Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For March 9, 2007
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china is shifting $ reserves to equities
bubble world tour / worldwide prices from 1997-2006
and two very good storys from the economist about
subprime and the stock market
http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/
quick update oon the jobs data.
very very weak! (when you look behind the numbers
lets do the math. 118.000 jobs via the black box “birth death model” (vs 116.000 in 2005 were the economy wasn´t in a downturn) and of the 97.000 created were 39.000 40% government jobs. ouch! very very weak.
Yes, but wages up big…I can verify that in my industry…We had a 5% raise….. for the last six years total…Total BS numbers!!
The numbers look like fuzzy math to me.The numbers are controlled by crooked politicians trying to make themselves look good.Word on the street is the construction industry is hurting right now.
Not fuzzy math, just straightforward humbuggery and manipulation. This is a distinction worth pointing out because fuzzy math techniques are among the tools that can be used to see behind the curtain in situations like this. In real terms workers are experiencing falling wages, plummetting job security, lack of access to health care, rising expenses and a range of other notable influences. Even if predicted wage pressure appears, that could be a serious problem because hardly any other indicator is more closely associated with rising inflation.
Oh, humbuggery. I thought you were going to say hamburger. God I’m hungry.
Yeah, despite the “birth dearth,” we will have even greater world competition. We Americans have been spoiled for decades only because most nations did not want to prosper and be economically free. Now most nations want to prosper and be economically free. Funny how the spoiled American Libs hate free trade agreements and hate other countries to be free but never squawk about their households full of TVs or their garages full of SUVs. Oh well. Capitalism is only good for us but not for Russia, not for India and not for China…
“Employers, meanwhile, added 97,000 new jobs to their payrolls in February, the fewest in two years, as bad winter weather forced construction companies to slash 62,000 jobs, the most since 1991. Factories, feeling the strain of the troubled housing and auto industries, also continued to cut jobs.”
Caught that on the AP jobs report and thought it was strange that it was “bad winter weather” that caused 62,000 contstruction job losses.
Here in California, our winter weather this year has been extremely mild. Only a few construction days lost to rain.
Wages are up because of explosive compensation growth for the top 1 to 5% of earners.
Rick Santelli (?) on CNBC said that the employment numbers were great! And even though construction jobs took a big hit, gov’t and service jobs filled the gap.
So, that means, it’s okay to lose thousands of construction jobs paying $20-25 an hour and compensate for them with service jobs paying $8 an hour. Alright, I want my economics degree right now!
Hey if the goverment can print all the money they need, they can also use it to creat all the jobs they need. Bet there’s a buldge in the GS 7 and below ranks. Guess they didn’t think this out real well … hard to get rid of those folks when the dust settles. Aaaah but that’s a problem for the next administration. Not to worry.
Of course. Only the executive branch hires. Congress is much purer.
they are not paying those illegals 25.00 an hour and when they get laid off it never shows up in the stats as they are mostly under the table.
True - with the 240 million dollar pay out to ex-CEO Nardelli, I’m sure the average wage of Home Depot employees has gone up substantially.
Moody’s to Host Teleconference on Embattled Subprime Mortgage Lending Industry
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070309/subprime_lenders_ahead_of_the_bell.html?.v=1
It feels like the 7th game of the World Series…
The Realitycheck team of 9, has a 14-3 lead, the Bubblies are in their last @ bats, in the bottom of the 9th inning.
To start a rally, they’ll be going through their 7th, 8th and 9th players in their batting order, in the 9th…
Things look a little grim~
Geez, alad, what time do you get up? Must be about 5:00am where you are.
I’m an early riser
How about these people have jumped overboard, but didn’t think about the fact they can’t swim. Now they are screaming for someone to save them.
I prefer to simply look at the situation as 4th and 40.
The band played on… ’till the instruments slid down the deck…just listen and close your eyes
Realtor Membership Drops Significantly:
http://tinyurl.com/2cwua2
David
Bubble Meter Blog
Ummmm, just to get the ball rolling, what’s the situation at New Century this fine morning?
New Century is now “yesterday’s news”. Bury the body and move on! Sign of the times.
Kinda like when that deranged astronaut in diapers got supplanted in the news cycle by Anna Nicole Smith.
Now, in contrast with Costco yesterday.
Big Lots has a big quarter, blowing away esimates and raising guidance. What does this say. Semi-conscious minds wish to know.
It says to me that Costco is being punished by Wall Street for doing right by the employees and customers and not caving in to the demands of shareholders.
Costco should give Wall Street a huge one-fingered salute and take itself private.
Absolutely agree, employees are there long term(years of service badges), their gurantees are unbelievable, excellent prices and quality(at least for my hearing aids). i have also noticed that many folks have gone form bulging shopping carts to a few fresh food items. Sign of our economy maybe not that great.
desertfox
costco is a worthless company that only exists because it’s like a cult just like apple. cancelled my membership last year.
whole foods is the same price or cheaper on most things and i don’t have to buy a lifetime’s supply. few years ago wife bought a box of splenda at costco and i joke that it may outlast our marriage. it’s like a 10 year supply of splenda. and i like having a choice of more than 1 brand or 2 flavors of something
I don’t get my food at big box discount stores anyway. But definitely to purchase other things, I’ll shop at Costco.
whole foods is the same price or cheaper
I do not shop at either but it seems questionable that Whole Foods would have the same pricing as Costco ??
some things yes, some things no but they always have sales. Used to spend $250 a month at costco plus smaller trips. until my wife got pregnant 100% shopping at whole foods was within $10 or $20 per month the same expense. and with costco we ended up throwing stuff away since it went bad so with whole foods even if it costs more, we rarely throw anything away.
costco used to be really cheap but the prices went up over the last few years because health care went up. at least with WF i get much better quality. i also noticed that things like cleaning supplies you might buy once a year in costco stayed the same, but food went up in price by a lot.
organic/natural is getting cheaper by the day as more people buy into it and economies of scale come in. costco sells Earthbound Farm organic salad and they pick 17000 pounds per hour off their farms. most organic is already owned by the big food companies and most things in whole foods aren’t organic. just no preservatives and other chemicals.
