most of these properties are dogs, real dogs. Do you want to own a house in a neighborhood surrounded by drug dealers and empty houses growing marijuana inside? How safe is your investment if it is surrounded by gangs, former prison inmates, and rapists? Then why would you be convinced that this $70,000 property is a bargain? Or are you like most of these buyers who are just planning to do the minimum amount of repairs so they can make a "killing" by pawning it off on some other poor bastard? Unfortunately our American society has evolved into this "Brave New World."

Being convinced by television infomercials and auctions that anyone can instantly gain riches and the technical skills of investing in risky real estate is dumber than dirt. Americans are currently discovering that the vast majority of people don't have a clue what they are signing when purchasing a home... the sub-prime mortgage melt down reveals this lack of knowledge. Believing now that these same consumers are investment gurus capable of wrestling property deals away from the big boys are out of touch with reality. The high rollers of real estate investment buy all the good property on the foreclosure market. What usually ends up on the auction block are the dogs!

Do not get snagged by the hype being fed to the general public by television commercials produced by the very same scam artists that hyped people into believing they could afford to buy a house with no money down and refinance it when the prices go higher. The sleazy salesmen holding these "get rich quick" schemes are the ones making the millions.

I watch these foreclosure auctions and my immediate thought is about B. T. Barnum, the famous man of the circus who once said: "A sucker is born every minute." And the people in the audience are ripe for the picking.

Under the glaring lights of the television cameras and the smooth-tongue auctioneer plus the barkers running up and down the aisles screaming "Buy!, Buy!, Buy!," this is nothing more than the 21st century equivalent of selling snake oil.

Buyers beware.

To learn more about foreclosure, go to http://DefeatForeclosure.org for the book “Defeat Foreclosure” by William Dorich & Merle H. Horwitz