Sunday, July 29, 2007

Avoiding Stress = More Stress

I’ve been a little out of it last couple of days.

After coming back home to Sacramento on Monday I was feeling very overwhelmed by the “reality” that was/is waiting for me:
… still facing foreclosure on 4 houses
… well over $150K of unsecured debt
… decision to file bankruptcy or not to file bankruptcy
… uncertain job situation
… utah mortgage issues
… lack of discipline and lack of progress on December goals
… being too distracted to do any more real estate deals
… serious marriage issues
… oh and on top of all that my laptop died!

So I kind of hid from the world for a couple of days. No cell phone, no email, no blogging, no comments.

The problem is that I can’t take a guilt-free break. The fires are are ranging all around me. I can’t just pretend everything is OK and hide from my responsibilities.

Now I have over 250 email to answer, over 200 comments to moderate, 25 voice mails to return and a huge pile of mail to sort. I hope there are no emergencies that I ignored by staying unplugged. The unknown dangers eat at me every minute and sabotage any hope for any down time.

Avoiding the stress of dealing with problems causes even more stress and more problems.

(It’s time to face reality…)
Back in Sacramento
Banned from Google for Click Fraud
236 Comments

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Salt Lake Real Estate Blog: Casey Serin - Where Are You?
December 20th, 2006 at 10:27 pm

Kramer auto Pingback[…] As soon as I posted this, Casey posted. He’s fine, but depressed and overwhelmed. […]
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Jhony
December 20th, 2006 at 10:34 pm

I thought you were dead
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Marshall
December 20th, 2006 at 10:34 pm

Hi Casey,

Thank god you’re still here. For a moment I thought you may have been ‘taken in’ for questioning by the FBI.
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Very Concerned
December 20th, 2006 at 10:36 pm

Casey -

Your behavior are classic symptoms for bipolar disorder.

You MUST get to a physician. NOW. If you can’t get an appointment, have your wife take you to the ER.

You can’t take care of any of your problems until you take care of your health.
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John M
December 20th, 2006 at 10:45 pm

Sorry for your hardship Casey, I’ll click a bunch of ads tomorrow so you can buy some Jamba Juice, that should make you feel better.
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Deodand
December 20th, 2006 at 10:48 pm

People have been telling you what to do for months yet you continue to delude yourself with these idiot real estate fantasies. So why bother.

Here are some questions. Does Russia allow people of Russian descent to immigrate even if they are from Uzbekistan originally? You might want to start over there. You have nothing here but a financial disaster like a permanent albatross on your neck. You could go there and do a web development job. Estonia’s Internet economy is supposedly doing well too.

Alternately, possibly Halliburton’s subsidiaries are still paying people $100,000+ a year to drive trucks in Iraq. Incredibly dangerous, but it’s real money.

Anything else is sheer fantasy.
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BB
December 20th, 2006 at 10:50 pm

Casey,

Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo?

Maybe you should stop eating those Scooby snacks and realize that a bankruptcy filing is the only way out. If you file before a foreclosure, you can move into one of the houses and live there for almost a year -while you are going through the BK process — never pay a dime on the mortgage before they can boot you out. A BK lawyer will tell you this if you ask.

Use this time to offload the other houses, save cash and start over. Chalk it up to a learning experience and start over.
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Astro Zombie
December 20th, 2006 at 11:21 pm

I had to get up at 7AM this morning. There was no being a Lazy Bastard! How is the early riser program going Casey?

No hating from me today… you’re actually doing the right thing and starting to face reality. Here’s what I want you to do…

1) Write out five action statements that you will complete on Thursday. These are items you MUST take immediate action on.

2) Report back to us on Friday that you accomplished all five.

3) Do not accept any more distractions from guru’s, miracle pills, early riser programs, seminars, scams, etc.
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MAIL PIC PLEASE
December 20th, 2006 at 11:31 pm

It would be great if you would show us a nice pic of your mail pile. Could you arrange the certifieds on top please? There’s probably quite a few from that nasty Recon Trust — now they’re the real haters!
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Dumbfounded
December 20th, 2006 at 11:33 pm

Why the heck haven’t you been arrested yet?
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Rick
December 20th, 2006 at 11:34 pm

Wow, no more Google Ads? I guess they caught on to all your little buddies perpetrating click fraud. Maybe you should check your email, there is probably one in there from AdSense Policy Enforcement.

Oh well, another scam you cannot pull any more…poor Casey.
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Sam Sys
December 20th, 2006 at 11:53 pm

Hi there casey,

I’ve just come across this blog and I just want to tell you that you shouldn’t listen to all the haters. At least you tried reaching succes without being afraid of the consequences this might bring. I wish you the best of luck!

http://theprofessionallife.blogspot.com
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alifesublime
December 20th, 2006 at 11:55 pm

hey casey!
chin up
concentrate on the issues at hand and nail your goals! get some tennants into those houses and then start plugging away at your debts

how do you eat an elephant? one mouthful at a time

good luck
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Casey Serin
December 20th, 2006 at 11:59 pm

On December goals… I plan to focus on getting my accounting organized and Microsoft Money updated with the latest figures on all the debt, etc. It will take a lot of time because we have a lot of receipts to go through and categorized. It must be done though because I don’t want to worry about being ready for taxes next year. It’s been a crazy 2006 and I don’t want to worry about it past December 31st.

Bankruptcy… My wife agreed to allow me to BK her unsecured credit accounts (about 30K) which we have been paying so far and it has been eating up all our available cash. It’s a very sensitive area though because I promised her I will not screw up her credit when I started investing. But she is willing to sacrifice it now if it will help us get to a better place.

I’m am seriously considering just taking the bankruptcy pill for both of us, unless I can get the corporate credit thing going and refi the unsecured credit instead. The problem is that I still don’t have a good method of repayment of that debt. So refinancing the debt is only going to by me a month of time, and then what?

Utah wrap status… I still need to figure out where the money went. Central Bank of Utah (the escrow company) has been sending payments to my old lender but my old lender says they never received it. Central Bank sent me a copy of the cancelled checks last week so now I need to make some calls again and try to get to the bottom of this.

Early Riser… for the record… I did get up at 5:55 today and went to the gym. But then I was feeling depressed and overwhelmed so I took a nap around noon time. Productivity today was really bad as you can tell from my post.

At least the Christmas episode form Flipper Nation made me feel better. Those guys are hilarious:

Carol of the Flippers

There’s more where this came from at: FlipperNation.com
If you cannot view this video, you can check it out at YouTube instead.
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Jesus
December 21st, 2006 at 12:14 am

Casey - perhaps you need to open your bible today my son…

Psalm 37:21: “The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously.”
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Casey Serin
December 21st, 2006 at 12:15 am

“Jesus”, that’s why I’m trying to repay it… also I didn’t borrow with the intent to defraud, which is what I think that verse is talking about…



Wow, looking at the comments and internet today, I’m amazed how many people thought I was arrested…

You know, if it DOES happen maybe I should have an “I’m arrested” post ready to be fired off via my PDA phone. That is if I have time to fire it off before they put on the ‘cuffs. Hehe…

Oh man… it’s getting late up in here (I’m at my parents house ‘cuz there is food here and my laptop died)… I better go home so I can whip out another 5:55 am early rise.
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Anon
December 21st, 2006 at 12:31 am

Be careful going for your PDA the police might think its a gun and shoot you
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David Kimball
December 21st, 2006 at 12:42 am

On, on they buy,
keep prices high
escape the crash
counting our cash.

“Carol of the Flippers” at FlipperNation.com
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bo bo
December 21st, 2006 at 12:43 am

actually I knew you hadn’t been arrested. was talking to a real estate lawyer friend this weekend; told them your story and they said you have practically ZERO chance of being arrested for what you did on the loan applications if you 1) get a good lawyer and 2) keep your mouth shut (e.g., not admitting to fraud on videotape is a start).

welcome to america 2006. I’ve wasted my life getting an education. PhD in computer science from a top 10 school in the field. 6 figure salary, but likely will never afford a house because people like you bid them up using monopoly money.

It tears me up inside when my fiance cries about it. makes me feel inadequate, like I’m a failure. And I guess compared to you, I am. You own 6 houses, I can’t afford 1.

where you might get into trouble is not paying the IRS, or messing up your taxes. make sure to get a CPA and you’ll be fine.

My point: You’ve shown me the light. Education is a waste of time. I give up. You won’t go to jail. I hope others learn from your example — that you can beat the system if you are creative and aggressive enough.

You will write a book, host a show, or whatever, and make more $$$ than all the “haters” on this board can fathom. and that’s what knaws at us. we play by the rules — work hard and save, and get screwed.

you don’t and get away scot free.

That’s what america has become.
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YourMaker
December 21st, 2006 at 12:57 am

You haven’t been listening to me. I’ve messed with your internet connection a few times. But you didn’t get the hint. Now I’ve did something to your laptop computer, and you still haven’t got the hint.

Here’s the HINT….STAY OFF THE INTERNET!
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yneone
December 21st, 2006 at 1:05 am

Hi Casey, checkin on you. Know that you are still in my thoughts. Please be sure if you and the wife decide to file bankruptcy, that you get a good lawyer who can give sound advice on the contract you signed with whatshername. Hopefully, the bankruptcy will get you out of harms way of that situation. Then you can proceed with doing some reeealy creative stuff later.

I noticed you took down the ads. I hope some of the earlier comments didnt cause you to do that. Maybe you sought advice and decided to take them down. Whatever the case, just do whats in the best interest of you and your family right now.

Traffic is saaaalow right now, but thats because the holidays are amongst us. Keep your headup kid.
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wealthyboomer
December 21st, 2006 at 1:22 am

The Mortgage Bust Goes On:

A record-high 19% of high-cost mortgages originated during the past two years will end in foreclosure, a consequence of the growth in risky mortgage products, according to new data compiled by an industry group.

The nonpartisan Center for Responsible Lending predicts 2.2 million households in this mortgage segment, known as subprime borrowers, either have lost their homes or hold mortgages doomed for foreclosure in the next few years. This estimate comes a week after a grim survey from Fitch Ratings, which studies residential mortgage securities, showing a 16-fold increase in past-due subprime loans in the third quarter of 2006, compared with 1998.

Subprime borrowers, who typically pay interest rates 2% to 3% higher than those with good credit, currently account for a quarter of all mortgage originations.
In Pictures: Ballooning Foreclosure Rates

“This is the largest rash of mortgage foreclosures in the modern mortgage market,” says Michael Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending.

The worst-hit areas for rising foreclosures include cities in California, Nevada, New York, New Jersey and the greater Washington, D.C., area that recorded steep housing price appreciation in the past few years. As the market cools, homeowners will find it harder to tap their homes for bigger lines of credit or to take cash out in refinancing.

Here comes the pinch: To manage household debt, Americans have used such moves to pull over $2 trillion out of their homes in the past five years. In the first six months of 2006, consumers extracted over $500 billion.

The sharp increase in foreclosures poses “a serious threat to neighborhood stability,” said Pat Vredevoogd, president-elect of the National Association of Realtors, in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. “It can cause all homes in the neighborhood to lose value.”

The deterioration of homeowners’ ability to keep up with mortgage payments will add oomph to calls on Capitol Hill for new regulation of mortgage lenders and brokers. “There is considerable discussion by incoming House Finance Committee Chairman Barney Frank [D-Mass.] to enact a predatory lending law for these mortgage lending problems,” says Keith Ernst, senior policy counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending.

The Senate Banking Committee’s agenda under Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., will scrutinize the home-buying process, too. “The amount of household and mortgage debt as a percentage of disposable income is at its worst levels in over a quarter of a century–putting countless Americans on the financial brink,” Dodd told a press conference earlier this month. “In many respects, the American Dream is at risk in a way it has never been before. I do not intend to preside over its demise, but rather to do everything possible for its revival.”

The growing chorus of concern over mortgage costs and foreclosures could ensnare more than just the lenders like Countrywide Financial (nyse: CFC - news - people ), Wells Fargo (nyse: WFC - news - people ) and H&R Block (nyse: HRB - news - people ) who peddle adjustable-rate mortgages with low teaser rates and interest-only features. On Wall Street, risky mortgages get bundled into large pools of mortgage-backed securities, which now account for 23% of all bond market debt outstanding, making it the largest single segment of the U.S bond market.

Increased regulatory oversight could lead to a demand that mortgage servicers give greater flexibility to delinquent borrowers to avoid foreclosure. This would increase a pool’s income, but it would also raise its servicing costs–something investors dearly want to avoid.
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beezer
December 21st, 2006 at 1:35 am

Did you steal the movie Casey, or spend $10 you don’t have, and are planning to pawn off on taxpayers, to go to a movie?

Did you buy popcorn? Take the wife? You’ve moved beyond repulsive as a person, because either way, theft or more irresponsible spending, that’s just gross. I CAN afford it, and I rarely ever go to movie, because it’s $11. I wouldn’t pay $4 for a small bottle of water, so it’s only $11 if I go, but I still rarely go. Do you know why, Casey? Because I have the sense god gave a damn carrot.

On the previous post, there’s a comment about that INTJ/ENSJ nonsense, claiming it’s Jung’s. It’s not, it was developed by an uneducated housewife and her daughter, it’s nonsense. Please don’t attribute it to Jung.
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yneone
December 21st, 2006 at 2:27 am

Bo Bo, leave your fiance….if she’s not happy prior to you being married, it will only get worse later on. I have a friend who might be interested though. LOL.
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God
December 21st, 2006 at 3:16 am

My Child,

here’s what you do.,

1. Remove this website and delete all the information here. (protect from going to prison)

2. Declare BK and go to Burker King to FLIP burgers.,

3. live with your prents
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Bubbers
December 21st, 2006 at 3:28 am

Casey, please stop telling us what you “plan” to do, what you “need” to do, what you “will” do.

Personally, I don’t want to hear from you until you can list something — anything! — that you “did” do.

I am seriously beginning to think you are incapable of completing a single task.

P.S. Going to the gym is NOT a task, it’s a form of procrastination.

P.P.S. Going to RE “college” (that term is a laugh!) is NOT a task, it’s a form of procrastination.
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Dont enhale the Serin Gas
December 21st, 2006 at 3:54 am

wow, I hope you are ok, you sound like you are one step away from suicide. Seriously, go see s psychiatrist. You cant keep running away
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The Trailer Park Boys
December 21st, 2006 at 4:00 am

Casey dude,

Here is my action plan for December…

1)Wake up

2)Check out the dope, oops, “farming” operation.

3)Drink some rum.

4)Party with Ricky and Bubbles

5)Hang out at the trailer park.

6)Get “lucky” with Lucy.

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!
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Jacks
December 21st, 2006 at 4:42 am

If you make 6 figures and can’t afford a house, it’s your choice. You can move where prices are lower ( that will get you 2-3 houses where I live), hopefully you have a skill that is marketable outside of a tiny enclave in 1 state,etc.

There are a LOT of places where “average” people making $30-$40,000 can afford houses and 6 figure earners are “rich.” As much as I dislike what people like Casey do, I also get annoyed by people who complain because they can’t afford a mansion. 90%+ of people make a whole lot less ( believe it or not a lot of college educated people might peak at $50,000 or less) and most have no problem buying a house, paying bills,etc. Your wife/GF/fiance can also stop crying and get a job- I am sure you can afford something on 2 six figure salaries.

Hell, my wife is a “homemaker”, I work at home and make what I would consider “average” money ( nope not 6 figures, believe it or not, 90%+ of people dont make 6 figs and live in California) and we have no problem supporting 2 kids and paying bills, etc. We do have to “sacrifice” by not living in a mansion ( my wife has never cried because we dont live in a mansion), driving luxury vehicles, or owning vacation homes, though. Our average 3BR 2BA with garage, basement,fenced yard is good enough for us.
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Chris G
December 21st, 2006 at 4:50 am

Casey,

I have a friend who left his full-time job back in 2003 because real estate investing was becoming his full-time job. However, his credit card debt was spiraling out of control because he had several rentals that were either vacant or had deadbeats who only paid for 1-2 months and then had to be kicked out.

I thought he was going to file for BK but he was committed not to do that. So the very first thing he did was stop paying the credit cards.

Surprisingly, many of the credit card companies tried to call him once or twice, and then just gave up. Some collection agencies tried to keep calling him but you can read language telling them to stop calling you (I can get you the language). They are required to stop calling you if you request it, or they can be subject to fines.

My friend went through a website that offered legal help for these situations, for the credit card companies that will pursue legal action against you. It worked for him, but I suggest you get an in-person real estate attorney, because my buddy had to keep an eye on them and make sure they submitted the right paperwork, and Casey, one quality you lack is being organized.

Discover Card came after him the most. After about 18 months of legal wrangling he agreed to pay 50% of the bill. Avoiding payment of credit cards got him back on the right track as he sold a lot of the bad rentals and made more money flipping properties in his home state of Wisconsin.

He has since repaired his credit, but even when his credit was poor, he continued to do deals. He had acquaintances who knew he was good at the buy/fixup/sell stuff. It’s just the rentals that were killing him.
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Dan
December 21st, 2006 at 5:23 am

Problems:

1… still facing foreclosure on 4 houses
2… well over $150K of unsecured debt
3… decision to file bankruptcy or not to file bankruptcy
4… uncertain job situation
5… utah mortgage issues
6… lack of discipline and lack of progress on December goals
7… being too distracted to do any more real estate deals
8… serious marriage issues
9… oh and on top of all that my laptop died!

Solutions:

1… Bankruptcy fixes this.
2… Bankruptcy fixes this.
3… See #1 and #2.
4… Get a real job instead of being a lacky for your buddy. It pays more than he will ever pay you, and you have some semblance of stability.
5… Bankruptcy fixes this.
6… Perhaps you should have never completely wasted a week going to another RE revival meeting. Either way, if you would focus on your $2+ Million in debt instead of finding ways to amass more debt, your problems would begin to get better instead of multiplying.
7… You need to go see a doctor and get an MRI done on your brain. You then need to sit down with said doctor to find and surgically remove the part of your brain that still thinks that you have a successful future in the real estate business. Seriously, what part of your experience in RE makes you think that you will ever succeed?
8… Getting out of your financial mess (i.e. bankruptcy) fixes this.
9… I think that this might be your “maker” sending you a message that goes something like this. “Get off your lazy ass, stop writing in you blog about how useless you are, and start working to fix the huge financial mess that you have caused for yourself.” I would listen to Him if I were you.
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Daniel Cardenas
December 21st, 2006 at 5:40 am

Casey!

I agree that you may be suffering from BiPolar disorder or the old term that I like to use, manic depression. Its still not an excuse for all of the trouble you have caused, but its probably the reason.

To be honest, I wasnt worried that you had been arrested, I dont think it will come to that. But I did think that maybe you had done something even more drastic, like hurt yourself or your family. Several articles have stated that because of the rise in foreclosures, there will be a rise of murder suicides across the country.

Its been mentioned here before, but maybe not in a serious way. But maybe you should find yourself a real “sugar daddy”. You know. I see your picture, and although you are not my type, Im a married man, you probably have a lot of people here in love with you, most likely crushes. You are still young enough to get some guy or gal to “donate” in exchange for other services. If I was your age again, Id probably do it, to try to get out of your situation.
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Alan Smithee (aka gt)
December 21st, 2006 at 5:45 am

Well, the old boy is back. A bunch of vapid musings and some crap-ass repetitive comments (yes, including my own) was more than I expected when I rolled into the office this morning.

I think I’m done. The comments are not nearly as amusing or insightful now; some suspiciously like Mr. Serin writing nicey-nice under pseudonyms.

Man-child in a depressive stupor. Yawn.

So long and thanks for all the fish.
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Jozsibacsi
December 21st, 2006 at 5:52 am

Why do you say the job situation is uncertain? I thought you were making 3 k a month?
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wright
December 21st, 2006 at 5:55 am

bo bo, you hit the nail on the head. as a working professional who ‘played by the rules’ his whole life, now age 34, making what should be damn good money by any measure (nearly six figures with tons of perks benefits etc) and I make that because I”m worth it. I generate at about 4x that much revenue for my company, yet I CAN’T GD F*CKIN’ AFFORD A HOUSE THANKS TO SLEAZY RE.SPECULATORS LIKE CASEY AND ESPECIALLY THE SHYSTER RICH DAD A-HOles.

