Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For October 27, 2007
Please post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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“The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive—a definition that invalidates man’s consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society—a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man’s mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God. Man’s mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. Man’s standard of value say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure 0f God, whose standards are beyond man’s power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of muscle, is the pleasure of Society, whose standards are beyond man’s right of judgment and must be obeyed as a primary absolute. The purpose of man’s life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given on earth—to his great-grandchildren.”
John Galt
alasinsane, thanks for the quote! Just don’t post any of Ayn Rand’s love scenes - they make me think of a typewriter having sex with a vending machine…
I quote the wisdom, not the personality.
I’ve convinced my son, who is an Econ major at CalPoly, that he has to read The Shrug before he graduates. He reads a little bit every night. It will make him a better man (to say he’d be a better economist borders on the oxymoronic).
“…at CalPoly”
SLO?
Yup! SKI!
BTW I am reading “Modern Times” based on the recommendation of someone on this site (don’t remember who). The recommendation is well-deserved; the book is a real eye-opener!
Did my BS in Civil Engineering there. I plan to send my kids there too, so I have an eye out for a home near the campus when the bottom drops away during the next couple of years. I really miss the central coast area — a fine place to live.
“alasinsane, thanks for the quote! Just don’t post any of Ayn Rand’s love scenes - they make me think of a typewriter having sex with a vending machine…”
Hah!
~Misstrial
If you live your life on “muscle” on muscle alone (exclusive of “God”), and are both right and successful, then you and your grandchildren will receive reward. If you’re wrong, then neither will.
- Dazed&Confused
“I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.”
Isaac Asimov
Heaven for atmosphere, hell for company.
–Mark Twain
This is a contentious battle between out of state developers who still think they can make money in
Dallas and the rest of us. On the side of the developers are Dallas big money types who bought up all the land so they could resell it for millions in profit. The developers want to build “lofts” and “luxury condos” in this area, housing bust be damned. It’s different here, you know? If any lurkers are in Dallas, I’d urge them to consider going out and voting for this proposition, to keep the toll road out of the park:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-hicks_26edi.ART.State.Edition1.42985e8.html
Aw come on. A successful highway instead of park bait-and-switch would make Dallas the world leader in building highways inside flood control levees. We can be the First! We’re Number 1! We go where no one else is brave enough to build! We … bwah hah hah.
Darn, couldn’t hold my straight face.
Anybody up for a game of musical chairs?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slvPMU-7OyI
I had a discussion with a mortgage broker yesterday, the same girl who told me in 2005 that housing only goes up and dismissed naysayers as bitter renters. Anyway, she took a strong education from the market and I, but remarked that apartment rents will skyrocket now that everyone is being foreclosed and those people will move into apartments. What she was failing to realize was that the foreclosed homes/empty condos will not sit empty, banks will rent them out or an opportunist will buy them and rent them out.
Lots of people making the same mistake, but make no mistake about it, rents are only heading in one direction (in Tampa), and that is down.
I think she is also failing to address the issue of where all the money will come from with these “victims” of foreclosures. They couldn’t afford their teaser rate. How do they afford a high rent payment? McMansions will get stuffed with extended families in the next few years. Because the REIC was building bigger houses they have created a massive amount of capacity. It reminds me of the telecom boom of the late ’90s.
It is my understanding that housing prices crashed during the Great Depression but rents held steady or even rose a little bit.
Was there a massive increase in housing capacity before the Great Depression? I don’t know the answer to that question.
Lets not forget that with the Great Depression familes lived together to share the expenses of the rent…so there was not a big demand on rentals…not uncommon to have brother, sister, their spouses and kids plus grandparents together under one roof…
In the Great Depression the nuclear family, and the extended family, were largely intact. Now we have a generation of men raised by women, who seem to have no idea of what being a real man entails, i.e. living up to your responsibilities. People are much more alienated and atomized, and lack the ties to family, neighborhood, and community that helped keep them on the straight and narrow in hard times. The onrushing depression is either going to kill us, or make us much, much stronger as a nation and as individuals.
Testify Sammy! I couldn’t agree more.
Not sure about every state but I think in some states there are “rules” about banks holding REO’s for too long. They have to get them off the books. I seem to remember that in the last (of many) booms and busts in California, someone told me that banks are forbidden from holding large amounts of property.
“Not sure about every state but I think in some states there are “rules” about banks holding REO’s for too long. They have to get them off the books. I seem to remember that in the last (of many) booms and busts in California, someone told me that banks are forbidden from holding large amounts of property”
Here in SCal it seems that The banks are thus far still holding onto their reo’s and/or offering them for sale barely below current market prices. The no of actual foreclosed properties(306) has roughly doubled here in Long Beach(CA) from early summer but i am not seeing probate sales offered at real firesale discounts.
This is the event i am waiting for:when and if the banks are forced to unloaded their POS properties at firesale prices here in the LA area is when i expect to see real significant priced drops of 10-20% yoy in ALL OF LA COUNTY. That will crash the LA market hard. Right now the crash is proceeding sporadicaly and it is confined to certain inner city fraudulent crapzone zips such as inglewood, parts of long beach, Northeast/central SAn fernando valley pit zones, Pomona, Norwalk, the 710 fwy corridor third-world tijuana hellholes of bell, Wilmington, SGate ,Huntington park, East LA, Maywood, Compton,ect.
The longer that banks hold onto their properties the bigger the no of foreclosures which pile up, thus acelerating the decline and trashing out of neighborhoods. It is tatamount to allowing dogshit to pile up in your yard instead of shoveling it up regularly.
Bank’s Non Performing ASSETS (REO’s) are inventoried by Federal Regulators and if I remember correctly from the RTC days, Jan 31, 2008 will be the next reporting of Non Performing Assets. I am watching major (25% below other comp lisitngs) price reductions on REO’s in Las Vegas today, and think that reporting date might be their motivation.
Yes David, we are starting to see capitulation by the lenders in Sacramento too. I am now under contract with Wells to buy a brand new house (2 years old, but never lived in) for $125/sf. It is the third time I made an offer on it in the last 6 months. The first was a short sale, then a loan contingent offer, and finally an all cash 21 day close offer. Each offer was lower than the previous one. They took the last one, at 23% below their initial listing price and 42% below the 2006 sale price. I may be a year or two early and may see another 10-15% drop in the Sacramento market, but my after tax house payment is the equivalent of the before tax rent I am paying today (including a 6.5% return on the downpayment). The house I am renting is in foreclosure, having been purchased by a flipper for $260/sf 18 months ago. She got stuck with $3500/mon negative and it finally dawned on her the $760,000 house was only “worth $400,000 today, if she could find a buyer. She kept taking my rent, and not making the loan payment.
So my purchase price is $374,000 for a house that sold for $668,000 in early 2006 (but put under contract in mid 2005).
If prices continue to drop, as I suspect they will, I look to buy some more houses. I must say, the financing was a piece of cake with 20% down. I faxed in a stated 1003 loan app and got 24 hour loan approval with no other documentation. My FICO is near 800. I am having fun and look forward to buying more homes when the prices drop to 10-12 times the annual rent. This deal is a multiple of 14. It has a lot of extra bells & whistles I like, such as a premium view lot and upgraded finshes. It has taken be 21 months to finally settle on this deal. I put in an offer for $840,000 on a house in Dec 2005, and thank God, the seller would not even give me a counter offer. (He still owns the house, btw.) I went to the web to look up stats for the Sacramento, so I could justify increasing my offer. I found SacRealStats blog and then Ben’s HBB. The rest is history.
Today, I have more house for less than 1/2 the price. It was difficult to be patient, buy it has paid off wonderfully. I continue to provide periodic PayPal donations to both sites.
Great story and good luck.
“What she was failing to realize was that the foreclosed homes/empty condos will not sit empty, banks will rent them out or an opportunist will buy them and rent them out.”
Really? How come I see so many brand new McMansions sitting unoccupado, then? Yesterday afternoon we saw a report posted here that of 2 million homes added to the U.S. national housing stock last year, 2/3 (1.3 million) sit vacant. How can you be sure these will not remain vacant forever?
There are some homes that will remain vacant for a long time - I can’t speak for California, but in Florida this set includes those homes in the exurbs, bedroom communities with no particular draw, etc.
Any houses close in where demand for rental units is strong will be occupied by renters, opportunistic buyers, and vagrants, I suspect in that order. A perfect example is the complex I live in today - it was condos where the owners lost their asses in the early 90s crush, only to be purchased for pennies on the dollar and turned into apartments. Rents in Tampa will be depressed for years.
For some reason, was looking at the ads in the bozeman, montana paper (not that I want to move there). Dozens of ‘brand new 3/2’s for rent, yes, in Bozeman.
Never saw so many ads in Salt Lake craigslist before either (seems a strange time of the year, if not for resets??). Many brandnew…well, you get the picture.
I predict a backlash in neighborhoods and communities against unoccupied lender- or “speculator”-owned houses that are going to seed. The more proactive communities will start passing ordinances penalizing absentee homeowners or lenders for unkempt properties, which will give them a compelling reason to unload them into a falling market. That isn’t going to help prices any, but could lead to a long-overdue return to affordable homes for owner-occupants. I would love to see a punitive tax on unoccupied, non-primary-residence properties.
Typical government looking for ways to capitalize… just like with the “legal” and “justice” systems.
Look at Detroit.
The banks will rent nothing out. They may start feeling enough pressure to drop the prices to a point an investor can buy it at a price that makes sense as a long term rental (positive cash flow, since there is no appreciation for 5 more years).
In our area banks don’t rent out vacant REO’s. They just let them sit and rot. Now desperate sellers may rent, but who knows how long they’ll even own the house before it goes back to the bank.
I have heard quite a few realtors repeating this line. Not surprising given that they as a profession have established themselves as incapable of understanding supply and demand. Rents are headed south around here and most of the condo conversions/future repartments and new condo buildings haven’t even started to come on the market yet!
The whole “rents are going up” line is clearly wishful thinking.
BTW I have been watching craigslist like a hawk because we are seeking a bargain on a different rental when our lease is up, so this is not just wishful thinking on my part. There are hundreds of postings a day and asking prices on rents have gone down about 500 dollars in six months. We are in a “repartment” right now but I am not sure if we’ll be able to get a rent reduction here because the owners have been right out in front of the trend. They offered us a great deal (1 months free rent, no deposit) and were very aggressive about getting this place rented well before the bubble bursting hit public consciousness.
I think she might be partially right for apartment rents. The boom hasn’t been in all forms of housing - it’s mostly concentrated in SFH, and in pretty large SFH at that.Some areas have seen a high-rise condo boom and they will probably see a general rent decline from the overall housing oversupply. But many places - like my area of Southern California - haven’t seen much condo development. So while a huge oversupply of 4 and 5 bedroom houses will drive the rents for houses and individual rooms down, the rents for small apartments suitable for independent adults and small families will stay steady or even rise.
I disagree, there are many, many projects to build new apt. inventory. Drive around the valley a bit.
A lot of FBs are going to be moving into the basements and spare rooms of their parents or any family members that will have them. Many other FBs will be renting out rooms in their homes. That represents a huge, largely unaccounted-for housing capacity that will almost certainly depress the rental market.
The bottom line is rents have to stay in line with incomes, there are no teaser rate leases. Even a 10% rise in rent will still leave them much cheaper than buying.
That said, I see alot of stuff in chicago going from for sale to for rent.
Some people can’t see beyond the front of their desk.
