Bits Bucket for April 15, 2012
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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Investing in single family homes in order to rent them out is still a great idea, according to many real estate ‘experts,’ especially since prices are so low!
Don’t miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime to get rich quickly!!
Now is a great time to invest in a rental
Low home prices and low interest rates make this a great time to become an investor. These 5 tips will help you get started.
By Tamara E. Holmes of Bankrate.com
If you’re thinking about investing in a rental property, experts say low home prices combined with low interest rates make this the best time in years to become a real-estate investor.
What’s more, the real-estate market is starting to recover: U.S. houses lost $489 billion in value during the first 11 months of 2009, but that was significantly lower than the $3.6 trillion lost during 2008, according to real-estate website Zillow.com.
“We haven’t seen home prices this low in so many years, coupled with the rates being so low,” says Jill Sjolin, an agent with Windermere Real Estate in Woodinville, Wash., who specializes in investment properties. “When the money is cheap to borrow and the houses are cheap to buy, it’s absolutely the best time to invest.”
While the timing may be right, these five tips can help first-time investors take advantage of what might be the opportunity of a lifetime.
…
It’s only an “opportunity of a lifetime” if you buy for the lifetime. That’s why I bought my housing for cash-ola in 2008. My cash price per sqft is sinfully low, and as such, I don’t care if the house value falls to zero. In fact, it’s entirely to my personal benefit to have it fall to zero, since that’s how much tax I’ll owe on it. I want to pay the least amount to live, now. I bought this to live in until I die. Then it’s someone else’s problem.
The idea that you can have the “opportunity of a lifetime” that you can get every 5 years, is ludicrous. The housing market is still entirely ludicrous. Flippers still determine the market, as they have for a decade. The rental-buyers are still flippers, since they are still trying to get the highest possible ROI from their borrowing.
I’m soooooo glad that I don’t rent or mortgage anymore. That’s 40 years of enjoying payment-free living. And I avoided all the sharks and delusionists. Let them chase elusive capital gains. The era of capital gains is over.
Over these past several years, I’ve never actually heard a realtor say that now is NOT a great time to buy. So, being urged to buy rentals is par for the course.
I once heard a top realtor say that sellers may wish to not list at one point. That was advice given for the last two weeks in December, during the holidays. But come January 1st, list, baby, list.
Great news for all the investors around the world who were fretting over the future outlook in China: YOUR WORRIES ARE NOW OVER.
Just read this, and you will feel better about everything under the sun:
China currency move nails hard landing risk coffin
Reuters, 15 Apr 2012 | 03:12 PM
China’s weekend reform of its currency regime nails shut the coffin on the last remains of doubt about whether the world’s second biggest economy has successfully steered a course past a hard economic landing.
Investors were questioning whether the worst sequential slowdown in China’s economy since the 2008-09 global financial crisis could enter a sixth quarter after data on Friday revealed the weakest three months of annual growth in three years and a run rate below the official 7.5 percent 2012 target.
Shifting the yuan trading rules is about the strongest signal Beijing could give that growth downside has diminished and potential pitfalls are manageable. Few reforms are as replete with risk as tinkering with the currency because faith in its soundness directly correlates to economic stability.
“For everybody who thought China was heading for a hard landing, it’s over. This move says they are comfortable with the direction the economy is moving in,” Paul Markowski, president of New York-based MES Advisers and a long-time investment adviser to China’s monetary authorities, told Reuters.
International investors are certainly in need of something to calm concerns about the health of the global economy after asset markets worldwide were rattled on Friday by a combination of below-par Chinese growth data and renewed fears of contagion risks in the debt-plagued euro zone.
…
“For everybody who thought China was heading for a hard landing, it’s over. This move says they are comfortable with the direction the economy is moving in,”
Their problems are all contained to subprime.
If anyone can bring evidence to light that this Modestoite belonged to the NRA, or even just that he was a conservative Republican voter, I would most certainly appreciate it.
April 15, 2012 5:25 AM
Police: Guns show CA suspect set for confrontation
Fire officials survey the scene of a fire, Friday, April 13, 2012, on the 2100 block of Chrysler Drive in Modesto Calif., at an apartment where a standoff began Thursday morning after gunfire broke out as two Stanislaus County deputies went to the Whispering Woods development to serve an eviction notice. A deputy and a civilian were killed. (AP Photo/The Modesto Bee, Debbie Noda) MAGS OUT; TV OUT; ONLINE OUT
MODESTO, Calif. — Police investigating the death of a man suspected of gunning down a California sheriff’s deputy and a civilian say they’ve found equipment indicating he was preparing for an armed confrontation: a ballistic vest, a gas mask and several weapons including a high-powered assault rifle.
The man’s body was found in the burnt ruins of an apartment building following a fiery standoff with law officers.
The fatal shooting Thursday morning of the deputy and a locksmith during an eviction led to a day-long standoff that ended when the four-unit apartment building caught fire. On Friday, authorities recovered a badly burned body that has not been positively identified. But they said the male is the suspect in the slayings.
The weapons were found close to the suspect’s body along with police-style radios, police said Satursday.
“Investigators also found that the man was wearing a ballistic vest which strongly suggests that the man barricaded himself in the apartment and was preparing himself for an armed confrontation with police,” said Modesto police spokesman Sgt. Brian Findlen.
…
Sorry Professor Bear, the squad ain’t buying it.
“including a high-powered assault rifle”
Corporate media love this meme. Why do they never report a suspect with a moderately-powered assault rifle? Because “assault rifle” doesn’t sound scary enough? And why not add these adjectives when describing the municipalities across the country gearing up with paramilitary equipment, all in the name of “Homeland Security”?
But why would any self-respecting wealthy, conservative, Republican NRA member bother with anything less than a high-powered assault rifle?
Some of them turn their noses up at assault rifles in favor of expensive old collector’s item guns, usually handed down within their families for generations. The lower rung veteran class seems to be more enamored with them.
I have to admit my (Republican
) grandpa’s shotgun is probably still tucked away out of sight somewhere around my parent’s home, and it is probably a collector’s item. I should try to lay claim to it next time I pay my folks a visit.
Carl Morris said: “The lower rung veteran class seems to be more enamored with them.”
Damned right we are. We were real soldiers. If you expect to be successful on the battlefield, you have to have the prevailing soldier’s weapon of the era: The assault rifle. The elite with their ridiculous elephant guns and 20guage shotguns and other antiques are going to get mowed down by guys like me.
About the only elite gun that I’d respect is a 50cal sniper rifle. But then, with a well-formed field unit, one of our guys will have one of those as well. The sniper who foolishly keeps firing from a single position to pin our unit down, will end up meat for our own sniper.
I thought it was the bullets that actually had the power?
How does a rifle become high-powered vs. low-powered?
Any gun collectors know?
Low powered Assault Rifle = Ruger 10/22, with a 30 round banana clip. (Buy the stainless/composite stock version)
Unisex Assault Rifle = Anything chambered in 5.56mm NATO.
Budget Assault Rifle = Anything imported from the Warsaw Pact area (except a Valmet) chambered in 7.62 x 39.
Power-corrupts, no-girlie-men-allowed Assault Rifle = Anything chambered in .308/7.62mm NATO.
X-GS, long time no see. I posted a car related video link hoping you’d see it last Monday. If I see you around in the morning I’ll post it as a reply to you again.
Power-corrupts, no-girlie-men-allowed Assault Rifle = Anything chambered in .308/7.62mm NATO.
I knew I liked you for a good reason, X-GS. I fire 7.62×51 (.308) rounds through a Spanish rifle. I believe I get over 3000 fps out of each one. I have no intention of taking prisoners, only scalps.
Yeah, you got that right. All assault rifles are supposed to be “high-powered”. That’s why you use them for assaults, or as weapons of war. One soldier and his weapon. The Second Amendment says we can own them and use them, since in order to function as a militia, you must first have those rights.
Government-sponsored training would be a nice addition to that, but the Liberals would never allow it, since it gives people the impression that they have the right to keep and bear such armaments.
“Government-sponsored training would be a nice addition to that, but the Liberals would never allow it, since it gives people the impression that they have the right to keep and bear such armaments.”
This liberal would be OK with it if it were attached as a rider to single-payer health care legislation.
“If anyone can bring evidence to light that this Modestoite belonged to the NRA, or even just that he was a conservative Republican voter, I would most certainly appreciate it.”
Fat chance. He was obviously a Democrat. If he had been a conservative Republican, he would have been at work.
I couldn’t think of a really brilliant political stereotype to match yours, so there is my feeble attempt. I do wonder if pervasive hatred of “groupings” of people springs from implacible self contempt.
“If he had been a conservative Republican, he would have been at work.”
You may have me there.
‘I do wonder if pervasive hatred of “groupings” of people springs from implacible self contempt.’
I’m not sure if that is the reason conservative Republicans play that game, or if something else better explains it.
It would be a great question for an anonymous caller to ask Rush.
Sorry PB, I’m a 100% RKBA backer. I love my second amendment. I love my Colt 45 1911.
The first two amendments of the Bill of Rights are so important to this atheist gun-toting libertarian.
No need to apologize to me, Bill. Given that you are an atheist,
I’m glad you at least have the NRA and Libertarian brands of religion to fall back on.
To set the record straight, I am not anti-Second Amendment. I admit I am somewhat of a free rider off my neighbors’ guns and dogs; they own a mix of both, while we own neither. To your average home-invasion robber looking for a place to hit, I doubt they can tell which home’s occupant owns a gun o doesn’t by looking at a row of cookie-cutter McMansions from the street view.
