The Train Crashes

I posted back in October that I was a bit addicted to the Casey Serin Story. I must confess that I often start and end my day reading his blog and/or Exurban Nation a so called "Haterz" site. I don't participate on either blog but I cannot seem to look away. Casey's story has gotten considerable national press: CNET, MSN, Suze Orman and even the Economist. In a nutshell, this young man was able to get many stated income mortgages on a variety of homes around the country all while unemployed. Most of these homes came with cash back at closing. Given the housing slow down, it should come as no surprise then that the vast majority of the homes have now been foreclosed on and Casey is now facing difficulty meeting any of his other financial obligations. People new to the Casey story rush in with compassion and empathy. Long time watchers, frustrated with idle promises to "pay back every dirty penny", have begun to create parody sites and even to maintain a wikipedia entry. One person even made a song from snippets from one of Casey's webcasts.

During these months I have lurked, I have laughed. And yet, now, I am mostly just sad. Casey seems unable to realize that his world is literally crashing around him. His wife asked him to sign a contract, his brother confronted him on one of his talk-casts (transcript), and CashCall is calling, a lot. Long time watchers are convinced that Casey is either Bipolar or has Narcissist personality disorder. His credit is crap. His wife's credit is crap. His sister in-law is threatening him with eviction. He is uneducated and unemployed. His wife seems to be one incident away from walking away. A number of folks (see Duane's story) who have been through similar situations, faced the brutal truths of their lives and crawled out from the hole, offered their help. All of these fine people have given up in frustrustration. And yet, in spite of this, good things are coming. Um, sure.

I watch the current grasping for straws, for ad revenue, for donations and I am just sad. Sure, this may turn things around for a week or two but the reality is that this person is still $200,000 or $250,000 in debt and thinks that trips to Macaroni grill, Jamba Juice, Ikea and Starbucks are OK, justified even. This person is still unemployed, still not opening his mail and still lying to himself and those around him. Many people in the housing industry supplied actionable advice over the preceding months and yet none of this quality advice was taken. So many opportunities were missed. Below the Crowd has two terrific articles on Casey: The anti-pud and the sad lesson of Casey Serin. Hopefully others will learn from his mistakes, not from his own blog but from those experts who were not heeded and shared their wisdom.

While I am sad about Casey and his story, I am also frightened that his story is just a harbinger of things to come. Below the Crowd lifted a chart of sub-prime mortgages about to adjust over the coming years. The Casey Serin story is not unique. Another young person, David Crisp, who was initially much more successful than Casey, is facing foreclosure on 8 homes. The housing market has not seen anything yet. I'm still watching but I am no longer laughing.

Update on June 2, 2007

On May 31, 2007, Casey Serin took down his popular blog and replaced it ultimately with a plain white page perhaps due to breaching the contracts he signed with his wife and family. There were various other not so blank posts that were screen captured to Caseypedia. Declan McCullagh of CNET has written an article on the shut down. The blog shut down has not appeared to have stalled Casey's talk casts.

Comments

[Irene]

*GASP* I couldn't even imagine.

[Kyra]

I think it's always frustrating when you can literally watch a "car-crash" financially occuring when it could be entirely avoided. I'm with Irene though, I can't even imagine.

[Cathy]

Kyra & Irene
I share the *gasp* feeling about this. I was in some debt after graduate school and once I paid it off, I've been debt free (except mortgage and/or car payment) ever since. So I suppose that I can imagine, I just really don't want to go there ever again.