patrick.net

Owner Identity?

I was on the Spoke Software site. A San Mateo company that has thousands of employee records. I sure think many employers or even employees would be shocked to find insider info was available to
anyone. To me these guys are scum and care very little when info can
be traded for money.

http://www.spoke.com/

Remember - the Census Bureau will revise July housing figures two more times before arriving at a final figure. For some time now, the final revision has been sharply lower than the initial estimate.

Not only are the Census figures based on contracts for sale, and not only do they not record cancellations, they also do not include cancelled-contract houses in their unsold inventory totals, producing positive distortion in down market conditions.

i think the data was from june 15th to july 15th. mostly before the credit jitters. september would be the 1st month that would show the numbers since credit crunch.

"Is there a technical term"

Yes. Dickheads.

Next question please.

Let's not forget that they don't include the cancellations which might even outnumber the sales :lol:

OO:

Related to the topic of this post:

If the policy of propertyshark was that every time someone made an inquiry, the homeowner/borrower would have the identity of the inquirer disclosed to them, would you still do it?

Are you telling your neighbors and colleagues or whomever, straight to their faces, what you learned about them, how you learned it and why you did it?

So far so good in my develpment (Boise). There is only one "brown lawn" FB house in a development of 400 houses. It's odd that he let things go since the yard water, from our irrigation district, is free to homeowners. But he hasn't paid the gas bill so the gas company came by and TOOK OFF THE EXTERIOR METER. Wow are they soreheads or what? Is this common with FB abandoned homes?

Most of the selling prices for new houses in this development are in the $250K - $300K range. One builder, Sawtooth Homes, wants more in the $340 range and his houses aren't selling anymore. All of a sudden this week, the development RE signs came down from their houses and dime-store "For Sale / For Rent" signs went up in their place. I wonder what the heck is going on...the builder having problems?

Are you telling your neighbors and colleagues or whomever, straight to their faces, what you learned about them, how you learned it and why you did it?

I sure do. I even send them the link to propertyshark. I keep hunting up and down my old street to see what's up, and will often send a summary to a couple of neighbors I keep in contact with.

Does anyone else smell something?

Yes, it appears the bankster is one in the same. If it starts disrupting things then either I or one of the others will start yanking the comments.

Haven't we already established that using multiple identities is grounds for a permanent ban? Let's boot the troll already, and if it comes back, we should report it to its ISP.

sybrib,

I sent propertyshark info to all my friends (people that I care about) to let them know that their mortgage information is already out in the open. If they want to take certain steps to keep such info to themselves, they should perhaps explore different ways to do it.

If I were to negotiate a house purchase, I would sure send all the data I can dig up on the owner legally to HIMSELF, to let him know that I have a good grasp of his bottom line.

Regarding my neighbors, some are my friends, some are not. I don't have to worry about people who are not.

What I find really disturbing is that Mr. Bernanke is probably not taking a single penny in bribes for his actions. That's like UnAmerican to throw some 120 billion at the banking industry in a span of two weeks for no good reason, and not expect something in return. You are doing a heckuva job Bennie!

Mr. Newsfreak

Brand,

Are you saying TOB == TOS? It hadn't dawned on me yet.

newsfreak,

By the time this thing is done the billions will turn to trillions!

Paul

The Graphologic Psychologic Automatic Systematic Hydromatic Identity Parser package installed on my PC tells me TOB ≠ TOS.

Even though 'the man' (who probably really are the banksters and REI) may have gotten one over the rest of society, and blogging here won't advantage anyone except perhaps to provide mild catharsis, I'd like to think the presence of patrick.net with all of its current and growing resources might have an effect out there, and that my blog and the frequent letters I write to the major parties also have an effect.

I've been a fan of this site for quit some time. Its been a great place to reinforce a train of thought that is frowned upon by those who do not wish to have there revenue interfered with.

I don't need to reiterate the theme of this site, obviously so I will cut to the chase.

I have a question in terms of the future of the money movement in our 'freemarket society' with regards to the housing market gone kaput. Any thoughts on: we know they can not underpin this market - which they are despirately trying to underpin - what other financial vehicle could be used to move such vast amounts of capital by encouraging people to take on huge amounts of debt, live check to check, and think they are better off for having done it?

I'm enjoying watching the depreciation of land values excellerate. It is truly amazing to be witnessing history.

I believe the next great debt boom will be government debt. If they spark inflation they will have major problems. But if you can entice people to loan the government money, then the government can facilitate liquidity without running the presses.

Not Investment Advice

RandyH said:

"There is more than a mini run on banks. This is the real deal: a full fledged run on the banks. It’s just happening for the first time in the post-depressionary modern US banking system on more than a tiny, neighborhood scale. So far the system is handling fairly well with the help of the Fed’s actions."

I was suspicious of the timing of the Wells Fargo system hiccup when the Chronicle ran the story. But man, Randy's comments kept me from falling asleep. After a bit of research, I was worried enough to move what I could to Wachovia. So are there signs when a small, local bank is going under? Or is it more like when the first heart attack it fatal and comes without warning? My instincts are to pay interest penalties, then cut and run from the locals. Thoughts anyone?

