patrick.net

Peter P,

I'd love to think that I really "learned" something here but I fear it's been mostly just a guilty pleasure? It seems we've reached a point where I'm actually having some difficulty just keeping up w/all the negative developments.

My crystal ball says we have a LOT of "built-in" selling pressure in RE b/c so many that bought since 2005 were more for appreciation potential than personal utility (and financed for the short term). Many people that are staring down the barrel of rate re-set (and of course all the loan costs) will likely throw their hat in the ring too. Especially when they figure out they really don't need it (the house) and really couldn't afford it to begin with.

Inventories will likely continue to rise, bottoms will be called and short sales may eclipse regular sales.

Ok, Real estate (since I am apparently the only non-over of ramen here)

My friend, the Ethical Hong Kong Chinese Realtor fom a few threads ago, told me she has a few clients looking for multi-unit buildings in good areas. She found a couple to bid on, and both times was massively overbid by the same group of people. She said that they paid so much for both buildings that not only did the buildings not pencil out as investments, they don't even pencil out as spec buildings.
She mentioned it to a friend and the person was shocked that she didn't know about the group. The word on the street about them is that they are just buying up investment properties to launder Russian mob money.

A bit of bubble contribution that had not occurred to me.

OOOps, it's not just sub-primes...

"Lehman Cuts Prime Mortgage Lenders on Default Risks (Update1)

By Will Edwards

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. reduced its investment rating on U.S. mortgage companies including Countrywide Financial Corp. because a surge in loan defaults is showing evidence of spreading beyond the riskiest credits...."

http://www.bloomberg.com/tvradio/radio/#

Peter P,

I like fresh thin rice noodles, but the dried rice noodles always turn out undercooked or overcooked for me.

I use fork to eat noodles. I find chopsticks to be challenging.

Here's another short recipe from my mom - Cucumber salad with peanut sauce.

ingredients
2 or 3 English cucumbers or 6 pickling cucumber
2 heaping spoonful of peanut butter
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of sugar
a couple splashes of balsamic vinegar to taste
optional: crushed peanuts
optional: chopped dillweeds

Lightly pound the cucumber with the flat side of a heavy cleaver, crush it until the sides crack in a couple places, then cut the cucumber into 1" sections. Put into a 3-4 qt lidded tupperware. Add salt. Close the lid and shake well.

In a small 1 pt bowl, use a fork to mix the peanut butter with 1 TBSP of scalding water, then add sugar and mix til relatively smooth. Dump into the the tupperware and then shake some more. Add peanut and dillweeds.

Serve with a splash of balsamic vinegar (to taste).

Thanks, astrid. I love cucumber salad. Cucumber is one of the very few veggies that I prefer raw.

BTW, where do you get fresh rice noodle?

I think the mortgage shakedown has begun. Housing correction may begin (for real) very soon.

Not investment or home buying advice.

Or should I say, reflexivity has changed course?

The thick kind you can buy in sheets in Asian supermarkets. I see the thin kind occasionally (check the bakery area) though I've never had any. I consume most of my thin rice noodles in SW China, where "Over the Bridge" rice noodles is ubiquitous.

where “Over the Bridge” rice noodles is ubiquitous

I had that before. That was great! :)

From SQT's blog:

Which Serenity character are you?

Someone on some blog mentioned a month ago when NEW blew up, that it is still time to make money on this pig. The analogy was with all the JDSU's of the dot com crash. They didn't stop going down till they became penny stocks.

Look at this.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cq?d=v1&s=fmt+lend+new+nfi

Priceless.

StuckinBA,

Absolutely hysterical chart pairing there my friend! Mind you, this is what they are down TODAY (so far anyway) not YTD etc. How can this be happening? I thought RE only goes up? :(

Mortgage Implode had some really funny comments on the most recent New Century conference call too! What the analysts heard left them in total disbelief.

PAR :

Lots of good people are hurt when bubbles pop.

Unfortunately very true. Anyone who has witnessed the dot com crash, can recount many sad stories.

We bubblesitters didn't do anything that is going to led to this recession. But we will get hurt as well. Hopefully far less hurt than the FBs. I will take solace in good old schadenfreude. And if people like Greenspan and DL get dumped in dung, it will be the bonus.