But I do get pretty damn cantankerous when Republican politicians snuggle up to the NRA in order to prove they are sufficiently red-blooded to appease the party’s base. How stoopid do they think the average Republican voter is, to fall for these hystrionics?
NRA membership is a litmus test for Republicans, just like wearing US flag lapel pins.
NRA folks live in this fantasy world, where they think the Second Amendment is the only thing standing between us and tyranny. They think that their weapons will protect them from the untermensch/minority hordes. They don’t realize that they have more in common with the hordes than the ruling elite/oligarchs.
The banksters are thinking above their level. They want NRA-types to keep their delusion, while consolidating an economic tyranny.
The banksters win, every time you see someone purchase a rifle or ammunition using a credit card with a 20% interest rate, because they can’t come up with the cash.
“NRA membership is a litmus test for Republicans, just like wearing US flag lapel pins.”
I honestly have nothing against NRA membership. But I cannot take Republican hypocrites who turn it into a political litmus test.
I honestly have nothing against NRA membership. But I cannot take Republican hypocrites who turn it into a political litmus test.
FWIW, I’m a registered republican and NRA member. However, I vote across party lines, and I black-list the NRA e-mailings.
NRA membership shows that you are one of the “right thinking” people.
NRA membership shows that you are one of the “right thinking” people.
I think about the personal weapon issue every five years at renewal time, and then I try to imagine what we’d be suffering today if we didn’t have 2nd amendment rights, and then I reach for the credit card.
“I think about the personal weapon issue every five years at renewal time, and then I try to imagine what we’d be suffering today if we didn’t have 2nd amendment rights, and then I reach for the credit card.”
This is a legitimate reason to belong to the NRA, as opposed to the reasons that politicians join it.
I assume no bailout monies will be involved with AIG’s reentry into the real estate investing game?
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
Updated April 10, 2012, 7:55 p.m. ET
Real-Estate Redux
AIG Is Planning a Return to U.S. Property Investing
By CRAIG KARMIN And SERENA NG
American International Group Inc. AIG -2.26% is planning to jump back into U.S. property investing, reversing yearslong efforts to downsize its real-estate business in the wake of its near-collapse and government bailout in 2008.
AIG until recently had been dismantling what was once a $24 billion real-estate portfolio packed with trophy properties around the world to help pay back U.S. government loans and keep the company afloat. Its investing has been limited primarily to a few European deals with a single partner.
AIG once bought flashy assets, like Stowe Mountain Lodge in Vermont.
But now AIG is beginning to make plans for fresh investments across the U.S. that will begin later this year.
A real-estate division of the New York-based company has reached out to developers of new apartment buildings in major metropolitan areas, said people familiar with the matter.
“We’ve done multifamily deals with them before, and we’re interested in working with them again,” said Hal Fetner, president and chief executive of New York developer Durst Fetner Residential LLC who has been contacted by AIG about new developments.
…
What’s the difference between this high-profile “currency move” and QE?
China widens yuan band
Government uses currency move to prop up economy
Beginning Monday, central bank will extend Chinese currency’s range against U.S. dollar from 0.5% to 1% in bid to ward off precipitous slowdown.
Is now a good time to buy the dip?
April 13, 2012, 5:48 p.m. EDT
U.S. stocks end worst week of 2012
By Kate Gibson, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks fell Friday, with the major indexes recording their worst week this year, after China reported its economy slowed more than anticipated.
“The market dropped because China’s economy is slowing down more than expected,” said Jim Sloan of Jim Sloan & Associates in Houston, Texas.
“Everybody’s worried and everybody’s unsure if the global economy can stand on its own, and China is a big part of global growth. If it slows too rapidly, that would create a lot of pain. I don’t think it will, but there’s uncertainty,” said Alan Skrainka, chief investment officer at Cornerstone Wealth management LLC.
Still, “after an explosive 30% rise we were due” for a correction, said Skrainka of the market’s climb from its October lows.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA -1.05%) fell 136.99 points, or 1.1%, to close at 12,849.59, leaving it down 1.6% from the prior week, its most substantial weekly hit since the middle of December.
…
See in sidebar:
Investors keep dumping stocks
Outflows from large-cap stock funds continued in March. Photo: Reuters.
Here is a helpful idea for EvilMcDoc:
Where to Wait Out the Great Correction
By Bill Bonner
02/15/12 Rancho Santana, Nicaragua – Tired of running out of time and money? Scrimping and saving just to make ends meet?
Try moving to Harlingen, Texas. The cost of living there is only about 40% of the cost of living in Manhattan.
Here’s Real Time Economics with a report:
You can live more cheaply in a place like Harlingen. You’re almost guaranteed to lower your spending, because there’s not much there to spend money on.
We’ve never been to Harlingen, so maybe we’re wrong, but we imagine it is a pretty slow place. Few fancy restaurants. Few theatres. Few luxury shops. Which makes it hard to part with money.
Of course this improves your cash-flow. But it also allows you the glorious privilege of doing nothing.
…
I’ve been to Harlingen briefly(job interview in 2004). I couldn’t tell the up and down of it but it sure appeared to be an interesting place. It seemed thriving but it very well could have been riding the wave of housing at the time.
Demand for construction and field related engineering oversight in TX was nonstop 2003-???.
South Padre Island is only a few miles away. Some of the best beaches in the country.
“We’ve never been to Harlingen, so maybe we’re wrong, but we imagine it is a pretty slow place. Few fancy restaurants.”
LOL.. the magic of modern technology. google maps reports “Results 21 - 30 of about 5,598 for restaurant near Harlingen, TX”
No, I did not evaluate all 5598 restaurants for the required level of fanciness, but I would assume at the reasonable rate of one dining experience per week that 5598 weeks at 52 weeks/yr would provide 107 years of experience before having to visit the same restaurant twice. Since the typical small restaurant lifetime is about 5 years from build to bankrupt (which is a whole nother credit bubble / home equity loan related phenomenon) and you’ve got a 107 year dining schedule, 19 out of 20 restaurants in the area will never be visited, so I guess WRT to fanciness, you could limit yourself to the upper 5% cream of the crop without ever having to visit the same restaurant twice.
My decades of experience show that the vast majority of people in expensive “cultural” towns can’t afford to participate in the local culture, the cultural activities are almost exclusively attended by financially better off outsiders. Anecdotal experience would be a college buddy who lived within (long) walking distance of soldier field yet never went there, couldn’t afford it after paying his spectacular bills for his dumpy condo. As a mere renter living 90 miles to the north, I could trivially afford to attend any sporting event whenever I wanted pretty much anywhere, so I went to more games than he did, despite living something like 90 times further away.
The general rule is if you live close enough that its not a commute, you can’t afford to go, and vice versa.
People who live in NYC might be able to occasionally save up and visit a fancy French restaurant in NYC, if they’re lucky, but Harlingen residents, with much lower cost of living, should be able to afford to eat at a French restaurant, in France, on a regular basis.
On a bigger picture anecdote, I consider the coasts to be my “flyover country” because unlike coasties, I can actually afford international travel, so I fly over them. For another example, most coasties are lucky if they can scrape up enough nickels and dimes to see Irish culture at the local coastie museum, or more likely, local coastie Irish bar on st patties day … the “flyover” people however can easily afford to “flyover” to Ireland and see it first hand as I’ve done. It was a fun trip.
“But it also allows you the glorious privilege of doing nothing.” Very few people are allowed the privilege of selecting what to do, because they have no “spare” time. Work, commute, sleep, cook, clean, kids, are all the same coastie or flyover… its just that in flyover you have, say, 50 times the spendable cash to fritter away during those rare empty moments.
I’m happy for you that you like international traveling. But for me that was something of my youth and I found lacking in substance. Unless I could live in country for several months or more and that was not limited by money but family and job responsibilities I would prefer to explore in my own back yard (USA). I’ ll take photographing wild horse herds in the Sierras over popular tourist travel and entertainment spots.
“My decades of experience show that the vast majority of people in expensive “cultural” towns can’t afford to participate in the local culture, the cultural activities are almost exclusively attended by financially better off outsiders.”
Simply untrue. Totally untrue. A lot of people may choose not to participate because they are living in these areas because that is where their jobs are. They may choose not to participate because they are too busy doing the day-to-day living parts of their lives. But you don’t have to buy season tickets to the Metropolitan Opera to participate in culture in NYC and you don’t have to attend galas at politically connected arts organizations to participate in culture in Washington. I’m sure that LA and SF and Chicago are the same. You don’t know what you are talking about.
vinceinwaukesha
vinceinwaukesha
I wouldn`t fuque with Polly if I were you.
PS
Your college buddy didn`t miss anything, there hasn`t been anything worth watching at Soldier Field since 1986.
I can’t vouch for NYC (where population is much denser, hence unavoidable,) than LA, but vince’s observations ring true for coastal Southern California. Although I’m not certain it might qualify as “cultural,” the environs around Disneyland are a classic example of folks living in proximity who’ve never done anything but drive past the place.
The Music Centers in OC and downtown LA are populated with out-of-towners while the locals don’t even know they’re there. The private beaches are devoid of homeowners except on summer holiday weekends, and about the only cultural events regularly attended by the “neighbors” are the Doo Dah parade and the public lecture series at CalTech in Pasadena and to a lesser extent the arts festivals in Venice and Bev Hills.
Orange County? Fergit it. By the time people finish laboring to make their mortgage payment, all they want to do in the evenings is kick back in front of the TV. And the weekends are for shopping– which, one supposes,is a cultural activity of a sort.