Isn't Wachovia somewhat unstable compared to Wells Fargo?

Not Investment Advice

The Sandler Family were genius.

Under their direction, Golden West sailed through the S&L crisis unscathed, actually came out stronger.

But during the housing bubble, the mortgage desk at my local branch was the busiest place in the bank.

When the Sandler family announced in spring 2006 that they were selling out to a non-California entity called Wachovia, it sounded an awful lot like AOL trying to morph itself into Time Warner.

Did Wachovia know what it was getting into?

I’m enjoying watching the depreciation of land values excellerate. It is truly amazing to be witnessing history.

It is. We have enough stories to tell our grandkids. First the dot com bubble then this. Of course there have been more important events like 9/11 and Iraq war. But I am talking about entertaining stories about dumb people - kind of like Aesop stories.

Both these bubbles will be part of standard economics curriculum. We witnessed them first hand.

Unalloyed

If you're with an FDIC institution, and you're under the $100K, then I wouldn't take penalties. I might consider moving after those deposits mature assuming you're still nervous. FDIC will be honored, it just might be a temporary inconvenience. But if enough FDIC claims hit I'd be willing to be the feds would expedite the processing of those claims to avert further panic.

If you've got substantially more than $100K in deposits -- and I mean substantially, not like $125K but more like $300K or more -- then I'd find an investment professional you trust who "gets" your concerns and follow their advice. Taking specific advice from a blog isn't advisable. Keep in mind I'm not anything close to an investment professional. And the pros who post here are always very careful to tell you "not investment advice".

DS,

I'm not sure if the Graphologic Psychologic Automatic Systematic Hydromatic Identity Parser software accommodates well for the borderline psychosis of our favorite regular Troll, but good old fashioned IP addresses tell me there's at least a 90% chance that TOB == TOS. They both come out of the same temporary Comcast block, which would be quite a coincidence. And the fake email addresses used are always women's names, though that's less of an indication. The reason I think the Troll is a female is because of the intuition of our other female posters like SQT and SFW, who immediately thought she was a she.

Randy: And what's the buffer? Bonds, gold... ? I feel the pain because I'm part of a credit union, have $100K+ with them and they are advertising for a 0.25% discount on Hybrid ARM loans. My CU is concentrated in CA, CO, OR. I'd like to find a home for that cash, and fast if it means that my CU is in jeapordy.

Brand,
You can buy $60K in I-bonds, and your spouse can buy $60K in I-bonds.
If you're worried about more, you can buy an additional $60K in EE-bonds, and your spouse can be $60K in EE bonds.
There. That's almost a quarter of a million in sovereign debt that you can pick the maturity on and never pay a dime in California income tax.

Brand

I don't know. Simply, I just don't know. I can give my brief arguments as to why I don't know, that's about it.

Gold & other precious metals are no good because of all the reasons I've argued against gold bugs. Gold is not magical. It's not going to become some reserve basis for a future currency. It is manipulated heavily in the modern markets. And it's hard to buy real gold without losing your ass.

International stocks are riskier on a whole than domestic stocks. What you get in currency you could well lose to instability. Developed markets are reflective of the dollar -- case in point the mass exchange of discounted euros for dollars going on by the ECB action the past many days. Developing markets can go poof, along with your investment. And those events tend to correlate well to western world instability. When we're distracted fragile regimes are at high risk of collapsing.

Corporate bonds from mainstay companies are good, maybe the safest thing right now. But then you're trading risk of default/failure for a lot of market and interest rate risk. And since there's a rating agency issue also, even the best corporate bonds might have trouble holding their value, for a while at least.

USD money funds can be inflated away, and has the taint of subprime.

Real property should have been the place to retreat, except...well...

Few of us can get into top-shelf hedge funds (or we'll call them value investment funds, since hedge fund will be a bad word in the future). Fewer into top-tier VC funds. Pretty much none of us can get into strategic evergreen funds because we weren't born into them.

Treasuries are safe, but wide open to the ravages of inflation.

--

What I'm doing for now is winging it. I'm leaving my 401k/SEP fully invested and on auto pilot. I have enough time left there to hold course. My banked home-equity is reserved in money markets and munis which return like crap but make up for a lot in tax treatment. Using taxes to boost returns is a good strategy, but only goes so far. The problem is this wealth can be inflated away -- though my hope is that home prices deflate faster than general prices inflate, so I end up equal or ahead. My discretionary investments are in tech, medical (minus pharma and biotech), heavy industrials and core transportation (minus airlines), in that order. I think tech is going to be the relative haven in this correction cycle. It will go down too, but relatively do better than say financial or home builders or consumer retail.

A lot of words to say that I have no f-ing idea.

HOUSING DOOM HAIKU

Game's over Rover!
Time to put down the crack pipe,
smile, and bend over...

Wow! The crash is really here. It's about fricken' time.

Shout it from the rooftops: free at last, free at last, free at last!

Time to break out the Cheetos & popcorn, and enjoy the action...

