Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For September 11, 2006
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The Housing Bubble
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2nd try.
a very good piece from fleckenstein about the disconnect “stock market” vs. bad macrodata and also a comparrisson
tmt vs real estate
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/ContrarianChronicles/TechCrashSummerAllOverAgain.aspx
On this 5th anniversary of the most tragic terrorist event against the U.S.A., may G-d bless the souls that died, fought to save lives and for their surviving family members.
WE SHALL NEVER FORGET.
buy a gun and profile- forget big gov spending
Absolutely right.
And may we also remember those innocents who have fallen in the subsequent war on terror, whose lives were also lost as a result of this despicable act.
Loafer
here is a cartoon on the consequences on the “war on terror”
i think that they are spot on. sad but true
http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/2006/09/911-economist.html
sorry. postet it first on the wrong topic
i wanted to add a personal story on terror in general.
i was in madrid in march 2004 visiting a soccergame from my favorite club “bayern münchen” vs real madrid.
i left our hotel the next morning to catch the flight back to germany. we went into one subwaystation near the hotel and waited, and waited…..
in this time they bombed the next trainstation to us that could have been our station as well. we only have had luck that we choose to go to that station. over 200 people died.
even in europe the terror topic is very present.
the main problem as described very well in the (british) cartoon is that the us hase choosen to mix the war on terror wirh other strategic goals that were in drawer for years or decades.
that will be my last “political” statement. i promise!
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”
“WE SHALL NEVER FORGET”
Too bad we forgot everything about how to respond effectively against this type of thing. America the Pitiful.
Christopher Hitchins has a thoughtful piece in the Op-Ed pages of today’s WSJ, in which he grimly notes that ‘”We” — and our allies — simply have to become more ruthless and more experienced. An unspoken advantage of the current awful strife in Iraq and Afghanistan is that it is training tens of thousands of our young officers and soldiers to fight on the worst imaginable terrain, and gradually to learn how to confront, infiltrate, “turn,” isolate and kill the worst imaginable enemy.’
Hitchins also confronts another very harsh reality, which we had better all take to heart, as it will likely characterize the world order for the next half-century: “On that day (9/11), we learned what we ought to have known already, which is that clerical fanaticism means to fight a war which can only have one victor.”
Very interesting.
The wisest words I have heard in the last few days were those of one of Jordan’s princes.
He said that Islam needs to get it’s own Vatican, preferably Mecca. A place where the conflicts between sects can be trashed out by debate, not violence, so that the religion can taken away from the fanatics and returned to the people.
Loafer
Good plan. And to that I would add that Islam needs to grow wealthy like the Vatican did in the middle ages. One of the biggest problems Islam poses for the world is that many of its adherents are impoverished, and those with nothing to lose are the natural enemies of a civilization which has brought unforeseen riches to the masses.
Nice Getstucco! I could go on forever about that, but I think you said it better than I could.
I think this might be impossible. The belief system Islam currently imposes might not be capable of developing men and women into functioning, thriving civilizations. I’m talking about Islam, not about the Arabic culture (pre-Islam).
Too bad oil money isn’t better distributed throughout Middle Eastern society.
here is a great example of “how to loose 1.000.000$ or much more”
very very good.
http://www.bubbleinfo.com/journal/2006/9/9/how-to-lose-1000000-or-so.html
i wanted to add a personal story on terror in general.
i was in madrid in march 2004 visiting a soccergame from my favorite club “bayern münchen” vs real madrid.
i left our hotel the next morning to catch the flight back to germany. we went into one subwaystation near the hotel and waited, and waited…..
in this time they bombed the next trainstation to us that could have been our station as well. we only have had luck that we choose to go to that station. over 200 people died.
even in europe the terror topic is very present.
the main problem as described very well in the (british) cartoon is that the us hase choosen to mix the war on terror wirh other strategic goals that were in drawer for years or decades.
that will be my last “political” statement. i promise!
Thanks for sharing your personal experience with terrorism, however painful it must be to do so. I would guess that many of us who did not experience a terrorist incident first hand over the past several years have friends or family who did so (both in my case). And given the TV coverage which brought the Twin Towers collapse into the living room of all Americans, the impact on our collective life histories is profound.
Those brave guys on Flight 93 likely saved my close relative’s life on the ground in Washington. And it’s humbling. I remember working in a prominent government building several years ago and thinking how safe I was in that building, how no one could be so foolish as to risk our wrath. Indeed, how wrong I was.
