An ‘Inventory Of Wishers And Hopers’ In California
The Daily Breeze has this update from California. “In June, 3,160 homes were on sale in the South Bay, up 180 percent from June 2005, when 1,127 homes were on the market.” “Shorewood co-owners Arnold Goldstein and Larry Wolf said, ‘there is no longer any doubt that buyers in the current market enjoy a good deal more leverage than they have had for the past several years, and that people who really want or need to sell in the short term may need to work with their real estate agent to rethink their pricing strategy.’”
“‘It’s certainly not the soft landing that we envisioned nine months ago,’ said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist of the California Association of Realtors. ‘As I look at the statistics of inventory and year-over-year price appreciation, I think it would be accurate to call it a return to normal.’”
“In the South Bay’s four main beach cities, 183 homes were sold last month, down 18.7 percent compared with a year earlier, the Shorewood report says. These cities include El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach.”
The LA Daily News. “After nearly two years of limited inventory and rising home prices, it’s a buyer’s market. Housing sales in June dropped substantially compared to a year ago. In fact, it was the slowest June in years, according to the Southland Regional Association of Realtors.”
“The association’s Santa Clarita Valley Division reported 253 homes sold in June, compared to 405 in the previous year and 400 in June 2004.”
“The number of homes on the market nearly tripled in June, in time for the traditionally busy summer sales season. The median price of a resale home was $610,000, a drop from April’s record high of $643,000.”
The Orange County Register. “One of Orange County’s most optimistic real estate prognosticators concedes that the local housing market is weathering tough times. ‘Things are OK, but we have a lot of inventory of wishers and hopers,’ (said) Gary Watts, a Mission Viejo broker and economist, referring to sellers he considers to be unrealistic.”
“The number of home listings reached nearly 15,500 this past week, Watts said, almost triple the number for sale 1½ years ago. Sales have been below last year’s levels for eight straight months.”
“‘I really think that we are pretty close to the bottom of our real estate prices,’ Watts said. ‘August ought to be the last month of weak appreciation numbers.’”
LOL. Watts is going to call the bottom repeatedly, all the way down.
Looks like YAP has found her “new word:” “return to normal” my ass.
Maybe this is her way of saying “mean reversion” without scaring the doo doo out of everyone???
She means return to “The new normal”
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or maybe “The new NEW normal”
Her initials are LAY. That says something about her integrity …
It does?
“‘It’s certainly not the soft landing that we envisioned nine months ago,’ said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist of the California Association of Realtors. ‘As I look at the statistics of inventory and year-over-year price appreciation, I think it would be accurate to call it a return to normal.’”
The world would be a better place if this woman had never been born. What the hell was a soft landing supposed to be - if not a return to normal!?
The next dork:
“‘I really think that we are pretty close to the bottom of our real estate prices,’ Watts said. ‘August ought to be the last month of weak appreciation numbers.’”
MORE DOUBLESPEAK.
“Bottom of prices” in one sentence, “last month of weak appreciation numbers” in the next. He’s jumping from month-over-month decreases to year-over-year (fudged) increases in one breath!
What if these two got together and had kids? Dear Lord.
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even kids resulting from their genetically deficient collaboration.
Wish what on anyone?
The fate of having them as parents.
Gotcha.
THANK GOODNESS!!!!! The housing market has returned to normal.
If I hadn’t read Leslie’s quote, I’d have thought that we were approaching serious price declines in the coming two years. Fortunately, that’s not going to happen and we’re just going to have a “normal” market for the forseeable future.
can you imagine if Glassman(DOW 36,000) and Lereah had a kid? it’d be the worst investor ever.
Not if that kid was taught to say one thing and do the other. These days that’s called being an efficient businessman. Decieve the masses while you get rich. Never mind morals and ethics.
When economic reality begins to severely correct Watts’ bogus predictions, will he shut up, or just move on to another asset class like Lereah (stocks => housing)?