Some people can’t see beyond the front of their desk.
What I meant is some can’t see how mortgages and rentals all tie together. Many mortgage brokers can’t seem to understand how many desperate homeowners will rent out at any amount just to get money coming in on their ever draining investment. Likewise people with bad credit who cannot pass a credit check, will rent from these sellers because they cannot rent in regular apartment complexes where you need good credit to rent. So I’m thinking if these people are not renting in the regular complexes, rent shouldn’t really rise at all there.
Water shortages across the US.
“Florida represents perhaps the nation’s greatest water irony. A hundred years ago, the state’s biggest problem was it had too much water. But decades of dikes, dams and water diversions have turned swamps into cities.
Little land is left to store water during wet seasons, and so much of the landscape has been paved over that water can no longer penetrate the ground in some places to recharge aquifers. As a result, the state is forced to flush millions of gallons of excess into the ocean to prevent flooding.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7027185,00.html
And the housing bubble sure isn’t helping. “So much of the landscape has been paved over”. And where are our elected officials charged with taking care of the counties? Oh, that’s right, they’re in the back pockets of developers. Another good reason to plow under much of this development that we don’t need, not to mention putting a moratorium on immigration. Too many people.
Palmetto, driven up 54 lately in Pasco? Perfect example of swamps paved over for housing. This is a huge problem in FL, and now they are trying to pave hundreds of acres of wetlands for two malls off 56 in Wesley Chapel. Before too long, there won’t be any wetlands left in Florida.
Moman, I haven’t driven up there in quite a while, I don’t want to depress myself. But I have been following all the news reports on the malls. I guarantee those two malls, if they ever get fully built out, will be nice “ghost” malls.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about individual responsiblity. We ourselves have to be “refuseniks”, refusing to live in places like Wesley Chapel (which is a mess) and refusing to patronize the malls and any place that destroys the environment. There can be development, yes, but it has to be responsible and irresponsibility is the whole, entire theme of the housing bubble.
..
Well, I am a boater and I can tell you the lakes around here in Polk County in Central Florida are the driest they have been since 2000….the overall trend, however is toward a much drier area with levels and flows between everything at all time lows.
The Chain of Lakes here in Winter Haven has not been passable in many areas since March. We didn’t get our seasonal rainfall totals for our rainy season over the last three summers…since the 2004 hurricanes.
Now, we are heading into our dry season with huge water defecits.
I used to boat on the chain a bunch; however nowadays I go to the southern portion of Polk County to Crooked Lake when I can. Crooked Lake is a pristine area that is spring fed directly from the Floridan acquifer and is nowhere near being historically low.
I am considering buying down near there in Babson Park in the next couple of years. It will be a b!tch to add that drive to work but it will be well worth it. Beautiful area; and the developers didn’t get a chance to ruin it. A few Realtors and such tried to make a land grab down there but they will get their a$ses burned….its just a little too far and isolated from Orlando/Tampa I-4 / I-75 metroplex to make it a daily drive to the sheeple Work Centers..
..
wanted to add that the wonton wasting of water on irrigation pisses me off. I often drive by companies and apartment complexes with sprinklers that are shooting a torrent of water in the air because the lawn crews cut the head off during mowing. At my complex the sprinklers run during the rain, how stupid is that?
Took the words right out of my mouth, Moman. I see the sprinklers running here at my condo complex during the rain. What a sick joke.
Palm: Here in the CA desert, I’m told all the golf courses use gray water. I’m astounded at the amount of water used her decoratively - fountains and lakes abound and nearly every home has lawns and desert unfriendly landscaping.
Californians…
“The Great Thirst” by Norris Hundley, Jr., will clue you in to the history of H20 in our Aurum State.
Recommended!
Cadillac Dessert is also an interesting recounting of damn and water projects.
Ca should plant more drought resistant plants, its almost a desert at least in the southern half. Planting redwoods in Moorpark is probably not a very water wise idea IMO.
It is interesting to note how many ramifications there are to the housing bubble, and there are probably some I’m not even aware of. But, here in Florida, the environmental impact is enormous and I’m not what I would call an “environmentalist”. Yet I’m concerned. I like water. I like to drink it. I wouldn’t want to see it go away or co-opted by some “global” water company. I like air. I like to breathe it. I wouldn’t like to see it go away, either, but that, too, will go away if there are not enough trees or plants to clean it.
If there is no water, how will you run your wet t-shirt contests? Maybe that would get the politicians motivated to do something about the problem.
There is plenty of rainfall on Palm Beach County, but as I’ve read, the water flows out to the ocean and is not captured or routed to Lake Okeechobee. I think it’s better that way - it helps dilute the effluent we’re pumping into the Atlantic.
Affluent effluent?
droog, you’ve probably heard a little bit about how the originally happened, with the Army Corps of Engineers building canals to drain the swamps into the Atlantic. And now, millions (or is it billions?) are being spent to put the Kissimmee River back the way it was.
palmetto, somehow it figures that this debacle involved the Federal government…
Testify! And then do it again, palmy! Great post.
Good post, Palmetto. Water is going to be hugely important as demand continues to outstrip supply. I’m wondering if any of our more saavy posters know of water-management companies that are going to be well-positioned to benefit from this trend.
Hey, Sammy, flatff posted a water etf a while back. If you see flat posting, ask about it. I’d kind of like to see it myself.
The water ETF is PHO.
Thanks, Spike. Easy to remember - I love Vietnamese Pho soup on cold days like today.
I don’t know if this is a good deal or ‘hood, but I like the guy’s tone. “Look, I have be depantsed, let’s not dwell…”
http://tinyurl.com/2z62ol
The thing I don’t get is when they say:”I’m not desperate.” O.k., fine, but at some point you realized you needed to sell. I have not reached the point where I need to buy. The gap between our immediacies is what I might call, “potential for desperation.”
So, you may still have your shorts, but you, Mr. Seller, are clearly in depantsing territory and I am not.
If you are willing to admit that there is a slow-down, and you have decided to sell, it might as well be a fire sale. What else would it be?
But he still wants to sell it to “investors.” Does he know it isn’t priced right for someone who actually wants to live in it? So he thinks someone can buy it, renovate it and make a money?
He’s looking for a half wit who just decided to get into the flipping buisness.
I did a taped radio thing yesterday for the Antelope Valley in California with Clear Channel. Here are some of the times and streaming links:
Sat 6AM PST KOSS – 105-5 The Oasis 105.5 FM http://www.oasis1055.com (Can be received in Antelope Valley)
Sat 11PM PST KAVL – Fox Sports 610 610AM http://www.foxsports610.com (Can be received in Antelope Valley and San Fernando Valley)
Sun 11PM PST KTPI – 103.1 KTPI 103.1FM http://www.ktpi.com (Can be received in Antelope Valley and Tehachapi)
Ben or anyone, if there is a .wav file to download, please post link.
Well, all I hear is music. Maybe it was all an elaborate hoax to get me to link to them(!)
80’s music rules!!
Ah….but this is crappy 80s music
It is really bad music. Why would anyone bother to stream this? I guess it tells us something about the AV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28TeUbYvXS0
Speaking of ’80s music, “Ghost Town” by the Specials gets my vote for official anthem of the bursting bubble. It was written about Coventry in the UK, but man, a lot of this video reminds me of downtown condos in San Diego or Miami.
It is so bad in the AV maybe they just said F it and put on the 80’s so they could remember the good times in the late 80’s before their market took a big hit in the last bust.
I think this is a hoax - they are advertising “investment real estate in California City” LMAO!! Does anyone live in Cal City except a few hundred Joshua Trees???
Was it all an elaborate hoax to get us to buy Jones Soda?
Does the soda go with the kool-ade?
On the show they conceded that RE there was in the tank, so who knows?
“Does anyone live in Cal City…”
There’s skydiving in California City from a Twin Otter too!
“There’s skydiving in California City from a Twin Otter too! ”
There’ skydiving in Lake elsinore. LE is one of the SCal-IE RE crash and burn zones but the skydiving outfit there(SKYDIVEELSINORE.COM) is pretty decent.
what? and miss the chance to jump with me in Perris?
Interestingly, I’ve noticed more people are coming out to do tandems now, than last year when the MSM and sheeple knew nothing about the bust…
and skydiving for your first time is not an inexpensive trip. $200-$300 + depending on a couple of options.
I did my first tandem for $189.00 early oct without paying aditional 99$ for skydive photo/videos. Second tandem i get a discount to $129.00.
If you want to do a first solo jump it is $329.00- that includes 6 hrs ground prep plus you have two dive intstructors accompany you on your first solo jump. Total course cost for complete program (15+ jumps) to become a certified solo skydiver is around 2-3 grand(?).
http://www.skydiveelsinore.com
I have seriously thought about getting deep into skydiving(only did that first tandem so far) but am between job asignments and need to skimp on spending a bit.
Thanks Peter,
But Perris Valley Skydiving School is where I work - so I GET PAID to jump
and I’m worth it - actually I don’t do tandems myself, I do the AFF, of course both Elsinore and Perris have had major housing developments encroaching on our DZ’s all since I moved here in ‘04 - Well, now these developments are in foreclosure ground zero, so I think my job is safe.
FYI - you wouldn’t believe how many people bought these houses in Perris, right next to one of the busiest DZ’s in the world, and had no idea, we were here, or it was not disclosed to them. Think that’ll noise from our Super Twin Otters, Skyvan, or DC-9 Jet (on special occassions) will help the prices here?
Does anyone live in Cal City except a few hundred Joshua Trees???
ROTFL
I find it amusing this thread has gone to “jumping.” For many flippers jumped out of the financial plane hoping someone will give them a parachute on the way down.
The AV will just form a crater.
Got popcorn?
Neil
I actually know someone who ownes there. A Navy test pilot based out of China lake.
Maybe their RE sponsors couldn’t stomach what you had to say.
Ben you need your own XM radio show with your own guests with hookups from all over the country. Lets see we have all the best regions covered: Tx Chick, Nycboy, Palmy, Bear, Jas, AG, Leigh. Olygal.
You could have the experts like NGVt, mistrial and of course Hoz walk us thru the big picture.
I’m the little girl holding onto the kite string taking on air. Holding on for dear life.
Any word on the arrested arsons in SoCal? Are they FB’s? Contractors? Cole disciples?
One of them is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, already “on probation” for other crimes. SF article doesn’t go into it much, but other publications, like the NY Daily News, does. This has been downplayed, because shrub doesn’t want to “demonize” illegal immigrants and it’s much sexier, for his purposes, to blame the arsons on some “eco-terrist” group.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/10/24/state/n125813D95.DTL&tsp=1
History often repeats itself, but only if you know where to look…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
UNFREAKINGBELIEVEABLE
I won’t say what’s on my mind. I’ve already been accused of racism by the knee jerk crowd here.
Yes, but those on this blog, like everyplace else, that throw around the “racism” tag are a bunch of zealot jerks that have no better argument than to throw a supercharged word at somebody else. F-ck them.
Stinkin’ greasy beaners! (SInce I’m married to one, I have immunity)
Seriously–is it that hard to say “this guy’s an absolute a-hole and deserves to rot” vs. “illegal immigrants are all a-holes and deserve to rot”?
If the guy did this, f him, but the generalizations get old after a while. I don’t want an open border any more than anyone else does. But they’re not all bad people.
