Bits Bucket for September 26, 2011
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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Comment by Bob in WPB
2011-09-25 09:01:27
There is a cottage industry in South Florida now of RE attorneys that, for a fee, and on behalf of the home “owners”, will keep the banks at bay purposely delaying the foreclosure process legally. They generally charge 20-30% of the fair rental value and can keep an FB in their home in perpetuity. I have one FB client who owned 7 SFH’s which he bought between 2004-2007. He now rents them all to tenants, pays no mortgage or taxes, pays HOA on only 2 of them, and after paying his attorney his cut, has a positive cash flow of 9k per month for doing nothing other than R&M, which he farms out to a management company-(which he owns). This is rampant in FL.
Comment by jeff saturday
2011-09-25 09:38:37
I know one guy paying an attorney $400 a month to live in “his” house that he had refied up to 2006 fantasy levels. I know many more not paying anything to anyone to live in “their” homes.
Practice Areas
■Personal injury
■Bankruptcy
■Foreclosure defense
Foreclosure Defense
A West Palm Beach attorney fighting for you to keep your home
The thought of losing your home is devastating. The Law Offices of Gregg R. Wexler in West Palm Beach, Fla. helps homeowners like you keep their homes in the face of massive debts. Attorney Gregg Wexler is knowledgeable about Florida and federal laws that protect homeowners. He evaluates the foreclosure process and determines if you have rights to keep your home from bank foreclosure. If so, he fights for those rights to stop the foreclosure process and obtains a modification settlement. Mr. Wexler is ready to help to defend you against any foreclosure actions so you can keep your home.
When Mr. Wexler represents you in a foreclosure action, you will have more time to:
■Make better decisions with sound counsel and information
■Pursue alternatives to foreclosure
■Negotiate a payment workout with your lender
■Save up money to reinstate your mortgage
■Refinance your mortgage
■Sell your home for fair market value
■Get over a hardship in your life so that you can afford to keep your home or property
■Qualify for bankruptcy
Assisting with loan modification in West Palm Beach
A loan modification is a way for homeowners who are struggling or facing financial challenges to stay in their homes and avoid foreclosure or bankruptcy. If you have fallen behind on your mortgage payments, Gregg Wexler can help to negotiate with your bank or lender to give you a chance to catch up or to restructure your mortgage, or to have any past due amounts forgiven. Negotiating with banks can be difficult, and Mr. Wexler safeguards you through the process. He also counsels you on exactly what Florida laws apply to your situation and what federal incentives there are for your lender to help you out.
Florida lawyer defending you and your home
If you fear losing your home, contact the Law Office of Gregg R. Wexler, P.A. to set up a consultation. Our staff speaks Spanish and Creole.
http://www.greggwexlerlaw.com/practice-areas/foreclosure-defense/ - 11k -
That’s really frustrating, but if that is what the law gets them, than so be it. I don’t mind the banks getting a little “love” in return.
The only problem is that is a chit sandwich that I have to take a bite from.
Owners Stop Paying Mortgages, and Stop Fretting
By DAVID STREITFELD
Published: May 31, 2010
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For Alex Pemberton and Susan Reboyras, foreclosure is becoming a way of life — something they did not want but are in no hurry to get out of.
Foreclosure has allowed them to stabilize the family business. Go to Outback occasionally for a steak. Take their gas-guzzling airboat out for the weekend. Visit the Hard Rock Casino.
“Instead of the house dragging us down, it’s become a life raft,” said Mr. Pemberton, who stopped paying the mortgage on their house here last summer. “It’s really been a blessing.”
Both generations of Pembertons have hired a local lawyer, Mark P. Stopa. He sends out letters — 1,700 in a recent week — to Floridians who have had a foreclosure suit filed against them by a lender.
Even if you have “no defenses,” the form letter says, “you may be able to keep living in your home for weeks, months or even years without paying your mortgage.”
About 10 new clients a week sign up, according to Mr. Stopa, who says he now has 350 clients in foreclosure, each of whom pays $1,500 a year for a maximum of six hours of attorney time. “I just do as much as needs to be done to force the bank to prove its case,” Mr. Stopa said.
“I stopped paying in August 2008,” said Mr. Tsiogas, who is in foreclosure on his house and two rental properties. “I told the lady at the bank, ‘I can’t afford $2,500. I can only afford $1,300.’ ”
Mr. Tsiogas, who lives on the coast south of St. Petersburg, blames his lenders for being unwilling to help when the crash began and his properties needed shoring up.
Their attitude seems to have changed since he went into foreclosure. Now their letters say things like “we’re willing to work with you.” But Mr. Tsiogas feels little urge to respond.
“I need another year,” he said, “and I’m going to be pretty comfortable.”
ttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/business/01nopay.html?pagewanted=all - -
“Our goal is to invalidate mortgages”
http://sarasota.craigslist.org/sls/2616058297.html
Interesting CL ad. Not sure I understand the entire thing, but I get the gist. Many mortgages are not valid.
‘“Instead of the house dragging us down, it’s become a life raft,” said Mr. Pemberton, who stopped paying the mortgage on their house here last summer. “It’s really been a blessing.”’
Free housing — schweet!
Hey, consumers gotta consume. You wouldn’t want anybody to have to “go without” would you?
The problem is though, Wall Street will extract the difference from the taxpayer.
Do the banks just keep adding interest to the loan and does it appear as an increasing asset on their balance sheet?
Can they then swap this asset for money from the Fed?
Bingo.
If the bank owned the loan, there wouldn’t be any problem with the documentation. The bank is only the servicer. Every month the loan exists, they collect their servicing fee. It is the trust that issued the bonds that don’t have as mcuh income as it needs.
doesn’t
Thx Polly. Who owns the claims on said trust? (My guess: In many cases, it’s your pension fund.)
I don’t know if any of you remember WAY back when Randy H. from Patrick used to post here - part of his central focus was price stickiness, and I don’t think he ever included these scenarios and his stance. It was, “be prepared to wait.”
So yeah, bald and toothless, and…
In the long run we are all homeowners…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
or dead.
“I need another year,” he said, “and I’m going to be pretty comfortable.”
Better not go much over a year, Mr. Tsiogas, because after that you’ll owe the IRS income taxes on the deficiency.
I’m not surprised to hear this. If you have a “real” job on top of the rental, you don’t need to make 9K/mo for very long before you’ve got a significant nest egg built up. This guy, in effect, is walking away with around 100K a year of money “stolen” from the bank, and they can’t do a thing about it.
Good for him. Welcome to the new America (brought to you by heartless corporations/businesses and lawyers); where ethics are determined by “am I going to go to jail” not by “what’s the right thing to do”. Honestly, in this case, I’m not sure who’s scummier; the guy not paying the MTG or the bank(s) that lent him all the money.
This story really has a whole bunch of unsympatetic folks; a freeloading borrower, an irresponsible bank, and a crooked lawyer. All 3 of them should get together and open a new RE brokerage.
They’ve got what it takes to be Realtors, that’s for sure.
Sounds like your friend has crossed the line between ordinary fraud and organized crime.
Well if the bank had simply filed their paperwork properly in the first place, these sorts of “show me the note” foreclosure defenses simply wouldn’t work. And since Florida is a full recourse state, they’d be able to go after these sorts of deadbeats for “the rest of their money.”
Now that is an interesting point. If the FBs are saving that income that they are not using to pay the mortgage, then they will have assets to pursue after the foreclosure sale. Probably protected if it is in a retirement account. If they used the money to take a vacation or pay off credit card debt or pay medical bills, it is gone, but a few people trying to use the time to save up a down payment for another house will be vulnerable.
And, as this article suggests, paying a pile of cash for a house might not be a good thing.
I suspect that a large number of people who get involved in these kinds of situations are not ants, but grasshoppers (ref: the fable). Saving is not part of their financial planning.
I knew a fellow making well into the six figures who was a serial HELOC’er.
It’s almost like any savings burns them, like a hot coal.
“…paying a pile of cash for a house might not be a good thing.”
It certainly seems like an odd strategy when interest rates are at 50-year lows!
“If you fear losing your home, contact the Law Office of Gregg R. Wexler, P.A. to set up a consultation.”
