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Underwater: How Our American Dream of Homeownership Became a Nightmare Hardcover – July 14, 2020

by Ryan Dezember (Author)

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Winner of the Bruss Real Estate Book Award

His assignment was to write about a real-estate frenzy lighting up the Redneck Riviera. So Ryan Dezember settled in and bought a home nearby himself. Then the market crashed, and he became one of the millions of Americans who suddenly owed more on their homes than they were worth. A flood of foreclosures made it impossible to sell. It didn't help that his quaint neighborhood fell into disrepair and drug-induced despair. He had no choice but to become a reluctant and wildly unprofitable landlord to move on. Meanwhile, his reporting showed how the speculative mania that caused the crash opened the U.S. housing market to a much larger breed of investors.

In this deeply personal story, Dezember shows how decisions on Wall Street and in Washington played out on his street in a corner of the Sunbelt that was convulsed by the foreclosure crisis. Readers will witness the housing market collapse from Dezember’s perch as a newspaper reporter. First he’s in the boom-to-bust South where a hot-air balloonist named Bob Shallow becomes one of the world’s top selling real-estate agents arranging condo flips, developers flop in spectacular fashion and the law catches up with a beach-town mayor on the take. Later he’s in New York, among financiers like Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman who are building rental empires out of foreclosures, staking claim to the bastion of middle-class wealth: the single-family home. Through it all, Dezember is an underwater homeowner caught up in the mess.

A cautionary tale of Wall Street's push to turn homes into assets, Underwater is a powerful, incisive story that chronicles the crash and its aftermath from a fresh perspective―the forgotten, middle-class homeowner.

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Thomas Dunne Books
Publication date

July 14, 2020
Dimensions

6.39 x 0.99 x 9.58 inches
ISBN-10

1250241804
ISBN-13

978-1250241801
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Well told...what Dezember does have working for him are some wonderfully flamboyant characters and a knack for telling a good story." --New York Times

"Ryan Dezember’s study of home buying and selling in America is frightening, enlightening, and infuriating." --Don Noble, Alabama Public Radio

"If you think you've heard the housing bust story, you haven't until you read Dezember's account of the single-family home rental industry that sprung up as a result." --Chris Wetterich, Cincinnati Business Courier

"A unique and incisive portrait of the fallout from the 2008 housing crash that combines investigative journalism with his experiences as an 'underwater' homeowner...This well-informed and wryly humorous account humanizes the story of the financial meltdown without sacrificing big-picture analysis." --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Ryan Dezember is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal,writing about financial markets and investors. He previously wrote about the oil industry from the Journal’s Houston bureau. Before that he worked as a reporter for the Mobile Register, reporting on the real-estate boom and bust for coastal Alabama’s daily newspaper. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thomas Dunne Books (July 14, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250241804
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250241801
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.39 x 0.99 x 9.58 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #783,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #516 in Economic Policy
- #692 in Economic Policy & Development (Books)
- #900 in Sociology of Urban Areas

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Ryan Dezember is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, writing about financial markets and investors. He previously wrote about the oil industry from the Journal’s Houston bureau. Before that he worked as a reporter for the Mobile Register, reporting on the real-estate boom and bust for coastal Alabama’s daily newspaper. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Heidi Rice

Excellent read on the US housing market: accurate, insightful and easy to read

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2023

Verified Purchase

This is THE book for anyone interested in understanding the US housing market. Starting with a quick historical perspective summarizing the past two hundred years, it moves to a more in-depth reflection on the recent housing collapse and finishes strong with the current push by institutional investors to create the forever renter. Insightful, accurate, and an easy read. Ryan Dezember is humble and an excellent storyteller. I would love to see a follow-up book highlighting the impact of institutional investors on the sunbelt housing market during the pandemic. I personally witnessed these cash buyers funded by Wall Street going neighborhood by neighborhood, purchasing as many starter homes as possible.

One person found this helpful

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Frank Gunn

WATCH OUT, MICHAEL LEWIS! THERE'S A NEW FINANCE WRITER IN TOWN!

Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2020

Verified Purchase

As a real estate investor and former elected official, my favorite book topics deal with finance and real estate. In fact, I’ve read probably a dozen books on the Great Recession. “Underwater” is one of the best. Similar in style and topic to Michael Lewis' "The Big Short."

Many issues readers will already be familiar with, but Dezember covers new ground and has a unique perspective in that he personally lost his home in the Great Recession (AND his wife. AND his dog.) Even so, very balanced. And he takes his lumps like a big boy rather than blaming others like many books do that deal with the same material.

