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john p
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1820
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 Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 3:28 pm GMT Post subject: |
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When I was buying my house in 2005, a realtor told me that they wouldn't represent me if I was going to put in an offer of more than 6% off of asking.
I remember telling my father, Dad, I don't think I have the right dog in the fight.
He said JOHNNY, YOU ARE THE BEST DOG IN THE FIGHT.
This is why I post so much, it is because "experts", "elites" tell us we don't have a clue and to ignore our common sense. This is bullshit. I try to get people to believe in themselves and help them research and build their own strategy for their families. If everyone acted like dumb sheep we will continue to have asset bubbles. Common sense and integrity are the constitution of the founding fathers. They were the bedrock that we have built our nation on, those values.
Obama is a politician plain and simple. I find myself laughing and smiling during the AllStar game, the guy is totally charming, he's a politician. He shows his stripes by siding with the Harvard elite over the cop and then tries to charm him with a beer.
Capitalism, and the United States of America doesn't work without strong citizens. We are like a geodesic dome, a structure made up of smaller members, citizens. If citizens pay deference to Harvard elites, it becomes a superstructure. I am an intellectual and I play the Ricky Bobby shit to help show how simple basic skills are so that people will engage and believe in themselves. I sacrifice myself and expose where I am a meathead because if a meathead can get a good deal, maybe someone will believe in themselves and not end up being prey. |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:37 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| GenXer wrote: | | It appears that there is a pretty good concentration of money in the 'immune' towns. In comparison, some towns in MA are like CA (Western MA, Northern MA, Southern MA). Pretty much everywhere the prices went down except in several towns...where everybody with money seems to want to live. |
It seems that all the white collar towns are immune.
| GenXer wrote: |
I really do believe that further unemployment will put pressure on house prices. |
Not as long as Mass [url="http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/07/21/jobless_wont_lose_extended_benefits_in_mass/"]keeps extending unemployment benefits[/url]! When will it end? |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:41 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| mpr wrote: |
Actually many immune towns are down 10% or more from the peak,
which is about 15% in real terms. Its not CA of FL of course, but that's
still a real decline |
If we're talking about how much prices are down, then let me rephrase that houses aren't more affordable. Since income hasn't risen, it doesn't matter what the price drop is in real terms.
Only sales prices are down in immune towns and you don't want to buy what's been selling. Other properties haven't budged much and those properties rose much more than 10% over the past 5 years. I don't understand why we shouldn't correct back to 1998 - 2002 affordability. |
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GenXer
Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 703
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 5:42 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| The printing press is only going to carry the teleprompter so far. If we get another 4 years of the current communist regime, I can count on house prices dropping like rocks. It appears that the job losses are continuing unabated. Who cares of the rate of decline changes? That is irrelevant. It appears that neither cap'n'tax or obamacare is going to pass in congress. But I'm sure they'll find some other way to raise taxes. State taxes are going up. This is just a start. So what if they spread the wealth and keep people on 600 bucks a month? If people are going to be without work for an extended period of time, it wouldn't matter, as they used to make a lot more than that, and most people are only several paychecks away from not being able to pay. |
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mpr
Joined: 06 Jun 2009
Posts: 344
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:05 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| john p wrote: |
You're paying deference to a Harvard Review role. Obama most likely played the poor kid from the hood. He is a bullshitter with a ton of intellect. Intellectual people can't solve problems soley on their intellect. I would say that the Ricky Bobby's would be able to survive on their hands on skills than a metrosexual. Palin fishes, hunts, flies planes, balances budgets, raises kids, etc. Those are skills necessary to manage a family and she demonstrated that those basic skills can be employed in running government.
Bottom line, the intellectual Obama wants to borrow more than any President in History, and the stupid hick Palin wanted to cut spending like the dumb folks who understand that you need to balance your family budget.
