From the Associated Press as reported in the San Diego Union Tribune this morning:
LOS ANGELES - Two California couples are suing KB Home and mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., claiming the companies schemed with real estate appraisers to inflate prices paid for homes as the housing market began to tank… People like (these) lost up to 15 percent before they ever opened their front doors.
Honey, honey mo money.
SAN DIEGO (February 8, 2008) - Kris Berg is suing Nordstrom, claiming that the gray sweater dress she purchased in November for $68 has since been moved to the sale rack and is now offered for only $39. Berg contends that Nordstrom knew at the time of sale that this merchandise would be offered at a discount when seasonal weather patterns shifted. By the time Berg tore the price tag from the sleeve and donned the trendy item for the first time, the value, both in terms of money and fashion relevance, had diminished significantly.
But if the first two letters are ever the same, I drop them both and say the name. Like “Buck, buck drop the B’s bo uck.”
SAN DIEGO (February 8, 2006) - In a class action, the 25,294 people who sold San Diego homes in 2005, the peak of the most recent real estate boom, are suing everyone in sight, claiming that they simply made too much money. Many, in fact, purchased their homes in 2000 with little or no down payment, and subsequently realized returns on their investments approaching infinity. Said one victim of the price run-ups, who sold his home and paid cash for a 50 acre ranch in Idaho, “It’s just not right. Who could let a thing like this happen to ordinary, hard-working people? I’m just glad I didn’t see it coming. I might have bought multiple properties.”
And that’s the only rule that is contrary.
Sunny, sunny fo funny.
And then I say the name again with an M this time, and there isn’t any name that I can’t rhyme.
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Larry Cragun
02.08.08 at 10:01 am
You make the point magnificently Chris. Lar
Josh
02.08.08 at 2:05 pm
Talk about putting things in common sense terms.
$68 for a sweater at Nordstroms? I think you were already at the sales rack.
Kris Berg
02.08.08 at 2:27 pm
Son of Bawld Guy - I bought it in the teenybopper section. All true.
Jessica Swesey
02.08.08 at 3:43 pm
thanks so much for the laugh. Great analogy and wonderful fun for a Friday afternoon
Phil Hoover
02.09.08 at 11:08 am
I KNOW those people !!!
I sold them that 50-acre ranch here!
Are yew making enuf munney down there to afford Nordy’s
(written while on break @ my Wal Mart greeter job)
Sven
02.13.08 at 1:23 pm
That lawsuit was a joke. You can’t sue someone for selling something at a higher price. I like your satire about it. People are always looking for someone to blame for their bad choices.
There was one that I thought had some merit though. I don’t have the link to this, but I can look it up. A couple that didn’t live in the area they were purchasing in are suing their agent for basically talking them into the raw deal. They basically told him find a house in XX-XX price range, and he did. Then they purchased it. The catch was that it was a track home, and there were basically identical track homes selling for over 150k less that had pools in the same neighborhood. In this case, the agent was supposed to be working for the buyer’s best interests, and he was obviously not. Based on his location of specialty and 20 years of practice, he would have known that they were getting a bad deal, and he simply chose to cheat his employers (the buyers). I like this specific lawsuit because I would like to see an emphasis placed on buyer’s agents actually being “required” or “liable” to work for the best interests of the people they represent.
This is an isolated incident, most people do a lot of their own research and would have seen the other listings. I agree buyer’s should do their own research, but when you are effectively paying someone over 10k to do the research for you, is it too much to ask that they do their job.