From the Record:
Home prices slide record 9.6 percent
Home prices in the New York metropolitan area, which includes North Jersey, slid a record 9.6 percent in the 12 months ending in January, the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index reported this morning.
Nationally, prices of existing single-family homes plummeted 19 percent, also a record.
“Home prices, which peaked in mid-2006, continued their decline in 2009,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path.”
…
The Case-Shiller index is considered a more reliable index than some other housing measures because it attempts to track the prices of typical single-family homes.
From the WSJ:
Drop in Home Prices Picked Up Speed in January
Home-price declines in many of the largest U.S. cities accelerated in January, according to a closely watched index, offering a grim reminder that the housing market remains in a deep contraction despite recent glimmers of stability.
The S&P Case Shiller Index, which tracks prices in 20 metropolitan areas, fell 19% for the three-month period ended in January, compared with the year-earlier period. The decline, which follows a 18.5% decline for the three-month period ended in December, sent the index to a record low.
…
When will home prices stop sliding? “When the share of home sales that are distressed starts to decline is the day that house prices will hit bottom,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com.That day could be a ways off. Home lenders, many of which had halted foreclosures temporarily in anticipation of the government’s housing plan, appear to be increasing efforts to foreclose. That could produce a new supply of distressed properties. In February, the number of new foreclosure starts rose to 243,000 from 217,000 in January, according to Hope Now, a coalition of mortgage companies, investors and housing counselors, on Monday.
From MarketWatch:
Home values sink at record pace in January
Home values in 20 major U.S. cities fell at the fastest rate on record in January and are now down a record 19% in the 12 months ending in January, Standard & Poor’s reported Tuesday.
The Case-Shiller 20-city home price index fell a record 2.8% in January, with home values in all 20 cities falling at least 1%. Prices in the original 10-city index fell a record 19.4% over the year. Prices fell 2.5% in January in the 10 cities.
…
“There are very few bright spots that one can see in the data,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P.“Looking ahead, depressed demand, tight credit, rising default rates and excess inventories will continue to lead prices lower,” wrote economists for Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch. “We estimate that an additional 10%-15% in downside is still in store.”
Home prices are getting closer to “fair” value, argued Stephen Stanley, chief economist for RBS Greenwich Capital. But prices are likely to “overshoot” by a significant margin, he warned. Still, he looks for a bottom in home prices later this year.
From Bloomberg:
Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fell by a Record 19%
ome prices in 20 U.S. cities fell 19 percent in January from a year earlier, the fastest drop on record, as demand plummeted and foreclosures rose.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index’s decrease was more than forecast and compares with an 18.6 percent decrease in December. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007, and year- over-year records began in 2001.
A glut of unsold properties may keep prices low, shrinking household wealth and damping spending. Still, sales of new and previously owned homes rose in February, indicating the housing slump, now in its fourth year, may ease as policy efforts to unclog credit and aid borrowers begin to take hold.
“There is still a lot of downward momentum,” said Michelle Meyer, an economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York. “We don’t think we’ll see a bottom in home prices until the second half of next year. The decline in home prices will continue to depress household balance sheets.”
The home price index was projected to decline 18.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the median forecast of 29 economists in a Bloomberg News survey, after an originally reported drop of 18.5 percent in December. Estimates ranged from declines of 17.2 percent to 19 percent.
From a month earlier, home prices fell 2.8 percent in January, after a 2.6 percent drop in December, the report showed. The figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal effects, so economists prefer to focus on year-over-year changes instead of month-to-month.
…
All 20 cities in the index showed a year-over-year price decrease in January, led by a 35 percent drop in Phoenix and 32.5 percent drop in Las Vegas. The index in January was at its lowest level since late 2003.All of the 20 areas covered also showed declining home prices from the prior month.
From the Daily Record:
Chilton Memorial reducing staff
Chilton Memorial Hospital cut 52 employees and changed 11 full-time positions to part-time on Tuesday in a move that officials say will save the Pompton Plains facility approximately $4 million a year.
The reduction in workforce, taken primarily from the administrative and support areas of the hospital, was made in response to the economic downturn and the hospital’s commitment to pensions, officials said.
commitment to pensions.
that’s all i had to read..
the beat goes on
Huh??? Overnight LIBOR has almost doubled since yesterday?? Can that be right?
From Bloomberg:
New York’s Tax Increases Larger Than Announced for the Wealthy
New York’s higher tax rates, proposed in the state budget plan, would apply to wealthier residents’ total taxable income, not just the amount exceeding their tax bracket threshold, as state officials have said.
The $131.8 billion budget agreement revealed Sunday includes plans to raise $4 billion through increases in “the marginal state personal income-tax rate for higher-income filers,” New York Governor David Paterson and the Division of Budget said in a press release.
The statement wasn’t consistent with New York’s so-called tax benefit recapture rules, which deny wealthier individuals the benefit of lower tax rates on the first dollars they earn. Instead, all their income after deductions is taxed at the highest rate.
“The tax benefit recapture rules mean that New York actually collects more than other states with the same tax rate,” said E.J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center, an Albany-based group that analyzes the state’s economy, taxes and spending. “For those with high incomes, the state charges a flat tax at the highest rate.”
For a married couple filing a joint return with an adjusted gross income exceeding $350,000, the new 7.85 percent tax rate would apply to all their income, after deductions.
Huh??? Overnight LIBOR has almost doubled since yesterday?? Can that be right?
Could have something to do with the U.S. President saying that GM and Chrysler are bankrupt.
#5 I guess the Presidential imprimateur makes it more real somehow. Even though it’s been obvious for a long time. Sigh.
Saw this on another message board concerning PA teacher pensions. Scary.
“…according to Jeffrey B. Clay, executive director of the Public School Employees’ Retirement System: If stock market returns in 2009 replicate those from 2008, school districts will be forced to increase their contribution to the PSERS from next year’s 4.78 percent to 30.22 percent in 2012-13. And that’s the good news. Property taxpayers will have to dig even deeper if the retirement system doesn’t earn a return of at least 8 percent. “I hesitate to even think what the tax increase might be,” said Mr. Clay. If the market turns around and the system earns an 8.25 percent return this year, that 30.22 percent would drop to 20.16 percent in 2012-13 and the next two decades would mean contributions in the teens. Still a difficult scenario for districts and their property taxpayers. Clay gave a 57-page presentation Monday night to about 40 school administrators and school board members at the Bucks County Intermediate Unit in Doylestown. The retirement system, which has more than 547,000 members, is the 12th largest defined benefit pension fund in the country. Working members contribute between 5.25 percent to 7.5 percent of their salary to help fund their retirement. PSERS lost 29.68 percent during the 2008 calendar year. From a high of $70.1 billion in October 2007, the fund had $43.3 billion “as of Friday,” Clay said, essentially the same amount it had in 1998.
I’m celebrating April Fool’s Day by uploading my resume to Monster.
Someone actually gave me a pitch to buy their house using the “with interest rates so low now is a great time to buy.”
I had to bite my tongue.
sorry to bring Rush Limbaugh up so early in the morning, but to his acolytes (you know who you are) …
I’m watching Michael J Fox on GMA. remember when classless, clueless Rush said that Michael J Fox was “faking”?
what an embarrassment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102400691.html
Yikes was that when he was strung out on scrips?
On the NY tax, does the higher rate apply to 2008 earnings that are included in this years return, or is this for future incomes only?
“Yikes was that when he was strung out on scrips?”
Hey, he was ordered to take those pills by a doctor, several doctors, at the same time.
HEHE very true very true, ummmm you don’t know which doctors he used, do you? just askin…
Cooper,
I think you have to ask his maid, I think she was in charge of getting the subscriptions.
doctors … pills … have you guys seen him try to sit for an interview? To even suggest someone is ‘faking’ the disease is wrong on multiple levels.
Revelations says:
March 31, 2009 at 8:54 pm
In this guy’s defense, moving is the absolute worst. have moved 3 times with the wife now (in 5.5 yrs together), and each time, it has resulted in massive arguments with the wife – pretty much the only arguments we’ve ever gotten in.
it’s 3 weeks of unnecessary stress – 1.5 on each end to pack, clean up, unpack, get settled – and that’s if you get help from friends/family and have a good work situation to help ease the transition (and get good weather, good movers, etc).
My favorite Republican blowhard is The Gambler Bill “Mr Virtue” Bennett. I read his entire “Book of Virtue” but missed his chapter on the virtue of pulling an inside straight.
Now China and Russia are talking shlt about a new currency. These damn commies are really getting to me now. We can not allow this sort of talk to go unchallenged. It’s time to free Taiwan, Ukraine and Georgia. Those commies have entirely too much damn time on their hands and if they had to worry about freedom movements then they’d be less focused on currency. They need to let us handle all that sort of thing and just stay the hell out of the discussion. We’ll let them know when the situation has resolved itself.
