Check this out! The White House has a Zestimate. It is valued at $310,228,000.

Here is the nearest Comp. Its a bit of a “down-size.”

I suppose if things get too bad we could always get a 95% LTV Cash Out Refinance on it, bundle it with the Washington Monument and Statue of Liberty, and sell it to the Chinese as a Mortgage Backed Security.  Well, then again, maybe the Chinese wouldn’t buy it anymore.

I dare you to give it your own estimate.

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After listening to this NPR story this morning, it once again reminded me about the importance of simplicity, trust, and doing business locally. While ”Prime” mortgages (the best of the best) have a default rate of around 2.7%, and sub-prime loans can have a default rate nearing 20%, the default rate on Amish mortgages is 0%. That’s right, this agrarian community with no electricity, let alone FICO scores, has the lowest credit risk in the entire country. Bill O’Brien of Hometowne Heritage Bank is a loan officer to the Amish:

“We’ve never lost any money on an Amish deal,” he says. “So, I’ll stretch my neck more for with them than maybe I will somewhere else.”

That’s right,  Hometowne Heritage has loaned out a $100 Million in mortgages to people with no W2’s and no credit history simply on their good word. Here’s how O’brien vets his Amish customers:

“I’ll find out who his dad was,” he says. “I’m also interested in who his wife’s father was. It takes a team to make a farm go.”

This incredible phenomenon got me thinking about another story I read recently in the Wall Street Journal where it was reported that one of the lowest default rates on sub-prime mortgages is with illegal immigrants:

Less than 5% of Bank of Bartlett’s ITIN loans are delinquent. Nationally, for loans more than 90 days in arrears, ITIN mortgages had a delinquency rate of about 0.5% last year, compared with 9.3% for subprime mortgages, according to independent estimates.

So, why are these two unlikely demographics the safest people to lend money too? I think it has to do with a few things:

• Family support.  Amish and immigrant families tend to have strong bonds. When a person gets in trouble, another steps in to help. If someone can’t pay the bills that month, a brother or uncle will help.
• Shame.  And I mean this is a good way. Many cultures are so ashamed not to pay a bill on time that they will do anything necessary to prevent it from happening. Americans used to be this way too. However, in recent times we have become so greedy, so laden with debt, and so nonchalant about our finances, bankruptcy or foreclosure has become just another blip on the radar screen of life.
• A Heritage of Discipline and Saving.  Many immigrant and Amish families have worked long hours and saved many years with the dream of owning a home. So, when they come to a point where they are able to afford that home, they treat it as a treasure - literally a dream home. During the Boom, most Americans could buy a house with no savings, no down payment, and in some cases, no job. Unfortunately, this crisis has taught us that people who obtain things easily will also let go of them easily.
• A sense of loyalty to the lender.  For the Amish, their loan isn’t securitized and sold on the secondary mortgage market (homes without electricity can’t be securitized). Rather, it’s kept by Hometowne Heritage Bank in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The Amish know that if they default on a loan that it affects their lender and the people in their community directly.

So in the end, maybe its not the credit score or the income verification that even matters. After all, most of the Amish and Immigrant loans were NINA loans (not because they didn’t have income, but because they didn’t have traditional income). Maybe it really comes down to just the character of the person. Which makes me wonder: What if local lenders started loaning again to local people with local money?  Could we avoid another sub-prime crisis?

Interesting: After a shooting at West Nickel Mines School in Lancaster County in which 5 school age girls were killed, the families of the victims responded by forgiving the family.  Many Amish visited with the killers widow and parents, one holding the killer’s father in his arms for an hour. The Amish even set up a charitable fund for the killer’s family - all of whom were not Amish.

Creative marketing or over the top?

….in preparation for this:                      

Its kind of hard to see, but my email and phone number are on every listing detail page on Redfin.com this weekend. Say a prayer for my sanity.

On Monday Redfin laid off 20% of its employees. I watched friends walk out the front door of our office.

I was humbled.

I talked to 3 or 4 of the people who were laid off. There was no bitterness - no hatred - but grace. They helped their successor with their newly acquired transaction. They called clients to let them know that it was a pleasure to work with them, but they had to transfer their transaction to someone else. They acted with the utmost class….

Few people would have acted this way. On Monday I was devastated - but on Monday, it became clear to me the Redfin would succeed -not necessarily because of the people still at the company (who are amazing in their own right), but because of those who departed from the company.

To those who have left - tomorrow will be lonely without you.

—-

“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters–one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.” ~ JFK

Inspiring.

As if this wasn’t enough. Countrywide has now found out that some schmuck employee of theirs has downloaded around 2,000,000 of their customer’s personal files containing financial info, SS #’s,  and addresses. They then sold it at below black market value.

Check out the letter I got in the mail from Countrywide (Click on Letter to Read):  

On a positive note, Lisa, a supervisor at Countrywide, told me that they would accept requests for payment for time spent cancelling accounts, monitoring credit, creating fraud alerts, etc. You can fax or mail your request for compensation to the hand written address and fax # I wrote at the bottom of the letter.

Bonus: I bought WaMu (WM) stock at $1.89 and Comstock Homebuilders (CHCI) stock at .44 this week. Stupid or Smart?

1.) Pit stains and sweat pants do not sell houses:

2.) Fashion does sell houses: