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RT @dancaseysblog: #Bank forecloses on #Virginia couple & auctions house behind their back–7 years ago. They sue for fraud. #realestate ht…
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Steve Jenkins
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Steve Jenkins
RT @WTOP: #Virginia coach’s adopted toddler builds a life with hoops team
bit.ly/1B5XCuW pic.twitter.com/GKIUHY1Vjb
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Steve Jenkins
RT @AppalachianPro1: “The World’s Shortest Tunnel” Backbone Rock near Damascus, Virginia #appalachia #swva #virginia instagram.com/p/rF9sjOIKkD/
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Steve Jenkins
RT @MetLifeBlimp: Great view of Virginia Tech’s campus! Where are all our Hokies out there?! #VirginiaTech #Blacksburg #Virginia http://t.c…
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Steve Jenkins
Million-dollar fixer-upper for sale: five bedrooms, four baths, three-car garage, cavernous living room. Big holes above fireplace where flat-screen TV used to hang.
The U.S. housing crisis has come to McMansion country. Just as the foreclosure crisis has hollowed out poorer neighborhoods, “for sale” signs are sprouting in upscale developments so new they don’t show up on GPS navigation screens.
The crisis has hit especially hard in Loudoun County, Virginia, where upscale developments have supplanted horse farms over the past fifteen years. About an hour’s drive from Washington, Loudoun is one of the nation’s most affluent counties, with a median household income of $98,000, more than double the national figure.
The county has also ranked as one of the nation’s fastest growing in recent years as developers built thousands of super-sized, amenity-laden houses to keep pace with the booming high-tech economy. Between 1990 and 2005, the county’s population tripled to 272,000. Many of those moving here relied on risky, high-interest loans to buy the house of their dreams.
High-interest loans accounted for 16% of the total during the height of the mortgage boom in 2005. Now the bill has come due. One out of every 69 households in the county was in foreclosure in the last three months of 2008, well above the national average of one filing for every 555 households.
[Read](http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/lifestyle-usa-housing-mcmansions.html “Read the Article”) (Reuters via The New York Times)
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