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I'm sorry to use worn out analogy, but I'm always amazed when people
make this kind of anti-intellectual argument. If you were taking your kid
to the doctor or your car to the mechanic etc would you be impressed
if they told you that they were a common sense person who hunted and
flew planes ? Maybe a better analogy is if your were buying stock and
the CEO told you that. That might actually be relevant for some companies,
but the president has to deal with many complex issues where he has
to weigh advice from experts and balance conflicting priorities. Just
relying on "common sense" is not going to cut it.
Your example about balancing the budget is actually a good simple one.
Not only do most serious economists believe that a increase in public
spending was necessary, but we know what happened during the great
depression when the goverment cut spending and balanced the budget.
This may be counter intuitive from the point of view of home economics
but thats the whole point. Of course we cant run a simulation to
prove it, but its broadly believed that balancing the budget or anything
like it would be a disaster now. Roughly speaking the difference is that
your home finances are essentially a zero sum game (if you fix income etc.)
but the economy is more like an engine where you can try to adjust the
throttle, so things like the paradox of thrift can happen.
| john p wrote: |
I got my MBA and realized how full of shit these intellectuals think they are. Spending the money that guys like Krugman, Sumners, Obama are saying is totally foolish and you'd have to be an elite to believe it.
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I wouldn't disagree with you about a lot of MBA's.
I used to watch The Apprentice and it would always amaze me that
the people there talked about being "outstanding" when most of them
had no specific skills other than perhaps managing team dynamics.
However you shouldn't confuse guys like Summers or Krugman with
the people you met at your MBA course. People like these have spent their
whole lives thinking deeply about how the economy works. This doesn't
mean they cant make mistakes - economics is a rather inexact science -
but they are not just bullshitters.
Like, I said its hard to argue this, because we cant run a simulation with
Palin in charge of the economy. I do think its curious to make this
kind of argument after eight years of a president making decisions
(by his own admission) with his gut.
| john p wrote: |
Tony Rezko is not a conspiracy theory. You can research it, he bought the adjacent property right next to Obama at the same time an then sold a slice to Obama. That is not a conspiracy theory, ufo, that is a fucking fact. If you don't research that and tell people it is a conspiracy theory, that is intellectually dishonest and I'd begin to wonder about your motives. |
I just moved from Chicago so I know all about Tony Rezko.
I just dont care much one way or the other. Yeah he sold
Obama a slice of the lot next door. So what ?
(That's a rhetorical question, I dont plan to waste any more time on Rezko.) |
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mpr
Joined: 06 Jun 2009
Posts: 344
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:10 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| balor123 wrote: | [
Only sales prices are down in immune towns and you don't want to buy what's been selling. Other properties haven't budged much and those properties rose much more than 10% over the past 5 years. I don't understand why we shouldn't correct back to 1998 - 2002 affordability. |
That isn't my impression. Do you have any data ? It would be interesting.
My impression is that immune towns are really down 10% - selling prices
of course - from the peak. You're claiming that this is only because the
quality of the stock being sold has dropped. I dont see that though. |
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balor123
Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:32 pm GMT Post subject: |
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Maybe you're right. It just doesn't feel like much a drop when you can only afford half of what they're currently selling for (and looking back you realize that you could have afforded the same places at a previous point in time, especially considering the drop in interest rates)  |
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WestCoastXPlant
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:18 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| Quote: | My impression is that immune towns are really down 10% - selling prices
of course - from the peak. |
This would be my guess too...Starting to wonder if it has to do with demographics. Have a colleague that knows I'm looking to buy. He was complaining that he's underwater on a house he bought in 2003. I said "no way" -- did you refi? Then I looked in his area -- around Framingham...There were 5-10 properties available bought in 02-04 and most were selling under previous sales price. Then looked in current town of interest -- found 2 properties that were bought 02-03, both asking 50-100K above last sales price. Everything else seems to be houses owned since the mid-80s...most of which are probably owned free and clear....that pattern seemed to hold up all the way until the 700K range. My guess is that this is very different than CA or "transitioning towns"... |
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john p
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1820
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:51 pm GMT Post subject: |
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I agree with the demographics. Keep in mind that people in their mid to late 40's (a little past the tail end of the babyboom) caught a huge lift in real estate appreciation and have had their 401k's growing for 15-20 years now. That is a lot of padding for them to withstand the shock of a job loss or a decline in their home value. This generation got out of college with relatively small student loans, very cheap rent, and very cheap starter housing stock. They bought in and saw their equity double, then they bought a trade up and that double.