Before you do that I suggest you google-up “gregg r. wexler scam” and do a bit of reading about this guy.
I did, and I received 93,600 results.
Web Search Results 0 for “gregg r. wexler scam”
Your search - “gregg r. wexler scam” - did not match any documents. No pages were found containing “”gregg r. wexler scam”".
Suggestions
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
jeff -
I don’t know what you are doing but I still get 93,600 results when I do it.
I just got 93,800. That guy moves fast.
Here’s an example: http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/attorney-gregg-r-wexler-c100182.html
Ok That time I got
Web Search Results
1 - 10 of about 6,280 for “gregg r. wexler scam
But the first page is all…
Delray Beach Foreclosures Attorneys - Find a Local Delray Beach …
… Loan Modification, Mortgage Law, and Fraud, Medical Malpractice, Personal … P.A.; Palm Beach County Bankruptcy - Law Office of Gregg R. Wexler, P.A. …
http://www.attorneys.com/search/foreclosures/florida/delray_beach/ - 14k - Cached - Similar pages
and the like.
Anyway, I`m not defending the POS or his clients.
search without the quotes
All of these problems brought to you by Too Big To Fail FED policy.
Go ahead, bail out Greece and the rest of the PIIGS. Rewarding bad behavior will always haunt all of us.
I’ve been reading a BBC blog about the Greek Bailout. The top rated comment is
“.paddy1919
25th September 2011 - 20:09
We in Ireland will watch with interest at the 50% haircut for Greek debt. As good little Europeans we have told the truth and followed our ECB masters every whim. This includes paying 100% of un-guaranteed, unsecured bondholders.
You have to hand to the Greeks they have fudged the numbers,
broken all the rule and refused to do what they were told.
Smart people the Greeks.”
Awesome!
The Irish do appear to have taken the bit and bridle very gently as they signed up to pay for bankers mis-deeds…
It will be interesting to see if that holds as they watch other countries get better deals.
“You have to hand to the Greeks they have fudged the numbers,
broken all the rule and refused to do what they were told.”
But they were also willing to riot en masse and to risk getting clubbed on the head as needed to bring about the proposed 50% haircut for creditors.
But are they paying taxes on the income and deducting none paid taxes and interest on the loans they aren’t paying?
But are they paying taxes on the income and deducting none paid taxes and interest on the loans they aren’t paying ??
IRS computers are pretty smart…They also have a very long memory…
Heh! Heh! Plus, there’s no bank that’s more unforgiving than one’s county gov’t. Hope they remember to pay those property taxes if they aren’t paying the mortgage.
Who? The borrow, of the self-proclaimed home owner (the bank)?
As it is, I don’t see how the IRS would know he is getting the rental income ??
Unless he is getting it all in cash there will be a paper trail and that paper trail is easily tracked…
yeah.. see, PB makes a deal about the legalities in the other thread, but regardless I think these people will get their comeuppance one way or the other. Karma and all that.
Well, if that rule about providing 1099’s to the businesses you pay more than $x a year to had actually gone through (it was taken out, wasn’t it?), then he would have a good chance of getting caught. As it is, I don’t see how the IRS would know he is getting the rental income.
As it is, I don’t see how the IRS would know he is getting the rental income.
Unless someone acted on the info from this IRS web page…
Would renters have had to file those 1099s because of the rent they paid to a landlord? Otherwise, I don’t see how they would have helped.
It was a while ago, and I don’t remember the details, but I belive it was if you made more than $x of payments to during the year ($600 maybe?). And I don’t even remember if it applied to both individuals and businesses or to all sizes of business. It seems that at some level it is silly to do it for publicly held companies that have to get through the required audits for their quarterly filings.
And to correct my words from above, I don’t think it ever got to the level of a real proposal, never mind a bill. It was just an idea that was bopping around. Maybe a leak from Treasury? Or was that the one about the credit card companies providing aggregate income numbers for small businesses? The idea being that if “My Heavenly Pirate Shoppe” had $300K of charges just from VISA and listed its gross (not net) income as $250K, then it was probably cheating on its taxes.
Soon we will all be debt slaves either to a bank or a lawyer…
Honestly - I think there is more to this story.
Taxes on the mortgage not paid (loan forgiveness)
Taxes on the “free” rent money
Recourse states
Cottage industries sprouting up all the time to go after the FB
Hope you never have to move
The next step is that these renters stop paying and squat in these houses - wonder if the same lawyer will represent them?
Etc.
“Taxes on the mortgage not paid (loan forgiveness)
Taxes on the free rent money”
The “free rent” is probably part of the loan forgiveness. But if the state is non-recourse and the bank just takes the house, they aren’t really forgiving the loan. That money, and taxes on it, may not be collectable by anybody (except the bank, who is choosing not to collect it). That money may be lost forever.
Meanwhile, I never missed a rent payment in 19 years. I feel like a damn CHUMP.
How do you like this new system everybody . This system where your a chump if your not stealing .
This is a major breakdown ,a comedy of one corruption leading to another corruption and may the most corrupted win .
And what hide will it be taken from when the winners and
losers are chosen ?
Realtors Are Liars®
Death of a *ucking salesman!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI&
U.S. Stock Futures Advance; DJIA May Rebound
“U.S. stock futures rallied, indicating the Dow Jones Industrial Average may rebound from the biggest weekly decline since October 2008, as investors weighed policy makers’ response to Europe’s debt crisis.
General Electric Co., the world’s biggest maker of jet engines, and Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum maker, increased at least 1.4 percent in early New York trading. Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. climbed more than 2.5 percent to pace an advance in banks.
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures expiring in December climbed 1.6 percent to 1,148 at 7:38 a.m. in New York after earlier falling as much as 1.3 percent. Dow average futures advanced 137 points, or 1.3 percent, to 10,834. ”
——
Trading the same 500 points, over and over again …. Is this charade EVER going to run out of fuel?
“Trading the same 500 points, over and over again …”
Somebody has a good thing going for them.
I used to marvel at Vegas, how they would build a big casino and people would flock to it and willing give up their paychecks, but Wall Street has Vegas beat:
All wall Streeters have to do is release managed information to the MSM and the MSM will take off with this managed information and do all the work of labeling this managed information as “news” and do all the work of distributing this news to a very gullible public who likes to think of themselves as “informed” and will not only be convinced by this news to give up to Wall Street their paychecks but their entire life savings as well.
Volatility traders are rolling in dough. Buy-and-hold investors, not so much…
Looks like the Boyz are pushing for 11,000 today, Q3 ends Friday, gotta hit those numberz
Up 145.
Maybe that’s why the markets like to fall in October… it’s after Q3.
I wander if it is legal to manipulate markets by using media like Cramer and Co. is doing on CNBC… is SEC has a role to stop that fraud … ?
Gasoline prices here are down almost 25 cents a gallon since the first of the month. Are others seeing the same thing?
Gas here is Salinas has gone up over 30 cents/ gal in the last month.
Metro Denver never crossed the $4 mark this year, current average per gasbuddy DOT com is $3.42.
As an input price for grocery store food prices, there has been no decline. The lying liar CPI to the contrary, most food items are up at least 20% since a year ago.
While merely an inconvenience for many of us fat and happy Amerikans, the Wall Street Boyz’ commodity casino gambling wheel is having devastating consequences for those elsewhere who spend 50% or more of their income on food.
Those damn $10/hr goons!
Other sources also suggest more moderate inflation
http://bpp.mit.edu/usa/
Given that services are not included my guess is the # would be less given unemployment.
$3.79 for regular in OC, CA.
Down about 20 cents here in N FL.
Down $0.16 in the last week at $3.09.
It’s $3.09 at several stations around here (Ft Worth), The day the Libyan revolt broke out it was $3.00 so I predict sub $3 gas by November.
$4.50 for regular here in Mono County, California
So Ca (east Ventura County)- $4.06-$4.16 for premium. Filled up last week. Up and down 10C-20C for a while now.
$3.89 at Costco on the central coast of CA.
AVOCAD0
“central coast ”
What city?
How’s the housing market doing?
(As in listing volume, prices, vintage and condition.)
Huge sell-offs in commodities (gold, silver, oil, copper, etc.)
