patrick.net

for depaktepores I have vanguard total bond market index, vanguard high yield tax free, vanguard high yield corporate.
The biggest of the three is total bond market index admiral shares.
I would not suggest that having $150K in cash is the same as buying high yield corporate bonds however. The high yield bond fund can vary in nav (principal) so using that fund as a parking place for money is not that wise.
But, if I were a guy running around looking for "investments" and had $150K burning a hole in my pocket, I'd consider the alternative to being a landlord and look at bond funds.
A place to hold your dough while you decide might be vanguard total bond market index fund.
International bond funds also may have good yields but they have other risks depending on which countries bonds they own, and currency risks, etc.

clambo says

A place to hold your dough while you decide might be vanguad total bond market index fund.

bonds are very risky right now since rates are so low.

always good to have some bonds held via an index but it's not a great idea to overweight your portfolio with them at this time.

I am low weight in bonds when compared to my total financial assets.

Yet, an unexpected "flight to quality" caused a slight capital appreciation of my total bond market index last year.

" That dump will ultimately sell for 85K, if they're lucky."

"Then you don't know the market in this part of the world."

Maybe. However I know Silicon Valley, and there are similarities, I imagine. Most people can't imagine real crashes; they don't have a sense of historical perspective, or what happens to money in a deflationary depression. You can buy oceanfront mansions in parts of Connecticut for cheap - and I promise you they weren't always cheap. I think 85K will end up being optimistic. Funny things happen when suddenly no-one can get credit.

I grew up in eastern CT. There are areas there - Noank, Stonington, Watch Hill - that have been very, very wealthy for a very, very long time. Now - for the first time in living memory - the houses in those towns are not selling. Those owners who in any way relied on the value of their houses (and many of them did and do; the wealthy who are independent of the value of their real estate are few outside of Silicon Valley) are hurting. They are showing up at a regular get-together my dad frequents, trying to sell family heirlooms like the gun their dad carried during WWII. It's depressing. I should feel schadenfreude, given that my family is boring middle class, but I mostly don't.

why the big mystery? they are too expensive. I hear it's very hard to sell a manor house, castle or chateau in britain and france too.

Steer clear of termites

In Arizona there are two types of homes: those that have had termites, and those that will get termites. You get it treated, buy a warranty, and keep it enforce so that when you sell, you can give the new buyer a one year termite warranty.

Is that true?, if you live in AZ you will get termites no matter what?

How can I find a top agent by the number of listings they get per year?

Kingshat says

How can I find a top agent by the number of listings they get per year?

AF, any comments?

I'm trying to market a service/product to agents in my area (washington DC) and want to find out the number of listings they get on average in one year.

A listing can be on the market for six months and you go and submit an offer and quess what, there's another offer or how about two other offers. Amazing how this works with these Realtors. How I know is because I've had it happen to me.

karen says

" That dump will ultimately sell for 85K, if they're lucky."

"Then you don't know the market in this part of the world."

Maybe. However I know Silicon Valley, and there are similarities, I imagine. Most people can't imagine real crashes; they don't have a sense of historical perspective, or what happens to money in a deflationary depression. You can buy oceanfront mansions in parts of Connecticut for cheap - and I promise you they weren't always cheap. I think 85K will end up being optimistic. Funny things happen when suddenly no-one can get credit.

You are talking as if we are at the peak of the market and are about to dive off the edge. Prices in Marina have already crashed (far more than your part of the world) and may well decline further, but look at the potential income on the property compared to the cost of an 85k loan (or lower) and then tell me why you think it will go that low.

Clambo, are you talking about the waterfront mansions (which are cheap), or the costly places in e.g. Stonington (which are not, for the most part, mansions)?

The waterfront mansions - which are oceanfront, or VERY close - are cheap because the areas have gone downhill over the decades since the 1920s when they were built. E.g. New London, CT. Not a slum, but not a place where the wealthy hang out anymore. There are towns on the coast even closer to NYC which are in the same situation. These are NOT places in the middle of nowhere; the train goes right to NYC. My point is that NO-ONE would have believed that conveniently located, waterfront mansions would go for a song. here is an example: http://www.weichert.com/32358695/?cityid=35948&ptypeid=32. note that even the taxes aren't bad. New London is a four hour drive from NYC, up the scenic CT coast (no, I'm not a realtard).

re the houses in the places that are still (for the moment) very upmarket, like Stonington and Noank, they have been very expensive for many years even though they are not for the most part mansions. They are simply houses in areas that wealthy people have continued to frequent. Since I was growing up in that area (I'm 48) and for long before, these were "fancy" areas, and they did well during the last bubble, although things didn't go nuts like in CA. Suddenly, they have stopped selling. You can say that that's because they're too expensive, but that begs the point. They were selling *before* when they were too expensive.