A home is NOT an investment tool, that is a bankrupt (literaly) concept propagated by the Robert T. Kiyosakis of the world.

casey, you’ll never post this, as it’s vulgar. just read it and realize that real american first time home buyers hate you. I dont care if you’re bi-polar and depressed and that led you to take these ridiculous risks. you’re an adult, you have a responsibility to take care of your own mental health rather than having it propagate this mess that the rest of the world has to clean up.

Same goes for the even sleazier mortgage brokers and Re.agents, who make even more than I do and create absoultely nothing of value. What is wrong with this country? Did we just breed 2 or 3 generations of petulant, status addicted, lazy, stupid beautiful people who wanted the easy way to riches? Is it TV’s fault? The internet? Marketing gone horribly wrong? I think all these things.
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wright
December 21st, 2006 at 5:57 am

bo bo note that he ‘owns’ nothing. and is in fact in a deeply negative equity position. grit your teeth, keep renting somehting cheap, save your six figures, and get ready to buy a house for pennies on the dollar from one of these desperate updside down Casey guys.
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MillionDollarJourney.com
December 21st, 2006 at 5:58 am

Declare bankruptcy Casey and start over. I think that is your best option considering your circumstatnces.

FT
http://www.MillionDollarJourney.com
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Pastor Bob
December 21st, 2006 at 6:14 am

Shame on you for not having the courage to post what I wrote you. It must have really struck a nerve.

Truth stings and hurts.
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Concerned Citizen
December 21st, 2006 at 6:15 am

Casey,

What happened to the ads? Don’t take them down - you need the cash.

BK your wife’s $30K ?!? (1) can you even do that since you’ve been quite open that you used some of that for RE stuff? (2) how is that alone going to make a significant impact on the big picture? (3) you’d let her “take the fall” for your mess? Her side should go last, not first!
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Concerned Citizen
December 21st, 2006 at 6:25 am

Did Google shut down your ads? Is that the REAL reason you’re down in the dumps?
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Austerity
December 21st, 2006 at 6:26 am

“..for the record… I did get up at 5:55 today and went to the gym…”

For the record, I get up @ 04:00 and run the streets (2.5 miles) as I have to be @ work @ 06:00

I don’t pay for the use of a “gym.”

Never been in a Starbucks and until reading this blog
I had never even heard of “Jamba Juice.”

Don’t have a laptop so don’t have to worry about
it “dieing.”

You have lots of expenses that could be cut if you were
really serious about paying everyone off.
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Unbelievable
December 21st, 2006 at 6:27 am

Ca$ey

I think you would feel better if you would just go ahead and take action. Hire a reputable attorney and move towards getting this mess behind you. You haven’t done anything to improve your situation in 3 months or so, the longer you wait the worse you will feel (and the worse the situation will become). While you are at it, you need to admit to yourself that you have absolutely no talent for RE and find a job in another profession.
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Dman
December 21st, 2006 at 6:33 am

Well one thing to keep in mind bo bo is that our hero Casey does not own any of these houses, they all belong to the banks. We don’t know where Casey’s future lies, if he does get some type of publicity deal he is one in a million. But the rest that did what he did are eventually going to get screwed themselves. I’m taking a stab that you’re out in Calfornia where the worst of this is taking place. While it’s the worst it’s also the place that will probably face the fastest price correction. So hang in there with it all, save and invest your money wisely and the time will come. I know it’s a tough situation to be in but hopefully it will pass.

As for you Casey, saying “I didn’t borrow with the intent to defraud, …” What the heck do you think you were doing when you filled out those loan apps and lied on them? You think they ask those questions just to use up ink on paper? If you read a question on a loan app, intentionally respond to it with inaccurate information then it’s fraud, plain and simple.
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samk
December 21st, 2006 at 6:38 am

Bo bo,

Don’t feel too bad. Casey doesn’t ‘own’ anything except the debt associated with ‘his’ houses.
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JTR
December 21st, 2006 at 6:46 am

Hate to say it, but I called it! Suck it up man.

Some advice from Wall Street (the movie):

“Bud I like you. Just remember something. Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that time a man finds his character–and that is what keeps him out of the abyss…”
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star
December 21st, 2006 at 6:57 am

“My wife agreed to allow me to BK her unsecured credit accounts (about 30K)”

You’re going to bk her over 30k? Trash her credit and her career choice over 30k? Why don’t BOTH of you get a few jobs. Even at minimum wage you could pay that off in a year.
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hammawi
December 21st, 2006 at 7:03 am

Hey!

What happend to the ads?
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Kevin
December 21st, 2006 at 7:05 am

Do not - DO NOT - make your wife declare BK and you NOT. You must suffer as she will.
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star
December 21st, 2006 at 7:12 am

bo bo, your lawyer friend doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Casey, there’s no need to have a “i’ve been arrested” post ready. You’ll be in the news when it happens.
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kidcurry
December 21st, 2006 at 7:22 am

Casey has made himself an easy target, but unfortunately many people are in the same boat. This real estate mania, globally, is of historic proportions. I think we will be talking about this, in the same vein as the great depression, for many years. Easy money has a very strong appeal and has sucked in millions of people.

Casey and his like exercised very poor judgment, but without the Federal Reserve Bank, Fannie Mae and the entire banking industry as conspirators, this mania would not have occurred.

From the:
The Future Worth of a Nickel

The Daily Reckoning

Baltimore, Maryland

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

We’ll keep today’s missive brief and succinct, dear reader. We realize everyone’s attention span runs a little shorter than usual this time of year.

We did stumble upon some interesting tidbits this morning, though…

“The United States is heading into its worst foreclosure crisis in modern history,” comes the report from the Center of Responsible Lending.

The report, titled, “Losing Ground: Foreclosures in the Subprime Market” looks at the subprime mortgages from 1998 to the first six months of 2006. According to the CRL, “more than two million predominantly minority and
low-income Americans with subprime mortgages expected to lose well over $100 billion in homeownership wealth.”

Hmmm…we hate to say it, but we aren’t a bit surprised. What did the lenders think was going to happen when they convinced every pizza boy, 7-11 employee and Wal-Mart greeter to take out an adjustable rate mortgage? Eventually rates would rise to the point that these subprime borrowers simply can’t afford to make their payments.
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Mike
December 21st, 2006 at 7:25 am

It’s Wall Street that is enabling all this. They securitize all these bogus mortgages and sell them to suckers in China, Korea, etc. (all the folks that export to us and have all those extra dollars they don’t know what to do with).

With all the profit Wall Street makes from doing this, they pay out these obscene bonuses.
*
NotoriousPSU
December 21st, 2006 at 7:30 am

To “bo bo”:

I wouldn’t worry about this too much. You are in the top one or two percent of income earners. If you can’t afford a house, no one can. This is a situation that doesn’t make any sense and will correct itself in time. Unless you genuinely believe that the US is running out of land, it’s just a matter of patience.

The problem with Casey’s strategy is that it’s high risk. For every guy with a success story (that of course gets attention), there’s a thousand or so that are going to financially eat it, like Casey here. It has nothing to do with skill. Most house flippers (or tech stock day traders) managed risk by cleverly pretending it didn’t exist (houses, tech stocks, deformed beanie babies only go up up up!). The only thing that separates Casey from the guys that give those seminars is luck. If things had worked out differently it’s not hard to imagine him pretending he knew how to time markets just like they do, and writing a book about how he’s the most awesome investor ever.

So flippers don’t really beat the system at all, on the average. They’re just trading risk for money instead of work for money. An investor that manages risk intelligently will always be beaten out by some small percentage of investors that take risks like Casey has. But the low risk investor is a lot less likely to find himself in Casey’s position either. It’s a trade off.

And as far as getting rich off of books goes: Good for him, it might even be on a useful topic, such as “Recognizing and Avoiding Get Rich Quick Schemes.” He’s been stupid in the past, but he can choose to stop being stupid any time he wants.
*
Mr. Flipper
December 21st, 2006 at 7:35 am

Uh… Bobo,

Education a waste of time…a six figure salary…can’t afford a house…fiance cries about it…makes me feel inadequate…

Yeah, right. Uh, huh.

Merrry Christmas, anyway.
*
zek
December 21st, 2006 at 7:41 am

Casey you need to come to the conclusion that this is finished, declare bankruptcy and move forward. Hug your wife and hope she stays. Quit treading water with the lead in your pockets. This has been unmanagable from the 2-3rd house you bought. Your only failure was not recognizing it early. Everything else is a symptom of that initial failure that continues to compound. Clear it up and start writing/speaking. There’s a good future in helping people sort this type of mess and get through it. We are still early in the cycle. There are few bankruptcies as dramatic as yours. Tell the story and make a living on it.
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Robert Coté
December 21st, 2006 at 7:41 am

Mornin’ Sunshine. So, Casey… what’s this about putting your wife’s credit cards ~$30k into bankruptcy? It ain’t a cafeteria, it’s a courthouse. You don’t pick and choose and besides, you keep acting like it is a choice you can make. You may have had a choice in Sept. not now. You are worse than bankrupt. Bankruptcy means you cannot go forward under current obligations. You are far worse off, you need bankruptcy for protection. At this point almost any scheme you try without court supervision is going to look like an attempt to defraud your creditors.
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Andrey
December 21st, 2006 at 7:43 am

Casey, you don’t have to do this whole blogging/moderating by yourself, if you ask the people from your blog, you’ll get some good people that’ll help you with moderation of your comments and other things.
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TK
December 21st, 2006 at 7:44 am

BoBo, you’re right that IS America. A place where somebody like Paris Hilton can be famous and make money for showing up at parties. A place where cheaters are rewarded, where criminals write books, where OJ can play golf whenever he wants. We, the hard-working thought we understood the American dream, but we’re the ones left holding the bag. There’s no middle class anymore because of guys like Casey Serin. May I die painlessly before his generation takes the reigns of power in this country.
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Reality Check
December 21st, 2006 at 7:45 am

Son, the gym and microsoft spreadsheets are not productivity….a JOB is!
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Kasey
December 21st, 2006 at 7:49 am

Bo Bo, where are you living that you can’t afford a house living on 6 figures?
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Dale D
December 21st, 2006 at 7:53 am

There’s no easy way out
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Dale D
December 21st, 2006 at 7:54 am

you ruined your life
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moom
December 21st, 2006 at 8:01 am

You should ask your “local rich Dad” or whoever about the corporate credit thing. I don’t think ti can help if you don’t have net assets…. it’s probably just a way of getting a bunch of fees from you and then saying “oops we can’t find you a loan after all”.
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Old Fart
December 21st, 2006 at 8:01 am

Consult with a good bankruptcy attorney and make sure you can completely discharge your debts through chapter 7 bankruptcy before your wife files.

I’m not a bankruptcy attorney so just speculating here, but if you can’t get all your debts discharged and your wife can somehow get access to additional credit, after you file for bankruptcy, you can transfer your remaining debt after you file to her before she files. Just something to think about.

Lastly there is so much stupidity on this thread on how Casey inflated the housing market and made it “impossible” for you to afford a home. That’s idiotic. His foreclosures are listed on this site for all to see, so if you are so desperate to own, you have access to buy a home of his at a discount you otherwise wouldn’t have. He didn’t force any prices up(except for his first deal where be sold his condo at a 30k profit which none of you view as immoral), he bought the damn top of the market! It’s the stupid people that used adjustables at the top that will go into foreclosure and drive housing down that you should be thanking if you want to buy a home! If you want to blame people, blame all the flippers who actually made money and marked up home prices in 2003, 2004, and early 2005.

Then you can blame all the people who bought a house beyond their means and/or payed up excessively for it. Why stop there, blame all the baby-boomers who automatically had their money funneled into stock indices in their 401ks and forced you to buy stocks in your 401k at 20 times earnings instead of 10-15(the historical average).

Obviously if her credit is so screwed there is no chance of her obtaining any new credit in the next year this is a moot point.
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thefuture
December 21st, 2006 at 8:11 am

With this unbelievable mortgage credit mess, hyperinflation is coming folks. If you believe that prices are going to continue dropping significantly in realestate near term, think again. The government is broke and cannot afford the housing market to collapse. It will continue devaluating the dollar to put a floor under these McMansions. Soon everything is going to become much more expensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation

You better get yourself a parachute made of gold.
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nona
December 21st, 2006 at 8:15 am

You seem to be under the impression still that your wife’s credit isn’t already ruined. It is. Go ahead and pull the reports if you want confirmation.

You seem to be under the impression that the banks won’t take a loss if you can do something creative. It’s too late. Simply missing all these payments has already cost them money, and you prolonging the foreclosure process is just costing them more.
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Anon4
December 21st, 2006 at 8:16 am

bo bo: you are overestimating casey’s ability to cash out on this. Chump change on google ads is not worth going into hole he has created for himself.
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Ding Dong-Will someone get the door?
December 21st, 2006 at 8:22 am

bo bo “I give up. You won’t go to jail”

What? What the heck are you talking about? You obviously never applied for a mortgage loan so what are you talking about? It is not a matter of what you or anyone thinks. It is a matter of law! Banks and lenders are closing their doors EVERYDAY because of what Casey and others have done. This has far reaching affects beyond what a non informed person realizes. The screws are being turned so tight in the mortgage industry, honest loans officers are perplexed by all the pressure.
Lenders are stinkin’ mad because many of their notes are not resellable on the secondary market. Bond markets are too scared to buy the bundle of mortgage notes. They fear they are full of bad loans that will default. This is not only about Casey screwing up (committing fraud). It goes beyond that IN WHO HAS BEEN AFFECTED. It has gotten so bad that only 20% now qualify for a loan. There aren’t very many 100% loans anymore . 90% is tops which is available for half of the 20% and you have to have a down payment. Laws are coming down on 80/20 loans and option payments because of Casey and people like him.
All it takes is a few idiots to wreck it for the rest of us.
This foreclosure affects everyone in the industry.
Prepare yourself for the time they come Casey. They never rush. They take their time. Your wife is as guilty, so she has herself to blame. She went along with it and is an accomplice.
You will be indicted. It is not a matter of “if” but “when”.
This is not my opinion. This is the law! If I fluffed it over and they came to your in-laws catching you by surprise…ouch. So let’s be realistic for once Casey. ‘Best to prep your psych. When all the houses are taken back, the door bell will ring then, if not sooner.
Sorry. Ignorance doesn’t absolve you. You did lie to deceive on the loan application, even if you were prodded by the loan officers to do that. You did sign a document at closing that stated you were purchasing to move in as owner occupied WHEN YOU KNEW YOU WERE NOT GOING TO LIVE IN ANY OF THOSE HOUSES. You did sign legal documents that said you made a certain amount of income, but you didn’t even have a job.
Just the facts here. No more. No less. I’ll keep saying it because it is reality and not based on what less informed people think! It doesn’t matter what the people here think. What matters is the facts and the inevitable. You, the loan officers in these transactions, Realtors involved, your wife and who ever else that was a part of these transactions (appraisers who overvalued the properties), Will be indicted.
Your intent to deceive is obvious regardless of others involvement. So now, You can sue the loan officer who told you to deceive the banks…What a mess.
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DontBuyIt
December 21st, 2006 at 8:25 am

“(It’s time to face reality…)”

Yes, it is - it’s past time for that.

The problem is, you are not mature nor stable enough to handle the reality, thus this blog, the pie-in-the-sky incorporation fantasies/scams, the time wasted on nonsensical “self-help” tapes and seminars, the lies (have you FULLY disclosed to your wife what you both face? How about your family?), and the abuse of your friends and family’s trust by loaning money you have no hope to pay back, and using the products of their hard work (cheaper rent, your parents computer, food, etc…).

All the while, you have not paid back a dime of the money you owe, you’ve ignored advice given to you freely, and you’ve mocked and sneered at other people for actually DOING something with their time.

You are a coward. You run away from the problems you created in your greed and naive belief you have any skills, simply because you read a book, watched a DVD, or listened to a snake-oil salesman ply his con.

You are a liar, and continue to lie. You characterize your lies and intentional fraud as “mistakes” to a church congregation - you entered a house of God and lied. You should be ashamed of yourself. You did not “make mistakes”, you committed outright fraud.

If everything on this blog is true, then i don’t believe you have the maturity, common sense, strength, and bravery to fully face the mess you created for yourself. Let’s see if you allow my comments to be posted.

I’m not a hater, but someone needs to sit you down and pound it into that thick skull of yours that the party is definitely over, and it’s time to grow up, and act like an adult. You would have far, far less stress if you had addressed your fraud and failure long ago, would’nt you? That’s something an adult understands, or should - not all do - and they’re the ones who live crisis to crisis, because they have no control over themselves or the events in their lives.

There is no scam that will save you, no self-help book that will save you, and definitely no guardian angels that will bail you out. All the self-help gurus you revere simply want your money, they offer you nothing but more delusion and fantasy.

The time you’ve wasted making yourself feel better by kinda-sorta admitting your guilt here, and wasting hours everyday running it, and wasted letting snake-oil salesmen sell you false hope and fantasy, you could have BKed already, found a job that would support you and your wife (and bought you a new laptop), started the process of rebuilding your life, finances and future…but no, you waste a week in yet another hot-air fest, scour the net for more scams to try and avoid your problems, and continue to waste time…this blog is something you should be ashamed of. You’ve used it to make a martyr out of yourself, when you don’t deserve it, and you’ve used it as an excuse not to be an adult and face the issues YOU, and you alone, created.

Shut this blog down, Casey. It serves no more purpose, except as a distraction. It’s time to grow up, and face reality, like you said. It’s not too late, but you have to accept that because of what YOU did, you will probably be working half of your time to pay off banks for the rest of your adulthood. You do not show the skill, knowledge, or creativity, let alone the discipline or show the work ethics, to be anything more than an hourly worker - and you’re too flaky, childish, and greedy to get far there, too. You did not create nor run a business, you scammed some banks, and are now facing the results of that.

Grow up, Casey. Shut down the blog, sell all of your stupid tapes and DVDs, turn off the cable tv, cut any expenses you have to the bone, get RID of any distractions like books or dvds and trips, and DO THE WORK. Give your wife and family a FULL, every card on the table disclosure, face their wrath and put yourself at their mercy, and start working towards becoming an adult. Playtime is over, and it’s time for a lot of hard, gut-wrenching reality.

You COULD become a better man from going through it all, but from reading this blog, you won’t learn a damned thing, and will continue to waste time trying to get sympathy and false comfort from this blog.
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Sprezzatura
December 21st, 2006 at 8:29 am

bo bo — he doesn’t own 6 houses. The bank does.
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Deyl
December 21st, 2006 at 8:32 am

Keep your head up Casey. In a few years you’re going to be in a great spot.

I’m impressed by how you’ve handled things thus far. i’ve been telling a bunch of my friends about how you are facing these issues. I think its respectable. Keep your marriage tight! Be blessed man
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dumbererer and dumberereest
December 21st, 2006 at 8:34 am

Microsoft Office Account Express 2007
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http://www.ideawins.com/

Your free download of Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2007 is just seconds away

casey you might need this OK??
this is a legit MS site.

hahha, you got me with the ’slow down cowboy!”
*******
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Mrs D.
December 21st, 2006 at 8:43 am

For God’s sake leave the poor boy alone. Yes he made some dumb mistakes, time and time again but do you have to face the consequences for them? (and don’t give me the blah blah blah, he caused housing prices to go up etc etc bullshit). No. So shut the hell up and give him a break. I have never heard such a bunch of pious crap in my whole life. He has it bad enough and, unlike some of you people, I don’t believe in kicking someone when they are down. I don’t need to shot some person who is already at rock bottom down to feel better about myslef. And even more so, I am not so cowardly that I have to do it behind the annonimity of a computer screen.

Ya, you guys are real tough.
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Honestly Wondering
December 21st, 2006 at 8:45 am

“Jesus”, that’s why I’m trying to repay it… also I didn’t borrow with the intent to defraud, which is what I think that verse is talking about…

Actually, Casey, you did. That’s what people have been trying to bang through your skull now for over three months.

