Home prices slow, but continue to show gains

From Bloomberg:

Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Rose in June at a Slower Pace

Home prices in 20 U.S. cities rose at a slower pace in the year ended in June as declining affordability and weak wage gains kept appreciation in check.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values increased 8.1 percent from June 2013, the smallest 12-month gain since January 2013, the group reported today in New York.

Price gains are slowing as more houses are coming up for sale and investors retreat to the sidelines. That, combined with an improving job market, could put homeownership within reach of more Americans grappling with disappointing wage growth and strict lending rules.

“We’re seeing more inventories coming on line, which is putting downward pressure on prices,” Anika Khan, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina, said before the report. “In general, we have seen prices rise at a faster pace than the fundamentals would call for. There’s a normalization happening.”

The median forecast of 27 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected an 8.3 percent gain in the 12 months ended in June. Estimates ranged from 7.7 percent to 9 percent.

Another report confirmed price gains are decelerating. Property values rose 0.8 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months after increasing 1.3 percent at the start of the year, according to figures from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

This entry was posted in Economics, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate. Bookmark the permalink.

157 Responses to Home prices slow, but continue to show gains

  1. Argentina, 1998…straight ahead, folks.

    Prepare while you can.

  2. grim says:

    From the WSJ:

    Fewer U.S. Homes Underwater in Second Quarter

    The number of homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages declined anew in the second quarter, but the remaining pain is being felt disproportionately by owners of low-price homes, according to a report released Tuesday.

    About 28% of homes with a mortgage within the bottom third of home values were underwater at the end of the second quarter, meaning they were worth less than the balance of their mortgages, according to real-estate information service Zillow Inc. Z +1.29% That compares with about 16% of homeowners in the middle tier and 9.2% in the top tier.

    The high proportion of low-price, underwater homes could prevent owners from moving up to larger homes and thus put a damper on purchases by first-time home buyers.

    Many owners in small starter homes would normally seek to move to larger places, but might instead find themselves hamstrung by high mortgage debt, the report said. In turn, first-time home buyers, who would normally draw on that inventory, don’t have as much available to buy.

    That figure has declined as the economy has recovered. Overall, the percentage of homeowners who were underwater in the second quarter dropped to 17% from 24% a year ago, the report said.

    The report said that an even larger number of homeowners are either underwater or have so little equity in their homes that they wouldn’t be able to cover expenses when selling and make a down payment on a new home. This “effective negative equity rate” was nearly 35% at the end of the second quarter.

  3. grim says:

    From the NYT:

    Why a Slowdown in Housing Prices Is Great News

    There was some glumness in the latest news on housing prices. There shouldn’t be. Slower home price rises — and in some markets, outright declines — are a sign the housing market is starting to move past the boom-and-bust cycle of the last dozen years toward a market where sensible prices driven by local economic conditions prevail.

    The S.&P./Case-Shiller home price index showed prices rose 8.1 percent in 20 major cities in the 12 months ended in June, the lowest rate of increase since 2012. Compared with May’s prices, national home prices actually declined oh-so-slightly, by 0.1 percent, with six major metropolitan areas reporting price declines of more than 1 percent. (Those would be Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Minneapolis.)

    Why is this good news? Because the new data offer hints that a disastrous era for housing may be ending.

    Going back to the early 2000s, the housing market has been overwhelmingly driven by national phenomena, first the explosion in loose mortgage lending and bubbly prices that finally peaked in 2006, then the collapse in mortgage credit and prices from 2007 to 2010, and then a gradual recovery in prices since then.

    Home prices can’t rise faster than incomes forever. So if the trend of the last few months continues, and the rate of price increases continues to come down to earth, it will be a sign that maybe, just maybe, we’ve put this long, horrible boom-bust cycle behind us.

  4. anon (the good one) says:

    tried to trade up, but there’s no inventory. new construction was a possibility, but taxes doubled

    “Many owners in small starter homes would normally seek to move to larger places, but might instead find themselves hamstrung by high mortgage debt, the report said. In turn, first-time home buyers, who would normally draw on that inventory, don’t have as much available to buy.”

  5. grim says:

    I’ll call this the “Myth of the Move Up” – something I largely believe is propagated by the real estate and mortgage industry to increase deal flow and dollars in their pocket.

    How often does one posit someone “moves up”? Most of these articles discuss this so nonchalantly that you’d think it was like going out and buying a new suit, or that houses should have an ownership horizon less than that of a car.

    This behavior isn’t at all a “property ladder”, it’s a f*cking hamster wheel.

    Buy once, buy somewhere you will be comfortable living in until you die. Do not, absolutely do not, buy a house if you think your time horizon is any less than 10-15 years. If you want to treat it like a car, rent, rent lots of houses, trade up every two years.

    The mathematics of a mortgage make this absolute idiocy, layer on the cost of a sale and the cost of a purchase, and you quickly move from idiocy to lunacy. You could own houses for 30 years and still barely make a dent in the principal.

    “Move Up” is hogwash, a sucker’s game. If you don’t plan on staying, don’t buy.

  6. 1987 Condo says:

    #5…agreed..like Gary, I searched from 2002-2006 for a trade up…I would need to pay $200k more for the location, colonial and 2 car garage, and then totally rehab the house for at least another 50-100k….I just added on and saved all the transactional costs…now everything is paid off and my taxes are about $4k less a year as well…..now about that girl with the Uzi….

  7. anon (the good one) says:

    “DOLAN SPRINGS, Ariz. (AP) – Authorities say a shooting instructor accidentally shot in the head by a 9-year-old girl has died.

    Mohave County Sheriff’s officials say 39-year-old Charles Vacca, of Lake Havasu City, died Monday after he was shot at the Last Stop shooting outdoor range in White Hills.

    Sheriff’s officials say Vacca was airlifted to the University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

    According to investigators, Vacca was standing next to the girl while he was instructing her how to use an automatic Uzi when the accident happened. Authorities say the girl pulled the trigger and the recoil sent the gun over her head and the victim was shot.

    Deputies say the girl was at the shooting range with her parents.

    VIDEO: Mohave County Sheriff’s officials released a video clip of Vacca moments before he was accidentally shot by the 9-year-old girl he was teaching. “

  8. anon (the good one) says:

    NRA proudly calls the 9 yr old a prodigy. Hall of Fame material

  9. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [4] anon,

    No worries, in time you will be able to expropriate a nice 4 bedroom CHC from the bourgeosie.

    [5] grim,

    Agreed, and now I see my insurance company is in on the timing racket, albeit to a lesser extent. PA allowed changes in insurance regs and SF is no longer writing policies with set dollar deductibles. I am grandfathered so they tell me I can lower my yearly nut substantially if I agree to a floating deductible (0.5% of replacement value). If I keep my current deductible, the premium goes up.

    If I take the floating deductible, I recover the difference in about 7 years (more if the replacement cost goes up). Since most people don’t stay in houses that long, the insurer gets a win-win: No smaller claims anymore unless people opt for the lower deductible, and if they do, the insurer is made whole anyway.

    My agent tells me she hates it because it is causing all kinds of kerfluffle, and even suggested that PA forced this on the insurers, but I suspect that this is posturing on her part.

  10. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    [5] grim – all good points. But even without your advice, those comments are being hammered home by 15 years of flat to declining wages. That developer in Boston I mentioned the other day, he bought one of the multi-million dollar units this past December from a married couple that purchased it in 1978. They paid it off early and never used it as an ATM either. Old school.

  11. nwnj says:

    #7 Potential Darwin award winner.

