The 2006 Jetta came with everything but a willing buyer. This time, it wasn’t the VW’s fault. Like the 12 Kias that came before it, the Jetta was a repo, complete with its own customized owner-inspired design. A few tears in the floor where stereo wiring used to be. Gashes on each corner to test out those European bumpers. Then of course, they had to blow the damned glovebox into a thousand pieces of plastic using an M-40. The poor Jetta may have already suffered enough from modern day German electronics and a Euro denominated price tag. But like an errant animal, kid, spouse, or Wall Street executive, it was the owner that made it a truly bloody mess. No sale @ $9800. The big question: is this Jetta the harbinger of hundreds of thousands of repos– new SUVs, pickups and cars sold to anyone with a pulse via easy credit and no money down deals– yet to come? You know; once lenders stop allowing deadbeats to drive them for free, rather than take the hit to the bank’s balance sheet.
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Around Detroit, the beater cars are selling well. Lots of folks are no longer finding great deals on new cars, especially since the domestic leases dried up, and are now buying cheap cars to get them through until the economy clears up.
I used to work at a furniture store that did in-house financing. Keep in mind that this was in Canada in 1997/98, long before the crazy easy money stuff was so common.
Myself and another guy used to have to reposess furniture, appliances, and electronics. Let’s just say that some of the couches we retrieved needed to be taken out back and burned. The people that bought the stuff had no respect for it, because in their opinion, they were never going to pay for it in full. No matter how bad the items were, we had to get them back, but some of the stuff wasn’t worth the hassle. I can’t even imagine what kind of POS cars are going to surface that are only a couple years old.
Maybe this time the banks will realize that you can’t give idiots with bad credit piles of cash and expect them to be responsible with it.
Banks pay defaulting mortgagees to move out peacefully and non-destructively. Anyone trying the same deal here?
brettc :
October 7th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Maybe this time the banks will realize that you can’t give idiots with bad credit piles of cash and expect them to be responsible with it.
Ditto! And thanks for sharing that story. I could imagine!
And the last thing we should do as a society is to encourage/ reward slackers.
Section 8 housing ring a bell? Human nature – if you dont pay for it, why take care of it. Someone else will, right?
Glad to see OUR $25B will be hard at work bailing out deadbeats from the cars they should never have bought. And of course the dealers who did anything to move the metal.
Great job all around.
@jkross22:
$25b? Try $700b….
I had no idea that the $850 Billion bail-out included a section where the government can simply “change” a contract (mortgage) to reduce the amount of interest AND PRINCIPAL owed by the borrower. I wonder how many of our esteemed (?) Congressmen and Representatives even knew ? (OK I’m sorry for the extreme SARCASM but that’s their title) And if they did know, they just committed illegal acts in passing this bail out, which makes the law null and void (illegitimate) along with THEM – but just try to reason with anyone about THAT fact and see what happens. Kind of like arguing with the Stazi before 1989 that East Germany was an illegitimate government – know where that got folks?
See for yourself. Have a listen to the only sane man left in Congress, Ron Paul, talking to the Christian New Service. http://www.cnsnews.com/public/cnsnewstv/video.aspx?v=e4kUZuZu6U
Know what this means? It means this country is finished. Think there’s a “liquidity” problem brewing now where people can’t get loans? Like new car loans now 20% successful even for people with good credit instead of 95%?
What’s going to happen when the salient fact about mortgage contracts sinks in at the banks? Look at it from any sane lender’s point of view.
Who is going to lend out ONE RED CENT to anyone when the government (illegitimate as it is makes no difference) can simply alter the contract – always to the benefit of the borrower?
Add on top of that the fact that our government is actually insolvent – BANKRUPT. As in, we collectively owe way more than we can earn, or ever pay back. As in EVER pay back.
We’re screwed. So are Britain, Europe, Japan, China, Russia. We’re all on the Titanic re-arranging deck chairs as of now, and slipping on iceberg ice on the deck while we’re about it.
India might survive economically. They don’t rely upon exports, but have their own economy. Ironic that India might be the only solvent, only super-power left in the world by next year, isn’t it?
An interesting take on this; that the lease and repo’ed cars are going to begin surfacing in used car lots with rips, tears, dents, and all manner of human DNA on and in them.
Yuck!
So…these people that are losing the cars they couldn’t afford and didn’t take care of are going to get around how? Back on the bus?
Yuck!
Like the 12 Kias that came before it, the Jetta was a repo, complete with its own customized owner-inspired design
Why would you do this?
If I knew I was hanging on by the skin of my financial teeth, any asset I had was damn well going to be treated well in case I had to get rid of it. A beater car I could understand, but why take such poor care of even a leased vehicle?
psarhjinian> What if you new you had no chance to save your asset & it was going to be repoed? People beat up their houses because they are “angry at the bank” before the bank forecloses on them.
What if you new you had no chance to save your asset & it was going to be repoed? People beat up their houses because they are “angry at the bank” before the bank forecloses on them.
Valid point, but I still can’t see the reason for destruction out of frustration. It seems a little, well, childish.
Actually, yes, that’s exactly what it seems like: something my two year old son would do.
NPR recently did a piece on a business that essentially gussies up a house after it’s foreclosed. The business comes in, mows the lawn, cleans the place up, and as expected, many of the houses are thrashed.
There is a certain type of person that takes joy out of trashing something his or not hers. It does not matter to them.
There word is there bond to steal, rape and pillage and for those caught in the loss of value they take great joy in seeing the tears in there eyes as the true owners see their rentals value trashed.
From my grandfather an owner and landlord.
These are the folks that were awarded mortgages so that we could move them from poverty to better digs.
Foreclosures often have not stupid folks attached. They realize the flier they took will fail, or in the alternative, got hammered by uninsured medical bills.
Once you realize you can’t pay, but that it will take 10-24 months to get you physically out, many stop paying, and live rent free for a year. They will strip the house of any valuable fixtures, and sell them. (it’s not vandalism).
Of course, your credit is permanently nuked, so it’s not “free” but a years worth of mortgage and taxes make a decent nest egg. Just make sure the money is not in your name (or the mattress) so you don’t have to worry about a judgement execution.
Some of the “professional tenants” can stretch this for quite a while.
I walk across a Chrysler dealer lot a few times a week. It’s on my way to the post office. I see the repos in the back of the lot. They are not flashy or high end. Normally some sort of Pacifica, low end pickup, or mitsubishi. It’s a sad sight.