Outofstater says:
April 1, 2009 at 6:25 am
Huh??? Overnight LIBOR has almost doubled since yesterday?? Can that be right?
Quarter cross can always warp stuff….
WTF??
Let me tell you something, you damn stinking liberal. I don’t play that crap. You’re not going to get away with calling me a fraud. I have helped people all my life and have tried to help people here, but stinking liberals like you just want to moan woe is me and look for government to solve your damn problems. People like you want to blame America first and you have the nerve to talk about patriots like Limbaugh.
You and your entire liberal thought pattern is the fraud. You make me sick. Excuse me while I go puke….
yikes says:
April 1, 2009 at 8:03 am
reinvestor – blow me.
every knows you’re a bigger fraud than bernie madoff. quit wasting everyone’s time and listen to your mom – it’s time for school. don’t forget your bag lunch. an apple a day keeps the bullies away!
Go SRS…
THE office building at 417 Fifth Ave. has quietly joined the meager list of city offerings.
There is no asking price for the 412,000 square foot building, but sources say it will likely get sold for somewhere between $175 million and $200 million — far less than the $250 million that Joseph Moinian and Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall Group paid for it in July 2007.
At that time, the partners plunked down $95 million in cash and took over a $125 million mortgage from Barclay’s Bank that matures in September 2010. That mortgage has since fallen into the hands of LaSalle Bank, city records show. There is also around $30 million due in a mezzanine loan from Credit Suisse.
According to Real Estate Alert, Cushman & Wakefield is selectively offering the building, and its capital markets team broker, Richard Baxter, was seen showing it yesterday afternoon. He didn’t return calls for comment.
To make a deal, sources say the partnership would pay off the current financing and a Goldman Sachs entity would then provide a five-year, floating-rate financing on the basis of 60 percent loan-to-value ratio.
That’s because obtaining even a $100 million mortgage is impossible in this credit market. Indeed, to date the government’s alphabet soup-filled rescue plans have yet to thaw lending to any significant level.
And those with other mortgages rolling will soon fret that they will have to take a haircut on a short sale or otherwise turn the keys over to the bank.
“Lending won’t bail out the guy who bought a building for $1,000 a foot and has an $800 million mortgage and the building is now worth $600 million,” said Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal.
The situation is even worse for the old-line city families who have owned a building for 40 years and refinanced cautiously — perhaps only taking a $250 million loan for a building that was worth $1 billion.
Now, the building may be worth $500 million and there is still a decent 50 percent loan-to-value ratio.
“But even if they are making payments every month, they don’t have anywhere to go to get a $250 million mortgage, and if it is a CMBS [commercial mortgage-backed securities] loan, they have no one to talk to,” said Knakal.
“Everybody is worried about it,” agreed Steve Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York.
The Real Estate Roundtable, a Washington-based, real-estate trade group, estimates maturing debt for each of the next three years at $300 billion to $600 billion, which after 2012 will then balloon to more than $4 trillion over the ensuing few years.
ADP Payroll -742,000 for March. Ouch.
From MarketWatch:
Layoffs nearly triple last year’s mark
Corporate layoff announcements slowed last month compared with February, but they were up 181% compared with March 2008, according to an unscientific monthly tally released Wednesday by outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas.
Major U.S. companies announced 150,411 job reductions in March, nearly triple the year-earlier figure of 53,579. Still, it was the second straight decline in layoff announcements, the first back-to-back declines in two years. It was the lowest monthly figure since October.
In January, layoff announcements as tracked by Challenger Gray had surged to a seven-year high of 241,749.
The figures are not seasonally adjusted.
From Mish-
Commercial Real Estate Limbo; Lenders Ignore Defaults
“There is a new twist in commercial real estate action today. Lenders are ignoring defaults of $billions on commercial real estate as if nothing happened, praying that credit conditions will improve.”
“General Growth, based in Chicago, isn’t the only real-estate borrower that is getting a reprieve from its lenders these days. Hundreds of property owners have had loans come due without a repayment made in recent months. But most lenders have agreed to extend loan terms, hoping that the credit market will improve.
Australian shopping-center owner Centro Properties Group, which owns 650 U.S. open-air shopping centers, last year sought one short-term extension after another.
Finally, in December, after nine extensions, it averted a liquidation by agreeing to eventually grant its lenders 90% of its stock in exchange for two and three-year payment extensions on $7 billion of debt.”
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/04/commercial-real-estate-limbo-lenders.html
From MarketWatch:
U.S. March service-sector cuts 415,000 jobs
U.S. March goods-sector cuts 327,000
U.S. March ADP employment falls 742,000
If any of you have the BBC World News, they are showing the protests at the G20 meeting.
Pretty intense, I am afraid this is coming here in the very near future.
Re101,
You certainly are easily upsettable, which conflicts with your self-assessed “rock ribbed” nature.
Sometimes faking a disease is comedy gold. For example, tourettes syndrome:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/107318
Cheer up ReInvestor on fo your buddies is going to get off:
Report: Justice planning to drop Stevens charges
WASHINGTON – The Justice Department will seek to drop all charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens, whose conviction on corruption charges sparked complaints of prosecutorial misconduct, officials said Wednesday.
The 85-year-old Alaska Republican was convicted late last year on seven felony counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure forms to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and home renovations from a businessman.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090401/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/stevens_justice
According to CNN, things are getting better!!
CNNMoney: Job cut pace slows
That is the headline on their homepage. Nevermind the fact that job cuts were 15% higher then projected for the month. Idiots.
re: 16 Yikes.
Just went through another move as well (another rental). my 10th in 15 years! It gets harder and harder with every move (esp with wife and kids). 3 weeks of stress with the move date right in the middle and add another 2 weeks on top of that for “returning to normal”. We are beginning to feel like perpetual fence sitters waiting for affordability to return to the north jersey market. hopefully one more move and we can settle down for a while…
Clot,
Your application for relegation has been approved.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/apr/01/newcastle-united-alan-shearer-manager
Yikes
I have to agree about the moving chaos. I haven’t moved within the last 10 years but before that, several times. I look forward to moving in the near future when we find a house but dread the actual process. We never used a service, always just us and a relative or two. Not sure if a service would cut down on the stress or just add to it.
grim for vice presidente
Roubini: Go Ahead, Keep Dreaming of That “V-Shaped” Recovery
#29 alap: Was this before or after ADP’s job#’s release this morning?
3b says:
April 1, 2009 at 9:08 am
#29 alap: Was this before or after ADP’s job#’s release this morning?
I surelly hope that ADP number was a joke…..
When did job losses stop – ???
And also where is the number of jobs created?
7.DL says:
April 1, 2009 at 6:46 am
Saw this on another message board concerning PA teacher pensions. Scary.
“…according to Jeffrey B. Clay, executive director of the Public School Employees’ Retirement System: If stock market returns in 2009 replicate those from 2008, school districts will be forced to increase their contribution to the PSERS from next year’s 4.78 percent to 30.22 percent in 2012-13. And that’s the good news. Property taxpayers will have to dig even deeper if the retirement system doesn’t earn a return of at least 8 percent. “I hesitate to even think what the tax increase might be,” said Mr. Clay. If the market turns around and the system earns an 8.25 percent return this year, that 30.22 percent would drop to 20.16 percent in 2012-13 and the next two decades would mean contributions in the teens. Still a difficult scenario for districts and their property taxpayers. Clay gave a 57-page presentation Monday night to about 40 school administrators and school board members at the Bucks County Intermediate Unit in Doylestown. The retirement system, which has more than 547,000 members, is the 12th largest defined benefit pension fund in the country. Working members contribute between 5.25 percent to 7.5 percent of their salary to help fund their retirement. PSERS lost 29.68 percent during the 2008 calendar year. From a high of $70.1 billion in October 2007, the fund had $43.3 billion “as of Friday,” Clay said, essentially the same amount it had in 1998.
Simple Solution is change the formula so teachers are responsible for paying in any market losses. Taxpayers are exempt from covering Ponzi losses.
20. Comedic Gold.
Gimme some more rock ribbed humor.
All Hype: What the pols are missing is that the protests are not about the economic crisis but the government response to it.
Ref moving. We’ve moved five times in the same town and the next one will be the mother of all moves, from Europe to PA. Just the thought of moving into a temp rental, storing our stuff, looking for a house, and doing it all over again keeps us up at nights.
We’ve all seen the ADP numbers be very off (both + and -) of what the BLS reports. Hard to get a grasp of if ADP leads the BLS significantly or not. ADP also doesn’t see the entirety of the work force, just ADP customers.
