patrick.net

I knew you were going to talk about my psychic powers, of course.

Alas, I'm no genius.

Patrick

I would rather be a psychic than a genius. Lucky is always way better than smart. :)

There you have it, folks: we are all part of Patrick's Psychic Friends network. :-)

Are we going to start charging people $1.99/minute to listen to our vague predictions?

My system would be all sunshine and flowers...

Really nothing special about jacking up the rates 17 times, he is just staying the course. He would have been stupid not to jack up rates when the economy "looked" good.

I am pretty confident that the last rate hike was the last under Ben until the next Fed Chairman comes along. The most he can do at this point is to keep the rate where it is, but I don't think he can defy cutting rates that long.

When Darth Lereah said :

"Im am your father Patrick, Join the Dark side and i will complete your training"

then I knew Patric was on to something.

Gyges,

Welcome aboard. Have you been introduced to Surfer-X?

per Par article...

$500,000 option-ARM, monthly payments would be $1,608 for the minimum, $3,454 for interest-only, $3,770 for the 30-year equivalent and $4,862 for the 15-year equivalent.

LOL my rent is only 1/3 of 30yr. at best I could upgrade at 1600 for Condo/TH
but that doesnt include association fees. Man .. Im better off renting and saving the difference.

A 2000 sqft 5 bedroom condo? Does it mean 5 room?

I just had a scary drive on 101 back from SF. I do not know why Taxi drivers are so aggressive in America. Their counterparts in Japan are always much more polite and safety-conscious.

Peter, try taking a cab in Mexico or Brazil sometime…

I will not attempt that, thank you very much. I think we should make driver's licenses more difficult to obtain.

What would a psychic say about the housing market?

Patrick Killelea says, "US housing crash continues."

http://patrick.net/housing/crash.html

The thing that really ticks me off is that drivers in some country are aggressive because of the way they value human lives.

Should we allow the importation of such value system?

PAR Posted a URL that said:

> the East Bay's optional-payment ARMs jumped from 0.9
> percent in December 2003 to 39 percent of all refinance
> loans in December 2006

And

> A $500,000 option-ARM, monthly payments would be
> $1,608 for the minimum, $3,454 for interest-only,
> $3,770 for the 30-year equivalent and $4,862 for
> the 15-year equivalent.

I heard that many people that got the “option-ARMs” didn’t read the fine print to find out that they will not have the “option” to pay the minimum payment for long. I have heard that most of the loans will end the borrowers “option” to pick a payment and go to a 25-28 year amortized payment as the new minimum once they hit 110% of the original loan amount.

Since few people in the northern part of SF have a mortgage of under $1mm let’s look at a typical happy FB couple living in a Cow Hollow condo picking the “minimum” payment (doubling the numbers from PARs Link) on their $1mm loan of $3,216. They are happy to “own” a home and after the tax advantage are only paying about $1K a month after taxes then their friends in the area. What most FBs forget about is that whey they “pick the low payment for a year” they have “added” almost 60K to what they owe.

The “happy” FB will become F’d FBs after about a year and a half of “picking” the minimum payment when the neg am low pick your payment of $3,216 will end (the day the loan balance hits $1.1mm or 110% of what they borrowed) and the new 25 year am payment of $8,128 per month begins…

There should be more training programs so that the road is safe.

How do you stop value systems from being imported?

Hopefully education will help.

Peter P Says:

> I just had a scary drive on 101 back from SF.
> I do not know why Taxi drivers are so aggressive
> in America. Their counterparts in Japan are always
> much more polite and safety-conscious.

I have no idea how much money taxi drivers in other countries make but in SF due to the corrupt “medallion” system (that the SF Weekly has recently wrote about) some of the poor guys actually take home less than minimum wage per hour at the end of a shift (even is the work their ass of and drive like maniacs)…

P.S. Since the wages are so low I can’t remember the last time I had a taxi driver in SF that was born in America…

I have no idea how much money taxi drivers in other countries make but in SF due to the corrupt “medallion” system (that the SF Weekly has recently wrote about) some of the poor guys actually take home less than minimum wage per hour at the end of a shift (even is the work their ass of and drive like maniacs)…

That does not mean that we should allow roadway safety to be compromised.

RE: “medallion” system

See, another distortion caused by market control.

Somehow I find it funny that SF and capitalism appear in the same sentence.

PAR, you may want to work with a good agent, one that will give you honest opinions.

Well, I did say “supposedly”.

Very well.

PAR, a watched kettle never boils. :)

"I am trying to use my mind to make the market crash…"

It is called manifesting. Beware, having too much negative thoughts may backfire on you.

Robert Kyosaki tries to explain macroeconomics and the housing bubble:

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/richricher/25748

This guy is really clueless. Oh well, at least he is not pumping real estate anymore.

Peter P, please tell me you don't believe in magical thinking.

LurkinLeech,

I predict a lot of that kind of looney legislation is going to get proposed (or worse yet, passed) before this bust is over.

We should study the psychology of economists...

Many taxi drivers here make only $8 an hour on average. They pay the license owner $100 a day for 'borrowing' the cab, and they keep whatever's left over -- after fuel...