HO HO HO!! Orange giant!
The bottom ? That’s right the 1st sign of recession on the horrizon (Fed calls it a slowing down to modest 3% growth and you {Gary Watts} have declared the 1st bottom. Vegas hasn’t even got it’s August power bill.
Amazing! My Vote for Moron of the day!
I so completely fail to understand Mr Watt’s logic. Inventory has tripled, sales are down 20 %. Prices have yet to significantly fall, yet we are near the market bottom. His statement seems to have no basis in reality.
What school gave this guy a degree? and in what subject?
College’s should be put on record for the kind on graduates they are producing. Anybody know who claims the alum??
I use to work with this guy. REALTORs look up to him as an economic guru, but he is really just a slick PR guy for the industry. You cannot trust his predictions, but do check out the Chapman Economic report, that tends to be unbiased and quite accurate.
Bottom of the market? It took us over 6 years last decade to hit the bottom of the market. Did we learn so much last time around that we can do it in a few months? OCers told me recently “we’d never have over 10 percent interest rate loans again, that was a thing of the past”… Idiots. (Of course I’m an idiot cause I sold in 2002 thinking the market had peaked then).
In my opinion, since the job market is very strong regionally, it will take rising interest rates to make OC dive. It looks like they are lurking in the shadows.
HOLY FREAKING COW - Watts is Bagdad Bob!
Someone please save all of his quotes so that we can have an entertaining chronology over the next couple of years.
More like GWB talking about democracy in Iraq. Or WMD. Come to think of it, Watt is pretty standard fare for this society.
Or Newt Gengrich talking about World War 3…
Or Hillary Clinton talking about videogames…
Or Rush Limbaugh talking about not being an addict…
Or Ted Stevens talking about the Internet being a series of tubes…
Since when did high-profile Americans become so damned stupid?
Ain’t just the high-profilers, baby.
I know, but it used to be that in order to get any sort of press coverage, you generally had to be smarter than the average citizen.
Unless… oh hell… we are doomed.
Used to be, I agree. I’d say that pattern ended right aroung the time the nation was glued to the TV watching O.J. race down the highway.
I swear that wasn’t a “g” when I typed it!
I love the intertubes! Without them I wouldn’t be able to read Bens internets all day!
Watts is a broker and a economist. Well knowing that I feel like I have been a fool thinking prices would decline any further, since he is a broker and econmist house prices should glide into a soft landing, because he said so. WHEN PIGS FLY!!! When a pig trys to fly off a cliff it is not a pretty picture, nothing soft about, no sir nothing soft about it at all.
Not expecting a soft landing anymore. It’s now going to be “normal” - according to Leslie. As opposed to soft. No more soft - just normal. Normal is the new soft. Soft, out. Normal, in. Jesus.
You guys are so last Wednesday, BB’s new mantra is safe landing.
“Safe Landing”
Meaning any landing that you can walk away from ?
Lots of FBs will be walking away from this landing. After mailing the keys to the bank
Actually I have never seen a bubble, no matter what the type of contact, on landing fail to pop…
I have tried to safe land a bubble in my hand and it still popped. Oh well, we need more people to try
What a terrible euphemism. Safe for who? Certainly not for anyone making a purchase at today, when Y-O-Y declines have just arrived (see San Diego last week).
This thread’s just killing me.
Anyway, maybe they meand a “soft landing” into finanical hell.
We Rent, looks like I found your lost “d”
I am incredulous, and unable to comprehend how he predicts an uptick, or return to normalcy in September.
What fundamentals underlie this cheery prediction?
Watts is a total fk’n idiot. You need a Watts doulble-talk-translator to understand what he is trying to imply.
Perhaps… ” August is the last month highly respected RE economists intend to use YoY appreciation figures. Beginning in September we will begin to exclusively use Year-over-2-Years-Ago figures unti further notice. We have determined that these NEW comparisons are far more representative of the market and future anticipated returns”
Yeah, but data fom 2 years ago is lookin’ kinda sweet right now!