Organic food is a scam like global warming and peak oil. If you repeat it enough, people start to believe it.
> Organic food is a scam like global warming and peak oil. If you repeat it enough, people start to believe it.
Then why is it that when I keep repeating, “You want to go out with me’ it never works on women?
Oh yeah Mark. Peak oil is a scam? Ok. It’s an infinite supply. Right. Ignore the 1970 peak oil that happened in the US. But that was different. The well runs endlessly in Saudi Arabia! Why don’t you buy a 2,000 square foot house today. May as well if you deny that oil is finite.
My Costco membership practically pays for itself in the reduced cost of gasoline purchased there alone,
As some of you may know, Costco doesn’t make ANY profit on the goods it sells. It actually breaks even on what it sells. All profit is made by the membership fees. Kinda cool business model.
“Costco doesn’t make ANY profit on the goods it sells”
Having been a financial auditor at Costco in a prior life, I can confidently call total BS on this statement.
You cannot mean that with a straight face…dude, you are not feeding a family and shopping at Whole Foods. That place is an absolute rip. Costco is easily 50% to 75% cheaper.
And I doubt Whole Foods even sells Splenda…that would not appeal to the organic wheat grass juice crowd.
It means consumers are going to the cheapest possible store, no?
Here ya’ go. This is what it means when Costco takes a hit and Big Lots doesn’t. Take a look at its clientel. It has been shown that Costco has a higher percentage of customers in the higher income brackets (at least according to 60 minutes). If it takes a hit, that means those customers are decreasing their spending (i.e. they actually have to pay money towards their loans to their $800k homes here in San Diego). Meanwhile, lower paying brackets are probably finding cheaper places to shop (Big Lots?) because of loss of income due to layoffs….does Big Lots take food stamps (or whatever they are now)?
Meanwhile, I’m waiting for Costco shares to drop so that I can buy shares at a discount. It is a very well run company. Extremely good to it employees compared to competitors. The CEO has a one page contract (including a section saying that he can be s-canned “for cause”). He only gets paid $300k a year, which is well below executive comps for those in equivalent positions. I say it is a very well run company that deserves my dollars in its stocks.
Hear, Hear! Right on, Carlsbad. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Isn’t Big Lots a cheaper version of Costco? They don’t require a membership card to they?
I know a talked trash about Costco selling “cheap crap” the other day, but the truth is that the old “cheap crap” has become the new norm. So people looking to save money are probably now buying supersized cans of Beanie Weenies instead of Roundup-contaminated corn.
Just a thought.
Most likely that expecations for Costco were a bit too high and Big Lots were way too low, with almost no real indication about the economy. Neither store is a meaningful slice of national retail. But then even semi-conscience minds knew that already.
Option One Eliminates 100% Financing…
“We are getting a lot of 80/20s and 100% CLTV deals that used to go to our competitors,” the letter said. “While there is nothing inherently wrong with those types of loans from a pure credit standpoint, right now they have a fundamental flaw that we simply cannot overcome. That is the almost complete lack of appetite for the product by the bond market…To originate a loan product that no investor, in today´s market, wants to buy is irresponsible.”
There is some irony for you…..”irresponsible”! Only because they would be the bagholder. No mention of the responsibility to society, the borrower, or the responsible buyers priced out of the market by the on slaught of sub prime financing!
H & R deserves all they are getting thrown back at them now.
They could always get around the ‘fundamental flaw’ by holding the loan themselves . . .
“They could always get around the ‘fundamental flaw’ by holding the loan themselves .”
I was thinking about this last night…suppose lenders were required to use their own money and hold any paper for any loan over 80% of “appraised value”.
Amazing, isn’t it, how the appetite goes from insatiable to nonexistent virtually overnight.
Kind of like when you slam down 5 pieces of pizza and even looking at #6 makes you want to hurl.
Hey, let me finish my breakfast first!
It’s happening anywhere. A bunch of information from emails from lenders in the following (SDCIA):
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/sdcia/vpost?id=1749718
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070308/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/fed_household_finances_1
We’re rich!
Headline 3/9/08….
We’re poor……
Suuuuuure American’s are rich — on paper! But the paper’s burning as be speak while debt lives forever. Why is it that people believe they are rich when someone says your stock or your house is worth “this” today … you are rich if you can put the money in your hand. A whole bunch of folks skipped some very necessary stages of development outlined by Piaget if they can’t see the illusion of rich by this age.
by Piaget
I googled it…Theorist??
Is there any specific writing that you are suggesting ??
Piaget is a famous psychologist-type guy who made up these “stages of life”. Any college course entitled “personal development” or “normal psychology” or something of the sort will touch on Piaget.
