Bits Bucket for April 26, 2013
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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Liar, liar, pants on fire.
The word you’re looking for is Realtor (TM).
+1 Good one.
Beautiful couple days here in maryland… Cherry trees still blooming and azaleas are up next. I think alot (sic) of houses are about to hit the market this spring, but why buy now when you can buy 2 or 3 later when they’re 65 percent off?
Here in Tucson, I’m seeing a definite uptick in the resale market. A lot of the houses are of the “buy it to rent out” variety. And some of them were purchased for that purpose during our previous bubble.
Methinks that there are a lot of burned out landlords getting out while they can.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/03/Obama-administration-paves-the-way-for-sharia-law
in vienna va there are a ton of post WWII ramblers they are tearing down and building big new homes. The cutom home market there is non-existent. the custom home builders are too busy building specs that are selling like it’s 2005.
Wait… seriously? Realtards are… what… Liars?
Oh, the profundity.
Next we’ll find out the Hindenburg was a gas bag…
Now, if you could just give me a good stock tip… or somethin’…
Suzanne researched it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPIxrzmatq0
how many shares of aapl do you own?
how many shares of aapl do you own?
What’s the tip? Buy, sell or hold?
How is AAPL going to keep charging a premium above samsung, blackberry, and Windows phones? And the theres the fact that Google glasses look like they’ll be a big thing in coming years.
aapl is a sell. U heard it hear first. get out while you can.
and when they lower their prices do you think they will increase or decrease market share?
@measton - not sure. perversely, it might not increase market share. a lot of people bought ipods, ipads, and iphones in the last few years because it was a status marker. i highly doubt that the increased market share will outweigh the loss in margins. once the tastemakers abandon a consumer electronic you need to start cutting deals, spending more money on marketing, and having more favorable deals for app makers, wireless suppliers, etc. in the past years, apple got sweetheart deals because people wanted to be involved with the iphone/ipad.
also, apple really makes its money as a retailer (iTunes). getting people with less money to buy your phone isn’t really a good thing, people with more disposable income migrating to Google Play or Microsoft store would be terrible for apple.
You can get an iPhone 4 free with a contract.
Right, but the carriers will pay apple less and less for the phone and the phone will also end up in the hands of people who spend less money on all the iTunes store. I don’t pretend to be able to predict where exactly aapl’s stock will go, but I don’t think the answer to their problems is having the iPhone become a somewhat downscale device.
Android and Windows 8 will never beat Apple on anything but price.
You can get an iPhone 4 free with a contract.
With a 2 year contract that costs about $50 more a month than comparable contracts. So the phone will cost about $1200.
It’s cheaper to buy the iPhone and go with a cheaper carrier.
“What’s the tip? Buy, sell or hold?”
I’ll tell ‘ya, but you have to buy a shoeshine first.
+1
“What’s the tip?”
Avoid it like the plague.
Sure, this will end well…
From Mercury News.
“Bay Area’s average homebuyers shut out by cash offers, investors”
s the Bay Area’s prime homebuying season begins, a witches’ brew of market forces is making this spring one of the toughest times in memory to purchase a home.
Arrayed against average buyers are fiercely competitive investors and others paying cash on the barrelhead, a scarcity of homes for sale, bidding wars that have run up prices and even problematic appraisals.
“The banks — they want all cash and they don’t really care,” said a frustrated Shannon Masse-Winks, who is searching for a home around Berkeley.
The
34-year-old Oakland designer, who is soon to be an architect, said she and her husband Peter began house hunting a year and a half ago.
“We totally got outbid at all times,” she said. “The homes were going to people paying all cash. It’s very frustrating, and now the prices have gone up about $100,000 since last year at this time. It is awful.”
It’s very frustrating, and now the prices have gone up about $100,000 since last year at this time.
This was one of the first clues that made me wonder if we were in a bubble. I watched the value of my own house go up significantly in 2001/2002; I remember thinking to myself:
“How many buyers have been able to save even 20% of that increase in the past year? How many buyers have had their income go up enough in the past year to support borrowing that much more?”
I felt like I was doing pretty well at the time, and I knew that I hadn’t saved anywhere near that much and my income had barely budged relative to house prices.
Anything that is clearly unsustainable will eventually stop.
“Anything that is clearly unsustainable will eventually stop.”
Agreed, yet efforts to sustain it are proving… impressive.
Agreed, yet efforts to sustain it are proving… impressive.
+1.
I wonder how much of this is a play on “Retirement’s in view. Take my money and make me money! Now!” as to why “investors” are overbidding on residential housing. Madness.
If it wasn’t clear, I’m thinking not that it’s individual investors directly bidding but gobs of money coming in from individuals to hedge funds, etc, who feel an obligation to do something with that money.
Most of the private equity fund money comes from large institutions (pensions, endowments, foundations, etc.). Not individuals.
Yeah, the bubble is back.
My pal from Portland is down for the week, trying to figure out how to move back here. Put an offer on this house yesterday: http://www.estately.com/listings/info/367-naples-st
Two open houses, Sunday and Tuesday. 19 offers by yesterday. Listed for 589K, highest bid in the low 700’s.
WTF?!
This is not a fancy neighborhood. The house was well-cared for, but nothing special and it needs a new kitchen.
Here we go again.
These San Francisco rowhouses(?) are the weirdest things. I think my junior high school used that kind of staircase.
That house is what’s called a “tunnel house”.
It’s a layout that is somewhat common and unique to SF. Kind of a cool style - the entrances have a ton of room for plants and a sort of mud room. Tons of room downstairs for an extra in-law apt., 2 cars, and laundry.
Hey you two debt junkies…..
What did you pay for your debt dumps?
Is the backyard one big sandbox? I don’t get it. It looks too small to play volleyball in.
Tactic 12 from the Losing Debater’s Manual: “When you have nothing of substance to offer of pertinence, make irrelevant demands in bold text”.
Well? Had enough schooling in the truth yet?
Wow! You’ve gotta REALLY hate Portland if you’re willing to pay $600k for that.
Here we go again.
It’s not clear to me that that is true.
The market right now is not “normal” because supply is being impeded.
The supply of buyers who are sufficiently motivated to buy that they are ignoring this is vastly outweighing the supply of properties. Therefore, it is a seller’s market.
It’s not clear to me that those two things are sufficient to sustain a real bubble.