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Where’s the guy or gal here that likes to say, “Wish in one hand and shiit in the other and see which one fills up quicker.”
Dunno, but don’t shake his hand.
I think that it was a Texas expression.
I am fond of the expression as well.
Regarding Watts, he is a paid huckster. He only has to fool his customers, not the general public or this blogs educated audience.
I work in Redondo Beach selling custom cabinets to these builders in the beach area and Pacific Palisades. These spec builders are getting creamed. One builders $4.5 million dollar house sat empty for 5 months and he was paying $24000.00 a month in construction loans per month. Solution - sold his own house and occupied new home to convert loan and trying to sell. The beach area’s are taking a huge hit.
Yes…very true. I like how the bad news is at the end of the Daily B article…appreciation up 2.3 percent, home sales down 18.7%. This is in the cities along the coast. Not the gang infested areas of Lennox, Hawthorne, and Carson. These are the cities keeping the bubble alive. The rest of the coastline South Bay is getting beaten hard.
The really comical thing is that while they’re getting creamed, they’re putting up new houses faster than ever. Drive down Pacific Ave in Manhattan sometime– the number of houses being built is insane. They’re digging themselves right into Chap 11 and lining their graves with granite countertops.
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the meant was already put in the grinder months and years ago so the builders have not choice but to finish grinding out the remaining sausages.
MEAT was already put in the grinder
BTW, I wrote the author (Muhammed) of the Daily B an email telling him how misleading his article is. I can’t wait for the sheeple to read it in Carson and Hawthorne and they say, “Honey, I think its a great time to buy becaus there won’t be any homes left and we can get a great home loan. We make $60K combined income, let’s get a $1M home”. The poor bastards!
Like the Egyptians?
http://tinyurl.com/ov8sq
“It was popularly believed that the coffin would consume the body placed within it within forty days….”
Replace ‘coffin’ with ‘McMansion’
I see a new business opportunity here. Get in on the ground floor now!
Repurpose granite countertop into granite grave stone markers.
“Granite countertop Conversions”!
Granite grave stones and stainless steel coffins.
Can we partner on this deal?
Let me tell you about a wonderful new loan program custon designed for such a transaction…….It’s the darling of the secondary market…..
“The beach area’s are taking a huge hit.”
Why?
There has been a HUGE exodus out of CA the past few years. CA equity locusts have taken wing in huge clouds infesting every part of the country and pushing prices up everywhere they land.
I believe I read that 1 in 5 people in the USA live in California. If this is true and only 10% of the people left, we are still talking about several million people with lots of money to buy “dream homes” and such.
The first place to fall is the place where everyone USED to live. The last place(s) to fall will be the “target areas” of the CA equity locust.
Sadly, Seattle seems to be “ground zero” for CA ELs.
So who is left to buy these multi-million dollar beach homes in CA?
Well, convert the price to pesos and you have a pretty good idea.
It’s more like 1 in 8 Americans lives in California.
Population of the US: about 300,000,000
Population of California: about 37,000,000
that wind in the sceond half is going to be the hot air coming out of Watts’ mouth. I suspect it’ll be because of a long sigh, not another in the bag prediction.
“‘I really think that we are pretty close to the bottom of our real estate prices,’ Watts said. ‘August ought to be the last month of weak appreciation numbers.’”
LMAO!!!!!!!!!
I’m laughing too… this guy is digging himself into a bigger hole everyday!!!
If he makes two more sales as a result of his optimism he’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. The job today is to sell today.
Yeah, but Toll gets options; Watts doesn’t.
How do you know he doesn’t get options? or nice trips? or a McMansion and below market interest rate and price? This guy is bought, paid for, and gift wrapped by the likes of Toll
Watts is a puppet; we can’t see the strings, but they are there!
Bob Toll said the same exact thing. Now he is eating his words. Maybe Watts will be forced to gag on his vomitting predictions and choke to death. The world would be a much better place.