It would be interesting to add up all of ADP’s numbers for last year and BLS’ numbers for last year and see how close they are. I get the feeling they are.
so the recession officially ended last night, right?
(what if I’m not ready)
“New York’s higher tax rates, proposed in the state budget plan, would apply to wealthier residents’ total taxable income, not just the amount exceeding their tax bracket threshold, as state officials have said.”
This is an over 30% increase in taxes. And, B.O. has suggested eliminating the deduction for local/state taxes and limiting the mortgage-interest deduction for homes above a given value. All of this will hit NJ and NY residents hard and is just one more bit of continued downward pressure on home values.
#41 toshiro: I seem to rememebr that typically ADP’s #’s come in lower than the BLS #’s,and may time by a sizeable amount.
Boats Too Costly to Keep Are Littering Coastlines
a link to the PA teacher pensions issue from post#7
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/16/2009/march/31/schools-face-huge-pension-hikes/print.html
From last night
AN Unemployment Update, for national, NYC, and NJ unemployment
Unemployment update Mar 09
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13842106/Unemployment-update-Mar-09
Also from last night:
“She got me again. 257 was obviously me.”
Stu,
I hope you keep your dressing-up as Gator to online. You might give the town leaders a real start if you do it realtime.
We are currently living through our version of the 1930s, might we soon live through our own version of the 1950s?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/01/north-korea-us-spy-planes
The Future of Investing: Evolution or Revolution?
Frank (21)-
The commercial RE mushroom cloud will make housing look like nothing, by comparison.
The devastation will be total. High 12-figure maturities…in such a compressed time frame…will be completely impossible to refinance.
You can already see what the pattern of write-downs will be on the CMBS. They will be of the violent, swift and 100% variety.
No mark-to-market issues there. From par to zero, in one fell swoop.
Obama’s Ersatz Capitalism
“THE Obama administration’s $500 billion or more proposal”
“Actually, it is a win-win-lose proposal: the banks win, investors win — and taxpayers lose.”
“Treasury hopes to get us out of the mess by replicating the flawed system that the private sector used to bring the world crashing down, with a proposal marked by overleveraging in the public sector, excessive complexity, poor incentives and a lack of transparency.”
exactly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/opinion/01stiglitz.html?ref=opinion
35 – 3B,
This was after the ADP released numbers, because when you clicked the article, it actually talks about the numbers in the actual article. Thats why I couldn’t make sense of how the pace is slowing….
cooper (24)-
DIY finance. How creative.
Good times!
What??
Let’s get something straight, this is a damn real estate discussion board. No one has the time to take 30 minutes out of their day to watch a South Park video. I just wasted a bunch of damn time because of you. Don’t do that again.
A.West says:
April 1, 2009 at 8:28 am
Re101,
You certainly are easily upsettable, which conflicts with your self-assessed “rock ribbed” nature.
Sometimes faking a disease is comedy gold. For example, tourettes syndrome:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/107318
PGC (31)-
I hope we get relegated. It would wipe out Ashley and maybe get the club sold to someone with a brain (and money).
If Shearer is 1/10 as tough a manager as he was a player, he’ll be fine.
Anything that happens now is better than the zombie state we’ve been in the last 30 games. It can’t get any worse.
“Just went through another move as well (another rental). my 10th in 15 years!”
I will soon be moving to my 12th different abode covering 14 years.
I admit that I am looking forward to buying in 2010.
RE: NY metro area home prices fell 9.6% in the past year
It appears the housing recovery is, as one prominent public figure put things recently, “like the Special Olympics.”
DL – any ideas how to combat this?
(re: teacher pensions and raising property taxes in PA)
…more anectdata from the Pit
more psych patients than ever…yesterday was a small reprieve however.
But — took care of an almost 60 yr old female, was depressed, intoxicated and distraught after being “down-sized.”
Through tears, she was telling me that she had a BA in Economics, an MBA (didn’t say where from) and can’t believe at nearly 60 she was now unemployed. She was telling me she was getting about 2 mos of severance and that was it. Gone.
This isn’t maintenance and groundskeepers being let go… these are solid middle to upper middle class people who are being set adrift.
I wish I could be more optimistic but it’s starting to look like Flint, MI [a la Roger&Me] to me.
I hope I’m wrong.
sl
On a happier note, our usual menagerie of drunken sots, drug addicted, or otherwise marginalized folks kept me entertained…
sl
It is easier to see the solution if the problem is simplified to: “How can we combat rising taxes?” Forget whether or not the issue is pensions, social programs, etc.
Competition can combat taxes, in the absence of voter fortitude.
to me, the gap between the -9.6% number for the NYC area and the -19% nationally just shows how swiftly the tri state area is going to go down this year. I believe our area will start outpacing the declines nationally within a few months. The economy here is not better than the rest of the country, it just held up for longer. Whereas many bubble areas were already correcting hard 9 months ago, the NYC area really did not begin to crash hard until Nov/Dec of last year. Transactions have dropped off massively since then, but prices are still lagging.
EPL talk…
Man City has held my attention this season. What a wonderful team to watch. Ireland, Wright-Phillips, and Robinho are a great offensive core. It’s a pity they haven’t held it together for the whole season.
why exactly are there teachers in Pennsylvania?
“This isn’t maintenance and groundskeepers being let go… these are solid middle to upper middle class people who are being set adrift.”
I suspect these are the folks who are MOST at risk. Just look at hospitals, as aguide. It ised to be RNs who took BPs and did other routine tasks, now we see “patient care technicians.” ALl over, there are many jobs that one assumed HAD to be done by folks of a given educational background that have been or are being modified to allow less-educated folks to do most of the original tasks. There is far more money to be saved in the middle than at the bottom, and, in many cases, the bottom is where the rubber hits the road, as it were, with respect to customer interactions.
two funny moving stories:
NJ to NYC: Did the “family” move where got help from friends and fam. I’m in the uhaul with 3 cars following. I get on the FDR. Oops, forgot no uhaul on FDR for whatever reason. get pulled over by a cop. have to drive – with 3 cars following – from about 130th to gramercy park on a Friday afternoon in stop and go traffic. t’was hell.
from NYC to Brooklyn: Last “family” move. taking Uhaul from Brooklyn to NYC to get the big ticket items. had 3 relatives in the front with me. we’re all minorities. try to go over the brooklyn bridge and this was in 2005 or 2006 – cop runs into the middle of the intersection, gun drawn AT US, and halts the truck. demanded that we open the back of the truck to see what was in there. it was empty. we were TERRIFIED and my family members will mock me about this up until the day of our funeral.
so we had to drive over to the manhattan bridge – saturday afternoon, mind you. chinatown took us an hour to go maybe 5 blocks. if my wife were with us, i would not be here today. she would have killed me.
the end
(ps – move from NYC to PA cost about 2400. was the most smooth move, ever. little to no lifting.)
sl (60)-
Sounds like a future Realtor to me.
Can you start bird-dogging for me? I’ll pay a finder’s fee…
I especially like smart, high-functioning people who’ve already learned how to drink heavily.
Pat says:
April 1, 2009 at 10:57 am
It is easier to see the solution if the problem is simplified to: “How can we combat rising taxes?” Forget whether or not the issue is pensions, social programs, etc.
Competition can combat taxes, in the absence of voter fortitude.
competition from whom?
Justin (64)-
I enjoyed Villa, up until they collapsed.
Also always enjoy Everton. They get the most out of their players, while spending the least $$$. Should stand them in good stead in coming years. :)
“I just wasted a bunch of damn time because of you. Don’t do that again.”
Seems like realestateinvestors would have plenty of time these days to watch videos. Looks like it was funny enough to draw you in for the duration.
I’m doing it again! You can watch all of the South Park episodes online at south park studios. Eric Cartman is a rock ribbed patriot like yourself. Watch them all! It will keep you off this board for a day or two – consider it community service.
sl (60)-
I’m OK with gamblers and garden-variety degenerates, too.
Pending home sales up 2.1 percent in Feb from record low in January
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Pending-home-rise-21-percent-apf-14813599.html?sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=TBD&ccode=TBD
WOO THE RECESSION IS OVER!
Because of falling home prices and mortgage rates, homeownership is more affordable than it’s been since at least 1970, the trade group said.
SWEEET! I’m going to buy me 3 houses.
Degenerates in the Garden, great title for a book.
Shore guy:
A pharmacist friend of mine, who lives in another state, is finding himself being pushed aside and having many of his responsibilities performed by the technician. He has been a pharmacist for a very long time and has never experienced this before. He works for a major drug chain. If it weren’t for the fact that the law requires that a pharmacist be on the premises he might not still be employed.