Not trying to pick on you but “needs a new kitchen” Typical American spendthrift view. I think that kitchen looks very nice and likely it’s nicer than 90% of kitchens in the rest of the world. But rip it out so there’s more waste for the landfills and buy new with borrowed money. And make sure to get granite and stainless still. It’s what decorators oh excuse me designers were recommending to rich people 20 or 25 years and is now so ubiquitous it’s a cliché.
“Bay Area’s average homebuyers shut out by cash offers, investors”
I can tell you that most of the desirable areas of San Jose, CA are priced well beyond FHA/GSE mortgage guarantee limit, so if you don’t have at least $500k to bring to the closing table you are wasting your time. Like San Francisco decades ago San Jose is now occupied by serious wealth; wage earners have been priced-out.
More about SF:
Real estate agents say it’s the ultimate sellers’ market — very few sellers and hordes of buyers.
“It’s certainly a very frustrating time for Bay Area homebuyers,” said Rick Turley, Coldwell Banker’s president for the Bay Area.
Many homes that would be purchased in a normal market by average buyers are ending up in the hands of cash-paying absentee owners, typically investors,
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according to the real estate information company DataQuick. That’s especially true of foreclosures and lower-priced homes and condos.
David Yang, 36, who works in solar power, is moving into a home in South San Jose — the 10th one he bid on in five months of looking. “Every house in a good neighborhood probably will receive 20 to 30 offers,” he said. “It’s really crazy.”
His agent, Sharmila Banerjee, said that “cash is coming from China, India, Russia, but there can be difficulties transferring money from outside the country.” When one such deal fell through, another one of her clients had his offer accepted, she said.
In February, 1,044 houses and condos — 28 percent of the sales — in the counties of Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa were bought by absentee buyers. That is the highest percentage since DataQuick began tracking them in 2000. In Contra Costa County, absentee buyers were 35 percent of the sales.
Almost a third of all buyers paid cash in those four counties in February, the peak percentage since 1988, the company said.
“In terms of the added frustration to Mr. and Mrs. Typical Homebuyer, the investor coming in with cash is going to trump,” said Coldwell Banker’s Turley.
Realtor Sharmila Banerjee, center, talks with listing agent Linda Baker after showing her client, Waruna Fernando, left, a three-bedroom house on Minas Drive in San Jose, Calif., on Sunday, March 24, 2013. (Karl Mondon/Staff) ( Karl Mondon )
“Even at the next price tier, you’ve got these young wealthy millionaires buying their first home at $1.5 million, and they’re paying cash. That’s edging out the move-up buyer.”
None of this adds up. Only a third are cash buyers? That means the rest get loans and those loans need to be supported by appraisals. So how can they overbid? Houses deliberately listed lower than comps to generate a frenzy? (Which i frankly doubt happens much because sellers aew always in dreamland about what their house is worth)
Zero standards in appraisals?
Lets not look too closely at all this as long as prices are going up!
But there’s demand Bigguy. Demand! Who cares what the price is?
/sarcasm
Or they simply increase their down payment.
If you bid $1MM, and the bank told you they would lend a max of 75% of value ($750k on $1MM), but the appraisal comes in at $900, so the bank will only lend you $675, what do you do?
Walk, or come up with another $75k in cash.
On the commercial side this happens all the time. Banks just want to make sure they are protected…they don’t necessarily care if you are doing something stupid.
That’s a pretty big jump in down payment, coming up with another 75k cash, particularly where the bank told you it aint worth what you thought.
Thanks for this reply though, I wonder in how many cases the buyer actually chooses to move forward and come up with the extra cash? Back during bubble mania 1.0 weren’t a lot of these “down payments” second mortgages?
Is anyone offering seconds now that all those got crushed last time?
I think you would be surprised at the number of people who can come up with another several $10’s of thousands if they need to. Remember, these are people that have already saved a couple of hundred thousand, and have the income to support a NON-GSE loan of $750k+.
I also think you would be surprised at how many people don’t care what the appraiser says…they want to buy the house, and they are comfortable with the price.
I think second DOTs are still pretty limited. I talked to a banker several months ago and asked about whether they were providing HELOC debt again…they pretty much capped out at 80% LTV on their seconds.
Thanks, I would be surprised, even though after 7-8 years on this blog nothing surprises me. ;/
“I think you would be surprised”
You know what would a welcome surprise?
If you, just one time….. post something truthful. Just once.
We’re not holding our breath.
Houses deliberately listed lower than comps to generate a frenzy?
Zero standards in appraisals?
In San Francisco, YES and YES to both these questions.
This is particularly true for SFH. While there are many new buildings and developments going up all over the city right now, the only new SFH being built are in random empty lots or tear downs. The only way to build is UP, and not everyone wants to live in an apartment or condo.
Here…. I’ll invoke your lie for you. “We’re running out of land”.
There. Now….
What did you pay for your urban debt-dump?
“The Coming Housing Collapse: The Fed, Instead Of Lehman, Owns The Mortgage Market”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2013/03/05/peter-schiff-and-the-coming-housing-collapse-the-fed-instead-of-lehman-owns-the-mortgage-market/
There are many reasons NOT to buy a house right now.
1) Prices are massively inflated
2) Rental rates are half the cost of buying at current inflated prices
3) The cost of new housing is a fraction of resale housing in $/square foot.
4) $/square foot prices are falling
…. and most importantly… You’re going to lose alot of money if you buy a house now. ALOT of money.
Except rental rates are more than mortgage/tax rates.
Just one of those things…
Except they’re not……
Except they are. Just sayin’…
Except they are. Just sayin’…
Yup, in some places they are.
But don’t bother discussing this with certain posters, just go ahead and get the JT extension for this blog:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0QMI_-Iy8pod25GTjYwRTFZNlU
Works with firefox and enables you to block/skip repetitive posts by repetitive trolls.
Except they’re not. And in fact the decline in rental rates is accelerating.
Except they are. Just sayin’…
Say all you want. The reality?
Rental rates are half the cost of buying at current inflated asking prices of resale housing.
A close family friend, hasn’t made a mortgage payment since 2008 and still in the house, receives yearly property tax receipt for taxes paid. Who pays them? The bank.
that is not surprising. I guess it cheaper to keep them in the house and wait till prices go up again?
