patrick.net

RE: New vs. old homes, we've lived in both. The old homes seem to be hit or miss. There's probably a tendency towards better construction because the better built homes are the ones that don't fall apart, and in general, tend to stick around longer w/o being torn down. But I've been in plenty of homes in the Boston area that are on their last legs. 18th century farmhouses where everything is sagging, sort of like an 80 year-old woman. Our brownstone in the city was built on pilings above landfill. The pilings require a high water level to prevent rotting, and because of the Big Dig and other construction (the T in particular), that water level has been receding. I remember a story about a guy who woke up one day in his Beacon Hill brownstone and couldn't open the front door. Turns out the house sank and shifted a fair amount overnight because of rotting pilings. On the other hand, the masses of ranches, plywood boxes, stucco boxes in the BA slapped together during the 50's and 60's are certainly not very well built. And McMansions, well those are another story. I doubt those are built to last more than 20 or 30 years. It'll be interesting to see what people do with those a few years down the road. I'd like to see an episode of "This Old House" 20 years from now about rehabbing someone's McAlbatross.

Currently, I'm all for well-designed prefab, or if I have enough resources, new design with a good architect.

newsfreak,

I wouldn't mind so much taking on an older home needing "a little" work but that's the problem! There really is no such thing as "a little" work. Once you start digging into things you find, Oh...... they never finished this, completed that and so on. It's not long before you've lost sight of what you were supposed to correct. Now what?

Since I work at home I worry what clients might think if you tell them Oh, don't worry just step on the floor beams! Any remodel looks like the product of a disorganized mind. It just doesn't speak well of you no matter how "sanitized" you go about it.

new thread: New Paradigm? The Rise of Mortgage-Backed Securities

That chart fits exactly with my sticky model. Call it denial, psychology, irrationality, or stickiness. It's all the same thing. Uneven movements downwards.

Thanks everyone for your comments on this thread. Not one post had to be moderated or deleted, although CR tested our patience. This thread will now be closed.

HARM and allah,
RE: MBS's, you guys suggest one resolution is increased compensation for the increasing risk of these products. A more catastrophic yet plausible outcome seems to be the collapse of more than a few hedge funds, or even old-school mutual funds and other investment vehicles due to massive mortgage defaults leading to massive loss in MBS valuations. Possible?