  12. The Original NJ ExPat says:

    Wouldn’t it be ironic for the baby boomers if the housing market went crazy up again in, let’s say, 5 years from now. Ironically it might still benefit boomers the most. They can sell their expensive house right now and maybe cash out $500K of their paid off $800K house and buy let’s say a $300K 2BR condo in a trendy walkable town and maybe inflation and other market forces craziness make them able to sell that condo for another $800K 5 years from now as white flight from suburbia begins, so they take another $500K tax free and then go expat to a friendly country where their kids are already living while the US as we know it goes into full-on collapse just as all the tax inversions are complete.

  13. Fast Eddie says:

    Grim,

    Buy once, buy somewhere you will be comfortable living in until you die.

    Really? Really? Do you know we were standing in lines at open houses as early as 2000? The realtor had a clipboard telling people to give the best offer as the house will be sold by the evening. People were buying places over the phone, sight unseen, well into 2006. We bought our current home in a private deal or else it would have never happened. Is this advice for this current f.ucked up market or the bubble f.ucked up market?

  14. Fast Eddie says:

    If you don’t plan on staying, don’t buy.

    Tell that to the ocean of muppets that are making payments on a dead asset.

  15. grim says:

    White flight from suburbia? The f*cking hipsters are moving from Brooklyn to the Hudson valley, tells me all I need to know, the pundits are 3 steps behind, as usual.

    Smart money bought in bed stuy when there was blood on the street, same with Harlem, same with Hoboken.

  16. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [11] nwnj

    “#7 Potential Darwin award winner.”

    As much as the idea of any Venn diagram intersection of agreement with anon causes cognitive dissonance, I was thinking the very same thing.

  17. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [16] redux,

    Not the first person to die of carelessness or stupid, and it was clearly an unfortunate accident, but come on. When I was 8, I was shooting .22s and that was a big deal, but the risk of accident was quite low with heavy guns, no recoil, and always pointed downrange. Putting an Uzi with its light weight, short barrel, and recoil in a 9YO girl’s hands is just asking for spray. Guy may have known his stuff but that one brain cramp cost him everything.

  18. grim says:

    What year 2000 did you live in? The one I lived in had peoples investment savings and retirement eviscerated by the dot com bubble and stock market collapsing. We were in recession, tons of folks were losing jobs, unemployment was near 8%, incomes collapsed.

    There were lines at open houses? No there was blood on the streets, you should have pushed your way to the front of the line and bought.

  19. grim says:

    17 – Same with you, as a kid all I was allowed to shoot was a .22 rifle, and not even using short or long, we shot with CB caps.

  20. Ragnar says:

    very weird, my post disappears without mod warning, but when I try to repost, it says I already posted that.

  21. chicagofinance says:

    take a hint rags

  22. FKA 2010 Buyer says:

    #7 Anon

    These are the type of people that have small kids in the house and leave a loaded weapon not in a lock box because it has to be handy. Probably thought it would be good preparation for the coming riots that they have been waiting on. Wonder what they are going to do with all the weapons and ammo they stockpiled?

    Prayers go out this instructor family and God bless this young lady. I hope she isn’t scarred from this unfortunate incident.

  23. chicagofinance says:

    anon is the one who talks to the characters on the screen as if they could hear…..”b!tch jus’ get out da house”

    chicagofinance says:
    August 26, 2014 at 5:49 pm
    Michael is like that person in the movie theater who cannot follow the plot and keeps asking her date questions….too loudly, so everyone cannot avoid having to listen……

  24. Ragnar says:

    And this was at the “Last Stop” shooting range. I don’t think even Clot would encourage 9-yo girls to learn to use Uzis, in advance of expected apocalypse, maybe a rifle or shotgun. Learning how to sew, knit, fish, farm, and cook would probably be a more practical skill if the world is going to hell, or perhaps how to wed a politician or gang leader. Or just in case the world doesn’t collapse into chaos, reading, writing, math, and critical thinking skills might be more useful than uzi-shooting.

  25. FKA 2010 Buyer says:

    Surprise….

    http://www.housingwire.com/articles/31169-charts-show-how-even-realtors-are-losing-confidence-in-housing

    The July 2014 Realtor Confidence Index shows that Realtors aren’t enthusiastic about current conditions and the outlook for the next six months.
    Concerns about federal regulations burdening the process, the drop in demand for middle and lower-cost homes, and rising affordability problems headlined their concerns.

  26. Ragnar says:

    Chifi,
    I think it didn’t make it through because my post was entirely about move up homes and real estate.
    My post on guns worked fine.

  27. Ragnar says:

    Grim,
    Following a 20 year long property boom, Chinese people think the opposite about residential property. I heard a story of one woman who bought a $10mn apt in NYC because she expects her 1 year old daughter will go to Columbia or Harvard and might need it.

  28. chicagofinance says:

    jj finally meets his match…..
    Apple to expand iPad screens to 12.9 inches

  29. Ragnar says:

    I think the time period required to justify a home also depends upon price relative to income. If the transaction price is low relative to income, and someone wants to own a home for what might be only 5 years, fine, buy a home in move-in condition. The change in home value isn’t going to be a big deal in their overall net worth.

    On the other hand, if someone thinks they may be moving on in 5 years and the change in home value could make or break them, that’s a pretty dumb move.

  30. Juice Box says:

    re: Hipsters & Hudson valley.

    No surprises. A few years back a friend of mine flipped his Hoboken Condo for a nice profit and moved back to his hometown in PA to open a gourmet coffee shop. This is someone who lived in Westfield found it too boring, then NYC found it too busy then Hoboken for a few years. He and his wife were both working and pulling in great coin and then decided to chuck it all and head back to their small town roots to raise their family near family.

    Once the hipsters or Millennials start multiplying en masse I suspect many of them will do the same, especially living in a small apt with kids, the overhead just isn’t worth it, and all their efforts to duplicate farmers markets and small town life in a big city will no longer be worth it. You can’t be a skateboard riding beardo forever even in NYC, believe me I know.

  31. Ragnar says:

    I owned my first house for 10 years. Started with 2 people in a 4/2.5, after 10 years my income was 3 or more times higher, had a kid and 2 in laws, plus wife wanted to start inviting friends and relatives to stay over, and I no longer needed to commute to NYC for work. So I moved up and moved further west, to a 5/4.5. Making more money, five years later, we could afford to move up one more tier, to someplace like Short Hills or Basking Ridge, but my wife has no interest, and I told her in return for a slightly higher ranked public school with hoity-toitier neighbors, we’d pay twice as much for what would likely be a less appealing house and lot.

  32. FKA 2010 Buyer says:

    Good to see our government is doing something for our military. Now if they can only fix the VA issues.

    Big Lenders Will Help Active-Duty Military Get Lower Mortgage Rates

    http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2014/08/26/big-lenders-will-help-active-duty-military-get-lower-mortgage-rates/

    The White House announced a new partnership Tuesday with five large banks and mortgage companies that is designed to make it easier for members of the military to lower their mortgage payments when they’re called to active duty.

    Currently, military personnel can request to have their mortgage rates capped at 6% when they’re called up to active duty as part of a federal law known as the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, or SCRA.

    Under the program announced Tuesday, the five financial institutions will begin proactively reaching out to eligible service members among their borrowers every quarter after screening their loan portfolios against a military database. The announcement came as part of a speech President Barack Obama made to the annual convention of the American Legion, the nation’s largest veteran service organization.

    The five firms participating in the program are Bank of America , Citigroup , Ocwen Financial , Quicken Loans and Wells Fargo . A government audit earlier this year found that one third of SCRA-eligible borrowers at an unnamed financial institution had a loan with an interest rate above 6%, and that more than 80% of those borrowers eligible for a reduction hadn’t availed themselves of the loan break.

  33. Ragnar says:

    Just discovered there is a zero tolerance policy for using the word describing the bag that women wear to carry their makeup, keys, etc. Especially if it is made by a French luxury goods maker. No mod, no nothing, just makes the post disappear.

  34. clotluva says:

    15.