Inventory has been steadily climbing for a couple of years. Prices will continue to fall. Once foreclosures begin to kick in then we will see serious down pressure on prices, but don’t expect this to happen all at once. This is a train wreck unfolding in slow motion, and will probably not unwind fully until 2008 - 2009 when I suspect prices will be far lower.
Yes Yes Yes!!!
Ok, the south bay of Los Angeles is where I hope to buy in two years.
:) 
And yes, I know that will be before the absolute bottom. (Hey, there is a “utilization value” to a home, eh?) But right now, buying in would be signing up for being a serf (tied to the land). 
So… I’m happy to see the news is spreading is a poor market.
As to Mr. Watts… WHAT! Idiot… there were saying the spring would show how the market would perform for the next two years for a reason. Answer: poorly. I just toured homes in the South bay and the shear number of vacant properties for sale was mind numbing. I finally asked my girlfriend (who, hopefully, will be more within 10 days…;) to stop as we aren’t buying for a bit… Some homes were priced ‘ok’ for today’s market. Some were $500k above TODAY’s market. (I’m not paying todays price…) I already have my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th choice neighborhoods picked out. Can you tell I’ll be a “low ball” bidder?
:) 
(I expect the first three homes I bid on to be nothing more than a learning excercise. If I get one… YES! New neighborhood low baby.)
If I’m wrong (insert Pricesses bride’s Prince Humperdink “and I’m never wrong”), I’ll buy in another state.
But… The market is turning. (Heck, if homes priced $150k below what I thought was market price in the area aren’t selling… Its ok to have hope!)
Neil
Do it, baby. Lowball the snot out of ‘em.
-And good luck with your princess!
It’ll be very interesting by October of this year. There should be very, very desperate sellers and I bet you there will be a few accepting offers 30% to 40% below asking. Assuming asking is within market range (whatever that is).
But the most desperate sellers will be the ones that are least likely able to accept lowballs.
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i will consider offering 3.5% annual appreciation from 1997 prices.
http://www.files.bz/files/11251/RealEstateValuationMethods.xls
That’s exactly right, for the most part. There will still be deaths, divorce, illness & job loss situations. I would have to imagine that there will still be at least a tiny fraction of homesellers that didn’t HELOC themselves onto the edge of a cliff. If you find these rare gems, you might get lucky…
Hope you’re not buying on a ‘dead-cat bounce.’
Conrats again on the relationship, but please be patient. On this blog, we hate to see our fellow bloggers become FBs.
Just to be clear: My timeframe to buy doesn’t start for two years.
I’ll watch out for the “dead cat bounce.” When will I buy? When fundamentals point to only about another 10% “downside risk” (by my estimate, based on price and inventory trends). Why not the bottom? Selection and utilization value of my own house.
But I’m very patient. If it turns out to be 3 to 5 years…
But I’ll wait.
Neil
princess bride - one of my favorites.’it’s inconceivable!’
“It’s inconceivable”
Is something realtors and flippers must be uttering a lot right now… as they don’t understand why their homes don’t sell to cash out that “instant equity.”
Neil
“‘It’s certainly not the soft landing that we envisioned nine months ago,’ said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist of the California Association of Realtors.
Notice the RE uber-touts are falling back on “we” being wrong, as if that excuses their individual cupability.
This strikes me as a bit familiar, parallel to our “Fearless” leader shifting the blame for not finding WMDs to intelligence agencies, ours and others. “Everyone else thought it was so. I can’t be responsible for listening to faulty intel.” Also, the Enron CEO defence comes to mind, “I didn’t know what was going on in my own company, I was just a figurehead.” You know what they say, success has many parents while failure is an orphan.
Mr. Watts previously thunked 15% to 18%… Now he’s saying 11 or 12%. All he has to do is look at San Diego and there’s the forecast. Where do they find these people? What’s great, next month he revise it again, and then again. The register loves this clown. See his orginal article here http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/money/housing/article_727675.php
From the SDCIA (Flipper) Message Board comes this gem, titled “Sufficiently traumatized in San Diego.”
