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Reputable Sources


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2005 Nov 4, 5:24pm   21,057 views  61 comments

by HARM   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

Robert ShillerBen JonesBarry RitholtzBill Fleckenstein

Who are the authors/analyst/bloggers you turn to most often for reliable, relatively bias-free information about Real Estate, economics and/or investing? Have any favorite columns/books/articles? Favorite bubble quotes?

Here are some of my favorite authors/anaylysts:

  • Robert Shiller (Irrational Exuberance)
  • Patrick Killelea (of course!)
  • Ben Jones (thehousingbubbleblog.com)
  • Bill Fleckenstein (Contrarian Chronicles)
  • Barry Ritholtz (TheBigPicture)
  • Mike Shedlock (Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis)
  • Bill Parke & "Tanta" (Calculated Risk)
  • Paul Krugman (NYTimes)
  • Rich Toscano (Professor Piggington's Econo-Almanac for the Landed Poor)
  • Dean Baker (CEPR.net)
  • Jim Puplava (financialsense.com)
  • Jim Grant (Grant's Interest Rate Observer)
  • Nouriel Roubini (Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor)
  • Here are some favorite Bubble quotes:

    "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"
    --John Maynard Keynes

    "When the shoe-shine guy gives you stock tips, it's time to get out."
    --Joseph Kennedy (just prior to 1929 stock market crash)

    "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
    --Prof. Irving Fisher (just prior to 1929 stock market crash)

    “South Florida,'’ he said, ‘’is working off of a totally new economic model than any of us have ever experienced in the past” according to a realtor who predicted that a land shortage will support higher prices indefinitely.”
    --New York Times, Trading Places: Real Estate Instead of Dot-Coms, 3/25/05

    "History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low-risk premiums."
    (and)
    "newly abundant liquidity can readily disappear."
    (and)
    "As events evolved, we recognized that, despite our suspicions, it was very difficult to definitively identify a bubble until after the fact — that is, when its bursting confirmed its existence."
    (and)
    "...recent research within the Federal Reserve suggests that many homeowners might have saved tens of thousands of dollars had they held adjustable-rate mortgages rather than fixed-rate mortgages during the past decade, though this would not have been the case, of course, had interest rates trended sharply upward.
    ...American consumers might benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the traditional fixed-rate mortgage. To the degree that households are driven by fears of payment shocks but are willing to manage their own interest rate risks, the traditional fixed-rate mortgage may be an expensive method of financing a home."
    --Alan Greenspan (with irony)

    "Homeownership has become a vehicle for borrowing and leveraging as much as a source of financial security."
    --Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, Feb 11, 2005

    "If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem."
    --J. Paul Getty

    "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his NOT understanding it."
    --Upton Sinclair

    "...capitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all, but a kind of socialism for the rich".
    --Jim Grant

    "It's only when the tide goes out that you can see who's been swimming naked."
    (and)
    "Be fearful when everyone is greedy and be greedy when everyone is fearful."
    --Warren Buffett

    "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
    (and)
    "Experience keeps a dear school, but a fool will learn in no other."
    --Benjamin Franklin

    "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."
    --Herb Stein (a.k.a. 'Stein's Law')

    "It may sometimes be expedient for a man to heat the stove with his furniture. But he should not delude himself by believing that he has discovered a wonderful new method of heating his premises."
    --Ludwig von Mises

    "Asset bubbles tend to last longer and grow larger than any rational person at the time would have thought possible."
    (and)
    "In a market rigged to reward the reckless, imprudent and immoral, the very dumbest thing you can be is a market participant who behaves in a responsible, prudent and moral manner."
    (and)
    "A law that is never enforced is basically the same as no law at all. Scratch that –actually, it’s worse than no law. It undermines people’s respect for law and government, as they watch criminals profiteer from law-breaking with impunity."
    --HARM (had to stroke my own ego :-) )

