Sunday Schadenfreude

When the EE was a little boy, there would be a weekly radio program of songs on Sunday evening.

In honor of that, we present SUNDAY SCHADENFREUDE.

Since this is like radio, you need to click each video in order to appreciate the linearity of the presentation.

First, from Florida: Did appraisers juice Florida real-estate market?.

Appraisers so commonly pumped up house values to meet demands of developers, real-estate agents and lenders that complaints against them tripled in Florida in recent years -- the largest complaint increase for any profession regulated by the state.

Cheryl Oliphant of Santa Monica, Calif., bought a house that lenders shopped to appraisers as being worth $550,000. The registered nurse now thinks the appraisal was inflated.

A novice real-estate investor, Oliphant said she used her retirement savings and bought at the top of the market, thinking she had a great deal and instant equity in the house because it appraised for $50,000 more than the $450,000 sales price.

Oliphant has been trying to sell the house at a $100,000 loss and plans to file for bankruptcy, losing her $50,000 down payment. She said she might ultimately have to abandon that house and four others she bought in Florida.


From LA: Many areas are becoming ghost towns as families foreclose.

David Day's house-flipping strategy flopped and now he's fighting for his financial life.

Like so many others, he'll likely lose.

Day and his family are on foreclosure's doorstep, struggling to make mortgage payments totaling $6,240 a month.

"I haven't slept in five months. I wake up every morning in a cold sweat. I'm getting ready to go into bankruptcy," he said. "There is no money for food, basically."


From the Bay Area: Bay Area food stamp enrollment skyrockets.

Struggling with rising prices and a stalled economy, a growing number of Bay Area families are turning to food stamps.

In January alone, the county approved 1,743 applications — 3 percent more than during the same month in 2007.


Finally, a word from the patron saint of this blog, and our chief sponsor, hereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee's Mr. Ogden Nash:

Love is a word that is constantly heard
Hate is a word that is not
Love, I am told, is more precious than gold
Love, I have heard, is hot

But hate is the verb that to me is superb
And love, just a drug on the mart
For any kiddie from school can love like a fool
But hating, my boy, is an art.

Thank you, thank you, please tune in again next Sunday for our weekly roundup.