Here, from a Google Street View photo take just a few years ago, is a portrait of the American dream:
And here, after eight re-financings, a shiny SUV and a boat, followed by a bank failure then a Fannie Mae foreclosure, is the home for sale now:
The topiary and rose bushes are dead. The garden flamingos and the Virgin Mary statue have left for a better world. Inside the home looks abandoned, and the ceiling is supported by a bare 2×4.
What people don’t notice about falling home prices is that what’s falling isn’t just prices but, on a national and tragic scale, the actual quality of where we live, too.
(First noticed by Nirad on Redfin’s Los Angeles forums)