Posted on 02/24/2009 2:03:14 PM PST by americanophile
You've heard plenty of stories about foreclosures, but the latest victims of this brutal recession are about to lose their cave.
That's right. For nearly five years, Curt Sleeper and his family have lived in a cave. His mortgage is about to come due and, like millions of other Americans, he can't refinance.
So now, the 17,000-square-foot, subterranean home is being auctioned off on eBay.
Sleeper and his wife Deborah bought the cave outside St. Louis in May 2004 for $160,000. To pay for it, they sold their old home, TV and even the DVD collection. They made a 50 percent down payment and borrowed the other $80,000 from the seller. It was a five-year loan with a single balloon payment at the end.
The Sleepers now have until May 1 to pay off the remaining $83,000 or sell the property. It's not a foreclosure sale yet, but if they can't come up with the money, they risk losing the house.
Besides the initial $80,000 payment, Sleeper said he spent another $150,000 on renovations to the cave and the surrounding 2.8 acres he owns.
The original plan was to refinance. But Sleeper, a self-employed computer consultant, said...
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Mortgage default: So easy, a caveman can do it! :D
(chuckle)
Ya know a commercial is coming along thoughs lines.
Six munths ago he culdn’t even spel programmer. Now he are one.
“Besides the initial $80,000 payment, Sleeper said he spent another $150,000 on renovations to the cave and the surrounding 2.8 acres he owns.”
Um, sounds like he should have paid the debt first.
I think they just outed Batman.
This idiot financed $80 on a five year balloon note, and then poured an additional $150 into renovations but didn’t bother to pay down any of the note and still owes $83 five years later.
That's a DARN nice cave.
“Creative” mortgages are like the lottery: They’re for people who are bad at math.
A real man cave!
Sounds like he is between a rock and a hard place.
Remind you of something?
Real property is real property ... Case closed.
uh ... yeah.
I had to check out the byline to make sure it wasn't from the Onion or a website like that.
He’s in deep guano.
Billionaire-playboy Bruce Wayne shouldn't have put all of his money into Bear Stearns.
$320,000 total? Talk about a money pit. He really got in over his head.
I think he put it all with Bernie Madoff.
Ok, so he got a 5 year mortgage on $80k. Now, at the end of that 5 years he owes $83k. Did he not make any payments in all that time?
Groundwater, gravity, and erosion never stop - eventually the cave, uh, caves-in. The ceiling falls down, in other words.
That's what a responsible person would do. Obama and the Dems have no need for responsible people other than their money.
I'd be glad to live there, but I'm not commuting to Texas every day.
80 000 / 60 = 1 333.33333.
If my math is correct, $1333 per month is not bad rent for a 17,000 sq ft air-conditioned mansion on 2.8 acres. Too bad about the lost renovation costs.
The answer - mold.
The note holder can get a $300K house because the guy is defaulting on an 80K loan.
Make a nice new home for the FR servers, don’t you think?
The FIRST THING they should have done was pay off the note, KNOWING it was a five-year balloon note.
I'm apologize.
I find it impossible to feel sorry for stupid people.
It's just not in my nature.
What kind of mortgage/real estate deal was that?
I’ve never heard of that kind of boondoggle.
Cool.
Nice photos.
Yeah, about 56 degrees constant year round, raised somewhat by the heat of the machines. No climate conditioning required for the server farm at all.
;)
so does your house
And pretty much storm-proof at that. ;-)
Finance is not his strong suit.
All sorts of folks buy homes under “land contracts” - that is where the seller holds the financing for some set period of time, after which you have to pay up.
It is common in the midwest, especially when the buyer needs to build a house, before he can get conventional financing.
That’s almost as awesome as folks buying up old Minuteman and Titan missle silos and renovating them.
Yeah - but - the electric service, from the photo, seems to be overhead, and it looks like a 10KVA pot. Way too small for a server farm, and only slightly more reliable than power in CA.
Out of curiosity, I emailed a friend - STL DOES have eathquakes, which makes a cave somewhat iffy.
Of course, the FR staff are used to earthquakes...LOL.
Subterranean sub-prime.
Listening carefully to the story, and reading between the lines just a tad, he HAS NO bank to be pissed off at right now for foreclosing. Rather the people he bought the cave from took a 50% down payment of $80K and agreed to hole the other $80K note for 5 years.
Now comes time for him to refi and no banks will loan him the cash. So the people who owned the cave prior are forcing him to stick to the terms of the note which means: 1. Get financing from a conventional bank 2. Sell 3. Walk away. Looks to me like the previous owners know EXACTLY what they are doing now that they have an improved property heading their way for no money.
Interesting how the ABC bimbette never asked him why the the previous owners won’t modify the current terms of the note.
Talk about Subterranean Homesick Blues....
Nice digs.
A good example of people living beyond their means. I wonder if Osama will bail him out?
It’s called owner financing. It wasn’t a mortgage it was a ballon payment note.
That's comedy gold.
That cave’s nicer than my house... :(
That’s what I thought as well.
(During construction, Sleeper, his wife and their two kids lived in tents in the back of the cave and washed dishes and laundry in buckets. Their third child, a son, was born last week in the cave.)
Get the place livable and then concentrate on paying down the debt.
Too many people think that good times (financially) will last for ever. Some people actually have said the business cycle was over, we would never have a down turn again.
HA! They forgot about Democrats!
Money for nothin’, and the (cave) chicks for free!
Over 45 years ago in junior high math, we were introduced to mortgage concepts. When it came to balloon mortages, as a kid it seemed like a suckers deal. Seems more like it now.
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