patrick.net

newsfreak:

NINJA = No Income No Job no Assets

With regard to NINJAs, it will depend based on the person. My guess is that those who are true NINJAs will just walk away from their little sojourn in real estate, while the faux NINJA (no job because their real estate office closed, etc) believes he does have assets (his real estate, damn it!) and will fight tooth and nail to keep it.

PAR,

I have identified a couple of short sales using propertyshark.com. You can register for free and get 15 houses a day. They provide a lot of information for a free service. The downside is I don't think they provide info to a lot of areas.

PaloAltoRenter Says:

> I have a question for you engineers out there.
> I want to do kind of a mashup but I don’t know
> if the data is easily accessible. Tell me if this
> is possible: Grab current for sale price (from
> anywhere, MLS, Ziprealty, etc) and the previous
> sale price (Zillow).

You might want to send an e-mail to this guy:

http://flippersintrouble.blogspot.com/

The Chronicle this morning had some bad news for homeowners:

“Americans borrowed $2.2 trillion from 2004 through 2006 in the form of adjustable loans, which start with low monthly payments that reset to higher rates. As those loans reset, 1.11 million people will lose their homes, according the study by First American CoreLogic”

But good news for chunky single cat ladies:

“MeowChatters are people who create online identities in the names of their cats, and interact on Internet forums and e-mail lists and in chat rooms.”

Who says Web 2.0 is not big? I wonder how long before the Meow Chat IPO?

P.S. Someone posted an (real) link to the hottest Web 2.0 companies a while back and some of the people I sent it to thought it was from the Onion…

LowlySmartRenter,

To some degree... that's already happened. There was a time when "having good credit" meant NEVER having a late payment! (Let alone a BK or foreclosure).

Now having "good credit" means not having a late payment or BK in the last 2 years. Normally I agree w/Space Ace but when you really think about it FICO scoring is more art than science. Even lenders freely admit they don't fully understand it! My guess is that nationally FICO's will drift south as will the determining factors for "good credit".

As always, I'm making concious efforts to make my score irrelevant.

FAB,

That study assumes flat prices. Apparently the stated delta is 70K foreclosures per 1% price move. If that delta is linear (which may be a big 'if'), price falls of 16% would double the number of foreclosures.

The study also confines its attention to ARM's. IMHO the 800lb gorilla currently in the room is future deterioration in the failure rate of fixed rate mortgages.

FAB

http://valleywag.com/

If you want to become an invited commenter there I'll see if I can get you a password. I've written a couple things for them. Not only do the roast the Web 2.0 chicanery, but they expose how absurd the guys & gals running most of these "companies" are.

I'm puzzled about NINJAs.

Can they be people who cannot admit to their occupation, nor report their income, and whose assets are subject to seizure?

If so, it won't be an ARM reset that separates them from their houses.

I thought ninjas are just hired assassins, in this case, we can only assume NINJAs are out to kill our economy.

Q: Were NINJAs hired by Al Qaeda to kill our wrong God/Godless economy?

Japanese knives are very light and very sharp. The downside is that they tend to be more fragile and may be harder to sharpen. You'll need at least a Chinese made cleaver (high carbon steel please) around to do the heavy work.

Anyone here own Kyocera ceramic vegetable peeler? Amazon has some for under $20, which seems like a good deal if they stay sharp for very long.

astrid:

I think you must be right.

We could ask Quentin Tarantino... ;o)

Btw, my wife recently chose the "J.A Henckels" 13 piece knife set for her 15 year company gift. They arrived last Friday and we noticed several "blems". The block had "short shots" in the coating and you could see the seams where it was splined together. The handles didn't feel all that solid and then we noticed the dreaded "Made in China" label.

What a great 15 year gift! (What kind of message are they sending?) Uh... we'd out-source your job if we could but haven't figured out a way yet? Pffft, we boxed it back up and she called yesterday for the return shipping label. (I think she opted for the ladies Movado watch).

Silly DinOR, it's not too late to return that and get her a nice set of Globals for not much more.

Oh, nevermind...silly Company.

DinOR could still get her Globals or Nenoxes or if he really wants to splurge...

http://www.japanesechefsknife.com/KDSeries.html#WIDTH:%20368px;%20HEIGHT:%20258px

Anyone here own Kyocera ceramic vegetable peeler? Amazon has some for under $20, which seems like a good deal if they stay sharp for very long.

My only problem is that it looks more like a toy than a knife.

A dangerous item should look more dangerous than it is, not the other way around.

NINJA loans would be useful for people who earn incomes without ever having a job. Not necessarily black market folks (like drug dealers and prostitutes), but gray market people, like those avoiding collection on judicial judgments -- especially from marital dissolution. It's not that hard to "earn income" meaning "have things paid for" with a small businesses or two and a collaborator you can really trust, like a sibling.

RE: gray market people

I am sure they come without warranty.

Randy H Says:

> FAB http://valleywag.com/
> If you want to become an invited commenter there
> I’ll see if I can get you a password.

Thanks for the offer, but I waste enough time making fun of FBs on this site that I don’t have the time to make fun of companies that allow people to chat with cats (or pay real money for “sex” with cartoon hookers) on another site…

Randy H:

Agreed.

