patrick.net

We do have the power to make a difference. It's a hard for a lot of people to believe we can help, and in some cases it seems too hard of a choice to help. A lot of people are too caught up in affluenza to make the choice to buy less and make an effort to not buy from unethical businesses or nations. Others find it too hard to do the research because too often they are stressed and tired. That's why I suggest starting with a few truly evil corporations and slowly add to the list as each person feels ready.

I would start with ExxonMobil, Monsanto, Nestle and Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International (a.k.a. The Altria Group Inc.)

Start with those, since it's honestly the equivalent of supporting Mordor.

Move on to Chevron, Pfizer and Walmart.

Take it one step at a time if it's hard, but please try, and please start today.

exfatguy says

The only losers are the sub-prime borrowers

Nope. Taxpayers are the losers, not banks either.

Call it Crazy says

Analyzer says

HeadSet says

ALL A REALTOR DOES IS FIND A BUYER.

If this is the case then it sounds like the internet should be able to make them obsolete.

hrhjuliet says

It's only a matter of time, and changing the rigid mindset that the NAR has implanted.

That's the issue... Even though most people find their new houses looking on the Internet, they are STILL brainwashed in thinking they need a realtor to "push the papers"...

Until Critical Thinking skills are used, the "sheep" will continue to follow the herd, and pay 6% commissions....

It's not common knowledge that this can easily be covered by a lawyer or title company, but it can easily become common knowledge through social media and blogging. That's why it's only a matter of time. The NRA is a union that can only do so much to stop the power of knowledge.

HeadSet says

Just think of how TurboTax and the like did not make tax accountants obsolete
for personal taxes. Even folks with relatively simple tax calculations are
uncomfortable without professional help. The same mentality applies to the vast
majority of home buyers - they want someone to walk then through.

I suspect this is mostly due to the older generation and is now changing quite rapidly.

http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/2010/03/07/why-software-is-winning-the-tax-prep-wars/

HeadSet says

Since I do not see Buyer's Agents going away, I would like to see a system
where the seller pays a flat fee to list, and the buyer pays out of pocket for
the Buyer Agent services. But then, some sellers would offer to "rebate the
Buyer's Agent cost," and we would be right back where we started.

The last couple of times I shopped for a house I used a buyer agent and basically came up with all the listings I wanted to see by myself. The only thing the agent really helped me with was opening the lock box..................

Call it Crazy says

But NAR would NEVER let that happen....

NAR is not the problem, nothing requires anyone to use a realtor.

Although all a realtor does for the seller is find a buyer, look at it from the buyer's point of view. The buyer is making a large financial transaction in a field the buyer knows little about. Pricing, contacts, inspections, appraisals, loan apps, titles, contingencies, and even basic home research are daunting to someone who has no experience in home buying. There is also a trust issue, since the buyer thinks he may be too ignorant about houses to prevent getting "ripped off" It is not "brainwashed sheeple" that may want assistance here, but just an average Joe who does not have the ability or time to become a home buying pro.

Why do we still have Used Car Dealers? With the internet, why not all buy from private sellers?

Why (and I do not know why) do we still have people pay so much for Word and Excel when LibreOffice is available? Unless one uses VBA, LibreOffice does everything these two products do, sometimes more. Same for Photoshop vs GIMP, Illustrator vs Inkscape, and so on.

Comfort level.

jojo says

control point says

Jojo, quick question:

Do you own real estate?

Yes.

Hardly quick, but follow up question then - Is it for sale? And if not, why not?

I see. You don't really believe yourself.

jojo says

What do you mean?

A rational player in a free market acts in a way that best suits himself. (or the way he believes best suits himself)

Either you are irrational or you don't really believe what you say in regards to real estate prices.

You don't seem insane, so....

jojo says

What about you?

I own, I am holding, and I don't believe real estate prices will decline. If I did, I would be selling.

jojo says

I am not a real estate speculator and when taking the time, energy, and fees
of the transactions into account that does not make sense for me (a 1031
exchange might). I have a portfolio; RE is just one part of it.

You have lost transaction fees the moment you purchased the real estate - you should not avoid selling based on fear of fees incurred. Transaction fees are incurred on purchase, only not realized (as with gains or losses) until sale.

Transaction fees should have been factored when purchasing, not selling. That is, when doing a rent vs. buy analysis - you should have added transaction fees into cost of ownership.

jojo says

I look at real estate like buying a variable annuity. The day to day
fluctuations market values do not affect my cash flows. If prices dip then I
look to buy, otherwise I hold what I already own.