Let’s take this slow and see if maybe finally you can get it. You seem to be in a slightly reality-based mood today, so I have a glimpse of hope.

You didn’t have money. You didn’t have much-to-anything in the way of sustainable income. When you applied for those loans, you lied about these facts in order to make yourself sound like a better credit risk than you actually were, telling the lenders whatever they wanted to hear to get that money. You knew full well what you were doing. You had every intention to secure those loans fraudulently, and despite what your guru friends say, that was your cornerstone error here.

What you didn’t intend was for it to blow up in your face. You didn’t expect to get caught. You figured that (in theory, at least) since lots of other people got away with it, no one cared. That it was all pretend money, that it wasn’t actually coming out of someone’s wallet.

To say now that you didn’t intend to defraud anyone is the height of irresponsibility and dishonesty. It’s far too late to make that claim now - you’ve already confessed at great length otherwise. But for the love of God, Casey, own it. Be the man about it that your wife needs, instead of a weasly kid trying to save face in front of his Internet friends.

I know it’s tough to face one’s misdeeds, to really face them and take full responsibility for them. But that’s called being an adult. It’s long since time that you deal with the fact - both to yourself and to those around you - that you had every intention of ripping people off.

If you really want to come back to reality, start by taking this blog down permanently. Just stop. It’s a distraction for you, it’s a time waster, it’s one colossal excuse to do anything other than face your problems like a man. Rebuild your relationship with your wife. Try to make something positive out of all this. We don’t need to be involved.

By the way - the other day, I posted yet another post on Adsense and how to block your ads using Firefox/Adblock. You moderated it out, which now does make me wonder about your Adsense revenue. If you don’t care about the ads, why object to people posting on how to get rid of them?
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frank francis
December 21st, 2006 at 8:56 am

If you’re so busy taking care of your financial problems, idiot, why are you wasting so much of your time on this blog?
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HOMEY DA CLOWN
December 21st, 2006 at 9:06 am

IT’S HOMEY TIME!!

YO YO YO

Casey sez:
“Bankruptcy… My wife agreed to allow me to BK her unsecured credit accounts (about 30K) which we have been paying so far and it has been eating up all our available cash. It’s a very sensitive area though because I promised her I will not screw up her credit when I started investing. But she is willing to sacrifice it now if it will help us get to a better place.”

YO pimp n’ shrimp, yo mus be da dumbest mo fo I have ever seen! YOU don’t get to choose an pick what you can put in da BK.

When yoos gonna do dat certification against perjury? It’s been 5 days now. I knows the answer - NEVER. Cuz you is a liar.

SPutnik,,, go poops in his shoozes fo me.

PSS.. Everyone knows your BS by now. It be all over da net. UNCENSORED.. BWAHAHA
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Stephanie J
December 21st, 2006 at 9:09 am

We were worried; even us haters.

Please don’t let the depression control you.

It’s scary, without a doubt, but you know that cliché about eating the elephant one bite at a time.

You need to keep yourself from worsening the problem by avoiding it.

And please, don’t be too proud to ask for help.
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Cara
December 21st, 2006 at 9:10 am

Bobo, if “creative” and “aggressive” are euphemisms for “foolish” and “impulsive”, then you’ve got Casey pegged. Otherwise, I wouldn’t worry about him being a millionaire any time soon. If the IRS doesn’t take whatever money he makes in the next few decades, Jamba Juice will.

More to the point, when Mrs. Casey grows up a little, she’ll decide she’d rather be responsible for herself than dependent upon someone undependable, and Casey won’t have anything.
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Jim
December 21st, 2006 at 9:12 am

You listed nine items that you had to work on. I would put item #8 (serious marriage issues) as item #1. Pretty soon she’s gonna be all you have left… for God’s sake, don’t screw that up too!!

Oh yeah, Merry Christmas!
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Cara
December 21st, 2006 at 9:14 am

Oh, and Casey: your post title, plus the part about another loan just buying you a little more time, are the most sensible things I’ve seen you post yet. You might be learning something. (Of course, if you go ahead and get in more debt anyway, I’ll retract that statement).
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Heave Ho The Troll
December 21st, 2006 at 9:25 am

bo bo “I’ve wasted my life getting an education”

Puhleeze.

Could this be Casey?

How many reports do we hear every year based Census data/through media outlets about the correlation between higher education and earnings over time?
More higher ed = higher average lifetime earnings.

‘Nuff said. Google it, ya moron.

bo bo, you are a bo zo.
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Ralph
December 21st, 2006 at 9:30 am

Uncertain job situation? Does that mean your buddy doesn’t need your “network expertise” anymore? was he able to set up a router and install virus software on his own? From the job description it sounds like you were nothing more than a glorified office boy, and with your track record of not opening mail at home I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t a very dilligent employee.

You know what, I’m just jealous. It took about six months of working my “looser” job to accrue a week’s vacation, and here you are jetting off to Arizona for a week (and then extending it by a day!) after working for barely a month. I’m definitely in the wrong line of business…I need to get into the shady real estate world!
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subsonic22
December 21st, 2006 at 9:36 am

“Jesus”, that’s why I’m trying to repay it… also I didn’t borrow with the intent to defraud, which is what I think that verse is talking about…

If you didn’t intend to defraud, how come:

A. You claimed they were owner occupied properties when in actuality they were non-owner occupied which would have required a down-payment and higher interest rate

B. You lied about your ability to repay the loans (stated income)

C. You never told your lenders you were buying other properties simultaneously, which if they knew about, would have turned down your request for financing

D. You didn’t inform the lender that you received cash back after closing on some of the homes (lenders don’t want to hear that you will be making “repairs” with that money - how do they know where the money is going, such as credit card and mortgage payments)

E. You aren’t making your mortgage payments. Buying all that property with the financing you got, you did know that you would have a scratch a $15,000 check each month to your various mortgage companies, right? Why would you borrow so much money when you knew you didn’t have the means to come up with that amount of money each month?

I’m sure your lenders and/or the authorities will have all sorts of other questions for you in the not to distant future. At least this blog should prepare you for some serious hard questioning you will be facing and that would scare me a lot more than foreclosure.

Getting a lawyer (bankruptcy/criminal would be ideal) should be your only priority now, not the next “sweet deal” you won’t be closing.
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M.
December 21st, 2006 at 9:37 am

Casey,

Do the backruptcy. Cleanning up this mess is like trying to clean up a major mudslide one shovelful at a time..

Put yor marriage first. BK will put this behind you & take the stress down to a managable level.

Don’t make any further financial commitments without getting your wife’s approval (& not after the fact)

Getting counselling from someone (not a real estate guru) would be a good idea - maybe through your church?

Good luck.
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Renton
December 21st, 2006 at 9:45 am

I was fairly certain Casey would be hanging from his neck somewhere, but this optimist keeps surprising us time after time again. It’ll be either BK or the rope. I bet he will choose the BK.
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The Man
December 21st, 2006 at 9:47 am

bo bo,

Boo hoo, and B.S. You have just described what California has become, not America. Separate the two. You can get the same 6 figure job in the Austin, Chicago, or Denver and be able to afford a nice house and two cars with no problem. In Texas you would live very well. You are locked out of San Francisco and Palo Alto. Who cares. Live somewhere real.
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Paul Andres
December 21st, 2006 at 9:50 am

Casey and I have a mutual friend; I had a chance encounter with Casey some months ago at the friend’s office. I immediately had some sense of annoyance or antagonism towards Casey; I’m not sure why, although quiet for the most part, he seemed arrogant to me and I didn’t like the way I felt being around him. I still can’t put my finger on exactly why I dislike him; he’s done nothing to me and wasn’t even particularly talkative during this brief meeting.

Although I’ve not read every posting on his sight I can still predict his next move and the inevitability of the finish. Why? Because his story isn’t new, it really isn’t even interesting. The only difference between Casey and the next schmo is that he has captured the attention of the media by way of a few “right” contacts, my friend in point.

Casey’s intentions of blogging have nothing to do with the greater good and all to do with creating a mass media frenzy around his circumstances. He’s an opportunist. His intention is to capitalize on his mistakes, get some TV appearances and write a book. Why not? It’s worked for Robet Kiyosaki and countless others ( http://paulandres.blogspot.com.....-down.html ) why not Casey Serin?

Negative attention is the easiest way to get the media’s interest – many corporations have used similar tactics; what can anyone do? There is no putting the milk back in the glass after it’s spilled onto the table and run down to the floor. Ooops, my bad and an apology are all one needs.

I feel annoyance and some jealousy towards Casey Serin. Annoyed by his contempt for the system; jealous that it’s taken me 20 years to acquire 4 homes by following the rules when I could have purchased a hundred by this time had I worked the system. Do I applaud him for having the courage to attempt something I didn’t or do I have disdain for his bucking the system?

Which side do I remain closest to; the good side (I come from good people) or the evil side that hopes Casey never makes a dime from any media endeavors? I do know that Casey is not the first or last to manipulate the system to his advantage but is that enough to remain complacent? Why do I care? We should all care because in the long run it affects all of us.
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John
December 21st, 2006 at 9:55 am

Casey,

I have watched this mess you created & have held back any response until now. It is almost unbelievable how foolish you have been since all the forclosure mess. You say you spend time with your Maker yet your actions reflect you are not hearing Him correctly, if at all, or just ignoring Him all together. I would suggest that you forget everything else for a while & focus on your marriage issues. Would all the money your “deals” could bring is worth losing what should be one of the most precious things in your life…i.e. your wife? It is bad enough that you are going through all this but do you want to go through all this alone? Priorities are what you need & the houses & this website, & feeling sorry for yourself shouldn’t be on the top. Your Maker has said in His Word, ” if a man will not provide for his household, he is worse than an infidel”. “if he isn’t willing to work, neither should he eat”.
Casey, take care of your wife, get a steady job, quite trying to be a “player” in real estate. You time will come. Success usually comes with hard work, not quick money.
Put your Maker first, your wife second,business last…you will be ok.
*
Hobbes
December 21st, 2006 at 10:09 am

Bankrupt just wife’s crecit cards. Casey, you can’t just bankrupt part of a debt. If she goes bakrupt her debt on the mortgages must be reported and bankrupted as well. Really, don’t buy some Bankruptcy kit off of the internet and do it yourself or let some shyster attorney tell you that she can put some debt in bankruptcy and keep some out.
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BT98
December 21st, 2006 at 10:13 am

Casey,

Glad that you are ok. it got me worried for a while. Don’t feel too bad, it’s only money and you are still young. Just BK and start over. You can later sell your book rights, movie rights, domain name. The ad sense cash flow is an icing on the cake. Also, the consensus is that you are too lazy to hold a regular job. I am a immigrant too, I came here when I was 15. I tell you the best way to survive in US is find a good paying job and work, invest in 401K, and retire comfortably at old age.

The curse of man–you must toil under the sun in order to eat–has not been lifted. So get rich quick does not work fundamentally because of the original curses. Just like the other curse, child labor still painful and dangous for woman–not lifted either.

So don’t try to circumvent the system. You are not going to get rich, but might end up in jail or worse–dead in an alley.

Just do what normal folks do and enjoy the fruits of your labor under the sun. That’s the best deal anyone can hopeful if you read bible like you say you do.

BT
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Anomalous Blowhard
December 21st, 2006 at 10:15 am

That sucks, but it could be worse. The scuttlebutt on the World Wide Tubes was that you’d been arrested.
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belchorama
December 21st, 2006 at 10:17 am

bo bo:

Same situation as you but PhD in engineering, and not quite 6 figures yet. But I’m happy with my job, my life, and have no issues with my renter status, nor does my intelligent fiance. Time to get a new fiance dude. If she’s crying about your “inadequacy” in not being able to buy her a house, she’s a materialistic idiot. If you feel bad about where you’re at, stick it out for a couple of years and see where you’re at and where Casey’s at. The average American is all about show rather than substance. Wait a couple of years and see how good the average American’s McMansion and H2 look once the housing bubble is really deflated, and the average American is upside down. Then, with the money you’ve been able to invest because you didn’t throw it away on interest for a crazy-overpriced mortgage, go put down 50% on a nice house. If you’re still with your materialistic girl then, point out to her where your financial situation would be had you listened to her - 28 more years of overpriced mortage payments. Then, tell her that she is never allowed to speak about your joint financial decisions again, she is to shut up and stop crying.

I have a buddy who was in a similar situation, bought a beat-up 1000 sq ft fixer upper in Berkeley for over 700k because his wife had to “own” a place (had to be in debt up to her eyeballs?). Makes me sick that he’s wrecked his financial position so she could have her status symbol. If your fiance is ready to wreck your joint financial position for a status symbol, time to jettison her.
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ArgenNinja
December 21st, 2006 at 10:18 am

Yeah, hiding from your problems and waiting them to get worse is genious. Good Job!
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Adam
December 21st, 2006 at 10:31 am

Just keep the PDA in your back pocket and you can fire it off without a problem. Last time I was in cuffs, I had a knife in my pocket the whole time.

Casey, you might want to go get a bipolar disorder analysis just to have it on hand in case you do end up in court. “I was crrrrazzzy, your honor!!” Delusions of grandeur are one of the symptoms. Just saying. Lots of napping too. Much experience with friends. Way too much.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And happy new year.
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Adam
December 21st, 2006 at 10:33 am

Oh, and I like that “Write 5 action items” thing from AZ above, with the Report Back To Us requirement. We’ll hold you accountable - you don’t want to see people railing on your failure in your comments section, so write ‘em down and get ‘em done. Even if they’re small.
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Jerry
December 21st, 2006 at 10:35 am

@bobo - “we play by the rules — work hard and save, and get screwed. you don’t and get away scot free. That’s what america has become.”

Not sure where you ever got the impression that playing by the rules get you ahead… You think people like Bill Gates or Sam Walton got to where they are by playing by the rules?

Playing by the rules will get you what everyone else has, which by its very definition cannot be “ahead”. The challenge is to know how much to bend the rules, if getting ahead is important to you. It’s just not clear if our friend young Casey has bent the rules too much…
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Jeffrey
December 21st, 2006 at 10:42 am

Dont let your problems get you down. Just think of all the time you will have to reflect on your decisions while sitting in prison.

During sentencing, try to request a Prison that has a nice view, like McNeil Island in Washington State.

If you are the adventurous, outdoorsy type, try Tent City in Arizona. God bless Sheriff Joe.
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don don
December 21st, 2006 at 11:02 am

bo bo why can’t you afford a home with a 6 fig. salary?

I have a 5 fig. salary and I own a home and a rental property that I am renting out that is cashflowing $146.00 a month. I purchased it October1st and rented it out November 1st after putting in $18k in rehab. The $18k came from a cash out refinance on my personal home.

Casey is not bidding up your homes so you and your fiance can’t afford it. If the houses that Casey bought are your homes he is putting them on the market for a discount for you to purchase or after the foreclosure goes thru and the banks no longer want to sit on them they will get discounted even further for you. They will keep getting discounted until a buyer decides it a good value.

If anything he is getting you a huge discount with his loss. It all depends on your perception and what your willing to pay and what you value the property at.

Granted some people play the greater fool when it comes to Real-Estate but that is a risk that they take and like all risk at can be minimized with research and doing some do delegence and not being the greater fool.
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Leo
December 21st, 2006 at 11:02 am

>> “also I didn’t borrow with the intent to defraud”

Looking at your financial situation, do you maybe think that paying for movie tickets with borrowed money you say you may BK away “intent to defraud.”

To me it’s kinda like robbing a bank but telling the police you really really want to give it all back later . . .
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jstab
December 21st, 2006 at 11:23 am

Casey said, “Bankruptcy… My wife agreed to allow me to BK her unsecured credit accounts (about 30K) which we have been paying so far and it has been eating up all our available cash.”

Remember, you can’t pick and choose what debts to BK Casey. When you go BK it is ALL the way. Everything must be included. So you can’t just BK some of your wife’s (and your own) debts.
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Ozzie Tim
December 21st, 2006 at 11:28 am

Gday,

Ozzie Tim here.

I was just cheering it up with some makes and we came along to the topic of you. Seems that Mick found your blog and been keeping us all posted about you and your circumstances. Mick says your’e a whacker who’s as good as cactus, seeing the spot you’re in. Mick thinks you’re a brown-eyed mullet and you are two steps back from being a dero.

Mick and I were enjoying some amber fluid the other day (no, I don’t drink with the flies) and I said to Mick: “Bloody oath, mate! Casey’s back of bourke from solvency, but he’s no bludger!” Now my friends will attest that i’m figjam (but really conch). This bloke needs to straighten out right now or he’s going to be in a jail cell before July. That’s good oil says Mick (but he thinks you’ve got kangaroos loose in the top paddock).

Now I told Mick that I just thought you were not the full guild. I told him that you ought to see if the oldies could lend a hand or maybe buy some scratchies (yeah, right what am I, some dipstick? Not). So how are you going to get square with the world? Well, you could start making a quid. No not that bird-dogging stuff, go back to what you’re good at, the web design stuff. It stands out like shag on a rock that that’s the place to start. Get some moolah flowing in and then enjoy coldie (not too much or you’ll have a liquid laugh going on).

Now I’m no knocker here, and I’m not gonna skite, but I think you’ve been sprung and now its time to get dinky-di or you’ll cark it. Some of the posters here seem to think youre dag or a drongo. You call them “haters”.

Looks like you made a big blue and wound up upside down by taking all the money out of the deals up front instead of at the end. You’ve got a lot of yabber, but not much yakka, time to change your ways and you’ve really got to put your focus on making a quid, you know?

Go back to your lenders and see if you can nut out a way to restructure your loans. Tell them: “no drama, we can nut this one through. I’ve learned some lessons but I’m ridgy-didgy, no dero”. It’s no piece of piss to be true, but London to a brick you’ll be able to make it right. That’s what you’ve been saying all along, right?

You sometimes come off a bit bludger but you’ve come back of bourke to this point (learning your lessons on the way) and now it stands out like dog’s balls that you have very, very few choices. You can either BK which you’re not keen on, work the deals out (Buckley’s chance), walk away and become a dole bludger (the hater’s will hate you for that), or put all of that knowledge from last week at the uni to work (hope you were dux there mate!)

In my opinion, you are rooted just about every way possible.
Hope it all works out.

Hooroo. Ozzie Tim
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Casey Serin
December 21st, 2006 at 11:32 am

Man this really sucks… Google banned me from AdSense, probably for click fraud on the part of my blog readers… I found out late last night after I moderated all the comments.

This morning I did wake up ontime and got up but then looked back at the cozy bed (and wife sleeping soundly) and thought about all the problems and collapsed back into bed for another couple of hours. That only brings temporary relief and more stress when I wake up. Man am I starting to have a hard time getting anything done
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Disgusted
December 21st, 2006 at 11:43 am

@Very Concerned

“Casey -

Your behavior are classic symptoms for bipolar disorder.

You MUST get to a physician. NOW. If you can’t get an appointment, have your wife take you to the ER. ”

ER for bipolar disorder? Do you know what “ER” stands for? Do you know what an “emergency” is?

This country’s healthcare costs are out of control because of stupid, retarded idiots like you who think EVERYTHING is a medical emergency and use hospital ERs as their free health maintenance organizations. Also the reasons why so many hospitals can’t afford to stay open and close their doors.

I hope someday you do end up with a real medical emergency that will end your life because you couldn’t be attended to in time due to the long line of non-emergency bipolar disorder cases lined up ahead of you.
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Ozzie Tim
December 21st, 2006 at 11:48 am

Ozzie Time here.

Just forgot to say Merry Chrissie!

Hooroo. Ozzie Tim
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RE-ality police
December 21st, 2006 at 11:55 am

“The unknown dangers eat at me every minute and sabotage any hope for any down time.”

Oh… boo hoo. “Any hope for downtime”? Your whole life has been one long easy downtime on the backs of everyone else. You’ve never had to live a minute of “uptime”. Ever.

But that may change in the coming year. Party’s over pal.
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Concerned Citizen
December 21st, 2006 at 12:00 pm

But if your most recent check from Adsense (Oct?) was only $60 for a month - no big deal, right??