Concur, Steve. I hate what illegal immigration (as well as uncontrolled LEGAL immigration) is doing to this country, but, having spent time in Mexico, can understand why many decent people who feel they and their children have no future there, are desperate enough to go north. Also don’t care for “beaner” comments even in jest.
TxChick —
Some times you just have to honestly speak your mind on principle, regardless of the punishment one might receive from the standard bearers of political correctness. I suppose this gets easier as one matures…
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/science/26watson.html?em&ex=1193544000&en=a168c3f024aeffb0&ei=5087%0A
Watson got crucified. Nobody will remember his pioneering work with DNA (”The Double Helix” is a great read, by the way). He’s going to be harrassed and vilified for the rest of his final years (he’s 79).
I think it was Orwell who said, “In a time of universal deceipt, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
“…Some times you just have to honestly speak your mind on principle”
I majored in genetics (medical &evolutionary)…what I can tell you is that: not to many “Blacks” / “African Americans” in the field when I was at school (late 80’s)…not surprising to me that Dr. Watson would have a biased view of “their” intelligence…in graduate school I invited a “Black” lab student to join me for dinner…2 hours of interesting family discussions later…he states to me that in three years of living & working in the basically “white community”… I was the first person to invite him to dinner. Most of the people in these “focused fields” seldom socialize with “others” or pay “lip service” for “appearances”…”They do not have a “clue” about anything outside their “inner circle” of living and interests.
Being influenced by “laoist” principles since I was 11 years old…and 39 years of “free” living on a spinning planet…I have come to a “different conclusion” than Dr. Watson about intelligence of “other” races & cultures.
I don’t mind saying throw every damn one of them out along with their anchor babies. If Mexico withdraws it’s ambassador or some such crap, who cares???
Isn’t this illegal to arrest illegal immigrants. Some kind of human violation or other stupid california law. I know they aren’t allowed to get in any form of trouble if caught driving illegally in this state of stupids.
Yeah, they should have arrested the witnesses, for racism. (heavy sarcasm)
Illegals committing crimes. Gee, what a surprise. If you use the government’s figure of 12 million illegals, and there is 1 million plus already in America’s prisons for serious felonies, you end up with 1 in 12 illegals caught, convicted and sentenced for murder, rape, armed robbery, el. al.
Here in NY, the gov wants to give them all driver’s licenses to make voter fraud easier. Ain’t that sweet?
Come on, is it that hard to say “This guy is a total jerk-off and deserves to rot” vs. “All illegal immigrants are total jerk-offs and deserve to rot”?
I want a secure border as much as everybody else, but the generalizations bother me. Like it or not, the illegals are humans. And most aren’t criminals (other than their residency status).
But…but…Gulianni said illegals aren’t criminals and their welcome in New York City. He also said he’s going to do for the rest of the country what he did for New York City [with the eager support of his GOP Establishment and Wall Street cohorts]. No gusta, Senor Rudy!
Ron Paul in 2008!
“And most aren’t criminals (other than their residency status). And idenity theft and document fraud.”
The bank robber is a great guy except he robs banks.
And the bank robber is no different than the people running the bank either.
BTW, “Americans” (including myself) are here in the United States illegally.
Hey Steve W,
well, if you subtract the 1 in 12 already doing hard time on felony convictions, then you have 11 million here illegally.
Which is a crime. Many work using forged documents (a crime) or documents obtained from identity theft (a crime).
They drive without valid driver’s licenses (a crime) or insurance (a crime). They earn money and fail to pay FICA or state and local and federal taxes (a series of crimes). They fail to file income taxes (a crime). They use emergency rooms for free medical service and stick the rest of us with the costs (ought to be a crime). This is just a start but I get bored stating the obvious.
Some of them use other people’s socials to get jobs, so the taxes are paid, but of course using someone else’s social is FRAUD. And you don’t have to file if your withholding is over the amount that you owe. Uncle Same will be glad to keep it.
Quite ironic that the GOB establishment, and their corporate masters, have been so strongly supportive of mass immigration and amnesties for illegals, when the vast majority of this influx are Democrats-on-Arrival who will change this nation’s demographic in such a way as to give liberal democrats a permanent majority.
I meant, the GOP establishment, in other words, the Republicrats.
http://www.numbersusa.com/index
You can bitch [impotently] about our broken borders and insane immigration policies, or you can do something about it.
LMAO!!!
Funny how this particular illegal was known for making false emergency calls prior to getting arrested on suspicion of arson. Along with this story, I’ve read another story on an immigration blog about the decrease in remittances to Mexico and Central America and how illegals can’t find work. I guess this guy was doing his bit for the cause of his people, setting fires to goose the construction work in Cali.
Maybe California can build another Supermax. That seems to be their biggest growth industry.
Gee, why am I not surprised. And why am I not surprised that this information is being withheld, and is largely absent from the mainstream media. I posted yesterday, but late, that FEMA staged it’s own news conference, with the softball questions posed by PR folks employed by FEMA itself. The purpose was to have everyone believe that FEMA was doing a good job, and no one not employed by FEMA should review their work.
Yes, controlling the blogosphere is job one for the government, and they are already showing how they intend to do it.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fema27oct27,0,913215.story?coll=la-home-center
Here’s the story on remittances to Mexico and note the references to the construction industry and housing. Boo-fricken-hoo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/business/worldbusiness/26remit.html?_r=2&oref=login&oref=slogin
The devil wears Pravda…
The outfit running this country is now running staged news conferences as evidenced by the faked FEMA news conference. They’ve really hit a new low historically. Senator Kay Bailey “I don’t have sex” Hutchinson repeated the outrageous statement on Bill Maher last nite that ” the ‘immigrants’ are here to do the work US citizens won’t do”. What she really means is that their lunatic ideology dictates that paying a living wage to US citizens won’t happen under their plan for us.
“Senator Kay Bailey “I don’t have sex” Hutchinson repeated the outrageous statement on Bill Maher last nite that ” the ‘immigrants’ are here to do the work US citizens won’t do”.
That is part of the degradation of the US citizen. It’s a variation on an old theme, going back to the Middle Ages and before, when government used religion to keep the people down, with the old razzmatazz about “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”. In other words, be poor and struggle. ‘Tis noble. Life may suck for you here, but you will be rewarded in the afterlife. No one ever thought to ask the popes in their ermine and the kings in their castles why, if being poor was so virtuous, they were so wealthy. Actually, I think some did ask, and the answer they got was that the ruling class were nobly taking on the burden of wealth for everyone else. Now, that’s what I call love for the people.
What’s this “I don’t have sex” thing with Hutchinson?? Did I miss something??
Yes you missed something.
No, it doesn’t take religion to keep people down. Unless you allow that communism is a religion.
communism, the working man, islam and me. We’re all boogeymen hiding behind a tree….. boo!
I didn’t say it “takes religion” to keep people down, I’m saying when church and state is not separated, it is used to keep people down. And when that happens, religion gets a bad name and this allows ideologies like communism to gain ascendancy. And then communism does the same thing. So freedom of religion makes a comeback. Then the goverment co-opts it. Then it become oppressive. And then communism makes a comeback….sheesh, I’m tired just thinking about it. Nothing’s wrong with religion. It is a very civilizing influence, until government uses it for its own ends. Uh, that’s why the US got started…
Palmy, (laughing),
You mean like how a certain party hijacked my religion?
‘I’m tired just thinking about it. Nothing’s wrong with religion. It is a very civilizing influence, until government uses it for its own ends.’
Ah, yes…right up to that little ‘until…’ word.
Try growing up in southern Utah. ‘Separation of church and state’? What’s that crazy concept?
“No, it doesn’t take religion to keep people down. Unless you allow that communism is a religion. ”
You mean like the religion of multicultualism?
Could be worse. The U.S. could be like Europe, being overrun by the increasingly-Islamist.
Communism in the Soviet Union WAS the state religion, complete with its saints (Marx, Lenin), heretics (Trotsky), popes (Stalin), and ceremonies (like those idiotic ComIntern meetings). Ooh, and don’t forget the holy wars … Kill all the Kulaks, and let Lenin sort out his own.
Any overwhelming totalitarian ideology serves this purpose … btw, not all religions rise … er, stoop to this level. I’m not aware of any great Daoist state, for example, or any holy wars started by Jains. Could be wrong, tho’.
FEMA must be building their own Potemkin Village.
It’s funny how these kleptocrats always resort to the same corrupt playbook.
It’s only a matter of time before Boxer gets packed off to the meat renderer…
Just read this myself. This is out-freakin’-rageous. Whoever the clown was that thought this up needs a major slapping up side the head with a trout, grouper or something else of equal size.
Where have you been? The Bush Administration has been feeding us propaganda disguised as news for some time now. To be perfectly fair the practice started with Clinton but W has brought it to an entirely new level. The Bush administration has spent double what Clinton did, $254 million on public relations contracts. Government agencies have made 100’s of these pre-packaged news and they run them with the nightly news. Most of your local TV stations don’t have a clue either that it is gov propaganda they are broadcasting. The gov has produced fake news reports on the Iraq war, avaition security, you name it. Pretty skanky, huh?
Here’s an article on fake drug news reports:
http://tinyurl.com/39q6ja
Does anyone know what the median value of the homes damaged or destroyed in the fires?
FEMA staged it’s own news conference, with the softball questions posed by PR folks employed by FEMA itself. The purpose was to have everyone believe that FEMA was doing a good job.
It’s called “perception management,” and is a growth industry in government.
Our paper today had a political cartoon showing someone from the US climbing over the fence into Mexico. He already had his suitcase on the ground on the other side.
Isn’t that a felony? (Under Mexican law.)
“Any word on the arrested arsons in SoCal? Are they FB’s? Contractors? Cole disciples? ”
The Santiago Canyon Fire (cleveland National forest in The OC), which has consumed 25,000+ acres and burned down 14 homes, mostly in lovely rustic Santigo Canyon, is still raging out of control and spreading eastward roward Corona. This Fire was definitely the work of An Arsonist.
There is a massive Manhunt to find the perpetrator of this fire involving the FBI, Fed, state, local authorites-the crime was committed on National forest property. The reward has been upped to $300,000- KFI AM Radio 640(SCAL) pitched in $100.000).
Only solid info so far is that a possible suspect was seen in the likely area speeding off in a WHITE 98-04 FORD F-150 pickup with running boards. NO DEscription of suspect but all of SCAL is is running wild on this manhunt. SO far the auhorities have little info except a general VEHicle decription to go on. Only chance is that the suspect opens his mouth somewhere in a bar or a home and an aquaintance/familty memnber wanting that huge reward money reports the perpertator.
“This Fire was definitely the work of An Arsonist.”
How do they know it was “definitely” the work of an arsonist? Clearly, there has been some arson, but Cali is in the midst of a horrible drought, is overbuilt and the Santa Anas were worse than ever. OK, so the conditions were ripe. All it takes is a couple of sparks from a motorcycle, a lit ciggie, a campfire, even a gun. I’m not saying there wasn’t arson, but I don’t think arson was the sole cause. With or without arson, there would have been fires.
They found evidence of accelerants at several locations.
Also the one fire chief yesterday said from the time he was notified and got to the fire it had spread 3 miles. He said it wouldn’t have moved that quickly without accelerants.
Probably used gasoline which is easily traceable, any good arsonist should know to use benzene.
Before “Ye all” jump on a the…”an illegal in a Ford” started the fire…bandwagon…remember this “blast” from the near past:
http://firechief.com/management/firefighting_smoke_screen/
This guy… wasn’t a mexican.