I’m not sure, but I think he might also be the guy who came up with the “needs pyramid”. I actually didn’t retain that much from my personal development class. Fun times, though.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is often depicted as a pyramid
I’m rich, biatch! (c) Dave Chappelle
paper wealth indeed. The trillions in the stock market can not be liquidated to any great extent, and neither can property valuations — yet these are counted 100% against gross national household debt, which, while paper too, is/should be a number that is not going away, and in fact is growing at 5-30% pa.
I appreciate that it makes Ben money, but I’ve just gotta smile at the advertisement I’m seeing (in Australia) under the header for this thread.
“Earn Big Profits - Become a certified mortgage broker in only 2 weeks & ongoing mentoring [Aussie mortgage lender site]“
Update on NEW — The WSJ reported late lastnight that Morgan Stanley indeed provided additional funding after Citigroup pulled its 1 billion dollar warehouse line. Morgan Stanley is the 4th largest institutional holder of NEW stock.
The article is titled: “Second-Biggest Subprime Lender Halts New Loans.”
I wonder if Stephen Roach is currently dishing out a few internal ‘told ya so’ snarks to his more bullish colleagues at Morgan Stanley.
Roach turned relatively bullish last year (more or less going along with the Goldilocks view on the economy); I don’t think he has any reason for a ‘told ya so’ now.
And Roach then went back to bearing a bear this week, think it was Monday in fact.
Thornberg is the only guy who held the line. HAMMERED
Here’s another one off the SDCIA board. So Cal Mortgage guy or Crispy probably knows who this is
asidon
Junior Member
Registered: 9/30/06
Posts: 25 3/07/07 at 02:07 PM
——————————————————————————–
I received this statement from one of my lenders this morning and thought I’d share it with you:
ADP Employer Services is forecasting the U.S. added 57,000 jobs in February, which at this point is about half of what expectations are for the jobs report from the Labor Department that will be released this Friday. Bond prices are slightly improved, but remain in a very tight trading range. Once again, I need to remind you the mortgage market is changing rapidly. Many of our investors, including the Wall Street firms, are updating their guidelines with little to no notice, making their new guidelines effective immediately. It is apparent that liquidity for many programs has dried up. In addition, a few of our competitors have stopped the funding of loans, leaving many borrowers high and dry. As a result, this lender is being forced to make changes in a rapid, uncharacteristic manner to avoid being adversely selected with non-salable product.
Shortly after receiving the above on my rate sheet the next email was this:
Effective IMMEDIATELY, March 7th, 2007 - due to the current Capital Market conditions for High LTV / CLTV / Low FICO Loans, this lender will be discontinuing our E-Series program. No new submissions or locks will be accepted. Current E-Series loans in the pipeline must be funded by March 30, 2007. No extensions or re-locks will be allowed on current locked loans in the pipeline.
I took off the name of the lender for confidentiality reasons. They have been in business for over 20 years and I did a lot of loans with them. Hey boys and girls, this is some serious stuff. Looks like the “funny money” has surfaced and the investors are cracking down. They are going through their foreclosures asking “what happened here?” Simple, it was a wide open door to loan fraud and too many entered. There goes another piece of the buying pie, those marginal sub-prime buyers. The lender I got this from is predominately an A paper lender. The “E” series was there Alt A program. These guys have always been very conservative and straight up, no “funny money”. So if they’re concerned I would say we should all be a bit cautious and look before leaping.
“ADP Employer Services is forecasting the U.S. added 57,000 jobs in February”
I think today’s number will shock a lot of people.
It was more than that. 95K. But the employment numbers aren’t market moving, I don’t think.
The revisions apparently are…although how anyone buys this manipulated garbage is beyond me.
http://www.hsdent.com
i think someone here posted this link. guy does a lot of demographics research in connection to the economy. I read his latest book and we are supposed to start seeing a big drop off in people entering the workforce until around 2022 due to the fact that there aren’t any people available for lack of births 20 years ago. Not a good idea to compare job numbers to past years because there are other factors to consider.
Was there a big drop-off in births after 2000? The Echo baby boom tailed off by then, but was it such a large drop-off?
Labor shortages, especially in skilled and educated members of the workforce, can be a good thing. We could use some of that to boost real wages.
Don’t know about the rest of ya…
I am slowly being surrounded by infant to 5 year old kids, that family and friends are having, at age 35 and older.
Is it just me?
Yeech.
It’s cool for us, as my wife and I are middle aged dinks, no sweat on our brow, no heavy lifting…
Ditto.
I noticed the trend a few years ago, but it seems to be slackening… I have one friend, he is 42 and fiance 39, they are planning to have one. he will be on social security while the child is college.. His choice.. but I just shiver at the thought.
Jim Rogers (Commodity guru) became a father for the first time (I guess that he knows of) at age 50. My SO became a mother at 41. The kid is a healthy boy. I think a lot of people delay parenthood so they can travel and save up money. I think they make sense. My dad was 38 when I was born. That was rare to have a father that old back in 1959.
I’ll go you one better. My father was 50 and my mother 32 when they got married back in the 1950s. They had four children. All healthy and gainfully employed. We were not wealthy, but fairly well off and we had a great life and good parents who had their faults, but did their best. I miss them.
don’t know about the US, but in Europe couples often postpone getting babies because they don’t have enough room or finances for kids (sometimes they are living in with the parents, and many need to save for 5-10 years on two incomes before they can start at the bottom of the property ladder. I’m sure the housing bubble has caused birth rates to drop over here.