Nice to see reality in these actual numbers. A caution, though: in my area, and I suspect that OC is no different, large builders load up their model homes with all the extras. Because of that, it’s wisest, IMO, to compare the actual sales price in that piece to the highest of the “recent sales” prices, if you want apples to apples. Almost all first-time new-home shoppers go into a model and think that for the “from” price touted (the minimum for that model), they will get many or all of the “upgrades” they see in front of them. Not so. The base models are what we used to call “stripped.” It’s just like many popular cars and trucks — take a Pacifica or an F-150 — there is a huge difference between the cheapest version and the most expensive. In this list of homes, you can be sure that the lowest actual prices are the stripped versions.
The WSJ has a front page article the conflict over a possible regulatory crackdown on commercial real estate lending, which includes lending to residential development industry.
For actual commercial real estate, the fundamentals are solid. But, as for housing, the price has been bid up beyond the fundamentals.
hello,
hope that someone can post the article. i find it hard to believe that when the us is going into a housing lead recession that commercial re will do well.
i have found this from 2 month ago
But as office vacancy rates continue to drop, developers are now more willing to build. This year, about 47 million square feet of new office space is expected to be completed, up 30% from last year, according to Reis. Next year, office completions are projected to increase 37% to 65 million square feet,
http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/
Lots of commercial RE in my neck of the woods seems to be retail and hotel space — two areas which don’t tend to fair very well when the economy is in the crapper.
Sam Zell is about as smart as they come. So what is he up to? Selling…..
In the first half of this year, he has sold net 1.1 million square feet of office space:
Year-to-date as of July 31, 2006, EOP completed $1.1 billion in investment activity, acquiring 1.6 million square feet for $690.2 million, and selling 2.7 million square feet of office space and one land parcel for $433.9 million. The net gain on sales of real estate was $117.4 million during the six months ended June 30, 2006.
So is he done? Doesn’t look like it:
CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 24, 2006–Equity Office (NYSE:EOP) announced plans to market $3 billion to $3.5 billion of assets for sale in 2006 and 2007, in addition to properties sold to date. The company anticipates gains in excess of $700 million from these planned dispositions.
EOP’s disposition plans include all of the company’s properties in Atlanta. In addition, the company expects to reduce the size of its portfolio in Chicago, Denver, and Northern California, and may selectively sell buildings in its other core markets. The disposition plans include all properties currently on the market and expected to be sold through December 2007, and exclude all dispositions completed to date. EOP does not currently anticipate the need to pay a special dividend.
So what is he going to do with the proceeds? Deleverage – EOP plans to pay down debt:
Given current plans for the use of cash proceeds from dispositions, including debt repayment, EOP does not expect the loss of revenues from the sold assets to be dilutive over time.
He doesn’t sound too optimistic about investing in real estate in the US at this point in time….
Right now, commercial real estate looks solid. But the thinking that drove the residential bubble seems to be pervading commercial lending, like the assumption that no amount of building will effect price, and that consumer spending and the economy generally can only go up. Look at the commercial REITs, the safest ones are paying out 3-4%. People aren’t buying it for income, but as a specualtive guess that the value of the real estate will continue to appreciate at a rapid pace.
At least for the short-to-intermediate term, land prices are likely to fall, consumer demand will probably slacken and profits tighten.
I think there will be a fall here as well, maybe a year later and less severe than what were seeing on the residential side.
I, for one, don’t understand how commercial real estate can be in a healthy condition. I’ve travelled all over the country in the last couple of years and every place I’ve been to its the same story; plenty of all kinds of commercial real estate.
As to REITs, yeah, they appear to have been the point of a great deal of speculative money. Their returns have been 20% per year for several years now. I don’t see how it will be possible to sustain this kind of return; my bet is REITs will fall, fast and hard (50%) back to equilibrium….maybe more.
http://www.fatwallet.com/t/52/651621/
interesting thread from fatwallet
Few people even look at their assessed valuation on their tax statement, let alone contest it. According to someone I know at the local tax office most homes are being overtaxed. Everybody should look closely at their statements and appeal them if they think they are too high.
I’ve protested my apprasial every year but one in the last five.
This year’s protest was very telling. The Apprasial district said the house was up +5%, My protest using MLS data said it was down -2%. The appraiser handling my protest didn’t flinch or compromise (which has been my normal experience)… -2% it was with no argument.