    I have a lot of hipster acquaintances. I’m always surprised at how much of the whimsical air is taken out of their sails when they have kids, get a 9-to-5, and settle down in suburbia. But it seems for every couple that comes back down to earth, there is another couple that doubles down with attention seeking behaviors to set themselves apart from their less-hip neighbors and surroundings. They are a scourge on small town farmers markets.

  35. Juice Box says:

    Every-time I see a big house these days all I can think of is the amount of work and cost for the upkeep. I spent last weekend cleaning my pool, grill area patio etc then weeding and cleaning out the flower beds and some other maintenance that needed to be done like change the air filters. All the house work and other things going on like kids parties etc, then I see a bigger house and all I can imagine is the amount of upkeep. Never bite off (borrow to buy more) than you can chew I say.

  36. Fast Eddie says:

    What year 2000 did you live in? The one I lived in had peoples investment savings and retirement eviscerated by the dot com bubble and stock market collapsing. We were in recession, tons of folks were losing jobs, unemployment was near 8%, incomes collapsed.

    Completely disagree. It was a single line in and out of the house and houses were being sold in hours. We had to park on a different street because there wasn’t any spots. We were there. I saw it. Realtors were so arrogant, they were walking away from you in mid-sentence. We had to beg friends of family members to sell us their house at asking price in early 2001. This was friends of the family and we pleaded with them. That’s the 2000 I remember. It was the beginning of the heist and it was a 7 to 8 year run of wealth distribution like we’ve never seen.

  37. Fast Eddie says:

    …you should have pushed your way to the front of the line and bought.

    In essence, we did.

  38. Toxic Crayons says:

    17, 19 – I don’t think the ranges around here let kids under 12 anywhere near pistols. Let alone full auto uzi’s. It was a risk most people would never take.

    I learned under strict supervision with single shot, bolt action 22 rifles. We were given 5 rounds, and were required to return 5 empty brass cases.

  39. Toxic Crayons says:

    Paedophile gang’s abuse lasted 16 YEARS as authorities feared being labelled racist if they tackled it

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rotherham-child-abuse-scandal-paedophile-4113152

  40. Juice Box says:

    re : “whimsical air is taken out of their sails”

    Here is a common theme on HGTV these days when pimping homes.

    Young Hipsters vs. Old School Design
    Episode HFMF-210H

    Hip newlyweds Rachel and Blair take on besties Jyl and Michael. Each team gets $500 cash and one hour to shop at the world famous Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena, California, that they’ll fix-up and flip. After haggling for some hidden gems both teams hit the workshop to transform their pieces, in the hopes of raking in big profits at Hollywood’s Melrose Trading Post. There, they’ll battle for customers and the team that makes the biggest profit takes home $5,000. Hosted by Designer/Flea Market connoisseur and Good Morning America Co-Anchor Lara Spencer.

    or

    DIY Hipster Parasol – Throwback Thursday – HGTV Handmade

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AO2zmgrSAc

  41. Juice Box says:

    I am continually surprised I survived childhood. We used to go to the annual turkey shoot the cops held, some kind of $5 to shoot fund raiser for the PBA or something before they shut down the range because a retirement home was going up nearby. You had to be at least 12 years old and the only guns used were .22 revolvers and the cops supervising was never going to let you aim it anywhere but straight. Man was that fun…..

  42. Anon E. Moose says:

    Grim;

    Could I ask you to peer into MLS #3141273?

  43. grim says:

    33 – yes, heavy spam on those keywords

  44. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [22] FKA

    The 9YO and her parents were from New York.

    Enough said.

  45. grim says:

    42 – Went UC back in June, looks like the expected close date was yesterday.

  46. grim says:

    It was for rent prior to being sold, $2,900 a month. Looks like it went UC in 41 days, which I find very interesting at that price. They had an offer in a little more than a week after they lowered the ask from $579k to 564k, which to me is generally an indication that the close price is going to be nearer to the ask than further away. Is that a nearly identical floor plan?

  47. FKA 2010 Buyer says:

    From a “Few Good Men”…..Colonel Jessup said he ordered the Code Red! What did we do wrong?

    I don’t understand, FauxNews wouldn’t led their sheep bad information. This must be an aberration.

    Anatomy of a Fox News smear: Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge and the “dumbest person on the Internet”

    http://www.salon.com/2014/08/26/anatomy_of_a_fox_news_smear_ann_coulter_matt_drudge_and_the_dumbest_person_on_the_internet/
    Ferguson police seemingly wanted to transform Michael Brown from an innocent victim to a criminal. Still, it was hard to justify killing a young man with no previous record — especially shooting him six times, for allegedly stealing a handful of cheap cigars.

    It wasn’t long before Fox News was pushing a new narrative: Michael Brown wasn’t just the latest in a depressingly long line of unarmed young black men to be gunned down by a white cop. He was a thug, they suggested, a criminal who deserved what he got, because he posed a deadly threat to Officer Wilson.

    This was proven, Fox News reported with an unnamed source, because “the officer had sustained a fractured eye socket in the incident.” Ann Coulter even suggested, incorrectly, that we’d seen X-rays of the fracture. Fox went on to claim “solid proof” of a battle between Wilson and Brown for the officer’s handgun.

    It was not long, of course, before CNN and others disproved such bogus claims.

  48. Ragnar says:

    One of the biggest errors of thinking people make is confusing what they wished were true with what is true. From home buying and selling to journalism. Only one reality.

  49. Statler Waldorf says:

    That 6′ 4″ 300-pound thug robbed a convenience store and assaulted the man behind the counter minutes before confronting police. That was no babe in the woods recorded on video, it was a brazen daytime robbery and assault with other customers standing feet away.

  50. Libturd in Union says:

    “Do not, absolutely do not, buy a house if you think your time horizon is any less than 10-15 years.”

    It absolutely blows my mind how many times houses turn over in my neck of the woods. If there is anything I emphasize to people more than anything, it’s that you should calculate 20% of the total cost of the house (not the downpayment) and make sure you have it in savings before purchasing. When you calculate moving costs, minor upgrades, furniture, window treatments and mortgage origiation costs, that’s close to how much you will spend in the first year.

  51. anon (the good one) says:

    clear example of how the extreme right wing media operates. scary

    FKA 2010 Buyer says:
    August 27, 2014 at 11:08 am
    From a “Few Good Men”…..Colonel Jessup said he ordered the Code Red! What did we do wrong?

    I don’t understand, FauxNews wouldn’t led their sheep bad information. This must be an aberration.

    Anatomy of a Fox News smear: Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge and the “dumbest person on the Internet”

    http://www.salon.com/2014/08/26/anatomy_of_a_fox_news_smear_ann_coulter_matt_drudge_and_the_dumbest_person_on_the_internet/
    Ferguson police seemingly wanted to transform Michael Brown from an innocent victim to a criminal. Still, it was hard to justify killing a young man with no previous record — especially shooting him six times, for allegedly stealing a handful of cheap cigars.

    It wasn’t long before Fox News was pushing a new narrative: Michael Brown wasn’t just the latest in a depressingly long line of unarmed young black men to be gunned down by a white cop. He was a thug, they suggested, a criminal who deserved what he got, because he posed a deadly threat to Officer Wilson.

    This was proven, Fox News reported with an unnamed source, because “the officer had sustained a fractured eye socket in the incident.” Ann Coulter even suggested, incorrectly, that we’d seen X-rays of the fracture. Fox went on to claim “solid proof” of a battle between Wilson and Brown for the officer’s handgun.

    It was not long, of course, before CNN and others disproved such bogus claims.

  52. Libturd in Union says:

    “That 6′ 4″ 300-pound thug robbed a convenience store and assaulted the man behind the counter minutes before confronting police. That was no babe in the woods recorded on video, it was a brazen daytime robbery and assault with other customers standing feet away.”