15 years ago if you had a good job in Netherlands, you could buy a nice home within a few years (on just 1 income), without any of the reckless financing of today. Now it’s impossible to buy a home on 1 income (well, you still can if you are in the 1% highest income group, or if you are an illegal immigrant or otherwise ‘disadvantaged’ person) and even with 2 good incomes it is getting very difficult.
Without the many immigrants fron Turkey, Marocco etc. (with their relatively high birth rates) the Dutch population would have been shrinking for at least 5 years now; but due to increasing emigration the number will go negative anyway, probably this or next year.
I can’t imagine being almost 60, and having to put up with the crap that teenagers can put out…..at 40-45, you at least still have the low blood pressure and stamina to handle it…..:)
There was an article in one of the major news magazines a few years ago detailing how many women today are working their way up the corporate ladder during their prime child-bearing ages and holding off on children until their mid-to-late thirties. Unfortunately, many of these women find that they are practically infertile by that time and have missed the boat and have the rest of their lives to ask themselves “What have I done?”
Personally, I don’t care either way whether people choose their career and financial security over raising a family. That’s their business. It does annoy me though when people assume they can simply have it all (career, money, big happy family) without any consequences as a result of their actions. I also think people who decide against having children have missed out on perhaps the most important reason for living.
It is harder to manage career and children here than some other places, but I agree the “I can do/have it all” fairy tale you see in the media gives people the wrong impression, our single child is grown, but when she was young managing work (not a career or a choice) and child rearing was exhausting, rewarding but exhausting. I used to watch various lifetime crap and want to throw things at the televsion, clean house, well dressed children, happy dog etc etc etc…Pure fairy tale
to Toast:
in the Netherlands this issue is currently on the front pages; the age that women get their first child is probably among the highest in the world here. The health care sector has recognized that this is causing surging costs and lots of new health problems.
Solution of politics: they are now strongly encouraging women to have children first (while working or studying) and the way to do this is free care for the children (by another ‘professional’. Great for the job market too! Today I read that they are even going to introduce free maternity leave for businesswomen. So yes, the Dutch women can have it all, at the cost of the tax payer. I definitely prefer the old system where people have to make their choices - that worked FAR better.
It is starting to get a bit similar to the Swedish system (they have free maternity leave for father and mother for a year or so, and the employer has to take them back in the same job after that). This system is said to work well but reality is that it has very serious problems and I don’t think it will last much longer; of course it is (just like the current Dutch system) great for people who want it all without paying for it.
Actually, if having children is the only reason to live, then we would still be living in caves. There’s far, far more to life than reproducing. Man can use his mind to create interesting technology and art, to bring us interesting information from the deep blue sea or from galaxies billions of light years away, or from inner space down in the microcosmic level. Get on with the fascination, the real relation, the underlying theme, as Neil Peart, of Rush would say. I much prefer living today than to have lived back 100 years ago. Lifespans and youthspans were shorter. I’m a very youthful 47, going on 48.
Actually, if having children is the only reason to live, then we would still be living in caves.
I did not say the ‘only’ reason. Please watch your citations. Without child-rearing, we wouldn’t be living in caves - we wouldn’t be, period.
Man can use his mind to create interesting technology and art, to bring us interesting information from the deep blue sea or from galaxies billions of light years away, or from inner space down in the microcosmic level.
Fascinating. And if there’s no next generation to pass these things along to, what’s the point? These things you cite as being worthy human accomplishments were only accomplished through the efforts of countless generations of humans, each of which passed what they learned on to subsequent generations.
I much prefer living today than to have lived back 100 years ago. Lifespans and youthspans were shorter. I’m a very youthful 47, going on 48.
Thank a scientist. Or rather, thank his parents.
okay but I still think “having children” is NOT the most important reason to live.
There are plenty of ways to enrich younger generation’s lives without having your own children. There is also plenty we can learn from our elders, many of whom are neglected by their own families.
Children are rotten. Draft them and send them to a desert somewhere. Graffiti will go down around here.
Joe Soccer Dads are insufferable bores. I’m happy to see their family wealth evaporate in the housing bust.
During the recession of the early-to-mid-80’s, the first people who were “let go” were middle management recent hires…most notably 20-something females a couple of years into their careers. (That would be me and all of my girlfriends from school.) What does one do at that age with no decent job prospects and an upscale set of expectations?
Right, we all got knocked up by our yuppie husbands. Instant upper middle class baby boom. The results are now in their early-to-mid- twenties and costing us a bloody fortune in grad-school tuition.
After Black Friday in 1984, two-income families became the norm and no one had time or money to have a lot of kids. Hence the dearth of early twenties white collar workers today.
Nice post Chic…..
I do believe the lender we’re talking about is GreenPoint. I have no problem in calling them out.
Clearly a ‘loan-to-own’ outfit on the commercial side. No guilt feelings screwing up and delaying their foreclosures!
Job#+90K. Govt. Jobs+39K. Better living thru bigger govt.
are ALL constructon workers illegal ?
