patrick.net

There are “style ETFs” that may better track your value-stocks portfolio:

I'm not really aiming for a perfect hedge since my general view is that if value stocks get hit hard, then the S&P as a whole will get hit harder.

DinOR,

Thanks for bringing us back to Earth (weak pun....Vega).

Peter P,

Damnit. We just keep agreeing even when we try to disagree. Myself, I tend to stay away from SPY options due to what I see as way too much Hedge Fund action in that part of the market. If I had a lot more money to risk I'd consider setting up bets against "hazardous" hedge fund activity in options & futures, and try to mop up against funds that are ticking time bombs.

Here's a question: can Prime Brokers for Hedge Funds take their own "hedge" bets against those very funds their trading for?

SQT,

My understanding is that the Census Bureau shows boomers as "net sellers" of RE over the last 5 years. (But only by a narrow margin). Will they sell of their RE and begin swarming equity markets buying with both fists? Like many here, I am so wore out waiting to see what boomers do or don't do I'm at the point where I couldn't care less!

I could take the low road here by saying they're unlikely to relinquish their access to "grow operations" but rather I'll stay with my earlier comment that boomer wealth has been grossly over estimated.

Remember, I was 1 of 3 reps. to handle 18,000 account relationships the vast majority of which where in their 50's and 60's. Upon their parents death they couldn't wait to get their hands on the money and have it all sold out (much at market lows) and converted to cash ASAP. "Mind if I ask what the money is needed for?" We're going to be debt free! Really? O.K here ya' go! (In as little as a few months later their own accounts started to bleed down to zero). It was a frustrating and thankless job.

Hiding,

That hope only works if boomers die quickly, otherwise, the res tof us are just stuck with huge bills for chronic diseases.

I suppose we can toss them unbearable socialized medicine. It makes me fume that medicare pays for private doctors when the rest of us are stuck with crummy HMOs.

Or in my case, no health coverage whatsoever.

I hope my illnesses and injuries come in the form of an asset rich/well insured entity and easy to demonstrate chain of causation.

Hey guys; I need your help understanding something. I'm on a number of realtors' autoMLS email service and received an email a couple of hours ago. The MLS generated the email because of a price change so it pops my inbox. Then, just a minute ago I get another email and it's the same listing, but now it says "New Listing". Same number....same pictures...how can this be? LOL

Sorry, but I've been dealing with realtors lately and I'm stuck in the "dummy down mode" so I can communicate with them. Surely they don't think I would keep a record of all the houses and pertinent information.

austingal,

The recent run up seem to push some well off empty nester boomers I know to go and buy bigger houses, on the assumption that housing is a good investment. My question would be, now that this asset appreciation merry-go-round ends, is 10,000 sqft for 2 people (because these homes are very children friendly anyhow) ever a good idea?

I predict that the recent trend of adults moving in with their parents will continue unabated. Boomers can keep their mcmansions so long as the gen-x and gen-y kids are paying rent. More multi-generational cohabitation = even less demand for residential RE.

are = aren't

Doug... maybe you'll even see one of Outlook's "The sender wishes to recall this message" emails. Then again, for an automated list, perhaps not.

Astrid: Thanks for the gardening link! I was off at a biology lecture so I missed most of the GMO discussion. This blog is currently the most likely thing to drive me to getting a blackberry.

10,000 ft^2: when you want an indoor tennis court, pool, and other amenities. Although, I prefer more open air designs; I guess similar to courtyards in chinese and roman styles.

I've seen a few indoor pools, but haven't personally seen an indoor tennis court or bowling alley yet. Mostly, these houses just seem to have bigger rooms, esp. foyer and "great room" type areas.

With indoor pools, you can open an indoor skateboard rink for extra income.

requiem,

GMO discussions flare up here with some regularity. I've really enjoyed your imput on the subject in the past.

Mostly, these houses just seem to have bigger rooms, esp. foyer and “great room” type areas.

I like foyers. How about a 2000sqft bathroom? :)

What would you put in a 2000 sqft bathroom? a fountain? a massage bed? a sofa? a bar? a kitchen? bath girls' quarters?

Foyers are very space inefficient and make HVAC hard to control. Foyers are fine for English castles and public buildings, but I don't think they make sense in the average McMansion.

mmm... 2000 ft^2 bathroom?

Let's see... you could have a shower space, and a couple tubs of water at varying temperatures. (Soak in the hot one, jump in the cool one, etc.) I wonder how hard it would be to establish a decent humidity gradient for the different use areas?

SFWoman,

I've thought about getting insurance, but my (rather meager) assets are sheltered in retirement funds, so I just would just go into bankruptcy if anything really bad happens.

Hopefully it's just a short phase of my life. Eventually I'll obtain gainful insurance giving employment or at least gainful employment + my boyfriend's coverage (thank goodness for SF liberalism).

If you want lot of soaking tubs, you should probably build your bathroom over a geologically active location. Maybe on a volcano...

Also, re: health insurance, it's been my observation (from various articles) that it tends not to cover significant expenses. I.e., it will cover basic doctor visits, tests, basic care, etc., but a serious problem involving long-term hospital stay or intensive surgery will quickly punch through the insurance "shield" and bankrupt the family.

What would you put in a 2000 sqft bathroom? a fountain? a massage bed? a sofa? a bar? a kitchen? bath girls’ quarters?

* One large shower stalls (10 x 10)
* One jetting shower stall
* One large tub (10 x 10)
* One cozy tub
* Two large water closets, one with urinal, both with 42" plasma TVs
* Extremely large vanity areas, double sink
* Center courtyard with palm tree

Hey, 2000 sqft may not be enough. :)

BK would come with out rather neutrally for me. My current credit card limits more than cover my sizeable but not huge student loans and I have enough liquid assets to wait out 90 days lookback.