Sellers in their early 40's have less padding, and those in their late 30's have less. Many sellers in their mid to early 30's most likely are upside down and it is a matter of months before they get into the red.
Of course you have the families that refinanced to pay for college tuitions, or those that lived beyond their means, or were in a tough industry, but I think that certain age brackets got more green lights than others.
I get that even with some steep discounts, new buyers can't touch certain places. I think this is so because we're talking about a huge bubble where you had sellers and certain buyers with huge down payment capabilities due to appreciation obtained from their prior sales. New buyers, even in the top income strata typically don't have the big down payment capability. Up until 2008, you only needed a small percentage of new buyers to hold up prices so the upper income new buyers were providing that support in the market. In 2008 when the ARMS reset, that was when the bottom fell out and there just wasn't enough new buyers available or capable for buying the available stock. Nobody cared about them, they were shut out, screwed over, forgotten so it was only when people needed them to buy that they realized that they were financially bonded due to skyrocketting college tuitions, lower salaries relative to other generations, etc. We needed wage inflation to increase the reach height to support price levels, but due to globalization, wages were held in check, further, due to the bubbles the cost of living was so high that it lowered the savings rate so very few people had the capability to save for a down payment and an emergency fund.
Think about the babyboom and all the money they had saved over their lives. All that money was available for buying stuff and investing in the past decade. This in of itself created upward pressure on investment assets and real estate (especially second homes and investment properties). Although a babyboomer may have 35% less in their portfolios, many things to buy are 35% less anyway, so the richest people aren't feeling it too much right now. They'll not sell anything and just enjoy the low prices to buy new things.
What it really is about right now is health care. More than any other issue, health care is causing the most stress in the system. Not only are people living much longer, but we've got a babyboom and quite frankly the system doesn't have enough to provide the level of services available to people. Basically, we had enough for people to get emergency treatment and that was really what health care was; now you can get stress tests, EKG's, colonoscopy's, etc. When a diagnostic procedure can cost 1/4 of a persons salary, that's a lot of stress on a society where the bottom 50% of wage earners pay 2% of the cost of government. |
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john p
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1820
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 5:25 pm GMT Post subject: |
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MPR said:
| Quote: | I just moved from Chicago so I know all about Tony Rezko.
I just don’t care much one way or the other. Yeah he sold
Obama a slice of the lot next door. So what ?
|
First of all Chicago is an absolutely amazing city. I took the architectural boat tour and was drooling the entire time. As an architect testing the consistency of materials is important. We test steel, sheet rock, concrete; you'll see UL labels on doors and electrical fixtures, etc. We even test, license and certify individuals. In our Specifications we often ask for certified installers for certain building components etc. To me, a leader's integrity needs to be tested; their integrity is their constitution, what their make-up is.
Imagine leadership like designing a beam. When we design a beam we look at three things:
The maximum bending moment (how much stress will be on the beam given the design),
the section modulus or the shape and direction of the beam relative to the forces being applied (for example, if you have a 2x4, it makes a difference as to whether you hold the 2" vertical or the 4" vertical) and lastly,
The fiberal bending stress of the material (are you talking Douglas fir wood, or A36 Steel?
The maximum moment is like the current economic situation. A professional needs to be able to determine how much load or resistance is being applied. Right now, Deval Patrick and Barack Obama were saying, sure this will hold or this will work, but weren't looking at the real loading of the real situation. They underestimated the load.