The ease of protesting this year has made me wonder just what the apprasial disctrics sees in the cards for local RE values….
Unless the comps are compelling, a reduction in the assessment is near impossible…Any reduction by the “appeals board” has the coumpounding effect of reductions for everyone else…This happened in 1992-93….It completly overwhelmed the assessor’s office to the point they did a across the board reduction for every property that transfered within a certain period of time…They also retained the ability to increase the assessment at a later date back to the previous amount even though that increase would exceed the 2% maximum of prop #13….So, ultimatly, when property values recovered (96 +) the home owner’s relief was only temporary….
Go armed with comps. Let them prove their position.
Recorded transfer is their proof…..
That was the case for many in Sacramento
(But as office vacancy rates continue to drop, developers are now more willing to build. This year, about 47 million square feet of new office space is expected to be completed)
They need the space in cities like Boston, NY, SF, LA, etc — because all the existing space is being converted to CONDOs.
http://www.nysun.com/article/39371
…the ability of the housing market to withstand actual price losses looks like it may be soon coming to an end…because the housing boom has now evolved into an undeniable housing slump, the latest shocker is that the home bought at whatever price the buyer paid for it may soon begin to fetch a sale price below the original purchase price on an annual basis.
This impending and frightening development is based on a recently launched indicator of the direction of American home prices, which is currently flashing signals that housing prices nationally could finally bite the bullet and begin to actually go down as early as November and fall 6% by May.
…the illness of the housing market could soon contaminate the stock market.
For the first time since our children have been on their own, I felt compelled recently to give them unsolicited investment advice. I strongly suggested they liquidate any stock holdings, and transfer their mutual fund money from stock funds to money market funds. What’s coming won’t be as bad (neither as deep nor as long) as the Great Depression, but it’s going to be serious. And it’s just around the corner.
It certainly is a scary situation. I have certainly built up quite a bit in my money market fund. The 5.11% yield is fine for me. At 47 and in very good health, I hope to retire no earlier than 23 years from now. Dollar cost averaging in stocks is still a good idea and proved a winner during the Great Depression. So I’m going to keep my tax-deferral plans the way they are all stock funds.
If you noticed also, gold is now below $600 per ounce and I’m going to buy some bullion today to take advantage. I bought some at $692 per ounce earlier this year. I want to lower my basis.
It might not be a good time to buy gold, I’ve read they’re re-opening old mines and generally increasing production. The idea that gold is a good hedge is really not borne out by data. And averaging down on a falling asset is generally not seen as a wise strategy.
Sell the gold and buy some puts on homebuilders.
I think the spot price of $590 today when I purchased was much better than $692 when I last bought gold. Averaging down worked for me on other investments. Today’s $590 gold is a bargain compared to gold 10 years from now. I have the gold and silver I bought ten years ago. Good prices back then.
Averaging down? Dollar cost average works good in the long run on any investment. I bought 2 coins today. Ghawar (oil field) may shut down Tuesday. Iran may nuke Timbuktu Wednesday. The point is I am trying to build up 10% of my net worth in precious metals. What I have is nothing compared to my diverse assets.
Read on…There are posts below against money market funds. There are posts against stocks. Give this thread a long life and there will be posts against T-bills, diamonds, houses, rubies, motion picture investments, chinese vases, French bonds, and what have you. I mentioned 3 types of investments and this chain had knocked down all the biggies. Nothing left. So may as well do asset allocation which always works for the better. Gold is one such asset that does for the better.
I’m prepared to transfer all my 401k money into money makets and/or bonds at some point. Though I’m not sure the bond offered in my portfolio is a good idea (sector breakdown is 8% Gov’t; 20% mortgage; 53% credit; 8% foreign; 11% cash). Any suggestions from this very wise group of investors?
I also have an IRA that I don’t know what I’ll do with. Need to speak to my advisor I guess. I don’t have a ton of retirement money yet, but don’t want to lose what I have…
How come nobody mentions BEARX as a hedge? Great short fund that worked quite nicely for me in 2000-2003 or so. Granted the money market rates are decent but if everyone is really as bearish as they sound then might as well be a little aggressive.
My portfolio includes money market funds (varying levels), BEARX, short and puts of KBH, CFC, PFCB (nearly done), in and out of IGE (as a hedge for filling up my SUV) — not sure if now is the time but if you own it during any middle east tension it usually pops.