    Next time FKA witnesses a shoplifting, rather than call the police, I suggest he offer the innocent victim a job as a nanny in his home.

  53. Statler Waldorf says:

    A family friend didn’t account for unexpected costs, and after buying new furniture, etc, lost their house to foreclosure within 2 years of buying.

    “When you calculate moving costs, minor upgrades, furniture, window treatments and mortgage origiation costs, that’s close to how much you will spend in the first year.”

  54. Libturd in Union says:

    Cause the left doesn’t. Shut the F up Anon. You are a twerp with your partisan love and adoration for all things far left. In reality, you reveal the same capacity to think as that of a dead jellyfish.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/03/1096934/-OMFG-Scott-Walker-s-Got-a-Love-Child

  55. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [47] FKA

    Dan Rather, CBS, and the National Guard story
    ThinkProgress and Daily Kos, and the Bachmann “Americanization” story
    David Edwards, Raw Story and the “reinterpreted” Nugent vermin quote
    Andrew Rosenthal, the Times, and the Bush checkout scanner story
    Mike Barnicle, the Boston Globe, and, well, everything.

    And that is just off the top of my head . . .

    Sloppy journalism knows no party. But if you want to play, it’s your serve . . .

  56. Libturd in Union says:

    FKA, I officially dub you Nanny Brown.

  57. NJGator says:

    Another one from the annals of “You had just one job…”

    http://www.timesofisrael.com/zara-offers-striped-star-of-david-shirt/

  58. joyce says:

    55

    sloppy? i guess sometimes, but usually it’s on purpose

  59. FKA 2010 Buyer says:

    LOL…Nanny Brown, I like that. If you do the crime, you should expect to do the time.

    If only someone could patent Faux colored glasses they would be awesome!!!! If I were a realtor I would order 100s of them and hand them out at all open houses. The real estate market would be back in no time.

    Speaking of brazen daytime robbery that’s happening. Sorry, I am thinking on my own. I will wait for this to be characterized as brazen daytime robbery. Wonder how often this happens?

    http://www.northjersey.com/news/new-misconduct-trials-ordered-for-ex-passaic-valley-sewerage-commission-officials-1.1076277

  60. FKA 2010 Buyer says:

    And agreed, it sh%^y reporting and writing on both sides.

  61. Fast Eddie says:

    anon,

    What about hoping Sarah Palin gets gang r.aped or stating that she’s as retarded as the thing that came out of her c.unt?

  62. Libturd in Union says:

    Gator…my gut tells me it was designed by pure accident. Heck, I guarantee you that at least one of those commenters from the article drives a Volkswagen. For those not aware, Adolph pretty much started that car company in an attempt to make modern cars more affordable to the masses (that he did not exterminate).

  63. FKA 2010 Buyer says:

    Wow they have .50 Barrett available, next time I’m in Vegas I might have to add this as part of my itinerary. Anytime you can get some practice in is great.

    http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45963-d3697929-Reviews-Bullets_and_Burgers-Las_Vegas_Nevada.html

  64. Libturd in Union says:

    Nanny Brown,

    I’m glad you have thick skin and a sense of humor. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. What bothers the krap out of me is when one relies (often blindly) on someone else to determine their opinion.

  65. 1987 Condo says:

    Don’t you also need to account for the 4-6% realtor commission when you buy and sell? “Someone” is paying that fee……

  66. Libturd in Union says:

    Thank you Obama, for being no different than that evil alcoholic monkey who served before you.

    The Dow component leading the way higher looks to be UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), which is sporting a $1.43 gain (+1.7%) bringing the stock to $86.55. This single gain is lifting the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 10.82 points or roughly accounting for 90.2% of the Dow’s overall gain. Volume for UnitedHealth Group currently sits at 2.1 million shares traded vs. an average daily trading volume of 3.6 million shares.

    UnitedHealth Group has a market cap of $81.85 billion and is part of the health care sector and health services industry. Shares are up 13% year-to-date as of Tuesday’s close. The stock’s dividend yield sits at 1.8%.

  67. jj says:

    Moving up is very very hard near me. Most starter home neighborhoods have tons of 60×100 three bedroom house and extermely few fancy trade up houses.

    You have to switch towns and school districts and by then the kids dont want to move. Then you have the factor, follks near me who can trade up but did not go to the Islands and Disney on vacation, drive new cars, go see Broadway shows, hire baby siters, go out to dinner, buy fancy clothes. The big house and taxes would suck up the disposable income.

  68. MikeNJ says:

    Grim [5] we just went through the same thing. Bought the house in late 2006 and did the calcs when deciding whether to trade up or move as my 3 young boys are getting bigger by the minute. Everyone (and I mean everyone) suggested the “simple” trade up. We just lost both our neighbors to this exact scenario. In our town getting the fourth bedroom in anything other than the a POS redo was a huge ($400k+) increase over our little 3 bedroom. After running the numbers on the transaction costs to move it put us in a big hole, not to mention the increase in taxes that come with the bigger property. Instead we decided to maximize our lot (with variance) and build something modest but that gives us the kitchen and 4th bedroom. Still a relatively small house but when it will be done in a month or so I will be in for far less (in total) that it would have cost me to move and buy the bigger home. I understand people’s needs to not live through a renovation but in all honestly its not that bad. I figure I created $100K+ of additional value simply by what the house would sell for after the fact. When you factor in the $8k a year in tax savings it was a no brainer.

  69. Libturd in Union says:

    Condo, thought of it and forgot to add it to the list. Factor in the mortgage amortization table too. One barely pays principle during the first six years. Heck, at year six, you are still paying double the interest compared to principle. Even if you sell your house at year ten, you will have not even paid off the first quarter of the loan. I would guess that about 3% of the population even knows this.

  70. Libturd in Union says:

    MikeNJ…It’s almost always cheaper to extend.

  71. FKA 2010 Buyer says:

    Libturd…agreed.

    If we blindly followed realtors, financial channels, and The Jones we all would be owned POS houses right now. I’ve been following this site since 2006 and can say that it was one of the few sites that saw through all of the sheep messages. I would love to get this quality of insight applied to other topics.

  72. Libturd in Union says:

    Speaking of moving costs, we are three full years into our home and we are finally purchasing blinds and curtains. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and JC Pennies doesn’t run their 75% off + 5% back in Upromise sale very often. It still slays me how much custom cut blinds cost. We live in an old tutor and I swear they must have built these windows on site. Hardly two in the entire house match size wise. Custom cuts cost about 3 to 4 times that of standard sizing. Even with the incredible discount I still paid almost $800 to cover 13 windows. Sadly, I have 18 windows on the first floor.

  73. 1987 Condo says:

    Across the street from me the original owner passed away and someone bought his unmaintained, un renovated, 1000 square foot 1959 ranch for $290,000. They have removed all wood and are rebuilding as a 2 story, 2,000 square foot side hall colonial. Lot is about worst on block due to culvert/stream. I guess they think they will get $600,000? I would have paid $190k, renovated it and sold to retired couple for maybe $350k….we shall see. They are moving at a snails pace..I think it is a landscaper using his help to construct…

  74. grim says:

    It was not long, of course, before CNN and others disproved such bogus claims.

    CNN last night was a laugh-fest when talking about the “pause in gunshots” – the demeanor of those involved in the panel should have been considered extremely insulting to all parties involved. The laughing, joking, all in poor taste.

    The media is the media, they are all whores.

  75. grim says:

    72 – We did great using one of the new online places, better than JCP. Quality top notch. Sure they don’t have a “Hunter Douglas” label, but that’s for suckers. They cut to something silly like 1/16th, and if you measure wrong, they’ll fix it for free.

  76. grim says:

    I did nearly bust out laughing when they went down a 10 minute side-bar about how the Barry White wanna-be was clearly trying to make sweet love to an internet porn star. So yeah, CNN, not any better.