The section modulus is like experience. You need to know where to put the material where it does the most work. This is where education and being a subject matter expert counts. Sure you can have a 2x4 but if you hold it the wrong direction it does 1/3 of the work. A smart person will know how to allocate the resources to get the best yield of the material. Obama had not proven that he had any substantial ability to balance a budget or allocate resources to solve a host of problems.
The bending stress capacity of the material: This to a leader is integrity. People say someone is a "lightweight" when they can't take much stress or they don't follow through on their word, or they pretend to be something but can't back up their promises. Obama painted a lovely rendering of what he could do, but when you look at the consistency of which he was you saw the weakness of character. You saw him vote "present", you heard him talk about no red United States, or blue United States, but one United States, and then saw him vote 97% of the time down party lines. Look at the consistency of Tony Rezko. Rezko was totally corrupt, he is corrosive to a society and Rezko wouldn't bother waste his time to collude or provide favors to someone unless they would be complicit, go along and get along, pay to play. Obama pretended like he was some guy he brushed up against once in a great while, when in reality, they clearly had a strategy to buy property together for Obama's benefit. That is weakness of material, it isn't A36 steel that you build a superstructure from, it is rotted wood. You can draw the best superstructure but if you build it from rotted material it won't work. You can come from the best college, say the right words, but if your word is hollow and you're a lightweight it will collapse. With McCain, he was put under stress and he withstood a lot, a real lot. McCain admitted that he broke, the people that tortured him BROKE him and he admitted that it was his fellow seamen that helped him survive and he owed his life to them. This is the sort of person who understands how a member needs their fellow members to the left and right to help carry the load and understands that he isn't a superhero.
What Obama did worst was allow people to worship him; he is so poisoned with vanity that he allows this "Messiah" worship to happen. This is so opposite of what our country stands for. We are a government of the people, we are held up by the strength and constitution of smaller members and this hero worship is corrosive to the values that teach people to step up and take on some of the load instead of sitting back and waiting for the Harvard elites to be our superstructure. Look at what the Harvard Professor did when he was being asked to show his ID by Officer Crowley, he showed the policeman HIS HARVARD ID. The elites try to tell us that they are above us and we should pay deference to them. Well until I start seeing some results, I'll use my common sense.
As far as Palin, her Russia comment could be taken a number of ways. Given that their state borders waters that touch Russia, don't you think that there are ANY procedural State policies that address this physical attribute? Don't you think that if you lived in Alaska the threat of Russia would be on your mind a little bit more? Of course there is no real advantage of attacking Alaska, but you can not deny that Alaskans need to be more mindful of Russia given their physical location. Beyond that, hunting and fishing are valuable skills. People who actually hunt animals for food are less wasteful with food because they respect it. People who expect things to be provided for them typically never think to go fishing for their dinner. Many of our founding fathers knew how to grow or hunt their food. They understood that they could provide for themselves and that gave them the confidence to be independent. If they needed England to protect them, provide for them, govern them, etc. we would never have been an independent nation. It took self providing, independent individuals to see a new nation.
I clearly think Palin was not ready for prime time. McCain did not pick her with the notion that he was going to die in office, and that was his mistake. What Palin represented was regular folk. She represented a mom who got involved and employed common sense to help solve problems. She pushed back on the old boy network, and made tough decisions about cutting services. A great deal of her credibility does go down the tubes with the whole bridge to nowhere nonsense; she should have never promoted that because she wasn't on solid ground. What she did represent though was the notion that you had to say NO to something, you had to conserve resources to make them last and to spread them out fairly. Congress spends as if there is no limit, they don't ever and ever vote for something without being forced to say no to something else, it doesn't work that way. People vote for things one at a time and the conservation doesn't really happen until Budget time. Palin had a track record of saying no to things, Obama never made tough decisions, he wanted everyone to be happy and why not, by not making tough decisions he got everyone to love him, well guess what that got us, a Budget Gap that is 1.4 times the cost of the Iraq War before we even start adding in the commitments of the Bailout or the Obamacare.