Skeptic said “to me, the gap between the -9.6% number for the NYC area and the -19% nationally just shows how swiftly the tri state area is going to go down this year.”
That gap is bugging me too. Has NJ mortgage leverage really been lower than other areas? Home price appreciation pretty much matched the other popped bubble states, but seems to keep holding on, for now, with very mild declines. I don’t think that NJ incomes are holding up much better. Maybe NJ people had more cash stashed to postpone the forced sales. Maybe the higher % of dual income households make it easier to hold on longer.
Here’s a paper just out that suggests that the NJ homeprice to household income ratio remains farther above its historical trend than most states, implying greater than average downside ahead:
http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2469/faj.v65.n2.2
“Pending home sales up 2.1 percent in Feb from record low in January”
Increasing numbers of home sales at lower and lower prices, it sounds good to me — more lower-priced comps.
“We expect home sales to gain momentum in the second half of the year with first-time buyers absorbing a lot of the excess inventory,” Lawrence Yun, the trade group’s chief economist, said in a statement.
That’s hysterical!
clotpoll [68],
I especially like smart, high-functioning people who’ve already learned how to drink heavily.
When do I start? ;)
Awesome Read. Do not miss this one.
“Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and a host of other economists—myself among them—spent the late 1990s yelling at Japanese and other Asian officials to clean up their banking crises. A typical conversation would end with the American adviser bursting with frustration: “Don’t you understand? The money is gone. If you just wish for the banks’ asset values to come back, any recovery will be short-lived and you will only get more losses in the end. We all know this from long experience.””
In essence, the U.S. Treasury’s plan to subsidize private investors’ purchases of the banks’ toxic assets is a too-clever-by-half mechanism to fix the banks while avoiding going to Congress for more upfront on-budget expenditures. One can imagine the discussions at the White House: We have a budget to pass, and cannot give up those goals to give the bankers still more. Figure out some way to do this off-budget. And so the Geithner plan hugely bribes private investors with taxpayer money, as Simon Johnson, Paul Krugman, Jeffrey Sachs, and I have all described, with one-way government insured bets. Yet the bets are contingent, they only pay when the taxpayer loses—and those losses first appear on the Fed or FDIC balance sheet, not subject to congressional approval.
I know that the very same self-limiting discussions took place at Okurasho, the Japanese Ministry of Finance circa 1995-1998. And they ended with the same result, a series of bank-recapitalization plans that tried to mobilize private-sector monies and overpay for distressed bank assets without forcing the banks to truly write off the losses. Even though the top Japanese technocrats at the ministry were even more insulated from a weak Diet than the congressionally unconfirmed advisers currently running economic policy for the Obama administration, they did worse. Whatever the political context, countries usually try to end banking crises on the cheap, with a limited public role at first, overpaying for distressed assets and failing to change banks’ behavior, only to have to go back in a couple of years later.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-29/does-obama-have-a-plan-b/full/
Birddogging is my favorite sales expression of all time……..bar none. I just chuckle uncontrollably when I see it
Pat 62
“How can we combat rising taxes?”
The only way to effectively reduce the tax burden to to do a substantive assessment of all services and obligations.
Obligations that were not effectively funded in the past should be immediately cut to the level that they were actually funded at. You then look at all services and determine what are critical to a functional local government and what are “nice to haves”.
You then cut all of the noncritical services until you reach a sustainable tax burden. if you have any “nice to haves” left, congrats. if you have to cut critical services to get to that point then you must reassess your critical list as there are most likely item in said list that are not really critical.
However, good luck trying to tell the town that you only need half of the school admin that currently exists, or that you only need half the town admin staff.
“If it weren’t for the fact that the law requires that a pharmacist be on the premises he might not still be employed.”
I suspect one will find a single pharmacist will be expected to supervise an ever-growing number of techs in an increasing number of settings, from hospitals, to larger pharmacies that might currently employ multiple pharmacists.
re# 60 – SL I can see why some Baby Boomers are now showing up in the ER.
My FIL is now out of work for a few months now, 60 yrs old worked for same company for 36 years, downsized with only 3 months severance. We have a lawyer’s lawyer working on a better package for him right now but prospects aren’t good since the company is now nearly bankrupt.
Not a single call back on the resume and he was told by a recruiter to flat out dye his hair and change his age to 55.
He has a big Mortgage, three new cars and took a bath in the markets, isn’t broke but is far from having enough money to retire.
Right now he wants to go out and buy a business and is actually looking at liquor stores and bowling alleys. I have already been roped in as an investor in helping buy a business for him.
All I can say is it is going to be a long recession for him and other boomers like him with no job prospects.
#77
the NYC-area now is the most expensive relative to income in the country. It is due for a massive fall. In the areas I am looking in, house sales are down 75-90% so far this year compared to last. In many price brackets, there are simply no comps from the past 3 months. Price discovery is effectively non-existant for significant portions of the market, but when the dam breaks, prices will be significantly lower
NAR Larry also expects Jennifer Aniston and Angelena Jolie to come over to his office dressed in French Maid outfits to serve him lunch and fluff his pillow.
skep-tic [86],
What areas are you looking in?
Gary– mainly Fairfield County, CT
Sean,
60 years old and a big mortgage. Uggh. That, in this cheapskate’s opinion is a big problem right there. At that age, one should either be down to a minimal payment or be paid off.
holy sheet, this is terrifying, and i dont care what kind of ammo you’ve got, good luck in this situation (Modesto, Cali)
http://www.modbee.com/crime/story/649571.html
The hostile crowd that confronted a lone Modesto police officer and his police dog early Sunday threw glass bottles at the officer, and one suspect punched him in the face, according to details released by police Tuesday.
Witnesses and police say some in the crowd taunted the officer as they closed in on him, shouting, “Shoot me, shoot me!” when he drew his weapon. Someone in the crowd said, “You know you’re not going to make it out of here,” said Sgt. Brian Findlen, the police spokesman.
#88 gary: I work hard for you to find that special home in a blue ribbon Bergen Co. train town.
Since you are incredibly picky, and cranky, the listing below might just do the trick for you.
As the listing states, the value is in the land. (Oh yes, so true, so true).
Buy this, bring your builder,and build the home that can make fairy tales come true.
Look, you have to understand just because we are in a severe recession/depression, and financial crisis does not mean prices go down in blue ribbon Bergen Co. train towns and that applies to land too!!
So make this wonderful piece of land yours today all for 325k!!!!!
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2914261&id=999999
Shore guy:
I really get worried about the quality of care we will be getting – in doctor’s offices, pharmacies, and other health settings. They are trying to cut costs so ruthlessly that I really think mistakes are going to be made and I don’t want to be the one getting the wrong pills
or shoddy medical care. I already had this experience at my g.p.’s office because they couldn’t even get my height or blood pressure right! They no longer use R.N.’s and I am not even sure the staff were L.P.N’s.
#79 We expect home sales to gain momentum in the second half of the year with first-time buyers absorbing a lot of the excess inventory.
Another clown who should be splintered.
“We expect home sales to gain momentum in the second half of the year”
I suspect this may be true. But, if it is because people who have to sell finally accept reality and start pricing according to the current market, one should expect to see prices drop even further, notwithstanding the increased sales numbers.
the NYC-area now is the most expensive relative to income in the country. It is due for a massive fall. In the areas I am looking in, house sales are down 75-90% so far this year compared to last. In many price brackets, there are simply no comps from the past 3 months. Price discovery is effectively non-existant for significant portions of the market, but when the dam breaks, prices will be significantly lower
And when will the dam break??
We have being wating for years now…
Not a big deas as renting has it’s advantages, but I am looking at moving again this year, as my rent now quite a bit higher than comps and landlord does not believe that listings I am showing him are representative of the area…..
I am signing new 1 year lease next month for a different house – have to move about 1 mile from where I am now.. But the though of moving process itself is quite dreadfull.
I have to keep telling myself that I am getting paid about 4000$ for this move (difference in after 12 month of rent)…
3b,
I have my checkbook in hand and my jacket on. I think that listing will get multiple offers over asking.
Al, in addition to getting paid $4,000, you are likely shedding all sorts of stuff that you do not need but have kept just because you had space for it.
#97 gary: Hurry, hurry. Tell the realtor you can settle Fed Funds!!
If this opportunity is gone by the time you get there, please let me know, and I will keep working hard for you.
Clot 72
Sean 85
You’d dig her. She is 59 (looks 40 – and I’m serious!) smart, sassy and I’d guess a raw talent.
If it wasn’t a violation, I’d have recruited her for our CIM program but the pay is on par for college students and future doc-wannabes.
Oddly enough, I wished I had told her to “reformat” her resume and present herself as a 45 yr old at her next job interview.