My view is that the next domino to fall in the second great depression, is the upper middle class, and the near-rich. They have way too much of their money in real estate, and their financial sector jobs are under the axe. They are going to get crucified.

Bigsby, re your post. As Mish Shedlock puts it, there is no driver for jobs that pay well, and none in the foreseeable future. Add broke young people (college loans)(health insurance)(their broke boomer parents)(rising food and fuel costs due to Bernanke's QE which is being used to speculate on stuff people need)(outsourced jobs), who are the group that would be buying/renting starter places, and there is going to be pressure on rental costs. A whole series of landlords can buy, try to rent, give up, and sell for less (or get foreclosed on) before things settle to their final bottom.

Sorry if this is too general for you; I know I'm not making new claims. The condo we bought in Silicon Valley was on the market for five years before we bought it (it was rented out during that time, admittedly); it cost us 22 percent less than the owner paid, who had bought it many years before, and way less than it would have cost at the height of that bubble. That was a comparatively tiny bubble, and it took them five years to sell, going down the whole time.

I don't know why the link didn't work to the New London house. This is the address: 960 OCEAN AVE, New London CT

I think this should work: http://www.weichert.com/32358695/?cityid=35948&ptypeid=32

The problem karen is that it's hard to sell expensive houses today. They are too "expensive" because you can't get those giant mortgages and there are no incomes sufficient to buy them if they are too far away from manhattan by train.
Above New London as you mention is not Cos Cobb.
A waterfront mansion may be "cheap" to some but houses that cost over a million bucks are hard for people to buy, regardless they were once worth more than that a couple of years ago.
Most of those million+ dollar places were built or bought by the old timers in there for a fraction of that amount. There just aren't that many zillionaires running around ready to get a million dollar mortgage.

Karen, rents may or may not drop, but housing stock is limited in Monterey County and the developments in Marina appear to have been mothballed, so that isn't going to change any time soon. I don't have a crystal ball, but if what you are saying comes true, then current rents will have to more than half otherwise why wouldn't potential renters just buy their condos? Your imaginary 85k price would cost a grand total of about $350 month in mortgage payments. It's also $55k less than its 1991 price, so...

I must not have made myself clear, clambo, because I entirely agree with you. What you just wrote is basically the point I was trying to make.

An 85k condo will only cost $350 per month in mortgage payments if interest rates remain at their present unbelievably low rates. Bernanke wants them to - it's his big goal - but whether he will succeed is another question.

Renters don't buy condos for a couple of reasons. One, they can't come up with a down payment (many people are *broke* in this country; even those with decent incomes are often terrible at saving money). The other reason these days is foreclosures; if enough units in a complex are in foreclosure then the banks won't want to provide a buyer with a loan. That helps investor-buyers.

Let me clarify - what I mean is that I think similar units in that complex will ultimately go for 85k. maybe someone will catch a falling knife before then in re this particular unit.

Yes, yes, housing stock is always *limited* in CA. Well, in the part of SF where I dream of living but never will for various reasons of practicality (the Sunset), prices keep dropping. And they're not building any more houses there, either.

clambo - the mansion I listed was 550K, not a million. and there are others in New London for less; I just think that one is esp. huge and in great condition. Also, I keep checking Cos Cobb, and I keep seeing prices reduced there (yes, they're still too high, for the reasons you listed).

Why aren't you using you own buyer's agent? We hear BS statements everyday and we're usually able to tell if a realtor is lying. That being said, the difference between the 3 and 5 offers is easily explainable as the main agent could have gotten more offers and not communicated the update to the other agent.

In short sales, agents don't really try to bid the price up, all they want to get one offer on the table to get the process started with the bank. The bank will either accept the offer that is on the table or most likely come back with a "take it or leave it" price months later.