Cain won a FL poll
The IMF needs money
Vick is out with a season ending injury from a late hit
It is going to be an interesting week…
waiting on bailouts. (”Hope” has now been reduced to this)
Fight for what?
17% unemployment??
——————-
Obama tells blacks to ’stop complainin’ and fight
Yahoo News | 25 Sep 2011 | Mark Smith
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a fiery summons to an important voting bloc, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and “put on your marching shoes” to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.
And though he didn’t say it directly, for a second term, too.
Obama’s speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from black leaders that he’s been giving away too much in talks with Republicans — and not doing enough to fight black unemployment, which is nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent.
“It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen to some of y’all,” Obama told an audience of some 3,000 in a darkened Washington convention center.
But he said blacks need to have faith in the future — and understand that the fight won’t be won if they don’t rally to his side.
“I need your help,” Obama said.
Fight for what? Fight for this:
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=P36×8rTb3jI
Four more years! Try again in 2016
Huge missed opportunity in this Presidency. He could have declared the race war in the US as being officially over. Instead he makes a caracature of blacks and calls them out as a racist army. What a frickin shame.
But then, it’s all about him.
Geeze, there’s no pleasing some people.
President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and “put on your marching shoes” to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.
It’s not like they’re asking for a handout.
I think that even if Obama were to get unemployment down to 5%, eliminate the budget and trade deficits and end the wars that you’d still find fault with him.
I think that even if Obama were to get unemployment down to 5%, eliminate the budget and trade deficits and end the wars that you’d still find fault with him.
Name me ONE thing obama has done to even begin heading in that direction?
Obama’s policies are in direct opposition to your statement.
Heck - who would have thought the insane spending levels, the TWO wars and the unemployment rates of the Bush presidency would be the “good old day?”
Name me ONE thing obama has done to even begin heading in that direction?
*sigh* I’ve posted this so many times that I bookedmarked the source:
S.3816:
A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to create American jobs and to prevent the offshoring of such jobs overseas.
[This bill would have eliminated tax breaks for offshorers and redirect the tax breaks to tax breaks for small businesses]
September 28, 2010… Cloture Motion Rejected,/b> [every Republican filibustered it.]
http://www.opencongress.org/vote/2010/s/242
============
The stimulus package was all about trying to get Americans back to work, if only for a while.
Obama has REPEATEDLY stressed to big business that it was private sector responsbility to put Americans to work. Private sector ignored him and continued to outsource to feed the Bottomless Stockholder maw and collect bonuses.
Obama has deported more illegals than Bush ever did — so many, in fact, that he had to prioritize the resources toward deporting criminals before deporting law-abiding (if you will) illegals.
So why isn’t this the big speech focus instead of stupid healthcare bills that while overall may be “good” certainly don’t resonate with trying to lower government spending and get back to a balanced budget?
If Obama was giving speeches consistently about how the repubs are filibustering tax breaks for companies offshoring jobs, THEN I WOULD be behind him. If his policy was to push a jobs bill ending these tax breaks for offshorers, I would support him. If he paired with public labor unions to stop giving our manufacturing jobs to China, I would support him. If he got rid of the Goldman-Sachs appointees to his cabinet and called them out as industry insiders , THEN I WOULD SUPPORT HIM.
But he doesn’t…
Does bringing 100,000 troops home from Iraq not count as “one thing” to end the wars? What about 5000 troops home per month from Afghanistan? Is that not “another thing” to end the wars?
Don’t waste your energy on $lipperybanana oxy,…all that matters is that lil’ Opie is makin’ the U$ Defen$e Military Indu$trial Complex have to re-tool their “forward looking” revenue$.
(unlike $lipperybanana hero’$,…“TrueDoNothing’$™ / “TrueObstructionist$™ / TrueGridLoker$™”)
General: Army to cut 8.6% of troops:
September 26th, 2011 / CNN
The U.S. Army in March will embark on a plan to cut 50,000 troops, or 8.6% of its soldiers, over five years, the service’s personnel chief tells Army Times.
Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick said the cuts will bring the Army’s total force to 520,400 active-duty soldiers by October 2016, according to the Army Times report.
“We feel that with the demand going down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and given the time to conduct a reasonable drawdown, we can manage (the force reduction) just as we have managed drawdowns in the past,” Army Times quotes Bostick as saying.
Does bringing 100,000 troops home from Iraq not count as “one thing” to end the wars? What about 5000 troops home per month from Afghanistan? Is that not “another thing” to end the wars?
Obama is following the draw down plan in place under Bush
Obama added about 40,000 troops into Afg.
Stop drinking the kool-aid
Obama added about 40,000 troops into Afg.
So why don’t you like him? He sounds like your kind of guy. (Note: I do not plan on voting for him. I will “throw away” my vote next year on a third party candidate).
Didn’t he just say he was looking to end the wars? How does that make Obama his kind of guy? Looks like that was just a partisan snide comment.. I thought HBBers were better than that…
Obama is following the draw down plan in place under
BushCheney-$hrubBWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
$lipperyBanana = Epic Fail #17
Pentagon to drastically cut spending on Afghan forces:
Under pressure from the White House [lil' Opie] for steep reductions, the Pentagon agrees to a no-frills approach for Afghanistan’s army and police. Expenditures will be cut by more than half by 2014.
By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times / September 12, 2011
The push to cut expenses is the latest point of tension between the White House and
some in the military$lipperyBanana over Afghan policy. The split emerged this year when President Obama ordered the withdrawal of 100,000 troops at a faster rate than commanders had recommended.By all accounts, Obama appears more comfortable with a military strategy that relies heavily on drone aircraft strikes in neighboring Pakistan and nightly raids by special operations forces against Afghan militants, while trimming the American military presence and budget to politically acceptable levels.
He beat McSame/Palin and that is what mattered then. Sure he has been more of Bush’s third term than any of us like, but the GOP hates Obama more than they love America and will spend 4 years making sure he is not re-elected.
Colorado,
You make no sense to me.
We are supposed to be happy that he is calling for class warfare and more spending and borrowing?
Obama’s battle for jobs and opportunity is more of the same.
class warfare and more spending and borrowing?
Ha! Now! now you complain…
Obviou$ly, you did’nt view All the Financial $hasta sprayed mayhem Cheney-$hrub $hadow Legacy left in the latrine, lil’ Opie’s still on all fours up to his elbows cleaning up, …just.as.it.was.
meant.De$igned.to.beCheney-$hrub: “we want him to succeed as President, really we do”
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
+1 Hwy…
Poor Obama. He is like the guy who has to clean up the droppings left behind by the elephant that W rode in the big 8-year-long parade.
Just saying that he wasn’t calling for more foodstamps and section 8. He was calling for jobs and opportunity. If you think that it’s BS I won’t challenge you on that because there is a good chance you are right. But at least he wasn’t telling the hoards of unemployed blacks that he was going to pay their rent and pay for their gas.
You work for the government, don’t you?
Class Warfare is going on 24/7 since the US was founded. The elites are winning. The top 0.01% saw income rise 280% over the last decade the middle has been crushed. Yet all around us we see members of the middle class decrying the class warfare ????????????????????
CEO’s don’t deserve 1000x average worker pay.
Elite don’t deserve huge financial bailouts while middle class pays with food and fuel inflation and decline in quality of life.
Elite already got their cheese in the form of a trade policy that gutted workers pay and benefits, and deregulation that allowed theft, and consolidation that has allowed corporate giants and WS to corner adn manipulate the markets.
Cry me a @#$#$%*@#$% River
“Obama’s speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus…Obama told an audience of some 3,000 in a darkened Washington convention center.”
Probably not the best choice of words. Accidental or…?
And it’s not as if they don’t lower the house lights for any other speaker. Of course they do.
Sorry, media, but the use of “darkened” was a bad word choice.
Kind of spooky!
It’ll get whitewashed.
Public unions - got to luv them!
Well, at least we are making progress. They do have to show up and do nothing to get paid.
No wonder our cities/counties/states and feds are broke.
And PS - bankers are parasites too.
————————-
Some Iowa postal workers could be paid for no work
pioneer press | 9-25-11 | ap
SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Some workers at a Sioux City mail processing center could be paid even if they don’t work after the facility closes.