  77. grim says:

    Rumor has it the man on the recording is none other than Cleveland Brown:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Brown

  78. anon (the good one) says:

    one option to improve it

    “The principal means of funding the BBC is through the television licence, costing £145.50 per year per household since April 2010. Such a licence is required to receive broadcast television across Britain, however no licence is required to own a television used for other means, or for sound only radio sets (though a separate licence for these was also required for non-TV households until 1971). The cost of a television licence is set by the government and enforced by the criminal law. ”

    grim says:
    August 27, 2014 at 12:46 pm
    It was not long, of course, before CNN and others disproved such bogus claims.

    CNN last night was a laugh-fest when talking about the “pause in gunshots” – the demeanor of those involved in the panel should have been considered extremely insulting to all parties involved. The laughing, joking, all in poor taste.

    The media is the media, they are all whores.

  79. grim says:

    The best coverage so far on Ferguson was an NPR piece I heard that interviewed a British journalist on the topic of racism being a purely American phenomenon.

  80. grim says:

    TV tax on Americans, yeah that would go over well.

  81. jj says:

    How much did that cost to do. My wife wants to do that to our 1,500 sq foot house but I can only blow it out a maximun of 749 square feet. Over 50% blow out is considered new construction plus I lose my flood insurance grandfathering if I blow out in excess of 50%. Bottom line anyhow who buys my 1500 sq foot house is constrainted as t he largest it could ever be is 2499 square feet or build new which costs a fortune in taxes and cost in a flood zone.

    I dont now if a 700 square foot addition is going to do much.

    MikeNJ says:

    August 27, 2014 at 12:29 pm

    Grim [5] we just went through the same thing. Bought the house in late 2006 and did the calcs when deciding whether to trade up or move as my 3 young boys are getting bigger by the minute. Everyone (and I mean everyone) suggested the “simple” trade up. We just lost both our neighbors to this exact scenario. In our town getting the fourth bedroom in anything other than the a POS redo was a huge ($400k+) increase over our little 3 bedroom. After running the numbers on the transaction costs to move it put us in a big hole, not to mention the increase in taxes that come with the bigger property. Instead we decided to maximize our lot (with variance) and build something modest but that gives us the kitchen and 4th bedroom. Still a relatively small house but when it will be done in a month or so I will be in for far less (in total) that it would have cost me to move and buy the bigger home. I understand people’s needs to not live through a renovation but in all honestly its not that bad. I figure I created $100K+ of additional value simply by what the house would sell for after the fact. When you factor in the $8k a year in tax savings it was a no brainer.

  82. jj says:

    I thought issue was their was no coverage on Fergson. He was laying in street without even a sheet to cover him.

    grim says:

    August 27, 2014 at 12:58 pm

    The best coverage so far on Ferguson was an NPR piece I heard that interviewed a British journalist on the topic of racism being a purely American phenomenon.

  83. anon (the good one) says:

    @BillMoyersHQ: Toxic mix of gun culture & anti-governmentalism add to cops’ feeling that they’re working a warzone. http://t.co/t0di18xzRz

  84. chicagofinance says:

    Is this true?

    Libturd in Union says:
    August 27, 2014 at 12:32 pm
    MikeNJ…It’s almost always cheaper to extend.

    chicagofinance says:
    August 27, 2014 at 9:38 am
    jj finally meets his match…..
    Apple to expand iPad screens to 12.9 inches

  85. 1987 Condo says:

    Apologies to Clot:

    Medicare: Not Such a Budget-Buster Anymore:

    You’re looking at the biggest story involving the federal budget and a crucial one for the future of the American economy. Every year for the last six years in a row, the Congressional Budget Office has reduced its estimate for how much the federal government will need to spend on Medicare in coming years. The latest reduction came in a report from the budget office on Wednesday morning.

    The changes are big. The difference between the current estimate for Medicare’s 2019 budget and the estimate for the 2019 budget four years ago is about $95 billion dollars. That sum is greater than the government is expected to spend that year on unemployment insurance, welfare and Amtrak — combined. It’s equal to about one-fifth of the expected Pentagon budget in 2019. Widely discussed policy changes, like raising the estate tax, would generate just a tiny fraction of the budget savings relative to the recent changes in Medicare’s spending estimates.

    In more concrete terms, the reduced estimates mean that the federal government’s long-term budget deficit is considerably less severe than commonly thought just a few years ago. The country still faces a projected deficit in future decades, thanks mostly to the retirement of the baby boomers and the high cost of medical care, but it is not likely to require the level of fiscal pain that many assumed several years ago.

    The reduced estimates are also an indication of what’s happening in the overall health care system. Even as more people are getting access to health insurance, the costs of caring for individual patients is growing at a super-slow rate. That means that health care, which has eaten into salary gains for years and driven up debt and bankruptcies, may be starting to stabilize as a share of national spending.

    The chart above highlights the changes. It compares Medicare spending estimates from the Congressional Budget Office since 2006. Every year, the C.B.O. puts out its best guess for what the country will spend on Medicare over the next 10 years. In 2019, the C.B.O. now estimates the United States will spend about $11,300 in 2014 dollars to care for each person in Medicare. That’s down from around $12,700 since 2010, the year the Affordable Care Act became law. Now multiply that number times the 62.5 million people who will be in the Medicare program.

    Although the C.B.O.’s forecasters have been off in their projections in the past, there is no reason to assume their estimates are too low now; their prior estimates have both overshot and undershot the real eventual spending numbers. For the last few years, health spending has slowed in such a significant and consistent way that the surprised forecasters can barely keep up.

    Some of the recent reductions in Medicare spending are because of differences in estimates about the economy and demographics that affect the program.

    And some are because of cuts in health care spending passed by Congress. The Affordable Care Act, in particular, made significant reductions to Medicare’s spending on hospitals and private Medicare plans, to help subsidize insurance coverage for low- and middle-income Americans. The Budget Control Act, which Congress passed in 2011, also made some across-the-board cuts to Medicare spending.

    Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story

    Continue reading the main story

    But much of the recent reductions come from changes in behavior among doctors, nurses, hospitals and patients. Medicare beneficiaries are using fewer high-cost health care services than in the past — taking fewer brand-name drugs, for example, or spending less time in the hospital. The C.B.O.’s economists call these changes “technical changes,” and they dominate the downward revisions since 2010.
    Continue reading the main story
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    M
    13 minutes ago
    Still an incredibly expensive system. I am also wondering if the number and demographics of recipients has changed much through time–for…

    Nancy
    18 minutes ago
    What matters is that Medicare cost savings not come at the expense of the care of Medicare recipients. Medicare cost must not come at the…

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    20 minutes ago
    The cost is still a huge weight on the economy. Almost $12,000 per recipient, with a likely increase in the number of recipients every year…

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    In all, technical changes have been responsible for a 12 percent reduction since 2010 in the estimates for Medicare spending over the decade ending in 2020. In dollar terms, that’s over $700 billion, which is more than budget cutters could save by eliminating the tax deduction for charitable giving or by converting Medicaid into a block-grant program or cutting military spending by 15 percent.

    How long this all will last is a source of great debate in the world of health economics. There have been a series of analyses on the spending slowdown, some of which peg the Great Recession as a major cause. If those studies are right, the trend may reverse itself as the economy improves.

    But the analysts at the Congressional Budget Office say the economy is playing a negligible role in what’s happening in Medicare, meaning that they’re more confident that the practice of medicine really is changing. And those changes, if they persist, will do more to reduce the federal deficit than nearly any policy option budget cutters talk about.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/upshot/medicare-not-such-a-budget-buster-anymore.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1

  86. 1987 Condo says:

    Sorry for including comment above

  87. Toxic Crayons says:

    Baloney. He wishes. They had “human zoos” in Europe as recently as the 1950’s.

    grim says:
    August 27, 2014 at 12:58 pm
    The best coverage so far on Ferguson was an NPR piece I heard that interviewed a British journalist on the topic of racism being a purely American phenomenon.