I heard/saw a rundown on arrests and what struck me was that they were actually arresting people based on an “anonymous tip”. The ACLU must all be eating out on the way home from the stadium.
Not really against arresting them all and sorting them out later, but a bit surprised to see it in CA.
Tampa area - any up for a Housing Bubble Blog year-end Christmas party? I was thinking a group of us could meet somewhere for drinks and dinner and socialize. How about early December?
Let me know if you’re in and I’ll coordinate it.
I’d sign up, Moman, but I’m going to be out of town from Thanksgiving through New Year’s.
Don’t you have to call it a “Holiday Party”? Christmas is the c-word.
Trust me, I thought about that but this politically correct B/S has gone too far. I’m no Christian fundamentalist and I abhor the religious right, but to call it a Holiday party for the sake of not trying to offend someone is silly. I boycotted WalMart a couple years ago from dropping Christmas from their advertising. I’ll call a spade a spade, and to those who don’t like me calling a Christmas party a Christmas party, F**K off !
I like your anger.
Me too.
Yes! Preach it, Moman! And a loud Hallaluja from your amen chorus! I was almost fired once, about ten years ago, because of my “reply all” e-mail response to some HR harpy who reminded me that the approved term was Holiday Party not Christmas Party. Apparently HR thought - not without justification - that my subsequent “apology” was “insincere, insulting, and inflammatory.” I framed the letter of reprimand they gave me.
Ok children, it’s time to learn how to share. Christianity doesn’t have the sole right to end of the year celebrations. If you want to say “Merry Christmas” fine, but don’t throw a hissy if someone says Happy Soltice, Hanukkah or anything else. As far as Happy Holidays, it’s just a polite way of covering it all.
As for me I’m an agnostic, I think it’s all bulls**t.
I’ve never seen anyone throw a “hissy fit” over someone else saying Happy Soltice, Hannkkah, or whatever. Your “polite way of covering it all” is more like an enforced attempt to suppress traditions near and dear to me. My not-so-polite response to the universalists: F*** Off. The holiday I celebrate is Christmas - if you want to celebrate something different, or nothing at all, all power to you, but don’t try to force me to join your polyglot, meaningless conformity.
Sammy, I like your anger.
Why not try Happy solstice! Solstice is when winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere as the Sun’s rays pause as it is now directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. A millisecond later the Sun’s rays start to once again move northward and the days start to grow longer in the Northern Hemisphere.
I do not know what a soltice is.
I’ve never seen anyone throw a “hissy fit” over someone else saying Happy Soltice, Hannkkah, or whatever.
I see hissy fits all the time over the greeting Happy Holidays. As much trouble as extreamist Christians cause, just be happy that the rest of us are still wishing that you have a Happy Holiday!
I don’t mind anyone saying Happy Haunakah, kwanza, new years, happy holidays, happy ramadan, whatever, but I don’t want that person telling me I’m working for saying Merry Christmas. Telling someone not to call christmas christmas to me is akin to telling a Muslim not to celebrate Ramadan for the fear it might offend someone. If I hold a party, it’s a Christmas party and people are invited to call it what they want.
You left out Festivus.
I can’t wait for this year’s Airing of the Grievances.
Hey Bubba,
Great plan, please remind Ben, it would be a great thread in the Festivus season.
My favorite is Xmas. Ho ho ho.
Christmas is turning into the Airing of the Grievances. I grew up with Happy Holidays because it has that wonderful alliteration and I think because we lived in a very Catholic/Jewish area so that covered both in one. (Also a lot of Greek Orthodox, who celebrate their Christmas later.)
Merry Christmas sounds dorky to me, maybe because I know “merry” refers to drunkeness, and of course in Colonial New England, Christmas was a major drinking holiday. Young rowdies would run around town generally smashing things and pushing the tolerance of their elders to the breaking point. Kind of like Halloween today.
If anyone gives me cr** about saying Happy Holidays this year like they did last year, I think I’m going to say “Turn the other cheek, bro’.”
Btw, I’m an atheist, and you Christians do realize that Dec. 25th is Mithras’ birthday … right? May the light of Ahura Mazda fill your soul with peace.
Got my vote! Let’s get rid of the Marxist stranglehold over this country. This BS of being “offended” does not override Free Speech. From Christmas & patriotic symbols to “hate speech” & American hero’s(you know, evil “racist” old dead white guys!) & history.
And you still believe in Santa Claus.
I can remember three things from Christmas store windows when I was 5 years old:
X-MAS TREES
Happy Holidays
Happy Chaunakah
It really slays me that we’ve gotten this Merry Christmas “backlash” (if you will) because that isn’t what I grew up with, sorry. Maybe the Salvation Army guy said Merry Christmas, but come on, they’re weird. (Oh yeah, and the dimestore Santa, in between “ho ho ho.”)
And it was the Christians who were writing Xmas, although I know a mass email started circulating a couple of years ago claiming that the Xmas thing was started by atheists. The irony there is just too rich to describe … Christians can be so ignorant it’s almost unspeakable.
Spring Hill here. Keep me advised.
Any tips for me as start my search for a nicer rental this weekend?
I’m currently in a one bedroom. I’m going to start by going to all the new condo buildings in the area and ask about renting 2 bedrooms. My lease isn’t up until the end of January.
Seriously, what should I expect? Will they be pushing a sale? Do they designate certain units for sale and others for rentals? What is my best strategy to deal with an initial high rate quote? My instinct is to shake my head sadly and just say it isn’t in my budget and start to leave to enforce the idea that I’m willing to walk.
I know not to tell them my salary initially, and certainly not to mention the downpayment sitting in the bank.
Should I mention my timeframe? I don’t think anyone is expecting a turnaround in the market between now and January. And this is the DC area (Rockville, Maryland), but it is not an election year, so there isn’t any big influx of new political people expected for a new term.
Any ideas are more than apppreciated.
Why don’t you put an ad on Craigslist and see what comes rolling in. Say you have a “stable professional” job, what you want to pay, what you’re looking for, etc. You might find someone with a condo for sale who would contact you directly.
I’m thinking about that, but I’m a little scared of what happens when the landlord looses the condo. While there is no gurantee that this won’t happen with the developer, I’m guessing that if the developer goes bankrupt, it will be easier to not vacate the place with a commercial situation, not an individual one.
Anyone have experience with that particular situation? Renting a condo from a developer when the building didn’t sell? Ever go through that when the developer is in financial distress?
Polly, I’m in your area and renting a repartment right now.
1. If you don’t mind telling a lie to a nosy realtor, tell them you’re on a 1-year appoinment and then you’re going abroad or something.
2. GMAC bought our building for over 300,000 per unit in 2005. Now a management company has taken over and they’re doing a good job. Looks like GMAC wants to get out of the landlord business — we received notice that they are going to be showing the building to other potential investors and they want to show our unit. In this situation I believe having the place rented out makes the building more attractive to investors. What’s least likely is that individual buyers will want to step up and buy a condo. Seriously there is about a snowball’s chance in hell of these places being sold to a homeowner. So I’m not too worried about being displaced.
Tell a lie to a realtor. Buyers are liars.
Polly,
I just rented a 2/2 condo from an owner. The realtor I was working with was a breath of fresh air from the typical B/S spewing bunch I’m used to seeing. She told me this rental was available and she could rent it at their asking price, and said “oh boy” when I told her I would pay $200/mo less than their price, but I would move in immediately. She said she would ask cause it wouldn’t hurt, and the buyer was ecstatic and immediately said yes. I even was able to dictate the lease terms to my liking, and all parties are very happy with the results.
Call, offer, and be ready to sign on the line. You will get what you want, and I agreed to a 12/month term, because it’s likely that there will be a downward adjustment when it’s out next year.
“What is my best strategy to deal with an initial high rate quote?”
Wear a thong to your apartment visits. That’s what I do.
LOL. I hate new yorkers, they’re always trying to create the fashion.
I’m going thru the same thing here on Long Island but we’re more interested in a house for rent.
We went to see a house that had a kitchen that had funky 1970s orange countertop, dark brown fiber board cabinets and yellow, brown and orange peel and stick on the floors and walls. They were asking for 1800 for this 3morelike2 bedroom, 2ba house without use of the garage (he runs his personal training business in it). Oh, and did I mention the roof needed to be replaced? My oil bill would kill me!
Anyhoo, we wouldn’t even consider it if it wasn’t one of the most resonably priced places in our town (if you can believe that) So we told him either fix the roof and update the kitchen and we’ll pay 1700 OR we’ll slap some paint on in the kitchen and pay 1500.
His last tenents barely paid on time and were slobs so I’m hoping the appeal of people with excellent credit history and references will seal the deal but I’m not holding my breath.
In my opinion (for what it’s worth), if you like a place and it’s a little out of your range -negotiate.
It’s not that much different than negotiating a house except you don’t have mortgage headaches to deal with. What’s the worst that can happen? They say no. Just move along to the next.
Something tells me that you will be getting a lot more choices on Long Island. People are trying to flee while they can still get some money for their castles. I’m guessing that many will head out and rent until “prices turn around”. Patience is difficult during an apartment search. Sign a one year lease now. Next year should be better yet for renters. The boss at my work nearly choked when I told him, “I’m the one person in New York that thinks rents will go down”. I still believe that as sure as I believe they are going to glut this market just as a downturn happens.
If all else fails refer back to my thong idea.
Funny enough, there are a good number of houses that are flip du jour in our town. But these idiots are looking for 2200 to 3500/mo. Well, gee, why don’t I just buy ‘em if I was paying that much!
I still haven’t heard from them…I’m thinking I may have insulted their sensiblities with my offer….I wonder if I can insult the vacant house down the block with a similiar offer…they’ve been empty for 4 years, flipped 3x
Don’t be afraid to lowball- walk away if they don’t take your price. That’s exactly what my girlfriend did, and the landlord, who at first balked at my girlfriend’s offer, later called her back to accept the price. My girlfriend knocked 20 percent off the rent!
No thong was required (we saved that for layer).
LATER! Dang iPhone!
Remember a Lease works BOTH ways, if the owner/landlord wants to break it they have to PAY YOU to move.
And it gets transferred in a sale. So the new owner cannot force you to sign a new lease with a higher rent.
Hi Polly,
I’m in NOVA area and went through the great rental hunt this summer. Though I went for a house vs. a condo, i’d like to offer a couple things. The market when i was looking was beginning to get saturated by “investors” looking to cover their mortgages vs. the perennial rentals in the area.
The rental prices for the failed investments was way out of whack with what the regular rentals were priced at, so I ended up having to be very patient as I didn’t want to live in a failed flip. It took my almost 3 months to find (and act quickly enough) on a very nice, super reasonably priced rental in a nice neighborhood.
I’d personally look for a place that has a history of ownership that extends before 2003 or so.
Afraid there isn’t much of that this far out. I demand walking distance to the Metro and I’m just outside the beltway - firmly into “real people drive to DC” land. I got a lot of flyers for condos in the area in the last year. There is one layout I really like, but the wishing price was over $600K back then. I just don’t see anyone renting it to me for $1500 or less.
But it is a good point. I’ll do a little more digging.
It has been my impression that despite all talk about low rents, the FB’s who are trying to rent out ask phantasy prices.
C gets a letter from the Fed about MLEC (warning PDF!)
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/legalint/BHC_ChangeInControl/2007/20071012.pdf
C also received a letter expanding the 23a exclusion to include one of their UK subsidiaries.