SP,

It's a matter of taste. I much prefer the taste of ramen (the noodles, not the flavor packets, which can vary wildly from brand to brand) to regular dry noodles and ramen helps me control portions better. The only thing that prevents me from eating ramens regularly is that they're extremely unhealthy - it's kinda scary when palm oil is the healthiest oil I can hope for.

Jon,

That's a false dichtomy. A more analoguous situation would be if the LL told you that you had a rent control apartment and induced you to spend $50K to fix up the place, then kicks you out after 6 months.

-dichotomy
+analogy

ugh, me type baaaaad Engliss

The path to gourmet bliss is paved with starvation.

Hmmm....

Ramen = hand-pulled noodle?

Where good people and mom and pop innocent bystanders are concerned... I think for the most part we already got our medicine!

Absolutely horrible stock market returns (March 2000 to April 2003) paltry returns on our deposits and a slumping currency. You mean there's more?

The pain will be most acute where the leverage was the most abused. Maybe I should be, but I'm really not that worried.

Moral of the story? Median prices don’t always tell you what you think they tell you, especially when you have extremely small data sets.

I said before and I'll say it again, Median prices are bogus! Just a stupid number that shows the midpoint of what people are paying but not what they are ACTUALLY GETTING for that price.

Whether the median goes up or down, it don't tell you anything about what direction the price of houses are going. Look at the delta of sales data from one year to the next and look at the inventories; now notice how many people HAVE TO SELL this time? Throw in the cheap money that is disappearing and you really don't need any more clues as to how this is going to end.

"Peter P Says:
hand-pulled noodle

Hey Beavis, check it out. he said…

SP "

This is the correct answer to your question? Am I hired?

Huh?

Wow... NEW down 65% in one day so far? Jeebus!

Real Estate Trivia

Only two cities in the 20 cities covered by the S&P Case/Shiller Home Price Index showed gains in December. One of the cities was Seattle which barely eked out some appreciation. Name the other city.

Charlotte?

EBGuy,

Miami?

Astrid said:
Charlotte?
No. Charlotte is one of the more "rational" markets, though, so the downtick could be seaonal.
As a side note (and clue?), the Indices do NOT include condos.

Dinor said:
Miami?
What, are you insane? You are also correct! It is probably the last place I would have thought of (maybe because condos aren't tracked?)
I also figured out why you are so angry :-) Portland has the lowest index of the markets that are tracked back to 1987 (Index @ 41.05 -- remember, all cities are normalized to 100 for Jan. 2000).

Jon,

The landlord own the property. As such, LL has the right to future rent increases/capital appreciation and bear the burden of an empty building/burst water pipe. Rent control takes away the LL's property rights and arbitrarily gives it to a tenant, even though that tenant paid virtually nothing for the rent control rights. If you want to go about your goal in an economically rational way, the tenant could negotiate for a longer term lease and restrict rent increases.

Let me try different analogy - how would you feel if you were just offered a great new job, but your current employer told you that he/she had a property right in your current position and that you have to stay in your current job?

good article in slate, cited earlier:

"David Lereah, who published a book in 2005 telling readers how they could get rich participating in the endless housing boom, published a book in 2000 advising readers how they could get rich from the endless information technology boom."

Rent control is evil.

astrid Says:
Jon,
The landlord own the property. As such, LL has the right to future rent increases/capital appreciation and bear the burden of an empty building/burst water pipe. Rent control takes away the LL’s property rights and arbitrarily gives it to a tenant, even though that tenant paid virtually nothing for the rent control rights. If you want to go about your goal in an economically rational way, the tenant could negotiate for a longer term lease and restrict rent increases.

Yes, but none of this is operating in the real world. How many LLs are prepared to sign leases restricting rent increases and making longer terms? My LL specifically says they don't want to do either of these things. Some countries have 5-10 year leases, this is not one of them.

This particular apartment block was built 'wholesale' by a developer years ago, before the boom, with minimal maintenance requirements. Some parts of the complex are 5 storeys with no lifts installed, thus saving on annual maintenance fees. There are no HOA fees to pay because the developer owns the whole lot. He does maintenance from his pool of builders on other projects, thus reducing costs. There's no pool or gym or other luxury features. However, he wants to charge marginally *above* market rates right now because he thinks he can, at a time when rates are supposedly rising rapidly. This all goes back to my constant remarks in the past of what represents a fair and healthy social settlement. I have currently amassed about 6 emails from other tenants also protesting the steep rise.