I also have some mutual funds but running E-trades “scenarios” I am well protected against most of the typical “shocks”.
I have some money in Grzzx, which is similar to Bearx, except that it only shorts, and Bearx has a certain percentage long in gold stocks. I think Bearx is good, too, except that I think gold stock may very well fall with the rest of the stock market.
I don’t think going long on stocks right now is a good idea. How can a person know that dollar averaging of stocks during the depression worked when so many stocks went to 0 and the indexes changed a number of their componants?
Hey, Bill, there was a money market fund back in the dot.com bust that actually lost money. I think for safety sake, FDIC accounts up to the insured limit, is the only way to go right now.
DCA into the great depression a winner? no way, especially if you started off with a big chunk in the market in 29.
Yes it was a winner. Look at the chart of the Dow industrial average from 1929 to 1949. You will see that there were actually dips. I studied finance for many years before I committed one penny and I did the math.
And let’s say you started putting money in stocks in 1910. 20 years and boom. Depression. But you averaged into the market. So you are now back to 1917 levels when it’s 1930. Now you are still investing into the stock market regularly every month for the next 20 years. Don’t tell me DCA does not work. Back it up with math. All I need is a chart with dips. There was no 23 year period in US history when stocks finished lower than at the beginning of the period. S & P 500 is a good index to be into and buy every year, Especially (capitalized for emphasis) in down markets.
money market funds are susceptable to derivatives problems, treasury funds are not.
Vanguard’s treasury fund pays slightly less than their money market fund as there is a bit more risk in the mmf.
From the Sun article: “he thinks investors should be aware that, historically, housing cycles have been predictive of general economic health.”
We’ve been told the opposite — the housing is only negatively affected by a decline in the general economic health, not the other way around.
You’ve been lied to–real estate busts generally bleed over into equities busts. At least, so say the IMF economists:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2003/01/pdf/chapter2.pdf
Jon
Household Finance Ignorance
It’s not what they say, it’s what they don’t say that matters.
very very good!
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=412
from economic balancing
For the group of 15 builders who have reported cash flows for a quarter ending 6/30/06:
1. Their total cash position dropped $908,566,000 during Q2 ‘06, vs. $132,668,000 during Q2 ‘05. It’s normal for the builders to use cash building homes in Q2 that will be closed on in Q3 and Q4. However, this year builders are spending much more money on spec homes that haven’t been sold yet and are seeing many more last minute cancellations that leave them short on cash.
the rest of the spectacular post and blog. this is so far the best overview on the builders that i have seen so far
http://rebalancing.blogspot.com/2006/09/builders-burning-through-cash-while.html
Nice link.
to collect all the data from the filings must be really a lot of work.
very impressive.
What To Do With All That Debt?
“Debt seems to be everywhere these days, from a now-ebbing tide of home loans to last year’s record wave of personal bankruptcy filings. So perhaps it’s not surprising that an organization called the Chicago Debt Exchange is launching its first official auction this week.
“Think of it as something akin to the New York Stock Exchange or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, except what’s for sale isn’t stocks or wheat contracts, but loans.
“Wednesday’s auction focuses on debts that have gone bad - more than $500 million in all - being sold off by the US Bankruptcy Court’s Northern Illinois district. Buyers will try to collect enough of the debt to turn a profit.”
Used car salesman can hold their head up high compared to these scumballs—>
the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has just issued the results of a large study of mortgage lenders in 130 metropolitan areas nationwide. The lenders surveyed account for 65 percent of all home mortgages originated last year, and 55 percent of all subprime loans (loans for borrowers who don’t qualify for conventional loans at standard rates).
The report notes that mortgage buyers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae estimate at least one-third of all subprime borrowers could have qualified for lower-cost mortgages. They just didn’t know it — and their lenders didn’t tell them.
Bill said:”For the first time since our children have been on their own, I felt compelled recently to give them unsolicited investment advice. I strongly suggested they liquidate any stock holdings, and transfer their mutual fund money from stock funds to money market funds. What’s coming won’t be as bad (neither as deep nor as long) as the Great Depression, but it’s going to be serious. And it’s just around the corner”.
I would agree about the stock holding- primarily the retail, housing, tech and banking stocks will take hits, however, I am not so sure precious metal stocks will be affected the same way because we are headed into uncertain times with our money supply and unpresendented consumer debit - this sector should continue to perform well. But who knows? Any other thoughts on this?
me thinks this scenario will take some time to play out (3+ yrs). In the meantime, my indicators expect a nice market rally within the next year as the price of oil comes down from its overly-speculated-inflated price.
