Monday, July 07, 2008

Housing Bubble Suicides

From the Sacramento Bee:

For [Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Mark] Habecker, the weekday patrols through Natomas, Rio Linda, Del Paso Heights and North Highlands have been a front-row seat to the personal dramas behind the numbers.

Twice this year, he says, homeowners about to be evicted have committed suicide as he approached to do a lockout.

In another case, he said a fellow Sacramento deputy found a note in the home that told him where to find the foreclosed homeowner's body.

Habecker declined to say more. The cases received no publicity when they happened.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is so sad to hear about people losing all perspective. It's only money.

patient renter said...

That's sad. There are much worse things than "losing" a home that you didn't really own anyways.

Buying Time said...

Its a tragic state of affairs indeed.

I certainly hope lawmakers act to prevent the market from getting this bad in the future (curb the lending abuses, bogus appraisals, improve disclosure, change commission structure etc).

But from what I have seen, the Mortgage Bankers, Homebuilders and others in the RE profession, have been contributing record amounts to lawmakers (it was a front page WSJ article earlier in the week).

A tragic state of affairs indeed.