And I have to pay my rent each month or move into my moms basement…..Life maybe unfair but i never expected our government to sanction this level of stupid.
They’re gonna be waiting a long time. A very long time.
Prices are going to magically stop falling and even more magically start rising?
Prices are going to magically stop falling and even more magically start rising?
It’s not magic; it’s simple manipulation.
But it does seem to have affected many markets in a negative way (e.g. prices are rising when they should not be) in the past year.
It seems the bank own the hosuing and pay him to maintain it?
It does not sound like a good long trem strategy to me, but i think it can keep the bank from writing down on their book (accounting gimick?).
some good news
‘americans are allocating a smaller share of their spending to investment-related fees since the recession, a sign they are still wary of returning to financial markets even as stocks trade near record highs.
spending on expenses including securities commissions, investment advice and custodial services totaled about 4150.8 billion in february at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate, commerce department data show.’
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-26/americans-spend-less-on-finance-as-suspicion-lingers-ecopulse.html
150.8 billion. droid keyboard no worky
150.8 billion
Our “real” money goes to Banker’s pockets and we all get saddled with illusory weath in terms of equity overvaluation. If this is not a ponzi scheme, what is?
Or maybe they’re allocating a smaller share of their spending to investment-related fees because they’re allocating a smaller share of their bi-weekly insults to spending?
Wall Street Journal - The New Texas Land Rush
“The boom in hydraulic fracturing brings a wave of oil barons buying luxury homes; demands include elevators, built-in grills and plenty of display space for trophy animals.”
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/a/SB10001424127887323809304578431181840127820?mg=reno64-wsj
The 1% get richer?
Shocker.
turkey lurkey is in the house
“Denver metro luxury home sales surged 45 percent in March from the same period a year ago, according to a new report by Coldwell Banker Residential Mortgage.
A total of 71 homes in the region sold for more than $1 million in March, up from 49 in March 2012.”
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23113007/denver-luxury-home-sales-jump-45-percent
Lots of dying parents out there.
Yup Mac…the only way most will ever own a house from now on
So is there a master plan to create a nation of renters, or if that happens is it just an accidental consequence?
My suspicion says yes. That 20 years of rent that the elderly in paid-off houses DON’T pay? Banks must have been drooling over that market for decades. Of course, if seniors have to pay for living quarters, where are they going to get the rent money? Easy — Uncle Sugar will step in with some program. Or the old folks will move in with the kids and the kids will have to pay interest on a larger house. One way or another, banks will extract that money somehow.
And good morning to you MacBeth.
Guess my comments about IT workers and engineers joining the Lucky Ducky duck pond hit a little close to home.
Que sera sera!
goon is a gov contractor but not an IT or engineering one. You’re thinking of BiLA perhaps.
http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Track%20Something
I didn’t see that comment, but you would be correct, MacBeth.
Guess my comments about IT workers and engineers joining the Lucky Ducky duck pond hit a little close to home.
It’s still better to have an engineering degree and no job than it is to have a job and no engineering degree.
Hope and Change:
“Officials at the Department of Homeland Security denied Thursday that its large-scale ammunition purchases were an effort to keep bullets out of the hands of private citizens.”
http://mobile.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/04/25/dhs-denies-ammo-purchases-aimed-at-civilians
keep bullets out of the hands of private citizens.
I “predicted” that not long ago.
So why ARE are they buying them?
Just looking for a way to malinvest some tax money, are they?
Good morning to you MacBeth.
“Officials at the Department of Homeland Security denied Thursday that its large-scale ammunition purchases were an effort to keep bullets out of the hands of private citizens.”
If that were the case (and I’m not saying it isn’t), the foreseeable consequence would be that the ammunition manufacturers would increase production; if and when the market-manipulator were to stop their manipulation, the combination of reduced demand and increased supply would send prices into a tailspin.
Of course, if your goal is to make the ammunition manufacturers go out of business, then that result might not seem so bad…
is it ‘go time’ yet?
‘talks to revive gun control legislation are quietly under way on capitol hill as a bipartisan group of senators seeks a way to bridge the differences that led to last week’s collapse of the most serious effort to overhaul the country’s gun laws in 20 years.’
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/us/politics/senators-quietly-seek-a-new-path-on-gun-control.html?_r=0
Of course no gun control will be imposed here
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/04/25/police-3-minors-point-gun-at-man-woman-in-north-philadelphia/
Horse is out of the barn. 70 million more guns bought since January 2009. I buy ammo every opportunity. Got hundrrds of rounds. My next gun will be the Mossberg Justincase 500. After that some trijicon scopes.
Scope for my AR15 and one for my glock 17.
do u have a large stockpile of canned goods?
I am not a survivalist. I just consider the second amendment the fourth check on government. Defense against tyranny.
Even with the 2nd, never admit to owning.
Even with the 2nd, never admit to owning.
Good advice!
bill, an interesting piece that was linked from western rifle shooters, that claims that the southern poverty law center’s mission is not anti-racism, but to identify and marginalize any who challenge the power of the statists.
http://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-real-reasons-why-liberty-movement.html?m=1
You found another great teabilly screed. He makes a claim about the SPLC but is too lazy to put together an argument. He also uses the word STATISTS, in all upper-case letters, which must please his audience. This reminds of the 1960s when J. Edgar Hoover accused MLK of being a communist.
MightyMouse, does this kool-aid taste better?
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/lets_hope_the_boston_marathon_bomber_is_a_white_american/
I posted a comment about that article last week when it was first referenced here on the HBB. We’re talking about a terrorist attack on a sporting event so you might compare the atrocity in Boston to the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics. The bomber in that case was the Christian terrorist Eric Rudpolph. Rudoph’s arrest and guilty plea did not result in widespread attacks on Christians in America.
On the other hand, there have been many dopey assaults on Muslims which were reactions to the September 11 attacks. In fact, I know of a couple of examples here in the Phoenix area where the victims not even Muslims. In one case, a Sikh from India was murdered while he was at work in his family’s convenience store. I don’t know if the murderer thought he was Muslim. Maybe he didn’t care. He saw a dark-skinned guy wearing a turban and decided to murder him.
I also happen to know a Catholic family from Jordan. The husband and wife came over in their mid-twenties and had two sons in this country. Their older son is in high school and other kids like to call him a terrorist and start fights with him. Fortunately for him, he’s a pretty big kid and can defend himself.