This post is basically a cry for help, suggestions, words of encouragement.
Beginner investor here. I was so excited to get started after the Robert Allen Seminar in January of this year. As many of you know we purchased our first flip in March, a preforeclosure. A 3/2 in Clairemont. Comps at the time on that street sold for 580-$610K. We felt we had a decently discounted ppty when we bought it at $465K. Most investors and real estate professionals we spoke with thought we got a decent deal. Yup, you may know which one. The one where the inspector missed the tree-rooty drains and the mold and asbestos tile layer beneath the carpet that I discovered later. The one where the seller (who is in jail now for something else) purposely failed to disclose all that &*(_ *.
Long story short we’ve spent 77K+ in repair and modest upgrades to the entire house, and continuing mortgage/holding costs. It’s all borrowed money from equity in our primary residence, and maxed out credit cards. We put it (the ppty) on the market asking $598K FSBO. Not one bite despite all the pretty pictures and craigslist, backpage, etc marketing I attempted. After 4 weeks of FSBO and being laughed at by real estate agents we signed on with an agent. If/when it’s sold we’ll have paid the buyer/seller agents 4.5 - 5.5% altogether depending on who brings/represents the buyer. Yes the numbers are red and nasty. But the property is problem free and ready to live in and in a very sought after family-oriented neighborhood.
What next? Lease or Rent?
We’ve accepted the fact that we will not even break even. We do not need any shoulda-coulda lectures. We are looking for present and future tense suggestions or solutions. To those who are tempted to send “LOL” or other types of ridiculing messages please realize they will be ignored, we have a family with 4 kids and we started out in real estate investing to improve our financial lot and this experience in the market we are in has devastated our financial situation further. By the grace of God we are barely holding things together.
Any suggestions on what to do next with the property?
I say we all head over to the SDCIA board en mass and give him some Txchick-style “tough love” just to show that we care!
It’s truely amazing how many more idiots like this one are out there!!! By the way, FSBO is the way to go…I sold my last two residences this way. My last one, I told the sellers reator that if he wanted to make the sale, he would have to jack up the price of the home to cover his commision. Well he did…poor buyers, they now have a $500k plus mortgage, o down, and interst only. And to top it off, I heard from the neighbors that they may have to sell because their mortgage resets in October 2006. These people only make like $50k.
Oh my gawd, that is a nightmare!!!! What are these people thinking? Is it the water? Damn, it’s ludacris.
To their credit, they did a great job of re-habbing an outdated home. Check out all of the before-and-after pictures on the blog. Tasteful. Value added to the neighborhood.
As to their asking price and eventual gain or loss, the market will decide.
Claremont might be a decent community but is is sandwiched between 3 San gabriel valley hellholes. TO the west and southwest is the crappiest, dingiest city in the valley, Pomona. To the south is Montclair. To the east is Upland, which is trying hard to get to the Pomona stage.
They should rent the place out to illegals. If it has abundant space for six or more autos and the neighborhood is lax in code enforcement, it would be the perfect tenant home for a large extented Latino immigrant family. Hell, Santa Ana allows illegals to use their properties as terminal trucking bases for illegal alien contracting businesses.
Thus is the current status of the LA housing market; if you have an old, payed down or payed off large SFH with a good-sized lot in an older declining burg such as Pomona, Long Beach, El Monte, , Wilmington, La Puente, Sun valley, Van Nuys, East LA, south gate, bell gardens,maywood,compton,scentral la ect., there is a huge Market for renting out to recent illegal-quasi-legal immigrants with large families who need Large SFH’s to park their six or more vehicles as well as run their suncontracting /contracting operations(using the rented home as a truck terminal base).
