Sex Orgy Homes Go Down in Price

Michelle Leder, Footnoted

How Low Can You Go?

Footnoted regulars know that I’ve been chronicling the fate of Countrywide’s
(CFC) sex
party house in Holmes Beach, Fl and using it as a metaphor to explain just
how serious the whole subprime mess really is. Not to mention how little Bank
of America (BAC) executives seem to really get the problem.

Next Tuesday, the house will go on the auction block. And the starting
price is now listed at $279K. That’s a $90K drop from just last month and
considerably less than the $1.1 million that Countrywide appears to be on the
hook for as Floyd
Norris noted last month. Oddly enough, Countrywide’s own REO site still
lists the house at $729K.

Now obviously there’s a bit of danger of taking one particularly sorry house
and using that as a metaphor for the crisis. But on a day when foreclosures
jumped 53% and Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) are dropping
yet again, it’s hard not to view it exactly that way.