Once again, there’s no record of attacks on Christians or people thought to be Christians as a result Eric Rudolph’s arrest. That was the reason for David Sirota’s hope. He was hoping that that no innocent people unrelated to the attack in Boston would be assaulted or killed in the wake of arrest of the bombers. However, if you think that it’s a good thing that dark-skinned Americans should be attacked beacuse of their exotic names or the way they look you can take comfort in the fact that Sirota’s hope has no effect on anything. Maybe thousands of Arab-American kids all over the country will have to fight off attacks at school today.
“Muslims” could belong to any race.
Surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is an American citizen. Both his parents are from the Caucasus region of the world. That IMNSHO makes Dzhokhar an American Caucasian. That is about as “white” as you can get.
Thanks, Mike.
Darn it Bill what are you guys waiting for? Every day that goes by it will be harder to defeat the enemy. Who is going to take up the cause and spill some blood? I’m counting on you guys to save us from the government but all you do is talk about how cool your newest gun is or how much ammo you have stockpiled. I don’t expect you to take down Obama or Janet Napolitano but couldn’t you attack your local ATF HQ or at least a police sub-station?
You are our only hope, please save us so my grand kids will live in a free America.
Your grand kids will be slaves, hauling stone by hand to build pyramids and monuments for Pharaoh Obama.
I hope not. I’m going to send them to a good military prep school and maybe they will infiltrate the armed services and can destroy the government from the inside. What this country needs is a good military coup.
What this country needs is a good military coup.
I’ve never seen that work out well for any other country. The fact that we have never had one is, IMHO, one of the things that sets us apart.
Be careful what you wish for…
The government has already been destroyed from within.
That’s the whole problem. It no longer works for J6P.
Prime_Is_Contained;
Well there was the May 16. 1961 S. Korea coup. Eventually they turned power back over to the civilians in 1993. So what if it only took 32 years to restore democracy.
This.
While Bill slowly stocks up on a personal arsenal, DHS buys (literally) hundreds of millions of hollow point bullets along with high powered lasers, satellites, drones, armored personnel carriers, and builds a massive data analysis and intelligence gathering center out in Utah.
If I believed we were going to be enslaved, I would not be waiting. Time (and money) is on the side of DHS.
If I believed we were going to be enslaved, I would not be waiting. Time (and money) is on the side of DHS.
But “they” are fallible human beings too. Subject to laziness and corruption and a desire to just go home to their families. The more ammo they buy, the more that might fall off the truck. No reason to start shooting unless absolutely necessary.
Remember Chris Dorner? And what would the DHS response be if there were a 100 of him operating independently? If there were a 1,000 of him?
LOLz on the go-time parody. Here’s a little perspective:
Two men with no military training, a couple of home-made pressure-cooker bombs, a couple of home-made pipe-bombs, and a single 9mm handgun with about 34 rounds managed to kill 4 people, injure hundreds, and tie up a major metro hub for a week.
It took over 1000 law enforcement personnel, a civilian lock-down of 5 suburbs, SWAT with armored vehicles doing house to house searches and they still couldn’t find a single injured, unarmed teenager until they ended the lock-down and a civilian happened to look in his boat. Oh, and the transit cop who was shot and injured was a victim of friendly fire by another LEO.
What do you think will happen when thousands of heavily armed, well-trained military and LEO veterans decide enough is enough and begin to ambush and assault government, LEO, and critical infrastructure? I’ll tell you what happens: complete fucking chaos and civil war on the order of Iraq, Syria or Libya in the US.
Do some research on urban combat in Iraq or the current state of war in Syria and get back to us on whether you think this is something to joke about. Google or Youtube “James Yeager Tactical Response” to see the kinds and numbers of people who are ready and willing when the time comes.
Who will pay the military and LEO’s pensions if the overthrow the government????
What do you think will happen when thousands of heavily armed, well-trained military and LEO veterans decide enough is enough and begin to ambush and assault government, LEO, and critical infrastructure? I’ll tell you what happens: complete fucking chaos and civil war on the order of Iraq, Syria or Libya in the US
And, based on the experience of Baghdad when we’ve attacked their critical infrastructure, we know who will die first - children, the elderly, and people with serious health problems. Assuming that that these veterans and LEOs decided to take action close to home, their first victims would be the most vulnerable members of their own communities.
” a couple of home-made pressure-cooker bombs, a couple of home-made pipe-bombs, and a single 9mm handgun “
So if you can create that much havoc with inexpensive and home made devices, why do you need AR-15s and 30 round magazines?
I use my guns for hunting and I only have 3 bullets. I don’t get to go very often and I figure one bullet is enough to kill a dumb deer, so I’m good for the next 3 years. It’s hardly worth it to even go when the grocery store has huge sales on meat all the time.
The folks with guns have nothing on the banks and their algorithms.
The game is already over.
I’ve got a few firearms but I’m not a gun nut. I’ve been trying to understand the mentality.
But - I think I sort of got it. Every so often, and after the Boston Bombing, there are calls to censor the Internet. Well, the MSM is a joke. They are mouthpieces for their advertisers and for the government. Most of the accurate information I’ve gotten about current events over the past many years has been from the Internet and non-traditional sources.
Knowledge is power. And I want to immediately pushback against any (almost) any attempt to regulate content over the Internet. Now, even there, I can understand and support things like trying to stop child pornography and undermining terrorists. But, in doing that, I’m very concerned and carefully watching for non-obvious consequences which could stifle the free flow of information.
My fear is digital assassination where “they” deactivate all my accounts, suspend my SS#, drivers license etc.. In the world we live in who controls the information can silence even those who have knowledge.
All you have to do is not have access to a computer for a month for that to happen.
It has the same effect.
The groups that controls the flow of information will win any coup or revolution.
It’s not going to be about guns anymore.
+1
The groups that controls the flow of information will win any coup or revolution.
You know that the groups that control the flow of information will do so with their own guns/goons/cops/armies.
I use my firearms almost daily to protect my stock and my crops from predation. (And on lazy summer days, there’s nothing like a 12 gauge for blowing mistletoe out of the oak trees.) Limitations on both the mechanisms and the supply make about as much sense to my neighbors and me as registering chainsaws and limiting the number of teeth in the chain.
The people who run amok shooting school children and movie-goers are not ranchers and farmers. Punish your own, not ours.