Also, many short sales agents choose to be completely transparent and will tell you what offers they have and for how much.

Finally, Cash offers are sometimes considered more desirable, what if they chose a lower offer because that particular offer was all cash?

It is possible that the agent called you back to give you an opportunity to bid cash once their chosen offer dropped.

Malkovich says

Every time I open a thread I immediately look for your post.

Many thanks.

Totally agree!

Karen, the prime rate in 1991 ranged between 6.5 and 9.5% and the median household income was $30,000, and yet you still believe that prices will fall almost 50% below what that condo sold for then. If you say so.

I've now added Marina, CA, to my obsessive real-estate check-frequently list.
:)

karen says

Yes, yes, housing stock is always *limited* in CA. Well, in the part of SF where I dream of living but never will for various reasons of practicality (the Sunset), prices keep dropping. And they're not building any more houses there, either.

Maybe in the Sunset, but not so limited given new development have gone up in SF more so in recent years than ever before. Exit off 280 to the Pall Park has been transformed completly. Just last week I saw a fairly large building demolished on Van Ness and Geary... prime spot for new homes. Or Mission and Fremont.. There have been many other examples of this in SF. So not so limited as many would think... and I would not suprise me if this continues.

http://www.sfnewdevelopments.com/featured-developments/

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Tony Manero says

Hilarious. All these places will be abandoned in a few years, filled with neonazi meth freaks whose last good meal was the last legal owners.

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

Hey! This thread started out bashing the lying sack of s#!$ dirt bag Realtwhores. Let's stay on topic! I've got more....LOTS more!!!
Like the time I was doing finishing work on a house I was building for myself and thought I heard someone in my living room. It was a Realt#%&! in my house with clients in tow. No joke. They were driving by and the clients liked the house so she was showing it to them. It was not for sale. She just let herself in and was showing the house!!!! Can you say breaking & entering?

clambo: I like Zillow, as well. You can usually see a partial transaction history. What I have never understood about real estate is the insistence on using nominal, not real inflation adjusted dollars.

Example: I will hear from home owners all the time something like: "We paid $200k in 2001 for this house, so we are still ahead." Are you now?

Let's look at this listing from Zillow. Purchased in 1991 for $139k. Adjusted for BLS CPI... 66.4% for the last 21 years.... you would need to sell that unit for $231.3k... just to break even in 2012 dollars due to inflation. Even Zillow claims a +18% change based on an asking price of $164k.

Deflating from the 2012 asking price of $164k... the owners are asking $98.5k in 1991 dollars. Do you think the owners are thinking they are still ahead by $25k??

US Inflation Calculator is a handy tool.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Nice post by the way joshuatrio. More information is always good.

Here's an example of illegal realtard behavior for you:

Husband and I put an offer in on a property. After our offer was submitted, the listing agent called our broker to try to get our FICO score. Our broker is my sister-in-law. She called right away to alert us of what listing agent tried to do.

What was so unbelievable about this was that the realtard didn't just stop when SIL explained to her that requesting our FICO score was illegal. The realtard called other members of SIL's firm to try to get them to release our score. Un-friggin-believable.

problemis says

Example: I will hear from home owners all the time something like: "We paid $200k in 2001 for this house, so we are still ahead." Are you now?
Let's look at this listing from Zillow. Purchased in 1991 for $139k. Adjusted for BLS CPI... 66.4% for the last 21 years.... you would need to sell that unit for $231.3k... just to break even in 2012 dollars due to inflation. Even Zillow claims a +18% change based on an asking price of $164k.
Deflating from the 2012 asking price of $164k... the owners are asking $98.5k in 1991 dollars. Do you think the owners are thinking they are still ahead by $25k??
US Inflation Calculator is a handy tool.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
Nice post by the way joshuatrio. More information is always good.

People are stupid. Look at how many people are impressed if you get a large federal tax refund.

