[64speed]

Originally Posted by Simple Man

where do you get that a house is "unsecured debt", and they can't come after it? If one start's missing mortgage payment's, they darn sure will come after it. Not immediately, but they will.

The credit card companies cant come after his house because that is unsecured debt. The best they could possibly get is a lien which expires. The mortgage is secured by the house of course

[TAKerry]

I had a business with a revolving loan thru a legit bank. Loan was paid every month on time. Bank president and another crook swindled the bank for a ton of money and disappeared. Feds stepped in, took over the bank and called in outstanding loans, one of which was mine. I had to sell off a condo at the beach that I loved, some property, all of my construction equipment plus some to satisfy. Had to start all over with just a pick up. Several years down the road I'm doing ok now. Suck it up and do what you have to do. Classic cars are a toy and should be the first thing to go.

[INJUNTOM]

Thanks for the advice everybody. Haven't had time to reply due to closing the business, packing, trying to get a container delivered to my house to move all the crap from the shop into. Also just today signed the papers to refinance the house. Basically already gave up all I had including selling a few vehicles last year to get the numbers on the 2 loans low enough to be able to refinance. Keeping the house is #1 priority due to needing the space for all my junk and our payment will be less than before and still lower than most rents in the area and certainly less than the rent on .6 acre with a shop. Definitely going to have to sell the 2 convertibles and the Camaro, which should cover a large portion of it, and have a lot of other stuff to sell to make up the difference. Just sent off a 24k check to the highest card that just sent me an offer that will get me 0% until Oct '19, then doing the same on a couple others that come off of 0% in the next few months. I'll focus on getting rid of the lower ones as big things sell, and buy some time on the others with the 0%. As far as earning potential, I could make pretty good money again working for someone else if I want to wrench, or service write, but wouldn't mind finding something different even for somewhat less. I've always been one to hustle and trade around, which is how I got where I am. As far as the cars go, most of them I had before I had the business. That's the crappy part. The one Conv. I've had since '92, the other since 2000. The Camaro was my dead buddy's first car and he died in 1992. Working on selling it to someone in his family due to sentimental value. His kid also had the car and has been missing for 6 - 7 years. I've had the car since shortly before he came up missing, and long before the debt. The debt came when I decided to try to survive the economy crash, and did, but that's about it. We're not the only local long running shop, parts house, or wrecking yard to go out of business in the area. Just a sign of the times. I figure I'll be able to keep the '37 Pontiac Coupe, my Wife's '67 Firebird, my late father's '48 Willys Wagon with Pontiac power and a couple other heirloom vehicles that aren't worth much, as well as a bunch of other crap, so I'll be in good shape for an almost 50 year old.

[INJUNTOM]

Originally Posted by 71GP76TA

The market out here is a lot different than the bay area. 1) People don't make the money they do in the bay. 2) It is very competitive as there is a shop on just about every corner. 3) Rent and overhead is high but shop rates are low... a lot of shops are $80 and hour as opposed to $120 in the bay..

His shop is in an industrial area that doesn't get a lot of drive by traffic.... I think that is hurting his business IMO. I'm in the same situation with my shop.. The difference with my shop is... I also own a used a lot and run all my cars thru the shop which keeps it afloat...plus my overhead is extremely low.

If I was him I would try and trim my overhead and move to a better location.

Yep, being in the area you know it's 2 different worlds. In the bay area, maybe 10% or the people know anything about cars and packed in like sardines, don't even speak English for the most part. In the valley probably at least half the people can and do work on their own stuff or at least try.

As far as trimming overhead and moving, I can't cut any more without cutting quality or customer service and not willing to do that at any cost. I do agree that this well has dried up, but moving this thing is way too much and way too costly. Takes money to do that too. Just tired of all the gridlock involved in a place like this. I spend 8 hours a day doing stuff that has nothing to do with the actually fixing of cars. Chasing parts, wrong parts, bad parts, need another part, misboxed parts, parts that didn't show up on time, parts that don't exist, parts that nobody knows what it's called, phones and foot traffic all day. It's endless. Get blamed for crap every other day. Couple weeks ago I got blamed for "destroying" a guys floor mats - both sides, and lost one of the center caps on his wheel. I personally put a paper floor mat in it, then Vince drove it in, lifted it up and worked on the timing belt. Nobody ever got in the passenger side, nor had a reason to. Never even test drove it. The center cap was the small one that snaps into the aluminum wheel (Sienna), and only comes off if you balance the tire. I eat a lot of that so I don't have them go around bad mouthing us and trying to keep them coming, but I had already made up my mind to pull the plug, so I cleaned the driver's side mat up and told him to kick rocks on the rest.