I don’t buy into the “china/india” demand driving oil up to these levels . The US strategic reserves are full and we now have a good supply source just discovered in the Gulf.
The peak-oil guys have been mighty quiet this past week.
not me. There has been a week of irrational exuberance on a find of 15 billion barrels in the Gulf announced last week. The U.S. alone uses 5.7 billion barrels a year. This discovery won’t be tapped before 2010. And we can hold our breath until we are blue in the face and deny all we want about India and China, but their ambitions are not going away. They want cars. They want what Americans took for granted for decades. there are several times more Americas (in number of consumers) lining up at the gas pump. They won’t go away.
Exuberance is very irrational. Actual new proven/probable reserves from the find are 300 million barrels, i.e. 0.3 billion. Probably will go up with time, but there were just plain *guesses* of 3-15 billion barrels. Not from actual data or wells. And now everybody acts as if 15 billion is in the bag.
Production from this is extremely expensive, difficult and uncertain.
Remember that big huge find in Mexico trumpeted by Presidente Fox? Yeah, well, after they starting doing actual work its size was revised down 99.5% from what was originally claimed.
This “find” has been suspected to exist for 70 years. Only recently did costs and technology justify investigating a field below 7000 feet of water.
We really “find” very little oil, nowadays.
Not me either. Worldwide oil consumption is rising. Reserves are falling. The gulf oil find is a literal drop in the bucket.
naysay all you want,
but you can’t deny that oil/energy funds are falling and breaking support. The DJUSEN (and other energy funds) have a nice head and shoulders completed. i suspect additional downside as predicted by this reliable pattern. commodities have been overly speculated.
I also believe that we are on the cusp of a nice rally in the markets. Too much money and effort has but put in relatively low value economic uses (housing) since 2003. Once this money flows back into the stock market, companies can invest, and we should see the unleashing of a new round of R&D that will propel the economy a hell of a lot further than one built on buying and selling houses to each other.
Are you sure?
Companies have been sitting on cash for SOOOO long now, without increasing R&D etc. They are too pessimistic. Last I checked, most corps have RECORD profits the last few years, and still they are squeezing the workers, and stalling on R&D.
In the end, we may just have the proverbial “pushing on a string” theory.
Yes but a lot of the pessimism is from executives knowing what an economic loser the housing boom has been. It has really be a waste of economic resources and has converted many high-value alternatives into low value outputs. Most know that the housing boom was a trend that cannot be sustained indefinately much like the dot-com mania of 1999. After having been burned once this decade, many executives were (overly) cautious. Once we return to a strong economy built on sustainable fundamentals, the R&D purses will be open bigger than ever or companies will die. The economy was on a strong footing in 2003/2004 but then come 2005 and the 30% increase in housing really screwed the rest of it up.
“I also believe that we are on the cusp of a nice rally in the markets.”
We have just had a rally at the larger, maybe largest, level that lasted 4 years, and a 5 or 6 week rally at the next lower level, so I don’t understand why anyone would be looking for a (larger) rally right now. Any rallies we see for the next couple of months shouldn’t last more than a week or 10 days, and there won’t be one lasting years until the Dow goes at least under 7000 and maybe as low as 3000 or lower. The first part of the bear market in 2000-2002 was just a taste of what is to come. Manias always, without exception, end lower than the starting point, and this one never got close to the end. Why do some people on this blog laugh about people who say “our area is different”, but think that this time the stock market mania is different than all the manias in history with such a nice soft landing and hardly even a recession?
let’s just say that time-tested indicators I follow are showing + signs for the next year (short term is a wash though). I’ll leave it at that. the fact that many are so pessimistic about the stock market is a + indicator in and of itself.
No, actually, this is the beginning of the 3rd, last and most extreme wave down, which is where the severity of the bear market will finally become publicly acknowledged, so it is normal for more people to be bearish at this stage, but still with many who are bullish. When the bear market is over, public sentiment will be as bearish as it was bullish at the top, we are not anywhere near that.
There will most likely be several rallies during the next year, but not for more than about 3-4 weeks at a time; the main direction should be down, very far down.