New and improved Citi 23a exemption letter (warning PDF!)
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/legalint/FederalReserveAct/2007/20071023/20071023.pdf
What do people think about Paulson wanting to pay the lenders directly that help to rework mortgages? If that guy isn’t the biggest scumbag we have out there, then I don’t know who is. Why can’t we get anybody in public life with a shred of honesty, decency or integrity? That’s right, we get what the people deserve. We are surrounded by morons in our everyday lives so we get moronic politicians and political lackeys. It’s 8:39 a.m. and I’m already having my first conversation with Mr. Daniels. I know him as “Jack”. It’s going to be a long day.
“It’s 8:39 a.m. and I’m already having my first conversation with Mr. Daniels.”
Don’t self-destruct. Remember, “living well is the best revenge.”
I’m of the opinion that running amok with a big axe is the best revenge. But I’m not very good with cliches, proverbs, or aphorisms. I always get them wrong.
NYCB, you need tp come down to Florida; season is starting and there are plenty of snowbirds to mock!
For the life of me, I’ll never ‘get’ the whole ‘blazer with shorts’ thing…
“Blazer with shorts”
Very Bermuda.
“We are surrounded by morons in our everyday lives so we get moronic politicians and political lackeys. It’s 8:39 a.m. and I’m already having my first conversation with Mr. Daniels. I know him as “Jack”. It’s going to be a long day.”
Whoa, NY, step away from the bottle. I hope you were kidding about that.
I know how you feel about Paulson, he is truly a scumbag, I agree. But your comment about being surrounded by morons in everyday life is very significant. We may not be able to do something about Paulson, but we can do something about the morons we’re surrounded by, if we do it one by one. It does start at the local and individual level. But more important than even handling the morons, might be acknowledging the decent people you know. Give someone a call or a note today, who did something decent and let them know you remember. Decent folks need some encouragement these days, they get so beaten down. A kind word and encouragement from you can make all the difference.
Amen!
Good point, or you can do what I do, and ignore them. Most people are morons and just repeat what someone has told them (talking parrots), but we can choose what kind of friends to have. I’ve weeded out my moronic friends over the past year and I’m left with a very vibrant, diverse group of friends who are all professionals, great to hang around and chat with, understanding about the vagaries of my schedule (always gone, studying, etc), and challenge me to be the best I can be, both mentally and physically, and I do the same back to them. It’s a relaxing, great thing. Sounds like you just need to weed those losers out of your life, and while it’s not easy, start over.
I’m not looking back.
Weed out the losers in your life? Back in my earlier days, when I was going through some tough times & wasn’t much fun to be around, a couple of good solid friends stuck by me & helped get me back on track. Some “losers” are quite salvagable, you know.
You know, Secretary Paulson can try to push it all he wants. Despite the fact that this would be Christmas/birthday/Halloween all rolled into one for the banks and the Hedgies, I don’t think Bush will go for it. Not in a big way. He is very doctrinaire about this stuff. The undersecretary who, when the bankers asked him if the government would put money into the Super-SIV, told them they were providing the sandwiches for the meeting - that is the guy who was toeing the party line
And I may have mentioned it a few months ago, but you have to remember the president’s daddy is in the private equity business. He isn’t a banker. Private equity can make a killing in economic downturns. He has no “family loyalty” to preventing the business cycle.
Me? I favor a limited bailout, of us. For each FB the banks refinance into loans that the FB still can’t afford and will only put off forclosure for x months, those of us waiting for prices to come down can get our rent paid by the loan originator for x months.
Message to NYCityBoy :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgtKM0E3bKc
I wish. A couple weeks ago I really tied one on. I got pretty wild. The only good part was that I gave my wife a great time, if you know what I mean. The next morning I woke up with a raging hangover. I asked my wife if she enjoyed the night before. She looked at me funny. She had no idea what I was talking about. A little while later I noticed that our cats were acting awfully funny. You really need to be careful when playing around with booze.
On the plus side, your cats will now be more respectful of you.
NYCityBoy,
Great ! You’re always good for a LAFF
“What do people think about Paulson wanting to pay the lenders directly that help to rework mortgages?”
Where will he get the funds? And in what sense will this not qualify as a bailout, other than that WH propagandists insist otherwise?
I thought so little of it that I emailed (again) my two senators and my congresscritter to urge absolutely no bailout. That is such a tranparent bailout of lenders it’s pathetic, even for Paulson.
Interesting, the Marketwatch article (no URL) which mentioned this noted that he’s not making much progress with the idea of saving the banks, so now he’s lobbying (that’s the word the article used) the President.
“The last week brought sad news for the White House. To begin with, Japanese companies agreed to make payments in yens for Iran’s crude imports last Tuesday. The Japanese had previously paid for Iranian oil in the U.S. dollar. In fact, Iran had earlier signed an agreement on the yen payments for its crude exports with a number of small-sized Japanese refineries. Two leading Japanese oil exporters of Iranian crude joined the agreement last Tuesday. Japan is one of the world’s major oil exporters. The country has sent a clear message to the global oil market by switching to the yen in its payments for Iran’s oil.”
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/25-10-2007/99507-usa_economy-0
This is the reason…
““The dollar isn’t a convenient currency for Iran’s oil receipts for political reasons. The dollar payments for oil are made via correspondent accounts at U.S. banks,” Nadorshin said, in an interview to Bigness.ru. “Keeping in mind that Iran is listed by the U.S. government among the countries of the “axis of evil,” the U.S. government is not only aware of those accounts, it can control them. The U.S. government even blocked certain accounts in the past,” Nadorshin added. From the technical point of view, it would be more difficult for the United States to block such accounts in a Japanese bank.”
Sure as the world the sales contract is denominated in USD with reference to a USD denominated benchmark i.e. Brent or Platts with +/- adjustments for quality and transport costs with actual PAYMENT made in Yen equivalent on date of payment.
The dollar is tanking, and as long as America spends money it doesn’t have, it’ll continue to tank. Jim Rogers, Warren Buffet, Bill Gross all agree investors should invest overseas.
I wish American leaders would take off their American flag lapel pins, tell Neocons to shove it, roll up their sleeves and do something about bringing America back to fiscal responsibility.
“Jim Rogers, Warren Buffet, Bill Gross all agree investors should invest overseas.”
Yes, and they should follow their investments, permanently. Indeed, I agree that we should do something about bringing America back to fiscal responsibility. But these big swinging dicks don’t help any. They’re here because the US had a system that allowed them to prosper. You’d think they’d want to see that system continue. And that system was contributed to by many working “grunts” that the big swinging dicks look down on. Rogers said he’s moving to Asia. I can’t wait. Please, Mr. Jim, do so. And don’t come back. And spend your money paying baksheesh in one form or another for the rest of your life.
Always watch what these “global citizens” do. They’ll never give up their US citizenship, despite all their gasbagging about Asia.
J Rogers sold his NY digs and moved to China a year ago.
Got a link? Because if I recall, it was only a few months ago (max 6) that someone posted the Rogers article about how he was going to put his house in NY up for sale and move to Asia. And, according to a poster here, his place is still up for sale. I think it was spike who posted that just the other day.
But hey, if it’s a done deal, good. He can stay there and play big Mandarin.
Rogers owns a landmarked townhouse on 107th and Riverside, now empty and still unsold. Next door is the largest, freestanding mansion in Manhattan, also for sale, also unsold for years.
Palmy is right, they never give up their citizenship…it’s always their fallback position, security backed by the servicemen and women in this country, folks of ordinary means.
But the good news is let Rogers move to China-I hope. The air is filthy, and so is the water. The roads are dangerous and airborne diseases are rampant–think SARS, tuberculosis, et.al. Of course, he’ll drink and bathe in imported water, but what is he going to breathe?
Aren’t all those American Flag lapel pins made in Chinese slave labor camps? Oh, but they’re SO CHEAP!!!
Aren’t all those American Flag lapel pins made in Chinese slave labor camps? Oh, but they’re SO CHEAP!!!
Yes and probably contain lead base paint.
“SO CHEAP”… as in the people who wear them.
Sellouts!
Nice point Sammy.
I love getting news from alternative sources, like atimes, bbc and now pravda. Check out the other article about the nude blond
The Truth shall set you free…
“To begin with, Japanese companies agreed to make payments in yens for Iran’s crude imports last Tuesday.”
Time to scare up some yellow cake uranium.
You know the world has turned upside down when PRAVDA (”Truth” in Russian) has vastly more credibility and actual news than all of the “papers of record” (New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, etc) in the US.
Noticed that, eh?
Now before you respond to this post in a negative way think about what I have said for a little while.
What were gas prices at the pump in the summer of 2006? My research shows well over $3.00 per gallon. What was the price of a barrel of oil on the world market during this time? My research shows $55-$70 per barrel. What does gas at the pump sell for now? Around $2.90 per gallon. I don’t need to tell you what oil sells for now, but why the difference? One word. Democrats!!
The oil companies are scared of the windfall profits tax that is why gasoline is so low.
So as you prepare to fill out your ballots for the November vote - vote for any Democrats that you can. They will be looking out for you.
And what about the price of everything else that is petroleum based? Is that all going down, too, because of the Democrats?
I agree. We have got to get away from this partican politics. We have had 20 years of Bush & Clinton and both a R & D lead Congress. Enough!
If you give a damn about fiscal responsibility, Ron Paul is your man. Here is valuable primary information:
http://www.primarilypaul.com/ron-paul-in-the-primaries
I have looked at Ron Paul and I agree he has some very good ideas. Especially about making illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin legal. But the problem is most republicans would not vote for someone with ideas like that. So what does he do? Run as an independent?
I hope he does just that and takes millions of republican voters with him. Of course I really don’t need that to see my favorite democrat become the president of our nation.
Ron Paul is the last, best hope for this nation. He’s running as a Republican, though the whores and swindlers who now control the GOP fear and loath him, as do their corporate masters.
I don’t recall Ron Paul saying anything about making heroin & cocaine legal, however. He has been critical of the Bill of Rights being run over roughshod in the so-called War on Drugs.
“Ron Paul is the last, best hope for this nation.”
The two presidential candidates who get the most money donated from members of the military: Obama and Ron Paul (!)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2007-09-13-military-donors_N.htm
“vote for any Democrats that you can. They will be looking out for you.”
Yes, for sure. The fact that they won’t even let drilling go on in a frozen tundra virtually devoid of life, despite the vast improvement in clean drilling technology over the last 30 years, surely proves Democrats will “look out for you”.
Just as they’ve hysterically blocked the development of any new nuke power plants for the last 40 years while the sainted French have operated nukes, uneventfully and with relatively inferior technology, to the tune of the vast majority of their electrical needs.
Sure, Democrats will take care of you, cradle to grave. Don’t drive smaller cars, buy smaller houses or even look at the mortgage documents you’re signing, Democrats will take care of you. Look at what a great job they’ve done running government schools in virtually all the major cities. Don’t even think about injecting a bit of choice or competition to the teacher’s union monopoly as its better to accept the dumbing down of all than to allow anyone the freedom to possibly achieve a better educational outcome on their own. Every other economic monopoly in history has been destructive to the interests of consumers but for the educational monopoly run by the government. Sure.
I’m no fan of the current Republican party. I wouldn’t want them to have full control over politics anymore than I’d want Democrats or any group to have full control. But to suggest ANY party will “look out for you” particularly in light of the current real estate debacle is absurd. I don’t remember any politician, of ANY party, raising an issue about the housing bubble or mortgage financing fiasco UNTIL it became problematic, do you?