Didn’t need any hair-dye, either.
sl
3b, umm, umm, ummmm. Aluminum siding. I bet that sounds great in a hailstorm.
#95 shore: I would like to know what the pending sales # was for NJ for February.
Shore 84
Scary, ain’t it? Then again, this will get worse and worse until there’s a huge F.uck up and someone dies….
sl
A medium, middle class income of $194,000 will get you this affordable beauty. Well, it is very competitive here, you know.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/Glen-Rock_NJ_07452_1107984930
#101 Shore: The land shore, the land!!
Do not forget we are talking blue ribbon, Bergen co,and, train town.
Oh and one of the highest property taxes in Bergen co.
#104 gary: Why have that,when you can have this?? It did not sell at 659K, but it is new back on the market,and will definitely sell at 639K
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2913799&id=999999
Gary,
That is among the ugliest houses I have ever seen. Still, i think tht you should buy it. That way you can be Glen Rock Gary.
3B – it has a FULL bathroom AND A FULL BASEMENT, as my wife always says – ‘I, have a vision.’
#96
“And when will the dam break??
We have being wating for years now…”
*******
Al– obviously anything I say is just a guess, but I think it is happening now. The few sales that are happening are mostly distressed and the comps are moving lower. Everything I see indicates that 2009 is the big down year for real estate in our area.
C’mon, you all know you’re jealous as sh*t and really want this house. I bet if you lowball with a 5K reduction from asking, they might bite!
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/Glen-Rock_NJ_07452_1106743503
Shore Guy,
Glen Rock is beneath me, I’ll only consider towns like Ridgewood as a minimum. Besides, I only want my children playing with other children with names like Graydon and Ellery.
Did younotice this on the listing page: “More Than Real Estate Brokers, Friends You Can Trust… ”
It makes me feel all warm on the inside.
Or was that nausea?
#104 gary: And if you are adventureous,and have the vision thing, how about this?
We are talking Oradell now, OK?
The blue in the ribbon is bluer, and the train in the town is trainier,and of course it is Bergen Co.
Do not forget to bring your wife.
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2852443&id=999999
Good Heavens!! The wall paper is gorgeous!
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/Glen-Rock_NJ_07452_1107604094
Wuz,
About having visions, Timothy Leary had them too.
#110 gary: That one left me speechless, no seriously, speechless.
3b,
I heard that house in Oradell had 3 offers 8.7 seconds after it was listed.
“I bet if you lowball with a 5K reduction from asking, they might bite!”
Sure, but what self-respecting buyer would offer below the asking price. To do so might lead one’s future neighbors to think that indicated an inability to afford to pay the full price. Who in their right mind wants such a stigma?
#109 skeptic:Everything I see indicates that 2009 is the big down year for real estate in our area.
I agree. I do not see any other realistic outcome.
#118 gary: and you are surprised??
Gary,
That second house is so utterly dreadful looking. It reminds me of what used to happen to the image when one took silly putty and took an image from the paper andf then smooshed (sp?) it together to mess-up the image.
“I agree. I do not see any other realistic outcome.”
Clot? Grim? Your assessments?
114 – yeah, she is pretty cute. I’d go see that one.
Nassim Taleb Says Geithner’s Bank Plan Will Fail (Update1)
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By Jeff Kearns and Erik Schatzker
April 1 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s plan to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets will fail to revitalize the financial system, “Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb said.
“We’re heading in exactly the wrong direction,” Taleb said in a Bloomberg television interview. “I want an overhaul, I want something drastic. This is going to fail, this is not it.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7DbIc6WLhmU&refer=home#
Money Quote:
“I don’t understand letting banks mark to market, after all this incompetence,” he said. “Why don’t we allow people to mark their house at what they think the value of their house is?”
Geithner Out at the Treasury: Source
By PAUL JACKSON
April 1, 2009 8:31 AM CST
Advertisements
Despite assurances to the contrary, President Obama has personally asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to step down, sources told HousingWire early Wednesday morning. Geithner, who has seen a whipsaw of public opinion over his handling of bonuses at American International Group (AIG: 0.9999 -0.01%) and the introduction of a so-called public-private investment program designed to clear bad assets off of bank balance sheets, has been the subject of strong criticism from Republicans and even a few prominent Democrats.
http://www.housingwire.com/2009/04/01/geithner-out-at-the-treasury-source/
Consider the day;)
118 gary: That could be your car in the drive way!!
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2912505&id=999999
HEHE,
It is an April Fool’s joke.
You posted while I was
3b,
A 3 series at minimum or an E-class is required for any town in Bergen County deemed “prestigous”. That’s why the are selling, they had a backlash from the neighborhood.
gary: If a unique sense of style is what you are after, do nto let this one get away!!
Perfect for these ( I don’t know why, but anyhow) budget conscious times!!
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2845339&id=999999
And this is the nation’s strongest automobile company:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&refer=top_news&sid=an784xLU3_uY
gary: As i pointed out to you last week. Your opportunity to relive The Brady Bunch in a bucolic setting.
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2853316&id=999999
Can someone help me with a description for this one?
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2903604&id=999999
Can it really be that Ford is down to selling 420 cars a day — nationwide? Egads!
And this one too. Please?
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2737631&id=999999
That is based on a six-day selling week
Look at what has happened in San Francisco. I believe the same rapid shift is happening in the NYC area right now:
“San Francisco, which had held up pretty well, has now turned in spectacular fashion. Prices there have fallen 32% in the past year, worse even than San Diego or Los Angeles.
San Francisco prices fell 11% in the last three months alone, according to Case-Shiller.”
#136 shore: And the market is up +100??
#139 skeptic: I have a variet of lsitings for you to chose from posted here today.
Please make one of these fabulous homes your today.
No more doom and gloom!! Let us all do our part to turn America around.
During the campaign, we we told that only people making more than 250k would see tax increases..
Not even counting NY millionaire’s tax (family income >300k) and other state taxes.
“(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee which has jurisdiction over federal tax law, is seeking a vote this year on legislation that would increase the income tax rates on some Americans who earn as little as $104,425 per year..
According to the Internal Revenue Service, the second highest income bracket—currently set at 33 percent—kicks in at an income level of $104,425 for a married person filing separately; $171,550 for someone filing as a single person; $190,200 for someone filing as a head of household; and $208,850 for a married couple filing jointly. Under Baucus’s proposal, the tax rates for all these people would jump to 36 percent.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=45969
al 96:
“And when will the dam break??
We have being wating for years now”
Indeed. I have been waiting for prices to fall since they bubbled–2000. They are still unaffordable. Unless they go back to those levels it will be very hard for me to buy considering property taxes. It’s like government is pushing people like me to load a huge mortgage. I suspect bailing out the banks helped housing prices in NY-NJ to stick.
The pledge from this man is not worth much..
“”I can make a firm pledge,” he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”
He repeatedly vowed “you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.””
3) Arm The Homeless
In 1993, the “Arm the Homeless” coalition sent a press release to a newspaper in Columbus, Ohio saying:
“The Arm the Homeless Coalition will be collecting donations to provide firearms for the homeless of Columbus… Funds are to be used to provide arms, ammunition and firearm safety training for homeless individuals who pass the coalition’s rigorous screening. Homeless are selected for the program on the basis of need, mental and emotional stability, and potential value to society at large.”
I have been waiting for prices to fall since they bubbled–2000. They are still unaffordable. Unless they go back to those levels it will be very hard for me to buy considering property taxes.
North Jersey home prices weren’t bubbly in 2000, not even close.
If you thought circa-2000 prices were high I don’t know what to tell you.
If home prices fell to y2k values, inflation adjusted, I’d be screaming buy buy buy.
3b
first: vacant, dark, and poorly photographed brick rectangle.
second: triple peaked vacant and poorly photographed future boarding house.
If home prices fell to y2k values, inflation adjusted, I’d be screaming buy buy buy.
In order to get there, real prices would need to fall by an additional 25%.
We’re talking about a nominal decline of something on the order of 50%, peak to trough, to get back to 2000 levels.
I’m bearish, but a 50% off peak call feels way too bearish to me.
grim 146:
OK but that time I was priced out from the towns I was looking at (chatham, summit, madison)
what could be a reasonable level I should buy into? If prices now are, say in 2004-5 level, should I expect 2002?
“Under my plan”
You miss the subtly. If taxes go up, it will be someoneelse’s plan, not B.O.’s.
Either way, though, it is your money.
[126] HEHEHE
too funny. was starting to think it had some cred until I got to the Brown “quote” and said to myself WTF.
More reason for the markets to rejoyce:
Employers Cut 742K Jobs in March
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/01/AR2009040101601.html?hpid=topnews
[142] jamil
somebody please say “april fools” for that one.