But Vince is specifically stating that locals don’t participate in local cultural activities because they can’t afford it. Very different than noting that they don’t do it. This is his wording, “My decades of experience show that the vast majority of people in expensive “cultural” towns can’t afford to participate in the local culture, the cultural activities are almost exclusively attended by financially better off outsiders.”
Most of the cultural stuff I do around DC is free. Does everyone do what I do? No, because they either don’t care or have other priorities. That has nothing to do with being able to afford it or not. I would love for someone to come up with a type of cultural experience that I couldn’t find for free or close to it in this area. One that is reserved only for wealthy outsiders. Pick the expensive item and I will find you something in the same vein for a fraction of the price or for free. It takes a while to get to know an area well enough to do it, but it is not impossible.
OK you are arguing (very well) that cheap culture is available in big cities, given some effort. OK I’ll agree that a segment of cultural activity is cheap, at least cheap upfront cost (hmm if my overtime labor rate is currently $46.50 and I don’t enjoy saving money, which is a fine hobby, its just not my hobby, I have to invest roughly less than an hour effort per $50 saved or its cheaper for me to pick up an extra project and pay the higher price). That one small segment exists does not prevent the existence of expensive activity.
My argument is on the payment side.
1) Household income a mere 100K in an area where my really nice house only cost 125K, admittedly in 2000. Since then it roughly doubled and then collapsed back to around 150K, probably with further drops to go. A realistic “income based” price would probably be just above 100. But I get that cheap housing by living 90 miles from Chicago, which is supposedly the sole font of culture to drink from in my area… supposedly.
2) My buddy with household income much higher at 150K in an area where condos are/were 500K. He lives in Chicago, a long walk from soldier field, that museum covered peninsula (is that called the grant park neighborhood?) etc. Poor guy had to eat Ramen and mac-n-cheese most nights back when I knew him.
Obviously I can afford far more cultural activity than my buddy because I have a large multiple of his “spendable cash” remaining after paying his extravagant housing expenses. My “who cares” budget has at least one more zero on it than his budget. He might have the inside track on finding cheap entertainment, which is good, since it’s all he can afford due to housing costs. But I can find cheap things on google too…
Regardless of if “fun” costs $100/hr or $1/hr, my not living in the big city (or coasts, etc), means I can inherently afford more of it. I’ll have a commute, but the “demands of life” limit my chances to experience culture anyway. Lets say I have one week per year equivalent to bask in culture. Money is NOT going to be the limiting reagent for me during that week because I don’t live in the city, but for someone living in the city, every penny must be pinched.
Its a variant of the CA (or was it FL?) “sunshine tax” argument for the bubble. You should expect to pay 5 times as much for a home here, because this 10 million person metro area has a symphony that 500 people regularly attend.
The other problem is mass media, the printing press, the internet, etc. I get to see Hamlet locally, about 5 miles away, on father’s day weekend this year. Believe it or not, its not all “Deliverance” outside cities with cupcake stores and pirate stores. Yes, its only showing for one weekend, I’m sure in NYC there’s 20 shows every night of the year, but I only have limited time anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I fail to attend 19 other performances or fail to attend performances that don’t exist here. It probably offends some coasties that I get to experience live Shakespeare without having paid “enough” for my house… they paid big money for the opportunity that I’m not paying big money for.
So we’ve gone from, “My decades of experience show that the vast majority of people in expensive “cultural” towns can’t afford to participate in the local culture” to I know a guy who bought an overpriced condo who doesn’t go to museums he could walk to.
Yeah, no thanks. I’ll live where I can decide to do something interesting and cheap any night or weekend I have the time. I don’t want to have the cultural part of my life limited to vacations.
Oh, and as for free Shakespeare? I’ll put the production of Othello (with Raul Julia and Christopher Walken) and The Tempest (with Patrick Stewart) that I saw in Central Park agains your local production of Hamlet any day of the week.
“The Music Centers in OC and downtown LA are populated with out-of-towners while the locals don’t even know they’re there.”
Interesting. Can you provide further information on where and how this hidden industry operates?
Anecdotal only. But I lived among the cultural elite for the better part of my first half, and found participation more in the form of lip-service than season tickets.
For one thing, getting there requires driving– often on Friday or Saturday night. (Thursday night at the Hwd Bowl being a noted exception for local aficionados.) For another thing, nouveau riche and symphonic don’t necessarily mix well. The wimmins must dress up and drag the menfolk– who let’s face it would prefer to be relaxing with a football game and a good cigar.
By way of example, I went to the opening gala of the OC Music Center– the “cultural event of the century” by many press accounts, (tix began at 2K a head IIRC,–I got in on a lottery,) and the rustling from the sequins was so loud it drowned out the commissioned dedication piece. People jabbered throughout the performance, checked their pagers constantly, squirmed and fidgeted like three-year-olds, (let me amend that, WORSE than my three-year-old who at least had the good manners to listen attentively and quietly at that age.) And THESE were the “supporters” and city movers and shakers.
Yes, there are a few die-hard supporters of the symphony and outreach, but other than a few select performances a season, they tend to give their seats to out-of-town visitors or clients they need to impress. Surely you must see this in SD?
When I lived in Emerald Bay, I often had a hard time getting anyone to go with me, so I eventually just bought one season ticket and enjoyed sitting wherever in the hall I wanted. My contention is that other than a core of family members, academics, and the truly dedicated, support for the performing arts is largely a status thing, not a genuinely appreciated entertainment option.
“……tend to give their seats to out-of-towners……”
The hot ticket around here is Saturday night at the dirt track.
Or Friday night at the KC Royals……only because of the post-game fireworks show.
“OC Music Center”
Been there. Also went to college where the PSO’s music director used to be a music professor.
I checked his resume. He has done a lot since he was a professor; so much that there is no mention of that slice of his past association with my alma mater on his resume (his first gig after leaving school…).
True and not true. Large cities often have all kinds of stuff - concerts, letctures, etc.. that are free. Large cities also have competitive dining scenes - DC tends to be a bit exspense account focused. But in San Fran where I lived for 5 years you have a large single population with relatively high incomes. Within a 3/4 mile radius of my apartment there were at least 150 restaurants that were inexspensive - dinner for about $10 - $15 tax and tip included (no drink.) So I could eat out two or three times a week. There also were of course many upscale places.
Housing may be less in flyover country but not healthcare or gasoline. Wages are less too. Though the thought of living in a quieter less dense place is very appealing
I bet many of the 5K places near Harington are fast food chains.Nothing wrong with that. I like Bob Evans, Taco Bell and Burger King. Up here in Suburban Boston where I am temporarly for a contract - not many fast food chains.
South Padre Island is absolutely beautiful.
Want to know how screwed up our so called “free-market” economy is? Just look at pay scales.
Logic would suggest that getting anyone to live in, say, Leoti, Kansas, Guymon, Oklahoma or Dumas (Dumbass), Texas would require the civilian equivalent of hazardous duty/hardship pay.
Reality is that nobody pays squat out there.
The only exception is the Bakken Gold Rush. Salaries are great up there. So are expenses. And those jobs are almost all going away, once the drilling is done, and the infrastructure to move the product is built.
One nice thing about it. These are all Red States, which means minimal interference in whatever damage is being done to the local geology…….Koch and all the other oil companies say it’s safe, so it must be true. A nice little “reap what you sew” scenario has been developed..
All good things come to an end.
Flood of foreclosures to hit the housing market
By Les Christie @CNNMoney April 13, 2012: 5:33 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The golden age for foreclosure squatters may soon be coming to an end now that the $26 billion mortgage settlement has been approved.
The settlement, agreed to by the nation’s five largest mortgage lenders, is expected to speed up the foreclosure process by providing stricter guidelines for the banks to follow when repossessing homes.
The banks involved include Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Citibank (C, Fortune 500), Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) and Ally Financial.
Many foreclosures have been in limbo since fall 2010 following the so-called robo-signing scandal, when banks allowed employees to sign off on thousands of foreclosure documents a month with little verification.
Lenders hit the pause button on foreclosures because they “were afraid that anything they did would be under a microscope,” said Eric Higgins, a professor of business at Kansas State University.
As a result, borrowers who were seriously delinquent on their loans have been able to stay in their homes for months or even years without making a single payment. Nationwide, the average time it takes to foreclose on a home — from the first missed payment to the final bank repossession — stretched to 370 days during the first quarter, almost twice as long as it took five years ago, according to Daren Blomquist, the marketing director at RealtyTrac.
Foreclosure free ride: 3 years, no mortgage payment
In some states, delinquent borrowers have been squatting in their homes much longer. In Florida, the average time was 861 days, and in New York it was 1,056 days — close to three years.
“Perhaps a million foreclosures could have been pursued last year but weren’t,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president for real estate investment company, Carrington Holdings.
But that’s all about to change, he said. “We’re going to see an increase in the speed of foreclosures and a higher number of foreclosure starts.”
In fact, there are indications that the pace of foreclosures are already starting to pick up.
…
Does anyone have any idea what % of countrywides loans were sold off to wall street vs the GSE’s during the housing boom?
The GSEs could not compete with wall street lending. They ended up buying RMBS pools, which is where they got in the most trouble. I think Countrywide put up $400 billion…a large percentage of the market.
We had another nice trip to Legoland yesterday. I was shocked at the number of helicopter parents following their kids around with iPad video rolling, oblivious to anything but “the shot.” Does anyone live in the moment anymore?
Also, two financial matters: I have successfully avoided Bank of Dad for a few more months through school improvement bonuses. Yes, that’s right. A onus for doing my job. Kinda silly. FL legislature cut the contribution to my retirement by 3%.