  88. Michael says:

    Exactly, every single one of my friends has moved out of the city after having kids. The only one’s left have no kids. This trend has almost run its course. Soon the high prices will drive people back to the burbs where you can get so much more for your money. Then when everyone drives up the prices, they will go back to the urban living which has become a bargain again. Freaking cycle never ends.

    Juice Box says:
    August 27, 2014 at 9:40 am
    re: Hipsters & Hudson valley.

    No surprises. A few years back a friend of mine flipped his Hoboken Condo for a nice profit and moved back to his hometown in PA to open a gourmet coffee shop. This is someone who lived in Westfield found it too boring, then NYC found it too busy then Hoboken for a few years. He and his wife were both working and pulling in great coin and then decided to chuck it all and head back to their small town roots to raise their family near family.

    Once the hipsters or Millennials start multiplying en masse I suspect many of them will do the same, especially living in a small apt with kids, the overhead just isn’t worth it, and all their efforts to duplicate farmers markets and small town life in a big city will no longer be worth it. You can’t be a skateboard riding beardo forever even in NYC, believe me I know.

  89. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [83] anon

    So was the guy in the hoodie a gun nut or antigovernment?

    https://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/-cops–crew-member-killed-by-friendly-fire-while-show-films-armed-robbery-173502495.html

    Got to admit, there is a little something for everyone in this story. Joyce, anon, etc. . . .

  90. Michael says:

    Fast Eddie, I agree with grim. Stop acting like the country went crazy for real estate in 2000. It was only the beginning. There were not long lines at every open house in 2000. Stop lying. You know how many people told me not to buy my house around that time. People hated real estate in 2000. The craze didn’t start till later. The bubble might have been began around 2000, but didn’t start getting crazy till 2002 and then out of control in 2004. Grim is right. I don’t know what you are talking about.

    grim says:
    August 27, 2014 at 9:24 am
    What year 2000 did you live in? The one I lived in had peoples investment savings and retirement eviscerated by the dot com bubble and stock market collapsing. We were in recession, tons of folks were losing jobs, unemployment was near 8%, incomes collapsed.

    There were lines at open houses? No there was blood on the streets, you should have pushed your way to the front of the line and bought.

  91. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [87] toxic

    Clearly, he has never been to a british football game.

  92. Michael says:

    Agreed.

    You only make big money on real estate if you bought a property at a time no one WANTED and sell at a time when everyone wanted it. Real estate is not really much different than stocks, most of the money is made off of emotion. Buy the stock when everyone is running from it and sell when everyone wants a piece.

    grim says:
    August 27, 2014 at 9:17 am
    White flight from suburbia? The f*cking hipsters are moving from Brooklyn to the Hudson valley, tells me all I need to know, the pundits are 3 steps behind, as usual.

    Smart money bought in bed stuy when there was blood on the street, same with Harlem, same with Hoboken.

  93. NJGator says:

    Lib 62 – I’m sure it was. Kinda like this screw up by American Apparel where their social media person mistook a picture of the Challenger explosion as fireworks.

    http://mashable.com/2014/07/04/american-apparel-challenger/

  94. Toxic Crayons says:

    Russians throw bananas onto the field at African Football players from other teams. That’s not racist?

  95. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [54] libturd,

    Further to your link.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/03/1096950/-Woman-Denies-Walker-Fathered-Baby-JSO-Reporter-Daniel-Bice

    Looks like we both fell off the wagon today and felt the need to abuse the village idiot. I really have to work on that.

  96. MikeNJ says:

    JJ,

    My original sq ft number is around 1600 and I added approximately 800 sq ft. I didn’t run into any of the above limitations in NJ as far as I was aware but I did have to deal with side setback variances and overall FAR numbers when getting my variance. First time in front of the board was a solid no but the second time we revised downward another 100 sq ft and made a few smaller concessions and they loved it. Keep in mind that we demolished the old kitchen and added a new expanded kitchen plus master suite above it to the back of house. Base price of the reno was $185K plus usual extras like tile, cabinets, appliances, fixtures, etc. All in I had originally hoped to get it all done for $250K but we have since gone a bit over that number due to things like new windows on old house, new Hardy siding, whole house generator, etc. Might as well get it all done now was my final consideration. All in I expect to have a $1.2m house for under $1M in total cost of original + upgrades (over the full 8 years). In my neighborhood the comps supported spending the money but obviously you need to make sure of that on your end. Either way it gives us the house we need for the next 15 years while the kids are in the house and a few bits more but that is it. In the end it came down to the fact that we love our neighborhood and didn’t want to move. Once we realized this the way forward was obvious. The fact that it was a no brainer cost wise also helped. Living through it has been tough as the kids need space to play and we are basically living in two rooms now but I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I would never turn back.

  97. Michael says:

    85- that’s great news. Let’s get some optimism going baby!!!

  98. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [95] toxic

    The british guy must have been a journalist.

    Journalism: When you can’t count and aren’t bright enough for grad school.

  99. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [100] redux

    I considered being a journalist from time to time. But no one would let me buy enough model glue to huff so I could qualify.

  100. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [83] HeWhoMustNotBeMentioned

    not to even give attention to an anon-raised subject (though I can always take a shower later), but Bill Moyers is complaining that police feel under seige. Yet he complains when they uparmor with military surplus to protect themselves from a seige.

    The unstated syllogism? Michael Brown’s death and the riots in Ferguson are really the NRA’s fault.

  101. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [102] michael

    Where is Al? Staying far away from that one.

  102. Michael says:

    Knew I was on point. Know your personality well. The type that wants top dollar when sells and wants a deal when he buys. Don’t feel bad, there are a lot of people out there just like you. It’s the exact reason why you can’t find a house to buy, you are battling a bunch of fast eddies out there in the real estate market now. Don’t get mad at them, just look in the mirror and realize that you are just like them.

    “Completely disagree. It was a single line in and out of the house and houses were being sold in hours. We had to park on a different street because there wasn’t any spots. We were there. I saw it. Realtors were so arrogant, they were walking away from you in mid-sentence. We had to beg friends of family members to sell us their house at asking price in early 2001. This was friends of the family and we pleaded with them. That’s the 2000 I remember. It was the beginning of the heist and it was a 7 to 8 year run of wealth distribution like we’ve never seen.”

  103. Toxic Crayons says:

    Nom I guess he forgot about the muslims…..er I mean youths rioting in Europe recently. Or the rising anti-semitism in France.

    Head firmly buried in sand.

    Europeans are just sooooo enlightened!

  104. Michael says:

    Fast Eddie, if someone pleaded to you to sell them a house for less than they can get, would you do it? You are no different than my grandmother giving me a little discount on the price, yet you bust my balls for it. Look in the mirror fast Eddie.

  105. Michael says:

    107- * less than you can get

  106. jj says:

    See that is the blessing of a good neighborhood. My house as a split, there is no way I can do anything with front half of house so I would be adding on to the back. Houses that did it go for like 100K more tops.

    I am actually going to the courthouse Tuesday to attempt to buy a large foreclosure near me on a house built in 1999 that looks in good shape. I actually looked at identical house also bult in 1999 a few months ago so know the block. But guy has IRS liens, state tax lien, mechanics liens, contractor, liens even his landscaper put a lien.

    I was told they wont tell me till day of if it is being sold with or without liens. If sold without liens and I can buy title insurance I will do it. I have a second house I need to make a second offer but I will wait till Tuesday. After that no large houses in my town unless directly on water but bulk head and high flood insurance I cant deal with now.