    "Friends don't let friends buy overpriced houses"
    (and)
    "...when I hear someone boasting about their FICO it makes about as much sense as a slave bragging about his healthy teeth and strong back! For what? So you’ll fetch a higher price at the auction?"
    (and)
    "It's always better [for the borrower] to buy cheap assets with expensive money than to buy expensive assets with cheap money. Down the road, rates will come down and you can always refinance the loan. But you can’t renogotiate the price of the house."
    --DinOR (from Patrick.net)

    “Broke is the New Black”
    --txchick57 (from Ben Jone's blog)

    "with a bucket of money and a box of stupid"
    --RE/MAX Equity Group broker David Foster (referring to the kind of buyer Oregon sellers are looking for)

    "Economics is the art of predicting the past"
    (and)
    "An economist is someone who will tell you tomorrow why the prediction he made yesterday never happened."
    --author unknown

    "a rolling loan gathers no loss"
    --author unknown (very apt for serial-refinancers)

    "If you’re going to do something stupid, do it with large numbers of other people."
    --author unknown (referring to "Don't 1099 me, bro!", Mod-Squad, GSE CLL hike, mortgage rescinding, and other awful government bailout legislation)

    "A housing correction is impossible, as we are running out of both land and condos. The historic relationship between rents/incomes and owner carrying costs has been forever severed. It's a new paradigm, and everybody who doesn't buy now will be priced out forever. Anybody who does buy will be rewarded with a lifetime of riches, as their property will continue its 30% yearly price increases. Renters, and those unlucky enough to be born in future generations, will be will be unable to afford a $10 million starter home in 10 years. They will live in tent cities, and used Hondas. This asset bubble is different than all of the others - it will never slow down or pop. The gains are permanent."
    --author unknown

    " A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
    Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."
    --author unknown (often mis-attributed to 18th century Scottish writer/laywer, Alexander Tylter)

    "Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."
    --James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

    “Democracy is an upside-down homeowner, a mortgage investor, and a tax-paying renter, voting on what’s for dinner.”
    --"Home-A-Loan", (from Ben Jones' blog, 2007)

    "Capitalism works just fine as long as those that make bad decisions have to pay the price for those bad decisions. When those that make bad decisions don’t reap the consequences, capitalism breaks down, since it breaks the risk vs. reward principle."
    --"packman" (from Ben Jones' blog, 2007)

    "Don't forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor."
    --John Dickinson (character from play "1776")

    "God, grant me the capital to accept the things I cannot change; the reserves to change the things I can; and the Fed Auction when all that blows up. Amen."
    --Tanta (from Calculated Risk, 2007)

    "Human Nature -- we are competitive creatures, and we need some legitimate boundaries. If you haven't noticed, when left to our own devices, too many of us eventually cut corners, eventually leading to the many scandals we have seen over the past decade: Corrupted analysts, accounting scandals, predatory lending, conflicts of interests, option backdating, etc.
    That is the risk that excessive deregulation and/or inadequate prosecution brings: With no refs on the field of business, too many of the players eventually become steroid-addled, drug-addicted, quasi-criminals."
    --Barry Ritholtz (from The Big Picture, 2007)

    "...the reason that people's attitudes have changed [re: defaulting on mortgages] is because the lenders themselves have decided that creditworthiness doesn't matter - that anyone can get a loan regardless of whether they have a track record of paying their debts or not. Why should creditworthiness be more important to the debtor than it is to the lender?"
    --"trail", (from Ben Jones' blog, 2007)

    "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
    -–James Madison, The Federalist #51 (1788)

    "Capitalism without failure is the very worst form of socialism."
    -–Peter P (from Patrick.net)

    “Nothing cures high prices like high prices”
    --author unknown

    "Life is hard. It's even harder when you're stupid."
    --John Wayne

    HARM

    #housing

    Comments 1 - 40 of 61       Last »     Search these comments

    1   Peter P   2005 Nov 4, 7:01pm  

    I turn to David Lereah. :)

    It is good to know what they want you to know.

