Foreclosures

One night recently, as I was mindlessly browsing the wide world of the sports inter webs, I stumbled across the story of Robert Swift, a former high school phenom turned top NBA draft pick. Swift's career was less than memorable which, coincidentally enough, ended up foreshadowing his fortunes in real estate.

As you can see here, Swift, as many newly wealthy, young athletes do, spent a significant amount of his rookie contract money on a lavish new home in his new city.  Swift's new, 1.3 million dollar home outside Seattle, purchased in 2006, was representative of Swift himself: shiny and new, rare and valuable, and...short-lived and financially burdening.

You see, poor Robert flamed out in 2008, just four years after being drafted and, more importantly, at the conclusion of his one and only NBA contract.  After hanging on for several years, Swift finally lost his home to foreclosure.  The combination of his loss of income and the irresponsibility of the original purchase serving as dual knock-out punches.

Here's where the story gets interesting: 

After the home was foreclosed on, Swift refused to leave it.  Even after the bank resold the property (for about half the price Swift paid), Big Rob would not leave.  The new owners reportedly sent him letters, visited the home, and even went to the door on multiple occasions, all to be completely ignored by the owner-turned-squatter.

After a threat of judicial foreclosure, Robert Swift finally left the home he no longer owned.  Unfortunately for the new owners, Robert didn't take everything with him.  Reports from the initial entry into the home cited "pizza boxes and beer bottles in the kitchen, walls punched in around the house, piles of animal feces and rounds of live ammunition" strewn throughout the house.

As for Robert Swift, his career never amounted to much more than his belongings in his former home.