I wouldn't ruin my credit over $30-40K in student loans, but a forced BK sure won't ruin my life. I look at it as my stick my middle finger out on Uncle Sam (who ought to cover higher education and health insurance, like every other industrialized nation) strategy. I could run any business or RE acquisition through my boyfriend or my parents til my 7 years run out.

Bwahahahaha!

I walked around the (idioticly planned) house and when I went upstairs and walked to the end of the hall the door didn’t open. It was for show. A hallway overlooking the living room leading to a door that didn’t open .

Perhaps that was for spiritual reasons. The door leads to a different world. I remember something like that in the Winchester House.

Foyer makes feng shui sense.

SFWoman,

I predict lots of first world long term care will be offshored to Asia.

A hallway overlooking the living room leading to a door that didn’t open.

Did this house have an unusually large number of rooms and staircases? I'm wondering what would be on the other side of the door if it did open. If an external wall, maybe you could make it operable and designate it a guest bedroom for the in-laws.

SFWoman: One of my friends from school is a quadriplegic, and she always said that in order to get medical coverage, she'd need to be very poor or very well off.

SFWoman,

Ha! I wonder if there's a fake nuclear warhead homefill or cabinets without shelves.

I guess foyers are meant to impress the neighbors and make the house look big. They are also supposed to lighten up the space, except many of the windows get covered up for privacy, thus depriving light to the space.

I don't get the fengshui sense though, Chinese homes do not resemble McMansions at all and there's no equivalent to foyer in private homes.

"Among the ill, 52% were hospitalized, 16% had hemolytic uremic syndrome, and one died. Two other deaths possibly related to the outbreak are being investigated.”"

Woohoo! No more student loans! I'm going to slam breach of warranty actions on everybody in the distribution chain!

Sorry.

Chinese homes do not resemble McMansions at all and there’s no equivalent to foyer in private homes.

Are you sure?

As I understand it, traditional buildings (outside of religious buildings and as decorative pavilions) rarely go more than 2 floors in height. Most go with a courtyard layout (though the courtyard opening can be very large or very small. So I don't think they'd look like McMansions.

requiem Says:
A hallway overlooking the living room leading to a door that didn’t open.
I’m wondering what would be on the other side of the door if it did open. If an external wall, maybe you could make it operable and designate it a guest bedroom for the in-laws.

erhh, beat me to it...

I just received this from Pulte:

http://www.pulteplus.com/landing.htm

I received this offer several weeks ago as well. It looks like they have extended it.

Just as I thought, Casey is now back online.

he's irrepressible.

he seems to have infinite time to source cool graphics, run around talking to attorneys, and write copiously and ingenuously, checking comments several times a day... beats working for a living, but then, that's the new paradigm, isn't it...

he now DOESN'T blame the RE 'gurus' and says they gave him a great education. so it's just his boundless enthusiasm at fault, not their NLP techniques and 'instant millionaire' talk that got him going. although they're just about all notoriously bad, or else supply humdrum information at extraordinary cost, where the techniques and practitioners quickly get saturated in the market, or else they are infeasible and never done in reality, especially not by the guru. and it took the first flip to pay off his $30K credit card debt from the courses...

i think he wants to continue being 'a successful real estate investor', he's just on a little 'learning curve' before he can really start putting the 'education' into practice. one prerequisite for all successful RE investors is to first be a night manager at a Taco Bell's or similar... as he says, he is back to giving us the 'whole enchilada'...

Fortunatley, Robert Cote has read him the Riot Act, so lets see how much longer his site's online for.

yes, there's also a good post by an attorney at the beginning, then a nutcase one from some 26 yo fellow RE millionaire wannabe saying the opposite... my comment's still in 'moderation'/under consideration... casey seems to publish either side, perhaps also showing remarkable lack of discrimination... my gullible mate who happily does all sorts of 'personal development' and scam courses is similar like this -- will do things without judgement, and consequently is happy to try marketing pyramid schemes etc in the utmost good faith...

Funny how someone so allegedly net savvy didn't do any google or wikipedia research on the market he wanted to invest in.

When I helped sell my parents' home in early 2005. I was just absolutely frantic, doing searches and reading articles/posts by people I trusted. I read opinions of long term RE investors. I checked the mortgage rates, graphed the neighborhood comps (before Zillow! Damn it!) and worked up a list of the house's pros and cons.

This was all before I called in realtors and selling the house. Even though we were on the steepest upward part of the curve, I worried like crazy about pricing the house too high or too low, about time on the market and buyer reneging. I didn't want to overreach and end up caught on the wrong side of the bubble.

Maybe these kids' brains went to pot after I got out of college. Sheesh. Lying to get $2.2M in the hole? Well, he took a couple classes by RE gurus. Yeesh!

(I am oooooooold! I don't like young people anymore!)

Mr. Newsfreak,

I predict that with a little flexibility, you can still get some decent work in the lean years ahead. The construction in the last couple years is absolute crap, these poor suckers are gonna be calling you in for repair jobs for years and years. Hopefully the smart ones will realize its better to go with an experienced electricity with a history of good jobs, rather than pick up a couple illegal day workers who'll wreck up their house.

It might be worthwhile to check out the current market and see how to position yourself for the future. Get some good references and referrals. See where it takes you.

PS - I just read what I wrote and realized I sounded dreadfully know-it-all and condescending to Mr. Newsfreak, which was totally not my intent! Mr. Newsfreak, I'm sorry that I sounded as a jerk, my heart's really in the right place!

austingal,

Thanks for your great advice! I hope I'll never have to depend on it but I'll be glad of the knowledge if I do.