I’m not sure I can afford to stay in FL or even afford to eventually retire. I did a quick calculation based on what I think my average will be, and we’ll have $180k after 30 more years (that’s me and my wife combined!).
I need to move to one of those states 2Banana hates.
A lot of things can change in 30 years Muggy.
In 30 years YOU will be the Bank of Dad. Buckle up!
“A lot of things can change in 30 years Muggy.”
I’m counting on Boomer retirements to be able to slide back to an upstate district. I figure if I turn around 2-3 more high schools in the next 3-5 years here, I’ll be able to get an admin. job in Syr or Roch.
The kids will barely remember Florida.
“I was shocked at the number of helicopter parents following their kids around with iPad video rolling, oblivious to anything but “the shot.” Does anyone live in the moment anymore?”
This guy lived in the moment and I am willing to bet he was shopping for Fruit of the looms this weekend.
TUT
Texting while walking man walks into a bear - YouTube
4 days ago … Texting while walking man walks into a bear … testby GaryCraig96566 views; Texting Man Comes Face To Face With A Bear “Raw Video” 4/10 …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMl7hZY2rhY - 99k -
“man walks into a bear”
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHAAAAA! That’s awesome.
Snort
You know, as soon as I hit ‘add comment’ I thought, “Whoops, I am such an asshole.”
It’s easy to forget that not everyone who crosses paths with a bear comes out so lucky.
We are so lucky to still have Alena here posting and sharing her great perspective on almost everything…
I love your line so much, Mugster, I’m appropriating it for my book.
It’s just so perfect.
What do people have against bears?
Damn racist…
Muggy,
As many of us preach here live below your means. My memory from previous posts is that your budget is kind tight that is expenses also equal income? (Yes I realized you probably don’t live extravegently.) A small savings here and there manage to add up. It shocks me how much money I have accumulated by being frugal. Also don’t worry about retirement. It’s not healthy - at least going out to pasture at 65 when life expectancy is much higher. But working part time - say 2.5 to 3 days a week will provide $ sercuity and healthy benefits.
Good luck
“My memory from previous posts is that your budget is kind tight that is expenses also equal income?”
Correct, but only because my wife is in grad school and we have two kids in daycare. Both issues will conclude within 2 years.
I.Can’t.Wait
Why?
So you can become a public union government leech also?
So you can force (through the power of the public union control of the local/state governments) everyone else into the poor house due to insane taxes?
Is that is what you aspire to?
Here is a hint. All those states are going bankrupt. And your union brothers will be the FIRST to throw you under the bus (last in, first out) to preserve their insane benefits and pensions for even one more year if you somehow manage to get a public union goon job.
I need to move to one of those states 2Banana hates.
I am aware of all of this, dude. It’s part of the daily conundrum that keeps me staring at the ceiling when I should be sleeping.
It’s also why I will most likely stay in Florida. I have a unique grasp and appreciation of the insane tapestry that constitutes this swamp ass state,and yet, somehow we thrive.
Sort of.
“So you can become a public union government leech also?”
Is that supposed to be some kind of Kochtopus code word for school teacher?
Notice how the Republicans want to turn the U.S.A. into a Third World country, consisting of Ivy League-educated 1%ers, and a dumbed-down, easily-manipulated 99% of the rest of us?
Bank of America’s payoff to Florida homeowners draws 678 short sales
Thousands more homeowners pursue incentives of up to $20,000.
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 9:43 p.m. Friday, April 13, 2012
Bank of America’s payoff to Florida homeowners who do a short sale instead of dragging out a foreclosure has averaged $12,000 per deal and helped close 678 contracts statewide since it debuted in October.
The Florida-only plan originally targeted 20,000 homeowners with incentives of between $5,000 and $20,000 to forgo the more than two-year foreclosure process and leave their home in “broom swept” condition for a new owner.
Bank of America spokesman Rick Simon said the Charlotte, N.C.-based company remains “enthused” about the pilot program, which generated 3,900 purchase offers and 11,000 verbal agreements from customers who said they were interested in participating.
“We’ve quietly done a little experimentation with a similar plan in one of the non-judicial states, but we are not to the point of announcing a major expansion,” said Simon, adding that monthly short sale volume has more than doubled this year.
“Of particular note is the response from ‘hand-raisers’ who heard about the program and asked to be included without us reaching out to them.”
But Realtors and real estate attorneys gave the program mixed reviews, saying there are still a lot of unknowns, such as how the amount awarded is calculated and what the requirements are to qualify.
In March, Florida ranked fourth nationally in foreclosure activity, with one in every 336 homes receiving some type of foreclosure notice, according to a RealtyTrac report that was released Thursday.
The same report said it takes an average of 861 days to foreclose on a home in Florida.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/bank-of-americas-payoff-to-florida-homeowners-draws-2303359.html -
“In March, Florida ranked fourth nationally in foreclosure activity, with one in every 336 homes receiving some type of foreclosure notice, according to a RealtyTrac report”
The house I am currently renting has recieved to LPs in 2 years, the first being dismissed a year ago after the DB LL was given a workout plan and the second last week. The house I rented before this one had gone almost 3 years without the DB LL making a mortgage payment. Niether house has ever shown up on a RealtyTrac report.
TUT
This is stunning. Banks are paying people to leave their houses. This is sooooo bizarre and beyond my wildest imaginations from 2006.
I still can’t believe it.
I want a cheap house, btw.
It’s also OPM (i.e. your tax dollars) which pays for lawncare and other upkeep expenses on multiple thousands of foreclosure homes which are kept off the market indefinitely in order to not further depress prices to market-clearing levels, so that you can’t buy one for cheap.
The Cost Of Owning 150,000 Foreclosed Homes
by Tamara Keith
Listen to the Story
Morning Edition
[4 min 24 sec]
A lawn maintenance worker mows the lawn of a foreclosed Lanham, Md., home. Fannie Mae spends tens of millions of dollars a year just on lawn maintenance for the more than 150,000 foreclosed properties on its books.
Tamara Keith/NPR
July 7, 2011
When you are the nation’s largest owner of foreclosed homes, even little things can get expensive fast. Such is the case for mortgage giant Fannie Mae, which as of March 31 had a mind-boggling 153,000 foreclosed homes on its books.
One example — mowing the lawn. Two men swoop in on a foreclosed town house in Lanham, Md., quickly mowing and edging the small front yard. Fannie Mae owns this home, so it’s paying for the lawn crew to come every two weeks or so to keep up the curb appeal.
But it’s not just this lawn. There are tens of thousands more. Fannie Mae officials won’t say how many lawns it’s paying to maintain, so we’ve done some back-of-the-envelope calculations of our own:
Say only half of the homes have lawns, a conservative estimate, that’s still more than 75,000 lawns.
153,000/2
X 6 (a six-month grass-clipping season)
X 2 (mowing twice a month)
X $40 (a reasonable guess at how much it costs to mow a lawn)
= $36.7 million
Again, this is very rough estimate, but that’s a whole lot of money to spend on lawn care.
An Expensive Upkeep
It makes them — I think — indisputably the largest purchaser of paint and general appliances for these homes they’re fixing up.
- Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance.
“This is just one of the costs that Fannie and the rest of us will pay to dig out of a very big hole,” says Karen Petrou, who watches Fannie Mae’s books closely at her firm Federal Financial Analytics.
When she says “the rest of us,” she means it. Fannie Mae’s tab from U.S. taxpayers is up to $86 billion since September 2008 when it was taken into government conservatorship.
In just the first quarter of this year, Fannie racked up $488 million in foreclosure-related expenses, including holding costs (insurance, taxes and maintenance); valuation adjustments for changes in market value; gains/loss when the property is sold; legal fees; eviction costs; weatherization costs to prevent the pipes from bursting; costs to secure the property; and repair costs.
At that town house in Lanham, Md., the repair costs will add up to nearly $15,000. Chipped bold paint colors are covered with a neutral tone; a stolen air conditioning unit and missing copper pipes are replaced; new light fixtures and wall-to-wall carpeting are installed.
“We want to make sure that we’re comparable with the market or with the neighborhood,” says Elonda Crocket, an executive at Fannie Mae who deals with managing its massive portfolio of foreclosed properties.
…
These monsters must be shutdown.
My only thought is that it must be OPM (e.g. your tax dollars) at work here, in providing forbearance to millions of homeowners with defaulted mortgages, then in providing payments to get people to leave.
A banker would never pay for these things out of a bank’s profits, especially if his own paycheck was on the line.
I am so tired of chosen …just give ‘em all the money
FARGO – Executives of Cetero Research could receive bonuses collectively topping $1 million under a proposal the firm has made in its bankruptcy case.
The company, which has a major drug-testing research center in Fargo, is asking a bankruptcy judge to approve a “key employee incentive plan” that would reward executives and managers
In particular, the greatest burden has fallen on a core group of employees … that are responsible for making substantially all executive, managerial, and operational decisions vital to the preservation and maintenance of the going concern value of Cetero’s estates,” the company said in its motion.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/357220/group/News/
WFC and JPM = $200 billion. Good thing only $3 billion are troubled, I would have guessed more, but what do I know..
April 13 (Bloomberg) — Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. labeled $3.3 billion of junior liens as bad assets after regulators pushed the nation’s biggest banks to rethink the value of second mortgages whose collateral has vanished.
Wells Fargo held $103.5 billion home-equity loans and lines of credit at the end of March, decreasing from $106.6 billion in December. JPMorgan’s dropped to $97.5 billion at the end of the quarter from $100.5 billion at year-end
Bankers including Wells Fargo Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf have responded that American borrowers tend to meet their obligations and pay their bills as long as they are able, regardless of whether the value of their homes has declined. That’s because they want to keep access to the account and draw on the unused portion of their credit lines,
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/04/13/bloomberg_articlesM2FAC01A74E901-M2FMX.DTL#ixzz1s75ykq7r
Realtors Are Stunningly Unethical®
Rotating from the logical to the poetica, eye like it!