Gun laws should be a municipal issue.
More they talk, more guns are sold.
You have to wonder if they really want to take guns out of peoples hands? Their rhetotic is doing exactly the opposite.
Um yeah, if it didn’t happen after the school shooting it aint gonna happen. The issue is dead. Now it’s all about immigration and terrorism.
Bingo.
hope and change
’some 80 million people, around 43 percent of america’s working-age adults, didn’t go to the doctor or access other medical services last year because of the cost … nearly three in 10 adults said they did not visit a doctor or clinic when they had a medical problem, while more than a quarter did not fill a prescription or skipped recommended tests, treatment or follow-up visits.’
http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/26/news/economy/health-care-cost/
Mike Whitney nails it again:
“The system is performing the way it’s set to perform; providing unlimited sums of money for speculators and moneybags friends of Obama, and table scraps for everyone else.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/26/back-to-recession/
It’s been functioning more and more this way for about 40 years.
jello biafra of the dead kennedys discusses obama, occupy wall street, american politics, punk rock, and other topics
http://m.guardiannews.com/music/2013/apr/25/jello-biafra-obama-occupy
I preferred most of the other punk bands over the Dead Keds back in the day.
“Fear” was by far, the more political.
I received the following news regarding the Austin Real
estate
—
Austin’s housing market is also buzzing as homes are selling much faster, and for higher prices than this time last year.
March 2012 vs March 2013
$220,000 – Median price for single-family homes, 10 percent more than March 2012
2,166 – Single-family homes sold, 16 percent more than March 2012
64 – Average number of days that single-family homes spent on the market, 20 days fewer than March 2012
3,283 – New single-family home listings on the market, 2 percent fewer than March 2012
5,218 – Active single-family home listings on the market, 28 percent fewer than March 2012
2.6 – Months of inventory of single-family homes, 1.8 months less than March 2012
New home builders have a shortage of available lots and are behind on developing new neighborhoods, which is leading to a shortage of available homes in many areas.
With more than 150 people moving here each day, and few homes available to buy, sellers can expect strong interest in their homes and buyers should be prepared to compete for properties.
Median list price is 10% higher. Sale price? Nobody knows. It’s been redacted along with sales volume.
Why is Austin TX housing market data being obscured?
Good point. Listing price is one thing. The price actually paid is another. Oh, is it ever.
Where did you get the Median list price? The 10% increment is on the SALES price.
NAR.
And it’s not on the sale. It’s on the list.
Sale prices are not published in Texas.
Zillow says Austin home prices are up 4.6% YoY.
by Matt Taibbi
Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever
The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There’s no price the big banks can’t fix
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425
You gotta wonder about central banks.
The head of the Fed is a guy with a multi-trillion dollar checkbook. And with no profit motive. He can move the economy to benefit who he wants, and how he sees fit, at will.
It is very central-planning-esque. With all of the inefficiences and corruption inherent in centrally planned systems.
They might espouse free market principles. But in a crisis, if your principles go out the window, either a) they’re not very good principles, or b) you never really believed them.
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws” — Amschel Rothschild
Told ya.
I thought this was interesting…
http://www.zillow.com/howto/DataCoverageZestimateAccuracy.htm
“Signs The Housing Market Is Starting To Head South”
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1361191-signs-the-housing-market-is-starting-to-head-south
We’re already seeing it here in Monterey..
You can rent much cheaper than buying?
Housing prices are 3.5+ times than the average household income?
More than 36% of average household income is spent on housing costs?
People buy houses expecting to make a fortune on the appreciation?
Borrowed money is cheap and easy?
Etc.
Funny how these myths grow:
‘Big investment funds from New York City, and Los Angeles, (Blackstone and Colony Capital, for instance) have bought hundreds of thousands of homes’
Blackstone is the biggest holder at 20,000 houses. There are probably 20,000 houses in the greater Flagstaff area.
You forgot the hordes of Chinese and Canadians with suitcases full of money.
Soon-to-be-empty suitcases…
Friday, April 26, 2013 4:19 PM EDT
Business / Economy
IMF cuts outlook for Canadian economy, urges “delay” in interest rate hikes
The International Monetary Fund has added its voice to the growing chorus of forecasters that expects Canada’s economy to slow this year.
…
========================================================
China’s Economy: Heading For Trouble?
By James Parker
April 24, 2013
Tuesday saw the release of the HSBC-Markit “flash” Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for China. The flash version of this PMI is released before all the data is in, and typically includes more than 80% of the data. The survey includes survey information on output, new orders, new export orders, employment, prices for inputs and outputs, and inventories.
With the PMI system, any score over 50 indicates an expansion, whereas any score under 50 indicates a contraction. The HSBC-Markit PMI is actually one of two main measures for China. The “official” PMI, measured by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP), tends to focus more on larger and state-owned companies, whereas the HSBC-Markit index leans slightly more towards the private and small or medium enterprise (SME) portion of the economy, and also the export sector.
As with the disappointing first quarter GDP data for the country, the HSBC China April flash PMI has surprised many on the downside. The overall reading for this flash measure came in at 50.5 for the month, compared to 51.6 for March. The sub-indices for exports and employment showed actual contraction, whilst the measure for stocks of finished (unsold) goods increased.
In the past, poor economic data has often (and perversely) caused Chinese stock markets to rise, as investors felt confident that the government would, as usual, ride to the rescue by easing monetary or fiscal policy. However, the recent poor data from China has had quite the opposite effect. On the day the HSBC flash PMI was released, the Shanghai stock market actually fell by more than 2.5%. This market reaction suggests that investors either believe that the government is less willing or less capable of riding to the rescue to reverse what seems to be another slowdown, an interesting change in perceptions.
…
Blackstone is the biggest holder at 20,000 houses. There are probably 20,000 houses in the greater Flagstaff area.
I would point out that in any market, prices are set at the margin; in other words, it is only the fraction of inventory that is actually changing hands that sets pricing.
What is the total volume of sales annually in Flagstaff? I’m guessing that you could SERIOUSLY manipulate the market with only one or two thousand transactions.
And when a “faction of the inventory is changing hands”(non-existent demand), no pricing is “set”.
One (1) realtor in my area (in cahoots with the county assessor’s office) appears to be manipulating an entire zip code. No sales in months, but Zillow estimates on properties she represents have mysteriously risen 30+% — and literally overnight.