I especially enjoyed the latter part about how single family home landlords is shifting from “mom and pop” operations to Wall St. titans – virgin territory among financial authors. In my home town of about 500,000 people, three hedge funds have setup shop. They’re vacuuming-up all the investment houses and inflating prices. As a result, the traditional “buy-and-hold” SFR rental model is topsy-turvied. Investors aren’t rehabbing and retailing or keeping houses to rent; they’re selling to the hedge funds. This model is replicated across the country, and has portentous omens for the future of residential real estate. (The “Great Recession – Part Deaux!”)

I hope Mr. Dezember will beat Michael Lewis to the punch and elaborate on this topic in his subsequent book.

2 people found this helpful

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Nancy Adair

The Amoral Business of Real Estate

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2020

My brother tells the story of a friend and his wife who in the early 2000s built their dream house in an upscale part of Oakland County, Michigan. After a few years they decided to relocate. They owed more than the house's market value.

Is real estate still a good investment? Perhaps if you are in it for the long run.

My folks bought a modest house in 1972 for $33,900. Between 2004 to 2005 it's value shot up by 72%. By 2009 when I inherited the house it's value had plummeted by 50%.

We weren't selling. It was our retirement home. Today the value has risen again, neighboring houses selling in the range of their high back in 2005.

Perhaps the house's value will plummet again. Who knows what will happen in ten or twenty years? But if we had not inherited a home, we would be renting. That $1500 a month expense would have made us penny-pinchers in our golden years, just as we were when we were starting out. Living without mortgage or rent has made all the difference.

Ryan Dezember was a journalist covering real estate for an Alabama newspaper when he and his wife purchased a modest home in 2005. Within years the marriage was over, the house up for sale. The house would not sell for what he owed. The housing market had collapsed.

It took ten years before Dezember could unload the house. He figures it cost him $60,000. He understood the real estate business, the deals and flipping that made billionaires overnight--selling housing that didn't even exist yet. Still, he was a sucker for the American Dream of homeownership.

Underwater explains the whole messy, disgusting process that ruined the lives of so many. People like my brother's friends who ultimately told the bank, accept the buyer's offer or we are walking away and you'll get nothing. (The bank opted for nothing.)

After we inherited my folk's house, we spent our days off doing yard work and upgrading the electric and appliances. We walked the dog in our so-to-be-neighborhood, noting the foreclosure signs and sale signs. It was heartbreaking. These same houses are now so hot, realtors are clambering for houses to sell.

Dezember's book is full of real estate details of the transactions in the Alabama beach community he covered. It can be overwhelming! The book is humanized by his personal story. The environmental impact of building on the white sand shore of Alabama is distressing to read.

Dezember notes that 55% of owner-occupied home in the US are filled with people like me--seniors who will swamp the market in the 2030s as they downsize or die. That means our home will fetch far less than it does today.

Should we sell when the value is high and rent?

Since the stock market is also unreliable, selling and investing the money could also be risky.

Underwater explains the real estate game and how people like you and me find our investments gutted overnight. "Banks are amoral," Dezember reminds us. It's all about profit.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

6 people found this helpful

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Douglas P Heller

Outstanding

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2020

Verified Purchase

There is a lot here that is interesting for future house purchasers and even some things for professionals. At the beginning it resembles The Big Short but then it describes the author's own purchase where he clearly didn't pay enough attention to the market and, by implication, location. It also describes southern flipping of home contracts. In other locations developers can either prevent flipping or take steps to force the flipper to share the profits with them. Finally, it taught me the only good thing I ever heard about rent control, that it discourages the bulk buying or developing of single family homes for rent, which otherwise prevents many people from obtaining the financial benefits of home ownership.

2 people found this helpful

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M. Dillon

Broad Coverage of the Subject

Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2022

Verified Purchase

This book provides so much coverage and insight to the both
the highs and lows of real estate investment as a home or as
an investor. It covers national issues, case study type material
on the Alabama Coast, and perhaps most interesting, the
author's own experiences and choices for the future.

One person found this helpful

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Cathy

Fast-paced read with an untold angle

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2021

Verified Purchase

Dezember does a beautiful job of connecting the Wall Street analysis of the 2007 housing market crash with what was happening on the ground. His in-depth backstories of the real estate developers/investors, politicians, and average Joes (construction workers, school teachers, restaurant owners, etc.) give a missing piece of the housing bubble narrative.

Fast-paced and informative read.

Though the housing crisis is behind us … this book should be high on the list for anyone interested in real estate investing, especially in the Southeast.

One person found this helpful

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