    2   HARM   2005 Nov 4, 7:14pm  

    :lol: :twisted: :lol:

    You are too funny, Peter P! He has uttered more than a few gems, hasn't he? My fav:

    "If you paid your mortgage off, it means you probably did not manage your funds efficiently over the years," said David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors and author of "Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?" "It's as if you had 500,000 dollar bills stuffed in your mattress."

    He called it "very unsophisticated."

    3   Allah   2005 Nov 5, 12:19am  

    Once again my favorite Greenspan quote:

    "Newly abundant liquidity can readily disapear"

    4   Allah   2005 Nov 5, 12:34am  

    "When all the buyers have bought,.....all there will be left is sellers" - ALLAH

    5   Allah   2005 Nov 5, 12:56am  

    Heres a good link to current up to date foreclosure news
    http://www.foreclosureuniversity.com/news.php

    6   Allah   2005 Nov 5, 1:11am  

    one of those titles reminded me of my favorite real estate quote:

    Location, location, location.

    They have filler articles in there.....I don't read those, I only read the ones that inform you about when a whole town goes into foreclosure...and the sob stories that follow.

    7   praetorian   2005 Nov 5, 1:24am  

    Tim Iacono is pretty good. A bit down on my boy bush, but funny and provocative.

    http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/

    Cheers,
    prat

    8   praetorian   2005 Nov 5, 1:25am  

    Oh, and of course, Stephen Roach:

    http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/latest-digest.html

    Cheers,
    prat

    9   Allah   2005 Nov 5, 1:45am  

    Allah, you like the melodrama?

    I find it interesting to see where the tiny little bubbles pop just to see what the actual people who lost their houses have to say.....They say stuff like, "This is not right that they take away our houses" as if the house was theirs to begin with! ...or that they are suing their realtor because the realtor told them they should buy right away because they'll be priced out,...they lose their job and noone wants to buy their house so they foreclose. One of the most important things many people pass up is what motivates people in their decisions and how they react in the aftermath....Some of those stories are better than graphs or data analysis. If I'm going to buy in a bidding war, whether it is bankruptcy property, cars, or houses..... I want to know how the people who are bidding against me think. If they are irrational, I won't take part in that auction.

    I have made tens of thousands of dollars participating in auctions and then reselling. When I started going to auctions I was losing money because of several reasons which I could actually write a book about....but thats beyond the scope of my postings. One of the reasons was going to the wrong auction where a bunch of wannabe bidders who know nothing about auctions are bidding because they think that no matter what, if they bid slightly over someone elses bid, they can't go wrong (why would anyone bid too much they figure :)). I have learned so much from my mistakes and one of them is not to bid against a fool. I have learned alot about people as far as their psycology when it comes to finances as well. To me the RE market is one big auction going on in slow motion. I see way too much irrational exuberance and I know when the gavel drops, people are going to get burned and it won't be me. I will just wait for the next auction....the one where the fools don't have any purchasing power!

    10   praetorian   2005 Nov 5, 3:26am  

    Oh, also, there is this new commentator that I'm starting to become a fan of:

    David Lereah

    Check this article out (hat tip, HB2):

    http://tinyurl.com/88fse

    Cheers,
    prat

    11   KurtS   2005 Nov 5, 3:38am  

    sources...my approach has been to look at as much data as possible from as many sources as possible. Then, for the data that appears best corroborated by various sources (and personal research), there I pay the most attention. Imo, it's far better to use your own judgement, than have others translate if for you. Of course, then it's your responsibility to keep your judgement sound.

    Blogs like this are great for the anecdotal accounts (and whacked sense of humor), which I won't get sifting through pages of data.

    I think one recent event may provide us some retrospective on what may come to RE: the tech boom/bust. I was right in the midst of that, and I can tell you this whole thing feels eerily similar.

