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MINNIE RZESLAWSKI (President/Broker of 24K International Realty):
I'm Minnie Rzeslawski, with 24K International Realty.
I sell real estate here in San Diego.
I've been a broker since 1998.
I've been in Real Estate since 1988.
I like dealing with people.
And that is one of the reasons I got into this business.
I like dealing with people, I like seeing their smiling faces
when they're finally given the keys to their first brand new home.
Before the crash, it was booming.
Business was booming, plenty of buyers, plenty of sellers, lots of interest.
There's a long line of people waiting to buy that one home.
People were buying multiple homes.
One, two, three, four homes.
A lot of realtors got into that business as well.
When the, August actually of 2007,
when the loans basically dried up, business started going downhill.
Then we started seeing the foreclosures.
Actually, short sales before the foreclosures.
Probably three and a half years ago we started doing the short sales.
Showing my buyers homes that have gone into short sale,
or into foreclosure, it's bittersweet.
We're looking at the homes.
Sometimes we see picture frames still on the wall, we see a little girls' room.
We see toys, and it's pretty sad but at the same time my client,
who was the first time home buyer, is going to be purchasing something
that they couldn't purchase three four years ago.
Going through these homes, we could see the ones who took very good care of their homes,
who put love into it, and then there's other homes who have actually been destroyed.
I've actually shown a home with no kitchen.
And when I mean no kitchen.
No kitchen, no appliances, no cabinets, nothing.
They actually took all the cabinets out.
They were upset.
All of the electrical outlets were vandalized.
All of them.
Carpet had red paint on it.
They took all the light fixtures and they had the wires dangling.
So I could only assume that they damaged the electrical,
and they probably damaged the plumbing.
When I saw something like that I realized this person was really upset.
They probably tried doing a loan modification with the bank,
the bank didn't approve it, and therefore they lost it.
So, before they left they probably figured "well, you're going to take the house, yeah,
and we're going to take everything we put into it."
The San Diego economy for real estate is rebounding.
It's just that it's rebounding for investors.
Hopefully, first-time homebuyers, and people who couldn't afford homes two
or three years ago, can now get into that arena.
But it's very difficult.
I don't want to discourage them,
but it's getting very difficult to buy right now, I don't know.
ANNOUNCER: If you're having trouble with your home loan or think you may be headed
to foreclosure, help is available.
2-1-1 San Diego can connect you with the community resources you need.
You can dial 2-1-1 or log onto KPBS-dot-org-slash-mortgage-crisis.
We're facing the mortgage crisis together.