Of course - you were telling us the full and complete truth, correct? If you were, then $60/month is nothing.

You were telling the truth, right …………………….. ???
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BT98
December 21st, 2006 at 12:00 pm

Bo Bo and other six figures. Get your lazy fiance to get a job at half your sal. With combine income of 150K and buy a house or shut up. You are just too cheap. My parents brought their home 15 years ago when both combined income are 50K and rates are 9-10% at the time. I bought Sep. last year right on the top of the market. Why because wifey want one and we plan to have kids. Now we are happy and comfy, even though the value has dropped 5%, so what? 14 years later I am free and clear and those “haters” rent paying suckers will still be complaining how even higher the prices are than today.

BT
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Akubi
December 21st, 2006 at 12:00 pm

An annual salary of well over 100K is needed to comfortably purchase houses like these where I live: http://marinpos.blogspot.com/ and I wouldn’t exactly call them mansions.
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Mark
December 21st, 2006 at 12:14 pm

Hi Casey

I’m happy that you had a good time in that Real Estate Investing College. It seems like you really needed it. I’m also happy that you finally returned back to reality and again trying to deal with all your problems. Some time ago I told you about Tax Deeds and how they have a big potential to save your financial future and avoid bankruptcy. I hope that you had a chance to learn about Tax Deeds and Tax Liens and seriously considering investing in them since they have very low risk and a lot higher return compared to most other traditional well known investments like stock market and traditional Real Estate investing. In my honest and sincere opinion they are one of the few creative ways that can get you out of this extreme debt. To make it easier for you to invest in Tax Liens, here’s the link to a good company: TLA - Tax Lien Agents - Home. Basically this company has a lot of experienced experts in Tax Liens that invest your money in Tax Liens for you. To start investing in Tax Liens, the minimum amount of money you will probably need is about $200-$500. Since this isn’t a lot of money you can start investing in them ASAP. The sooner you start the sooner you might get out of this huge debt and avoid bankruptcy.

Another suggestion that I have for you is about what to do with your remaining houses that you can’t afford to fix. I suggest for you to lease them out to tenants with an option to buy. In a lease offer, offer them some incentive for them to fix your houses before they can move in. The incentive can be anything. One example is living in your houses rent free for several months. In other words they will fix your houses before moving in in exchange of rent free living for several months. I also suggest for you to rent out your houses that you already fixed and can’t sell in order to lower the monthly cash flow burn rate. That way you will accumulate less debt each month and buy yourself more time to get out of this financial hole that you dug for yourself. Another suggestion is for you to get a second full time job. In this way if you will have two full time jobs you will accumulate enough investment capital that might help you avoid bankruptcy. In this world many people go to college and have a full time job or have two full time jobs at the same time in order to support themselves. That’s why it’s no big deal if you will have two full time jobs. Your wife also should get a full time job while she’s going to college. It’s completely possible to be in college and have a full time job. Many people do that. In my opinion due to the increased seriousness of your situation you and your wife have no choice but to get yourselves any kind of full time jobs ASAP, especially since you just lost vital revenue from google ads. Getting a second full time job will also mean a lot less time for this blog. That will be ok since you have priorities that are a lot more important than this blog. I hope you will consider these suggestions very seriously and act on them ASAP.

From reading your blog for about a month I learned a lot about Real Estate investing. That’s why I was able to offer you many of the above suggestions. Thanks for creating this blog, accepting responsibility publicly for legal mistakes that you made and teaching people about Real Estate investing and how not to repeat the same mistakes that you made. At the end your blog, no matter what many people say, helps a lot of people and brings real value to their lives. From reading your blog I can also see that you probably got yourself over the head with your situation. It seems you might not be mature enough to deal with this financial situation that looks increasingly hopeless as time goes by. In other words you got into a situation that you might not be ready for. I really hope with God’s help you will mature quickly enough to get out of this financial mess and avoid bankruptcy. Never forget that with God’s help anything is possible in this world. That’s why no matter how hard and hopeless it will get never give up. Good luck! :)
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Click-Happy
December 21st, 2006 at 12:15 pm

OH MAN! Bummer dude! Man, we wuz jus tryin to help a brother out….sorry bout that….No income streams now, huh? OUCH!!! I’d collapse in bed too man….until I started jonesin’ for a wheet grass shot or some fresh Jamba Juice….later dude!
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Kevin
December 21st, 2006 at 12:20 pm

“Man am I starting to have a hard time getting anything done”

Only way out Casey - declare BK.
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Me
December 21st, 2006 at 12:28 pm

Poor Casey.

I gotta admit, the vitriol from your fans is a bit much. I mean, dang, you’re already going to suffer for years to come, regardless of their comments.

Take it easy, dude.
At least you’re 24.
It’s a lot harder to start over when you’re older.
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Jerry
December 21st, 2006 at 12:33 pm

“Man this really sucks… Google banned me from AdSense, probably for click fraud on the part of my blog readers… ”

Yeah, that does suck. $60 a month is still $60 a month.

Are there other ad networks you can look into?
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Fellow Slacker
December 21st, 2006 at 12:36 pm

Man, Bobo, you sure pushed a lot of peoples’ buttons…

Casey if you’re banned from AdSense, then there’s no reason not to post the Oct-Nov earnings now. And on a positive note: you’ve actually inspired me to get some stuff done today. I keep telling myself, “Don’t be a Casey… don’t be a Casey…”
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Jim
December 21st, 2006 at 12:48 pm

Hey “bobo” (there’s a good restaurant with that name on Lombard, btw, check it out) and “belchorama”, I am also in the same position, recent (’03) Ph.D in engineering working in the Bay Area (I own a teensy company with six employees) making slightly under $140k. Its all funny-money in the end, if your salary is $95k or $140k or $200k doesn’t really matter one bit these days as you can’t afford anything here on a single income or even a dual income (my bro and his wife, both recent Ph.Ds from Ivy League schools have a combined $300k and are also priced out).

I actually had a girlfriend break up with me over this issue–we were getting serious, she turned 31, and I declared one day (this summer) that I would “never” buy any real estate at these prices. Two weeks later we broke up and I never heard from her again!! Maybe it was those Asian family values showing through… can’t say I care either way though.

Oh, and after this posts, I’d love to hear from someone who lives in Houston or Boise tell me what kind of house / car / wife I could buy in their city. Maybe we can start our own, highly uninteresting blog “making $100k in the Bay and can’t pay (the mortgage)” .com
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Dumbfounded
December 21st, 2006 at 12:51 pm

Geez Casey. For once in your life take some responsibility and start eating that elephant already……

First bite: Mail all the keys back to the lenders with an apology note and ask them to prepare deed in lieu papers.

Once this is done, you will start to see the light.
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David W.
December 21st, 2006 at 12:59 pm

Ha ha ha ha…can’t stop laughing!

Too bad you don’t answer the tough questions Casey. It’s okay, there are so many people just waiting for you to crash and burn.

Like the guy who said he was going to go to your BK hearing and bring proof of all the fraud you’ve committed. And the guy who has been calling everyone at the city and state level to get you investigated.

I hope Chris doesn’t mind answering any questions! Hope that doesn’t mean he won’t hire you full-time.

P.S. A lot of us have seen what your wife looks like. She’ll do fine on her own.
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Charles_Martel
December 21st, 2006 at 1:00 pm

Casey my son,

The biggest mistake you made was involving your wife in this mess. Because now you have nowhere to hide, credit-wise.

She should file for divorce, dumping all of the CC debt on you. It worked for my ex-wife. I still can’t get an AE card (although I own a couple of homes and have a real FICO score in the high 700’s)–and this happened over 25 years ago. Tell her to get in touch with the phrases “Innocent” and “Injured” spouse.

I am not a hater as much as I am a resenter. Yes, I resent your behavior. You get to this country on a pass, and you (and probably your whole family of flippers, who I think you’re fronting for) and you do your best to try and screw up the “American Dream” for millions of folks who’ve been here a lot longer than you.

Xenophobe? You bet your butt. When it comes to immigrant loosers like you.
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Jobu
December 21st, 2006 at 1:06 pm

I know of several lenders that have recently shut down. Typically it is because they are forced to buy back several hundred million dollars of loans they made and then sold off which went bad.
Lenders are asking for more comps on appraisals and more appraisal reviews. However, 100% loans are still readily available in the subprime market to anyone with a 580 or above credit score. 90% is the FNMA max on cash out loans and has been for some time.
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Craven Moorehead
December 21st, 2006 at 1:13 pm

“This morning I did wake up ontime and got up but then looked back at the cozy bed (and wife sleeping soundly) and thought about all the problems and collapsed back into bed for another couple of hours.”

Classic. You’re so stressed out over your debt load and all of your other problems so what do you do? Ummm….go back to sleep.

And the click fraud is hilarious. You have been encouraging this behavior right here via some of your comments and bloggers’ comments you let pass! Of course your only source of revenue is going to get pulled out from under you, that’s the Casey Serin way.

I would suggest to you what hundreds of bloggers have already suggested. But why offer sound advice? I say borrow as much and spend as much as you can. Reading about you filing BK at this point would take away all of the fun. Please keep going to seminars and sleeping in.
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Jobu
December 21st, 2006 at 1:19 pm

300k per year and priced out? I somehow doubt that. They might be priced out of what they ‘want’ or what they think they deserve.

300k = 25k gross per month. Even by the STRICT old time approval standards of 28% of gross monthly income for a house payment (very conservative), that qualifies you for a payment of 7k per month. At that monthly payment, they could qualify for 100% financing at 7% (jumbo loan) for 30 years on a 1,050,000 loan amount.

This does not take into account other debt, bad credit, and some other variables, but simply speaking, they are not priced out of ANY markets in this country, unless as I said, their WANTS are too high.
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Sac Realtor
December 21st, 2006 at 1:20 pm

Casey: Cheer up since you can flip out of all the homes in the Spring while stupid PhDs like bo bo keep working like suckers since they don’t know how to flip homes.
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Cow_tipping
December 21st, 2006 at 1:27 pm

OK I think you are the luckiest mofo in the world.

Why ???

You wrote

“This morning I did wake up ontime and got up but then looked back at the cozy bed (and wife sleeping soundly) and thought about all the problems and collapsed back into bed for another couple of hours. That only brings temporary relief and more stress when I wake up. Man am I starting to have a hard time getting anything done ”

She is still sleeping with you … unbelivable. How did you get so lucky …
I know of one dude who has been with 2 women at the same time - and they were brazillian too, but you have booted him from the top of the ladder at this point.
Alternatively - I think she has some serious self esteem issues. When you are locked up, hopefully she can get some psychiatric help.
I missed 1 payment cos the stupid reminder/statement didn’t show and Washignton Mutual called me 3 days after it was due, I tripped over myself to run to the computer to pay it and paid the extra $50 and thanked the dude profusely (never was late on one in 3+ years till then) and my wife shot me a look that was a mixture of equal parts contempt and criticism and disappointment … it shook me. Same thing when my credit card was taken by HSBC and I never opened their freaking bill saying I dont have a HSBC card, and 3 months later I got a call … I again got that same look, this time for like $30 I missed.

Your wife is either got serious serious serious self worth issues or your are freaking lucky lucky lucky …
Cool.
Cow_tipping.
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Aaron
December 21st, 2006 at 1:32 pm

Hey Jim,
Your bro and his wife aren’t priced out. at 300k you can easily borrow 1million. Of course they may not have the house they want out there but they could easily get a nice condo etc. To many people these days think they ought to move right into a 4 bedroom 3,000 sq ft house as their first starter house.

More is not always better. In fact that’s the problem with this country.
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Brock
December 21st, 2006 at 1:34 pm

Jim,

Here in North Texas (DFW area) you can get a brand new 3/2/2 in a nice town with a decent front and back yard for $130k easily. Older homes you can find 3/2/2 for around $100k to $110k. But even here there are pricey areas. I looked at a 3/2/2 townhome in a ritzy area of Dallas for $400k, and there are plenty of upscale neighborhoods throughout the metroplex where you can find houses in the $300k range, but those are mostly McMansions with 3000sf, 4/3/3 or better, media room, formal living and dining room, giant kitchens and master bathrooms, etc.

I see tons of people making $100k living in $300k houses (again, these are either really nice, new houses or in exclusive areas) and driving BMW’s and Lexuses. Around here a “300k house” means a REALLY nice/big house or something very close to downtown Dallas. The California houses that Casey is selling for $300k would sell for less than $100k around here (unless the land values are very high — again, very close to downtown Dallas etc.).

Just to give you pictures, here is a nice house that I just found in Fort Worth for $110k (local realtor’s site, no affiliation whatsoever, just found this guy on Craigslist):

http://www.strangeteam.com/Nav.....1115127%26

Nice neighborhood, 1800sf, looks nicer than any of Casey’s $300k California homes — for $110k!
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Cow_tipping
December 21st, 2006 at 1:41 pm

Jim
December 21st, 2006 at 12:48 pm Hey “bobo” (there’s a good restaurant with that name on Lombard, btw, check it out) and “belchorama”, I am also in the same position, recent (’03) Ph.D in engineering working in the Bay Area (I own a teensy company with six employees) making slightly under $140k. Its all funny-money in the end, if your salary is $95k or $140k or $200k doesn’t really matter one bit these days as you can’t afford anything here on a single income or even a dual income (my bro and his wife, both recent Ph.Ds from Ivy League schools have a combined $300k and are also priced out).

I actually had a girlfriend break up with me over this issue–we were getting serious, she turned 31, and I declared one day (this summer) that I would “never” buy any real estate at these prices. Two weeks later we broke up and I never heard from her again!! Maybe it was those Asian family values showing through… can’t say I care either way though.

Oh, and after this posts, I’d love to hear from someone who lives in Houston or Boise tell me what kind of house / car / wife I could buy in their city. Maybe we can start our own, highly uninteresting blog “making $100k in the Bay and can’t pay (the mortgage)” .com

You want to cry dont you:- OK I’ll oblige
I made 84K in my best year (2004). I made 76K in 03, ~55K in 05 (7 month partially employed), and on track to break 70K in 06 again with a few weeks of time off.

My 2723 sqft brand new Centex house with a trench across the street and a hill behind (no neighbors in either - just 2 left and right) in a subdivision that butts up to 2 others that were 1.5 - 2X the price per sqft average in Charlotte NC - 14 miles from center of town in a desirable area, not the ghetto - cost me 151K in 03. I got 5% on a straight fully amortising 15 year mortgage.

BTW I used to make 90K in SFO in 2002 and gladly took a 18K cut in pay to move to Charlotte NC.

Here is some stats if you dont quite know:- Weather last week Highs in the 70’s, lows in the 50’s. Dry and sunny.
That isn’t quite normal. But we do see that every other week in winter. This week is average. Highs 50’s lows 30’s and cloudy today and rain tommorow.
Summer highs are ~90’s and humid. Winters are dry and mild.

And just like in CA - A wife would cost you your heart - I know mine does. Sometimes she will take a bite out of me … but only when I want her to … I dunno I am Indian so maybe that’s why.

A car - might not be much cheaper, but you can actually drive it instead of sit in it in traffic. gas is right ~2.10 a gallon if I recall.

Cool.
Cow_tipping.
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Tony Soprano
December 21st, 2006 at 1:43 pm

Man, and I thought my life was rough…

I was worried that maybe some of the crew from New York “Unplugged” you. It does sound like you’re learning though. Look at A.J. He sleeps in ’till who knows when and has life on easy street. Life ain’t gonna be so easy soon though. He’s about to get a quick lesson in how to “talk to people”. I think I’ll let Paulie take him out and show him how to earn.

Things are good with me. Just bought a new Rolex for my Goomah. Got a new nav system for the boat. Almost like the Golden Days.

You need a crew. Get some hard pipe hittin mooleys and go to work. That Jamba Juice shit is plugging up your colon and cutting the oxygen off to your brain.

I’f I was you, I’d lawyer up and then maybe take a trip down south. Go heavy!
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George Castanza
December 21st, 2006 at 1:43 pm

I agree with an earlier post, if your struggling for even a regular cash flow not including your debts what business do you have belonging to a gym.
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Things BK Will *not* fix
December 21st, 2006 at 1:50 pm

Almost everyone here keeps saying the same thing: “file BK and get on with your life”, as if BK is some magic wand he can wave at his mountain of problems and make them disappear. It’s not. Filing BK will only trade one set of his problems for another. Hint: the BK court judge will not look too kindly on the fraud Casey has committed.

Fraud-ridden mortgage loans aside, Casey has lots of other problems that BK has no hope of ever fixing:

1- Lack of education
2- Lack of discipline
3- Lack of experience with the real world
4- Lack of resolve
5- Lack of a backbone
6- Inability to deal with reality
7- Being a spolied brat with a false sense of entitlement
8- Willingness to blindly follow those peddling fool’s gold as a way to get rich the quick and easy way, caused by all the above.

Filing BK is not going to fix Casey’s character flaws and is hardley the end of the disaster he has created for himself and those close to him. The best solution to his problems is having reality replace his fantsy world. And this will probably have to be forced upon him by Federal or State authorities.

How to tell if he’s been transported to the real world? As long as he thinks RK is his guru savior he’s still living in his fantasy land.
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Jim
December 21st, 2006 at 1:59 pm

@Jobu,

They live in Palo Alto, where the cheapest run-down, fixer-upper single-family home was $1.55 mil last time I checked (that one sold quick, too).

I guess they could move to Milpitas but… why? The schools suck and the traffic is awful etc. etc. Who wants a million-dollar albatross around their neck when they’re 28 and prices are dropping??? (ok, except for Mr. Casey).

@Mr. Cow-tipping, NC is nice but my company is here so I’m stuck with California until I either succeed or go bankrupt trying…. but in the event that does come to pass some years from now, I’ll definitely be on the next plane out east.
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Monty Burns
December 21st, 2006 at 2:04 pm

Try to enjoy the holiday, seriously.

I think that you’re screwed, but maybe a nice frugal Christmas will bring you a little peace.
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Darren
December 21st, 2006 at 2:07 pm

Casey..you are a classic Biopolar …really….there is no way out of this mess but one way …and you know what that is…ok so you declare bk and everything ..you end up with nothing - its not as bad as it sounds casey ..its something that teaches you what is important ..its something that makes you think damned hard the second time around…and most importantly it removes the blinkers to materialism and trends…..and most importantly ..you will be able to breathe laugh and live again..i didnt declare bk but toughed it out after losing every single thing i had ..and it was the most important lesson of my life…my priorities in business are very clear ..i am now very successful and most importantly im not afraid to fail…but of most importance is my wife and kids …i will not risk anything to cause them hardship.
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LostCause
December 21st, 2006 at 2:08 pm

Casey,

Business meetings do not end at 2AM. You are obviously dealing with someone who deals with nonstandard businesss practices, and these people are called crooks. You have good intentions, you may even be right about a lot of things — I have two freinds who are “rich” because of real estate. But they both have college degrees, and they both deal in cheap multi-family rentals — nothing more than they can afford, and close enough to collect the rents. Both are very frugal. You have very poor judgement, but at least you are open to feedback, and that is very good. Get out of the cult. You only need yourself, not a guru, rich dad etc.

Do realize that you can get out from under this rock in six months? I did it — all my problems are over, and money is in the bank. My family home was forclosed, and I was lucky to sell it before the bank did. Maybe, for you, even less time, if you mial the keys like dumfounded says. A forclosure is like having a BK on your credit report regardless. The last thing you should be concerned about is credit, frankly — if you learn ONE lesson it is how bad credit can be. You are too honest for that — the people who trumpet leverage are the BK artists who go around stiffing people. Listen to the good advice that you get here.
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Unbelievable
December 21st, 2006 at 2:17 pm

@ bo bo

If you can’t afford a home with a 6 figure salary where you live, you need to consider moving.