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070309/economy.html?.v=6
someone posted in NJ it was a huge percentage
viva Che’
I posted some information on Chagas disease (brought to the US by illegals from south of the border) recently. Chagas infests substandardly built housing. Here’s some more information from Patricia Doyle, PHd.:
“In Texas, the FIRST house tested found 24 triatoma bugs positive for Chagas. 24 triatoma bugs out of 31 triatoma bugs. That is a HUGE number of infected kissing bugs. Also, the homes tested in Louisiana and Texas were found to have triatoma bugs that colonized the homes. That is a giant step to endemic infection. Once these bugs, especially Chagas-infected ones, colonize a home, you can pretty much assume the infestation is going to become endemic. We are at the beginning of this endemic colonization…and we can still stop it.”
Chagas disease, brought to you by the housing bubble.
But Chagas disease has only come here to make a better life for its family. It’s doing jobs that American disease won’t take.
You got it, Arizona! LOL, you know how the banks get their boxers in a wad over having termite inspections? Maybe we’ll have Chagas disease inspections down the road. Because homeowners who get sick don’t pay their mortgage. But don’t look for the govmint to quarantine illegals, OH NO! Instead, look for Merck or Pfizer to get legislation passed for mandatory Chagas vaccinations, so we can peacefully co-exist with the bugs. (And so the pharmaceutical companies can make huge profits). Oh, there are just endless possiblities for money making with the illegals. It’s not just limited to soaring profits on slave wages.
Bitter sweet humor,alas more truth than fiction
lmao
desertfox
These are just basically mexican bedbugs, right?
OMG what a thought to start the weekend…
What happens when the parasites outnumber the hosts?
Are you talking about Chagas or Mexicans?
Well, in either case, the host and parasite both die out.
Gov’t workers.
The HSBC debacle was alarming to a lot of foreign investors. It generated worldwide awareness regarding the US’ housing debacle . Now, according to the WSJ Europeans are waking up to subprime surprise:
MONTE CARLO, Monaco — This resort town, famous for its high-roller gaming tables, seems far from the disastrous bets made in the U.S. subprime-mortgage business.
But at Citigroup Inc.’s annual credit conference here, speakers and attendees say the turndown in the U.S. subprime market is turning up in investors’ portfolios where they don’t expect it, reflecting the increasingly connected global markets. Investors are realizing they may own more exposure to subprime-mortgage-loan pools than they thought.
That exposure is surfacing because of the way fixed-income investments can be layered. Banks sell asset-backed securities, known as ABS, backed by mortgages to investors. The ABS can ultimately end up in complex structures called collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. Institutional investors invest in CDOs, sometimes not realizing they have subprime mortgages in them.
“There are European investors who until a few weeks ago did not know an awful lot about what subprime was who are realizing that they actually have exposure through some of their CDOs,” said Citigroup credit strategist Hans Lorenzen. “I’ve spoken to one investor who said that their portfolio had exposure to subprime and they just knew that it had some American ABS exposure. They hadn’t gone through enough detail” of their investment to realize they owned loans to Americans with spotty credit records.
Talk of subprime mortgages dominated several conference sessions.
The shizzle is poking its head out everywhere!
My pet peeve about the “new jobs” that amerika is creating, is not only are they bonafide dead end streets, but the employers also make them do much more than they used to, my not so favorite position, being the checker/receptionist, that emerged from the ooze, about 10 years ago…
Just as it’s your turn to check out, the phone rings and the checker goes into receptionist mode, the caller wants information and he or she will not be denied, despite the fact that I made the ultimate effort to actually come in and let’s not stop there, i’m on the verge of buying something from your establishment… But it’s ok to make me wait.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Read Craigslist sometime under “adminstrative.”
They want people who are proficient in all MSFT office applications, Quickbooks, answer the phone, kiss ass, etc. and they want to pay $10-$12 per hour for this.
Here in Florida, they also want you to be bi-lingual. Used to be a bi-lingual person could command a better wage.
txchicK57
Wells Fargo have the tellers trying to hawk other other products while you aretrying ot make a deposit. Now the latest in time consumption you go to the teller line to go to safety deposit box, taking her away from the unfortunate folks behind you. They now have a ceiling mounted TV with CNN to keepyou company. See they are #1 in subprimes. wonder what the next cost saver will be.
desertfox
My Bank of America branch makes great cookies. And now my wife wants to close that account just because they pay 4% less interest than our other bank. Geez, what is happening to our priorities
txchicK57
Wells Fargo have the tellers trying to hawk other other products while you aretrying to make a deposit. Now the latest in time consumption you go to the teller line to go to safety deposit box, taking her away from the unfortunate folks behind you. They now have a ceiling mounted TV with CNN to keep you company. See they are #1 in subprimes. wonder what the next cost saver will be.
desertfox
Happens all the time, I have started to just set down my things and walk out the door. Don’t know why someone who has a question about something they may or may not buy trumps my giving them money now. Worst of all is the inter employee chit chat and personal cell phone calls that waste my time. I think that companies beleive that you will just hand them the money for the “thing” you want and will tolerate just about anything in your quest for posession. There are very few things that can not be purchased at any number of locations are they unaware of this?
Mortgage fraud is hitting Canada as well.
http://albertabubble.blogspot.com/2007/03/yes-stink-is-same-here.html
Now that’s interesting. I wondered if it was being discovered there. I talked last night to a friend in New Brunswick who bought something this summer and now wants to sell it and move closer to his office. He allows as the market in NB is a tad “illiquid.” No kidding - how many people actually live there?????