If they keep this up, they can get rid of all those pesky employees before long.
#143 poor: I suspect bailing out the banks helped housing prices in NY-NJ to stick.
But it did not help elsewhere?
Is GM (Government Motors) still paying dividends?
what could be a reasonable level I should buy into? If prices now are, say in 2004-5 level, should I expect 2002?
Prices at the 2002 level would look attractive to many buyers.
2002 levels would indicate a nominal decline of approximately 35% off peak.
#148 grim:We’re talking about a nominal decline of something on the order of 50%, peak to trough, to get back to 2000 levels.
So at what year price levels do you see the market bottoming out in our area??
And would you factor in the 40 to 50% and more increase in property taxes we have seen in many areas sicne 2000?
3b 143:
true just thought that bailouts helped this region more than others. What makes NJ housing prices persist at this level is beyond me. OK there are no foreclosures but this is a symptom not a cause.
grim 157
THANKS grim
#147 Awest: Thank you, very descriptive, and accurate on both.
grim– I understand what you are saying and one does not want to get greedy on the downside, but it seems to me there are strong arguments that prices could go back to 2000 or even lower.
The economy in this area has been goosed by rapidly rising income to the financial sector since the late 80s. If we are now as it appears seeing a reversal of this trend, it is very hard to predict where fundamental value lies with respect to local real estate.
If taking the excess leverage out of the system gets us back to 2002 prices, how much more do we have to go down if incomes of the median home buyer in this area go back to inflation adjusted late-1970s?
Personally, I would probably be a buyer at 2002 prices, but I do not think a more severe drop is unlikely at this point.
3159 poor:What makes NJ housing prices persist at this level is beyond me.
Deep, deep denial, and for many it (the house) is all they have
poor guy says:
April 1, 2009 at 12:32 pm
al 96:
“And when will the dam break??
We have being wating for years now”
Indeed. I have been waiting for prices to fall since they bubbled–2000. They are still unaffordable. Unless they go back to those levels it will be very hard for me to buy considering property taxes. It’s like government is pushing people like me to load a huge mortgage. I suspect bailing out the banks helped housing prices in NY-NJ to stick.
There is an easy solution – if you do not make enough money to leave in NJ – look for job elsewhere…
I have started a month ago – so far – Dead Silence….
Granted I only apply for my “dream jobs” – in places I like and jobs I would like right now, but still, not even a
“we have received you application, thank you for applying, due to the volume of applications we will not be able to notify everybody of the outcome and only the ones selected for interview will be contacted”
Just simply dead silence… I also have couple recruiters working looking for me – I think one will be out of business soon….
Government is not pushing anybody to large mortgages, they are just shocked, scared, clueless and have no idea what to do to fix current situation FAST.
Politicians simply do not care for long-term solutions – their timeframe is next re-election date.
So at what year price levels do you see the market bottoming out in our area??
I would be surprised if we push through the 2002 level.
Realize, we’re talking about a $750k house falling below $500k. Or that $500k house falling to $325k.
At those prices, my boots would be on, as would many others.
Could we push lower? Sure. But I’d expect to see significantly lower wages, significantly lower market rents, and higher unemployment.
#162 skeptic: one could argue with incomes being flat since aroudn 2000, than prices could fall at least to 2000 levels.
3b 163: Deep, deep denial, and for many it (the house) is all they have
But isn’t this true elsewhere? :)
Al: I am a teacher that’s why I am poor :) Moving is possible but hard at this economic climate (better stay put).
gary says:
April 1, 2009 at 11:50 am
A medium, middle class income of $194,000 will get you this affordable beauty. Well, it is very competitive here, you know.
does it annoy anyone else to hear that 194k is “middle class?” What a joke that is. i dont care how many charts and breakdowns you want to show me, 194k is NOT middle class.
you make 194k in 98% of this country and you’re a king.
of course, most people on this site happen to live in a 100 mile radius of NYC … where 194k doesn’t go nearly as far as it should …
#146 grim: any idea waht the average SFM price was in Bergen Co in 2000, and 02?
This is NJ.
Teacher + police officer = $200k.
Yikes,
Even 300k/yr is still middle class. The fact is, many of the people we describe as middle class, are actually members of the lower class, in terms of economics. The problem is, we refuse to admit we have so many people who qualify as such.
#167 poor: True, but abig myth in our area was the old we are cloe to NYC, so we are different.
I think it gave many people a false sense of security as far as spending decesions, as opposed to say other areas of the country. Nothing scientific on my part, just my opinion.
165
People would be jumping in because of the “sale phenomena?” i.e. These shoes are only $75 and were marked down from $200. I am saving $125!
These shoes cost $75 and that is what they are worth because if the store could have sold them for more they would have. Are these shoes worth $75 to me? Can I really afford these $75 shoes?
#146 grim: any idea waht the average SFM price was in Bergen Co in 2000, and 02?
Bergen NJMLS Sold Stats (SFH only, no condo/coop)
2000 – $371,281 (avg) $281,000 (med)
2001 – $402,786 (avg) $326,000 (med)
2002 – $457,431 (avg) $360,000 (med)
2003 – $501,688 (avg) $399,000 (med)
2004 – $565,875 (avg) $450,000 (med)
2005 – $671,622 (avg) $510,000 (med)
2006 – $680,313 (avg) $514,010 (med)
2007 – $672,269 (avg) $519,000 (med)
2008 – $636,908 (avg) $485,000 (med)
#165 grim:Realize, we’re talking about a $750k house falling below $500k. Or that $500k house falling to $325k.
What if that 750K house really should have just bubbled up to say 650k, and this was a more normal real estate bubble like we had in the late 80’s,but because of sub-prime no money down and all the rest, this bubble became turbo charged.
Could we not reasonably just immediately skim off the top that last 10 or 15% increase before the bubble burst,and than go from there?
“The fact is, many of the people we describe as middle class, are actually members of the lower class, in terms of economics.”
If this is true, then we have a lot of people who live below the poverty line. Median income in the US is 50K.
I think the issue is the demographics on this site. It mostly caters to highly educated, high earning audience who do not like to think of themselves as being “rich”.
#175 grim: Is it your belief as per Shiller (or is it Chiller?) that we are back to 2003 prices in North Jersey?
IMHO, the term “middle class” has more to do with political correctness than it has to do with describing demographics.
Dub someone “low class” and they would take it as an insult.
Dub someone “high class” and they would take it as a compliment.
What to do when so many people are “low class” from an income standpoint?
Simple, call them all “middle class” and everyone is happy.
poor guy says:
April 1, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Al: I am a teacher that’s why I am poor :) Moving is possible but hard at this economic climate (better stay put).
Some teachers in NJ make a lot more than PhD’s in NJ in Pharma…. Trust me…
In addition – job is stable – at least compared to private industry.
If you do not make as much – you need to become a better “friend” with your school district administrator and see whats needs to be done to improve you salary.
As Grim said – teacher + Cop – 200K salary.
Brand spanking new on the market!! This gem can be yours at just under 500K!!! (assume minimum 10k taxes a year)
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2914415&id=999999
#175 grim: Is it your belief as per Shiller (or is it Chiller?) that we are back to 2003 prices in North Jersey?
I think we are somewhere around the 2004 mark, which is in line with Case Shiller for this area.
My explanation for the gap between NYC and the nation now is the same as for the gap between peak housing prices for the nation generally (2005) and NYC (late 2006): because of the nature of the finance biz, business activity in NYC lags the rest of the country, and accordingly, so do housing prices.
For example, the strength of the securities business is based on the strength of the securities’ underlying business – when the underlying business weakens (and housing prices in the underlying business’ area suffers), there’s some gap before such weakness exhibits a noticeable effect on the securities industry, located in NYC. When this happens, the effect on the securities industry exhibits an effect on NYC housing prices.
Thoughts?
#182 grim: Thanks. do you think my post at #176 is reasonable?
Obviously NYC’s “industry” is much more complex than the securities industry (which includes, among other things, investment banking and the sale of securities in connection therewith), but so many businesses in NYC depended on the securities business (and therefore, on the success of the businesses underlying the securities), i.e. law, accounting, etc.
I can’t off the top of my head think of other major NYC “industries” whose success or failure is derived from the success or failure of other businesses in other parts of the country, but that’d certainly strengthen my theory if it were true…
#182 grim: Thanks. do you think my post at #176 is reasonable?
Why even bother attempting to quantify?
As soon as home prices clearly detached from income levels and rents (fundamental drivers of home prices), the problem was established, period.
Kind of like arguing over tumor sizes and ignoring the fact that the patient has cancer.
From the Star Ledger:
Newark unemployment surges to highest since 2003
The unemployment rate in the state’s largest city hit 13.3 percent in February, a high not achieved in Newark since 2003.