Normally illegals do not save very well nor have any carry-over equities so they have to rent. And they are not that sticky about the rental sums, as there are ofter 3-6 adult/young workers who can contribute toward the monthly rent. Plus they can subdivide extra rooms/garages into subrented space to subrent out to other illegals. This is often done in really deteriorated sections of cities where the civic authorities, due to Politically correct notions, allow for this kind of thing.
You’re getting confused. The SDCIA item is Clairemont Mesa in San Diego.
Yes, and Clairemont Mesa ain’t no family friendly neighborhood, neither.
I dunno. Me laying down covering fire while my wife and kids sprint from the armored Suburban to shelter behind barred doors and windows, leaping over the passed-out transients on the sidewalk, would bring the family closer together, wouldn’t it?
Sorry. my mistake. Thought it was Claremont, LA County.
and Claremont, Upland, Montclair aint San Gabriel Valley, neither.
No apology necessary. I enjoyed the cheerful uplifting message just the same. It’s safe to say you can “insert-any-declining-urban-disaster-area” for Claremont-whatever and the nature of the strory remains intact.
Clairmont a “very desireable neighborhood”? Not for that kind of money.
Why doesn’t he call his mentor, Robert Allen, and ask him what to do? He probably paid $7,000 for the advanced course, and now he comes here for free advice. I don’t like to use 4 letter words but f— em comes to mind
I live in Fresno, CA and we have a local talk show called “real talk” every Saturday morning hosted by a local real estate broker. This morning he was talking about inventory numbers in the Fresno area. Homes priced below $500K we have 8 months worth of inventory based on the average sales numbers between January and June ‘06. For homes priced over $500K we now have 17 months worth of inventory and he acknowledged for the first time the market is in big trouble going forward with the glut of homes on the market.
Looks like a natural disaster to me.
The Valley is SCREWED! Thanks for the Fresno update.
Thanks for this. I’m in Fresno as well and looking forward to strolling amongst the wreckage in 2008-2010 to find a cherry deal. There is NO way prices here should have gotten so out of whack.
p.s. Nice how they invoke “the grace of God” when the scriptures are pretty clear on prudent financial management, i.e. not building your house (so to speak) on sand, and “a fool and his money are soon parted.”
‘Things are OK, but we have a lot of inventory of wishers and hopers,’ (said) Gary Watts, a Mission Viejo broker and economist, referring to sellers he considers to be unrealistic.”
“The number of home listings reached nearly 15,500 this past week, Watts said, almost triple the number for sale 1½ years ago. Sales have been below last year’s levels for eight straight months.”
“‘I really think that we are pretty close to the bottom of our real estate prices,’ Watts said. ‘August ought to be the last month of weak appreciation numbers.’”
One minute he’s saying there are unrealistic sellers….to me saying they are asking way too much….. then the next minute he’s saying we are close to the bottom? Which one is it?
He’s getting old… he is getting confused… let it go
I’ll be back in Hermosa Beach next weekend. I’m going to take a drive into Torrance by Del Amo Mall on Torrance Boulevard at night and check to see if any more than half the lights are on at those Beach City Bungalows they have been working on. Last time I checked a few months ago fewer than half the lights were on at 7:30 when it was dark. I think the builders are in deep yogurt on that one. My zips of interest are 90254 and 90277. But houses are way over valued in those places still. I’m thinking I may be moving back there in March, but if I do, I will rent along the Esplanade in RB.
RB is a nice area…I’m just up the hill a little ways from the Esplanade in the Hollywood Riviera section.
Nathan, two years ago I heard that radio show and he said that property would be going down big time and plan on buying five years down the road…..he was ahead of everyone…..
info@impactre.com
email for Gary Watts.
Impact Real Estate is a private real estate company that provides consulting services to not only buyers, sellers, and investors but to companies affiliated with the real estate industry in California. The broker, Gary Watts, is a well known real estate economist who began his career in 1971. Today, he and his company are called upon to advise the home industry of
economic trends that will effect and affect their future. Impact Real Estate also manages the investment properties they acquire for their investors.