    Oddly if I buy a larger house I am good with greiving taxes.But when you blow out your own house it is harder. I dont like one neighbor and I dont know the other, and the two others are ok. I actually have four houses by my fence so no way I can get a variance. So I will do it to code and keep under 50% if I do it. On top of taxes my house is a pre-firmGrandfathered hosue for flood insurance. I pay like 550 a year for full flood. If I blew out in excess of 50% I lose grandfathering and get this insurance would shoot up to at least 3,600 a year. I am at a BFE of 11 but I have a den that is slightly below grade and FEMA considers that a basement. Long Island wants new constrution at Sandy high water line PLUS two feet. Which means raising my house six to seven feet up!!!!

    August 27, 2014 at 2:15 pm

    JJ,

    My original sq ft number is around 1600 and I added approximately 800 sq ft. I didn’t run into any of the above limitations in NJ as far as I was aware but I did have to deal with side setback variances and overall FAR numbers when getting my variance. First time in front of the board was a solid no but the second time we revised downward another 100 sq ft and made a few smaller concessions and they loved it. Keep in mind that we demolished the old kitchen and added a new expanded kitchen plus master suite above it to the back of house. Base price of the reno was $185K plus usual extras like tile, cabinets, appliances, fixtures, etc. All in I had originally hoped to get it all done for $250K but we have since gone a bit over that number due to things like new windows on old house, new Hardy siding, whole house generator, etc. Might as well get it all done now was my final consideration. All in I expect to have a $1.2m house for under $1M in total cost of original + upgrades (over the full 8 years). In my neighborhood the comps supported spending the money but obviously you need to make sure of that on your end. Either way it gives us the house we need for the next 15 years while the kids are in the house and a few bits more but that is it. In the end it came down to the fact that we love our neighborhood and didn’t want to move. Once we realized this the way forward was obvious. The fact that it was a no brainer cost wise also helped. Living through it has been tough as the kids need space to play and we are basically living in two rooms now but I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I would never turn back.

  107. grim says:

    Splits suck to expand out the back, you almost always end up with a massive bowling alley of a great room and little else.

    Second floors are equally as difficult, as the hallway typically bisects the second floor, making adding an additional bedroom incredibly complex, generally you end up sacrificing a room to add additional hall space. In addition, splits almost always have the bathroom towards the back of the house, which presents a barrier to the extension, unless you want a dark bathroom without a window. Or, try to do something with a 5×25 bathroom, not sure what, 5 sinks? Row of urinals? Usually it ends up as a grossly over-proportioned “master suite”. These are always disasters from a resale perspective, because from a comp perspective, the house still usually comps as a 3/2.5, despite the massive investment.

    Or the folks that add another split level above the living room/dining room levels, which results in a layout similar to a donkey kong game.

  108. grim says:

    The best expansions tend to me 1.5 level capes – the kind with 3 beds, 1 on the first and two on the second, either tapered ceilings or partial dormers. Blow the whole second floor, cantilever a foot or two out the front or back, put 3/2 upstairs, and sacrifice the first floor bedroom as living space. Generally the BR in these layouts is adjacent to the kitchen, which makes for a very easy way to add significant kitchen space. In addition, it’s generally easy to remove the front-to-back walls (there is a beam), to open up the space tremendously.

    Second to this is adding a level to a ranch, which usually results in a massive increase in square footage with absolute zero change to footprint, sideyards, etc.

  109. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    on a final note for the day, I saw this and thought, hey, I wasn’t imagining it after all.

    http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/08/26/tsr-dnt-marsh-airplane-near-misses.cnn.html

    Over the past couple of years, I have noticed lots of planes passing close to the one I was in but figured that this was probably a mile or more and certainly safe. Recently, I saw one plane cross under mine outside Philadelphia and damn, it was close. My response was “Holy sh!t, I think that was a near miss.” Probably was.

  110. Michael says:

    Splits just suck in general.

    grim says:
    August 27, 2014 at 2:52 pm
    Splits suck to expand out the back, you almost always end up with a massive bowling alley of a great room and little else.

  111. Ragnar says:

    That UK reporter saw the movies “42”, “Django Unchained” and “The Help” and thought those were all reflective of current racial beliefs in the US.
    42 and The Help were both excellent movies, btw. Django was good if you can stomach the typical Tarantino violence.

  112. grim says:

    We initially considered adding a level, but decided it just wasn’t worth it. We have a set of stairs to the second floor, but it’s really just storage.

    We have 1,900sqft on the main level (60ft x 31ft), which gives us good room sizes considering we’re only a 3/2. The basement is just about done which adds another 1,200 sqft. We have full height ceilings, walk out through the garage or side door, and added another full bath downstairs.

    So we’re up to about 3,100 square feet. If we blew out the second floor, hell even dormered it and made a big rec room, we’d be around 5,000 square feet. Too big and I wouldn’t want to pay those taxes.

  113. anon (the good one) says:

    what about “12 years a slave” ? Powerful film.

    We owe Reparations

    Ragnar says:
    August 27, 2014 at 3:07 pm
    That UK reporter saw the movies “42″, “Django Unchained” and “The Help” and thought those were all reflective of current racial beliefs in the US.
    42 and The Help were both excellent movies, btw. Django was good if you can stomach the typical Tarantino violence.

  114. Pete says:

    “Or the folks that add another split level above the living room/dining room levels, which results in a layout similar to a donkey kong game.”

    Reminds me of this house that I stopped by once during an open house.

    http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1412035&dayssince=&countysearch=false

  115. grim says:

    That’s what happens when you don’t hire an architect.

  116. NJGator says:

    Grim 111 – Don’t make Stu mourn the 1000 SF ranch we passed up on lower Midland Ave in GR. It was listed at sub 400k and he wanted to buy it and put a 2nd floor on it. Realtor tried to talk him out of it telling him that he didn’t really want to own a 600k home in a neighborhood of 400k homes, but to this day he still thinks that she was against it only because it would lower her commission. She didn’t make all that much more money on the place that we eventually bought.

  117. Toxic Crayons says:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFSdtMf2cGc

    anon (the good one) says:
    August 27, 2014 at 3:15 pm
    what about “12 years a slave” ? Powerful film.

    We owe Reparations

  118. Juice Box says:

    What we? My kin only came here in the 1950s.

  119. Michael says:

    Can you say trapped? This is what happens when you cheap out and forgo the architect. You just spent money to turn your home into a ball and chain. No one in their right mind will buy this house now, unless it is at a severe discount.

    Pete says:
    August 27, 2014 at 3:19 pm
    “Or the folks that add another split level above the living room/dining room levels, which results in a layout similar to a donkey kong game.”

    Reminds me of this house that I stopped by once during an open house.

    http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1412035&dayssince=&countysearch=false

  120. anon (the good one) says:

    so what, you are enjoying the wealth they generated and didn’t get paid for

    Juice Box says:
    August 27, 2014 at 3:33 pm
    What we? My kin only came here in the 1950s.

  121. homeboken says:

    123 – That house is perfect for a divorced couple that can’t afford to move. Two houses joined by a crap-shack. Draw the chalk-line down the middle and it’s like fighting with your sister all over again.

  122. Juice Box says:

    What wealth? I am a debt serf too, I need to get Paid so send me a check already!

  123. Anon E. Moose says:

    Ready to blow anon’s mind? Bernie Sanders waives his fascist jingo flag.

    http://youtu.be/HRu7Qh-NrtY

    Says companies leaving the us “have no loyalty”, aren’t grateful for the sacrifices of members of the U.S. military.

  124. chicagofinance says:

    Has anyone seen the new biography “2014 as a Low Quality Trolling Clown: the anon Story”?

    anon (the good one) says:
    August 27, 2014 at 3:15 pm
    what about “12 years a slave” ? Powerful film.

