Greed "Coming Back to Haunt" "Investors"

From the Sacramento Bee:

...William Lyon Homes is offering...a 42-inch plasma in each of the 300 homes it's selling in Rocklin, Elk Grove, Fair Oaks and Rancho Cordova. But, for one month, the home builder is also throwing in a bunch of other goodies....Those would be a year's worth of free phone, Internet and premium TV service from SureWest Broadband, along with appliances, furniture, window coverings, landscaping and housekeeping services...Such incentives are becoming increasingly common as builders grapple with a slowing housing market.

From the Sacramento Business Journal:

Standard Pacific Corp. is merging its Central Valley operations into its Sacramento office. About 10 of 35 people in the Central Valley lost their jobs in that transition.

From the Sacramento Bee:

A government bailout will only shift risk from the borrowers and lenders to the taxpayers and future borrowers. It is nothing more than a new taxpayer-subsidized program that will rescue disreputable mortgage banking or brokerage firms at the expense of working families, taxpayers, and lower- and middle-income homeowners. Responsible consumers and taxpayers should not have to pay for poor decisions by a handful of consumers who took out loans they could not afford, nor should they be forced to bail out the lenders who helped these folks dive into the deep end of the financial pool.

From the Stockton Record:

Nervous homeowners in foreclosure or experiencing sleepless nights over the prospect of losing their homes were among some three dozen Record readers who took advantage of a free two-hour call-in Thursday night to speak with financial experts.
...
[Hank] Klor, a tax expert and enrolled agent the past 14 years in Stockton, fielded a call from a middle-aged woman who lives in a home she paid about $475,000 for and soon bought three more homes as investments with mortgages of at least $350,000 each. She told Klor she already had lost two of the homes and the third investment home was in the process of being foreclosed. She felt confident she had enough income to be able to keep her primary residence, although she has no savings.

"She is losing sleep over this. Potentially, she could be on the hook for taxes of over $300,000 in income in a single year," Klor said, noting the income is derived from the forgiveness of debt. "She will have some huge income exposures because of the three foreclosures. She should contact her tax adviser to get some tax relief. There is a legal way to reduce the tax if you meet the IRS rules for being insolvent," he said. "This is an example of someone who got greedy and now it is coming back to haunt her."