What society needs most is for people to understand NO ONE is going to look out for them BETTER than THEMSELVES. I’d no more teach my kids to trust A political party than I’d teach them to trust their boss. Ask yourself this; is a society made up of people “trusting” someone else to look out for them going to be more successful than a society made up of people who accept the personal responsibility of making as many of their own decisions as possible? You want to bet on someone “caring” about you? Exactly where has that worked out, systemically, anywhere, in history beyond the level of anything more than a small tribe?
If you think other people can make better decisions over your life than you, by all means, vote relentlessly for Democrats because they will insure that your choices for healthcare, education and anything else that will advance their grip on power is expanded.
The Republican party, any party, will take more and more power if you give it to them. And if you think it stops with mere control over your property or the economy you’re crazy. Democrats haven’t been back pushing the “Fairness Doctrine” to expand free speech but to limit it to further their advantage. Look to Europe at to where this leads, in many places you can’t even even question other beliefs or ethnic group behaviors lest you be subject to jail for “hate” or really, thought crime.
By all means, vote for someone to take care of you. Just don’t be surprised when they let you down.
Are you trying to help Hillary by enraging David Cee into making more campaign contributions?
Waman’s a partisan shill. Don’t pay him any mind. I forget what outrage he had last week but his views have proven to be pretty pointless.
WAman has given some good posts.
You’re just grouchy ’cause your cats won’t leave you alone anymore.
Ahawhaw!
And still he’s a partisan shill. Those cats will keep their mouths shut, if they know what’s good for them.
Too much Daniels NYCITYBOY?
I want do get rid of partisianship that is what has destroyed are goverment.
You want to get rid of the partisanship? And then you post:
“So as you prepare to fill out your ballots for the November vote - vote for any Democrats that you can. They will be looking out for you.”
Maybe you should start drinking so you will make more sense to me.
“the fact that they won’t even let drilling go on in a frozen tundra virtually devoid of life, despite the vast improvement in clean drilling technology over the last 30 years”
You’re entitled to your political views, as is Waman, but posting this kind of bushwacked stupidity is just shilling for the greedhead republicans who eschew science, unless it’s “edited’ and cooked propaganda, as their recent mauling of the taxpayer paid environmental science report indicates and which echoes their fraudulent FEMA press conference.
And leave the French alone. They wisely follow their own interests, and in nuclear power usage, they have been smart cookies. If any of these neo-con nitwits had bothered to watch the Battle of Algiers (I would never expect them to actually read a book, but this is a classic and great movie) they would have had a clue what invading Iraq would presage. And, had they paid attention to the French reasons for withdrawal from Southeast Asia, we could have skipped involvement in Vietnam. And the French voters are happy naysayers to globalization. My kind of folks.
Now that is a good, reasoned political post. There was no mindless shilling. Whereas comments like the one below are just a bunch of rubbish:
“So as you prepare to fill out your ballots for the November vote - vote for any Democrats that you can. They will be looking out for you.”
Mindless to the extreme and deserving of ridicule and scorn.
Preach on, Brother Spike! Calling the French gutless surrender monkees because they look after their own national interests - after spilling far too much blood in avoidable conflicts - shows a certain ignorance.
The French turned back the Muslims in 732. If they had gone a little further, perhaps through to Normandy, where after? A little farther North in c.1100? To the new world in the 15th century?
Right on!
I am not talking about your run of a mill democrat, but democrats in the Roosevelt mold. Remember they have made our society much better by creating Social Security, Medicare, ending racial segregation, the Wilderness Act, the New Deal and many more things.
What great program has any other party done for America? I will check back later for an answer.
Even our cats are laughing over that one. Thank you for the comic relief.
Agreed. Just picturing the supreme court stuffing party … giggles.
It is now two hours after my post and as I speculated no one can come up with any great program that helps lots of people that came from the republican party.
However it was not just the democrats who brought these great programs into being. It also was helped my republicans. These programs were brought about long ago when congress worked across the aisle. No major program that benefits many people has come out of our partisian congress for many years. It is time for that to end. If the many problems that we have are ever going to be solved republican, democrats, and independents need to work together for the common good.
“What society needs most is for people to understand NO ONE is going to look out for them BETTER than THEMSELVES.”
Absolutely!!! THAT is the major portion of the problems that has brought us to today. Over of the last 50 years or so the American people have forgotten that in order for our Constitutional Republic to work we have to be involved. Voting is not enough. The Constitution was set up and written with that in mind. The whole illegal immgration debacle has shown what “we” The United People of the United States can do. Grass roots. Get involved.
Well said. I hate it when I hear about some third or fourth world country where 95% of the people vote; even when people have said they will cut the hands off of those who vote. We are lucky to get 40% of registered voters to vote. Which is only about 20% of the population in this country.
I’d love to get involved, and am to the best of my ability.
However…
As our government is bound and determined to do what ever it is they feel like doing by hiding everything that matters behind some form of “National Security” or “State Secret” or any of the other “we’re protecting you from things you shouldn’t know about in ways you shouldn’t know about…” terms that all come down to “we aren’t going to tell you what we are actually up to” - thus denying any of us (as in “The People” us) to have any idea what the heck they are doing I doubt any of us even know what we are actually voting for when we vote. We have given our government far too much power and we are left with only the semblance of democracy. If I don’t know what they are actually up to, how can my vote actually matter? Think upon it…
And yes, for five years I had lost my marbles and worked for a branch of the state Gov. You don’t even want to know how meaningless the numbers and reports they release actually are… They have and will continue to do what ever they feel they need to to continue operating in any way they so feel. We all ought to remember the first rule of the founders – NEVER TRUST THE GOVERNMENT!
“NEVER TRUST THE GOVERNMENT! ”
Don’t worry. Most have lost all hope in the institutions that have been politicized by the crime syndicate running the whitehouse. One can only hope that the next admin restores honesty and integrity to our govt.
Vote Ron Paul. Otherwise we’ll get more of the same, regardless of which Wall Street-owned party ends up holding a majority.
I thought Democrats controlled congress, hence the law making and the spending of this country.
How’s that working out for you?
Congress went from 30% to 10% approval over the last two years.
You asked for it Cupcake
The dems:
-Voted to impletment 9/11 Commission national security recommendations.
-Voted to increase the minimum wage for the first time in 10 years
-Voted to roll back multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil companies – already enjoying record profits.
-Passed legislation to require the Incompetent George to ensure troops meet Defense Department standards for training, equipment, and length of deployment.
-Passed legislation to the fight against terror on Afghanistan and al Qaeda.
-Passed legislation guaranteeing American workers free choice in bargaining with employers.
The dopes who had complete control of govt for the last 6 years?
-Invaded a country and failed and lied from beginning to end
-Cut taxes on the wealthiest and shifted that burden to wage earners
-Borrowed more money for new spending than all previous presidence in history COMBINED.
-Hijacked a religion
-Forced US citizens to compete with 20 million mexican laborers and established an open border policy in compliance with their corporate slave masters demands
Nice try though.
Deus Vult!
Lord, I love this blog.
Hijacked whose religion?
Hey, pal, maybe if your co-religionists didn’t have a habit of hijacking planes, reasonable people wouldn’t be wondering where it was you got a screw loose.
When it comes to major world religions (or tiny cults!), killing infidels = bad sign.
Here’s a breathtaking first line of a story from a reputable online rag:
Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) — Homeownership in the U.S. dropped for a fourth consecutive quarter, the longest decline since at least 1981, suggesting more Americans will miss their best chance of building wealth.
WTF? Not owning a house means missing out on the BEST CHANCE of building wealth? Hello, wake up, it’s 2007 already! This reminds me of my dear mother, who still thinks the mafia controls the price of olives.
In case you think I must have made this up, here’s the link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aCQTBfHpiUHk&refer=home
I am building wealth everyday by renting instead of owning because:
1) I am saving the 1k delta b/t what it costs to rent my current TH verses purchasing it. Its = to paying down the principal of a loan but at 1k/month its as much as 3x the amount of principal that would be paid down if I was in the early years of servicing the loan.
2) My 20% down payment & closing cost funds are working for me earning 5-7% annually, instead of a big fat ZERO (or less see #3) if I had put them towards a home purchase.
3) Every month as housing prices decline it is like I am building equity because when I do purchase I will be purchasing at a price level that will be 10-20% lower than current pricing and my hard earned down-payment funds will not be eroded by current housing market depreciation.
4) Yes, I am missing out on a tax deduction for mortgage interest & property taxes but that amounts to only about 500 USD/month, I am not paying maintenance costs, property tax rates are going up to compensate for the drop in assessments and in the interim I am able to fully fund my retirement accounts, taking advantage of those tax breaks and additional non-taxable income in the form of matching funds. If I had purchased then I would not be able to TCB on retirement to this same level.
YEAH RIGHT, I’m really “missing” out on the best chance for building wealth, but I am fine with that. Sarcasm Off
Hear, hear!
In the old fashioned way of economics you paid of your mortgage so that by the time of retirement your housing costs would be minimized. A 30 year mortgage is still cheaper than 50+ years of rental payments.
I challenge that assertion, Rex. You sound like a troll to me. Buying NOW with a 30-year mortgage is cheaper than 50+ years of rental payments? I don’t think so. Show us the numbers.
And what about all of the other expenses related to housing that you will incur over those 30 years? What of those? This is mindless propaganda. Good job, Rex. You are the “Troll of the Day”.
Hey I can agree with NYCityBoy!!
Jeez.. did I say buy now?
I bought my first rental SFR (noriega & 19th SF) in 1975 for $36,000. Since then I have own investment properties (mostly SFR) in Denver, Houston and LA. It’s been an OK investment with ever rising rents more than just covering basic expenses. Since 2003 I have disposed of 80% of my rentals because of the deteriorating rental markets which, in hindsight, was caused by the subprime scam. Normal renters qualified for mortgages of their wildest dreams and moved into Mcmansions. This past Friday I finally sold (closed) one of my better Denver rentals in Willow Creek after a 10% cut from initial asking 20 months ago. Three contracts fell through during those days and my relief is satisfying. The buyer is also in the RE biz so I presume he got a good deal. I netted out ~$200,000…this was one of my poorer % returns because I’ve owned this since 1980. IMHO It’s a lot easier to make money in stocks.
I too call BS on you Rex. My parents in early 70s had a mortgage payment on their modest blue collar home in Pittsburgh of a whooping 150 USD/month (PITI). The never refi’ed, never took out an equity loan etc., as that generation just did not screw with their dwelling’s finances. By the time my mother paid off the mortgage the monthly payment was tickling the whooping 300 USD/month level. Now that its paid off my mother is now directly responsible for payment of the “TI” portion of the “PITI” which she must have fiscal discipline in paying because she no longer has an escrow account and must save for quarterly and annual payments that amount to ~2500 USD annually. Thus her monthly payments are now slightly over 200 USD!!! And now, unlike before, she is on a fixed retirement income that is about what my parents earned as a couple in the early 70’s!!!
So same income, lesser household costs as she is now alone, but replaced by high elder-care expenses, larger housing payments where she has to manage the cash flow, more maintenance costs because the home is 30+ years older and toss in inflation and she is just barely getting by.