You also need to dump that whiney ass fiancee of yours.
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belchorama
December 21st, 2006 at 2:21 pm

Casey,

I’ve never been in nearly as bad a position as you’ve stuck yourself in. Not by a longshot. But, when things are going badly for me, I find it useful to contemplate that none of this actually matters. We’re all dust in the wind, man. No matter how much good or bad you do, no matter how good or bad you feel, in the end you’ll take the same dirt nap, and none of this will matter one iota. I don’t know what religion you have, but I think somewhere someone suggested that you are a Mormon. That seems to mesh with your naive outlook and general lack of intelligence. I could see you and your wife as magic-underpants-wearing types. Anyway, my point was, that’s a lot of nonsense, and it’s unlikely that anyone or anything will judge you or determine your eternal fate based on what you do until you take that dirt nap, so none of this ultimately matters. Even if you become someone’s boyfriend in prison and take it in the rear a couple of times a day, that won’t make a bit of difference in the big picture. So, sleep in tomorrow, go get yourself a Jamba Juice, and don’t worry so much. Your financial situation is an absurd disaster, and it will probably be at least a few years before you can recover and maybe become the next Kiyosaki-like blemish on the ass of America, but ultimately, who cares.
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CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
December 21st, 2006 at 2:25 pm

links from Technoratithat I ignored by staying unplugged. The unknown dangers eat at me every minute and sabotage any hope for any down time. Avoiding the stress of dealing with problems causes even more stress and more problems. (It’s time to face reality…) 19 Interesting CommentsFiled under other Casey Serin: I’m a 24 yr old real estate investor from Sacramento CA. After going to a few seminars I bought 8 houses in 8 months in 4 states with no money down looking to fix ‘n flip. I made
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Cow_tipping
December 21st, 2006 at 2:28 pm

Jim
December 21st, 2006 at 1:59 pm @Jobu,

Snip

@Mr. Cow-tipping, NC is nice but my company is here so I’m stuck with California until I either succeed or go bankrupt trying…. but in the event that does come to pass some years from now, I’ll definitely be on the next plane out east.

Yea I am lucky I have one of those semi generic non location specific skills. I know of old friends from the Bay area who moved to Brazil.
BTW NC has a lot of available high tech talent. Especially Raleigh (not Charlotte we are a banking city) and ironically in a lot of aspects raleigh is better. Cheaper fewer problems with traffic and what not. Better located by being 200 miles from WA DC instead of ~400 like charlotte. essentially a lot of NE and CA transplants here. 1/2 the freaking state is out of state plates.
Anyway you’re probably able to rent for 1/4th the house payment now, so enjoy it while you can. High tech and IT jobs have drifted across the ocean from CA anyway so the million dollar shacks will soon become crack houses cos all the jobs went. Then go buy the one that seems to have seen the least meth. That’s my plan. Buying Casey’s Sac house for 20 cents on the dollar. That’s why I am following this train wreck. Oops … I said that out loud … bwaaaaa … dont you copy my idea …
Cool.
Cow_tipping.
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80/20 rule
December 21st, 2006 at 2:49 pm

Casey,
You probable has too much to do in your december goal. But remember no one can do everything they plan to.

The trick is to prioritize what is most important to you each day and do that most important task and is OK to leave the rest for another day. Remember the 80/20 rule that if you do only 20% of what you plan for the day, you are doing very well over time. 80% of all thing around you are not important at the moment. Just like 80% of the comment in the blog here is not important to you or anyone.

By the way, in stressful time, good rest and keeping up good health is vitally important. You will need a clear mind to make good decision and a healthy body to execute the task.
Hence forget the 5am sleepy morning, instead sleep well and shoot for the 20% accomplishment.
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Liberal_Elite
December 21st, 2006 at 2:52 pm

Casey,
I admit it was somone from this site that got your Google Ads Banned.

http://www.whofailedtoday.com/.....?id=176744
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Aaron
December 21st, 2006 at 2:53 pm

looks like there are a few places in Palo Alto under a million. As i said before…your starter home isn’t neccesarily your dream home. If you are waiting for that then you will be a bit older.
here is the link to all sales in Palo Alto from january through july of this year:

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/....._sales.cgi
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Robert Coté
December 21st, 2006 at 2:58 pm

…as if BK is some magic wand he can wave at his mountain of problems and make them disappear. It’s not.

Of course not. BK -sooner- is in his readers’ interests and his as well. BK is a forgone event. The discussion is one of sooner and voluntary versus later and involuntary.

Things Casey is stuck with:

Liability due to -proven- and -prosecuted- fraud.
Taxes.
Damaged relationships.

Things Casey can dissipate:

CCard debt.
Future debt accrual.

So far in these three extraordinary months by Tim’s estimate his efforts have yielded $60-80 thousand in additional debt. Freakin’ tax late penalties from Dec 11th are $600 alone. I know, noise, just like the $37 (1jj) Jamba Juice overdraft. The Jetta Junker (1JJ) barely qualifies as worth tracking. He shoulda “bought” a “business car” and tried to claim it as part of livelyhood. That’s the stuff a good lawyer coulda tole him in SEPTEMBER. Too late now, the best he can hope is to squirrel cash. Not advise, just sumptin’ I herd on da street.

I’m frankly tired of Casey running up a bill on my tab. Begs the ethical question; you see a robbery. Is it your problem? Jean Valjean Casey ain’t.
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Tim, from Monterey Bay area
December 21st, 2006 at 3:01 pm

Amateur psychiatric diagnoses come cheap…a bunch of us here have said you have many of the characteristic traits of someone with ADD/ADHD (short attention span, always moving on to new schemes…) and Bipolar Personality Disorder/Manic-Depressive (swings from “we are blessed!” optimism to “sleep all day” depression).

So I’ll skip the diagnosis here. But, you do probably do need a fair amount of help in the mental health department. More than most, judging from what your actions have done to you and your family.

What I’d rather say you have is “Ostrich Syndrome”:

– you think that not opening that huge pile of mail will mean you can delay dealing with some issue

– instead of tackling the most critical issues, you go off to Phoenix for more of the same kind of “education” that got you started down this miserable road

– you start apprenticing with “Rich Dad,” with the help of “Rich Dad’s Son,” then give that up and move on to other schemes…more sweet deals (that have not materialized even _once_ in the three months you’ve been blogging….), then you talk about a $50K special loan ($45K to “catch up” your properties back to where they were 3 months ago (!!) and $5K for marketing them, then that goes nowhere, then you’re talking about a 36% APR loan, then the trip to Phoenix, then giving sermons in a church and talking about “helping others.”

– Meanwhile, your bills go unopened, phone calls pile up, and you still haven’t even done a half-assed balance sheet to show you where you are (and for the Nth time, spending 30 hours entering hotel and Jamba Juice receipts into Microsoft Money is NOT the same as doing a basic balance sheet!)

– You manically oscillate between trivial things like getting up at 0600 and “going to the gym” when the _REAL_issue is tacking the concrete issues you need urgently to solve.

(Note: vague action items like “sell houses in December” is NOT what you need to be thinking about. For various reasons, often talked about here. You are way, way past “developing new business plans” (these are not necessarily your precise phrases, as I don’t have the time or initiative to wade through hundreds of comments to quote them exactly, but they capture the sense of your “lists of things to do.”)

You are like an ostrich who thinks that if he buries his head in the sand, or pulls the covers up over his head in bed, or jogs to Jamba Juice for a “wheat grass shot,” that you are getting something done…or at least delaying the bad news.

And yet you have found over and over again that ignoring things you need to get done makes the outcome worse.

Big surprise. The Chinese fire drill you went through with the Angleridge foreclosure, blowing money to get listings taken up and down, only to find out you’d stalled and dilly-dallied way too long and the foreclosure was unstoppable. (I’ll bet there are at least two more that are unfolding in exactly the same way even as we speak….)

Another word for the Ostrich Syndrome is “denial.” Pick whichever phrasing one likes–it’s the same deal.

You are incapable of handling your own (or your marriage’s) financie affairs. And your wife, an ACCOUNTING student (!!), apparently is taking a hands-off attitude, which I find to be be one of the most bizarre aspects of this whole train wreck. Surely she must understand the implications of this for her own financial future, for her abillity to be licensed as a CPA several years down the road? If not, after 3 years in a 2-year college, perhaps she is just not cut out to ever be an accountant…as an ex-girlfriend use to say, “you need to take a look at that.”

By the way, you urgently need to really, truly consult a California bankruptcy specialist. Some of your fantasies about just having your wife take the fall (”BK”) are ludicrous. Bankruptcy has gotten more difficult to do after the laws changed a year ago (the changes were partly to make escaping from careless spending and fraudulent activity more difficult).

The fact that you–the marriage–used “her” credit cards to finance real estate deals that she was a) aware of, by your own words, and b) that she even co-signed for in some of the cases, and c) doesn’t matter anyway, as CA is a community property state (you both share gains and debts accrued after the marriage began), this use of “her” credit cards does NOT mean you can get her to “BK” just her credit cards and go merrily on your way with other “sweet deals.” A bankruptcy is an involved process, and all of your assets and liabilities will be on the table.

(There are also various parts of the law that deal with which creditors get paid, and in what order, etc. This is why you need really detailed legal advice and actual filing of the paperwork, not just phone call consultations and vague advice.)

Bottom line, which you need to face, is that you approximately $400,000 underwater, below zero, if and when all liabilities are liquidated. You may be below this, if the properties short sell for even less and creditors either go after you for defrauding them (as you have acknowledged you did, though you say you “intended” to pay back the money you defrauded them of) or if the IRS and FTB send you a tax assessment for the 1099-reported loan write-offs.

Bottom line, you monthly burn rate is between $15 and 20K.

Both of these estimates are what I take from you summary of properties. Perhaps your balance sheet has more accurate numbers….a scary thought is that you have never made such a table, even using approximate figures.

You cannot make a dent in these numbers by borrowing more money each month. “Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul” and all.

Whether bankruptcy is even an option for you and your wife is a matter for the lawyers and courts to decide, but you surely cannot climb out of this $400,000 hole with anything short of winning the lottery or drawing to an inside straight in a poker game you can’t afford to even join.

Time to get your head out of the sand. Time for you to stop the crap about “attracting success” and “finding $1000 an hour” deals (one of your fantasies in November, as I recall). Time for you to spend at least 8 hours a day opening your mail, answering your phone, dealing with deadlines, and arranging for your insolvency/bankruptcy.

And forget about “working on sweet deals” (they haven’t happened, they won’t happen) and forget about “more education.” And even forget about “media interviews”–have you calculated just how much the week of blog hype you spend on something like the “USA Today” ends up costing you? You distract yourself for days or weeks at a time with your upcoming trip to meet RK, your interviews, your “education” in Phoenix….

An ostrich with his head in the sand.

–Tim, from the Monterey area
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Casey is a Genius
December 21st, 2006 at 3:05 pm

Ahhhhhh sorry to hear about your adsense revenues being cutoff. But I hope you get my 50+ clicks before they cut you off. So does that mean you’re ready to post your revenues now? Why so secretive. You post your bank statement, your 2.2 Million Debts, but not your ad revenue. WhY??? Afraid of losing the sympathy of your fellow readers. You definitely are a shady crook. You say how you aired out all your dirty laundry and whatever happens is what happens. But staying up late with business meetings??? I call BS. ONly up to no good and more con planning to do huh? What is this ResCom Scam that I hear about too. Shady…Shady…Shady.

Well don’t worry Casey. There will be at least 2.2 Million others that will be joining you in the future. So get that book ready. Ohhh I’m sorry. Minus your 5 houses. I guess that will make 2,199,995 people joining you soon

http://realestate.yahoo.com/Re.....ec892.html
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LostCause
December 21st, 2006 at 3:09 pm

Seriously, Casey — why don’t you at least get your real estate license? You have no credentials! Next, take classes at your local JC. http://www.losrios.edu/ Health Care pays well, or transfer to UC Davis. California has the finest public higher education system in the world. Take advantage of that. You will always have regrets otherwise. What are you going to do when your wife wants some little Caseys? You need to make a good living. A new year beckons. Make a decision, and stick with that decision. Other people will decide for you otherwise. Set a date when you want this to be over. It is work to unbury oneself. Turn off the late night TV — don’t run your life off of an infomercial! And good luck to you in the new year. Lots of people start over, and some many times.
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Harry
December 21st, 2006 at 3:10 pm

I live in the bay area and make $400k a year and can’t afford to buy a house. My wife is going to leave me and I cry my self to sleep every night. Why did I have to college. I hate America.
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Casey Serin
December 21st, 2006 at 3:17 pm

Tim, you have a point there…. it’s a good idea to make a simple spreadsheet of everything that I owe right now just to get an idea of the “big picture” before I spend a lot of time entering receipts.

I think, like you said, it’s somewhere in the $200-400k below water when everything is accounted for.

And yes I do feel like I am doing the “head-in-the-sand” thing sometimes…
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Stock Forums
December 21st, 2006 at 3:22 pm

Yeah you do have it bad, at least you did this to your self. At age 24 I faced $50,000 in debt I could not pay because one of my reletives decided it was a good idea to get some credit cards in my name. I called them up threatened them and stuff. It went on for months untill finally they were delinquent on all the cards they had. WTF how does this happen, right. I ended paying it off with my wife. It took almost a year. Several times I thought about kicking the snot out of them, but what good would that do? So any how at a minimum you did this to your self.
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NotoriousPSU
December 21st, 2006 at 3:23 pm

Harry,

You’re either the most awesome troll ever or the most overpaid retard on the planet. Either way, congratulations! You’ve clearly reached some sort of pinnacle in life.
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Miguel
December 21st, 2006 at 3:39 pm

“but I think somewhere someone suggested that you are a Mormon.”

Close, but there’s one extra letter that snuck in by mistake.
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Me
December 21st, 2006 at 3:40 pm

Make Tim go away.

He has no sense of humor, he’s repetitive but the worst part is that he jabbers on for so long. DAMN.

I’m unemployed and I don’t spend as much time on Casey as Tim. If I had millions, I’d be out doing something else.

Come on, kill the deadwood!
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Jim
December 21st, 2006 at 3:47 pm

@Aaron: I looked at your link. I couldn’t find ANY single-family homes in Palo Alto under a million, although there were a few in EAST Palo Alto which, believe me, is a totally different story (Think Oakland vs. Berkeley). Except there are no safe areas in East Palo Alto unlike Oakland which I’m told has some neighborhoods that are not a total ghetto. But I digress.

When a young couple who “only” make $300k/year are effectively priced out of middle-class housing in their town, I have to wonder who, exactly, is buying all this real estate? At least, I used to wonder until I read Casey’s blog…. then I realized that there are people in the world who apparently cannot even do simple math, and who have no qualms about committing financial suicide to “own” a piece of real-estate (even if it is only for a few months).
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BK Judge
December 21st, 2006 at 3:48 pm

Casey,

The RE industry burned the banks in the last crash from ‘91 to ‘95. The banks were smart and waited til everyone was in the black and then lobbied to revamp the BK laws since ‘97 and have worked to get passed dozens of new BK laws totally unnoticed as everyone partied throughout the recent RE price run up.

Here’s a briefing on the new laws:

There used to be Chapter 7 and 13. 7 Meant you pay back what you can and 13 meant you walk away from everything. Not so anymore.

Now your situation will be reviewed by the court and if the court decides that you have any assets now or in the future, they are all up for grabs and up to a judge to decide what you will pay back. There is no more “walk away” free and clear.

Oh the surprise that awaits so many in your boat!

Here’s a list of items on the table that never were before:

* Present income
* Future income
* Assets - cars, boats, all personal property
* 401K - All present and future retirement funds
* Inheritance and/or trust funds
* Much, much more!

One of the biggest factors deciding what will be paid back will be based on what point did you realize that you were in trouble and did you continue to borrow after that point?

Good luck and thank the banks who lent all of this money out so easily. They also wrote and lobbied for these new laws.

Cheers!
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Dont enhale the Serin Gas
December 21st, 2006 at 3:51 pm

Center for Responsible Lending is a joke. Those #’s are so out of whack its not even funny. There will be an increase, you bet, but what you are going to see more is an increase in auto repos and cc chargeoffs, which is fine because those crooks at Capital 1, Providian, et all pray on people offering them more than enough credit.

Then again none of his would be a problem if people learned how to be reponsible
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Tim, from Monterey Bay area
December 21st, 2006 at 3:55 pm

Good to hear you are now talking about doing a simple spreadsheet, a balance sheet. Excel is easy to learn, and there are even easier to use freebie/open source spreadsheets which can handle Excel formats. For a computer-savvy person, should take no more than 2-3 hours to learn to use it, basically.

But doing it manually works well, too. Though the additions and subtractions will not be automatically, and “scenarios” are harder to do (scenarios meaning: different assumptions about final sales prices, tax rates, commissions, etc.), the gist is still there.

I’ve been running a “mental spreadsheet,” in my head, using the numbers you provide in your “properties” section, and from comments about price reductions, etc.

I’ll summarize _my_ picture below, minus any of the hard numbers. This fits the format I’ve used in my own balance sheet of assets and liablities, with an emphasis on _TIME_ running in the “normal” direction (horizontally, in the columns):

(Rows are easy to do in ASCII such as we are using here, but columns will get screwed up by tabs and proportional fonts, etc., so I’ll just indicate the columns by “JAN FEB MAR…SEP OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB….”. You can of course use an even finer granularity, such as “week” (as in “WW50″ for the 50th week of the year, etc.) Or a coarser granularity, such as by quarters. (This is how most businesses report, publicly, but this is too coarse for your uses, and even corporations have monthly and weekly snapshots, reported internally.)

Here’s the rough idea of the kind of spreadsheet or table I would use: (don’t duplicate what I am using, as I can already see changes I would make even as I type these rows and columns in….the beauty of doing an Excel or similar spreadsheet is the ease with which fine-tuning can be done, or rows and columns added, or merge, all while the underlying calculations are preserved)

Rows \ Columns JAN FEB MAR APR …. NOV DEC

Burdette, Sacramento
Purchase Section:
Purchase Price
Commissions/Costs
Details (broken out as you wish)
Carrying Costs Section:
Loans
Loan 1
Loan 2
Monthly maintenance, bills
Monthly taxes
TOTAL DEBT SERVICE
Income Section:
Rent
Rental Costs
TOTAL PROCEEDS (IN)
NET MONTHLY:
Sales Section:
Asking Price
Estimate of Likely Sale Price
Commissions/Costs
Net Sales Price
Taxes

TOTAL MONTHLY:
TOTAL SALES PROCEEDS
TOTAL LIKELY NET PROCEEDS

Larchmont, North Highlands

(repeat, as above…with a spreadsheet, this is straightforward to do)

…ditto for rest of properties

And past properties, such as the Calla Way propertyy, should be included.

The beauty of a balance sheet, especially one done via a PC-based spreadsheet, is the ease with which “oh, I just remembered I should take into account blah blah” can be added as an extra row or column.

Also, you can start with a VERY simple table of rows and columns, just the properties as the rows and some of the various financials for each as the columns….this is the kind of “mental spreadsheet” I am referring to when I say I’ve kept one for your properties.

A spreadsheet also saves labor by not having your re-invent or recalculate each time some assumption–such as the expected sales price–changes.

It allows very fast recalculation (this is really a simple spreadsheet, so recalc will be nearly instantaneous) based on “what if”scenarios…”what happens if Rio Rancho gets sold for $410K?” “What happens if my tax rate is capped at 25% vs. what if the IRS treats the gains as ordinary income?”

(Each of these can be added as a new row or column, and changed at will, with the new results calculated.)

Also, as you learn things about likely commissions, tax rates, etc., this becomes a place to put them.

And it is very likely that your “pile of receipts” for travel, lodging, etc., is a relatively small part of your big financial figure. Most of your losses are for the reasons we’ve talked about, not a 4-day stay in a motel in Dallas, for instance.

(Still, you can make estimates of these costs and include it in the table, as I outline above. As the estimates firm up, or get tabulated in Money, you can get closer to the true picture.)

This kind of balance sheet, a summing up of your main gains and losses, is what any bankruptcy lawyer is going to want to see. (And, no, it is not wise for you to pay someone else to do this, as they will not have the knowledge you have and communicating to them all the minutiae will take too much time and be too prone to error. The idea of the spreadsheet is to give you a “skeleton” on which to hang the varous bits and pieces of your financial puzzle.)