The U.S. Postal Service is closing the center on Friday and transferring the work to Sioux Falls, S.D.
Spokesman Richard Watkins said that about 100 workers have taken other mail jobs and 40 others are on standby status. Those standby workers will have to take other postal service jobs before their contract expires in 2015. In the meantime, Watkins said, they could be asked to report to the Sioux City post office and sit in a room until called upon to fill in where needed.
Under the contract, those 40 union workers would get $1.72 million plus benefits for doing little or no work.
Keep in mind banana boy that the USPS doesn’t receive any subsidies from the taxpayers.
Subsidy coming soon to a USPS near you! Remember the Fed holds their debt.
From The Oakland Express:
Unfortunately, the U.S. Postal Service also is effectively bankrupt. The USPS expects to lose about $7 billion this year. The post office already has borrowed roughly $13 billion from Uncle Sam. At the end of 2009, USPS had $33.5 billion in outstanding liabilities and another $54.8 billion in unfunded retiree health and pension obligations.
Change will have to come to the USPS.
Here is a little tidbit from wiki answers:
”
Averages are so misleading. The average UPS driver’s pay at this time 08/01/2010 is about $75,000 cash, and benefits of about $30,000.
But drivers with enough seniority can get more overtime by “bumping” junior employees, and with 15 hours of OT can earn over $97,000. And with 20 hours OT can earn over $109,000 cash, over $30,000 in benefits.
So senior drivers can earn OVER $139,000 in cash and benefits. There are ways to earn a few thousand more by working vacations and overlapping vacations with paid holidays.”
“the average salary of postal employees is approximately $48,000 annually”
Letter carriers earn about 50K, Postmasters average 62K.
So which union is “goonier”?
UPS drivers do not make $37.50 per hour.
And how much are USPS benefits? Zero?
Keep in mind banana boy that the USPS doesn’t receive any subsidies from the taxpayers.
Yeah - right up until they are bailed out (does borrowing to oblivion mean anything to you?)
And FYI - ALL that taxpayer money is going to the public union goons. Nice.
The Coming Postal Bailout
Congress wants taxpayers to save mail worker pensions.
WSJ
MAY 14, 2011
The odds of a multibillion-dollar rescue package went way up this week when Postal Service management reported a $2.2 billion loss for the first quarter, more than 25% higher than last year despite the economic recovery. It now appears that the $15 billion line of credit the feds have offered USPS will be used up by the end of this year, with low odds on ever being paid back.
If that isn’t ugly enough, the Postal Service expects $42 billion in additional losses over the next four years. Mail volume and revenues have suffered what Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe concedes are “unprecedented declines” since 2006, with projections of another drop of 20 billion letters mailed by the end of the decade, down from 171 million this year, thanks to competition from electronic mail.
If this were a private business, the obvious response to these losses would be urgent cost-cutting to avoid insolvency. Instead, Postal Service management recently concluded negotiations offering the 205,000-member American Postal Workers Union a new four-and-a-half-year contract that will provide a 3.5% pay raise over three years, dole out automatic cost of living wage hikes after 2012, and expand no-layoff protections.
——————–
Can the Postal Service be Saved?
CBS News
March 14, 2010
The quasi-government agency announced this week that it lost $3.8 billion in the most recent fiscal year, which ended September 30th. It also delivered less mail - 26 billion fewer pieces less, a nearly 13 percent drop from the previous year. The bad news follows losses totaling $7.8 billion in 2007 and 2008.
The Postal Service, as it is quick to point out, is legally prohibited from taking tax dollars. But in order to stay afloat, the agency has been actively borrowing from the U.S. Treasury: At last count, according to Postal Service spokeswoman Yvonne Yoerger, it owes the government $10.2 billion.
It can be saved, but it will have to change … a lot. Thousands of Post Offices will have to close and many thousands of employees will have to be let go. I’m not denying that. And with the intense pressure that exists to cut the deficit the USPS should not expect bailouts. I expect to see massive change within a year.
how much do you think are they prefunding their retirement account as required/mandated by congress? at least 5b a year. how much is that *surplus* as of today? between 50b and 75b, depend on who is counting. what other agencies are dipping into that retirement pool? i don’t know. congress maybe.
“In the meantime, Watkins said, they could be asked to report to the Sioux City post office and sit in a room until called upon to fill in where needed. ”
I’d consider that a fate worse than death. Nothing like sitting in “detention” with a bunch of disgruntled postal worker for 40 hours a week to motivate you to go find a new job!
Anyway, this is least of the USPS’s problems right now. Their #1 problem is being mandated to deliver a letter anywhere in the country for 44 cents. If Fedex or UPS were given such a mandate they would scream to high heaven.
IMO, three days a week for mail delivery would be more than enough….Its mostly garbage mail anyway…
I agree. I’d be totally happy to get delivery 3 days a week, and they can charge whatever the market will bear to deliver my letter. Some kind of option for them to throw away the junk mail instead of making me do it would be nice, too.
I haven’t seen mail delivery in over 30 years. The USPS does deliver mail throughout Mono county but they have never delivered mail in what is now the Town of Mammoth Lakes.
Speaking of gar-bazh, the dead tree version of the telephone directory got plopped onto my front porch this morn. Actually, there were two phone books: The big monster with the Yellow Pages and a cute, cuddly little thing with microscopic type.
Cute and Cuddly got dumped into the recycling bin. The Big Monster’s staying around for a day or two — I want to see which of my local competitors are still listed. Then it hits the recycling bin as well.
Who even uses phone books anymore? Haven’t these companies ever heard of the Internet?
San Francisco just banned the unsolicited delivery of phone books. There was some fight about it, but it passed last May. The recycling of all those unused phone books was costing too much money.
I know we make some crazy laws here in Oz, but many of them later catch on (like the plastic bag ban).
Yes, but what about when your internet connection fails???
It’s scary how dependent everybody has become on the internet.
And unlike the paper phone book, it’s very hard to determine the accuracy of phone listings on the internet - I’ve seen both private party and business address/phone listings still on the web for YEARS after those entities have moved on or are out of business.
If Fedex or UPS were given such a mandate they would scream to high heaven.
Only if they were forced to deal with public unions
They are both union, pal. Teamsters IIRC. The difference is that they are allowed to set their rates without having to ask for Congress’s permission. And they aren’t mandated to deliver 44 cent letters on Saturdays either.
What’s killing the post office is that the nature of their business is changing as convention mail volumes are falling, yet they are shackled by mandates they must follow. A recipe for disaster. If we want the USPS to behave like a business then they need to be free of these mandates.
stoopid postmaster
Somehow, I think giving mail delivery service to the lowest bidder in any given community is a bad, bad idea.
Sept. 26, 2011, 10:00 a.m. EDT
New U.S. home sales fall 2.3% in August to 295,000
By Jeffry Bartash
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The sale of new U.S. homes fell 2.3% in August to an annual rate of 295,000, marking the fourth decline in a row, the Commerce Department reported Monday. Sales last month dropped to the lowest level since February. In July, meanwhile, sales were revised up to 302,000 from 298,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis. After peaking in 2011 at 316,000 in April, new-home sales have gradually declined. Also, the average selling price sank 8.7% from July to $246,000, the lowest level since early 2009. At current sales rates, unsold new homes on the market represented a 6.6 month supply. And the actual number of new homes available decreased to 162,00 to set yet another record low.
ECONOMY
New-home prices stumble
Transactions fell 2%, and prices of new homes drop nearly 9% in August.
Sept. 26, 2011, 5:02 a.m. EDT
Asia stocks drop as Europe debt fears linger
By Sarah Turner and Nick Godt, MarketWatch
MUMBAI (MarketWatch) — Asian stocks fell sharply Monday, adding to recent losses, as a lack of apparent progress on solving Europe’s sovereign-debt problems fueled risk aversion and sent investors out of equities.
Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average JP:NIK -2.17% ended down 2.2%, catching up with a heavy sell-off in Asia on Friday when the Tokyo market was closed for a holiday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.5%, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.6%, South Korea’s Kospi lost 2.6% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index declined 1.1%.
Some of the smaller markets were seeing severe selling, with the Stock Exchange of Thailand Index zooming down 5.8%, while the Jakarta JSX Index was down 3.8% in Indonesia. Read more on Southeast Asian stock sell-off.