    12   Allah   2005 Nov 5, 3:48am  

    Here you can hear a live interview with david lereah
    http://www.finishrich.com/davidbach/db_interview.php

    13   SJ_jim   2005 Nov 5, 4:46am  

    (NOTE: there is a space after all WWW's to avoid moderation purgatory)
    Well it looks like all the bear-econ sites have been sited. Oh, I just found the "credit bubble bulletin" on prudentbear.com that has an amazing amount of summary data and short headlines, all somewhat categorized:
    http://www .prudentbear.com/creditbubblebulletin.asp

    In case anyone missed it, Zephyr gave a link on the heaven/hell thread with links various econ sites:
    http://www .rtable.net/
    A unique site I found through rtable.net was "asia finance blog"
    http://www .asiafinanceblog.com/asiafinanceblog/
    Also, a bullish general econ site:
    http://www .optimist123.com/optimist/

    Now, something I look at every now & again is the San Diego Creative Investor's Association website (RE flippers infor site). It looks like there's a lot of knowledgeable folks there if you want to flip properties...maybe check back in 2-3 years. Also, you see some of the people there acknowledging the top of the RE cycle is here or past. They're having a hard time finding the next target for the "rolling boom":

    http://www .websitetoolbox.com/tool/mb/sdcia

    Needless to say, it would be bad form to go there and start trolling; best to lurk only IMO. There's already people posting there about getting stuck 'holding the bag' on certain properties.

    Thanks to everyone else for all the references, etc.

    14   SJ_jim   2005 Nov 5, 4:52am  

    ARGH 3 posts in moderation now. Here's a test:
    http://www. url.com
    www .url.com
    www. url.com

    15   Peter P   2005 Nov 5, 4:54am  

    newly abundant liquidity can readily disappear

    - Alan "Bubble" Greenspan

    16   SJ_jim   2005 Nov 5, 4:55am  

    (HARM! I have a lot of posts stuck in moderation to be deleted. thanks.)
    Well it looks like all the bear-econ sites have been sited. Oh, I just found the “credit bubble bulletin” on prudentbear.com that has an amazing amount of summary data and short headlines, all somewhat categorized:
    www .prudentbear.com/creditbubblebulletin.asp

    In case anyone missed it, Zephyr gave a link on the heaven/hell thread with links various econ sites:
    www .rtable.net/
    A unique site I found through rtable.net was “asia finance blog”
    www .asiafinanceblog.com/asiafinanceblog/
    Also, a bullish general econ site:
    www .optimist123.com/optimist/

    Now, something I look at every now & again is the San Diego Creative Investor’s Association website (RE flippers infor site). It looks like there’s a lot of knowledgeable folks there if you want to flip properties…maybe check back in 2-3 years. Also, you see some of the people there acknowledging the top of the RE cycle is here or past. They’re having a hard time finding the next target for the “rolling boom”:

    www .websitetoolbox.com/tool/mb/sdcia

    Needless to say, it would be bad form to go there and start trolling; best to lurk only IMO. There’s already people posting there about getting stuck ‘holding the bag’ on certain properties.

    Thanks to everyone else for all the references, etc.

    17   marinite   2005 Nov 5, 6:56am  

    -- Eric Fry

    18   marinite   2005 Nov 5, 6:57am  

    "Asset bubbles are never merely financial; they are the
    love-children of leveraged speculation and warped
    perception."

    -- Eric Fry

    19   Allah   2005 Nov 5, 6:57am  

    .........and I thought there weren't any good deals left!
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9870962/

    20   Allah   2005 Nov 5, 7:52am  

    SJ_Jim,

    I've been to the link you posted www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/mb/sdcia...... I wanted to see how the other half thinks...it's kind of interesting what they talk about.... I'm just reading though, not going to spoil their parade with my beliefs.

    One thread I was reading http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/sdcia/vpost?id=707363 was about how the fed is tightening up lending standards. While some of the talk there I agreed with, someone thinks that the banks don't have to answer to the fed when it comes to useage of creative financing. This is most definitely wrong since the fed insures the banks.
    What do you guys think?