You would think as a realtor that she’d care more about sales volume than appraisals.
And there are probably about 50 X 20,000 = 1,000,000 housing units around San Diego County for its 3 million residents, many of which will soon be on the market due to Baby Boomers moving on to their interim or final resting places. If Blackstone has such a small swath of the standing U.S. housing stock in its possession, then perhaps the influence of investors isn’t so huge after all?
then perhaps the influence of investors isn’t so huge after all?
Then current prices aren’t that distorted? Normal people are buying these houses?
Washington State Housing Prices Headed Lower
http://picpaste.com/pics/17c52b168bba17c3c93eb46f5505ef39.1366424283.png
You’re out of date. Your same graph now shows prices back up (as you would expect since February is the seasonal low).
And seasonally adjusted they’re still down. Besides, there is no demand at these massively inflated levels.
I hesitate to call you a liar, because I think you may just be stupid.
Seasonally adjusted, prices are up.
March 2012, median sale price per square foot $133
March 2013, median sale price per square foot $142.
If there was no demand at these prices, actual prices would be falling.
“If there was no demand at these prices, actual prices would be falling.”
Unless supply were severely restricted, that is.
You realize that both supply and demand jointly determine prices, don’t you?
Yes, I do.
But you continue to harp on supply being restricted…who is restricting it? Lenders with their 500k (national number) of REO?
You also need to consider that the vast majority of supply should be coming from regular sellers (i.e. in a “normal” market), not lenders…and they aren’t selling at today’s prices.
There is a very real possibility…that you seem to entirely dismiss, that the reason there are not “normal” sellers flooding the market at today’s prices is that they don’t want to sell at today’s prices.
There is a very real possibility…that you seem to entirely dismiss, that the reason there are not “normal” sellers flooding the market at today’s prices is that they don’t want to sell at today’s prices.
I think on this blog there is an assumption that there is shadow inventory out there of people who would normally be forced to sell but instead are being allowed to live in the house for free. The people who are financially stable and up to date on their payments and simply choose not to sell are a different category.
Oops. Pimpy and Whacky are hit with the facts. They stagger. They falll….
“Yes, I do.”
No you don’t. You’re too busy lying to the public for cash.
The truth? Prices are grossly inflated and falling.
@Carl,
Yes, and I’ve seemingly wasted a lot (ALOT) of oxygen, trying to differentiate between places with lots of shadow inventory, and places WITHOUT that shadow inventory.
There are places that have been working through the distress (and selling into the market, actually foreclosing on people), and places that have not been working through the distress (and not foreclosing on people).
You only have to do to see the average length of time it takes to foreclose in various states to see where this shadow inventory is located.
BTW Carl, in a “normal” market, there are few forced sellers.
So, even if all those in trouble were pushed through the system, what then? Now you are left with ZERO distressed sellers, and just those “normal” sellers, who today, are notably absent from the roles of sellers.
As an example of a place where the shadow inventory matters less: in CA, that total excess distress is approximately 2.5% of the mortgages (7.3% non-current rate in February, with “normal” at 5%; per LPS), PLUS the REO at about 50k homes (Foreclosure Radar). With approximately 6 million mortgages in California, this is a grand total of 200k REO plus excess distress. This is in the context of a state that added over 250k jobs last year, and has vacancy rates at pre-recession levels.
Last month, 40k homes were sold in the state of CA. So, if you were to simply (and magically) dump all those houses on the market at once, they add 5 months of absorption to the current inventory of about 3.5 months, and you have 8.5 months of inventory (or less, given the number of multiple bid situations currently out there). This is a far cry from the amount of inventory that was a hallmark of the crash.
Given the multiple bid situations out there, that’s simply not enough extra homes being dumped on the market to somehow re-crash the market.
So, let’s say all those homes are dumped on the market, and it flattens the market for 5 months while that near term excess is sold through…What then?
The distressed, excess, empty and defaulted inventory in CA is 4.4 MILLION.
“But you continue to harp on supply being restricted…who is restricting it?”
My read of the status quo is that pretty much everything that comes on the market for under $500K in coastal Cali gets snapped up by investors or desperate home buyers armed with federally guaranteed low-interest low-downpayment loans.
That is one thing that tends to restrict supply considerably.
Everybody knows that inventory is abnormally low almost everywhere in the U.S. Plausible explanations include a plethora of government interventions intended to goose demand and investors grabbing assets which they rationally believe will experience price increases due to government demand stimulus, which contributes a self-fulfilling prophesy effect due to the short squeeze.
Like other asset price bubbles, I don’t believe this echo houwint bubble will prove sustainable.
Existing March home sales ease due to big inventory constraints
Friday, April 26, 2013
Glen Rock Gazette
Existing home sales eased in March from inventory constraints, which continued to pressure home prices, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Total existing home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, declined 0.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million in March from a downwardly revised 4.95 million in February, but remain 10.3 percent higher than the 4.46 million-unit pace in March 2012.
Sales have been above year-ago levels for 21 consecutive months, while prices show 13 consecutive months of year-over-year price increases.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said there is more demand than supply in the current market. “Buyer traffic is 25 percent above a year ago when we were already seeing notable gains in shopping activity,” he said. “In the same timeframe, housing inventories have trended much lower, which is continuing to pressure home prices. The good news is home construction is rising and low mortgage rates are continuing to keep affordability conditions at historically favorable levels. The bad news is that underwriting standards remain excessively tight, while renters are getting squeezed by higher rents.”
…
“The distressed, excess, empty and defaulted inventory in CA is 4.4 MILLION.”
Unsubstantiated number screaming. What is your source?
Are you saying that none of those homes are purchased by home buyers who have a 20%+ down payment?
You are either all cash, or almost no cash?
Sorry, that’s not credible.
“Plausible explanations”
How about historically low housing start numbers for 4+ consecutive years?
BTW, I know you own some REITs…there has been historically low commercial development over the past 4+ years…as vacancy rates fall, you should be a beneficiary of higher rents as there is similar tightening in commercial space generally…industrial first…
With 25 MILLION excess empty houses, 4 MILLION of which are in CA, why would anyone build anymore houses?
And as vacancy rates continue to hang at multi decade highs and rental rates continue to fall, you’re going to lose alot of money.
