Out Of Poverty: When the Bubble Burst
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Some people are born into poverty. Not me; I worked hard to get here!
In 2006, I was sitting on a modest fortune, including a high-rise condo that I owned free and clear in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. I ran a small video production company to pay the bills. And I wrote and produced comedy/variety shows on the side.
This was during the peak of the housing bubble; lots of people were getting rich and some were getting super-rich. So I thought, Why not me? I could take my modest fortune and turn it into an empire!
I attended a Donald Trump seminar where I learned that I couldn’t go wrong if I mortgaged out my condo and invested every penny into real estate. After all, real estate can only go up in value, right?
Holy guacamole, I’m gonna be rich! No more wedding videos for me; I can be a full-time writer!
I bought five properties over the course of two years, one of which I put my mom in. Here ya go, Mom; look how successful your son has become!
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Some people are born into poverty. Not me; I worked hard to get here!
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Between 2008 and 2009, the values of those properties plummeted to 1⁄10 of their original values. On top of this catastrophe, my business phone stopped ringing. Everybody and their uncle had a video camera by this point, and no one needed me to shoot their parties and presentations anymore. It was a perfect storm — out of money; out of income.
By the summer of 2010, all the properties had gone through foreclosure or short sale. The last one to go was my Gold Coast condo. I had bought it in 2001 for $179,000. It sold 9 years later for $149,000. The guy sitting two lawyers across from me — younger than me, by the way — said, “Wow, what a great time to buy!”
My mom had to move out of her house into a small apartment. There ya go, Mom; look at what a failure your son has become! She has forgiven me, of course. But will I be able to make amends before she passes on? Right now, God only knows.
Right before the POP!
