The Assault On the Lower Middle Class ....

That $10,000 Starter House Is Now $500,000 .....

When I got back here, I returned with a couple of realistic facts. I know I will never be able to afford a house in Long Island. Even though I will make more being up here, I will eventually end up living in a basement apartment for the next 25 years, until I retire with a nest egg. It sounds retarded, but in my line of work it's a fact: SC doesn't pay Service Advisors what New York does. I'll give up Quality of Life, but I've done the homeowner with the lawn cutting bullshit, and that doesn't matter to me.

Yeah, it's stupid, but if you make $100,000 a year up here, you still might live with your parents. Why? Beacuse real estate here - and like even some places in South Carolina - is insane. Back in the 40's and 50's no one lived out here, and houses went for $10,000. That same house is now $400,000-600,000 depending on what town you live in - except now that it's 50-60 years old !! Many people cashed out , like my parents (although it would have tripled if they waited another 10 years). Their kids bough those houses often, beacuse it was the only place they could afford. With the collapse of the housing market, they just lost $100-200,000 in equity - or if they just bought it, they're that much in the hole. If you're in the lower middle class, you only have one choice - foreclosure. In many areas around here, and even in SC, the Big F is everywhere.... And it all depends on where you live.

Here on Long Island, for every house sold, there is nearly one that is in what is called 'Lis Pendens', which is Latin for 'You're F**ked'. Technically, it's a home that's 90 days or moe late on payments. What does that mean for the Real Estate market? It means that you can't sell you're home at market value, because there is probably one around the corner that is on the verge of foreclosure, and a buyer will get that one at a fraction of what you're asking for yours....

But, like I said, it does discriminate. I live in Lake Grove, where the houses go around $800,000, yet only 1.3% of them are in Lis Pendens. My hometown of Brentwood is at 27.6% - about 25 TIMES the rate of Lake Grove. All of the Top Ten are on the South Shore, lower middle class, and pretty much Black or Hispanic. 'Experts' here place blame on the recession. While we agree to a point about that - no job, no money, no mortgage payment - the real problem to us is the actual system in place here. The population hasn't risen in decades, yet the property values kept right on going up, and the property taxes went with them. This is a bare minimum of what it takes to live here. Figure $300,000 for the house, which is about $1500 a month. Tack on property taxes of $6000 a year, then the utility bill of $400-500 a month, and you have to insure that puppy too, so add another $150 a month. You're at $2650, and you haven't eaten, or paid for a car payment or for the gas or insurance. You need to take home at least $4000 a month just to survive, and that's to live in a town with high crime. The American Dream indeed.....

It's not just here. Take a trip own to Myrtle Beach or Hilton Head/Bluffton. The foreclosure signs are everywhere. South Carolina has begun the path of 'exclusivity', where people of lesser income - and darker skin - are getting shut out, or stuck in a Real Estate trap. This is how runaway government, even on the local level, can choke off an entire section of it's residents under the guise of 'more services'....

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