Hey guys...I slacked off on an assignment, I was supposed to collect financial horror stories about people and bad situations they got into financially and I forgot- I think it's due monday but it could also be due tomorrow.
So please! Post your Financial horror stories here. Even if they are not yours- even if it was an aunt, an uncle, a friend of a friend...etc. You don't have to name who it was. Post as many as you can that'll help me a lot or I'll have to make them all up.
THANKS AND ENJOY THE HORROR STORIES YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ!
lol.
haha I commend you on your resourcefulness but at the same time shame you for your utter lack of responsibility!
A cut and dry, seemingly straightforward man marries into a family that accepts him and loves him. As a hobby, he finds a cheap plot of land to buy and builds a cabin on it with his brother. The town nearby, he notices, also has cheap things to buy: real estate.
The year is 2004 and this married man buys a couple properties for only a few thousand dollars a piece. Him and his brother fix up the first units and rent them. The newly fixed up properties are refinanced and the money is used to buy more properties to fix up. Those units are rented and a good income stream starts coming in. The man's wife is brought in as a business partner and so is the man's father.
It's 2005 and lots more properties are scooped up for cheap. The rental business is going so well that a property manager is hired to collect rent checks and a small crew is hired to do the work on the units. At the recommendation of the man's father, who says "You can trust him [my son]," the married man's mother-in-law, her other daughter and her sister are brought in as business partners. Family supplies the cash to buy properties, while the man fixes them up, refinances them, finds tenants, and manages them. It's a family affair and the strategy is to buy more properties to fix up and rent.
It's 2006 and the city alderman shower the man in praise for doing such good work fixing up this small sleeper town. That same day, a renter knocks over a candle and sets fire to one of the units. The man knows insurance will pay, but many renters are causing damage to units or are missing rent payments. The man does what he can to repair units and evict deadbeats, but he can no longer buy new properties like he once did. The banks who were so willing refinance his properties are starting to give him trouble instead. "You are overextended," they say. What do they know, thinks the man. Let's keep the momentum going, I need more money to expand.
It's 2007 some of the man's decisions to move so fast and whose properties get repaired first cause tempers to flare. Infighting begins among the partners. Who pays for this or that is agrued back and forth. The man stops answering his phone when partners call. Some family members decide to get their own repair crew, some want to fire the man as the managing partner. A lawyer is brought in to help dissolve certain partnerships. Renters are doing drugs and lie about making the rent payments. Evictions are becoming commonplace. The crews do shoddy work and create even more frustration for the partners. With a lack of income stream and reliable crews, the partners are forced into their one and only exit strategy. Flood the market and hope to sell their properties.
It's 2008 and the housing market is collapsing. Quality renters are hard to find. The city is full of deadbeats who mostly live off the government, it is found. Some potential buyers come in with lowball offers to buy a property here and there, but few deals close. An auction is organized to sell the partnership's properties. The man's father, who told the others that they could trust his son, owns half the parternship's properties. It is overheard that his entire retirement savings was used to buy these properties. At the online auction, the highest bid the father receives on any one property is $1,000. Turns out the $1,000 bid was actually the auctioneer trying to get other bidders to bid up the property and no one actually bid. None of the father's properties get sold. The man's father is ruined.
It's 2009 and the man is divorced. He has filed for bankruptcy and moved out of his wife and child's home. The entrepreneurial venture he once hoped would be a nest-egg for retirement ended up destroying his reputation, his family, his credit, his family's credit, and his father's life savings.