“It’s very much a risk off session for Asia today … it’s just lack of progress [on Europe],” said Annette Beacher, strategists at TD Securities. “It’s got to the stage where we are driven by headlines and expectations,” she said.
…
If the Congress can’t agree on disaster relief funding, good luck on the rest of the federal budget.
Shutdown looms as Congress debates spending plan
By the CNN Wire Staff
September 26, 2011 — Updated 1048 GMT (1848 HKT)
(CNN) — The standoff continues Monday between the House and the Senate over emergency funding, which is holding up a short-term spending measure to keep government running into the new fiscal year that begins this weekend.
The measure includes additional money to fill the almost depleted emergency aid coffers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Army Corps of Engineers following Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee, wildfires and tornadoes so far this year.
House Republicans have passed a bill that cuts spending elsewhere to offset some of the increased disaster relief aid. Democrats oppose offsets for emergency aid, saying disaster relief for Americans in need should be unencumbered. The Democratic-led Senate rejected the House measure on Friday by a 59-36 vote.
The package would fund the government for the first seven weeks of the new fiscal year that starts Saturday.
For the third time in six months, a partial government shutdown is possible if the Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate fail to agree on the short-term spending plan by Friday — the end of the current fiscal year.
The measure currently under deliberation — which would keep Washington running through November 18 — includes critical new disaster funding assistance for states hit hard by Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee, and a series of recent wildfires and tornadoes.
…
a partial government shutdown is possible ??
Just do it already….Tired of hearing the idle threats…
If I hear “Game Changer” one more time…
Add “risk off” and “risk on” to that list.
add; “Greece Default”….
“Haircut”
Game Changer
lol!
Sept. 26, 2011, 10:14 a.m. EDT
Gold and silver futures extend losses
CME Group lifts margin requirements for some metals contracts
By Myra P. Saefong and Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold and silver futures fell further Monday, following on dramatic drops late last week, as investors hedged against a possible global liquidity crunch and reacted to increases in margin requirements.
…
It just seems to me that the Fed was worried that a Greek default would spark a rush to metals so they got ahead of it and spiked the price downward. The usual manipulations including selling alot of contracts and raising margins.
This prevents precious metals from being the safe place to go and drives money back into dollars.
It might work for a few days or a few weeks but as long as they create money from nothing, the precious metals will increase in value.
I am not some gold bug and would rather talk about housing. If the Fed does as good a job manipulating gold as they did with housing, then the downward spike won’t last.
the money they create is not enough to offset the amount being destroyed everyday.
They’ll just have to put the printing press into overdrive.
… and find a way to distribute to the masses all the money that is “printed”.
So far what has been tried hasn’t been working all that well.
“If a bank loses even a dime of profit, the terrorists have won.”
I wonder if the Europeans will look kindly on bailing out other countries. The disaster talk around bondholders taking losses is really becoming hysterical.
Hey, is sold in 04 a Passionists priest? Because the the Passionists priests got out near the peak.
Developers once again eyeing new condominium projects
By Alexandra Clough Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:27 a.m. Monday, Sept. 26, 2011
Is Palm Beach County about to be hit by a new wave of condo projects?
Kolter Group LLC is dusting off plans for a North Palm Beach condominium that was commenced during the housing boom and shelved when the boom went bust.
The move comes as Related Group recently unveiled plans for a 506-unit, two-tower condo in West Palm Beach’s north end. The property formerly was known as Icon, which was planned during the real estate run-up as a luxury tower with only 150 units but was iced due to the recession.
Kolter vice president Bob Vail said the company will relaunch the North Palm Beach condo, known as Domani (Italian for “tomorrow”) in the fall of 2012. Look for more units, lower prices and smaller square footage per unit.
Also look for a different, fresher name that doesn’t evoke the Italianite excesses of the recent real estate bubble.
n 2004, Kolter paid $23.5 million for seven acres overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway in North Palm Beach, about a half-mile south of PGA Boulevard on the east side of U.S. 1. The property formerly was owned by an order of Passionists priests.
Kolter’s goal at the time: a luxury waterfront community, with condo prices ranging from $3 million to $8 million. About 15 of the 77 unbuilt condo units were pre-sold, with plans to open in 2006.
But the project screeched to a halt in January 2007, a casualty of a residential condo market deemed “dead” by a Kolter executive, who pledged Domani would resume when the market improved.
That time is soon, but not tomorrow.
Kolter considered bringing Domani back this fall but decided the market hasn’t recovered enough yet. So plans are to launch in 2012, with completion set for 2014, “three years from today,” Vail said.
Here’s the thinking: js insert (My pumkin I`d be scrathchin with the thoughts that I`d be hatchin if I only had a brain)
“There’s not going to be new product in over five years,” Vail said. “And we’ll have new features,” in line with the trends taking place in construction now.
In addition, with sales continuing in Kolter’s Two City Plaza condo in West Palm Beach, Vail says the feeling is that “real buyers are back in the market. People are back thinking about the quality of the unit, and not just how cheaply can I buy it.”
Cheap isn’t in, but neither is excessive luxury.
Kolter is downscaling the size of the units, and more than doubling the number of them planned, to bring the total to 168. Prices are lower, too, with units costing from $600,000 to $1.5 million.
While Kolter’s condo will have more units, it still will be a far cry from the ambitious 506 unit-complex Related plans for its land along North Flagler Drive.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/developers-once-again-eyeing-new-condominium-projects-1879470.html - -
“Because the the Passionists priests got out near the peak.”
Someone upstairs must like them.
Locally an order of cloistered nuns sold their old abbey in Boulder for a pretty penny and built a new abbey in the boondocks near the Wyoming border.
Disabled realtors?
——————
Disability claims by the unemployed skyrocketing
By Sally Kestin
Sun Sentinel
Monday, Sep. 26, 2011
Pompano Beach “A lot of people are saying, ‘We can’t find anything, and we look and look and look,’ ” said Eloisa Cruz, a case manager with Henderson Behavioral Health, a non-profit social agency. “Some of them have unemployment [benefits] for one or two years and that finishes, and now they find themselves really in a bind for money.”
Chris Borgia, an attorney who handles disability cases in Broward and Palm Beach counties, said he’s seen an increase of applicants from all fields.
“They were self-employed and their business shut down,” Borgia said. “There’s a lot more Realtors than I’ve seen before.”
In Florida, more than 500,000 people received disability benefits last year, nearly 5 percent of the state’s population of working-age adults – the largest proportion in a decade. The majority of those were 50 or older.
Their disabilities varied from diseases and injuries to psychiatric conditions. Mental disorders made up the largest category, accounting for about one-third of the cases.
Social security morphed into this during the boom times of too much money not enough retirees
I think during Nixons time
once government had all thoses social security numbers and all that money rolling in.
Mental is the easiest to fake.
Their disabilities varied from diseases and injuries to psychiatric conditions. Mental disorders made up the largest category, accounting for about one-third of the cases.
I’m going to fasten my birdie-claws firmly to this limb as I go out further onto it. My birdie alter ego is going to venture a guess and say that a lot of these mental disorders are depression.
That can happen when you’re out of a job and are having trouble finding another. A-squawking from my past says that the very same thing happened to me when I was in my twenties.
One of the great antidotes to depression that I’ve found is just plumb staying busy. Moping around the house is the absolute worst thing to do.
That’s why this idea of paying people an unemployment bennie to do nothing except engaging in job-hunting theatre confounds me. I think that a program to pay unemployed people a stipend to volunteer for nonprofit or community orgs would be a good thing. Heck, they might even pick up some new skills that could lead to jobs or a little business of their own.
“That’s why this idea of paying people an unemployment bennie to do nothing except engaging in job-hunting theatre confounds me. I think that a program to pay unemployed people a stipend to volunteer for nonprofit or community orgs would be a good thing. Heck, they might even pick up some new skills that could lead to jobs or a little business of their own.”
+100
” I think that a program to pay unemployed people a stipend to volunteer for nonprofit or community orgs would be a good thing. Heck, they might even pick up some new skills that could lead to jobs or a little business of their own.”
An excellent idea. I would recommend that it be a new organization. Volunteering for an organization you are already connected with would not give you any new connections.