    21   SJ_jim   2005 Nov 5, 8:47am  

    What do you guys think?
    I second this question.
    My impression is the Fed "advises" & sets guidelines on lending standards, which might have the affect of "law" in the lending world. I think, perhaps, the issue of "bailout" might not be resolved until after the fact.
    I would definitely like to hear an educated opinion on this.

    Here's a link to a recent home equity lending advisory paper by the Fed, with links to other relevent Fed papers at the bottom:
    http://tinyurl.com/9v8yo

    There's a link for an advisory paper on loan-to-value (SR letter 99-26). I like this quote:
    "The Guidelines permit institutions to grant or purchase loans with LTV ratios in excess of the supervisory LTV limits provided that such exceptions are supported by documentation maintained in the permanent credit file that clearly sets forth the relevant credit factors justifying the underwriting decisions. These credit factors may include a debt-to-income ratio or credit score. The Guidelines further specify that all loans in excess of the supervisory LTV limits should be identified in the institution's records and should not exceed 100 percent of the institution's total capital."

    Nice! Ill-advised, high-LTV loans should not constitute more than 100% of a bank's total capitol.

    22   Allah   2005 Nov 5, 9:54am  

    I was reading some of the stuff there, but it seems to be about home equity loans which are backed by collateral (the house) and since noone takes 100% out of their house (I sure hope not), the risk isn't anyhwere as severe as someone taking out a 100% down IO loan as a first time buyer with no collateral. I'm hoping there may be someone reading that knows more about this....the reduction of useage of these loans will certainly have a huge influence in the crash.

    Nice! Ill-advised, high-LTV loans should not constitute more than 100% of a bank’s total capitol.

    I don't think the banks have to worry about this since they sell the note to fannie....thus freeing up their capitol.

    23   HARM   2005 Nov 5, 3:44pm  

    SJ_Jim,

    I'm sorry about those comments that got stuck in moderation. As you probably figured out by now, I was away from my computer all day. I was unable to retrive your posts (I guess there's some kind of time limit on approving them or they get auto-deleted), so my apologies.

    For future reference, what I usually do is remove the "http://www." from my links and they post just fine.

    24   HARM   2005 Nov 5, 4:10pm  

    As I’m eating my two carnitas tacos with “everything” yesterday, I’m watching Noticiero Univision, all in Spanish, and I can understand a little. One of the feature stories is that the tax deductions for homeowners in the USA may go poof.

    Ay, caramba! No quiero una caja mierda costosa de Yanqui.

    25   SJ_jim   2005 Nov 5, 4:14pm  

    HARM, no problem. I still don't have it all figured out, but I did figure out that "http://www." screws things up, even if you put some spaces in there. Funny thing is, I've had posts with tinyurl links get stuck in moderation purgatory as well. But I look at all the posts above this one with nice, full urls that aren't stuck in moderation & think "WTF?"

    26   Allah   2005 Nov 6, 12:03am  

    This http://housing-bubble.com/ used to be a great site for links to articles about the housing bubble, don't know why they stopped updating it in 2003 though.

    27   Allah   2005 Nov 6, 12:17am  

    But Allah, according to Mr. Wrong, there is no housing bubble.

    Tell him to go buy a house!

    28   Allah   2005 Nov 6, 12:18am  

    Now you know why his name is Mr. Wrong

    29   frank649   2005 Nov 6, 1:31am  

    "[The] famous investor Sir John Templeton, predict that, when the bubble bursts, housing prices will plummet at least 20 percent just for starters. He expects that 20 percent of homeowners with a mortgage will lose their homes when the bubble pops and has even told investors to prepare for a crash similar to the stock market crash of 1929 that led to the Great Depression!"

    Source: http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?page=article&id=1181

    The article is informative. The section titled 'Uncharted terroritory' must be what Mr.Wrong read right before he posted that doom-n-gloom remark ;-).

    There are many good articles on the site.

    30   Zephyr   2005 Nov 6, 2:17am  

    Of course it's your favorite - it's yours. Created yesterday.