All in the valley of Debt
Rode the six million.
“Forward, the Debt Brigade!
“Charge for the short sales!” he said:
Into the valley of Debt
Rode the six million.
“Forward, the Debt Brigade!”
Was there a Deadbeat dismay’d?
Not tho’ the Deadbeat knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs was but to walk and buy:
Into the valley of Debt
Rode the six million.
TUT
US home-buying season finally signaling a recovery
By DEREK KRAVITZ The Associated Press
Posted: 10:06 a.m. Sunday, April 15, 2012
WASHINGTON — Five years after the U.S. housing bust sent sales and prices plunging, the spring home-buying season is pointing to a long-awaited recovery.
Reduced prices, record-low mortgage rates, higher rents and an improving job market appear to be emboldening many would-be buyers. Open houses are drawing crowds. A wave of foreclosures is leading investors to grab bargain-priced homes.
And many people seem to have concluded that prices won’t drop much further. In some areas, prices have begun to tick up.
Interviews with more than two dozen potential buyers, sellers, brokers, Realtors and economists suggest that confidence is up and that sales will move slowly but steadily higher.
“The biggest challenge that we’ve had over the past four years is fear — fear that the economy is collapsing, that property values are collapsing, that the world is coming to an end,” says Mark Prather, a broker at ERA Buy America Real Estate in La Palma, Calif. “The fear factor is all but gone.”
Prather says the number of prospective buyers who contacted his company last month was about 35 percent more than a year ago.
The spring buying season got an early lift-off from an uncommonly warm January and February — a winter that was the best for sales of previously occupied homes in five years. Permits to build houses and apartments rose in February to their highest level since 2008.
“People feel much more confident,” said Steve Brown, co-owner of real estate company Irongate Inc. of Dayton, Ohio, who says sales jumped more than 16 percent for the first two months of 2012 over the same period last year. “There’s no question there’s a good feeling in the marketplace.”
Some analysts detected a slight uptick in prices for February and March. CoreLogic, a real estate data firm, says prices for homes not at risk of foreclosure — about two thirds of the market — rose 0.7 percent in February. It was the first increase in four years. Price gains occurred both in some hard-hit areas, such as Phoenix, and some still-thriving areas like New York and Washington.
In Miami, the average sales price has surged 14 percent in the past year, according to Trulia, a real estate data firm. In Phoenix, the average is up 13 percent, in Pittsburgh 9 percent.
Earnings reports Friday from two big banks suggested that more people are taking out mortgages. JPMorgan Chase issued 6 percent more mortgages from January through March than it did a year ago and got 33 percent more applications. Wells Fargo issued 54 percent more mortgages and received 84 percent more applications.
Still, few think the housing industry is nearing a return to full health. For that to happen, a robust job market would be needed. More hiring would give more people the money and job security to buy. That would help boost sales and prices.
Such areas as Atlanta, suburban Las Vegas and central California show few signs of recovery. And in some others — from Seattle to Cleveland — home prices have continued to slip. The average has dropped 9 percent in Seattle over the past 12 months and 7 percent in Cleveland.
But in many parts of the country, including thriving areas of Boston, Dallas and Seattle, confidence is rising along with prices. Among the reasons:
— Hiring has strengthened. Each month from January through March generated a solid average of 212,000 jobs. Unemployment has sunk from 9.1 percent in August to 8.2 percent. More job security tends to embolden more people to invest in a home. In Dayton, for example, the University of Dayton is hiring for a new engineering research center, General Electric is hiring hundreds of contractors and the nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base are expanding.
— Loans remain cheap. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is 3.88 percent. That’s just above the 3.87 percent reached in February — the lowest since long-term mortgages were first offered in the 1950s.
— Homes are more affordable. Nationwide, home prices are down 34 percent since 2006.
— Americans are more confident. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s survey of consumer confidence rose in March for a seventh straight month to its highest level in 13 months.
Also fueling interest are signs that home values are finally stabilizing. One factor that had slowed purchases after the housing boom ended in late 2006 was fear that a home would lose value soon after its purchase.
Foreclosures to right of them,
Foreclosures to left of them,
Short sales in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with HAMP and HARP,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Debt,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six million.
TUT
Angelo Mozillo is-a-smilin & a tappin’ his foot to the beat of yer tune, that is eye should say, he & his “Financial Innovation” pal$
“US home-buying season finally signaling a recovery”
This article may be signaling yet another failure by serial bottom callers to nail the bottom with their perennial stopped-clock bottom call.
Maybe next year?
Empty houses back in service in West Palm Beach
By Dennis Glade Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:41 p.m. Saturday, April 14, 2012
The Wells Fargo Foundation presented Neighborhood Renaissance with a $100,000 grant from its Leading the Way Home Priority Markets Initiative, which is part of a nationwide effort to make more workforce housing available while rebuilding neighborhoods affected by foreclosures.
The renovation costs are being reimbursed to Renaissance from an $11.5 million federal grant provided through the county’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
The federal grant came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus law, and targeted at communities hardest-hit by the housing crisis. .
That grant money is being channeled to Palm Beach County, which then reimburses the nonprofit for the renovations.
The 74 houses, foreclosed on by various banks, are located throughout the county .
Neighborhood Renaissance plans to have the renovations of 12 more completed within three months, and all 74 finished by December.
Terri Murray, executive director of Neighborhood Renaissance, said that all of the properties needed a lot of work .
Mathis’ home, for example, required $22,000 of rehabilitation work. The next 12 homes will cost between $51,000 and $117,000 to repair, with an average of $65,000.
Murray said the biggest challenge was getting the homes up to current Florida code. Most were built between the 1950s and 1970s.
Half the homes will go to families of four with incomes of $36,150 or less. The other half will be for families of four with an income of $86,150 or less.
When an individual or family applies to buy a home in the Neighborhood Renaissance program, Murray said, the nonprofit helps find a lender for them.
The money from the sale of the home goes back to the county, and may go to help pay for additional houses to be repaired.
“The grant is effectively not a one-shot thing,” Murray said. “It is recycled to help future families.”
In this time of affordable housing need, Murray said, it’s important for banks to step to the front of the housing crisis.
“I think they share a lot of the responsibility in the foreclosure mess and I think they are stepping up. And it’s in their best business interest to do so,” Murray said.
Kelly Kinsell, senior community development officer for the Wells Fargo Foundation, said its housing effort represents a push by lenders, legislators and nonprofits to join together to combat the housing crisis.
For Mathis, though, it’s a simpler equation. Having a roomier, three-bedroom home with a backyard will lead to a lot more happiness for her family, she said.
“We can’t wait to have barbecues and family parties,” Mathis said. “My husband and I are big family people and actually now can have family get-togethers and not have to cram everyone into a small living room.”
——————————————————————————–
How to get started
To contact Neighborhood Renaissance:
•Christina Hewitt, (561) 832-6776, Ext. 104;
Chewitt@neighborhoodrenaissance.org
•Lashea Brooks, (561) 832-6776, Ext. 103;
Lbrooks@neighborhoodrenaissance.org
•Web: http://www.neighborhoodrenaissance.org
.
“effort represents a push by lenders, legislators and nonprofits to join together to combat the housing crisis.”
Lower your prices and sell your motherflipping shadow inventory.
Dear everybody, I may NEVER BUY A HOUSE.
“Dear everybody, I may NEVER BUY A HOUSE.”
Hang on Mugster, eyes working a $olution fer ya … the Gettysburg / DC / Philadelphia / NYC / Boston / Chicago Amtrak tour this summer is me speed bump, after that, … it’s Damn-the-torpedo’s!
Mugster…. it’s not about buying a house anymore it’s about taking down the housing crime syndicate or at least exposing them for what they are.
Yup. The more exposure, the better!
I’m not optimistic in this way RAL. They’ve already been exposed, and people… still… want houses.
Empty houses back in service in West Palm Beach
By Dennis Glade Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:41 p.m. Saturday, April 14, 2012
How to get started
To contact Neighborhood Renaissance:
•Christina Hewitt, (561) 832-6776, Ext. 104;
Chewitt@neighborhoodrenaissance.org
•Web: http://www.neighborhoodrenaissance.org
To contact K-VAR Corporation for the AK47 you will need to move into your empty house.
•CALL US: 702-364-8880
http://www.k-var.com/shop/product.php?productid=17015 - 57k - Cached - Similar pages
•Neighborhood Renaissance recomends the SGL21 (Saiga) before any attempt to have backyard barbecues or family parties.
SGL21 (Saiga) - Black Stockset Russian made stamped receiver, 7.62×39 caliber, chrome lined hammer forged barrel, front sight block with bayonet lug and 24×1.5 right-hand threads, muzzle brake, standard mil-spec. handguards with stainless steel heat shield and Warsaw length buttstock, 1000 meter rear sight leaf, scope rail, accessory lug. Comes with 5rd. magazine!
Accepts any standard AK-47 Double Stack Mil. Spec. Magazine.
SPECIFICATIONS:
• Caliber: 7.62 x 39 mm
• Total Length: 861 mm (33 7/8 in.)
• Barrel Length: 415 mm (16.3 in.)
• Rifling: 4 grooves
• Twist Rate: 1 in 240 mm (9.44 in.)
• Weight without Magazine: 3.24 kg (7.15 lbs.)
