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Toro!

By surfer-x   Follow   Fri, 14 Apr 2006, 8:38pm   6,074 views   312 comments
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If housing gets cheaper, will the sushi also?

If sushi gets cheaper will Peter P buy me some?

The perfect sushi order:

2 orders $anta Barbara Uni
1 order ama-ebi
2 orders kampachi
1 order hotate
1 order teka maki
1 large Asahi.
and if Peter P. is buying
1 order tobiko w/quail egg and
1 more order Uni.

Trolls need not bother.

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1. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

   33   5:38am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (2)   Protected   2 bathrooms shouldn't be a problem. Maybe the Japanese go out for big celebrations. $250-300K sounds extremely cheap for something that's reliably under an hour from downtown Tokyo. You have to go pretty far into the Shanghai suburbs to find similarly priced equivalents - and those tend to have useless layouts. Owneroccupier, Gosh, how many languages do you speak?

2. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

   34   5:46am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Peter P, With the use of some frosted glass panels, a bathroom can easily double as a greenhouse. Owneroccupier, I always assumed the Japanese use their tatami rooms as a emergency guest room or some sort of multifunctional room/den for the family.

3. Different Sean Follow Befriend 2 threads 2,944 comments Different Sean's website

   35   6:42am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   I’ve become spoiled. I like having a separate bathroom from my kids. Ideally, every person should have his/her own bath. Ideally… A bathroom can double as a study or a sanctuary. House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling. Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh. You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt. And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

4. Michael Holliday Follow Befriend 630 comments

   36   7:03am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   I don't know about Sushi, but in the summertime, Silicon Valley becomes the Valley of the Wok as everyone sizzles on the griddle like stir fry vegetables on the hot highways and byways of congested traffic. Same thing here in Phoenix known as the "Valley of Sun." Perhaps the question should be: in the Valley of the Wok, what sort of stir fry vegetable are you?

5. Garth Farkley Follow Befriend 232 comments

   37   7:30am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Our mum and dad would kill us and dance about on our graves singing hallelujah.

6. Different Sean Follow Befriend 2 threads 2,944 comments Different Sean's website

   38   7:32am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   on Kobe beef: http://members.tripod.com/~BayGourmet/wagyu.html is this you, Peter P.? Are you really Tanith T.? hmmm? on australian beef, i think it's more fatty than standard american beef, so it doesn't export so well - americans apparently like to drink water with their steak, which then congeals the fat if it's particularly fatty - the idea of a marbled steak is to give the steak flavour when it's cooked... so i wonder if it's just a preference thing...

7. Different Sean Follow Befriend 2 threads 2,944 comments Different Sean's website

   39   7:33am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (1)   Our mum and dad would kill us and dance about on our graves singing hallelujah. that's right. or thrash us to sleep wi' broken bottle...

8. Different Sean Follow Befriend 2 threads 2,944 comments Different Sean's website

   40   7:35am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Look, I came here for a good argument...

9. Garth Farkley Follow Befriend 232 comments

   41   7:43am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Sorry, time's up.

10. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    42   8:32am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike (1)   Protected   Given that drinking is the National Pastime in the Philippines, rice (made in huge cauldrons) is there primarily for the purpose of soaking up alcohol. "Stinky Fish" is quite excellent (especially after it's been in 98 degree sun for about 8 hours! I'm partial to "monkey meat on a stick" that vendors sell 24/7 and pork rhinds (chicharones?) with vinegar. Balut (the ultimate hangover cure) otherwise known as the "egg with legs" will make you so ill that you'll forget all about you hangover. Kind of like rubbing donkey manure on your lips? Duhats (the closest thing to a grape in the P.I) are very delicious but turn your fingers (and lips) "corpse" purple. It has to wear off. They have "ketchsarup" which was flavored like ketchup (but made from bananas) for the G.I's. It goes on everything and everything edible is a dare. On a 48 hour bender. God I miss the place.

11. FormerAptBroker Follow Befriend 1,378 comments

    43   8:33am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (1)   I just read in the Chronicle the real reason we went to war in Iraq (see link below). The guys that pay the bills (own the politicians) wanted to make more money... Let's go back to the summer of 2002 in a Sonoma County Redwood Grove a bunch of guys are sitting around the Owl's Nest camp early in the morning drinking gin fizz's talking about the old days when Ronnie used to sing in the morning when he made the drinks. An older guy walks on to the deck with his head down and the other CEOs and Politicians ask "what's wrong? He says I was just running some numbers and it looks like I'll make less than $500 million before I retire. The other guys tell him to cheer up that they have a plan that will not only boost oil prices and make him more money, but also increase profits for their aerospace and construction companies. They tell the oil exec. that Kissinger and the Bechtel brothers just left and told them about recent polling that says that 90% of the residents in red states can name Dale Jar's dog, but don't know the difference between the leader of Iraq and the "towel head dude that paid these sand niggers to fly the planes in to the WTC". The polling did find that there may be some backlash from the war including a chance that every lesbian with a Subaru in Berkeley and Marin will put a big yellow "NO WAR ON IRAQ" sticker next to their rainbow stickers. There was also an outside class that a Mom from a blue state would go nuts and camp in front of the Presidents house (parents from red states are proud to have their kids killed at war and display their medals next to the Dale Sr. shrine in their single wides). If you see the article below the plan was basically successful and the once depressed exec. got his total compensation over $500mm, but he was still a little short of one Ha Ha a DAY!! http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/15/BUG78I9F0V1.DTL

12. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    44   8:37am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   Sounds like Teddy Bear's Picnic.