Good luck. I would start tonight, were I you.

–Tim from Monterey
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Dont enhale the Serin Gas
December 21st, 2006 at 3:56 pm

I love all the doomsday posts here, I work for one of the largest sub-prime mortgage originators in the country. We just had a great year, the companies that are suffering are the fly by night ones, good riddance. This is like eliminating all the unprofitable dotcoms. The ones that remain have strong business models and will continue to be successful. This is just like any other business.
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Unbelievable
December 21st, 2006 at 3:58 pm

Ca$ey says:

And yes I do feel like I am doing the “head-in-the-sand” thing sometimes…

Sometimes ? Make an appointment with a BK attorney tommorrow !
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Tim, from Monterey Bay area
December 21st, 2006 at 4:13 pm

One more thing about a balance sheet or spreadsheet…

I said I would “start tonight,” were I you. I would.

I would do it in stages:

Stage 1: The first, simple summary. Each of the properties, including the ones already disposed of (as they have tax consequences and may be linked in other ways, such as in the Calla-Burdette deal). A table of the 8 main properties and columns for the months where money flowed in or out of these properties. Include the obvious columns for purchase price.

(This will give you a snapshot of your assets and liabilities, your basic balance sheet.)

But you will see how more details can be added, so:

Stage 2: another, more detailed sheet, showing entries as rows or columns (your choice but I always like to preserve the horizontal axis, the columns, for time, as it makes graphing very easy and fits our standard model of time).

Stage 3: By about the time you’ve done a third iteration of your manual spreadsheet, on big “accounting pads” (ever wonder where they got that name? ha!), you’ll begin to fully appreciate the virtues of automating the recalculation and the ease of adding new rows and columns without having to change all the formulas by hand. This is when you should look into Excel or some comparable spreadsheet.

(For all I know, maybe Microsoft Money now has a basic spreadsheet built in…it didn’t used to, but now maybe it does. You should look into this. However, don’t get too hung up on having Money or any other program automatically manage your pile of receipts and feed them into rows and columns…you have all you really need to get the Big Picture rows and columns just from what you know you are paying each month, etc. The receipts from Holiday Inn or Macaroni Grill are really just like flies buzzing around the Big Picture. You can estimate these expenses and deductions and be pretty close to the final version, I would think.)

Stage 4. Once in some automated form, you can begin to do some serious “what if” analysis. And you’ll have a clean print-out to show to any bankruptcy lawyer you may hire.

I’m trying to sound positive here (hell, I’m almost getting the urge to fire up my copy of Excel and make this spreadsheet myself….it’s so easy, I can almost taste it already), but I have to ask this negativistic question:

Why has your wife, the accounting student, never done this, or suggested to you that you need to do it?

“Is a puzzlement.”

–Tim from Monterey
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crei-watcher
December 21st, 2006 at 4:26 pm

I live in the SF bay area.

All you “priced out of the market” whiners making 6 figures are ridiculous. Priced out of nice accomodations in SF, probably, but not in many of the decent burb cities. And why can’t you swing a home on that salary, probably a combo of 1 to 3 things:
1-Student loans
2-BMW, Audi, Lexus or some other luxury vehicle.
3- living your $$-$$$ lifestyle.

I won’t fault you for 1, but you can’t complain about not being able to buy a house because of it.

Casey, remember, being busy is not the same as being productive. Your trip to Pheonix cost you time and money and probaly is not going to get any of your 4 houses sold.

BK all the way around, send in the keys.
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Robert Coté
December 21st, 2006 at 4:30 pm

“Tim…. it’s a good idea to make a simple spreadsheet of everything that I owe…”

No, no, no.

Good Idea: Clip coupons.
Great Idea: Open mail.
Absolute necessity: 30 minute spreadsheet.

Bad Idea: Movies.
Really Bad Idea: Collige to get “riche.”
Fatal Mistake: Full speed ahead.

Which ones have your attention? Better yet, why are you reading my recreational musings? You need to be working Excel like a hedge manager.

Here, I’ll save you the trouble. The spreadsheet needs only a dozen datum in a 3×4 matrix. Ignore all else and track three months of 4 properties’ realistic sales price. You “bought” futures contracts on margin. I don’t expect you to understand that tech talk but even if you paid cash for all your “assets” you are ummmm, in a difficult place. You have to pay people to stop the bleeding. You don’t even have any bandages. This isn’t all that bad… yet. It just seems you can’t make a decision until things do get that bad.

Don’t get discouraged. Dis-couraged is losing courage. Time to show courage.
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Tim, from Monterey Bay area
December 21st, 2006 at 4:36 pm

And a couple of other spreadsheet ideas…

I didn’t bother listing all the various properties. The template is obvious.

But be sure to include any and all additonal loans, from friends, family, whatever. Either enumerated separately (new rows are cheap and easy to add) or lumped together.

And there are a couple of “bottom lines,” from whence the name comes:

– your overall balance, positive or negative

Watching this trend more negative, from $330K to $360K to $380K to $400K in just the past several months–I’m just speculating, based on my “mental” spreadsheet–should be alarming to you. A balance sheet put things in black and white.

Also, another row to consider adding is one (or more) listing your known bank withdrawals and suchlike. This should match some of the other rows. Doing it separately is a good exercise, as it can provide hints about “money vanishing” if the numbers don’t match pretty closely. (Not saying anyone is stealing, but it gives an “independent check” of things. Of course, don’t count “payments skipped” as if they were made….in fact, skipped payments should be accounted for in standard accounting fashion (double-entry bookkeeping). Skipped payments are not a payment you made…in fact, they worse things in ways you can build into your spreadsheet model.

A spreadsheet “model” is your set of rows and columns and the relationships between them, and various running sums and differences, and various scenarios for outcomes yet to come (such as assuming various sales prices or tax rates). Building a sollid spreadsheet model is pretty fundamental to any modern investor.

(There are abuses of such models, of course, such as the infamous “And in this year our revenues exceed one hundred million dollars” examples. But for relatively stable real estate, a good tool. Oh, and it is easy to build in rows representing expected increases or declines in property values, which can be useful in deciding what to invest in.)

–Tim from Monterey
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BK attorney
December 21st, 2006 at 4:51 pm

I guess the “BK” in “BK judge” stands for something other than bankruptcy. Not that it makes much difference for Casey, but Chapter 7 is the “walk away” chapter and 13 is the “pay back what you can.” The new law just forces more people into a 13, and debtors being the responsible people with foresight that they are, few people actually finish a 13.

As for

* Present income
* Future income
* Assets - cars, boats, all personal property
* 401K - All present and future retirement funds
* Inheritance and/or trust funds
* Much, much more!

These were always on the table, with the exception of 401k plans (that’s what saved OJ Simpson’s retirement money), and the new law actually gave more protection to retirement plans, in that now $1,000,000 in retirement assets are exempt, where only certain retirement plans were protected before. Not that Casey has a lot hidden away in his retirement plan. Still, beware of much of the advice here, because it’s as correct as Casey’s business plan.

And as for debts obtained by fraud being non-dischargeable, that was always the case too.
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Ozzie Tim
December 21st, 2006 at 5:08 pm

G’day mates!

Ozzie Tim here.

Looks by the tone of things some of the wags are starting to get wobbly. Let’s see, Yneone (whiney one?) sounds like a regular Shelia who wants to save Casy and hopes that he’ll drop the cook for her after she shows hime how to be tall poppies. Tim just keeps writing longer and longer and sounds like he’s got tickets on himself (maybe just a show pony?). Personally, he’s probably Kangaroos loose in the top paddock.

Me, I think Cow Tipping gives bog standard advice and probably is bottling his bloods worth for Casey.

Casey, Hmmm. I think under it all he’s just a bludger who’ll likely become a dole bludger through inactions, he’ll wind up eating damper with dead horse before long. (Hint: watch out for that standover man on the 36% loan).

Anyway, this is good oil: Get up early, work hard, save a little cause you’re beyond the black stump from being out of your hole.

Merry Chrissie!

Hooroo. Ozzie Tim
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HN
December 21st, 2006 at 5:08 pm

What you called stress is actually consequences. If you lived honestly, learned from honest people, pursuing an honest american dream, and made an honest living then the probability of you having these consequences (which you called stress) is very little to zero.

Honesty is what inherited. I don’t think you will ever change.
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Monterey Attorney
December 21st, 2006 at 5:13 pm

Casey,
Your problem is you take action on advice from “experts” who are not experts. The most recent example is “Tim, from Monterey Bay area”. You go to “colleges” which are not colleges. You make “deals” which are not deals.
You paid too much for your “education”, your properties and the free advice from Tim.
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Tim, from Monterey Bay area
December 21st, 2006 at 5:21 pm

Sorry to be writing so much, but it’s a rainy day here near the coast and a few days of “no Casey’s blog” has left me with pent-up thoughts.

One of the things that struck me when I started reading your blog, in early October, the day the “SF Gate” story appeared, is that YOU WERE UNDERWATER FROM THE BEGINNING.

That is, on each of your properties you started out underwater (you paid too much, you took money back as an increase in your loan, you obviously put no money down, and the properties needed fixing-up and were not rentable in most cases at the time of purchase).

On even _ONE_ such property, I would be frightened. On 6-7 of them at the same time, mind-boggling.

I think that if and when you do a spreadsheet, with the columns arranged to reflect your activity early in 2006, you will see in stark black and white–as if it were not already obvious–that you never “made money” on these deals. Not counting the one reasonable deal you made, the condo you made $30K on (in an up market, and after repair help with your father). All of the later deals were negative from the gitgo, the start. Any “cash back sweet deals” were just sucker deals, where the money you got back was because you borrowed more than the house was worth.

(As someone put it here many weeks ago, you bought stuff for 110% of retail, took the extra 10% back as cash, and are now trying to unload the goods at 70% of retail.)

I predict this: if you are scrupulously honest about how you enter the numbers in your spreadsheet, you will see that you were “underwater and going down” on Burdette, Larchmont, Modesto, Dallas, Utah, and Rio Rancho from the very start. This will show up, due to the honesty of basic arithmetic, in the very first columns for each of these properties. Only had the properties appreciated at past historic rates might you have come out ahead. Maybe not even then, as the California properties look to be dogs that you paid as much as 30% too much for.

(I can’t judge the Rio Rancho house, which looks pretty nice from the outside. But was it worth $500K that your loan is for? And you were a few months behind in September, when you last updated your snapshot, so I presume are now 6 months behind, or about $18K further behind. And, contrary to what someone said recently, this amount in arrears is money owed the lender that he has not received, so it will be factored into any debt calculations or 1099s. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Now whether the lender cares enough to try to collect this $18-24K (by February or so) is another matter. Maybe you’ll skate on this.

The point is, you got in at the top of the market, with no significant money of your own (the Calla-Burdette trade is too complicated and bizarre for me to figure out…my guy is that the Calla buyer took you to the cleaners by your agreement to take his Burdette dump for the price you did).

Your first spreadsheet column, January 2006, will show you already underwater. By April, you are sinking fast. By July, purchases complete, you are signed, sealed, and delivered.

By September, when you began this blog, you were apparently $300-340K underwater, and sinking fast. Now, several months later, it is only worse. Prices are dropping, but your loans are about to be increased in APR.

Whether Chapter 7 bankruptcy is now an option for you is open for debate, given the loan fraud and the various private borrowing after your insolvency was obvious.

But you need to stop continuing to borrow more money to finance “sweet deal” fantasies, or “more education,” or a $20K per month debt servicing anchor that is taking you down, down, down.

Good luck on doing a series of balance sheets, or spreadsheets.

Humans, and animals, often can “see” things they’ve once figured out, or calculated. The “form” of the template. They can “fill in the blannks” in the script, the sheet. I knew you were a goner when I started reading this blog in October, because I know where the math goes. “Three hundred thousand underwater in back payments, loans, and credit card debt, and dropping like a rock, with not enough likely deals on the horizon to get him back to the surface.”

(Importantly, it was obvious even by early October that even if you successfully had a short sale or marginal break-even sale on one of the properties, the other 5 would continue to pull you down. Even a break-even sale on 3 of the five properties, unlikely as that was, would leave you with maybe $50K of house debt and $120K or more of CC debt, for a whopping $170K or more of debt you still couldn’t climb out of. Very nearly hopeless, even by early October, which is something most of us and most of the trade press (SF Gate/Chronicle, CNBC, USA Today, etc.) understood full well.

I think that when you have done enough of these spreadsheets, you will too. Maybe in 20 years you actually will be a real estate guru, able to sniff out bad deals simply because you have a sense for the math, for where it is going. But you don’t now. So get out as best you can.

–Tim from Monterey
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Casey Serin
December 21st, 2006 at 5:22 pm

Tim, I can’t start on it tonight because I have a meeting/review tonight about the future of my job. The outcome will determine my plans in the near future.

I am shooting for tomorrow to start working on the spread sheet. This way I can call the lenders while I’m at it and verify some of the figures.

And you’re right, I will need to do this anyway for the BK paperwork if that’s the route I will choose to go. So I’m killing two birds with one stone.

For technology, I am thinking of using Google Spreadsheet program so that I can make the spreadsheet available online for everybody’s benefit. And this way I will not have to worry about computers dying on me and loosing losing everything

Back to the job… I’m trying to find a way to structure my job contract in such a way to make it a 100% legitimate “contractor” job vs. an “employee” job. Since, I’m getting paid 1099 income (vs. W2), I don’t want to act like an employee. Trying to keep everything clean, ya know.

Any tips?
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Casey Serin
December 21st, 2006 at 5:26 pm

Is there an actual BK attorney on this blog? If yes, can you please email me so I can ask you a couple of questions. I can offer a little traffic to your site in return.

(If you know a good bankruptcy attorney please pass this on to them).

I already have met with a couple local BK attorneys about a month ago but I need a 3rd opinion.
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Cow_tipping
December 21st, 2006 at 5:36 pm

@Jim

December 21st, 2006 at 3:47 pm @Aaron: I looked at your link. I couldn’t find ANY single-family homes in Palo Alto under a million, although there were a few in EAST Palo Alto which, believe me, is a totally different story (Think Oakland vs. Berkeley). Except there are no safe areas in East Palo Alto unlike Oakland which I’m told has some neighborhoods that are not a total ghetto. But I digress.

East palo alto was total crap. One of those areas where if you’re lone driving through university blvd and the light turns red at night, you hang a right and pull a U and make another right and keep going. You stop and its curtains. That was in 1994-98. It was also the murder capital of the world due to the fact its population was low. Now in 99 the rising real estate tide I thought carried it to the sky and the crime was bought out and the criminals sold and moved out of the area.
Is that in accurate. The Home Depot store comming there was a huge deal I thought and maybe it turned the tide.
I used to ride a motorcycle through there and never ventured there if there wasn’t flowing traffic. Late nights - I’d take university to 101 north to marsh road or take 101 south to 237 to get to Livermore.
Cool.
Cow_tipping.
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sean-sisb
December 21st, 2006 at 5:38 pm

At this point, we’re all wasting our breath. We will have to wait until Casey completely crashes before we start getting a inkling of truth from the lad.
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Tim, from Monterey Bay area
December 21st, 2006 at 5:43 pm

About Casey’s comments, which I won’t quote, so save confusion,

– I didn’t mean you should _literally_ start tonight, i meant it figuratively, as in “figuring out where you stand, in black and white numbers,” should be your highest priority

(not to slam Casey, but inasmuch as he says this blog is about education and helping others, I would certainly urge everyone to start out with a crystal-clear accounting of cash flow, assets and debits, on ANY investments in real estate…”if you don’t know where you’ve been, how can you know where you are, let alone where you are going?”_

– the Google spreadsheet sounds like a spectacular idea…I had forgotten that they were offering such a thing. You shouldn’t do it just so you can post it here, though that may generate some ideas on changes you can make (but be prepared for a lot of us to criticize you once the numbers are out there….this is just the way it goes when you’re in the situation you’re in and then make it all very public…it has some benefits, though).

– as for consultant vs. contractor vs. employee, the IRS gets _very_ interesting when workers are called “contractors.” Cf. the Zoe Baird scandal of the early 90s. Cf. many simllar cases.

Basically, either your employer is paying your varioous Workman’s Comp/SSDI “contributions” (which are not voluntary), or you are, in various ways. Sure, for the occasional odd job, the occasional $300 to fix somebody’s network, the IRS and FTB neither know nor care. But if you are getting $3000 a month from Chris, expect that either you or he is paying this. (And stiffing the IRS brings a whole different world of hurt.)

Frankly, I don’t know how you’ve had the time to do anything for Chris that is worth $3000 a month. Unless he has a large machine room filled with servers, which some friends of mine in Mountain View, CA do have, what can you be doing for him that is worth this kind of money, unless you are designing Web pages for him for a lot more hours per week than you seem to have the time for?

(For $3000, I know I could buy the Core 2 Xeon-based high-end Mac I’ve had my eye on for a few months. And that’s for the hardware and the OS and networking and a good display. I certainly wouldn’t pay anybody the same amount to set it up for me….I’d relish the couple of days to do it myself.)

But, I don’t really know what you do for Chris. Or even what his business is.

Anyway, were you I would think about the “taking your mind off what can’t be changed in the next 10 holiday days” period and spend it with an accounting pad, or Google’s spreadsheet, entering as much as you can pull together and thus seeing the Big Picture.

And if you conclude, as I think you will, “Ya know, this guy Casey has been _underwater_ and sinking fast since the beginning of his real estate binge early in 2006!,” then at least you have a solid place to go from.

Good luck,

–Tim from Monterey Bay area
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Robert Coté
December 21st, 2006 at 5:47 pm

Tim, I can’t start on it tonight because I have a meeting/review tonight about the future of my job.

Job pays $18/hr. Your obligations cost $36/hr. Besides, we are talking about 30 minutes (okay, some 90, me 10, most in between) to answer a question you’ve had for half a year: “How bad is it?” Oh, and the job is but 8hrs and the obligations never sleep. Got that? I don’t think you do. Work = -$18/hr. Naps = -$36/hr. 5 minutes to read this, ponder and decide not to reply = $3.00.
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LostCause
December 21st, 2006 at 5:49 pm

Casey: one thing about a JOB: $0 invested and in return a reliable, recurring revenue stream. Try craig’s list for programming gigs. You are NOT “Mr swimming in $2M cash”, you are “Mr biggest sucker ever to walk the earth”. You need a job, badly.
Fix up those damn houses for excercise on nights and weekends — that is not extra washer and sink in the garage, that is “YOURS, FREE WITH PURCHASE!!” Man, you need some marketing skills. You ever hear of staging? These ads need a total re-write, and the photos are a disgrace. You really have SUCKER written all over you. Try to show some professionalism.
And listen to Tim. Spend alot of time with that spreadsheet. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Why are you not also renting those places out? Stop the bleeding first, get a positive cash flow somehow. You probably could be in good shape in six months. BK — I am not sure about that. You owe enough, you already have an ugly credit report (BK people say it is like having syphilis, and gonorrhea). Perhaps negotiate with creditors. It may take quite a while to unload your properties, where you are not on the losing end, and pay everybody off. Raise cash today: rent those places out, and get a job. Get used to cleaning toilets — its how you get rich in real estate.
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Sam
December 21st, 2006 at 5:52 pm

So can you post your ad revenue now that you got kicked off?
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Time Will Tell (calculator)
December 21st, 2006 at 5:56 pm

@bo bo:

The rule used to be 3x to 3.5x gorss income to purchase a home with a 30 year fixed and 20% down. if bo bo makes $120,000, his home should cost no more than $420,000. That pretty much rules out most of coastal CA and many of the other bubble areas. The combination of easy credit and equity locusts (like CS) made prices explode.

But don’t worry, bo bo, the prices will come down. The opposite reaction to the bubble’s explosion will now ensue. Prices have begun to fall, that forces speculators out of the market. Falling prices will make other buyers think twice and pause. Lack of buyers will cause the price to continue to fall.

People with toxic loans (some paying over 50% of gross income) will begin to default, placing more houses on the market.