“why would anyone build anymore houses?”
To make money:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-26/d-r-horton-profit-more-than-doubles-on-rising-home-sales.html
There are no buyers. Housing demand is at 1997 levels.
Despite news you may have heard to the contrary, the US Navy has tightened their belts, and the Blue Angels will continue their air show appearances this year.
http://tinyurl.com/blgrmvf
Not surprised. I figured it was hype.
Click on the link…..
LOL
DOH!
Didn’t have time earlier.
At this price per square foot nobody would argue that you’re overpaying, and there’s plenty of room for a party with 500 of your closest friends:
http://homes.yahoo.com/New_York/Amsterdam/49-florida-ave:d84845fe9cba4562bff4bba9753ab06a/
I had to look at google maps to see where Amsterdam NY is.
That’s way the heck out there.
Tales from the tip of the immigration spear (my brother in the Border Patrol)
-Starting to see a lot of East Europeans. If caught, they ask for asylum. A date is set to review their app, they get temporary docs, and are set free. Guess how many actually show up for the hearings?
-Mexican mommies to be head to border hotels/flophouses when they go into labor. When their water breaks, they jump over the fence, and get a free ride to the hospital. Poof! Out pops a new “citizen”. Mommy may get deported, but the kids eventually get a free pass into the Land of the FSA.
The real reason California has financial problems? The Mexican “All Cash” sub-economy (where no sales or income taxes are paid), combined with a gazillion State government programs to “get them on their feet”. His recommendation? A tax on money/wire transfers from the US to Mexico.
It’s the culture…..going to Gringoland is just what Mexican Lucky Ducks/wretched refuse are pre programmed to do, when they are old enough to work. They come here, work during the day, drink, and send money home. The Mexican government thinks this is great, because they export their unemployment, DUI, and spousal abuse problems north to Uncle Sucker.
A minority of people in the US profit handsomely also. The locals who have to deal/pay for the problems they generate. Corporate Socialism at it’s best. Privatizing the gains, socializing the costs.
And if they happen to get drunk, and plow their crappy old pickup into the side of a minivan/car full of kids? (As has happened at least a half dozen times locally in the past 24 months). Like gun control, or the lack of it, it’s the price someone else has to pay.
That’s racis. You should welcome and embrace your new MS-13 neighbors. Because our differences only make us stronger!
In my adult experience, I’ve found that most stereotypes exist for a reason.
I can only compare most current immigrants with the Vietnamese/Cambodians/Laotians that arrived here in the late 70s. One of the first things they did was give their kids “American” first names, and made sure the kids learned English. And integrated themselves into the mainstream, while keeping some of their old traditions.
Now we have a critical mass of legals and illegals that don’t have the need or desire to integrate themselves into the existing community. The Balkanization of the USA is well underway.
“most stereotypes exist for a reason”
Now that’s the most racis thing I’ve ever heard. Bad racis, BAD!
“In my adult experience, I’ve found that most stereotypes exist for a reason.”
I remember a large group of friends of mine went out once for a night to eat sushi and have drinks. There were about twelve of us. Since the group was large the waitress split the check between two tables with six at each table. Four of my friends were Jewish and they all ended up being included in the same bill.
The group I was with (all gentiles) settled our check in about 5 minutes. It took the other group at least half an hour to settle theirs. I finally asked them how much they were short and threw in an extra 5 bucks just so we could all get the hell out of there.
That’s racis. Abraham Foxman and the ADL will be calling you soon.
RACIS, RACIS, RACIS! All you racis should get more COEXIST stickers, and stop being racis, cus if you don’t, we’ll wag a finger at you and call you racis. And then Jesse Jackson will have to fly in and get his kidz another Anheuser-Busch distributorship, cus the only solution to slavery, racis, etc, is to give more moneys to Jesse Jackson.
Not sure why anyone would have a problem with this? You get cheap labor and new voters for the democratic party. Win win, no?
11 Million? Who are they kidding? It’s at least 20 Mil and may be 40 million with spouse and children.
Venezuela here we come. Who will be our Chavez?
One solution is to encourage more Americans to retire to Mexico to take advantage of the cheap rents, nationalized health service, and eager pool of cheap labor. I’ve several friends who have done just that, full and part time.
Ye… ah…. no.
“he stopped loving her…today”.
Yeah. Saw that.
Bay Area Rental Rates Fell 9% YoY
http://picpaste.com/pics/6c7dc53f7a1275ab7f36d6a285c6a155.1366994213.png
A Pretty Little Map of All The San Francisco Apartments You Can’t Afford
The rent is too damn high.
They may be high but they’re half the cost of buying at the massively inflated price you paid.
Why did you do that?
KEEEEEEEEEEEEEYRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!
What was that?!
You know that house you made the mistake of buying? Well the value of it just fell through the floor leaving a smoldering moon-crater.
Beware reading public. Don’t be a sucker like the debt-junkies that attempt to rationalize their horrible decision. Beware.
Wow, Taibbi does it again.
Two of America’s top law-enforcement officials, Attorney General Eric Holder and former Justice Department Criminal Division chief Lanny Breuer, confessed that it’s dangerous to prosecute offending banks because they are simply too big. Making arrests, they say, might lead to “collateral consequences” in the economy.
What I wonder is whether folks like Holder and Breuer are willingly in on it (financially or politically) or just scared that they are not in control and essentially being held hostage by the banks.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425page=2#ixzz2RbEauV00
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
“Both” is the correct answer.
“What I wonder is whether folks like Holder and Breuer are willingly in on it”
They’re employees of offending banks.
“The U.S. central bank, which meets next week, is widely expected to keep purchasing bonds at a pace of $85 billion a month.”
i thought it was $ 40 billion?
$45 bn Treasurys
+ $40 bn MBS
—————
$85 bn Total
ahhhh…thanks!
my vending machine inflation tracker: andy capp hot fires are up 32% YoY.
today: 75 cents for 24 grams
05-22-2012: 1 dollar for 42.5 grams
can’t belive i haven’t bought any in practically a year.
I’ve been hammering on the fact that retail inflation, the only kind that matters to the avg person, has been and remains in double digits.
Thanks for the observation.
look at the price of a big mac and the price of a quart of oil.
I’m sorry but a big mac is not worth 4.19. Havent bought one in years. I remember two for 99 cents.
All you can do is quit buying.