• Muzzle Velocity: 710 m/s (2,329 fps)
• Effective Range: 500 m (550 yds)
• Maximum Range: 1,350 m (1,480 yds)
• Rear Sight Range: 1000 m (1,094 yds)
From the Northern Virginia Housing Bubble Fallout blog:
“Northern Virginia’s March 2012 housing sales were down .9% YoY, and median prices were up 10.4% to $365,000. The average days on the market was flat at 69 days.”
All real estate is local, In NOVa, buy now or be priced out forever.
Blah, blah, & blah … or is it; Rah, Rah, Sis Boom Bah! ?
Top 10 dying industries in U.S.
By JAN NORMAN / OC Register
Published: April 13, 2012
COSTUME AND TEAM UNIFORM MANUFACTURING - Most of this work is now done in other countries where labor costs are lower, according to IBISWorld, a financial information publisher and analyst. Average annual revenue losses have 6.7% since 2002 to $987 million in 2012. IBISWorld projects revenue will fall to $889.6 million by 2017.
Outsourcing (contracting with a third party) and offshoring (placing factories overseas) have hit dozens of sectors of U.S. manufacturing, IBISWorld says. Everything from shoes to doorknobs is now made in other countries for sale in this country.
The big incentive for outsourcing and offshoring is lower labor costs, the report notes. The average wage at a U.S. apparel manufacturing plan was $33,579 a year in 2010. In China it was $2,250; in Vietnam, $1,152; and in Indonesia, $1,089.
Others of the top 10 dying industries have been hit by technological advances, IBISWorld says. “Many traditional industries fail to embrace new technologies to meet changing consumer preferences and ultimately fall under new waves of competition.”
The other blow was the financial crisis that prompted new federal laws regulating banks and other financial companies. For example, in exchange for access to capital, the Federal Reserve has pushed banks owned by unregulated financial companies into commercial banking status.
Oh, yeah eyes forgot to post yesterday:
(remember the theory of laundromat + quarters + mafia?)
Here’s a new concept in San Francisco, eye tell the future (of dirty laundry?) looks “bright” in America!
http://tinyurl.com/77kh36u
There’s that word again!: ‘imminent’
O.C. real estate recovery ‘imminent’
OC Register / posted by Jeff Collins / April 15th, 2012
Us: Bryan, talk about timing. You joined the BIA-OC in 2005, just before the housing crash hit. Did you ever expect things still would be this bad seven years later?
Bryan: Absolutely not. I entered the industry at the peak of the market. In 2005 our industry was struggling to meet demand and the real estate industry was driving our nation’s economy. When it hit, the harsh effects of the crash seemed to leave us all reeling for answers. I distinctly remember sitting in a meeting in the summer of 2008 and feeling troubled by our economist’s prediction of a 2010 recovery. I haven’t encountered anyone in the industry that expected such a prolonged depression of housing.
Us: How bad are things?
Bryan: Actually, we have felt a genuine mood change amongst our membership. The first quarter of 2012 has been relatively positive in Orange County. All indications point towards an incremental improvement in the O.C. housing market this year. Job growth, attractive value pricing and record low interest rates seem to driving consumers back to our market.
Us: What signs of recovery do you see, if any?
Bryan: Real estate recovery in O.C. seems to be imminent. Our optimism is spurred by the level of land entitlement activity that has been occurring around here. That, plus the flurry of activity surrounding the highly anticipated Rancho Mission Viejo development, shows us that our county is on the verge of a positive market shift. The most notable increase in home construction has been in the multi-family (for rent) sector. In the past year, BIA has witnessed a significant push towards infill/multifamily investment targeting the healthy rental market throughout Orange County.
Us: O.C. homebuilding sales numbers have been positive since 2010, due mainly to the Irvine Co. homebuilding initiative. Outside Irvine, are things as bad for O.C. homebuilders as they are in the rest of SoCal?
Bryan: For the first time in a few years, we can honestly say that things are looking up. Admittedly, it is unlikely that there will be a sudden or overwhelming spike in our market. Instead, we should all anticipate a gradual and sustainable improvement in O.C.’s housing market. As for the Irvine Co., our association is grateful for their leadership and we celebrate their continued success. The consumer demand for their innovative products has inspired many of their industry colleagues. It’s probably safe to say that they have reminded our industry of the potential of the O.C. housing market.
The zombie files: Nearly 7,000 stagnating foreclosure cases lie dormant in Palm Beach County’s courts
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:40 p.m. Saturday, April 14, 2012
Nearly 7,000 stagnating foreclosure cases lie dormant in Palm Beach County’s courts, creating a payment-free limbo for some homeowners but a stain of vacant and abandoned homes in deteriorating neighborhoods.
These sleeper files, which have remained inactive for a year or longer, date as far back as 1997, according to documents provided to The Palm Beach Post by the clerk of courts.
But most are from the early years of the housing crash when lenders feverishly sought to repossess homes, unaware that the frenetic pace would cause a second crisis based on faulty documents and unlawful corner-cutting.
While an unknown number of dormant files are mistakes, such as one party forgetting to request a dismissal after an agreement is reached, others remain open but unmoving because of homeowner bankruptcy, loan modification negotiations or bank neglect.
“I have no idea what’s going on and I’m not pushing it,” said Robert Feinson, a Jupiter resident whose case has sat idle since November 2010, more than two years after his lender initially filed for foreclosure against him. “Right now, we’re just waiting to see who is going to make the next move.”
The 6,927 zombie files make up about 17 percent of Palm Beach County’s 39,252 foreclosure cases.
The banks with the largest number of dormant cases include Bank of America (670), JPMorgan Chase (602) and Deutsche Bank (546).
The fix is in people:
Taxed by the boss
By David Cay Johnston
April 12, 2012
Across the United States more than 2,700 companies are collecting state income taxes from hundreds of thousands of workers – and are keeping the money with the states’ approval, says an eye-opening report published on Thursday.
The report from Good Jobs First, a nonprofit taxpayer watchdog organization funded by Ford, Surdna and other major foundations, identifies 16 states that let companies divert some or all of the state income taxes deducted from workers’ paychecks. None of the states requires notifying the workers, whose withholdings are treated as taxes they paid.
General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and AMC Theatres enjoy deals to keep state taxes deducted from their workers’ paychecks, the report shows. Foreign companies also enjoy such arrangements, including Electrolux, Nissan, Toyota and a host of Canadian, Japanese and European banks, Good Jobs First says.
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/04/12/taxed-by-the-boss/
The fool will blame the dastardly corporations but the smart person will place the blame where it really belongs- with the elected officials who allow it to happen. They are the enablers.
This smells similar to some things I’ve sen at work. If this is the same thing, it isn’t that the workers’ taxes aren’t being paid. It is tha the amounts kept are amounts that the state promised to the company for, for example, moving jobs to the state (or not moving jobs away from the state).
Here is the problem. This keeps the payments from the state to the company out of the state’s line item budget. If you used normal accounting, the employees would pay their taxes. That money would go into the state general funds. The state would then pay out the money to the company as agreed on in the “bribe the company to keep their back office jobs here” deal. It means that most people (or even most state reps) who look over their state budget figures and who don’t remember that the deal was made, have no line item looking them in the face as what that deal cost the state.
I strongly suspect this is happening more and more. Good on this group for pointing it out.
Exactly!
It allow the state to hide the $$$$ going to corporate welfare.
There is no one to point out - “social services outlay are down 10% this year, but corporate welfare is up 20%”.
“They are the enablers.”
Why would an “Ethical” & “Profeessional” CorporationInc. “person” even attempt to meet with an elected official on a free-trip provided golf course in Jackson, WY to discu$$ @ the 19th hole over cheap martini’s, thang$ that would greatly benefit all the peon-citizen/taxpayer$ in their respective domain, that’s just $imply “inconceivable!”
They enable it, because they are blackmailed into it by the corporations.
Local politicians, unlike those in Washington, realize that there is no such thing as a “make the pie bigger” economy, at least when it comes to manufacturing jobs.
They know that if they don’t hand out free employee training, free land, free buildings and infrastructure, and bribes-by-another name, the whores in Texas, Mississippi and South Carolina will.
Free Market my azz.
Sapped out:
“He has a checking account with $826.04 in it. He has a savings account with $339.31 in it. His current debts tally up to $6.7 million. No small task for a man who signed three NFL contracts totaling $77 million and who won’t turn 40 until December.”
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/football/bucs/article1225135.ece
“PNC Bank took $33,333 straight out of his NFL Network paycheck in December, then again in January, then again in February, then again in March, and it would have happened again in April had he not filed on March 30. The remainder of what he owes PNC Bank: $822,805.”
“What happened here?”
“The payments to PNC Bank stem from a loan he got to try to build affordable housing in Fort Pierce in St. Lucie County. Sapp had two business partners in a company called Urban Solutions Group that was formed in 2006 — South Florida developer Steve Smoke and former Florida State and NFL player Devin Bush — and their endeavor started in earnest in 2008. It was an admitted failure.”
“They gave us a loan so we could purchase more lots,” Bush said. “The real estate market started going into the tank.”
“PNC sued Urban Solutions and won a judgment in 2010 for $988,691.99. The beginning of the end. Warren Sapp’s Waterloo.”
“Were it not for the judgment and the other debts created by that deal,” Pugatch said, “he would certainly not be facing what he’s facing right now.”
“This,” Sapp said of bankruptcy, “was the only way I could get out.”
“Were it not for the judgement and the other debts created by that deal,” pugatch said, “he would certainly not be facing what he’s facing right now.”
Lol. Probably true, which means he would have to search out another way to lose it all.