I almost forgot: my biggest investment is in something FAB eloquently described over a year ago --

I'm investing heavily in my ability to own and directly control a portion of positive future cash flows. Entrepreneurial trumps all if you can get the equation down. What I think I said then was I'd rather own a minority partnership in FAB's father's business than an equal investment in Warren Buffet's fund.

(Not "go out and cash in Junior's college fund to buy a TCBY franchise license" advice)

Randy,

Treasuries are indeed wide open to being ravished by inflation.

But not Ibonds, because you can redeem them any time after the 6 month holding period.
But since you can only get 120K per year per joint household, they're more for working Joes than for rich dot com elites.

"Taking specific advice from a blog isn’t advisable..."

@Randy H,

Understood. I gather information from multiple sources (as I hope most do) before making decisions. Blog content runs the gamut from fluff to profound insight. I thought your comments were wonderfullly blunt regarding recent events, and they motivated me to review my own position. Thank you for that.

sybrib

I agree on Ibonds. I need to look into them more. I think everyone can use them, though there might be some AMT related problems -- not sure.

For the record, I'm not a "dot com elite". Not that you were angling that at me, but in case you were I'll clear the record. I made $0 on options or founders stock during the entire dot-com era. I was paid a ridiculous salary as CTO of a dot-com, but then everyone was paid ridiculous salaries if they worked for a dot-com. But I have some cool stock certificates from a couple long-dead companies.

My wife made some money during the boom, but in an acquisition not in an IPO. The difference was we cashed in her options at every point allowable (she was a finance insider with nasty blackout dates), and I remember everyone saying we were idiots. Leaving money on the table, etc. We also treated that money as "winnings" rather than "income", so we didn't change our life style based upon it. Because of that we kept 100% of that money plus returns whereas most of our colleagues blew most of theirs.

I made most of my money in 2001-2004, after the dot-com. My best year was 2001/2002 when my telecom software company was sweeping up after dot-com remnants from the telecom world. Telecom core systems have the wonderful requirement of actually having to really work, so it's a good cash flow stream. I also got a bit lucky in that I followed a hunch and sold out that line of business before the worst of the telecom nuclear winter settled in. I say lucky because I almost didn't. If I hadn't I'd probably have lost half of what I gained trying to keep the ship afloat.

Woooowwww! The legendary Michael Holliday resurfaces. Pretty soon we'll be treated to tales of cookie crumbs, foreclosure madness and red fruit punch Hi-C!!!

I thought you were going to be our novelist for the real estate bust? Still plenty of time, I guess...

@Randy: Why so conservative in the face of housing bear predicitions coming true? :) I realize that it's tough to place money for the long term. FYI, I tend to find claims that we're headed for a U.S. meltdown to be somewhat unlikely, mostly for the reasons that you've mentioned (dominant military, economy pegged vs. other nations, etc.). Thus I am looking for a nice balanced portfolio with a mind towards greater inflation.

I believe that China will eventually unpeg the yuan. This will temporarily kill their growth and cause massive pain, but eventually it will be a net positive as U.S. exports climb while imports decrease slightly. However, China unpegging will cause a massive U.S. shift away from China, plus all associated booms/busts in world currencies. I am unsure how to protect against that, as Treasuries are in a huge trough and thus will yield more in the future (assuming we bother to pay off our national debt, which I take as a given).

The future is difficult to predict, but this in the same vein as I asked before---what is the best way to profit off the housing bust and the onset of massive inflation?

Bap: Your debt is almost certainly transferred as an asset to the debtors of Lending Company X or the federal government.

-debtors
+creditors

@Brand

I'm very conservative with our banked home-equity. The entire reason for banking it in the first place instead of just buying another house was to protect it from uncertainty. Normally, a house is a very conservative, relatively safe place to store wealth. After the bubble corrects I'll move nearly all that money back into a house. My other investments are on the aggressive side for my age.

"stupid question here folks: If you owe Lending Company X money and it goes broke, do you no longer owe the loan?"

On a daily basis your loan history is tracked by the mortgage companies accounting software and is carefully monitored each day by their accounting dept. Nothing falls off into empty space I can assure you.

When companies go under.. or as they say close their doors..or even get aquired by another firm... they dont stop operations...the internal Accounting Dept or outside firm will be closing of the books and disposal of company assets. Filing all the IRS statments and banking requirements. The Accounts Receivable, your loan, is sold off to another company ( could be another lender ) or who ever who will contact you and make sure you send in your payment to new address.

LOL No one will just walk away I can assure you.

I hear this alot on the talk radio and their isnt clear or complete answer to all this from the host. So the confusion is wide spread.

I am in Finance (Corporate Accounting). Any accountant will tell you the same.

"Normally, a house is a very conservative, relatively safe place to store wealth."

Thats an odd statement considering all that is happening...
OK I get it .. sarcasm... what you mean you keep your gold at home...
I guess China should consider keeping their wealth at home instead of giving it to us for Goverment IOUs.

debtors of Lending Company X or the federal government

Hum? that dont make sense...