13. Randy H Follow Befriend (5) 44 threads 4,602 comments Los Altos, CA Premium

    45   8:38am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   InterestRateRat, As rates go up so should your discount rate. The differential to overcome the opportunity cost of the PITI-to-Rent ratio is much higher than 6%. If you don't believe me, I have proven it quantitatively.

14. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    46   8:39am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   DinOR, Care to confirm or deny the P.I. love of SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM ...

15. Randy H Follow Befriend (5) 44 threads 4,602 comments Los Altos, CA Premium

    47   8:42am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Yea, the problem is that you can earn 5% (and rising) risk-free. So, any linear system of equations must include the opportunity cost of not investing the PITI-to-Rent difference in a risk-free or better instrument. This largely blunts the effect of mortgage rates. As PITI-to-Rent comes down closer to 1:1, then mortgage rates become more sensitive to the system.

16. skibum Follow Befriend 2 threads 2,498 comments

    48   8:42am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike (2)   More buyers are looking at the city to buy homes/condos b/c the outer areas are softening. Ironically, there are now more buyers in the City than ever before, driving up city prices even higher. InterestRateRat sounds like a troll to me.

17. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    49   8:44am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   "InterestRateRat sounds like a troll to me." But one with greater sophistication than most mortgage lenders or realtors.

18. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    50   8:46am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   DS, What is the grossest thing Australians are known to regularly consume?...not counting Vegemite.

19. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    51   8:49am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   masurap= delicious (meaning? it hasn't gone bad yet) matabang= tasteless (meaning? it's not nearly salty enough!)

20. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    52   8:50am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   astrid, Spam has made me wealthy man.

21. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    53   8:52am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike (1)   Protected   Randy H, Isn't that what is known as the "Sharpe Ratio?"

22. skibum Follow Befriend 2 threads 2,498 comments

    54   9:00am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (1)   DinOR Says: Spam has made me wealthy man. Is that from responding to a request from that Nigerian ex-finance minister looking for assisstance in retrieving the $20million from his country's off-shore accounts, with the help of your SSN and bank account numbers?

23. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    55   9:06am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Mr. Mogataru promised me $25 million by May 1

24. Randy H Follow Befriend (5) 44 threads 4,602 comments Los Altos, CA Premium

    56   9:14am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   DinOR, Exactly. Realtors(tm), Mortgage Brokers, blogTrolls love to exploit the "common sense" error of omitting opportunity costs when proudly proclaiming how great of an investment RE and Mortgage Debt are. The mathematics-side of investing is one area where your common sense will almost always be sure to fail you. That's why someone invented financial calculators a couple decades or so ago. What's funny is that there is a very realistic point at which owning a home becomes mathematically very advantageous. My model will show that with a low enough purchase price and/or high enough rent, you actually come out ahead buying a home and can even sell the home for a small nominal *loss* profitably, because of the opportunity costs involved. Mortgage rates, while important, aren't the major factors affecting the optimality of the "own or rent" equation.

25. Randy H Follow Befriend (5) 44 threads 4,602 comments Los Altos, CA Premium

    57   9:16am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   Actualy the Sharpe ratio is something a bit different. It is optimized for risk-reward (risk = standard deviation, reward = expected return) for a portfolio of 2 or more assets, plotted along an efficient frontier (each mix of assets is optimized for best return, but with different risks).

26. Randy H Follow Befriend (5) 44 threads 4,602 comments Los Altos, CA Premium

    58   9:20am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike (1)   Protected   My Bubblizer model doesn't pretend to account for home risk in any directly observational manner. It simply takes as a discount rate: risk-free rate (10-year T-bill rate) + home-owning historical risk premium (as researched by HSBC, this is the idiosyncratic risk, or average risk to *your individual home*, ignoring what the entire home market does) + price-correction risk (market risk; I let the user pick this from 5 scenarios, the likelihood of more boom, mild appreciation, no appreciation, soft-landing, hard-landing/crash) All these I just add into a total present-value discount rate factor. It is conceptually then a "sharpe ratio" optimized value.

27. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    59   9:27am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (1)   Protected   Nontheless, InterestRateRat does bring up the point about abnormally low interest rates...the questions are: (a) how do we get a long term fixed low at today's low rates? (b)what is undervalued relative to the rest of the market? (c)would the Fed dare to cause deflation for more than one or two quarters?

28. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    60   9:31am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   Skibum, The "Overvalued Blogspot" did a great job with "I have two investment opportunities before me" One is to buy a 975K "rental" that generates about $$2,400 in rent leaving an $8,000 a month hole to fill, The other is this spam e-mail from the former Prince of Nigeria! The guy is so "tongue in cheek" it's hysterical, not to plug but it's become one of the few bright spots in my day (in Oregon you take what bright spots you can find) In the P.I Spam sandwiches are right up there with winning a fishing trip from the VFW!

29. Randy H Follow Befriend (5) 44 threads 4,602 comments Los Altos, CA Premium

    61   9:35am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   astrid, Just my opinion on (a), how do you get today's rates tomorrow: you can't. You could theoretically create an alternative investment with things like interest-rate forwards. But the transaction costs to you as a non-institutional individual will be higher than the value, and carry more risk. The real answer is you could invest in one of the couple of *depressed* RE markets with fixed rates. This is risky unless you really know the local market there. According to HSBC, Indiana is way undervalued by historical trends and technicals. The rent yields there are massive, PITI-to-Rent is well below 1.0 in many cities, etc. So, you could move to Indiana (not Northwest, IN), and learn the market, then use today's rates to buy real assets there. **not recommended advice. I prefer allowing mortgage rates to rise a bit, or even quite a bit, because this cost is much less than the other risks for a buyer today.

30. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    62   9:35am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   "In the P.I Spam sandwiches are right up there with winning a fishing trip from the VFW!" Are fishing trips or VFW very popular in P.I.?

31. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    63   9:38am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Randy H, Everyday a refresher course! Thanks for jogging my memory. Had it not been for the low interest rate environment of the last several years I don't think anyone would have remembered who Sharpe even is! When the market was doing 15 or 20% a year who wants to quibble? Now we find out the guy did know what he was talking about!

32. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    64   9:42am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike (2)   Protected   astrid, Let's see? Drinking San Miguel Beer (at the VFW), fishing on a "banca boat", shooting pool, betting on the cock fights and volleyball tournaments pretty much in that order. Men's Softball is pretty big too!

33. surfer-x Follow Befriend 23 threads 2,038 comments surfer-x's website

    65   9:48am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Fucking trolls are popping up faster than ever. Luckily I have my can of Troll-b-gone.

34. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    66   9:50am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (2)   Protected   Florentine, Randy H has his "Bubblizer" so I (not to be out done) am working on a model that Peter P and I kicked around a few threads back. It basically involves finding a "lease w/option" flopper where the agreed contract price is that of the average of 3 appraisals at the end of the lease agreement. I have found several firms (even one in Portland) that have agreed to these terms! If we are of the opinion that housing will be cheaper over the next 1 to 3 years wouldn't this make more sense than just about any kind of ARM?

35. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    67   9:50am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (1)   Protected   Randy, Thanks! I guess the difficulty of fixed rate retail loans and the inversion of the yield curve kinda kills off my idea. Your suggestion would work, if I could find someone in IN running a REIT. But I, like most bubbleheads, find RE way too risky and overpriced(or overbuilt) in the short run. Florentine. I have no current plans to buy, I was brainstorming ways to arbitrage of the current low rates and easy lending practices. If I bought, I want to buy in a high real interest rate environment with 50% or more cash down. Then if real interest comes down greatly, I would refinance my home to extract a good fixed rate for long term investment.

36. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    68   9:53am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (1)   Protected   Florentine, Don't worry, I read it and didn't find it trollish at all.

37. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    69   9:55am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   DinOR, That P.I. sounds like the land for me. It's all about lying on beaches and drinking cold beer.

38. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    70   9:57am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   Randy H, Not sure if you've been following my "Lease w/Option Maximizer" but I couldn't believe that there were "investors" out there willing wager that RE market will go even higher! After I deployed my stealth negotiating skills I finally had to abandon the tactic as whole and broke down and just flat out asked the gal "where do you find these people?" The lengths that people will go to to stay out of the stock market are simply mind boggling!

39. DinOR Follow Befriend 1 threads 6,749 comments Premium

    71   9:59am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   Protected   astrid, Thinking about is one of the only things that keeps me going! We have a modest beach house that is filled with about 3 generations and the stove never gets shut down!

40. astrid Follow Befriend 15 threads 5,071 comments astrid's website Premium

    72   10:01am Sat 15 Apr 2006   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike (1)   Protected   DinOR, From the lease with option person's perspective, it's not such a bum deal. They've already assumed that the market must go up by a lot, otherwise they'd never invest in RE. Knowing that, leasing to a potential buyer is positive in several ways: (1) they spend money on search cost only once (getting a leasee and a buyer for their property) (2) greater likelihood get a slightly above market rate or above average tenant I don't think most specuvestors think about timing issues or market conditions. They seem to have incredibly simplistic expectations about gain.

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