It sucks george jones died today. He was such a rebel. He will be missed by a lot of people.
His music will live on as the essence of Country…
I never met the man but been thinking about him today. I guess in life the ultimate goal is to have people remember you.
You can buy his house: http://www.twostoryhouse.net/details.php
There’s chandeliers in every room
Imported silks and satin all about
We filled the house with everything
But somehow left love out.
Lyrics from George & Tammy ’s hit single “Two Story House”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsPK4vS0T9I
“I never met the man but been thinking about him today.”
I heard a beautiful tribute to George Jones’ career on the radio tonight with Larry Gatlin. He said he never wrote a song without imagining how George Jones would have sung it.
Here’s another.
And the amount of time you will spend on the toilet after eating those is incalculable.
The Government’s Mortgage Fix Is Failing
Published: Thursday, 25 Apr 2013 | 4:39 PM ET
By: Diana Olick
CNBC Real Estate Reporter
The U.S. Treasury’s mortgage bailout is failing at an “alarming rate,” according to a government watchdog, but architects of the four-year-old plan say that it is no worse than they expected.
“People read headlines that ‘foreclosures are at 2005 levels’ and cheer. I say the high-risk distressed loans and foreclosures are still out there. They have just been called something different by banks and the government and kicked down the road a few years,” says Hanson.
862,000 homeowners are currently in permanent HAMP modifications; 312,000 have defaulted on permanent modifications. In the next two years, many HAMP modifications will re-set to higher interest rates, and that could produce more defaults.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100674924 - 71k
“…but architects of the four-year-old plan say that it is no worse than they expected.”
That’s Key Point Number 1.
And here is Key Point Number 2:
IT’S ALL GOOD, BECAUSE THE MORTGAGES ARE FEDERALLY GUARANTEED BY YOUR TAX DOLLARS.
keep renting and paying for your neighbor to get all the benis of owning.
Here’s the benis they got so far:
1. They have enjoyed a $100K+ hit to the 2004 purchase price, enough to cover several years of rent at what we pay at under 20% of pretax income.
2. They get to cover the costs of yardwork and maintentance, including a current repair job to the undergroudn plumbing for the sprinkler system. Judging from the amount of digging so far, I’d guess that will run them into the $1000s.
3. They will most likely still be holding out for top dollar by the time the Fed unwinds its QE3 mortgage interest rate suppression program, at which point they will enjoy further losses.
Do you sit and laugh at them as they dig up sprinkler lines and replace pipe fittings?
QE will not end anytime soon. Rates have to stay low to get the economy hitting on all cylinders.
If somehow they lose control of interest rates its all over, even I will admit that.
Oh it’s will end and quite soon in fact.
How about you admit your motive.
my motive is to herd sheep like you.
Hey… we’re finally getting somewhere with you.
What do you think your clients might think?
“Do you sit and laugh at them as they dig up sprinkler lines and replace pipe fittings?”
The landlord hired some guys to do the work. It appears to me they dug maybe ten times as much dirt out of the ground, which will eventually need to be refilled, than was actually needed to access those pipes. And apparently they will have to refill every shovel full that they dug up, and charge the landlords for the time and effort.
Maybe they read John Maynard Keynes’ thoughts on the value of having people dig ditches and refill them for no reason?
And yes, it is pretty hilarious, especially given that we don’t have to pay for the work.
“Rates have to stay low to get the economy hitting on all cylinders.”
That’s pure untested theory, aka bullshit. And there are enough dissenting inflation hawks high up in the Fed that I doubt the doves will find the political will to continue QE-to-infinity for much longer, especially since it doesn’t work as advertised.
Just look at Japan’s quarter-of-a-century of economic stagnation if you want a long-term example.
What’s really going on in California
California imposed a new law on banks innocuously called “Homeowners Bill of Rights” which forces banks to switch over to a judicial foreclosure process, which they can opt to do on their own, but takes a year or more to renegotiate contracts and compensation structures for the foreclosure law firms who do all the leg work for the banks. And while those changes are being made… it makes it appear that foreclosures have slowed down dramatically in the state.
The reality?
Defaults (undeclared) are spiraling upward that yet have to pass through the foreclosure pipeline.
The truth?
California is still the highest foreclosure state in sheer volume and percentage.
The low-down?
Resale housing is still massively overpriced as a result of unprecedented interference by individual states and the federal government. The market distortions will be removed and the down draft will continue allowing the market to correct.
With 25 MILLION excess empty houses, 4 million of which are in California and housing demand at 17 year lows, housing prices a long way to fall. A very long way to fall.
” takes a year or more to renegotiate contracts and compensation structures for the foreclosure law firms who do all the leg work for the banks.”
Do you have any idea how ridiculous this sounds?
I think i’ve seen this same rubbish post like 20 times. It’s all BS. We are in a housing boom and people still cant get over they missed the boat again. It could be fake , it could be artificial but the bottom line is prices are going up.
Do I think these houses are worth what people are paying, no.
Like they say, dont fight the tape!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I dont make the rules. But I am going to make money this time around for sure.
Get on the right side of the trade for once please.
Caveat emptor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just think it’s funny that he thinks it takes a year or longer for a lawfirm to come up with some arrangement on how to get paid for a judicial foreclosure.
My wife is an attorney…she laughed out loud when she read that…
“Like they say, dont fight the tape!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
I’m not. The REIT funds I parked money in on the Fed’s announcement of QE3 to prop up housing are up by over 20% already. And I can quickly pull the plug when it starts to look as though the next crash is imminent, unlike greater fools who locked in their basis by financing it with a thirty-year mortgage.
96 + 99 + 224 = 419 posts today (through this one).
Yet another sign of housing bubble reflation = an increase in interest and posts to the HBB…
Can moms be terrorists?
Apparently so.
Boston Bombing Suspects’ Mother Was Also in U.S. Terrorism Database
By Luis Martinez
@LMartinezABC
Follow on Twitter
Apr 26, 2013 5:45pm
The name of the mother of alleged Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was placed in a U.S. terrorism database at the same time as her son’s was in October 2011.
The CIA requested that both their names be placed in the U.S. government’s terrorism database known as TIDE (Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment) after it received information from the Russian government that it considered the pair to be potential Islamic militants. An earlier FBI investigation prompted by another Russian request determined that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had no ties to terrorism.
…