The reason why the elites and intellectuals HATE Palin is that she doesn't choose to put on the elite and intellectual facade and make people feel small. That infuriates them. They hate her because she represents the folks and she pulls back the curtain so we can see the Wizard and see how full of shit the elites are. Elites want to act like stuffed shirts and want everyone to worship them and fall into line. A government of the people needs strong individuals and not hero worship. McCain's wisdom was that we needed to think small instead of thinking big and the elites don't want to get their hands dirty and seeing a governor that cuts up what they've hunted is so beneath them, they had no other choice but to assassinate her because they needed to assonate the notion that the individual citizen should get up and be independent and strong. The elites want us to be weak followers. Fuck them. |
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john p
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1820
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 6:34 pm GMT Post subject: |
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http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_102512.asp
Here is a great case of an elite (Al Gore) preaching about how citizens need to be responsible and conserve energy while he uses 20 times the electricity of an average household and lives in a 10,000 square foot house with just his wife (not to mention the guest house). Read the comments at the bottom by the left wingers, it is laughable to see them try to spin how it is ok for an energy conservation leader to live in a 10,000 s.f. house.
on this link:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/09/hospital_offici.html
You can see how Michelle Obama got almost a 250% increase in salary working for a hospital just after Obama got elected to the Senate.
Now isn't Obama talking about wasted money at hospitals? He didn't seem to give a shit about the poor who couldn't afford health care when his wife's salary at a hospital went from $122k to $316k.
No political graft there?
What do you go to an Ivy League School to learn how to be a predator and screw the poor over? |
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WestCoastXPlant
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:47 pm GMT Post subject: |
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| john p wrote: |
What do you go to an Ivy League School to learn how to be a predator and screw the poor over? |
LOL,now you're confusing causation and correlation...The Ivies are full of legacies and most of them are not all that smart. They are rarely the first generation to screw people over...and I wouldn't even say the poor -- IMO it's the middle/upper-middle class that gets milked. Having grown up in a commie country, I have to say I have never stopped to be amazed by the amount of welfare doled out.
Now, who are the fiscal conservatives in MA? Does that even exist around here? |
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john p
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1820
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john p
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1820
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| Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:50 pm GMT Post subject: |
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A house in my neighborhood sold for 6% less than the purchase price in June/July 2006. The house zillows for $416k and was just sold for $470k.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/30-Fairway-Dr-Halifax-MA-02338/57531023_zpid/
As you can see, the place zillowed at $360k in March and sold 4 months later for $470k. We need to cut the appraisers a little slack, and this goes to show you that you shouldn't take some of these estimating websites for absolute fact. I use them to detect trends, but you need real comperables to really understand value. |
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john p
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Posts: 1820
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| Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:16 pm GMT Post subject: |
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Ahh, I don't feel so bad now.
http://www.zillow.com/homes/map/30-fairway-drive,-halifax,-ma_rb/
This is a comperable on my street. We bought about the same time back in 2006, this house went for $500k and mine went for $543k. My lot is a little nicer and my house is about 1,000 s.f. larger.
This comperable house:
June/July 2006
$215 per square foot
2,324 s.f.
$500,000
July 2009
$206 per square foot
2,324 s.f.
$470,000
price decline of 6%
My house:
Aug/Sept 2006
$160 per square foot
3,400 s.f.
$543,000
Today (if I use the same dollar per square foot as what this comperable sold for or $206)
$206 per square foot
3,400 s.f.
$700,400
Price increase of 28.5%
Now back in March when we had those super low mortgage rates, the banks were telling me that my house was worth about $440k or something. I was waiting for this comp and another that supports the $206 per square foot to come in before I refinanced.
I guess the lesson is that you can get a great deal and insulate yourself from price declines. Also, each town has a sweet spot, or a square footage, location or size where you get a tremendous value. There was more buyer traffic for the 2,400 square foot houses but hardly anyone looking for a 3,400 square foot house. I don't know why, but I did buy in the slow months and my house had priced itself out of the market during the Springtime. |
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