Monster House Hill

7932 NW Hawkins Blvd , Portland, OR 97229

Last year we spent some time looking at houses closer in to Portland. Mostly we were looking in Beaverton and the West Slope, but then we stumbled over a couple of auctions up in Forest Heights, a tony neighborhood full of giant, million dollar houses. The starting bid was something like $300K, so I went and took a look. There was a little water damage inside, nothing major. It looked like someone had left a door open during a rainstorm or two (or three) and not bothered to clean up the water that blew in. So I put in a bid. I didn't get the house, I was quickly outbid by other people (or bots, who knows?), but the winning bid didn't get the house either. Shortly thereafter it was up for auction again. I didn't bother bidding this time, the agency handling the sale, Leslie Edwards in Atlanta Georgia, obviously wasn't paying attention. It sold again, or rather it didn't, and now it's up for auction again.

It makes me wonder what's going on Leslie Edward's office. I suspect it's a holdover from a few years ago when the housing bubble burst. Banks were unwilling to 'mark to market' and that reluctance may still be coloring their indecision making process. They could eat the loss incurred if they sell this house at auction for half of the original loan value, but OMG, that might lead to the domino effect of a bunch of houses being sold for low prices and that could have an impact on the bank's bottom line and the president-of-said-bank's annual bonus, and we can't have that. I can just hear the scuttlebutt in bank's loan administration center: "George unloaded a house at a big loss last week, why can't I get rid of this albatross hanging around my neck? Screw it, I'm selling it for whatever. I'm tired of this bullshit."

Meanwhile, bank president's all over the country are all doing this to a lesser or greater extent, just gambling that the local prosecutor has got his hands so full with other problems that he isn't going to get around to prosecuting upstanding citizens.