Who is going to pay for it? Paying people to do something is a lot more expensive than paying them to do nothing.
I am perfectly serious.
Oh, and non-profits don’t necessarily want or need 5 to 12% of the community showing up at their doors demanding something to do. Gnerally, they already have the people that they can fund. Unless you want those orgs to fire their employees and use the money to fund the supplies for the unemployed people to be able to do something useful.
Give me a break. This is like saying we shouldn’t fire street sweepers / park maintenance and use the unemployed because then the street sweeper/pm would be out of a job.
In the truest “Keynesian” sense of the word, when the labor is cheap, and the economy is down, that is when you spend the money to use it for improvements and deferred maintenance. The only part of Keynesian economics I agree with is the part that all the “Keynesians” disagree with because it would displace people in volunteer and government jobs during the recession.. Well tough luck!
Around these parts, “mental disorder” is the euphemism for drug/alcohol addiction and homelessness. Or is it the other way around?
I think that disability will be the first part of SS to get reformed. This will be unfortunate for the unemployed middle age to senior crowd for whom is has been a life preserver.
Easiest piece to reform. If you have worked at any paying job outside a sheltered workshop in the past [fill in number here] months you are not eligible to collect disability. You can modify that by having a doctor testify that some giant change in your health made the disablity a sudden onset thing (car crash, attacked by bear, etc.), but since the disability program isn’t really set up to get people payments right away, you don’t have to allow that exception.
You would have to deal with a huge increase in the number of older adults who are destitute, but it is administratively possible to define and to implement. I don’t know how much it would effect the ability of the program to pay out all promised payments.
Sage advice, IMHO.
I think this news maps pretty well to home prices
“There are parts of the country managing to do relatively well in this slow-growing economy,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo.
Washington D.C. enjoyed the steepest spike in median income over the past four years. It soared a whopping 12.1% to $60,903 last year.
Rising costs for middle class
The area around the nation’s capital also benefited. Virginia saw a 1.9% increase to $60,674, while Maryland’s median income rose 1.1% to $68,854, making it the wealthiest state in the union.
“There’s a lot of money going to federal contractors,” said Vitner. “It’s really helped drive growth in that part of the country.”
In the D.C. area, buy now or be priced out forever.
DC was like a feedback loop. Salaries are determined by taking into account cost of living, which were going up due to home prices, which drove up the cost of living, which drove up salaries.
House prices are not included in cost of living calculations. And fed workers don’t get cost of living increases. Never have. The adjustment is supposed to get their salaries up to what it would cost to hire a person to do a comparable job in the private sector, but the amount needed to do that is always legally modified (down) by Congress.
As major Solyndra investor and Barack Obama donor George Kaiser told a crowd of his fellow Oklahomans not long after Obama’s stimulus was announced in 2009, “There’s never been more money shoved out of the government’s door in world history and probably never will be again than in the last few months and the next 18 months. And our selfish, parochial goal is to get as much of it for Tulsa and Oklahoma as we possibly can.”
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/opinion/welch-sixteen-dollar-muffin/index.html - -
sounds like my congressman.
Discretionary Gov spending has not surged that much. Much of the increase is mandated ie unemployment and medicaid which has increased with unemployment.
Most of the deficit spending is due to collapsing revenue plus above with much of hte rest being war related.
I love the guys sentiment though, pigs at the trough, and he thought nothing of saying this to the crowd.
Hey everyone,
Long time reader - part time poster. For years I’ve been trying to sell my house in Ohio, and I think its time to walk away and end it. I really dont want to walk away as I want to make sure to do the right thing, but this summer has been open houses every other week, working with an aggressive RE agent, price drops…….and zero offers.
I bought it as a REO house back in 2006. Back then no one wanted to deal with REOs, as homes were being built left and right and a simple foreclosure purchase seemed like too much time and not enough payout. We fixed it up, lived in it and enjoyed it. Never overextended ourselves, never HELOCed it (even though I had plenty of offers), and now years later I just dont see another way out. Tried renting it but the average rental price was 35-40 percent lower than what I could rent it out for (A lot of older people with paid off houses who moved to Florida and collect a check from a rental management company every month). Tried doing a ‘Rent To Own’ but the buyer backed out after almost a year.
I called the mortgage company (GMAC) to see if I could refinance instead of walking away, they calculated my payments, income and expenses and said “Since I have an additional $71 per month, I can afford it and I am not eligible for refinancing”.
I then called my agent who suggested another price drop but basically said there are very little buyers in the area. We dropped the price down again and are crossing our fingers, which seems to be most peoples plan for selling their house these days.
The problem I see with our neighborhood is that the foreclosures are selling while the standard sales are stuck trying to compete with the banks as far as selling their house. One house in my neighborhood was listed at the same price but sold with more of a loss because Wells Fargo was willing to cut the price almost 20K to get it done. I can’t do that.
I’m not looking for any sympathy from this. No one put a gun to my head to buy it nor did they tell me to move out of the area. I would love to sell it, take the loss and end it - but I just dont see a way out that doesnt involve a can of gas and some matches. Mailing the keys back to GMAC with a note saying “I’ve tried for over two years to sell it. Your turn” seems like a way to go, but its not the way I want to go.
Not sure why I typed all of this out, just needed to get it off my chest. Sorry for wasting your bandwidth Ben.
Hey, Sean! Welcome to the HBB.
(Sotto voce: You’re not the only HBB-er who’s regretted a home purchase and contemplated the Jingle Mail solution.)
Slim, reading between the lines: are you contemplating Jingle Mail?
Nope! But I know quite a number of people who are.
I also know someone who was able to sell her house right before she did the jingle mail thing. And, oh is she relieved to be out from under that house. She doesn’t miss that place at all.
The problem I see with our neighborhood is that the foreclosures are selling while the standard sales are stuck trying to compete with the banks as far as selling their house.
Why would the MegaBanker$, want to proce$$ your “hope-to-obtain” new RE loan/Seller before they can reduce their own non-revenue
trouble$inventory? $elf-interest comes to mind 1st, client compa$$ion is a bit further down their “to do” list it seems.Short sale ?
My thought exactly.
“One house in my neighborhood was listed at the same price but sold with more of a loss because Wells Fargo was willing to cut the price almost 20K to get it done. I can’t do that.”
If you “can’t do that” simply because your debt is higher than that value, then a short-sale might be one answer. It’s a slow process, but it might make sense to try.
Of course, my opinion is that the bank will be much less motivated to work with you on a short-sale when you are paying the note every month.
the bank will be much less motivated to work with you on a short-sale when you are paying the note every month.
Ha, they’re proFEE$ional’s, e$pecially when it comes to exi$ting revenue source$.
A friend of mine got a “deed in lieu” - much faster than a short sale. When asking for one, however, it helps if you own multiple properties and have no other assets.
One house in my neighborhood was listed at the same price but sold with more of a loss because Wells Fargo was willing to cut the price almost 20K to get it done. I can’t do that.
Why not? Ego, cash flow, would have to bring cash to the table?
Something is missing here.
Story from Tucson’s Sunday fishwrap:
Real estate: For sale: Historic gem
For a brief story, it provides a lot of entertainment value. For example, the in-house art gallery featuring the works of Phyllis Diller. (Phyllis, stick to comedy. Please.)
Then there’s the multiple refis on the house, courtesy of the Pima County Assessor’s Office records. Gotta get that renovation money from somewhere, I suppose. After all, that garish exterior paint job (you gotta see it to believe it!) didn’t come cheap.
And how can we forget this stirring ending to the story:
The Cassidys also own other historic downtown homes that they’ve restored and now put on the market. They’ve listed an adobe house at 418 S. Convent Ave. in Barrio Viejo for $499,000. That home was built in 1900.
Another, built in 1928, sits at 496 S. Convent Ave. and is listed for $325,000. Tom Cassidy said he and his wife decided to sell so they don’t have to devote time to managing the properties.
Also, new activity downtown, including the construction of UniSource Energy’s new headquarters at Broadway and Scott Avenue just around the corner from the Rubi house, made it seem like the right time to put houses on the market.
While the Cassidys are motivated to move the properties, they’re not feeling too much pressure to unload them right away.