I don’t see any evidence that Europe is taking notice; the euro keeps falling, EU stock markets keep bouncing back after last weeks small glitch (9% down last week after going up 140% without any significant correction - big deal …), mortgage rates in Netherlands have hardly moved over the last 2 years despite 1.25% ECB rate increases (rates are just 0.2% above the 400-year low) and 6-10x income loans with no money down are still VERY easy to get.
The only problem mentioned in the press up to now is that it seems to get a bit more difficult to get 100% financing for really big loans (that is usually for the people who don’t need it, but just use it because of the huge Dutch HMD) - certainly not related to the sub-prime problems.
sorry, this should have been a reply to the post of mrktMaven FL above …
From BO Board….foreclosures and bk, but wants to buy ANOTHER house:
“Need help in POS deal,
Here is the deal I had one of my pretty good investor clients go bk recently. Prior to that he had some of his properties go into FC prior to the BK, the last FC was 4/06
558 mid bk disch 12/06 , full doc
wants to purchase new home. Any ideas? how much down needed?”
“…Any ideas?”
Drop back 10 yards and punt.
“…how much down needed?”
Can he manage a 100% ……DOWN PAYMENT that is.
POS deal? As in, piece of shhh! deal?
What an idiot. Not that we here at The Blog are immune to typos, but why is it that all of these stupid “RE investors” can’t seem to spell, punctuate, or form even the slightest semblance of a sentence? Is it possible that the same lack of intelligence is responsible for both their inability to add AND their inablility to spell?
Doh!
March 08, 2007
Late-February home prices below year ago
DataQuick reports that the O.C. median selling price of all residences through late February was slightly below the year-ago mark. If that trend extended through the entire month, O.C. owners will be seeing red: February would be mark the first month with year-over-year home depreciation since November 1996. Sales are still slow. O.C. is headed toward its 17th straight month where the buying pace didn’t match the previous year’s actvity. Key market slices, for the 22 business days ended Feb. 23 … Slice Price Vs. ‘06 Sales Vs. ‘06
House $675,000 -1.5% 1,461 -7.1%
Condo $453,000 -3.2% 632 -17.2%
New* $581,500 +3.1% 386 -33.7%
All $615,000 -0.2% 2,479 -15.0%
* Includes single-family homes, condos and recently converted apartments
These median prices being quoted in the OCR are just BS, in that they are so not reflecting the reality of the OC RE marketplace. Sales are way,way down. Go to melissadata.com and see the real sales numbers(RECORDED) for any zip in OC. I live in CDM, and the fall in sales in NPB,CDM,LB,NPC is stunning. Nothing is selling and last month the ave sales price plummeted YOY.
People getting nervous here.
Here’s another one from JL’s blog…sounding more like a bear every day
Another index says O.C. home prices fell in 4th quarter
Another day, another price index! Mortgage giant Freddie Mac puts out its own twist on housing trends from the same home-loan database used for the federal OFHEO index. (OFHEO is Freddie’s regulator!) Freddie admits the indexes are pretty much the same, but we’ll celebrate the minor differences anyway:
Period OFHEO Freddie Mac
4th quarter -0.28% -0.89%
2006 +5.50% +5.63%
2005 +20.00% +18.08%
EARNINGS ROUNDUP
Fleetwood swings to a loss
From the Associated Press
March 9, 2007
Fleetwood Enterprises Inc., which makes recreational vehicles and manufactured homes, said Thursday that it swung to a fiscal third-quarter loss on lower sales and seasonal softness.
The company reported a loss of $29.9 million, or 47 cents a share, compared with a profit of $1.4 million, or 2 cents, a year earlier.
Analysts were looking for a loss of 40 cents a share, according to a Thomson Financial survey.
“The negative results for the quarter reflect normal season weakness, which was intensified by relatively sharp year-over-year declines in manufactured housing and travel trailer industry shipments at the end of the calendar year,” President and Chief Executive Elden L. Smith said.
Results a year earlier benefited from $129 million in sales of FEMA-specified homes and trailers and conventional unit demand after Hurricane Katrina, Smith added.
Revenue for the quarter dropped 24% to $443.2 million. RV group sales slipped to $324 million from $365.3 million, while housing group sales slid to $108.7 million versus $208.8 million in the previous year.
Analysts expected revenue of $444.7 million.
Shares of the Riverside company fell 67 cents to $7.97.
Didn’t mention they are also outsourcing their factory to Mexicali where they can pay $4 an hour vs. the $20 they paid their Riversiders.
Five indicted in AZ real estate fraud scheme:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/172791
And this online article, on the same scheme, has all sorts of interesting comments:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0309indictment0309.html
After posting about the ethanol BS and the dramatic increase in the price of food to occur in the near future, it appears that the main stream media is starting to notice. This is another piece of ‘The Perfect Economic Storm’ about to hit.
“Meat and poultry production will fall as producers face higher feed costs, the department said in its monthly crop report. Ethanol fuel, which is blended with gasoline, is consuming 20 percent of last year’s corn crop and is expected to gobble up more than 25 percent of this year’s crop.”
“The price of corn, the main feed for livestock, has driven the cost of feeding chickens up 40 percent, according to the National Chicken Council….”
and from Tyson
“Companies will be forced to pass along rising costs to their customers, meaning consumers will pay significantly more for food,” Chief Executive Dick Bond said.
http://tinyurl.com/38c9rt
I’m sure scientists will come up with synthetic livestock feed made from oil.
in my area a new factory is being built that makes biofuel not from the actual crops, but from the remains that are useless for food and farming (sorry, my english is not good enough for the exact words …). It’s still a bit experimental, but this is definitely one step ahead of the current US bio ethanol iniative (which is a disaster for the environment and third world people if you ask me) and a big step in the right direction.