“Lol. Probably true, which means he would have to search out another way to lose it all.”
“Jamiko Sapp, then-wife of Tampa Bay Buccaneer Warren Sapp, stands next to an autographed jersey in their suite at Raymond James Stadium in September 2003. Sapp’s obligation to Jamiko and other women is $75,495 a month, according to his bankruptcy filing”
” His creditors include his ex-wife, the four other women with whom he has had children, the Internal Revenue Service, banks and attorneys all over the country, and friends who loaned him money.”
“…to Jamiko and other women is $75,495…”
The dude is swimmin’ in women…
He’s swimmin’ in stupidity.
“…swimmin’ in stupidity/women.”
I think I detect a correlation here. It’s like the guy in your seventh grade class who bragged about all the chicks he screwed…you remember him, don’t you?
“seventh grade” = the happiest four years of my life.
I forgot to mention a critical detail: The guy had only one eyebrow…
Sapp also has four other children with four other women. He has a 14-year-old son. He has a 14-year-old daughter. He has a 12-year-old daughter. He has an 11-year-old son. He has a 10-year-old daughter. He has a 3-year-old son.
Who is dumber, the serial fornicator, or the fornicatees? I haven’t met a guy yet who wouldn’t hit everything thrown his way, given the opportunity.
You would think that his baby mommas would have a whole bunch of money socked away, if he’s shelling out $75K/month for child support. It isn’t like football players filing bankruptcy is a one in a million occurance.
As just a poor J6P smuck, and having been forced into a life of involuntary celibacy since about 2005 (November 2005, to be exact). I’d trade places/his problems for mine in a nano-second.
Discretion and self-control are overrated. Especially when all forms of sleaze are subsidized.
Besides, he’s one of the “Sports-Entertainment Industrial Complex”. He won’t have any problems throwing the skanks under the bus, and getting a new start.
Sports and Entertainment people are our functional equivalent of purebred show dogs. Pretty to look at, but dumb as a box of rocks, when compared to most of the mutts.
“I haven’t met a guy yet who wouldn’t hit everything thrown his way, given the opportunity.”
You haven’t met me yet, then.
Web widens on infamous Florida land swindle
By MICHAEL SALLAH The Associated Press
Posted: 12:06 a.m. Sunday, April 15, 2012
MIAMI — For North Miami Beach developer Natalia Wolf, it was the perfect target for her next heist: an aging motel just down the street from a seedy stretch of crack houses and grungy lots.
After drawing up phony land records, she claimed to own the 42-room Hollywood motel — and then proceeded to get a $2.3 million loan on the sprawling building along with other properties.
For the 37-year-old woman, it was another score among a host of others — including a major sale of land in St. Augustine that she didn’t own — before fleeing the country.
While Natalia and Victor Wolf are known for their massive land swindle on Florida’s Gulf Coast, records just filed in Miami-Dade civil court show they left a far deeper trail of fraud, leaving stunned victims across the state.
Though law enforcement agencies in two counties probed the fugitive couple, records now show they left their mark in twice as many places before vanishing five years ago.
“It’s so unbelievable,” said Aventura lawyer Jay Gayoso, whose client lost $1.4 million. “No one in their right mind would have thought they could get away with it.”
For the first time, documents show a couple deeply entrenched in Russian organized crime, creating shell companies, straw buyers and brazenly stealing land through phony deeds and forgeries.
While Natalia Wolf was stealing the Hollywood hotel, she also targeted a 12-unit apartment house down the street — and stole that, too.
“To them, it’s like a casino — and every hand they won,” said Roman Groysman, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who is trying to recover $450,000 for a victim.
Key witnesses say the Wolfs carried out their crimes in the last year before they fled, but court records show the couple actually began years earlier with the creation of more than 36 shell companies.
Many of those companies would become the vehicles they used to commit one of the largest land frauds of the decade in Florida and later Texas, scamming 400 people, four banks and three other lenders of nearly $100 million.
With victims and police on their trail, they were able to pull off one more event before fleeing the country: They uncorked champagne.
Records show police found empty bottles scattered in the home the day after the couple fled. “It looks like they had a party before they left the country to celebrate,” said Groysman. “It was their final hurrah.”
This is a fascinating story which begged a bit further research. It is thought that this woman and her husband(?) were fronts for Russian organized crime who flipped forged titles to the same properties (that they didn’t even own in the first place,) over and over through off-shore shell corporations.
The only likely google image reference I could find for “Natalia Wolf” shows an attractive brunette in her thirties who worked as an “executive manager” of a food import/export entity. Her expertise, the profile tells us is “12 years…with Particular experience in getting certificates and drawing up export documents.”
Please keep us posted on this latest lady real estate swindler? I’m sensing a pattern here….
PalmBeachPost Web widens on infamous Florida land swindle
For North Miami Beach developer Natalia Wolf, it was the perfect target for her next heist: an aging motel just down the street from a seedy …
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/web-widens-on-infamous-florida-land-swindle-2291462.html - 83k - Cached - Similar pages
You can’t cheat an honest man. And you certainly can’t steal tens of millions from a bank if it is performing due diligence.
Web widens on infamous Florida land swindle
Florida, a sunny place for shady people.
Pleasant surprise = Got a nice little, unexpected bonus check last week.
Unpleasant Surprise = 1/3 of it was taken out in taxes.
CHATEAU MONTAGEL
50,000 SQ. FT ESTATE. ON 27 ACRES
http://www.ebay.com/itm/170810196479
We still have so far to go…
No mortgage since 1997????
But they are all victims.
—————————–
The zombie files: Nearly 7,000 stagnating foreclosure cases
Palm Beach Post | 15 April 2012 | Kimberly Miller
Nearly 7,000 stagnating foreclosure cases lie dormant in Palm Beach County’s courts, creating a payment-free limbo for some homeowners but a stain of vacant and abandoned homes in deteriorating neighborhoods.
These sleeper files, which have remained inactive for a year or longer, date as far back as 1997, according to documents provided to The Palm Beach Post by the clerk of courts.
But most are from the early years of the housing crash when lenders feverishly sought to repossess homes, unaware that the frenetic pace would cause a second crisis based on faulty documents and unlawful corner-cutting.
“I have no idea what’s going on and I’m not pushing it,” said Robert Feinson, a Jupiter resident whose case has sat idle since November 2010, more than two years after his lender initially filed for foreclosure against him. “Right now, we’re just waiting to see who is going to make the next move.”
Harrison hopes the “fatal flaw” in the bank’s case will force it to modify his client’s mortgage instead of refiling the foreclosure. The homeowners have been living in their Olympia home in Wellington without making a payment for about four years.
The reasons cases may be delayed are myriad, said Guy Cecala, publisher of the trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance. They include:
•Fear of flooding the market with distressed properties that will crash prices. •Concern over getting a clear chain of title. •Unwillingness to take on maintenance and liability for a property. •Negotiating a loan modification or short sale. •A homeowner files for bankruptcy, putting the case on hold. •Problems with paperwork or how a previous law firm handled a file. After the collapse of the Plantation-based Law Offices of David J. Stern in March 2011, about 100,000 foreclosure cases statewide needed to be transferred to new attorneys.
“Nearly 7,000 stagnating foreclosure cases lie dormant in Palm Beach County’s courts, creating a payment-free limbo for some homeowners but a stain of vacant and abandoned homes in deteriorating neighborhoods.”
At least the Palm Beach Post is reporting this story. Try to find any evidence on the number of San Diego County homes in mortgage default status by reading the real estate developer-owned UT-San Diego. Good luck!
Private equity groups going after foreclosures as rentals market
Seattle Times | 14 April 2012 | Edward Robinson
Ken Major climbs the steps of a county courthouse in a San Francisco suburb with $500,000 in cashiers checks in one hand and a list of addresses in the other. Major is a buyer for Waypoint Real Estate Group, an Oakland-based investment firm that’s scooping up foreclosed homes in California.
On this December afternoon, he joins a dozen house flippers as an auctioneer starts hawking the latest batch of defaulted properties to hit the market. Major bids on a three-bedroom house in Antioch, and after other buyers counter, he wins at $147,600.
Waypoint, a private-equity real-estate fund with $150 million in assets, is pioneering a new approach to making money from the housing crash. Since 2007, investors have been trolling the cratered suburbs stretching from California to Florida for cheap houses to flip. And firms such as PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust have sought value in subprime-mortgage-backed securities.
Waypoint, which owns 1,100 houses and is buying five more a day, is betting that converting foreclosures into rentals is a better way to make a profit. Other firms, such as Landsmith in San Francisco, are cropping up and pursuing the same strategy in Arizona, California and Nevada.
“Private equity groups going after foreclosures as rentals market”
With all the efforts underway to push more and more residential units onto the rental market, I am thinking low rents will be here to stay as an alternative for people who don’t want to buy their own home for several decades to come.
Thanks so much, investors!
As we have seen with the banks, getting “cheap rent” from this crowd will depend on how much free money they get from the government to keep prices high.
Rent prices will stay high and go higher, to make home ownership “look better”. At least rents in places you might actually want to live.
You need to give up on this “free market” fantasy, and realize that the majority of the country would be screwed in a true “free market…….
“Robert Feinson, whose case has sat idle since November 2010, more than two years after his lender initially filed for foreclosure against him.”