By comparison, the rate in Newark was 9.1 percent for the same period a year ago, according to federal data released today.
grim says:
April 1, 2009 at 1:00 pm
This is NJ.
Teacher + police officer = $200k.
yeah, if they’re both 50 or older.
what are the 30 year old teachers making? not 100k
Al
the cop I should marry or otherwise appropriate her salary must make 120+ I told you I am poor.
#182 Grim (and all)
I am down in south NJ. Do you have an opinions on this area.
My particular township, Mt Laurel, hasn’t really moved _too_ much. If been watching the 200-250k market for 5 years now. Houses that were selling for 230-250 are now selling for 200-220. Not a giant fall but some say this area was very low to begin with.
#188 Yikes:
You can see the salaries yourself, from 2007 at least…
http://php.app.com/edstaff/search.php
3b,
At a time when people are desperate to sell their crappy houses at extravagant prices, why would the realtor be so incompetent as to post photographs that are improperly exposed, are not corrected for distortion, and then leave grammatical errors in the writeup?
Are they incompetent, drugged out, or just stupid?
One house looks like it’s leaning, because the photographer didn’t bother to straigten the photo, but my favorite was the shot of a bright lamp in a room made to look like a dark cave.
#188 yikes: most teachers in north Jersey start at around 39K right out of college. Which is very decent IMO.
After 5 years they are typically making around 60k.
2 Cents says:
April 1, 2009 at 1:13 pm
“The fact is, many of the people we describe as middle class, are actually members of the lower class, in terms of economics.”
If this is true, then we have a lot of people who live below the poverty line. Median income in the US is 50K.
I think the issue is the demographics on this site. It mostly caters to highly educated, high earning audience who do not like to think of themselves as being “rich”.
define rich?
i’d go with:
– no debt (cars, CC, etc) outside of a mortgage, and the max mortgage would be 400k.
– 500k in the bank
– at least 250k in assets
and yes, i yanked those #’s out of my rear
Herring123,
I agree. The growth in NYC housing lagged the rest of the country due to the hedge fund explosion, exotic mortgage products, over-leveraging, etc. I think there will be a lag before prices here really drop because laid-off finance employees may be living off their savings or severance until they realize most of these jobs aren’t coming back. Probably the same goes for law, service & retail industry that rely on Wall Street.
What other businesses are in NYC? Tourism, fashion (in big trouble from consumer spending), entertainment?
#192 awest: Are they incompetent, drugged out, or just stupid?
Maybe a combination of all the above. So many realtors too are in denial that the market has changed drastically, and are not used of making any real effort to sell.
Justin,
Thanks for that link.
I just found out that my daughter’s first grade teacher has only 1 year’s experience, and is making under $26,000.
No wonder she is an absolutely fabulous teacher and my daughter loves her first grade class. Now I really feel bad for her – I’m going to make sure we get her a really nice present at year-end.
What’s really bad is that due to teachers’ union anti-merit rules, she will for a long long time be paid much less than much less capable teachers.
Yes, tourism and fashion are businesses that are based on the performance of the rest of the country (can’t sell junk at malls if GM rejects your $60/hr union contract or caterpillar lays off another 15,000). Also, hedge fund performance (not performance of the funds, but income generated for the company, i.e. through fees) are derivative as well since the biggest market for this stuff is in the USA (both in NYC and outside NYC but I’m confident the non-NYC number dwarfs the NYC number).
#182 grim: I think we are somewhere around the 2004 mark, which is in line with Case Shiller for this area.
Well that being the case (2004 mark), than I offer that hitting the 2002 mark as you said is a given, but also that we definitely break through the 2002 mark, and 2001 prices appear to be a resonable given, and probably even 2000 prices.
RE: 192
A lot of these so called “realtors” were bottom of the rung material until they spotted RE and said “what the hell”. Housemoms, short order cooks, retail people, customer service representatives. The selection process was about as stringent as the homebuyer qualification process circa 2007.
justin – great chart, thx. just saw a relative’s salary.
BUT of note – i just took a cursory look and you have to have experience to be making 100k (and in the counties i checked, i saw very few 6-figure earners).
i only checked two counties and no teachers in their mid-20s (assuming graduate college at 21) are making 100k.
eventually they’ll make bank, but to think ALL (or even a lot) of teachers under 30 are clearing 100k is simply false.
if you have your masters and you’ve been teaching 15 years and you’re 36 years old … yeah, you’re going to make some loot. probably around 80k (again, based on a cursory glance at that chart).
#198… No problem…
Something seems odd after looking at all the salaries for Bergen County.
The highest paid person.
Dawn Johnson w/ 5yrs exp paid $911,900 (School Social Worker)
The next highest paid person.
John Richardson w/40yrs exp and paid $250,000 (Chief School Administrator/Dist Superintent)
Something doesn’t look right about that.
3b says:
April 1, 2009 at 1:43 pm
#188 yikes: most teachers in north Jersey start at around 39K right out of college. Which is very decent IMO.
After 5 years they are typically making around 60k.
i cringe at “most” and based on that chart that justin posted, im not sure the 5-years, 60k # is on point.
it definitely makes me want to be a teacher, though …
I’m surprised at grims comments today.
In line with comments posted here earlier, the last gasp of the mania saw house prices tack on 10-15%, all will agree that was a blowoff top.. no reason why can’t peg a bottom, add another 10-15% and call it capitulation.
202 yikes
that’s about the reality. I would say even worse because 10 years of experience does not translate to 36 (especially with masters). Many teachers enter a full time job much later.
#202 yikes..
Another thing.. The best paid teacher in Bergen is making ~110k which is abut 10k lower than everyone in a district office position.
Yikes,
Hooray I’m finally nearly “rich” thanks to over ten years of saving more than we spend. Where can I buy cast-iron underwear to protect myself from the ass-reaming membership into this “class” will entitle me to?
I just paid about $90k of income tax this year, on top of $10,000 of property tax, and probably 6-7k of sales tax. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, as Marx said.
RE: 204
You guys are all over the spectrum today. So, we agree that anything below 200K is pyss poor, but all of a sudden a 60K salary after 5 years is too high and questioned.
FWIW, someone I know teaches in newark, she is twenty five years old, junior high school, making 49.5K in 2008. I think she has three years of experience..
My wife is a teacher in Monmouth County after 9 years they “hit the bubble” as they call it and their salary takes a big jump, from about 60K to 95K in one year. I believe this is fairly common in NJ teacher contracts?
women about to retire … county in middle NJ, after 32 years … bachelors ….
ONLY earning 79k.
that teacher chart should be bookmarked by all so we can end this TEACHERS MAKE TO MUCH fallacy
Montclair has 26 district office employees in this database. 12 of them earn over 100k (as of 2007 – I suspect that number is higher now, as 3 additional employees made between 93 and 99k). The superintendent makes over 200k and the business administrator and 2 asst superintendents make over 150k.
Only 2 of the 26 employees earn less than 70k.
You’d think for a 6% commission these realtors could get some decent photos up of the homes to get people interested.
The worst are the misspelled and just dumb descriptions and even better the ones with no descriptions at all.
Basically someone gets 6% of the value of their largest purchase in their life just to post an ad and show up a few times to get their signature.
are we counting ‘district office employees’ as teachers?
i’ve actually never heard that term (not from NJ)
just a guess, but teachers – the ones in classrooms – are getting a bum rap because the admins are too bloated and collecting hefty, unwarranted salaries.
After some more searching around..
You can see all the Fed employees salaries
http://php.app.com/fed_employees/search.php
And Post Office employees
http://php.app.com/usps/search.php
All US Post Office employees
http://php.app.com/usps/search.php
Whoops.. sorry for the repost..
HE (125)-
Taleb killed it today on Bloomberg.
I’m beginning to like him more than Roubini.
zieba (209)-
How’s her aim?
How’s her left jab?
Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion
March 31 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=armOzfkwtCA4&refer=home
From HousingWire:
Community Coalition Purchases 47 Homes in Foreclosure
The first large-scale purchase of defaulted mortgages by an alliance of U.S. nonprofit organizations was announced Wednesday. HANDS, Inc. said it has acquired the defaulted mortgages on 47 vacant homes in the greater Newark area, all of which are vacant and abandoned.
HANDS purchased the mortgages from J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM: 27.44 +3.24%), as part of a new strategy to reclaim neighborhoods hard-hit by foreclosure, and is working with its partners in Operation Neighborhood Recovery to rehabilitate the properties so they may become “cornerstones for productive change in their surrounding communities,” instead of magnets for increased crime and vandalism, creating general neighborhood blight.
