{"id":4304,"date":"2009-01-16T07:53:29","date_gmt":"2009-01-16T15:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/?p=4304"},"modified":"2009-01-16T10:19:16","modified_gmt":"2009-01-16T18:19:16","slug":"the-riehl-world-geraldine-and-barratt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/?p=4304","title":{"rendered":"The Riehl World: Geraldine And Barratt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Logo\"<\/a>Those of us of a certain age may remember “Geraldine<\/strong>,” the late comedian Flip Wilson’s<\/strong> alter ego, who loved to say, “The devil made me do it!” when she did something wrong.<\/p>\n

I thought of her when I read about how Barratt American’s<\/a><\/strong> president, Michael Pattinson<\/strong>, explained why his Carlsbad-based homebuilding company went bankrupt<\/a><\/strong> last month. According to Pattinson, his bank was the devil that made him do it, canceling his line of credit and seizing control of all his North County projects.<\/p>\n

“What upsets me is that a company that I was loyal to was not loyal to me,” Pattinson sniffed. “But we’re big boys. We know what goes on in this world, and what goes around comes around. I’ve got my boxing gloves on, and I’m up for the fight. I’ve lost Round One, but there’s 14 more rounds to go.”<\/p>\n

Pattinson’s pugnacious vow to rebuild his empire, without remorse over the $10.9 million he owes his 11 creditors in San Diego and Riverside counties, is astonishing.
\nIn an interview published in an online trade magazine, (Professional Builder, Oct. 1, 2007), Pattinson explained he stopped building entry-level homes because of the burdensome impact fees that government agencies were levying on builders, who passed them on to the “largely powerless constituency” of first-time home buyers he claimed to represent.<\/p>\n

Pattinson kicked his “powerless constituency” to the curb when he chose to boost his profit margin by building extraordinarily large homes with inflation-friendly price tags.<\/p>\n

He told Professional Builder, “The baby boom generation is still the big target, and they’re buying move-up, move-down and luxury product. I saw a development recently here in Southern California where elevators are standard in two-story homes. It’s probably a good idea. We might steal it.”<\/p>\n

A year earlier, in a column appearing in the North County Times, (“Housing Market Returning to Normal,” Aug. 7, 2006) Pattinson claimed forecasts of a declining housing market were unfounded. He scoffed at those who warned of a 60 percent probability that housing prices in San Diego would decline. “They didn’t say why or how much or when. Guess that wasn’t important,” he sneered. “As the market returns to normal,” Pattinson promised, “we in the homebuilding business are adapting, too. We are building more affordable homes for first-time buyers.”<\/p>\n

The median price of a home in San Diego fell by 25 percent in the two years after Pattinson’s Pollyanna analysis of the housing market, according to HousingTracker.net<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While he claimed to be the champion of entry-level home-buyers, Pattinson quietly abandoned them in favor of projects like Magnolia Estates, offering “distinctive homes” beginning at $1.8 million.<\/p>\n

All four of his North County projects now stand unfinished, blighting neighborhoods with half-built homes wrapped in plastic.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s unfair to compare Pattinson to Geraldine. She admitted her mistakes. By accepting no blame for his firm’s meltdown, the self-pitying CEO sounds more like the rebellious, fictional 10-year-old Bart Simpson with his standard excuse, “I didn’t do it. You didn’t see me do it. Nobody can prove anything!”<\/p>\n

Richard J. Riehl<\/strong> writes from Carlsbad. Contact him at riehlworld2@yahoo.com<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of us of a certain age may remember “Geraldine,” the late comedian Flip Wilson’s alter ego, who loved to say, “The devil made me do it!” when she did something wrong. I thought of her when I read about how Barratt American’s president, Michael Pattinson, explained why his Carlsbad-based homebuilding company went bankrupt last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4315,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4304\/revisions\/4315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.carlsbadistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}