Recession watch: Repo Men are reaping benefits
Filed under: Debt, Home, Recession
This post is part of a series about real-life signs we're in a recession. I've had a couple close calls over the years, but happily, I've never had the experience of having anything repossessed. But if anyone reading this has had something hauled away, if it makes you feel any better, you're obviously not alone.
In this almost-but-not-quite recession, repo men have some enviable careers. Newspapers around the country have been publishing stories about local repo men raking in the bucks, taking away mostly vehicles, from cars to campers, and motorcycles to motor boats. According to KHOU, a Houston TV news station, 1.5 million vehicles were repossessed last year, a 15-percent increase from 2006. 2008 is expected to jump 10 percent from 2007.
But you can't really blame the repo men. They didn't create the current economic conditions, and they are just doing their job, and while I'm sure they're glad to be making extra money (who wouldn't want that?), I doubt these guys are getting their kicks off another person's misery. Besides, somebody's gotta do it.But what is a little creepy is what Cesar Dias, a California real estate agent, is doing, no offense meant to the guy. Obviously, he's a capitalist, and that's great, but it's not like his money-making venture was something the world was clamoring for. In any case... every Saturday, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., he takes three sold-out full-sized buses of interested buyers on a tour of all the repossessed homes in and around Stockton, California.
Meanwhile, Dias has been consulting other real estate agents at $5,000 a pop, so they can make an informed decision whether they should rent or buy a bus and get listed on his Web site, RepoHomeTour.com.
But it seems like it would have to be one of the saddest bus rides and money-making ventures going, if you really consider it. Owning a home is supposed to be the American dream. The people on the bus will be easier able to fulfill their American dreams because a lot of others failed to make their own come true.
Geoff Williams is a business journalist and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-01-2008 @ 12:07PM
jerry said...
i am confused - according to khou (houston news station) "$ 1.5 million vehicles were repossed last year".
if each repo was valued at 5k, that is only 300 vehicles.
not such a staggering amount that it warrents any space on the internet.
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5-01-2008 @ 12:28PM
Geoff Williams said...
Hi, Jerry,
Thanks for pointing that out and sorry for the confusion. The $ that you saw was a typo. It's been removed. It should have said 1.5 million. I'm sure it was my editor's fault.
(Maybe I made the typo, but it's always fun for a writer to instead blame the editor.)
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5-12-2008 @ 9:17AM
Dawn said...
Now I'm confused!! Both Jerry and Geoff said the exact same number....$1.5 million. ummm, duh?
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5-26-2008 @ 3:59AM
Richard said...
One said 1.5 million dollars and the other said 1.5 million cars.
5-12-2008 @ 8:50PM
Rick Highfield said...
Kind of a funny story. About three weeks ago the dogs started barking in the middle of the night. Well I never figured it was a repo man out there taking my Dodge pick up. I had been a little late on a couple payments. So I took Pap Paw's old double barrel 12 guage out and put in buck shot in both barrels and let her rip. Boom, boom. So everything goes quiet and I go back to sleep. Well in the morning there that feller was laying dead. It looked like a couple of pellets had hit him right about in the heart. So I called up the sheriff and told him all about it and they said they would send someone out. Well one day, then two days went by and nobody came. So by the third day he was stinking pretty bad, and there were lots of flies around him. So me and my uncle Fred we wrapped him up in an old army tent and called that sheriff again. Three more days went by and still nobody had come. So we buried him right next to the edge of the road and put a cement block there to mark it, so we wouldn't forget about him. The plates on his tow truck was from Ohio. So if anyone is missing one of them repo fellers, send us an email.
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