Still, I wonder what part money laundering played in big coastal towns' RE bubbles. And if they'll exit. Why would they?

Astrid,

Holy crap. $300-$1,000 for 1 knife? Does it cook your food for you and give you a massage after dinner too?

"Holy crap. $300-$1,000 for 1 knife? Does it cook your food for you and give you a massage after dinner too? "

I can't afford them myself so I don't know.

Though I would warn you against accepting massages from kitchen knives. That's probably not safe.

astrid,

"Now THAT's a knife!"

Actually her choices were limited to any item listed in their 4 page catalog. Normally I try not judge product quality by it's country of origin. I have a Malaysian made Fender Strat copy that I play a HELL of a lot more than my U.S made 1974 Strat so none of that really bothers me. Then again, I don't work for Fender (TM)!

I always recommend cold hard cash in place of gifts, unless I'm giving to somebody who can't tell a Cutco from a Nenox, then I buy them a set of Analon and know that'll be the best knife they ever own.

I always recommend cold hard cash in place of gifts, unless I’m giving to somebody who can’t tell a Cutco from a Nenox, then I buy them a set of Analon and know that’ll be the best knife they ever own.

We almost printed the PayPal Accepted logo on our wedding invitations.

"We "almost" printed the Pay Pal Accepted logo on our wedding invitations"

Brilliant!

Brilliant!

Too bad we didn't. The result: many wine glasses. We do not even drink.

I don’t give wedding gifts. It’s called tough love.

I always give devaluing greenbacks.

I can't say it's a direct result of NINJA Loans but now when you go to C/L for formerly "hot" markets (like Phoenix and LV) most of the RE postings are "Save your home from foreclosure" and "We buy distressed properties". And of course the inevitable "How to profit from.... distressed/foreclosed etc. etc."

Wow. What a difference from just a few months ago.

Perhaps in 2012 C/L will have postings like "Save Yourselves From Hell". ;)

For now they should just read "Save Yourselves From HEL".

Does anyone have a contact for housingtracker.net?

I really can't believe the stats published yesterday.

http://www.housingtracker.net/askingprices/metro/California/SanJose-Sunnyvale-SantaClara/

That's got to be a bug. It's got to be.

Has anyone previously suggested minting "REIC Dollars"? I mean since the REIC has basically been printing their own currency over the last several years why not let them have it? Would it be possible to insulate the broader economy from the debacle of their choosing by having RE transact in a separate (but unequal) currency?

Since most RE is easily 4 to 5 times what it should be priced at we can start them off at... 5 "REIC's" to the dollar? They're backed by the ABX and your full faith and credit in overpriced POS, but can not be exchanged for anything other than pergraniteel. That way these lame bastards can, buy! sell! trade! themselves to death without dragging the rest of us down?

How different is it really from Randy H's fantasy world over at Second Life? Why were these people ever allowed to exchange their REIC dollars for real dollars?

Just a thought.

Uh... that didn't come out right. Should read "the fantasy world Randy H exposed" at Second Life.

I really can’t believe the stats published yesterday.

Why does that bother you? Everything points to a spring bounce. Save yourselves from being priced out! :)

One thing: I suppose inventory data is immediate while median price data is lagged by at least a month. Don't you see an anomaly?

Inventory drop should precede CONTRACT price increase, right?

When I got a C in Calculus, I was so sure the data must be wrong...

Bruce Says:

> I wonder what part money laundering played in big
> coastal towns’ RE bubbles. And if they’ll exit.
> Why would they?

I was just talking to a kid I grew up with about our plans for Historic Weekend at the end of the summer and he mentioned something that I had never really thought of before.

Much if the “appreciation” in Bay Area homes over the past few years was due to the massive amount of capX that flippers put in to the homes.

Classic Car buyers and sellers keep track of “restoration” cost (so the guy that owns an old unrestored Camaro will not ask $30K just because some restored Camaros sold for $30K)

In the past it was not possible to “flip” a home and make any money (people used to fix up homes after they bought them and sell when they were worn out), but over the past few years the people with older crappy unrenovated homes are asking as much as the “area comps” that may have been ripped down to the studs and have all new electrical, plumbing and fixtures…

FAB,

Sound as Barrett-Jackson Dollar!

Why does that bother you? Everything points to a spring bounce. Save yourselves from being priced out! :)

I thought the definition of spring bounce was that a heap of properties would come on the market, depressing the median prices.

but over the past few years the people with older crappy unrenovated homes are asking as much as the “area comps”

Oh, you mean like this one?

http://www.burbed.com/2007/03/20/1mil-open-house-house-not-included/

eburbed - There are two housing tracker sites. The other site shows an increase:

http://www.housingtracker.net/old_housingtracker/location/California/SanJose/

The numbers on this site are more consistent with my own, which show YOY:

2006 - 3666
2007 - 4324

eburbed,

The Portland Metro area has seen an EIGHTY % increase in listings over Feb '06. What makes that laughable is that like no other population on THIS planet Portlanders are at the core of DIY crowd. (Meaning we've always had an active FSBO market). Factor that in and you've got an exploding inventory.