As prices fall, fewer folks will withdraw equity, and will be forced to retrench and spend less. Recession is looming, meaning job losses and more homes on the market.

Bo bo should happily rent until 2009. Then you will be able to get the home you can afford and want to live in. Don’t expect appreciation to cover costs until 2012.

Grim, ain’t it! And this is just the tip of the iceberg, one of the many bubbles.

Casey, your story will soon be commonplace. Make the most of it while you can.
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Time Will Tell (calculator)
December 21st, 2006 at 6:04 pm

Priority #1 is to fix the problem with the Utah house. You have a buyer who might lose the house because YOU did not bother to make sure that payments were being made.

Your lenders have waited a long time, and can wait a little longer. You can’t do anything for them, anyway.

In UT, you have a fellow speculator hanging by a thread, and you have the gall to jet off to PHX and still not know what the hell is going on. This is something you can fix, probably in a single morning.

Get your priorities straight.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”
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Interested Bystander
December 21st, 2006 at 6:18 pm

Casey,

I’ve recently found your site and as a Real Estate Investor myself, I find your experiences interesting and sad at the same time. I had thought about flipping houses myself - I felt I was missing out on all the money that was being made flipping. After seeing what’s happening around the Country, guess I will stick to buy and hold. In any case, you have a good thing going here sharing your flipping/foreclosure story - very original. Have you thought about turning your website into a vlog with videos instead of just text blogging? Check out www.spearheadmedia.com. I think you could capture a bigger audience - also look into Affiliate Marketing. That’s another way to make some money off your site since adsense is gone.

good luck
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** Ego **
December 21st, 2006 at 6:23 pm

Casey, I am sure that your adsense earnings were much higher than $60/month…

You should create an account with a company like commission junction. They are a “pay per action” network, so click fraud is not an issue.
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Dale D
December 21st, 2006 at 6:24 pm

MIND PETALS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! HELP ME
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Tim, from Monterey Bay area
December 21st, 2006 at 6:31 pm

Casey, I’ve just spent some time looking at Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and I’m satisfied that it’s a very good solution for you. Any of the things now lacking, such as some forms of charting, are inconsequential anyway…the brain can see bottom lines and figure out what the Big Picture is in most cases.

I encourage you to start out with “toy” examples, simple 5 x 5 arrays, and move on to simple cases of entering your own properties (such as Robert Cote pointed out, a simple grid showing the last 3 months of your properties).

Then add more details, including rows or columns (depending on your design) for various things you know about, such as maintenance costs, commissions, property taxes due, etc. The idea of a spreadsheet is that more and more details can be added.

(Even then “collapsed,” as in outline processors. I nearly invested in a startup called “SpreadBase” which offered sophisticated relational data base features, circa 1991. A good thing I didn’t. For what it’s worth, a friend of mine was using VisiCalc on Apple II computers (at an Intel-centered company for one most significant of reasons!), then my father was using MultiPlan, circa 1981 at his company, then another friend of mine at this Intel-centric company was an early adopter of Lotus 1-2-3, essentially the killer app for PCs in corporate America. Myself, I owned several of the early spreadsheets, from Wingz to 1-2-3, to Excel, long before it appeared on Windows platforms. I was a Mac user 22 years ago, and since. Even though I worked on processors from That Really Big Chip Company. It’s the OS, not the CPU, and now my Macs are Intel-based.)

I sometimes forget that not everyone is used to firing up a spreadsheet program when considering investments. I hope Casey’s adventures help to remind people of their value.

–Tim from the Monterey Bay area
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yneone
December 21st, 2006 at 6:38 pm

I am grateful for this site. Beyond grateful really. So many smart people with sound advice.

Here I am in Southern California, married with three children. I’m in the valley, the outskirts of Los Angeles, and everything is expensive..its ridiculous. Me and the hubby, between us, make 6-figures but that doesnt matter in Los Angeles. You can’t do much here…everything centers around money. Cars: the transportation system is bad here-you almost have to have atleast one vehicle; Schools: where does most of our money go? We pay $1,500 a month for our kids to get a decent education. The public school system in LA County is a joke; Housing: If you bought a house in the 80’s like us, then ur okay but forget about moving up..too expensive. Your best option is to upgrade if you can. We can’t even afford to upgrade.

This site is a blessing for me. There is absolutely NOTHING keeping me in California. I’m in talks with the hubby now to get us moved from this place. We’re waiting for the housing market to correct itself some; we’ll sell our very nice home; buy a bigger and less expensive house in Texas-we hear Texas has great public schools; and put the rest of the money away for our kids. We’ve had it.with the rat race.

I am grateful for this blog…I really am.

I’m glad to have come across this site
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Des
December 21st, 2006 at 6:41 pm

You do realize there’s a minor difference between 200k and 400k right?
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Very Concerned
December 21st, 2006 at 7:00 pm

Disgusted

This is directed at you…..

You obviously do not know much about about mental health disorders or treatment.

Without going into to much specifics, going to an ER for bipolar disorder is what any and every person should do when they are “rapid cycling” as Casey is.

While not a physician, I am in the medical profession. All ERs have psychiatric consultation rooms and physicians available who are trained to assist people suffering and in crisis. Individauls who enter the ERs with mental disorders will be taken to psychiatric consultation rooms - the attention provided to these patients DO NOT result in a delay to any other patients also arriving at the ER for treatment. The only delay or disruption that could happen is when a mentally ill patient arrives to an ER who is argumentative and/or needs to be restrained.

Individuals with biopolar disorder who are rapid cycling and entering the depressive phase (as Casey is) become self desructive (suicidal) very quickly. Intervention needs to be done as soon as possible. My comment was clear - if they can’t get an appointment with a physician, then go to the ER.

Treatment of bipolar disorder is very difficult - with the most success coming from hospitalization that allows an indivdual to be in a safe environment while adjusting to medication. It will take approximately two to three weeks for the body, brain and mind to sync with the medication.

You also made the following comments:

“This country’s healthcare costs are out of control because of stupid, retarded idiots like you who think EVERYTHING is a medical emergency and use hospital ERs as their free health maintenance organizations. This country’s healthcare costs are out of control because of stupid, retarded idiots like you who think EVERYTHING is a medical emergency and use hospital ERs as their free health maintenance organizations”

First, I have ALWAYS had insurance. When my insurance was not being paid by an employer, I paid for it out of pocket. I am lucky and know it. There are millions of people in the US who have jobs that do not provide health insurance.

Next, you said: “….the reasons why so many hospitals can’t afford to stay open and close their doors.”

WRONG - hospitals aren’t closing because of the uninsured. They are closing because HMOs and insurance companies are “negotiating contracts” that pay a minimal amount for the services provided by the hospitals and healthcare providers. One of my best friends is a physician in private practice - after expenses (rent, utilities, malpractice insurance, staff salaries, taxes, etc.) her 2005 earnings was $35,000. Why? The “negotiated” amounts insurance companies, medicare and medicaid pay…

Your next comment:

“I hope someday you do end up with a real medical emergency that will end your life because you couldn’t be attended to in time due to the long line of non-emergency bipolar disorder cases lined up ahead of you.”

Shame on you.
Shame on you.
Shame on you.

That is a horrible horrible thing to say.

To wish death on someone is terrible.

Show that last statement to your wife, mother, boss, as well as anyone else you love or respect. If you don’t know how mean spirited it was, they will tell you.
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Mind Petals: Young Entrepreneur Network
December 21st, 2006 at 7:04 pm

links from Technorati Avoiding Stress = More Stress
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3rd
December 21st, 2006 at 7:05 pm

3rd opinion=BK it ASAP
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seek medical help!
December 21st, 2006 at 7:07 pm

CASEY!!!

listen to me, you have some serious symptoms of depression, OCD, ADD and gosh knows!
You need to see a doctor before it gets worse and you find yourself feeling suicidal
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Pumpkin
December 21st, 2006 at 7:12 pm

Hi Casey,
I’ve been concerned about you since Google dropped your ads, but came up with a sweet idea while checking my snail mail today (generally a good idea to do on occasion). I received 2 VIP tickets for a Celebrity Conference Financial conference in Santa Rosa (at a value of $149 each) _and_ includes a free special edition of “TRUMP Style Negotiation”. I’m sure a number of other folks on this blog (who have as little interest in sweeet deals as I) have received similar VIP tickets and could send them to you so that you can then sell them to your “college” friends at a special rate…
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HOMEY DA CLOWN
December 21st, 2006 at 7:35 pm

“Back to the job… I’m trying to find a way to structure my job contract in such a way to make it a 100% legitimate “contractor” job vs. an “employee” job. Since, I’m getting paid 1099 income (vs. W2), I don’t want to act like an employee. Trying to keep everything clean, ya know.

Any tips? ”

No you ain’t tryin to “keep everything clean” chuckles, youz is trying to NOT PAY TAXES. You sho is da persistent skeezer of a crook.

“Act like an employee”.. WTF duz dat mean? Damn I hopez dat five-o gets righteous on your punk azz quick. I mean, you ain’t even a smart crook at dat. You jus a wannabee little girl tryin to play Mr. bigtime operator.

And you expect a REAL BK attorney to start talkin to your crooked azz NOW??? WITHOUT MAJOR BLING as a retainer? FO FREE? BWAHAHAHAHA Youz mus be high on jamba juice boy.

Lookie here. Save yourseld fo mo months of pain. Jes goes down to da FBI. Do what dat other crook Mayne sez.

Jes change dem smelly azz shoozes cuz Sputnik dunn pooped in dem real bad.

You ain’t never gonna tell the peeps about rescom? Able? Fitch? yo family? ALL dem scams you been up to? Or is you savin dat all fo January’s posts.

PS. I’ll take care of dat sweeet lil wife fo free. She knowz how to make corn bread?

Love,

Homey
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A REAL HONEST AND FOR TRUTHFUL HATER
December 21st, 2006 at 7:39 pm

Get a very good BK atty, because I think you are going to need to have him/her work overtime for you. From a New York fact sheet on bankruptcies:
Among things non-dischargeable under BK proceedings are “A debt obtained by fraud, false pretenses, a false representation or a false written statement regarding the debtor’s financial condition. For example, if on a loan application you intentionally failed to disclose that you had other debts and obtained credit on that misrepresentation, that debt may not be discharged.”
Looks to me as if that means your “liar loans” may not be dischargeable.
P.S. Make certain you ask the BK atty. for his fee schedule. This is not going to be cheap and easy process.
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LostCause
December 21st, 2006 at 7:59 pm

Let me get this straight — You never had a spreadsheet, a budget? Good God. This is too ugly to watch.
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Monterey Attorney
December 21st, 2006 at 8:13 pm

Tim, from Monterey Bay area:
I actually completely read one of your long posts–the last one.
You are a true master of the obvious.
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(the original) Voice of Reason
December 21st, 2006 at 8:15 pm

Much info on bankruptcy here.

It may be a good idea to do some homework and get as much information as you can before you talk to an attorney so you can use the time efficiently and ask questions specific and relevant to your situation.
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Monterey Attorney
December 21st, 2006 at 8:27 pm

Casey,
I suggest you don’t take advice bankrupcy advice from the “BK Judge”. Someone who doesn’t know the definition of a Chapter 7 is certainly no BK Judge.
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Harry
December 21st, 2006 at 8:38 pm

NotoriousPSU,

Yeah, your suspicions are right. I don’t make 400k. I did though buy a house in the bay area a few years ago, then sold it for 290k more than I paid.

I started a biz with some of my profits and make about $100/hr, though I only work about 10 hrs a week. The rest of the time I’m working on my next biz plan. Maybe in 5 years I’ll make 400k, but I’d be fine with 100-200k. I’ll get there in a few yrs.

Buying a house in the bay area is not a good deal anymore. The houses in my old neighborhood sell for around 600k, so you’ll be paying over $4,000 a month for a house that you could rent for less than $2000. My guess is that the prices won’t keep up with inflation over the next 5 years, so if you do buy a house now, you end up doing the equivalent of paying double rent while risking losing more money if you have to sell. We passed the tipping point where people would no longer risk the cash flow loss for the chance of making 20% equity per year.

My advice to Casey:
- Develop your real talents, such as web marketing or blogging. You have to figure out what they are (hint: not RE), but you do have them. They are your most valuable assets.
- Accept the situation you are in and move on.
- At least look into the possibility that you are bipolar.
- Take a few real college econ and biz classes.

You can make a lot of money if you find something that you do better than most other people AND know basic biz principles AND work on your personality issues.

Go ahead and invest in RE in the future, but only after you prove yourself elsewhere, buy your own home that you can afford and the market improves (5+ yrs).
*
Jackie Treehorn
December 21st, 2006 at 9:35 pm

I thought you already talked to a BK attorney…. LOL. You’re just NOW asking your readers if there’s a BK attorney in the house?
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SomewhaleInIceland
December 21st, 2006 at 9:57 pm

Dear Mr. Casey,
We Love You (and your wife too)!
*
Ding Dong-Will someone get the door?
December 21st, 2006 at 11:12 pm

File Bk a day or so after all the foreclosures. It will be 1 hit instead of 2 separate hits on your Credit report.
If you file Bk before foreclosure, it will halt the foreclosure and prolong this mess.
After that, find a person who can be a payee for you. Whatever money you ever get goes to the payee and they approve or disapprove of any of your requests for a draw $.
Period. You are not to be trusted with money and credit.
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Mr. Flipper
December 21st, 2006 at 11:33 pm

Man, I miss “Ogg the Cave Man!”
*
Mister B
December 22nd, 2006 at 1:13 am

Monterey Attorney,

I agree that Casey has paid far too much for boot camps and gurus. But I think Tim from Monterey’s advice is valuable, or should be, to Casey.

Casey still doesn’t get how much money he is burning each day. Tim’s been trying to pull his head out of the sand though. Yes, it’s getting repetitive, but then so is Casey’s 45th post about his new set of goals for the month.

If there is some in Tim’s advice please point it out.
*
LostCause
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:02 am

$20 a unit at Los Rios CC, Casey. I bet they wave fees, based on your income. Of course, the cars in the parking lot may not look like the Westin or wherever you went to “Real Estate College”. But in a little over 2X the time it took for your slow motion train wreck, you can hold an AA diploma, and be on your way to the University of California. Education is something that cannot be taken away from you.
https://www.xap.com/Applications/Los_Rios_CCD/apply.html
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LostCause
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:25 am

PS — Casey, after you sort your mail, you probably need to make phone calls to every company that you owe money to: the oldest (most delinquint) first. Then keep a tab for each month on your spreadsheet, list all of your bills (and income) take extra care to note interest, penalties etc. This is what you will focus on narrowing, as well as your income. You know that you can file BK yourself. NOLO books are in the library. You are aware the BK protects THE CREDITORS. Check out bankrate.com for more advice. Cut up all your credit cards. Has anyone mentioned credit counsoling?
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Aaron
December 22nd, 2006 at 3:50 am

Casey,
While you didn’t do this much damage…you still will face bank and wire fraud charges. 24 plus years and 6 million in damages and penalties. I figure you just committed 8 counts of wire fraud for the houses. cash back etc will add to the damages part. The fact that you ‘claim’(BS you did it on purpose and you know it and so will the judge) your intent was not to commit fraud is bogus. I’m guessing you will get 2-5 years. white collar crimes are getting harsher penalties. read the article. ouch!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01001.html
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Bubbers
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:18 am

By saying you don’t want to “act like an employee” are you saying that you want to make sure you don’t work too hard? I really don’t think you need any tips on that one, guy.
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Austerity
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:31 am

“…This morning I did wake up ontime and got up but then looked back at the cozy bed (and wife sleeping soundly) and thought about all the problems and collapsed back into bed for another couple of hours. …”

Well, I got up @ 04:00 again this morning, ran my 2.5 miles,
and got to work @ about 06:00

“…Man am I starting to have a hard time getting anything done …”

Probably a good thing, as your efforts do little but
“dig the hole deeper.”

Game’s over, Bub.
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Austerity
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:33 am

“…Is there an actual BK attorney on this blog? If yes, can you please email me so I can ask you a couple of questions…”

Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to believe everything you see on the internet?
*
Shining Rizer
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:41 am

Well I’m impressed with your continued ability to climb out of bed. I get up every day cause I can’t wait to get these great ideas cracking. Were I in your shoes I think I’d chain myself to the mattress and do a love-in.

Back2reality. It seems you’re finally grasping your situation. Which of course even the biggest suckers eventually do. But they’re still suckers cause they didn’t catch on soon enough. In your case soon enough was before you signed onto all those “sweet deals”. By the time the ink had dried your fate was sealed in an airtight ziplock baggie. Eveything else was just flailing around to seem busy. Which you are very good at. Unfortunately the world at large doesn’t really value that as a marketable commodity as you’ve very well seen.

A lot of people are angry at you. Personally I can’t blame you for anything. A fool is a fool regardless of how much money you pump into their hairbrained ideas. What has changed is that once upon a time you’d be looked at as a fool and your loan application would say “denied” in bright red letters. Which is the bank’s way of saying “come back when you’re truly ready”. And in a roundabout fashion they’d be doing you the favor of keeping you from the miserable situation you find yourself in today.

Banks are in the business of loaning money and if I was dumb enough to hold any of their stocks right about now I’d be pissed. Apparently they’ve decided they don’t need to be picky with their investments anymore. I’m sure the loan officers know it’s all a house of cards right now but who cares? The perks and bonuses keep coming just like they did for all those sweetalking internet CEOs a decade ago.

Look at the bright side Casey… your downfall will play out millions of times over in the next year or so. Multiplied like that you RE genii are making sure that for a very long time to come (ok maybe 15 yrs max) there will never be any more speculative lending on the home front.

In the meantime the smart money is where it’s always been… doing exactly what everybody else is too stupid to figure out.
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Loads o Money
December 22nd, 2006 at 5:56 am

Casey - why dont you map out for everybody all the possible outcomes you think are possible in your situation and your response to each. I think this will help see some reality.

The logic that made you buy houses for rehab in different states - you dont want to rely on the same thought processes to get you out of this mess,

Loads o Money
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Unbelievable
December 22nd, 2006 at 6:39 am

Ca$ey

Advice is worth just about as much as you pay for it. Stop asking for free advice (”Is there an actual BK attorney on this blog? If yes, can you please email me so I can ask you a couple of questions. I can offer a little traffic to your site in returnIs there an actual BK attorney on this blog? If yes, can you please email me so I can ask you a couple of questions. I can offer a little traffic to your site in return”) and go retain a reputable BK attorney.
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HOMEY DA CLOWN
December 22nd, 2006 at 6:47 am

IT’S HOMEY TIME!!!

FO those of you dat needs a refresher course on dis crazy cat

READ THIS

www.iamfacingforeclosure.com

by CASEY SERIN
October 4th, 2006 8:20 am
Yes, I Lied on My Loans!

No more excuses! It’s true. I lied on my loans.

I overstated my income, and misrepresented my owner-occupied status and concealed the cash-back-at-close from the bank. I knew it all along. Nobody made me do it. It was my fault. I take full responsibility. And, that’s how I originally started this blog.

But then… I started to spin it.

First I though I will be some kind of “whistle blower” - exposing the industry, bad real estate gurus, etc. I then realized how stupid that was - I have no expertise or credibility to expose anything. I am guilty myself.

Second, I tried blaming the banks. They made these loans so easy to get, so it’s their fault. WRONG! Easy or not, a lie is a lie! I am guilty and should not try to weasel out of it.

That was WRONG and STUPID.

I want to apologize to all my friends, associates and readers of this blog.

What started as an honest attempt to write about my situation turned into a spinning act and subtle blame shifting.

I even went back and edited some of my earlier posts to make myself sound better. I am truly sorry I let myself fall into that. I will be restoring my posts to the original version later today or tomorrow.

[UPDATE: I restored my first post and added some good detail. That’s where I first mentioned “liar loans”. Check it out: Why I am Facing Foreclosure. ]

Now what??

* No more lying to cover up old lies.
* No more blaming - I did it
* No more spinning and trying to make myself look better
* I take full responsibility
* I will pay whatever price I must
* I will do whatever I must do to MAKE IT RIGHT!
* And… No More Ads!. I need to cover my hosting bill, so I can stay online and help more people with my story.