“We’d like to sell the house, but it’s not a fire sale,” Cassidy said.
Sorry I didn’t put this fun factoid up above, but this house has been on the market before.
When the weekly Meet Me at Maynards walks around Downtown Tucson started back in April ‘09, we went right by this place. It had one of those almost-a-billboard CRE agency signs out in front. (I think it was a CB Richard Ellis sign.)
Sign was there for many moons, then it vanished last year. I figured that the place was sold. Obviously, it wasn’t sold.
The link does not pull up a picture of the house Aslim…
Hey, scdave! I think that the following reader comment (which follows the free advertising in our local fishwrap) will help you find photos. I’ve highlighted the MLS number. Give the local REIC’s MLS search a whirl…
MLS#21123969 is priced at $1,895,000 … just as the article says it is. The listing says the building contains 3,600 square feet and that the lot is 0.17 acre in size.
The asking price is $526.39 / sq ft! That may be way, way over what a buyer will pay, because a buyer can purchase a vacant lot and build a replica for less than that.
There could be a wealthy individual who wants to pay almost two million dollars for this property, because of its history. That is unlikely.
I almost wrote that the property will never appraise for that much, but I remembered that the State of Arizona regularly licenses liars who call themselves appraisers. Many of those “appraisers” will lie upon request about property values. The State of Arizona’s Board of Appraisal rarely, if ever, applies effective sanctions for appraisers reporting values way above reasonable market values.
An effective sanction for some of the frauds I’ve seen among appraisal reports would be revocation of licenses.
Years ago, when I was a licensed real estate broker, I specialized in Armory Park houses. There are some spikes in closed sale prices over the years. I am not familiar with current market conditions in this historic district, so I could be wrong about $1,895,000 being too high. However, I don’t think so, given replacement costs being so much lower than $500+ / sq ft of living area.
I might add that just across the street from this property is Armory Park. Like most public spaces in and around Downtown Tucson, it’s a real magnet for the homeless.
Speaking of the homeless, there’s a guy living in his car in the Armory Park on-street parking lot. I saw him there yesterday. He’s been around town for a while, and Armory Park is one of his favorite hangouts.
Anyone living in the house that’s being touted in our fishwrap will have a lovely view of this (very disturbed) guy and his broken down car.
America [AA+] Day: #52
“Boycott ‘em!” (& their Fee$ible Opinion$)
$tandard & make’emPoor, one of thee
main credit-rating agencies, “True$editionist$$erialEnabler$™”S.E.C. Weighs Action Against Standard & Poor’s:
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, On Monday September 26, 2011
The staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering recommending civil legal action against Standard & Poor’s over its rating of a 2007 collateralized debt offering.
The S.E.C. staff said it may recommend that the commission seek civil money penalties, disgorgement of fees or other actions.
S.& P. has been under fire for its recent downgrade of United States long-term debt, as well as several bad calls it made leading to the financial crisis and economic meltdown that began in 2008. The unit’s president stepped down last month.
McGraw-Hill Companies, which owns S.& P., said Monday that it received a so-called Wells notice from the S.E.C. on Thursday. A Wells notice is a warning to a company that the commission is considering enforcement action.
The news comes two weeks after McGraw-Hill announced that it plans to split up into two public companies, with one focused on education and the other centered on markets, featuring the Standard & Poor’s unit. The decision had been expected, as investors have pushed the New York company to boost the company’s stock price, which has dropped by more than 40 percent since 2006.
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
Interesting about the protests going on in New York . I guess they call the movement ‘Occupy Wall Street “. Seems to be a lot of younger people who know that Wall Street /Corporate America /Banks are screwing them . At least they got the right culprits ,so just throw in the Politicians and you got the whole gang .
And if you want to keep up with the festivities, here’s the linky-doodle.
A market trader lets the cat out of the bag.
Rug-roh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC19fEqR5bA&feature=player_embedded
“some people are prepared to make monie$ from a cra$H…”
“Goldenman$ucks rule$ the world…not Gov’t’s”
(Fashion hint: when progno$ticating the “coming soon” Global eCONomic crash, perhaps a barbie-pink tie is a bit misleading, perhaps a bolo shaped as a noose might convey a more accurate stance.)
I suspect Wall Street would support moving this concept to the national level.
Convicted nonviolent criminals in a south Alabama town will soon have an alternative to paying a fine and going to jail: Go to church for a year.
The police chief in the town of Bay Minette, Ala. plans to start the program this week, according to the Press-Register newspaper in Alabama. The program is being protested by the ACLU of Alabama.
The police chief, Mike Rowland, said the program, “Restore Our Community” (ROC), is voluntary, could save money and could instill values in offenders to keep them out of jail. He told local station WKRG that it costs his department about $75 to house inmates every day.
?? What if they already go to church, there certainly are a lot of born again criminals out there. What if you are Budist a Rastafarian or Wichan. Can athiests just go to the library??
This really smacks of state religion. Would the police chief approve of the local mosque?
I doubt that the mosque would be approved. Nor would a synagogue.
“Pastor Robert Gates is one of the pastors in a participating church. He said, “You show me someone who falls in love with Jesus and I’ll show you a person who won’t be a problem to society, but that will be a help and an influence to those around them.”
Like Ted Haggard? Or any number of Catholic priests?
Haaa…. But Mr. Haggard actually *lives* his faith now that he had an actual come to Jesus moment. Everyone is welcome to his church. EVERYONE.
Only because they kicked him out of his other church.
A guy has to make a living you know.
So are we all done blaming the banks for this debacle? I am.
Has anyone posted on the seller in Illinois who is throwing in $K worth of booze if you buy her shack?
Can’t think of anything I’d rather amortize over thirty years.
(sarcasm off)
ARIZ. JUSTICES HEAR KEY FORECLOSURE CASE
Timing of deed transfer is central matter at issue
Outcome could affect thousands across state
Excerpt: The Arizona Supreme Court convened in Tucson Thursday to hear arguments in a case that could impact thousands of Arizona homeowners mired in the foreclosure process.
The state’s highest court is considering whether it’s a violation of law when lenders fail to record a deed transfer before moving forward with a foreclosure sale. The court will rule later.
“Vasquez refinanced her home in September 2005 with an adjustable-rate balloon note payable to Saxon Mortgage.”
How much of a loan, and how did it get spent? Reporting??
Should You “Buy on the Dips”?
Sept. 23, 2011
Should you “buy on the dips”? That’s what at least some investors are wondering after the Dow posted its biggest weekly decline in nearly three years. Jason Zweig on The News Hub weighs in on the subject.
Should You “Buy on the Dips”?
Eyes do! (D.ecision I.nvolves P.ersonal S.election)
Win or lo$e, eyes own$ it, $miles & blame.
What if the “worst-case scenario” is actually the best-case scenario?
September 26, 2011, 3:20 PM
Commentary
By Cody Willard
Most traders seem relieved about whatever the latest wealth redistribution from the masses to the banking system that the powers that be in the E.U. have come up with. Everybody I talk to is worried that the E.U. and the euro currency will collapse, and all the smart money people I talk to are convinced that Greece will be that first domino. The Germans complain that they’re bailing out Greece, but the only people being bailed out are the big banks, including Germany’s and France’s in this case. Whatever, let’s not get lost in the weeds.
…
The Germans complain that they’re bailing out Greece, but the only people being bailed out are the big banks, including Germany’s and France’s in this case.
This is the point EVERYONE shoudl focus on. All of these bailouts are designed to bail out the elite and bankers. It’s austerity and benefit cuts for everyone else, that means most business people as well.
Not only are they crumbling society with a focus on redistributing wealth (not to the “have not’s”…but to the “state machine”, which has a burn rate of about 88%, while the Skinner pigeons keep pushing the levers for the leftover 12% crumbs), but they are also crumbling society by making “self-made” a dirty word.
A society that is hell bent on trying to find new and unique ways to pick a fight with itself is in for a headache. This current group is so inane and arrogant, it at once picks a fight, declares the matter “settled”, calls any principled dissent “racist” and then apologizes to the world for our entire past.
Which is why you see the NLRB try to shut down Boeing in the Carolinas or the DOJ not knowing how to protect the rights of ALL people, or why NO budget is produced for 1000 days by the leftists. They can only respond to work produced and pontificate on it…they can’t create it.