BS REX BS
Do the math. Rent in 1976 for 3br 2ba 1400 sq ft house $400. 30 years later same house rents for 1200. choice is simple. Own an asset worth 300,000 or with monthly payment of taxes and insurance or rent for 1200 and no assets. Or liquidate the home for 300,000 tax free and invest at 6% (18,000 per year) and move to lower rental cost housing to increase spendable income.
Do the math indeed! Buy a new house in 1976 for 50k deduct the interest and taxes from your federal and state taxes (in some states). Start putting away $10 per month in a 9.25% interest bearing account for home expenses. Take out the little that is needed for routine maintenance starting in about 5 years. Sell the house in 2005 for 450k to a FB and laugh your way to the bank or the beach for that matter.
There are times when buying a house is a good thing to do. It is not a good thing to do when you have to pay more then what that house would rent for. One other thing every time that I rented I also had renters insurance. So most renters have that cost as well even though it usually is a small payment.
WAman’s comment makes sense to me, richard’s does not. Richard is just saying that if you bought a house in 1976, you would be ahead of the game vs. renting since 1976. Yes, Richard, in 1976 I actually did own a house. What about NOW? That’s the relevant question. I think those who purchase NOW are overpaying (vs. their next N years of rent). They should rent, bank the difference, and probably put that banked difference into foreign-currency denominated stuff, or possibly precious metals. Who the hell knows. I think it’s pretty certain that house prices will be lower in a couple of years than they are now.
Buy cash cheaper still.. well certainly in a few years it will be
I intend to buy cash. Take that, lying scum banks!!!
Woo000ooo, and I haven’t even had any caffeine yet. That’s how much I hate you. Btw, Citizen’s Bank mugged me for $30 in 2001. Yurusenai! (cannot forgive [this])
Old fashion economics has nothing to do with this 2000s “new economics” RE scam. I stand by my convictions that if mortgages were 10% down 30 years fixed interest none of this crap would have ever happened.
It’s truly hilarious to be old. In the 80’s, there was a finance program on PBS, featuring a woman, a Texan, named Venita VanCaspel. She posited one of those all-things-being-equal demonstrations of renting vs buying, using hypothetical brothers as examples.
Bottom line: after 30 years, (these are 1980 real estate levels remember), the owner brother did own his house, which had an inflation-adjusted value of X…..after paying mortgage, taxes, insurance, maint., and so on….but little in the way of stock equities.
Renter brother, having more disposable income for the 30 yrs, was assumed to have invested the difference in a diversified mutual fund (this was before the bull began really roaring in ‘82).
Ms. VanC stated the renter brother would end up marginally ahead…..and have more latitude in choices. An interesting idea you don’t see promoted recently…………yet.
“Owning a home in this country has been a principal source of wealth creation for low- and moderate-income people,” said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “In the absence of home equity, families will inevitably spend less.”
Isn’t spending less a GOOD thing for families? Not for the economy, but for families who’d otherwise squander their equity and get into debt - isn’t it a good thing to spend less? Wouldn’t spending less be a surer way to wealth creation than borrowing against their over-inflated POS homes?
Something is very wrong with the economy if families can’t earn enough to send their kids to college, to pay their medical bills, or to have vacations without resorting to borrowing from their “home ownership” piggybank. You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.
But NYchk,
You must of missed it – we aren’t “people” anymore, we are “consumers”. I haven’t seen the public referred to as anything else in years…
Here’s one for ya, Ben. Can you smell the scam right through the computer screen?
http://dallas.craigslist.org/rfs/460994182.html
LANDmama.com?
ummmm…there are no words.
I smell outparcels on the grill. Can I have veggie kabobs with mine?
Roidy
California setting records.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-foreclose27oct27,0,5892547.story?coll=la-home-center
Alt-A and Prime ARM contagion is starting to spread through SoCal’s high end markets…
In California, foreclosures are concentrated largely in outlying areas such as the Inland Empire, the Antelope Valley and the Central Valley, where swarms of people with modest incomes used loans with low “teaser” rates to finance their purchases. But data released Friday show that the pain is spreading to higher-priced neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Orange counties and is even trickling into wealthy communities.
In four Newport Beach-area ZIP Codes, for example, there were 11 foreclosures in the third quarter, up from just three in the same period last year. There were seven foreclosures in Bel-Air, and none a year ago.
“It’s definitely increasing,” said Joyce Essex, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent based in Beverly Hills who specializes in selling foreclosed homes.
San Diego builders are enjoying a moment of Schadenfreude over the prospect of rebuilding 1400 or so homes destroyed in the fires. This does not seem like a major broken window stimulus for the local economy, given that new-home sales in San Diego County totaled 1,640 (in one month) as recently as September 2004.
As already anticipated here in our discussion over the past couple of days, the Union Tribune is playing this up as a major boon to the building industry.
Rebuilding could be boon to industry
Tract-home companies gear up for business
By Emmet Pierce
STAFF WRITER
October 27, 2007
The wildfires this week have destroyed hundreds of homes and disrupted lives throughout the county, but the tragedy could create some welcome business for the region’s beleaguered home builders.
…
“We have the resources, partners and ability to start rebuilding immediately,” Barratt American President Michael D. Pattinson said. “And with the current slowdown in the real estate market, we have scores of local residents waiting to get back to work.
“It will be a shot in the arm for the industry. New-home sales are soft. The credit crunch in August and September has taken more steam out of the market.”
At least one other local tract-home builder, McMillin Homes, also is considering the idea. McMillin, like Barratt American, had little involvement in the 2003 Cedar fire rebuilding effort.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071027/news_1b27build.html
Oh, you just KNOW these builders must be creaming their jeans over this.
As ex-nnvmrtbroker put it, some tears shed over the fires will be tears of joy.
Buschenfreude…
Bush Touts Federal Response to Wildfires
The Associated Press
Saturday, October 27, 2007; 10:19 AM
WASHINGTON — President Bush touted his administration’s response to the California wildfires on Saturday. “I made a pledge to the people of California on behalf of all Americans: We will help you put out the fires, get through the crisis, and rebuild your lives,” he said in his weekly radio address.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/27/AR2007102700565.html
Spend, spend, spend. Those fiscally responsible conservatives are looking a lot like those spendthrift liberals.
Isn’t this just the Grover Norquist playbook, to spend like drunken sailors until the government goes into arrears, thus forcing the immediate cutoff of Medicare and Social Security payments?
Actually, this reminds me a bit of Mao’s “eat the seedcorn” plan. The sad thing is, a lot of seniors, if they lost their SS & Section 8, really would starve.
“And with the current slowdown in the real estate market, we have scores of local residents waiting to get back to work.”
LOL
And more waiting in line south of the border.
Appropos of nothing, I saw a 800sf 1br condo on ziprealty described as “loftable”. How could someone not notice how much that sounds like “laughable”?
Have you seen any homes described as “flammable?”
The UT has addressed another of our proposed weekend topics, on the effect of SoCal fires on the housing market. Karevoll claims that “it’s unlikely that the loss of at least 1,400 homes, as high as that figure sounds, will dampen a market that logs thousands of sales each month.”
This calls his grasp of economics, and particularly of the concept of demand, into serious doubt.
It is not the number of homes lost that will negatively impact demand; in fact, more homes lost would possibly have a broken-window stimulus effect on demand, especially with state and federal disaster assistance thrown into the mix. It is rather the plethora of local, regional, national and international news stories which have zeroed in again and again all week on shots of 200-foot-high walls of flame roaring down on San Diego’s brave but beleaguered fire fighters, and other shots of smoldering piles of wreckage and burned out sports cars. The psychological impact of these images can potentially have a severe dampening effect on the willingness for even the mildly-faint-of-heart (like me) to buy a San Diego home. The more people who decide San Diego home ownership is not their cup of tea, the greater the drop in demand (and sales) going forward.
I concede that with a 35.49% YOY drop in sales already in the bag for September 2007, it is possible that little additional measurable effect will show up in the data going forward — after all, how horrible can terrible get? But I do expect the long-term inventory trend to be affected, as the number of new entrants to the demand queue is further dwarfed by sellers trying to get out during the post-fire sale period. As I noted here over the past couple of days, I believe the onset of the SD inventory correction can be traced to January 2004, immediately following the devastating Cedar Fire and other bad fires of the Fall 2003 fire season. I expect that the inventory buildup will pick up again, and will be clearly visible through the lens of the rear view mirror come October 2008.
One final note: Any notion that only hard-hit areas are at risk of fires going forward can be quickly debunked by scrutinizing a graph showing historical incidence of San Diego wild fires from 1900 to the present on the link I am about to post. The take home message: San Diego County has a uniform chaparral botanical ecosystem which generally makes the entire region a fire hazard zone. Only the areas closest in to the coast seem to have been consistently spared. Of course, most of these fires did not harm anyone’s home, as it is only in the past thirty years or so that mass-scale tract home development has occurred more than ten miles inland from the coast.
http://map.sdsu.edu/fireweb/firehistory_frequency.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral#Ecology_of_fire_in_chaparral
Fires aren’t expected to dampen home sales
But experts see decline ahead in harder hit areas
By Lori Weisberg and Roger Showley
STAFF WRITERS
October 27, 2007
San Diego County’s already fragile real estate market should feel little ill effect from the week’s widespread wildfires, but some of the harder hit communities can expect a dip in home sales in the coming months, housing experts say.
While housing sales countywide remain at record lows amid sharply rising foreclosures, it’s unlikely that the loss of at least 1,400 homes, as high as that figure sounds, will dampen a market that logs thousands of sales each month, said analyst John Karevoll of DataQuick Information Systems.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071027/news_1b27real.html
‘“We’ve done literally dozens of studies on fires and earthquakes and floods and hurricanes, looking at their impacts on the market, and the trend is always that these events don’t mean much except in the short term in deferring some sales activity,” said Karevoll, who was evacuated from his home in Running Springs near Lake Arrowhead, where hundreds of homes were destroyed.’
I wonder if anyone of these DataQuick analysts noticed the coincidental timing of the onset of the San Diego resale housing inventory correction with the end of the 2003 fire season?
I am reminded of the similarly-coincidental timing of the disastrous Florida hurricanes in 1926, 1928 and 2005 with the ends of the 1920s and 2000s Florida land booms. It is not possible to infer statistical significance from a sample of only two observations, but the timing in both cases does seem rather suggestive of causality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_land_boom_of_the_1920s
‘Dallas Voss, an agent in Jamul whose home near the Steele Canyon golf course was not threatened by the Harris fire, said .
That’s because the dry underbrush that would normally fuel a fire has been burned off, and it will take five to seven years for the chaparral to recover,” he said. “If you look at it logically, now is the safest time to buy a home there.”’
Uh, the Cedar Fire was only four years ago. You were saying???
Even if there were not major wild fires for another seven years, what sort of moron thinks the prospect of a home burning down in seven years rather than sooner would have a significantly different impact on its value as a long-term investment, not to mention as a shelter?
Why doesn’t anyone point out that you might want to build a house in that area out of something non-flammable?
http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/how-to/articles/fire-resistant-details.aspx
One of my major complaints about the homebuilding industry in this country is that they throw up identical shitboxes everywhere without any attention to local conditions. The same house design is used in wisconsin winters as southwest deserts or muderously humid florida.
They build the same wood stucco homes here in Phoenix including way too many windows!! Its so hot and bright here and very dry and yet wood frame houses thousands of them ?? I work next to a railroad line that brings railcars of wood down from the north to be assembled into roof trusses and shipped out to building areas and yes they still are working. the wood really takes a beating at 115F out in the sun.