You do not understand risk, return, or opportunity cost then.

You cash flows would be unaffected by 10x increase in asset value - would you look to sell then?

jojo says

You also fail to take into account the opportunity cost of my time; this is is
different for everyone. I make more money doing what I do than spending time
trying to time the RE market and scalp a few points in one direction or the
other.

You generate income every waking second? You should like consultants I interview that are applying for full time positions.

"My billing rate is $200 per hour, I won't accept total comp less than that, including benefits." Great - and you bill 25 hours per week. I'm paying you for 40.

jojo says

You are right. And if I never sell I will never realize those fees.

Someone will realize those fees. Your estate. Your children's estates. Yor children's children estates. Someone.

jojo says

But within reasonable market ranges its not worth my time.

How much money do you make posting to p.net?

Why would I shit into a running blender?

HeadSet says

You would have needed an attorney or title company to "do the title" whether you had an real estate agent or not.

Yes and No.

I shouldn't NEED one, but unfortunately I do.
People are still liable for previous liens, levies, fines and back taxes.

They do the investigative work to get a clean bonded stamp, and title insurance. They will also go over your mortgage to let you know of any verbiage in it, that you should pay very close attention to.

Their take on my mortgage at the time I got it, was they've never seen one so lopsidedly lean toward the buyer in every almost every classic way that they normally inform the buyer. But at the time I bought, the nation was in the middle of Mortgage volume identity crisis, and the Law makers when they were working the FHA laws and tweaking them in real time by the minute. I got 7 GFE, while at the time FHA was demanding no Loan should not even be submitted for processing until a "SINGLE" GFE had been generated signed and returned. I signed 7 of them. My mortgage has only one single late fee, and that's it. No interest rate hikes. Not that I have missed a payment, or plan on it) but it's nice to know if things get tough, my house wont be one more thing, ratcheting up the screwing while I'm down.
My title Insurance is pretty solid, it protects my house from getting frivolous liens.

But they only cost me $275 for the whole thing.

So I would say, yes a title company is good. I don't know how much I would have liked them, had I bought in a time, that all of those normal "Be careful" gotchas that they were saying to people before they started tweaking the FHA rules. I don't think I would have liked to have listened to a long list of how people could legally fuck me out of my house.

Even with all of that other stuff that I felt was above and beyond what I expected out of them as a title company and RE lawyer, the volume of paper work that they had, hundreds, and hundreds of pages. And not just empty blank form pages. Each already had all of the unique inormation already filled in and ready to be signed.

I could have never collected, filled out, and signed and gotten notarized all of that paper work. Not while I working my ass off every day to prove to the loan officer my finances. Only to wake up every day like it was ground hog day, and the appeasing the loan officers would start all over again.

Plus working my job trying to make money at the same time, so I could even buy the house.

WOW! The UNtrustworthy are certainly in control of what information is apparent to the people!

Say hey! This was in the Wall Street Journal on March 30, 1999. Note "... how much it will buy."

Holy cow/interesting/compelling ...!

And where is it up to date??? Right here ... see the first chart shown in this thread.
Recent Dow day is Friday, March 28, 2014 __ Level is 103.9

WOW! It is hideous that this is hidden! Is there any such "Homes, Inflation Adjusted"? Yes! This was in the New York Times on August 27, 2006:

And up to date (by me) is here:
http://patrick.net/?p=1219038&c=999083#comment-999083

WOW! The UNtrustworthy are certainly in control of what information is apparent to the people!

And http://patrick.net/?p=1230886

Call it Crazy says

The survey also found that 50 percent of the uninsured plan to remain without coverage, even if they do know about the upcoming deadline.

This is great! Even the poor getting Obamacare for free don't want it.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/JFvujknrBuE

Increasing FSBO is a leading indicator that the SWHF soon, very soon

Should't the buyer pay his realtor?

Buyer's agents are completely useless, and a liability in fact - you can act yourself faster than with some realtard in tow. I don't understand fools using them.

There is one exception, in a seller's market like ours: but that's not really a buyer's agent, but dual agent, which not all states allow. We just used this trick and are in the process of buying our first house (after nearly 10 years on this site, this is something! :).

We walked into a "broker open house", without an agent of course. We decided to make an offer on the house and approached the two realtors showing the house. One was the listing agent, the other was her "buddy". The buddy (from the same agency) become our buyer's agent, which means they will cash the entire fee. Needless to say they worked hard on sellers to accept our offer, which they did the next day before the first open house (to public). Interestingly enough the open house took place, 150+ people came, they got offers well above ours but that was too late. The sellers were not happy, but they seem to have gotten over this by now :)

Call it Crazy says

This should be good for a point or two rise in home prices!!!