I know just a few people who were realtors or agents or whatever.
One was a former cock-tail waitress here. One was my girlfriend who went to some community college for "marketing". The other was a guy who sold cars in Vegas who made his move sideways into selling mortgages or whatnot. He was not educated at all, so probably not even community college.
He saw my credit score once and offered me a deal. He knew some Mexicans over in San Jose who had no credit who would pay me a lot of CASH to be on their apps so they'd get lower interest payments.
I innocently asked "Is this legal?" and he said "maybe not a good idea after all."
It reminded me of down in Monterey Mushrooms where girls friends offered me cash to marry some random Mexican girl.
Oh, am I off the subject? :)

My house, my car. IF you don't own none of it someone else does. Whats the point of going on. If every GD thing you own is financed? I HAVE TO TYPE THIS IN BIG LETTERS. IF YOU OWE YOU AREN'T POOR. YOU ARE LESS THAN POOR. WHY? BUT LOOK AT ALL OF THIS STUFF OH, WISE ONE. WELL, IF IT'S NOT YOURS. IF THEY CAN TAKE IT AWAY AND YOU OWE YOU HAVE NOTHING. THEN YOUR NICK NAME IS STEP AND FETCH IT. A poor guys name is not step and fetch it. UNLESS he gets a paycheck. Another mistake. Get a paycheck. S and F it. Owe S and F it. No way around it. Get your own THEN your rich. Take out a 30 year mortgage on a house that took 3 months to build. You might want to start questioning your abilities.

ArtimusMaxtor says

I HAVE TO TYPE THIS IN BIG LETTERS.

Thank you so much--us "step and fetch it" folks have a hard time reading small print.

Please post some more pearls of wisdom. (in all caps of course)

dodgerfanjohn says

People are stupid. Look at how many people are impressed if you get a large federal tax refund

lol

Just trying to be helpful. Thing is the commonality in all of this is making someone else really have a lot. While it takes up all of your time. So you make it big. Always going to involve a loan. See everyone thinks they can win the race to the accounts receivable window. Hey. What I can tell you in years and years of real estate. The hard fact. MOST PEOPLE. The largest majority close to 89% of the population are 3 bedroom home owners. Someone somewhere is doing good I am sure. Thing is that 89% is fucking wasting away paying a 30 year mortgage on something that took really very little to build.

clambo says

It sold for $139,000 in 1991 :)

Wouldn't take but a point or two in an interest rate spike to drive prices down to a level or price range at which these properties sold for and changed hands for for over a decade around that time.. (But I don't think that is on the planned schedule for the immediate future ;-) )

ArtimusMaxtor says

Thing is that 89% is fucking wasting away paying a 30 year mortgage on something that took really very little to build.

Thing is that all renters waste away paying rent forever on something that the owner probably paid off many, many years ago.

ArtimusMaxtor says

My house, my car. IF you don't own none of it someone else does. Whats the point of going on. If every GD thing you own is financed?

Yeah, that's the other thing I battle with. I'm free/clear - nothing in my life is financed. The thought of mortgaging a place just irks me - but the thought of dumping a handful of cash on a place we're not thrilled about bothers me equally.

Understand that we're renting now - so yes, $1600/mo of my income goes to a property management company. But, I'm liquid, can move at the drop of a dime, and can pursue any opportunity that comes up.

Ahhh, the endless possibilities.

Here's another one. Sad but true.
My Realturd neighbor was bragging about how little she paid for her house. She was the listing agent who of course advised the seller what the asking price should be. Her husband was the shill buyer. I am sure this is not legal so was surprised she was bragging about it.

joshuatrio says

ArtimusMaxtor says

My house, my car. IF you don't own none of it someone else does. Whats the point of going on. If every GD thing you own is financed?

Yeah, that's the other thing I battle with. I'm free/clear - nothing in my life is financed. The thought of mortgaging a place just irks me - but the thought of dumping a handful of cash on a place we're not thrilled about bothers me equally.

Understand that we're renting now - so yes, $1600/mo of my income goes to a property management company. But, I'm liquid, can move at the drop of a dime, and can pursue any opportunity that comes up.

Ahhh, the endless possibilities.

You haven't said how that place compares to your current rental. It certainly sounds like the monthly nut would be a fair bit less than your current rent.

Bigsby says

You haven't said how that place compares to your current rental. It certainly sounds like the monthly nut would be a fair bit less than your current rent.

My current place is a little bit bigger, and a little bit nicer - as in it doesn't need to be updated.

It's pretty close to an apples to apples comparison, but we are in a two story right now - and the place referenced is a single story. My wife prefers two story.

The only advantage of that place is that it has a two car garage, where we only have one now.