Real Estate In The Face Of The Subprime Meltdown

Stop breathing into that paper bag. Obviously, you listened to the queer-sounding guy at work who lives alone with three cats and has seen every movie you've never heard of in your life, who has been spending his spare time trying to get his real estate license. While he prattled on about Boxing Helena, you actually did the real estate thing, and managed to make a little horse-racing money on the side. Of course, Comes In First didn't, and now the real estate market is in a complete fucking shambles. (Editor's Note: If I don't say fucking at least once every post, this might stop being a hateblog.) Now, you need to know what to do in order to keep Jimmy The Fish from fracturing your patella.

There's some good news. First of all, those of us that are better than you are ensuring our great-great grandchildrens' financial and political superiority by using our super-secret society rings (i.e. our accredited investorship) to dump money into hedge funds raking up corporate bonds, so that companies like Countrywide and WaMu will basically owe us out the ass for a period equal to the half-life of radium. But, second of all, there are things you can do with those foreclosed properties you bought that are now about as valuable as origami rocks.

1. Rent Your Properties Under The Table.
Actual tenancy laws are hard on the slumlord- they require running water, lack of infestation, and building structures that stand for longer than a fortnight. Renting under the table, on the other hand, just requires that you overlook the obvious drug trafficking and white slavery that will doubtless go on in the property in exchange for you doing jack squat. Make sure that the people you rent to fall in the 'good renters' category, which includes:

• Extremely large immigrant families who pile six generations into a van and listen to strange cultural music in the middle of the night.
• College students, especially the twitchy kind. Twitchy folk are more conscientious and will make an extra effort to pay the rent on time.
  
• College dropouts, especially the twitchy kind. It's not their fault they dropped out; maybe they're just stupid.
• Foreign men who have a different woman with them each time they come to look at the property.
• Blind people, who won't be able to see the shoddy work.
• Extremely hot women, who you should attempt to work out a rent exchange agreement with.

After you have selected your tenant (known in this legal document as THE SUCKER), you should sign papers in a shady basement with nothing but one desk and a fan that makes that cool movie wuHwuHwuHwuH sound. Make sure to wear a dirty suit, as if though you are a member of the mob and just sunk some poor fool in concrete sandals. Scared tenants are paying tenants. Make sure to have a jar of cheap grocery-store tilapia caviar nearby, which you should eagerly spread on Krispy Kreme doughnuts and then stuff into your mouth right before you laugh at something and make all the caviar eggs fall out.

Should you come upon the rare situation where your tenant doesn't pay his rent, just politely use your spare keys (you do have spare keys, don't you?) and grab enough pawnables to make up for it. Bonus points for putting a webcam in the bathroom.

2. Shoot Porn
This is a rather easy one and a no-brainer. Just buy a filthy mattress (urine soaked is preferable), find a willing actress (that is to say, a broke actress) and some willing actors to help out (if you can't find these, you should fucking die).

3. Find Someone Stupider Than You
This is a difficult one to pull off, because let's face it. You're dumb as rocks. You bought this shit and you're expecting someone else to buy it. But these people do exist; they sit around at soccer games talking about their spoiled ugly children, have big-ass diamonds on their wedding rings, and have absolutely no idea there's a financial clusterfuck out there because their husbands are too smart to let them balance the budget or use the real plastic when they go shopping.

The secret is to buy yourself something. A car, a boat, a new suit. Now, walk up to Stephanie (their names are always Stephanie or Tiffany or something like that) and offhandedly mention
how completely loaded you are now that you've taken up real estate. Most of these women have no idea how to do anything except fork hubby's money over to the first taker; if you can bang out a proper contract, you might be able to legally require her to help you use another property to work out option #2 (see above).

I hope this guide has helped you out. And if I see you on my property again, I'll shoot your ass full of rock salt.