The fair social settlement notion is what underpins all rent control systems, and attempts to protect people from exactly this sort of behaviour. The whole rental system is somewhat flawed in fact, it's just an accident of history.

Ironically, I suppose I'm from a family a little like FAB's, who has amassed a pile of investment properties -- I can move interstate and be given one at any time I like for almost nothing...

Peter P Says:
Rent control is evil.

Markets are evil.
Peter P is evil.

When I went to university, it was necessary to back assertions up with some sort of reasoned argument.

DS,

I think if I offered 10% above the market rates and sign a 5 year contract, some LL will take me up on the offer.

To force below market rent down LL's throat amounts to a taking, from the LL to the tenant. In the long run, such economically inefficient transactions are in no one's interest - except that of the lottery winners who got in before the rent control laws went into effect. That's not a fair system.

When I went to university, it was necessary to back assertions up with some sort of reasoned argument.

Duh, this is a psychic thread.

Peter P is evil.

:twisted:

SP,

Your obscurely scatological comment inspired me to make my own obscure meta comment about your employee interview technique (asking the question, telling the (right/wrong) answer, asking for justifications).

Different Sean Says:
March 5th, 2007 at 1:26 am

I agree. Unfortunately, it’s the ’system’, and this particular LL is too scheming and too big a player to negotiate too much. He already owns a ‘discount’ property by building it himself. We should all become property developers, obviously, and secure our futures. But I’m either 1) leaving, or 2) negotiating or 3) passing it on to my employer as a wage rise…

DS,

It sounds like (a) your LL is asking WAY above market rate for your place and (b) you are ready to exercise your right of refusal, and (c) you have some real options/alternatives to choose from. It doesn't sound to me like your LL can demand whatever arbitrary amount he wants and get it -- with or without your consent-- unless there is really some kind of cartel/Mafia/shadow government-like gang that controls rents in Oz.

That's precisely how well functioning, transparent markets (note I avoid the use of politically loaded term "free") are supposed to work. OTH, if rent control were introduced to Oz, you would find a very different situation within a generation. Over time, rent control would mainly act to discourage new rental construction (limiting new supply and further driving up rents), and of course people would learn to game the system from both ends --just as is happening today in rent-controlled areas of SF (re-read FAB's many examples of illegally sub-let RC apartments, people who take over leases from dead relatives, etc.).

If your LL tries to stick you with a rent hike far above market-rate, then move. When s/he is unable to fill the unit for the sky-high "wishing rent' and must carry the costs of a vacant unit, s/he will quickly learn that "owners" cannot unilaterally dictate market prices.

I don't think good or evil are objective measurements. They're subjective matters that do not require further proof. If Peter P thinks rent control is evil, he's stating his feelings about rent control.

Or

Peter P is evil? AWESOME!

People here are complaining about problems with the rent control system as implemented, not the notion of rent control itself. And there is some fairly controrted logic even there as well. Apparently there are a few dysfunctions with the implementation of schemes. Similarly, public housing here used to be granted almost for life, when in fact it should be granted on an assessed needs and means basis. They are attempting to change that now. However, rent control systems in Oz are almost non-existent.

The question is, do people receiving rent control benefit from it in terms of quality of life, without disadvantaging others? I would say yes.

I don't have any problem with the notion of rent control, in fact I think of it as the very first step in a band-aid solution to providing affordable housing.

SP Says:
That’s interesting. When I went to university, reasoned arguments had to be backed up with observable, independently verified data gathered through a rigorous, repeatable scientific process.

Which course did you do? How do you do that in Sociology or Philosophy or Econ or English Lit 101? The very notion of logical positivism or empiricism as the answer to everything as you are proposing has been questioned at universities as unreflexive modernism, by the way. It works in physics and chem, up to a point, not in the humanities. However, are a series of newspaper articles and reports by RE managers enough to 'scientifically prove' rents are rising? Where does the hypothetico-deductive model come into play here? Come on, guys, get a grip, all sorts of para-autistic nerves are getting hit here for no reason...