Lets see 2010 - 2+ years = at best 2008 and 1 year of no payments before they filed = at best 2007 and this is 2012 = 4+ years of no house payment for Robert the Deadbeat who says……
“I have no idea what’s going on and I’m not pushing it,”
The zombie files: Nearly 7,000 stagnating foreclosure cases lie dormant in Palm Beach County’s courts
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:40 p.m. Saturday, April 14, 2012
“I have no idea what’s going on and I’m not pushing it,” said Robert Feinson, a Jupiter resident whose case has sat idle since November 2010, more than two years after his lender initially filed for foreclosure against him. “Right now, we’re just waiting to see who is going to make the next move.”
———————————————————————————-
Ee-e-e-um-um-a-weh
In the town house, the granite town house,
Robert sleeps tonight.
In the town house the quiet town house,
The Deadbeat sleeps tonight.
Free dee dee dee, dee dee dee dee dee, Ee-e-e-um-um-a-weh
Free dee dee dee, dee dee dee dee dee, he don`t have to pay.
No-he don`t pay, no-he don`t pay, no-he don`t pay, no-he don`t pay, no-he don`t pay, no-he don`t pay, no-he don`t pay, no-he don`t pay, he gets to stay there anyway.
Hush my darling, don’t fear my darling
The Deadbeat sleeps tonight
Hush my darling, don’t fear my darling
The Deadbeat sleeps tonight
“Comment by Patrick
2012-04-14 18:12:59
…
I don’t think many of our mortgages in Canada are insured by the government - certainly nowheres near the 90% in the USA.”
The right question is not whether Canadian mortgages are insured by the government. Rather it is whether they have an implicit too-big-to-fail guarantee.
We debated this over and over again with respect to the U.S. mortgages which were securitized by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. In Fall 2008, we received an answer: Turns out the GSEs were too big to fail, as demonstrated by the federal guarantees which were summarily slapped on their MBS at the point when they collapsed.
Cantankerous
I agree with you. Also, we only have five really major banks so our odds are even worse than yours were.
With our banks mostly holding the mortgages they create TBTF will be a major problem for our federal government if we experience the same loss rate as the USA.
I wish our government would stop bragging about how great a job they are doing. Believe me, in eight of the provinces they are on their knees already. Without the massive energy incomes all of Canada would be there.
With taxes like this one, America runs the risk of running out of millionaires.
April 15, 2012, 11:52 a.m. EDT
Geithner stumps for ‘Buffett Rule’ before vote
Treasury chief says Europe, Iran pose risks to U.S. economy
By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Sunday urged lawmakers to approve the “Buffett Rule” to tax millionaires, framing the proposal as an issue of tax fairness this election year.
A procedural vote on the rule, which would require millionaires to pay at least 30% of their income in taxes before charity, is scheduled for Monday in the Senate.
Gordon G. Chang, Contributor
+ Follow on Forbes
4/15/2012 @ 4:59PM
Grim Fairy Tale: China’s Economy Grows at 8.1%
National emblem of the People’s Republic of China
On Friday, Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that the Chinese economy grew 8.1% last quarter, down from 8.9% in the previous period. Q1 growth was the lowest in 11 quarters.
On the day before NBS made its announcement, market chatter pegged growth at 9%, spurring rallies. Yet investors were not the only ones taken by surprise on Friday. Consensus surveys of analysts forecasted 8.3% to 8.5%. The 8.1% figure even came in below recent Chinese government estimates. As late as the third day of this month, Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, predicted 8.4% growth, citing “initial figures” from “relevant China research institutes.”
But as disappointing as the Q1 number was—and stock markets did not react well to the news—it looks like the 8.1% figure overstates growth, not correlating with the weight of information for the period.
It’s true that the economy improved in March. Industrial value-added output, for instance, was up 11.9% year-on-year. There was a big increase in bank lending, which skyrocketed 15.7%. Exports were stronger than expected, increasing 8.9%, and the trade surplus came in at a robust $5.35 billion.
Nonetheless, the Chinese economy always improves in March, when the drag of the long Lunar New Year holiday wears off. This year, the “March bounce” was weaker than in prior years.
Take industrial value-added output, for instance. Last year in the first quarter, it increased at a faster pace—15.7%—than it did this year, when it rose 11.6%. Even the surprisingly robust semi-official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, which jumped 2.1 points in March to 53.1, showed a weaker-than-usual rebound. And it is hard to reconcile either of these Beijing-generated numbers with the widely followed HSBC Markit PMI, which tumbled to 48.3 from 49.6, the fifth-straight month of contraction. And in a tell-tale sign, producer prices were down last month.
The bank lending number, usually cited by optimistic analysts, is indeed a good signal, especially after the 8.2% drop in new lending for the January-February period. Yet lending is essentially a leading indicator, so the number for March is not an especially good one for the first quarter.
And the trade surplus number reflects weak imports, a sign of slowing domestic demand. In March, imports increased by only 5.3%. Weak commodity imports are troubling indications. On a month-to-month basis, oil imports in March dropped 5.8%, copper was off 4.6%, and iron ore shipments were down 3.2%. And were it not for government-directed stockpiling, the import numbers would have been much worse.
So how fast did GDP grow in Q1? By far, the best indicator of Chinese economic activity is the generation of electricity. In the January-February period electric output grew by 7.1% year-on-year according to official statistics. In March, output increased 7.2%, the slowest increase for a non-holiday month in a year. Because the growth in electricity outpaces the growth of the economy, it’s evident that China cannot be growing faster than 6%.
…
I keep catching wind on the HBB about ongoing loose lending standards, including deadbeats who defaulted only three years ago getting back onto the federally guaranteed lending gravy train with mortgages requiring little by way of credit score or downpayment.
Which makes this article from inside the Beltway seem like a complete disconnect…what gives?
MORTGAGE STANDARDS ARE TOUGHER THAN EVER
Nation’s Housing
By Union-Tribune
12:01 a.m., April 15, 2012
Updated 4:39 p.m. , April 13, 2012
Average credit score of the successful applicant for a conventional home purchase in February
How do you stack up as a potential mortgage candidate in this year’s increasingly tough underwriting environment? Do you have the right stuff — credit score, debt-to-income ratio, equity or down payment — to get you through the minefield?
A new statistical analysis, based on a large sample of all mortgage applications approved and denied in recent months, offers valuable benchmarks for anyone thinking about financing a home purchase or refinancing an existing loan. The study taps into data from the loan processing software used for roughly one-fifth of all new mortgage applications nationwide, supplied by the technology firm Ellie Mae.
To fit the profile of just the average successful applicant for a conventional home purchase mortgage in February, the latest month for which data are available, here’s what you would have needed:
A FICO credit score of 764. Not only is this higher than the average score for approved loans as recently as November, it’s far beyond the 620-640 FICOs that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac once considered the minimum for a conventional prime mortgage. It’s also well above the median FICO score nationwide, which is currently 711, according to a spokesman for Fair Isaac Corp., developer of the score.
A loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 78 percent, signifying a down payment of 22 percent. This is higher than even the controversial minimum of 20 percent proposed last year by Obama administration financial regulatory officials, who were seeking a standard for “safe” loans offering the lowest available rates and best terms.
Debt-to-income ratios of 21 percent for housing expenses, 34 percent for total household monthly debt.
How about the profiles of people who applied for conventional loans to buy a house but were rejected or didn’t get to closing? By historical standards, they were a fairly impressive group on average as well, with 732 FICO scores, 19 percent down payments and debt-to-income ratios of 24 percent (housing costs) and 41 percent (total debt).
Homeowners who refinanced existing conventional loans had the best profiles of all: average 770 FICOs, 65 percent LTVs indicating 35 percent equity stakes, and debt-to-income ratios of 22 percent housing and 32 percent total debt.
…
I think it’s hysterical FIRE sector cheerleaders who are upset about the loss of NINJA loans and the related subprime detritus. They all want looser lending. FI makes the cash back off the government when the loans go bad, the RE makes the money at the point of sale. Everyone* wins.
* Except taxpayers, renters, FBs, senior citizens (as inflation eats away as interest rates stay low), first time buyers enticed into debt slavery, etc.
DOWN S’MORE!
Tokyo tumbles out of open
Japanese stocks open the week sharply lower, after more-than-1% losses for the major U.S. indexes help depress shares.
• Australian shares fall, with miners weak
Relax, MR CBIT!
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2012-04-14 21:47:18
“IIRC, in Japan, a man was able to attack 30 people with a knife at a school.”
What point are you trying to make with this one data point? Is it that since it is so hard to kill people with guns under the Japanese legal system, people have to do it the old fashioned way, with knives?
Not a very convincing data point if you had to go way back to the 1990s to find it. I’m guessing I could go to the newspaper web site of half a dozen different U.S. cities and find comparable numbers of individuals who died of gunshot wounds last weekend.
Ok, Buddy, how about the several knife attacks at Chinese schools/daycare facilities 2005-2009?? Like Japan no firearms amongst the populace and heck they both use chopsticks! Try to find a steak knife when you need one! But they still managed multiple body counts.
I bring up the 1990’s incident because the body count is higher than nearly any school shooting outside of Virginia Tech.
Got fear and trembling?
Asia stocks falling broadly
Shares fall in Asia after last week’s surge in Spanish borrowing costs brings concerns about Europe back to the fore, overshadowing a loosening of China’s currency controls.
April 15, 2012, 9:15 p.m. EDT
Goldman Sachs further sells down ICBC stake:report
By V. Phani Kumar
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS -4.40% sold a further $2.5 billion worth of shares in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. IDCBY +0.76% HK:1398 -0.77% , paring the value of its holding in China’s largest lender to about $3 billion, Reuters reported Monday. Goldman Sachs sold the stake at 5.05 Hong Kong dollars (65 U.S. cents), a 3.1% discount to Friday’s closing price of ICBC shares, the report said.