The final analysis is this: They will never understand people who are self-made, because they have lived in the cocoon of the self-absorbed.
Wow if I put that in may garden I bet I could grow some spectacular tomatoes.
Save some of the seeds, please. (Anyone up for an HBB seed exchange?)
Hi Slim,
I’d love to exchange seeds, but let’s not tell each other what they are…. What zone are you in, btw? (7-ish here.)
Did not get ONE SINGLE TOMATO this year. Not even from my volunteers. But the alpine strawberries were spectacular. And I’ve got rocket/arugula out the wazoo and about 80 different herbs. Let me know and I’ll put together an heritage care package for you.
Stocks Advance on Optimism Europe Will Act
(Bloomberg)
U.S. stocks advanced, giving the Dow Jones Industrial Average its biggest rally in one month, on speculation European leaders will act to prevent the region’s debt crisis from getting worse.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rallied 2.3 percent to 1,162.95 at 4 p.m. in New York. All 10 groups in the gauge advanced. The Dow jumped 272.38 points, or 2.5 percent, to 11,043.86 today.
“You had some quasi-positive comments out of Europe,” Russ Koesterich, the San Francisco-based global chief investment strategist for the IShares unit of BlackRock Inc., said in a telephone interview. His firm oversees $3.66 trillion as the world’s largest asset manager. “The situation in Europe is a near term risk, but if the global economy muddles through, you’ll probably have room for a rally in stocks.”
The S&P 500 was down 13 percent since June 30 and headed for the biggest quarterly slump since 2008 on concern about a global economic slowdown. Stocks were having the worst quarter on record relative to U.S. Treasuries and gold, which could force investors to buy equities to rebalance their allocations, Marko Kolanovic, the New York-based global head of equity derivatives strategy at JPMorgan, wrote in a note last week.
Last week’s rout erased $1 trillion from U.S. equities amid concern Greek insolvency is inevitable and Europe can’t contain the damage. The S&P 500 last week was trading at 12.4 times earnings in the past 12 months, 4.4 percent below its average valuation at the lowest point during the last nine bear markets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Getting ‘Cheap’
“This market is starting to get cheap,” Jack Ablin, who helps oversee $55 billion as chief investment officer for Chicago-based Harris Private Bank, said in a telephone interview. “If we don’t see any chips falling, investors will be pleased.”
26 September 2011 Last updated at 16:21 ET
Bank shares rally on hopes of eurozone debt deal
European bank shares have risen as investors react to the latest attempts to stabilise the eurozone debt crisis.
A number of measures are being discussed according to reports from the weekend’s international meeting in Washington.
They are expected to involve a 50% write-down of Greece’s massive government debt, the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston says.
French and German bank shares were up 10% at one stage in Monday trading.
European governments hope to have measures agreed in five to six weeks, in time for a meeting of the leaders of the G20 group in Cannes at the beginning of November.
But EU officials in Brussels stress that they should not be seen as “a single grand plan”, the BBC’s correspondent Chris Morris says.
The measures being discussed are:
* Institutions that have lent money to Athens writing off about 50% of the money they are owed
* The size of the eurozone bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), increasing dramatically to 2 trillion euros (£1.7tn; $2.7tn)
* Strengthening big European banks that could be hit by any defaults on national debt obligations.
However, on Monday evening AFP reported that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had told television news channel NTV that there was no plan to boost the size of the EFSF.
“We are giving it the tools so it can work if necessary,” Mr Schaeuble was reported as saying.
“Then we will use it effectively but we do not have the intention of boosting its volume.”
…
Congresswoman found speech to blacks ‘curious’
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Maxine Waters says she’s not sure who President Barack Obama was talking to when he told black Americans to quit complaining and follow him into the battle for jobs and opportunity.
The California Democrat, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, says she found the president’s language “a bit curious.” She says Obama didn’t address Hispanics in such a blunt manner and would never use that language in a speech to a gathering of gays or Jews.
Interviewed Monday on CBS’ “Early Show,” Waters said black Americans fully support Obama and are working to promote his agenda. She says African-Americans want voters to be enthusiastic about Obama in 2012.
In Saturday’s fiery speech to the caucus, Obama told blacks to “put on your marching shoes” and “stop grumbling.’”
The Secret to Living Well on $40,000 a Year
U.S. News and World Report
by Kimberly Palmer
Friday, September 23, 2011
As Washington politicians debate whether earning $250,000 a year makes a family rich, special education teacher Danny Kofke has come up with a much lower threshold for wealth: The father of two says that his family of four can live well on his $40,000 a year salary — and you can, too. He explains how in his new book, “A Simple Book of Financial Wisdom,” a follow-up to his first book, “How to Survive (and Perhaps Thrive) on a Teacher’s Salary.” US News spoke with Kofke about how he manages to stretch his income and his tips for others trying to do the same
Here’s another guy who’s doing the same thing. And he lives near (gasp!) Washington, DC.
I used to pay $600 per month rent for a one bedroom in Tucson. The same unit now is $745 per month. I was earning $60,000 at the time, but fully contributed to my 401k and another $2,000 to an IRA and made truck payments. I also had a girlfriend living with me. I think $40,000 would be kind of difficult for a man with two kids.
“I think $40,000 would be kind of difficult for a man with two kids.”
I had friends who enjoyed the “hip scene” with their earthy girlfriends…ripped jeans, old bicycles, music festivals, etc., and then the girlfriend decided she wanted children, a suburban house, station wagon, etc., and with her sexuality…was able to quickly morph into “yuppie” mom. Of course she made sure the boyfriend understood that he was a “just a worker” (loser) on the way out.
Watching TerraNova which is set in the 22nd century. They were hoarding Obamabucks. Had his image on it like the Canadian loonie w/the Queen’s image. Couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
From Combotechie’s Department Of For What It’s Worth:
Here’s Gary Shilling’s view from July of what our current deflation is all about:
http://www.forbes.com/2011/07/14/shilling-seven-faces-of-deflation_3.html
I mistakenly presented the third page of a four page article. Those wanting to read the entire article should select page one and start reading there.
But an important point is made in the last paragraph on page 4:
“The least accepted variety of deflation remains general price declines. If I am right and the CPI adn PPI fall chronically by 2% to 3% per year, it will be a big shock to almost everyone else who expects the opposite.”
This is my bet, in which case the real return of holding cash will be two to three percent per year - tax free.
other than a rent increase which I successfully fought off this year, every single category of spending I have has risen this year. Food, fuel, insurance, clothing, work related publications, medical supplies and prescriptions, and labor at the mechanics shop have all gone up.
Patience.
This is way awesome! Who’d've thunk Brussels would lead the charge to restore trust to the global financial system? And break up the Big Four’s oligopoly grip on audits in the process?
September 26, 2011 8:05 pm
Big audit firms face Brussels onslaught
By Alex Barker in Brussels and Jennifer Hughes in London
The business model of the Big Four accounting firms is under attack from the European Commission, which is pushing for tough rules that would force the firms to abandon their consultancy businesses and share audit work with smaller rivals.
A draft regulation, seen by the Financial Times, aims to transform the accounting sector in the wake of the financial crisis and restore “trust” in financial reporting. It has the backing of Michel Barnier, internal market commissioner, whose officials have decided the audit world is in the grip of an oligopoly.
Under the plans, which are to be unveiled in November, companies with balance sheets greater than €1bn would be forced to hire two auditors to conduct a “joint audit” of their books, including at least one firm outside the Big Four of Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young, and KPMG.
Auditors will also be outlawed from working for a big company for more than nine years – a policy of “mandatory rotation” that Mr Barnier thinks will bolster independence and stimulate competition. Some big multinationals have had the same auditor for more than a century.
…
The shot over the bow for democracy.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/delegating-economic-policy-to-the-technocrats-and-away-from-democracy/
The elites see things getting messy, people getting so angry they stop watching American Idol and turn on their brain. Thus the elites want to take more control.
You can bet tax and trade policy under hand picked unaccountable elites would be the last dagger in the back of the middle class in this country. Of course these unaccountable legislative bodies would need private security contractors to protect them in case of “terrorist attack”