    It seems to be dedicated to exclusively pessimistic rhetoric.

    31   Michael Holliday   2005 Nov 6, 2:32am  

    I think the title of this blog was "Reputable Sources."

    While probably not always as "reputable," as some of the others,
    one of my favorite action sites for daily, negative market sentiment
    updates is none other than the king of the genre:

    http://www.urbansurvival.com

    Bon apetitos!

    32   frank649   2005 Nov 6, 3:50am  

    Jack,

    I don't know if Templeton has answers to all your questions. And the article doesn't directly answer all of them either. But if we were to entertain anything even close to what Templeton is predicting, I don't think the answers to your questions would matter much anyway.

    It's a scary outlook, true; something no bear here would even want I'm certain.

    33   Allah   2005 Nov 6, 4:12am  

    I would love to see a link to a blog that was pro-stock before and after the stock market crashed.....Anybody know of one tha may have been archived?

    34   frank649   2005 Nov 6, 4:36am  

    Motley fool has general investment advice and pieces on real estate like the following on occasion.

    http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2005/commentary05102606.htm

    35   HARM   2005 Nov 6, 7:50am  

    SQT,

    Just wondering, do you have rights to approve posts 'awaiting moderation' for threads you control? I can see 'em and delete'em, but I can't approve 'em. On a sidenote, when did you decide to shorten SactoQt to just SQT?

    36   HARM   2005 Nov 6, 8:16am  

    SQT, thanks for the info --will try that next time.
    You may recall I shortened Heavily ARM'd to HARM partly for the same reason. Can't see why anyone would have trouble with SactoQt, though.

    37   praetorian   2005 Nov 6, 11:17am  

    Might as well give an update on my situation:

    Front lot that we are trying to sell (in Sactown) is *dead* on the market. May have missed our chance...

    _shrug_

    On the upside, the Bears lost to Oregon this weekend, in a horrifically painful manner, the football equivalent of chinese torture being applied while Coldplay is piped on repeat into your cold, dank cell.

    Also, apparently, Coldplay has not imploded into an infinite singularity of whiney suckage, thereby disproving *another* pet theory of mine.

    _smile_

    Cheers,
    prat

    38   KurtS   2005 Nov 6, 3:18pm  

    Yeah great, but WHERE and WHAT frank? Are we
    talking Phoenix? San jose condos? Marin County houses?
    National average? Asteroid 144-x average?

    Fortunately, for us, the intangibles of boom locations
    will push the bust to the outer fringes where nobody
    we know wants to live.

    Unfortunately, for Bob Larsen, a retired orthodontist
    in White Tooth, Montana, the RE bust landed squarely
    on his doorstep, forcing him to take on a national
    equity loss of $650 Bn. Promptly thereafter, termites
    devoured his home, and his wife left him.*
    Sorry, Bob.

    *dramatization of Fall '06

    39   SJ_jim   2005 Nov 6, 3:20pm  

    Quick note about a property listing in a condo complex I've been monitoring:

    2br/2b 1067 ft^2 listed 24Aug05 for 478K.
    After 2nd price drop, it is now listed at 448.8K.

    2005 comp sales (same complex, same size) are as follows:
    18May05 for 470K
    09Mar05 for 450K.

    So, this unit is listed at roughly the March 05 sale price, ~4-5% lower than the May05 sale price. Funny thing is, another identical unit is listed at 515K...go figure, probably had the pergraniteel treatment done.

    On the flip side, a small (2br, ~1200 ft^2) house in a nice, established San Jose community (rose garden) just sold for ~737k, on a 725K list price.

    40   KurtS   2005 Nov 6, 3:24pm  

    On the flip side, a small (2br, ~1200 ft^2) house in a nice, established San Jose community (rose garden) just sold for ~737k, on a 725K list price.

    Wow...a tad steep, and here people complain about Marin prices. That's roughly the same price for a similar home in Marin (excluding the high-end nabes)

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