Prices will probably fall, they've overly speculated them lately. But it's not bad if you live outside the city. Smog is bad within the city though, so we stay out.

Damaged homes become Fixers & then Flippers.We'll be rolling in the dough.

Ceffer says

I'm waiting for YouTube videos of Japanese mutant squid dragging movie stars into the Malibu surf for supper.

Maybe Godzilla is real?

It's raining here on the central coast.

Earthquakes bring in the buyers like lemmings. What is life without a bit of flavor of danger?

Buy now, or be priced out forever.

Ceffer says

Earthquakes bring in the buyers like lemmings. What is life without a bit of flavor of danger?

Buy now, or be priced out forever.

North Fullerton had the most minor damage including water main breaks destroying roads. Most Americans are already priced out of this area. Somehow I think you are right, and by the end of tomorrow's open houses, the rest of America will be priced out after thrill seekers bid up prices.

Call it Crazy says

These hiring managers also said they were three times as likely to hire a worker over age 50 as a millennial.

Senior citizens seem to be replacing younger workers in entry level grocery store jobs. Bad sign on two fronts
-it means the senior citizens don't have enough to retire and must work
-the younger generation doesn't get any job training or make any money

Call it Crazy says

Also because the store owners are trying to run a business... The senior citizens show up every day for work, the younger ones, not so much...

clearly the owners make a choice on whom to hire and they pick the older worker

Stay where you are, a Liberal will be long shortly to tell you you're wrong. Well... that's what they've been telling me for about 5 years now. When I mentioned that the work force is getting older, all these years.

I was always told I needed a link. But it's hard to give a link, when you report the news before the Press(Such as it is) takes notice.

ugh....
Michael Snyder?

Software pork barrel, that doesn't even work, a great way to fashion the future of the great socialist paradise.

At least Michelle's school buddies are rich now, just like she is!

If it's on CNBC it must be true

Absolutely!

jojo says

FortWayne says

Because it changes how insurance works JoJo. You are forced into the system of pre negotiated fees, you are forced to buy a product while real insurance is forced out.

All it does is force individuals to buy an insurance policy from the same companies.

It's not the "same companies". What you are buying isn't insurance, you are buying into a system. Insurance has no provider contracts or network. What you buy today, is a contract with a provider group that certain "insurer" will pay out prenegotiated set of fees for services.

Call it Crazy says

I would suggest that no more than 5% of the resumes that I see show the simplest understanding of what a hiring manager is looking for, and no more than 10% of those people that I bring in to interview have the simplest understanding of how to interview.

Most of the boomers were dirty hippies and pot heads at the same age.

You still don't get it. When we say millennials are screwed as a generation, it obviously doesn't mean there are no slackers among them. It means, on average, as a generation, they will have far less opportunities than boomers did. Bringing anecdotal evidence does absolutely nothing to disprove that fact.

Plus, someone that claims that 90% of people are inept is probably himself a nut case looking for some kind of idealized slave labor. How someone dresses, uses social media, and what people do in their private lives is mostly irrelevant as to how they can handle a job. These are just stupid prejudices.

CaptainShuddup says

Stay where you are, a Liberal will be long shortly to tell you you're wrong

As predicted, he arrived.
Heraclitusstudent says

How someone dresses, uses social media, and what people do in their private
lives is mostly irrelevant as to how they can handle a job.

Not quite - if he uses drugs (including alcohol) to the point that affects his behavior while he is on the job. It is relevant. If his appearance makes customers decide to stop coming to my store - it is relevant. As are things like the hygene, the language that is used (swear words), putting attention to the cell phone instead of the customer, not showing up for work because (fill in the blank). Yeah, there are a LOT of things that a person's appearance, behavior, and what is done in the personal life DO affect how and if they can handle the job.

"Recent price changes, by themselves, cannot tell us whether this is a housing bubble; neither can a simple comparison of nominal price levels today to where they were in the past. "

Call it Crazy says

Yep, Heraclitusstudent is the perfect example of the "Millennial attitude" that expects the employer to change his business to suit the Millennial, instead of the Millennial changing his behaviour to blend with the business...

And in typical "blame game" by this generation, it's always someone elses fault...

No I don't expect businesses to change their attitude.
And yes, the current situation is boomers fault, not personally, but as a generation. It's not a question of blaming someone else. It's just a fact.

to the moon