But at the same time, an huge new electric plant is built in the same area that will burn palm oil (cultured in countries like Thailand and Malaysia where they cut the tropical rainforest for these plantations. Producing electricity from palm oil is very profitable in Europe because of heavy subsidizing of this ‘green’ fuel. The Netherlands is way, way behind on schedule for the new EU greenhouse gas regulations, so I’m sure we will see more very stupid subsidy ideas from politics in the near future. If you want a disaster, just leave it in the hands of the politicians
Current production of ethanol in the US is a joke - using valuable water, grains and as much energy as the resulting process yields. DOE said last week that if production of ethanol were to be half of the presidents recommendations then 90% of all grain would go into ethanol production
Can we all agree on this point:
No MBA presidents ever again.
He’s not a real MBA; he bought the degree without learning a damn thing.
Well, I’ve been flogging corn as a trade on here for at least 4 months.
Guys - is it just me?? One of the ironies of this blog forever has been the advertising for easy money everywhere. Also repeated in my local paper (Wash Post). Today for the first time on this blog I noticed:
FSBO
Student Loans
Refinancing
Automated Underwriting……
After a couple of re-freshes of the blog only two ez money ads. Checked the Post and the only advertising is homebuilder after a couple of re-freshes.
Wondering if anyone else has noticed this? Am I missing something? What is everyone else seeing?
Slightly OT, the carnage is increasingly not confined to foreclosure of mortgages. Repos of cars are up massively, bankruptcies are up, and my friends on the debtor side of the bar assure me that there is a lot more in their pipeline than is being seen right now.
Whoever posted that “Collapse Gap” article (sorry, can’t find original post, linkie here: http://www.energybulletin.net/23259.html ) - well done, however I disagree with some of the conclusions. The collapse will simply deprive the US of its ability to import, but there are still substantial natural resources here. I believe the “barter” economy he posits will wring out the excesses, then rapidly evolve into a domestic production and consumption based economy. I agree that the US might not be an international player for a time, but I think he underestimates the ability of the US to rebound. Yes, there will be mobs of screaming “Me!Me!” folks running around before they can become productive again, and the political power will very likely shift from the feds back to the state and local levels, but I think these will be very good things over the long run.
Was looking at a home decor magazine in the dentist office the other day. It was a current issue (March 2007) Feature story the loft market in Detroit. All the blather on how people want to live the urban life blah, blah, blah - no commute, walk to restaurants, culture events…Many of the condos are bought by people who use them to entertain when they come to the city. Guess suburban living still much safer. Some of the prices were $1 million. I have never been to Detroit but to other rust belt cities. A milllion for a downtown apartment in a semi dead city! To quote one of the posters on Ben’s Blug : no bubble here move along folks. A few days after seeing the magazine saw a USA Today story about someone in Detroit beat to death or within inches of his life. His description sounded like the urban pioneer demographic. It was a randon crime the guy got off the bus and beat. Guess the boys in the hood had nothing better to amuse themselves with that day.
Ethnic violence will be the norm once the bust is in full swing.
Anyone notice that the cover image on David Lereah’s soon to be released new book “All Real Estate Is Local” appears to be a dead end street?
Fitting don’t you think?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385519222/ref=pe_pe_5400_4948460_pe_snp_222
Yup, and it appears to be a dead end street with lots of McMansions. Just where I want to live!
Did you notice this?
Customers viewing this page may be interested in these:
Foreclosures 4 Beginners
http://InvestingWithoutLosing.com Read the book that shows you how to win in real estate in this market.
It’s just one of those streets that sort of curves around instead of intersecting. But all those houses are trying so hard to look pretty and romantic. They remind me of girls with no chin and big noses who become anorexic and spend a lot of money on manicures.
What happened to the house floating in mid air (falling/rising, you choose).
BTW: I thought anyone could wite a review of a book on Amazon? (Hint, hint!) I can’t find a link for that on that page.
Some Lereah bashing (I just can’t get enough):
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/sutton/2007/0309.html
“Existing home sales decrease 4.1%
David Lereah at the National Association of Realtors has been calling the bottom with every poor housing report since this past summer. His calls became so annoying that even MarketWatch was compelled to do a story on the NAR’s Chief Economist and the fallacy of his calls. However, after this latest housing thrashing, Lereah has been rather quiet. I think he now realizes what many of us have been saying for some time now: The end is nowhere in sight, and we are probably closer to the first inning than the ninth. The recent troubles in the sub-prime market have been well publicized with many lenders getting into hot water. The pundits (Big Ben included) have first said that the market was rock solid. Now with that obviously not being the case, they have resorted to denying that there is or will be a spillover into the broader economy. Stay tuned on this one; it is a developing crisis. However, based on the vehement denials, I am predicting a spillover; and soon.”
While we’re at it, how about some Paulson bashing too?:
“Paulson talks tough to China on banking system
This one absolutely takes the cake. Paulson, in a speech to the Shanghai Futures Exchange made the case for China opening up its banking system to foreign investment and that a failure to do so in a timely fashion will impede China’s ability to produce robust capital markets. He also warned that China’s economy is unbalanced towards exports. No kidding Einstein; someone has to produce all the gadgets we are consuming. Tough talk to China on currency and banking? This coming from the Elvis Presley of deficits bar none. Intimating that China should take banking cues from the United States is like sending your teenager to take driving lessons from Ted Kennedy. I’d be careful though, Mr. Secretary. In case you forgot, the Chinese have the leverage here. They can make your currency, your job and your Department irrelevant with the flick of a switch. Think about that before you strongly suggest the Chinese do anything.