    We owe Reparations
    Ragnar says:
    August 27, 2014 at 3:07 pm
    That UK reporter saw the movies “42″, “Django Unchained” and “The Help” and thought those were all reflective of current racial beliefs in the US.
    42 and The Help were both excellent movies, btw. Django was good if you can stomach the typical Tarantino violence.

  125. Anon E. Moose says:

    Grim [46];

    Kind of a mirror image — garage or R side ground level (like mine) sits under the family room (my fam rm is on the L side over the mechanical rm). Makes it a bigger fam rm. Otherwise, looks identical (I didn’t go to the open house).

    I haven’t voyeured the mortgage records on this one, but generally I am surprised by the number of recent sales in the neighborhood, and the number of houses for rent. Neighbor across the street rented rather than sell — they’re down from bubble buy price but not underwater.

  126. Anon E. Moose says:

    Grim [46];

    Kind of a mirror image — garage or R side ground level (like mine) sits under the family room (my fam rm is on the L side over the mechanical rm). Makes it a bigger fam rm. Otherwise, looks identical (I didn’t go to the open house).

    I haven’t peeked at the mortgage records on this one, but generally I am surprised by the number of recent sales in the neighborhood, and the number of houses for rent. Neighbor across the street rented rather than sell — they’re down from bubble buy price but not underwater.

  127. Michael says:

    He is absolutely right. You don’t get to use the protection of the u.s tax funded military if you don’t pay your dues. I have the solution to this. Cut off the military budget instead of education budget, and teach these corporations a lesson on what happens when you don’t pay your taxes. Don’t cry to us when countries don’t respect your corporation and nationalize it. The u.s military won’t be able to help because you didn’t want to help pay their bill. Good luck!

    They really have no idea what kind of value they get from their tax dollars. This military provides the stability for them to conduct their business in a globalized world. They better understand this. Without this military, globalization would cease to exist. It would literally become the Wild West.

    “Says companies leaving the us “have no loyalty”, aren’t grateful for the sacrifices of members of the U.S. military.”

  128. jj says:

    The movieThe Help is indicative of today.

    Go to burger king or mcdonalds and all you see is black folk behind the counter serving white folk a pile of sh!t

  129. Michael says:

    130- and let me tell you, they are doing a great job of heading towards this scenario. What a bunch of idiots. Biting the hand that feeds you. Without a strong America, your corporations mean nothing in this world.

  130. joyce says:

    All taxes are paid by individuals, always have been.

  131. Michael says:

    So when Hoffman la Roche skipped out on clifton and nutley, there was no harm done, since taxes are paid by the individual.

    joyce says:
    August 27, 2014 at 5:11 pm
    All taxes are paid by individuals, always have been.

  132. Fast Eddie says:

    Michael,

    Hey d1ck, I paid the asking price on the f.ucking house and don’t tell me there weren’t lines in 2000, they were everywhere. You don’t know sh1t.

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  134. Michael says:

    Paying the asking price on an open house with lines around the block seems pretty lucky to me.

    There were not lines everywhere in 2000. There might have been occasional hot open houses, but let’s not paint the picture that it was mass hysteria in 2000. That’s complete bs.

    Fast Eddie says:
    August 27, 2014 at 5:16 pm
    Michael,

    Hey d1ck, I paid the asking price on the f.ucking house and don’t tell me there weren’t lines in 2000, they were everywhere. You don’t know sh1t.

  135. anon (the good one) says:

    but is not only corporations, people are ungrateful too. whatever the personal accomplishments, we all are protected by the u.s. tax funded military.

    you didn’t built that alone! it was with America’s help

    Michael says:
    August 27, 2014 at 4:58 pm
    He is absolutely right. You don’t get to use the protection of the u.s tax funded military if you don’t pay your dues. I have the solution to this. Cut off the military budget instead of education budget, and teach these corporations a lesson on what happens when you don’t pay your taxes. Don’t cry to us when countries don’t respect your corporation and nationalize it. The u.s military won’t be able to help because you didn’t want to help pay their bill. Good luck!

    They really have no idea what kind of value they get from their tax dollars. This military provides the stability for them to conduct their business in a globalized world. They better understand this. Without this military, globalization would cease to exist. It would literally become the Wild West.

    “Says companies leaving the us “have no loyalty”, aren’t grateful for the sacrifices of members of the U.S. military.”

  136. anon (the good one) says:

    @AP: Man fatally shoots wife, then himself at New Jersey hospital; police find body of his son at man’s home: http://t.co/SZ4IPoaA3q

  137. Michael says:

    I’m not trying to be a d1ck, sorry I came off like that. I just hate when people spew out information that is not necessarily right. Don’t get me wrong, in 2000 the market was picking up, but there was def not lines out the door at every open house. On the good properties, sure, but not on every property being sold. After 2002, any piece of crap property was attracting hordes of buyers. Check out the timeline. It’s exactly as grim stated. I listed them below.

    1995–2001: Dot-com bubble.
    March 10, 2000: NASDAQ Composite index peaked, Dot-com bubble collapse begins.
    2000–2003: Early 2000s recession (exact time varies by country).
    2001–2005: United States housing bubble (part of the world housing bubble).

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_United_States_housing_bubble

    Fast Eddie says:
    August 27, 2014 at 5:16 pm
    Michael,

    Hey d1ck, I paid the asking price on the f.ucking house and don’t tell me there weren’t lines in 2000, they were everywhere. You don’t know sh1t.

  138. grim (15)-

    Spent the day in New Putz today. Never saw so many hempheads and vap0rizer stores in my life. Plus, a traffic jam on Main St. Grabbed a coffee in a crappy deli, and I thought the cashier was gonna call me a breeder. I’m not used to being on the catching end of existential grimaces.

    And don’t even get me started on Beacon…

    What a sucktard place. Good to be back.

  139. rags (24)-

    You don’t know me…

    “I don’t think even Clot would encourage 9-yo girls to learn to use Uzis”

  140. Personally, I’d start a 9 y/o with an AK.

  141. Say what you want, but you can drop an AK into a peat bog, pull it up, and deliver quality fire.

  142. Michael says:

    You are def right about this point. No one acknowledges their success to the team effort known as the USA. We are all in this together.

    Let’s take soccer as an example. You can have an amazing individual like Ronaldo, but without a team to help support him, his skills are worthless in a team’s quest to win the championship. Just ask Portugal. Team USA put out a better effort in the cup without having a player in the same class as Ronaldo. The same things applies to individual success and corporate success, these top individuals and corporations are only as great as the team that supports them. That’s why it’s so wrong what we do to the worker in this country and world. Totally slap them in the face with disrespect.

    anon (the good one) says:
    August 27, 2014 at 6:38 pm
    but is not only corporations, people are ungrateful too. whatever the personal accomplishments, we all are protected by the u.s. tax funded military.

    you didn’t built that alone! it was with America’s help

  143. Grim says:

    Nobody would be dead if they gave the girl an AK.

    Why an Uzi instead of a gun with a longer barrel and a stock? An automatic pistol has no way to use leverage to control the recoil. Clearly a 9yo will not have the hand and forearm strength for that.

    I’m not even interested in shooting one of those stupid things, wildly inaccurate waste of ammo.

    Who gives a gun like that to a 9 year old. She should have been plinking cans with a pellet gun or .22.

    It’s sick knowing that girl has to grow up and live with this.

  144. Essex says:

    149. That’s the thing there.

  145. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:
  146. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    And the only thing sicker would be the NY parents suing the instructor’s estate for negligent infliction of emotional distress.

    Sadly, I think it will happen.

  147. Comrade Nom Deplume, a.k.a. Captain Justice says:

    [153] redux

    I stand corrected. Latest reports say the girl and her parents are from . . .

    Wait for it . . .

    New Jersey!

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