So… I lied on my loans. I got over-extended. I am facing foreclosure. The lenders stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars over my mistakes. My questions to you is….

What can I do to make it right?

YO Casey . Mayne dunn told you what to do. GO SEE DA MAN.

PS. Change dem stanky shoozes cuz Sputnik dunn pooped in dem.
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Daniel (foreign)
December 22nd, 2006 at 6:47 am

Instead of using AdSense, why don’t you make publicity of some profesionals here… and collect a share for your sales?

for example, I’m looking a lawyer or accountant, I find the info here. I contact the lawer or accountant and I tell that I got the reference information from Casey Serin’s blogs….

finally, if I contract those professinoals, you get paid.

would that work?
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Jobu
December 22nd, 2006 at 6:48 am

To Jim,
I understand the problem of the ultra high priced market out there. But as with most things in life, there are tradeoffs. If you can’t get what you want for a million, then the trade off is rent until prices get better while saving mucho bucks for a downpayment (7k mtg vs ???? rent). When I said priced out of any markets, I meant the general geographic living areas. If one insists on living within a few mile radius, then the market price is what it is. Increasing the area in which you are willing to live/commute is one of the possible tradeoffs.
If their desire is live right there in Palo Alto, I guess the answer is to wait and save.

Bartender, Jobu needs a refill.
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Dick Dragon
December 22nd, 2006 at 7:16 am

Ozzie Tim,

Keep posting. I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying, but it ’s friggin’ hilarious. People keep looking at me wondering what I’m laughing at.
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JTR
December 22nd, 2006 at 7:34 am

Hey, I agree that Tim from Monteray may be pendantic and perhaps overly devoted to this blog, but you know what? I think his is the one voice that seems to be getting through to Casey. I think Casey would be in a better place if he had listened to Tim and followed through much earlier.

Speaking of follow through, the saying around that describes Casey is “lots of horsepower, no transmission”. Not sure it was worth $30,000, but at least he has learned a bunch of cool real estate lingo.
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you are crazy!
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:13 am

Sigh. The life of this blog is fascinating! The turnover of experts, the on-target assessments (Honestly Wondering), the creativity (Ozzie Tim, Sputnik, Homey the Clown, remember that other literature genius that was scared away?), the mix of lovers and the skeptical/haters, the self-disclosure of commenters (sp?), etc.

Casey–still showing ridiculous lack of planning. “Yeah, should look into a spreadsheet.” “Anybody know a bk attorney?” You really think you know better than everyone else, don’t you?

Seriously, Casey, why would any BK lawyer take time out of their busy schedule to help you for free? Think they need the traffic to their own businesses? People are beating down their doors as it is, doing what YOU should have done back in September or earlier.

Tim from Monterrey Bay is giving you very specific suggestions but you do not have the focus or concentration to complete such a gargantuan task. You would need at least 3 breaks to sit on your blue ball, speak with your Maker, and take a nap…before deciding that you should spend your time getting “creative.”

Today, I think that you will: 1) spend lots of time on this blog. 2) waste hours on email trying to hook up more “sweet” deals of education/bird-dogging/media coverage. 3) take a nap to recover. 4) Watch house flipping shows until your eyes glaze over. 5) Borrow money from your parents or the wife’s family to buy a Xmas present for your wife. 6) Ignore all “distractions”–say, banks calling or the mail. 7)Brainstorm about the next big post on this blog–(hint, we’re due for a post on “should I declare bankruptcy or not”?) 8) Follow up with that reporter from “Nowhere News” to discuss your story and frame how you can help people. 9) Sleep soundly, knowing that you did what you could today to “repay every dirty penny.”

(Have you ever seen the show “Intervention”? Some of your activities are just like the meth addicts, gamblers, compulsive shoppers…)
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Johnny Kurosawa -- THE MAD GURU
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:32 am

Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone, help.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody’s help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I’m not so self assured,
Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won’t you please, please help me?

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I’ve never done before.

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won’t you please, please help me.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody’s help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I’m not so self assured,
Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won’t you please, please help me, help me, help me, oh.
*
DSutter
December 22nd, 2006 at 8:54 am

I’m doubtful this would help Casey but others might benefit from http://reitactics.com/2007Planner

It actually would help him but he doesn’t seem to be much of a planner type.
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A Friend
December 22nd, 2006 at 10:03 am

Casey, if you met with a couple BK attorneys, you should at least let us know what they said. This blog is all about education, remember?
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Don
December 22nd, 2006 at 10:09 am

Despite all the haters here, I think you should take your story on the road more often, but get paid for it. Anyone doing a real estate seminar could use you as an example of how not to do things.

I hate to say it, but BK might be your last resort. Your burn rate is insane right now, and the market is all wrong.

Do get some advice. Maybe you can sell the properties at a loss and go BK on what’s left?

I like the idea of you getting a real estate license. Get any job for now, get the license, start selling, truly learn about the markets… and do seminars about all this experience. And don’t give up on the game, like all the stiff’s here do.

This is the truth: 95% or more of the people in the world don’t or won’t try to become rich. And the only way to do it is to get out there and make mistakes.
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Flipper Nation - Home
December 22nd, 2006 at 10:48 am

Kramer auto Pingback[…] I am Facing Foreclosure (again!) […]
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BK Attorney
December 22nd, 2006 at 11:02 am

I’ll be glad to help…But the only thing I want is to see you post your ad revenue for the past 2 months.
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Rooting 4U Casey
December 22nd, 2006 at 11:18 am

Casey,

I have been following you for months and was rooting for you at the beginning, but after months and months of you doing nothing with all the advice you’ve received (both good and bad), all I can say is PLEASE PLEASE take some real action!!!

“Tim from Monterey” is very accurate in his assessment. I know Sacramento and you overpaid for those homes exactly as he states in his post. When I initially saw the homes that you bought, I thought Russian mafia deals. I wasn’t trying to be mean, but the deals seemed corrupt to me (fraudulent appraisals??).

Anyways, you are very fortunate as you do have talents, so you are not totally screwed. It’s just that your talent is not in real estate or finances :-( I am not a ‘hater’, I just don’t wish for you to keep stating that you are trying to do right according to your Maker, because it makes Christianity seem like a joke to your readers.

God loves you, Jesus died for your sins, now get some real direction from a Christian man walking the walk and not just talking the talk. Give up the blog and start making things right.
Meditate on Matt 6:33 and ask God for His wisdom. I’m pretty certain He won’t have you continuing the path you’ve been following these last 12 months.

Merry CHRISTmas Casey! I pray that 2007 seeing you headed in a better direction.

p.s.
Please don’t change my wording when posting. Otherwise, don’t post it at all.
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BelowTheCrowd
December 22nd, 2006 at 11:30 am

Jerry:

“Playing by the rules will get you what everyone else has, which by its very definition cannot be “ahead”. The challenge is to know how much to bend the rules, if getting ahead is important to you. It’s just not clear if our friend young Casey has bent the rules too much… ”

Wrong. The people you cite — including Gates and Walton — didn’t get ahead by bending the rules. They got ahead by walking away from the game and creating a new one with rules of its own.

That’s the pinnacle of entrepreneurship (real entrepreneurship, not the Casey Serin version): Creating your own game so you don’t have to play in somebody else’s.

-btc
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Nadia Belemi
December 22nd, 2006 at 11:45 am

I’m somewhat curious as to why Mr Serin, hasn’t enlisted his wife, an accounting student, to handle his books. Unless, for some reason, he doesn’t want his wife to know what’s going on.
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BelowTheCrowd
December 22nd, 2006 at 11:57 am

Tips for being a contractor are pretty simple:

* You need to have significant control as to how you do your job. If you’re just doing work that you’re told to do, how you’re told to do it, it’s tough to claim that you are “independent.” If you’re working for somebody who knows nothing about technology and providing technical solutions for them, then you’re probably in the clear. If you’re working for somebody who is giving you detailed directions, it’s a problem.

* Contract should explicitly state that you are non-exlusive, which means you’re allowed to work for others at the same time.

* Contract should explicitly state that you can work from whatever location you choose, except when access to the facilities is necessary. In practice, that means you’ll mostly be working “on site” but for the IRS, the fact that you’re free to work from another location if you’re — for example — designing something, is key.

* The term of work should be defined. It can be renewed or extended of course, but the end of the contract should be explicit.

Truth is, for simple IT contract guys, it’s not a huge deal. You don’t gain anything tax-wise unless you have multiple clients, at which point you can incorporate (S-corp) and legitimately claim to be a real business and can shield some of your income from some taxes.

-btc
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piallator
December 22nd, 2006 at 12:20 pm

Well, It is the first time I post, I will not try to make a point here, I’m not skillfull enought to do that.

I prefer to write how I’m diong this house businnes.

I heard how the market is HOT HOT HOT and you can make TONS of money buying and selling the house after few monts. I got the carving for one.
I come from italy where my family struggled to live and in my youth I learn at least a bit the saving lesson.

Looking around, even with my 6 figures salary, I was not willing to pay 600k for an house where I live ( S fernando valley ) OR pay 400k and travel 2 hours a day just to go to work.

I first decided how much money I’m willing to pay a month for a morgage, then I subtract from this the amount I need in order to travel back and fort from work and added the saving in taxes I’ll have at the end of the year and ( with the help of a RE friends ) I figured about 3000$ a month is a good figure.

Now, Just to do not put myself in troubble I want to see two things:
1) Can I live without 3000$ less every month and still be happy??
2) There is really a house bubble in California??

Then I decided to do a simple thing, I subtract from the 3000$ the 1250$ I spend currently for the rent I’m living and I put the different in a saving account ( ING Direct 5% ). At the end of 2007 I’ll decide if I want to buy and few things will happen:

1) I will still live 5 minute by work ( walking distance, no car distance )
2) I will still live in a nice house in a nice town ( Burbank for the curios )
3) I’ll have about 20k+ in the bank
4) I’ll understand if I really can afford a house with that montly payment
5) May be the houses will be increase in values or prices, may be no, however I can sit here and do this game for several year until the price of the houses will eventually come a reasonable price, making 20k+ a year… It is a good waiting.

Piallator
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LostCause
December 22nd, 2006 at 1:44 pm

Some other things Casey — remember the principle “No harm, no foul,” in this case total repayment might let you off the hook since there are no actual damages. Also realize that you have little leverage when bargaining with your creditors, since you have no money. BK protect CREDITORS, so try direct negotiation: lower rate, waving penalties. Take it one month at a time also, I think each month should get better: just try to get each month to balance.
Programming is a lucrative skill. Get some money coming in — a full time job managing a debt crisis is not what you want. You need to get your mind off of it. Your real estate speculation is a part time endevor. I think your instincts are good. I actually agree with you. But please reconsider the Adsense appeal — it would take 5 minutes of your time. You need to make alot of money, and you need to get used to an empty wallet. I hope you stay out of jail. You need to be able to afford a good attorney. Get to work!
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Disgusted
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:28 pm

@Very Concerned:

“First, I have ALWAYS had insurance. When my insurance was not being paid by an employer, I paid for it out of pocket. I am lucky and know it. There are millions of people in the US who have jobs that do not provide health insurance.”

My comments were directed at those who use (or encourage using) ERs for any and every alement, as well as at those who use it for free. You struck me as someone who is in the first group, not necessarily one in the second group. California ERs are perpetually clogged with non-emergency cases, ranging from the common cold to hang nails to pregnant illegal immigrants.

“WRONG - hospitals aren’t closing because of the uninsured. They are closing because HMOs and insurance companies are “negotiating contracts” that pay a minimal amount for the services provided by the hospitals and healthcare providers.”

This is not the primary reason. Hospital ER services are very costly. When hospitals are forced to provide these services for free they cannot stay profitable for very long. I don’t know where you’re located, but here in California this problem has reached epidemic proportions.

Someone like Casey should not be checking into the ER for possibly being bipolar. If he feels he is in need of psychiatric treatment he should make an appointment with a psychiatrist. If his condition were a TRUE emergency it would have taken its toll LONG ago.

The issue of shortage and inadequecy of emergency medical care due to gross abuse and misuse is something I feel very strongly about. Reading your ER advice struck a nerve. I retract my angry comment about you being in need of emergency care and unable to get it. It was uncalled for. But I do stand by everything else I said.
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Advice from a Looser that loost.
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:13 pm

Casey,

Read my post and keep in mind that I am not a hater, but someone that has walked in your shoes.

At 23, I figured that I knew everything college was going to teach me, and quit school to go out make millions my own way. I did it just like you did, although not in RE: I financed my new business with credit cards. When the cash was a little slow coming in, I lived on the CC’s. When the cash actually started coming in, it was all minimum payments, and spending cash like crazy. Hey, gotta prove to the world that you’re big success, right?

In less than three months, I was in a big car accident, one of my customers went BK, and another fraudulently used my Fed-Ex account to the tune of 30k.

Q: How far do you think 50k of car insurance goes if you are found to be at fault in an accident?
A: Not very.

Q: What happens when you are at fault in a car accident and you insurance can’t cover the damages?
A: You get sued silly.

(I put this little interlude in here just for you Casey. How much coverage do you have for the sweet Jetta? Can you afford to cover a totaled Rover? And speaking of insurance, do you have health insurance? Are you and [your wife] ready if either of you get sick or hurt?)

So back to my little story. So now I’m being sued, have many many bills, maxed out credit, and lost a source of revenue. But I don’t stop living like a high-roller. Oh hell no. Little things like this are just a hiccup for us big wheeler-dealer types, right?

As things got worse, I starting using the wife’s CC to keep us afloat. As things went on, we realized we were in serious trouble. Like you Casey, all I needed was another “sweet deal” to just make everything okay. There was no way I was going to get some “looser” 9-5 gig, not when all I needed was another sweet deal.

That sweet deal never came. Worse than the 75k in CC debt, worse than the forclosure, worse than shuttering the doors on the business was the divorce. It took about 7 years of working sometimes two and three “looser” jobs to pay all the debt off. It took many years to pay all that debt off, but my heart still hurts when I wake up in the middle of the night, expecting her to be there, and she’s not. She never will be. That was my biggest screwup of all.

A “looser” might have a 9-5 job, but a real loser pisses away the biggest and best asset he’s got (a loving wife) chasing sweet deals instead of swallowing some pride and fixing his problem.

You need positive cash flow right now. Follow Tim’s advice and put together that spreadsheet. Get some section 8’s living in your rental ASAP. Get two jobs. If you can give the banks ANYTHING in the way of $$$, you can at least SHOW PROOF that you indend to not be a fraud, and maybe, just maybe, dig yourself out of this with some time and some effort. Mostly time.

Personally, I would find your story much more inspirational of you told us three years from now how you had to untangle Outlook for people in a cube farm and deliver pizza at night to feed yourself, staved off foreclosure, and saved your marriage…
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segfault
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:14 pm

Too distracted to do any more real estate deals? That’s exactly what you need to get your game back. And it will solve all your problems with your marriage–you just need to get your bankruptcy behind you so you can start looking for sweet deals. I’m sure you won’t screw it up again.
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Jerry
December 23rd, 2006 at 4:29 am

@BTC - By your logic, young Casey isn’t bending the rules either then. He’s just creating a new game with his own rules. Borrow money with the intention to pay it back, gamble it away, then beg forgveness ’cause of his good intentions. Too bad his rules conflict with the law.

Walton paid his people below minimum wage and even sued in court to try to be exempt from the law when the loophole was closed (he lost). You should do some research how he created a number of corporate shells so the sales of each wouldn’t trigger a threshold where minimum wage would have to be paid. I don’t even want to get into what Bill Gates has been up to the last twenty years. Plenty of material on slashdot for that kind of stuff if you’re interested.

I have nothing against these two guys. They’re very successful and has much to be admired by the rest of us. Unlike Casey, they were smart enough not to do anything blatantly illegal on their way to the top. But to say they never bent the rules is stretching it a little far, IMHO.
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Very Concerned
December 23rd, 2006 at 12:06 pm

@ Disgusted
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Very Concerned
December 23rd, 2006 at 12:31 pm

@ Disgusted:

Thank you for reading my reply to your comment and acknowledging your anger.

Until a recent relocation to the Pacific NW, I lived in the Bay Area and am aware of the healthcare crisis in California. At the same time, California does have a great program for those who do not nor can afford medical care. (In previous postings to Casey I have provided listings of facilities near his home that are part of the California public health system where he can be seen and evaluated at little or no cost.)

I ask that you, perhaps others reading this posting, you read up on bipolar disorder, unipolar depression and other mental health diseases.

My ex was bipolar - it went undiagnosed for many many years. The times it was necessary for him to be hospitalized were when stress became overwhelming. The stress not being what Casey is experiencing, rather more “environmental overload.” One instance was when we were at a music festival with over 50,000 attendees…. the other time was at Heathrow Airport in London. At the music festival, I was the one who drove him to the ER. I felt very “guilty” about driving him there because I was certain there were others needing immediate medical attention. After evaluation, the physicians and nurses explained to me that I did what was necessary…. medically, there is no difference between someone in a mental health crisis and someone else suffering from a ruptured appendix.

The second hospitalization was in London. I was studying at Oxford. My ex was identified by Heathrow Airport Security as being “unwell” and they took him by ambulance to the local ER.

While the manic/depressive “break” appeared to “creep up” when it hit - it hit BIG TIME.

Because it is the holiday season, many physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists are overwhelmed with the needs of their current patients. New patients are unable to be seen in a timely manner.

Any mental health crisis requires immediate attention - especially given one as complex as bipolar disorder. While I am not qualified as a physician to provide a diagnosis for Casey (I have not seen or spoken to him), many of the symptoms have been illustrated by his behavior are classic.

I ask all who read this blog to learn more about major depressive illness as well as bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression).
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Sean
December 24th, 2006 at 12:00 am

(It’s time to face reality…)

hmm, www.patrick.net/wp claims to be a reality parser…

I notice God and Jesus frequently have spelling problems.

ER is free to all in Australia, it’s paid out of tax in a low-taxing 30% country… UK, Oz and Canada can do it, why can’t you?
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Josh
December 24th, 2006 at 1:44 pm

Wait, am I supposed to be surprised? You’re married AND investing at 24 years old, and have marriage issues just when you’re facing multiple foreclosure and mass debt….that’s a strange coincidence , right?
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Disgusted
December 25th, 2006 at 2:20 pm

@Very Concerned

“At the same time, California does have a great program for those who do not nor can afford medical care.”

And its gross abuse is one of the reasons California is neck deep in a sea of red ink.

“Any mental health crisis requires immediate attention - especially given one as complex as bipolar disorder. While I am not qualified as a physician to provide a diagnosis for Casey (I have not seen or spoken to him), many of the symptoms have been illustrated by his behavior are classic.”

This depends on what your definition of a “mental health crisis” is. For one to be on par with a true, life-threatening medical emergency, such as a ruptured apendix, it would have to be highly accute. A suicidal frame of mind would qualify as such. Ordinary depression, while requiring psychiatric treatment, is *not* an ER case.

Whatever mental condition Casey may have, I maintain it is *not* a medical *emergency* as evidenced by the fact that he has been able to continue living without being checked into an ER. Yes, he *may* need treatment. That does not automatically make his condition a medical emergency.
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SCapitalist
December 26th, 2006 at 9:28 am

I have been a follower for several months now. I can see at this point the stress of your situtation must be eating you alive! You have dug a deep hole for yourself. I am still amazed at your courage to blog about your experince. I say, keep it up. You are learning important lessons, albeit a little too late.
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M L M
December 27th, 2006 at 5:15 am

I just wanted to let you know that the reason you are failing is that you are tring to start your own business that screws other people out of their hard earned money. By “flipping” properties, the potential buyer of your “investments” must pay more than you did for you to be sucessful. In the real world, a business is only sucessful if it benefits to client in some way; ie. innovates to make life easier for people or sells products that people want.

So when your intent is to screw the greater fool in asset investments, don’t be so surprised that you look in the mirror and that fool is you.
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Stephanie J.
December 28th, 2006 at 12:12 pm

@YneOne

Please *don’t* move to Oregon.

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