My quote of Voss was garbled thanks to careless tagging operations. The first part should read:
‘Dallas Voss, an agent in Jamul whose home near the Steele Canyon golf course was not threatened by the Harris fire, said once nerves calm after this week’s disaster, he will make a pitch that now is an ideal time to buy in fire country.’
NYSE removed the trading curbs. Combined with the recent elimination of the uptick rule, increased margin, dark pools, and offbalance sheet liabilities are we getting ready for a big surprise?
“The New York Stock Exchange said it will no longer impose curbs on computer-program trading that were put in place after the crash of 1987, claiming they’re no longer as effective in damping swings in prices.
The exchange will stop prohibiting brokerages from entering some program trades when the NYSE Composite Index rises or falls more than 2 percent, according to a notice sent to member firms today. The so-called collars had been in effect since 1988 and were triggered 17 times this year, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
http://tinyurl.com/2vf9ks
Thanks for that. I use those sometimes to exit put positions but no more. Short sellers and bears will profit big time from this when the time comes.
What makes you think that some other kind of unannounced containment mechanism will not replace the trading curbs?
“…Brokerages will still be required to report program trades, defined by the NYSE as the purchase or sale of a basket of at least 15 stocks valued at a minimum of $1 million.”
So let’s see: “They” program the trade for 14 stocks at $999,998.00″ and they avoid exactly what from “Mr. Crissy Cox’s” dreaded SEC?
The SoCal wildfires are mostly contained, whereas the credit crunch may be close to zero percent contained. Happy Halloween!
Financial markets
Spooking investors
Oct 25th 2007
From The Economist print edition
Financial markets remain on edge because the credit crunch has not been solved
http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10024679
John Mauldin’s column this week is pretty good. It covers subprime, GSachs, etc. He still doesn’t get that the subprime mess was created by the Bubble as a way to continue or expand the ponzi game, but it’s a good read IMHO.
http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/gateway.asp
He also doesn’t get that it isn’t sub-prime that is the problem. It is loans made to people who can’t afford to pay in the long term. The problem is largely in subprime now because their resets are happening first - see Credit Suisse chart.
oc-ed, what did you think of his argument that the super SIV would not be a bad thing if it bought only “good” loans?
From the article on CNNMoney
If you read documents that Goldman filed with the SEC in connection with this offering, you discover that they warn about pretty much everything we’ve discussed so far and some things we haven’t: the impact of falling house prices, the difficulty of foreclosing, the possible changes in credit ratings, the fact that more than half the mortgages were in California, Florida, and New York, all of which were overheated markets.
It’s all disclosed. In capital letters. So no buyer - and this is aimed at sophisticated investors - can say he wasn’t warned.
How can these bonds be rated AAA and AA with these problems?
GS then hedged on these securities and made quite a bit of money. There needs to be an SEC investigation on this.
From Craigslist SD.
$130,000 in evaporated equity on a Poway property. This bland little 4/3 2300 sq ft. 70’s house was purchased 3/06 for the absurd sum of $625,000. A year and a half later the house is now for sale at $495K.
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/rfs/460965278.html
“A Nice Warm, Fuzzy Sweetener”
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/10/27/housing/908debate102207.txt
CFC will turn a profit in the 4th Q of ‘07? HA HA HO HO HE HE!
They admitted that 89% of the option ARM loans made in ‘06 would not be issued now. What do ya mean? 89% of the ARM are TRASH?
OFF WITH YA HEAD MOZILO, WHAT A SCUM BAG.
Like other lenders, Countrywide has had to become far more conservative after years of lax lending. It is demanding bigger down payments and adding restrictions to loans for investors and people who don’t fully document their incomes or assets. Under the new guidelines, Countrywide said, 89% of the option ARMs granted in 2006 wouldn’t be made.
Countrywide also has reduced its subprime lending sharply over the past year and now says it is making virtually no such loans. But the company still faces possible losses on subprime and other loans it has sold to investors. Investors sometimes can force lenders to repurchase loans if they can show that the lender didn’t meet its obligations in screening for fraud or other problems. Countrywide raised its provision for such claims by $291 million in the latest quarter, bringing the reserve to $748 million.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119340069184872775.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news
The sidebar (”Lender’s Remorse”) gives a hint of where the largest U.S. lender is leading the national U.S. mortgage market. The bar chart shows ‘Percentage of loans made in 2005 and 2006 that wouldn’t meet Countrywide’s current, more restrictive guidelines’. Here are the numbers:
Option ARMs
2006 89 percent
2005 83 percent
Home-equity lines
2006 62 percent
2005 51 percent
Fixed-rate second-lien
2006 44 percent
2005 38 percent
D’ya think it has occurred to CFC that pulling the plug on all the loose lending will inadvertently crash the value of their vast REO stockpile?
Good point PB, connecting a few more dots… Won’t this lead to eating a lot more of their own horse s!#t MBSs too?
One can only hope…
I watched an hour or so of business entertainment this Saturday morning. The CFC Q4 “guidance” was mentioned at least 4 times as showing that housing is at bottom and starting back up. (For a professional guidance specialist, “guidance” means hitting your target. I’m not sure exactly how they use the term in business news, but I doubt we agree on the definition.)
WHACK! SLAM! CRASH!
CREDIT MARKETS
CDO Ratings Are Whacked By Moody’s
AAA to Junk in a Day Raises More Questions About Credit Arbiters
By APARAJITA SAHA-BUBNA and CARRICK MOLLENKAMP
October 27, 2007; Page B1
Just days after Merrill Lynch & Co. rocked the markets with a $8.4 billion write-down tied mainly to problematic mortgage-related investment holdings, Moody’s Investors Service Inc. commenced a fresh series of credit-rating downgrades of similar instruments.
The unit of Moody’s Corp. expects more downgrades to continue in the coming week, something that could hang over the market in the days ahead.
The ratings firm cut, or said it was likely to cut, credit ratings on scores of collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, which are financial instruments often tied to the fate of mortgage-backed securities. Some of these CDOs were cut from the highest possible AAA ratings to junk, an especially noteworthy step.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119340698261172889.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_money_and_investing
A big pile of crap from the NYTimes;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/business/27owners.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin
Homeownership in the United States dropped for a fourth consecutive quarter, the longest decline since at least 1981, suggesting that more Americans will miss their best chance of building wealth.
Building fucking wealth? Anyone who bought a house in the last three years will be losing wealth for the next decade.
This isn’t a news story. it’s a press release from the NAR!!
Homeownership occurs when you pay off the mortgage. Until then, these stats include an army of people who merely own mortgages. I wish the NYTimes and NAR would embrace accuracy…and I also wish to win the lottery.
Housing bailout may not be viable
Consumer groups urge reform of lending laws
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ/MGArticle/WSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173353269254
If you want to see a Democratic or Republican congressman squirm, mention a multibillion-dollar bailout for the housing-market crisis.
Political pragmatists said that there are so many complicated issues at hand and so many interest groups involved that only narrow proposals can muster support.
Moody’s Economy.com projects that more than 2 million mortgages worth about $450 billion will default. Even after homes are sold at foreclosure auctions, investors are still likely to be hit with nearly $150 billion in losses, according to the forecast.
“Moody’s Economy.com projects that more than 2 million mortgages worth about $450 billion will default.”
‘Tis a mere flesh wound, as evidenced by the ever-resurgent U.S. stock market.
While watching TV yesterday, I saw a commercial that said you could own a condo for $99. I figured this was either the ‘downpayment’ or closing costs, so I looked at their site. It’s the monthly payment for the first two years. Oh, what a wacky mortgage:
source: http://tinyurl.com/yubrbp
Side note — For those who are familiar with the area, I’m sure you’re as shocked as I am that the site neglects to list the close proximity of North Highlands as a selling point. /sarcasm
Oh no, those places are so ridiculous. That’s a terrible area. My wife and I drove past those a few times on our way out to the Fiddyment Farm fields of dirt, oh sorry “development”.
It’s like a scene from Mad Max, what a depressing place to live.
Right now I know rents are low, but in normal times most investors figure the cost of their taxes and insurance into your rental price. You may not pay taxes to the gov or ins to the ins co, but you pay them to the owner, who in turn pays them. Don’t think just owners pay taxes and ins on properties.
Taxes and ins are two things that are figured in when someone decides to invest in a property and wants to know if he’ll make a profit. That’s why all the spreadsheets. If taxes go up, usually the next year so does everyone’s rent (unless economic times can’t support the increase).
That’s why all the spreadsheets. If taxes go up, usually the next year so does everyone’s rent (unless economic times can’t support the increase).
That’s supply side economics. Now look at the opposite side, will the market support higher rents? Only if incomes are increasing at the same rate. We’re starting to see more failed FB’s moving back in with mom and dad. There has never been a similar surplus of bedrooms in US history.
And then we can discuss how surplus housing stock is being rented below cost. The cost/rent market has been out of whack for years. Its not going to be in balance for years. Here in LA they are building more apartments than ever before (sorry, no link. From dead tree LA times.)
The trend will be towards declining rents here in LA. I know of too many large companies planning relocations out of the state. And did you see how credit is tightening for small businesses? In other words, the “garage businesses” that normally drive local employment back up during a downturn will have a headwind.
Too many of my friends are able to negotiate their leases down at renewal. Will this end some day? Sure. But for the mid term, the “value” of rental property has to drop down to where a reasonable ROI can be made.
For the next two to three years the cost of owning a rental property will have nothing to do with the rent prices. In about three years, the lack of construction in 2008/2009 will start driving up rents.
We have a long way to go. Anywhere there are a lot of surplus condos won’t see a recovery for a lot longer (Florida, DC, and Vegas won’t see a recovery for 5 to 10 years, employment assumptions make determining these long time frames precisely error prone.)
Got popcorn?
Neil
OT - but lots of smoke here in E. Utah and W Colo from Calif fires.
Unpleasant Thought on a Pleasant Day
Assume that the drought in the southeast persists through 2008. In March, 2008 Atlanta runs out of potable water (current supply is 3.5 months). In November, 2008 Atlanta runs out of near-potable water (reserve of 5.5 months). The fire hydrants are then dry and the sanitary sewers clogged. How many of the 4.0 million people leave? Where are the water refugees likely to go? I expect it will be Greenville, Savannah, Brunswick, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee, Birmingham, and Huntsville - all have sufficient water supplies. What will these communities be like when they’re deluged with people who have no jobs and no money and will demand to be fed, clothed, sheltered, and provided with medical care? Keep in mind that there could be one refugee for every two residents.
In addition to the social and public health problems what happens with all the loans secured with mortgages on homes and income properties (residential, commercial, retail, and industrial)?
How about the very same scenario, but in San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento?
I’ll most definitely assure you, that if we get another iffy snowpack like this year’s model, 30 to 35 Million Californians are going to have to move elsewhere.
There is no Plan B
You are betting your house, literally…
On the whims of Mother Nature
Only one place has adequate water for so many people:
The Great Lakes cities
Let’s hope those Atlanta people take one look at Gainesville and say “yeccch” and move on. Too many bicycles and icky green growing things, not enough freeways.
OT – posted earlier we had smoke from the calif fires out here in E. Utah, it now looks like nuclear winter, very low visibility, can’t see anything more than about 10 miles away, very gray/brown and dreary. Makes one sleepy and tired and headachy, not to mention it’s dropped the temp a good 10 degrees below normal. have seen lots of firesmoke, but this is the worst.
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