Reclaiming Americas farm land and the housing bubble burst...

[Javaman]

So here I am, sitting in my home and finding out that my neighbors, a young couple, newly married with one on the way, had to foreclose on their property. Why? well like many people who are young and clueless, they wanted to settle down and have a family, but didn't do the financial road work to make that dream come true. So what they did is what many people across America did; no money down with a adjustable mortgage rate. Ouch.

They were a nice couple. Great neighbors, really helpful people and best of all quiet. :)

However, now their house sits vacant, after they quietly left one night after several weeks of shuttling their belongings to a storage unit. Sad.

This same scenario is being played out across the U.S. right at this moment.

One of our other neighbors, a contractor, is considering buying the house, renovated it and flip it. I guess some people still like to play the odds.

Personally, I wish I had the cash. (our house is paid off and we are saving for some form of retirement) I would buy the house, raise it, clear the land, prep the land by planting clover or perhaps rye. Put in a peripheral water capturing system and begin to grow veggies in a year.

Oddly, this housing bubble burst might be just what the doctor ordered in some ways.

Many many houses from this point forward are going to sit idle for a very long time in various states of construction. Some fully built, some half way built, some only foundations. At some point, the various mortgage holders will be very eager to unload this millstones for a song.

A smart person would snap those places up and just sit on them. Because most of these failed developments sit on prime farm land. And in time, that same old farm land will once again be needed to feed a very hungry nation once the price of oil goes up in earnest.

Right now we are in the boil the frog stage. The price is going up, but at a slower rate then a few years back. But at some point, after people have cut back to within an inch of their budget, things will give and all the screaming and yelling to shop locally will take hold.

And the farmers will once again be in high demand.

Just a matter of time.

[Warpy]

1. I'm in the inner city

and I'm seeing people foreclosed and then the houses sitting empty for months. There are two rehabs near me. One's been on the market for only six weeks, the other for nearly a year. A foreclosed house has been empty for 18 months. People aren't buying anything right now and I don't blame them. Likely these houses will be rented at some point as the banks or the owners try to pull enough income out of them to make the interest on the bad loan or the mortgage payment. Until then, the places will sit empty while families are forced into cramped, substandard apartments--or worse.

The same thing happened in the Depression. People were foreclosed who had only a few mortgage payments left. Housing sat empty and families sat on the street or in Hoovervilles in tents and tarpaper. The lucky ones were able to move in with relatives, but that generally didn't last long.

The land around here will support a few cows or goats. It's mostly non arable land. Razing the bedroom communities won't do much to improve things. I do see people who moved to the exurbs 60 miles from their jobs and seeking the good life getting hurt the worst, though.

I don't know how this will play out and how much of the economy it'll take with it. The dotcom bust didn't sink us because credit was still cheap. This new bubble just might, though, if it's allowed to collapse completely.

[Tsiyu]

2. Something to ponder

My hope is that more communities will decide to put their greenspace to use growing food crops, and that more developments will encourage the cultivation of native permaculture.

I was in the desert in S. California recently, in a gated community, stunned at the extraordinary and wasteful efforts to grow Eastern style lawns and trees. Bizarre.

Also, I think the folks who say "our economy is just fine" do not realize how food is made. The effect of high gas prices on smaller growers' operations is a lessening or elimination of their profit margin. This will spell doom for smaller growers, who operate with minimum profit margins already.

Just as the low-income person feels the bite of high gas prices more than the affluent worker/consumer, so does the farmer in general see a greater decline in income related to expense.

So who will grow the food? Who will pay to harvest it and transport it and package it? When folks scoff at any mention of "hard times to come," they seem to think someone will always be there growing their food supply for them. As more and more small farmers drop out of the supply chain, we will become dependent on either ourselves or Monsanto, basically. And if you think they care about anything BESIDES profit, you aren't thinking clearly.

Good post, hope this all works out as you imagine....

[Nihil]

3. Some "entrepreneurs" are doing a variant of your wish ...

> Personally, I wish I had the cash ... I would buy the house, raise it,
> clear the land, prep the land by planting clover or perhaps rye.
> Put in a peripheral water capturing system and begin to grow veggies
> in a year.

Well, they don't exactly buy the empty house and don't exactly grow
"veggies" but the principle is sound ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_6440000/newsid_6444300/6444357.stm

>> Charity spokesman Martin Barnes said many of the farms were set up
>> in empty residential properties taken over by the growers.

:-)