Home prices: Don’t expect quick rebound
Home prices might not seem like they’ve dropped by much, but history, economists and forecasts suggest recovery is years away.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/09/news/economy/home_price_slump/index.htm?postversion=2007030911
Is anyone else getting really sick of being told that you can’t time the market?
I don’t know anything about the stock market, so I can’t comment on that. But in real estate, you can see it goes up and down, and when prices start getting so high that the only way people can afford to buy them is to assume that they will be gaining a lot of equity very soon - that is a real bad time to buy. Duh.
In the stock market you can at least compare companies with others in the same industry and come up with a figure on which company is the best value for the stock price. Sectors are cyclical, so you can gauge when to start looking for a good stock and park your $ in it when the sector is near a recurring low.
My landlord (who is also an RE agent) keeps telling me the same thing “You can’t time the market.” “Buying a house is like having kids. No one is ever ready for it until it happens.” “With your income, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be in a house.”
If I weren’t actively trying to trick him into holding on to the house (so that I won’t have to move), I’d be replying as such:
“Yes, I can time the market. People do it all the time. I correctly predicted the month and year that the Bay Area would see it’s first y-o-y decline. I correctly predicted that it would not be a blip. I correclty predicted that the POS I’m currently renting from you would decline in value by A LOT. I defy you to prove to me that I cannot predict the market.”
“Ever heard of birth control? I’ll have kids after I have a house.”
“I am in a house. I just rent it from you instead of renting it from the bank. I’ve saved $140,000 over the past year by doing so.”
Minyanville’s Five Things You Need To Know…
Scroll down to #5. Hilarious.
fell out of my chair at work laughing so hard!!
“Florida’s Single-Family Housing Market Hits Bottom; Market Stabilizes
GAINESVILLE, Fla., March 8 (AScribe Newswire) — Hopeful homebuyers in Florida should act now: The price is right as the state’s single-family residential housing market bottoms out, according to a University of Florida study released today.
“If you’re thinking of buying a house, there’s probably not much to be gained by holding out at this point,” said Wayne Archer, director of UF’s Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies. “It doesn’t look like prices are going to fall anymore.”
The quarterly survey of experts in the real estate industry completed in January shows that the share of respondents observing a drop in single-family housing prices has dipped, while a growing number find prices staying even with inflation, Archer said.
“We see that as a benchmark,” he said. “When prices maintain the same level as inflation, then we’re probably in some kind of equilibrium. It indicates the market is stabilizing.”
horray, bubbles over, now go buy a house you cant afford, because waitings just gonna cost you more money.
Getting rich from going long on subprimes?
————————————————–
I’ve been using investor.msn.com to follow the market lately. They post a lot of fairly dumb ideas but this one takes the cake. There’s a piece on there today called “Trading your way out of the wreckage” that included this guy’s brilliant idea. Hope it works out well for him - perhaps some of the readers here are more than happy to sell to him…
CNBC Champ Thomas Ko…chased a couple of bargains this week with more than a little derring-do.
He picked up shares of NovaStar Financial (NFI, news, msgs) and New Century Financial (NEW, news, msgs), subprime lenders that had just flat been beaten up. The two suffered 80%-plus losses in a month.
But they had bounced a little on Monday, when Ko filed this journal, and bounced much more on Tuesday. He didn’t get all the bounce, since they opened higher — the best he could do, because of Strategy Lab rules, was buy at the open on Tuesday — but he still collected gains on both.
Ko was convinced these two had fallen below their intrinsic value, and even dead cats do bounce. For a trader like Ko, that made them attractive plays. “Both stocks have been getting clobbered for days now. They may see a nice bounce in the short term as the stock market recovers a bit from Monday’s session,” he wrote. “Margin-call sellers are now driving both of these stocks into the abyss.”
He suggested the real value of New Century was $9 per share, leaving it room to run. But he also wrote: “This trade entails greater risks and requires pinpoint accuracy in entries and exits in order to come out ahead. I’m willing to take the extra risk here, given how far and how fast these stocks have come under pressure.”
If you are going long on subprimes, at least wait a year and invest in the one or two that survive. Only a fool would go long when 1/2 of them are yet to go under.
What the hell is derring-do?
Is it something like chagas feces?
Well this is going to have a huge impact on the buyerg pool
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070309/bs_nm/usa_subprime_countrywide_dc_1
Countrywide ends no down-payment lending!!
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/070309/subprime_countrywide.html?.v=2
This is huge because for 100 years the #1 obstacle to home ownership was the down payment. Much of the recent bubble is a result of buyers being able to purchase homes with no money down.
So… a little late in the day, but NPR did a story on NEW tanking and the effect of subprimes on the market. I was stoked… until they moved right on to the employment numbers and that BS about how 62K construction workers lost their jobs because of a month of bad weather.
Don’t you love how you have to get twenty-seven sources of info and then figure it all out for yourself? Then again… I guess the ability to do that is what brought us here. When I can squeeze some extra dough out of my super-tight saving for a DP budget, I’ll forward it to you Ben. Thanks.