One of the "innovations" in the bank runs of 1929 was that a farmer or business owner would lose all their savings in the bank, because of the bank run.
However, the loans they owed to that bank were still good, and would get bought by an "investor" for pennies on the dollar. They no longer had their bank account to make their normal loan payments from, yet the full repayments were still due, despite the original bank that made the loan going under and closing its doors.
So many farmers ended up having to sell or foreclose on their farms and then attempt to rent them back from the new owners.
I'm sure that happened at least once, but most of the time it didn't. This is where the concept of the penny auction came from. Those were far more common. Basically locals prevented outsiders from bidding in foreclosure auctions by either tricking or physically preventing them from getting to the farm (where the actual auction was held). Then the original owner bought the farm back for a few pennies as there were no other bidders.
One of the "innovations" in the bank runs of 1929 was that a farmer or business owner would lose all their savings in the bank, because of the bank run.
However, the loans they owed to that bank were still good, and would get bought by an "investor" for pennies on the dollar. They no longer had their bank account to make their normal loan payments from, yet the full repayments were still due, despite the original bank that made the loan going under and closing its doors.
So many farmers ended up having to sell or foreclose on their farms and then attempt to rent them back from the new owners.
I'm sure that happened at least once, but most of the time it didn't. This is where the concept of the penny auction came from. Those were far more common. Basically locals prevented outsiders from bidding in foreclosure auctions by either tricking or physically preventing them from getting to the farm (where the actual auction was held). Then the original owner bought the farm back for a few pennies as there were no other bidders.