London cab drivers have to pass tests on the 'The Knowledge' -- thus, some sort of regulation and accreditation is necessary to make sure drivers are competent. Although, there is a big unlicensed grey market of private vehicles in London also that used to hang around Heathrow and so on...

Does a 'perfect free market' imply that no-one needs to be accredited, regulated or even trained any more? cool... what does this amazing perfect free market look like? I might hang out a brain surgeon shingle tomorrow...

Peter P,

Nope, that condo is advertised as a 5 bdrm, 3 bathroom place, and there were vague references to other rooms as well.

I would personally pay more for 2 bdrm 2000 sq ft places than 5 bdrm 2000 sq ft places. The latter usually means tiny rooms that need to be combined.

$1.99/minute is pretty good work, but how do we keep the foolz on the line for 30 minutes?

Peter P.,

I had a cab driver (Russian) who ran a red light and almost hit a pedestrian (the pedestrian fell trying to get out of the way) crossing the street and was almost T-boned while doing that. I forced him to stop and I got out (At night on Pine Street in that funky 'lower Nob Hill' area). I had his name, the cab number, the time, etc. but I couldn't find anyone to complain to. The cab company, the commission, (I called someone else but can't remember who) all said that the cab driver was an independent contractor over whom they had no authority.

So the cab companies own all the taxi medallions, keep the cab supply artificially low (try to get a cab on a rainy night), gouge the drivers, but have zero responsibility. I can see why they want no change.

LurkinLeech,

Thanks for the link. It's hard to say for sure (not being psychic and all) but it appears that the realtwhores in ID timed their charge just about perfectly!

Being at the tail end of the rolling bubble I imagine people are still feeling pretty good about RE in your area. By getting these "minimum service" pieces of legislation passed post haste by the time people figure out RE is a crappy investment they'll be forever saddled w/6% commissions!

Oh btw I'd read just yesterday that yet another lumber mill is shutting down up there! (Due to the slowdown in the demand of course) so by the time these people get laid off they'll all be able to get jobs as 6% realtors! That's how it's supposed to work, right? :)

"If they float they must burn"

alien, that is so funny you would bring that up! Of late I've kind of visualized the few remaining RE perma-bulls not unlike "The Flagellants" during the plague going from town to town beating themselves to a bloody pulp trying to "cast out" evil!

More leeches!

Different Sean Says:

> London cab drivers have to pass tests on the
> ‘The Knowledge’ — thus, some sort of regulation
> and accreditation is necessary to make sure
> drivers are competent.

We don’t have any test in SF. Last year I was going to a dinner at the Slanted Door and told the driver of a cab I on Sacramento Street to take me to the “Ferry Building” and the driver (who looked like he just got here from Africa) asked me (in a thick accent) how to get to the “Berry Building”…

> Although, there is a big unlicensed grey market of
> private vehicles in London also that used to hang
> around Heathrow and so on…

A tip I learned years ago in NY is to try and make a deal with limo drivers that are waiting around the hotel. You want to make sure the cab drivers don’t figure out what you are doing since they will get mad. Most of the guys are happy to earn an extra $20 and it’s fun to end a night out when you call your “driver” on his cell phone to take you and your friends home…

> Does a ‘perfect free market’ imply that no-one needs to
> be accredited, regulated or even trained any more? cool…
> what does this amazing perfect free market look like?
> I might hang out a brain surgeon shingle tomorrow…

The “free market” has “restrictions” but not “prohibitions”. In San Francisco there is nothing “prohibiting” me from going to med school and owning a medical practice there I do brain surgery, but in San Francisco I am “prohibited” from owning and operating my own cab in the city…

P.S. When we were in High School we used to make extra money driving drunk people home Tahoe City bars in the winter…

Peter P - after my husband experienced a few trips with taxi's from SF airport (i.e had to hold the door closed because it didn't shut properly, scary driving), our next door neighbor recommended a good guy to use for airport runs and we have used him several times - I could post the contact details if you would like them - can't remember his rates though.

Peter P, please tell me you don’t believe in magical thinking.

Huh? Magic or Magick? They are different, you know.

Peter P - after my husband experienced a few trips with taxi’s from SF airport (i.e had to hold the door closed because it didn’t shut properly, scary driving), our next door neighbor recommended a good guy to use for airport runs and we have used him several times - I could post the contact details if you would like them - can’t remember his rates though.

Thanks Claire. We also found out that limo/sedan companies charge not much more but they are much better than taxis.

Just for clarification, we were driving on the freeway and had a scary episode with a cab near SFO. We were not sitting in a cab.

I would personally pay more for 2 bdrm 2000 sq ft places than 5 bdrm 2000 sq ft places. The latter usually means tiny rooms that need to be combined.

Exactly, although you may want to get a 2000 sqft 9bed/1bath house in the Central Valley. :-P

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

Drivers in some parts of Japan are the meanest I’ve ever seen.

Really? But they are stop to let me cross the road.

I have no problem driving in the Bay Area, but would NEVER CONSIDER driving in Japan.

I was in my friend's car and he was going 120mph on the highway. That was scary. Other than that, it just seems that most Japanese drivers drive like me. :)

If you ever try to enforce your pedestrian rights in Tokyo, you’ll become another traffic statistic.

Well you were born there. Can't argue with you.