I disagree — the main direction next year will be up. (Care to make a friendly wager
)
You sound like an Elliot follower. I think we may have a possibility of having another ugly bear phase in a few years, but now is not the time. By the way, my indicators showed extreme bearishness a few weeks ago … similar to what we had in 2002.
What is going on here? Scroll to the bottom of
http://realtytimes.com/rtcpages/20060911_tipsforbuyers.htm
and read:
“Renting now and waiting out the market is a gambit, but so is buying a home right now if you don’t think you can stay put long enough to weather the change. Renting could pay off, over time, in a buyers’ market that hasn’t bottomed.”
I nearly fell off my chair!
I saw that too, it should be in 100 font for all to see…from Realty Times, no less!
PPT working overtime this AM. Home Builder’s stocks kicking major butt. Even downgraded Lennar is up??
Some have pointed to short covering or hedge fund manipulation as the explanation for why HBs always go up after really bad news. But I don’t think anyone has adequately explained the minute-to-minute synchronization of the price movements, which (like the housing bubble itself) suggests the influence of some entity with massive market power driving all these prices the same way at the same time.
some entity with massive market power
I thought he retired………………….
Those synchronized price movements have outlived Alan Greenspan’s tenure at the Fed, which either implies that he was not pulling the puppet strings, or else some other puppeteer replaced him. (I personally don’t believe that Alan Greenspan directly intervened in the stock markets — that strikes me as a tinfoil hat theory.)
“some entity with massive market power driving all these prices the same way at the same time”
That entity is mass psychology. Have you ever read The Elliot Wave Theory?
This morning, I heard on the radio (in San Diego) that builders are starting to offer “buy-back guarantee”. Does anybody have more specific information on how this works ?
Thanks.
Someone here said about a month or so ago that it was safer to have your cash in an investment house rather than a bank cd or money market account. Is there any particular reason why….other than maybe the bank going insolvent? Thanks
Sort of, FDIC insurance is 100k. Take a look at the coverage under SIPC for brokers– 500k. Beyond the amt, if either of those fail to cover, we’re SCREWED cause it’s rrreaaallyy bad.
Finally our hero gets the recognition he deserves!
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/willett/2006/0911.html
“With the US housing market building towards what could be a momentous bust, who will be remembered as the Henry Blodget or Abby Joseph Cohen of the US real estate bubble 5-years from now? There can be only one.”
AND THE AWARD GOES TO… anyone cares to guess?
Mr. Liar, ya?
Gallatin Valley median home prices drop MoM
Inventory has been exploding since May (now 950 MLS listings in Bozeman alone), sales have slowed to a crawl, and now the first MoM drops (June-July were probably down if incentives were included). Bozeman, Belgrade, Manhattan, and Livingston all down. Big Sky (ski resort, second homes) way down.
From Realty Times no less! Also an article in the Bozeman Chronicle last week about “slowing” real estate, but more ambiguous.
Interesting article on behavioral economincs.
http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/030640.html
It kind of explains manias.
Great article, could be occuring anywhere in the USA
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_4983839,00.html
I clicked on one of the Google ads in between the posts today and voila!, we have a Re/Max agent telling it like it is about the market in Brevard County, which is on the ocean, west of Orlando/Orange County. Congratulations to this guy for his honest. He says that prices on individual homes have dropped as much as 25% and that the agents themselves virtually stopped buying investment properties at least six months ago. Refreshing.
http://www.bubbletruth.com/
Help, I am having a “discussion” with my brother on why banks foreclose on houses. He says the reason is to get title on the house and then do all kinds of things with it (he won’t expand on what these things might be). I say it is to sell it asap and that banks are not in the rental business or the house investment business (if yes, then why didn’t they just buy the house themselves to begin with). Anyway, I can’t find any statistics on what happens to foreclosed property can someone help?
I did find a truly AMAZING article in the NYTimes titled:
“THE NATION; U.S. Is Getting Stuck With a Glut of Repossessed Houses”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3DA1539F935A35750C0A96E948260
The amazing part is the article was written in 1988! I think they can just spruce it up a bit and publish it again in 2007
Thanks for your advice, comments, links, pointers, etc.
essential home accent rug 0-154594-137
oops, ignore the rug stuff that must have been hanging around in the cache
Banks are not chartered to manage real estate. And federal bank examiners get very insistent, that a bank under scrutiny must get rid of “non performing assets” like foreclosed homes, within about six months.
Wow, that’s interesting. Do you have a link to some info on this?