“In the South Bay’s four main beach cities, 183 homes were sold last month, down 18.7 percent compared with a year earlier, the Shorewood report says. These cities include El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach.”
I’m not sure how accurate these numbers are, but it sure does seem like there are a lot more homes for sale this year than last. Sales as a % of inventory must be way down.
My wife and I just got back from a walk around S. Redondo Beach and she made an interesting observation; all the “take one” flyer boxes were fairly full at the (many) properties for sale. This was a 5 PM on a Saturday afternoon. Last year you wouldn’t be able to find any flyers left in the late afternoon. The writing is on the wall.
Gary Watts and Leslie Young Appleton have much less credibility than Baghdad Bob. For one, nobody here actually acted on any of his foolish statements. They were just pure entertainment for us here. Some people here actually believe the $HIT these two are spewing out of their lying mouths and commiting financial suicide as a result. Would much rather have Baghdad Bob make the circuit on the comedy routine. Of course, would love to throw some tomatoes and other rotten items at In the Bag and LAY. Why are these newspaper still quoting these two fools?
Baghdad Bob, a.k.a. Comical Ali, was a lot more endearing (AND credible) than Leslie Appleton-Young and Gary Watts. Wonder what he’s doing these days?
I was also noticing a lot of “Take One” flyer boxes were full in the Bay area on a Monday morning.
Was it me, or was this place just down for a few hours? I was getting ready to cancel my internet connection (After all, what’s the point if the housingbubbleblog is down?).
There are a lot of reasons for having the internet, but I felt a loss when Ben’s site was down.
So what happened Ben? Is everything alright?
“…felt a loss…”
Absolutely - like when the Truman Show went off the air.
Not just you - Site was down, 95 degrees inside due to voluntary A/C cycling in the OC.
Went to the mall and bought nothing, looked like Christmas without the bags!
Tried for hours to get my “fix!”
Getting it now…….. life is good!
Not your imagination. A large part of the ISI datacenter went down due to a power systems failure starting at 5:30 PM PDT this evening, and came back up around 9:30 PM. I was down there dealing with a couple of my servers that did not come up clean. Lots of angry customers and some very pissed off employees leading a covey of slack-jawed electrical contractors into the catacombs.
For those who don’t do this every day, ISI is one of the first nodes of the Internet, and hosts the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), one of the root servers (the “B” server), ICANN, one of my companies, and apparently, Ben’s Blog. When the second floor of the south building went down due to a power failure this afternoon, it took out most of West LA from an infrastructure POV, including an ATT POP, a Level 3 POP, and many of the fiber connections to the west side of Los Angeles.
We also had some visible lightning storms today. Just to add to the ambience. The explanations will be humorous, no doubt.
Bernanke’s “orderly” housing slowdown. As in “in the event of a water landing, please exit the aircraft in an *orderly* fashion”…
Or, “in the event of a fire, please exit the high-rise by climbing down the 80 flights of stairs in an orderly fashion.”
LAY: “I think it would be accurate to call it a return to normal.”
She worked on that for days and that’s the best she could do? Pitiful, just pitiful.
“‘I really think that we are pretty close to the bottom of our real estate prices,’ Watts said. ‘August ought to be the last month of weak appreciation numbers.’”
People, people, work with me here… Okay, repeat after me, this is going to get real ugly, real fast. It is going to be a crash like the one that killed the dinosaurs. Everyone will get hurt or killed. Please put your trays in the upright position.
Where are those puke bags? So many will get so sick
Flipper #1: Better.
Flipper #2: Better what?
Flipper #1: Better get a bucket, I think I’m gonna throw up.
The LA Daily News. “After nearly two years of limited inventory and rising home prices, it’s a buyer’s market.”
It’s a good thing my memory doesn’t go back more than 2 years, otherwise I might question this statement. Probably written by some 22 year-old CSUN journalism graduate. Way to report, Daily News!