…
One may ask how such an organization acquired the funds to purchase, repair and maintain 47 homes — a cost which is anticipated to total around $5.4 million. New Jersey Community Capital, a community development financial institution working throughout New Jersey, took a lead role in the transaction, according to a HANDS press statement.
…
By acquiring the group of mortgages in bulk purchase, HANDS said it is able to immediately invest in stabilizing the vacant properties and return them to productive use. HANDS faces significant carrying costs — interest, property taxes and insurance — during this process, requiring a collaborative effort throughout all phases of the project to make it a success, the organization stressed.
Shore (123)-
I wrote off all of 2009 last week.
However, once we get another crushing drop in prices and short/FK/REOs creep further up in the sales mix, sales volume will follow. Just look at NV, FL, CA, AZ. We don’t have the levels of subprime and fraud that those areas did, but we still have further down to go.
All I care about is sales volume. I could give a rat’s ass about prices…as long as prevailing prices stimulate sales.
Shore (112)-
I’m thinking of changing my company’s motto to “BOHICA”.
hey look, super fiat money
The G-20’s Funny Money
The IMF has a plan to create cash and pass it all over the world.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123854148528775677.html
The issue of Teachers & Police salaries is not the real issue. The 30 years of inflated Salaries is doable for the tax payer. What is not doable is, the ensuing 50 years of Pensions & Benefits, greater then the average private sector Salaries & Benefits. The Private Sector started reigning in Pension & Benefits in the mid 80’s. The Public Sector ignored this and exceeded the wildest Private Sector Dreams. This may be corrected when Obama uses the GM model on States to negate Public Contracts in a State Bankruptcy Filing, with 30 year claw back. Rolling Public Sector Benefits back 30 years may make them affordable. Or use a PBGC formula to cover a portion of the Bankrupt Benefits. A Teacher with a Pension above $25K will get $25K instead. Should be O.K., as “it’s for the children”, and consistent with Private Sector Treatment.
Possessed by the Devil…er, David Lereah:
“We expect home sales to gain momentum in the second half of the year with first-time buyers absorbing a lot of the excess inventory,” Lawrence Yun, the trade group’s chief economist, said in a statement.
#205 Zieba:In line with comments posted here earlier, the last gasp of the mania saw house prices tack on 10-15%, all will agree that was a blowoff top.. no reason why can’t peg a bottom, add another 10-15% and call it capitulation.
I agree completely, but some sellers and or realtors still do not get it, as in deep.deep denial as in witnessed by this brand new listing in my area today.
http://www.njmls.com/cf/details.cfm?mls_number=2914415&id=999999
according to that site, 563 NJ public school employees make over $150k a year.
And who said Corzine is the union’s biatch! He’s gonna tax em all out of the state.
folks, very few college educated people have or will ever see 100k a year in their lifetimes.
#135 3b – How about “butt ugly”?
Yikes,
Not trying to bash teachers but remember they only work about 180 days a year, don’t contribute to their health plans, have a job for life after getting tenured and have a very generous retirement. Some things do need to change with teachers but the biggest joke is the amount of money the administrators are making. Plus they receive a lot of perks at retirement that aren’t published until they actually retire.
#137 3b – The house next to the Bates Motel.
sl (100)-
Sounds kinda m!lfy, except for the so-smashed-she’s-in-the-ER part.
stater (231)-
That’s Bates Annex to you, pal.
Love all the teacher/public employee bashing that bubbles up on this site. IMO the bigger crime, which has caused much if not most of this waste, is our insane desire for home rule where every neighborhood must be its own town with its own government and expenses. Has a lot to do with the ‘I’m better than you and don’t tell me how to live my life’ attitude we have in NJ. I’m pretty sure the government we live with is a direct result of our own choosing.
skep (109)-
You are right. Today, I prepped a market analysis for a local seller, 700K price range.
I found 32 active comps, NO pending sales…and only two sales in a 50K bracket (675K-725K) within the last 12 calendar months.
I’d say that price discovery in this range is gonna be a bitch.
[208] A.West,
Welcome to the Bourgeoisie.
[208] A.West
Unfortunately, proletariat is the new black!
Alap says:
April 1, 2009 at 2:49 pm
according to that site, 563 NJ public school employees make over $150k a year.
And who said Corzine is the union’s biatch! He’s gonna tax em all out of the state.
how many of those are actual teachers? i would venture a guess that very, very few (none?) are teachers.
i feel most are probably (guessing) superintendents or paper-pushers on that level
Yikes: ref 59. Only way I can think of to combat the problem is to change the pension system. The defined benefit plan is the problem. The state needs to make the employee contribute to their own 401k and fund a portion of their retirement. I bet some of the teachers could even use the proceeds from their summer jobs to fund the 401.
About teaching salaries….
I have relatives in Wisconsin
She is a teacher with 34 years of experience. Her salary: 42K!!!!!!
When People in NJ saying that teachers here paid fairly – well, they are paid for 1/4 less of the eyars compare to everybody else.
Take it into account and your 60K salary magically turns into 90K,
39-40K starting salary all of the sudden turns into 50-55K for fresh graduate with 0 experience and full benefits…
not so bad.
And we can argue wheither benefits will be honored orwill exists in 20 years – it does nto matterm, right now benefits are GREAT.
So compared to private industry salaries and benefits for bachelors level teachers are very high.
Couple it with the unionized/goverment workforce security, and it seems like a very good job to me.
I am trying to convince my “unemployed but looking for job” wife to start working on her teaching certification.
We have checked and it seems that EVERYBODY have teh same idea – PRAXIS tests in NJ are packed and registration is filled 4-6 month in advance.
Anyone here still smoke? I can’t imagine affording it.
Today, the federal excise tax on every pack of cigarettes will jump from 39 cents to $1.01, the single largest federal tobacco tax increase ever.
http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-cigarette-tax-0401,0,2165156.story
Teachers work cheap. If your brat was at day care for for 6 hours a day, five days a week for 180 days a year, and you paid some stay at home mom $5 an hour, you would be paying her $5,400 a year. If that stay at home mom had 20 kids, like a teacher in a classroom, she would be making 108k a year – about 20-30k more a year than an average teacher makes, even when you add in the cost of benefits.
More likely your paying $7-$10 an hour for child care, so your getting an even better deal than in my example.
RE: 242
Ridiculous computation.
This is along the lines of housemoms should be compensated 750K. After all, they’re the CEO of the family, cook, caretaker, executive assistant, nurse, planner and so forth.
Come on!
Re: 243
The numbers don’t lie.
Against the Grain,
Government salaries are not set by the market and generally aren’t supposed to pay much and/or burden the taxpayer. Comparing teachers to “stay at home moms” taking care of “brats” is both an unfair and demeaning comparison.
Re: 245
It is an unfair and demeaning comparison. My point is that even if you hate teachers, as many on this board seem to do, and you discount all of the good things they do, you still have to admit that at least they work cheaply as day care providers.
RE: 244
What kind of an answer is that?
Mission accomplished.
Where is Stu today?
So what? So certain government employees “work cheap” and are “underpaid.” So are tons of private-sector employees. Why the obsession with teachers?
It’s not that we hate teachers. It’s the fact that their benefits are out of whack with what the private industry provides. I know a lot of schools are talking about making teachers contribute to their healthcare but the wonderful teachers union will have no discussions about it. Meanwhile, taxes keep going up to fund the benefits.
It appears all the municipal/state and federal “bloaties” are floating to the surface as a result of this thread.
In at least one district, Vernon Twp., Sussex County, teachers do contribute to their health insurance and pensions. The assumption that they don’t is an Urban Legend.
I find it hard to believe that there is only one district in NJ that requires teachers to contribute.
Is anyone aware of a source of data on this?
#166
“one could argue with incomes being flat since aroudn 2000, than prices could fall at least to 2000 levels.”
3b– I have always been skeptical that the income of the median home buyer (as opposed to the median person) actually staid flat in the NYC area since 2000. Of course, home buyers being a subset of the general population, it stands to reason that the subset that is doing better would buy, so this does not necessarily undermine the relevance of the price to income ratio over time.
#185
“I can’t off the top of my head think of other major NYC “industries” whose success or failure is derived from the success or failure of other businesses in other parts of the country, but that’d certainly strengthen my theory if it were true…”
*******
media is another example.
your theory overall makes sense to me at least as a major factor in the NYC area lag.
Teachers work cheap. If your brat was at day care for for 6 hours a day, five days a week for 180 days a year, and you paid some stay at home mom $5 an hour, you would be paying her $5,400 a year. If that stay at home mom had 20 kids, like a teacher in a classroom, she would be making 108k a year – about 20-30k more a year than an average teacher makes, even when you add in the cost of benefits.
You seem to have left out the fact that a teacher watching 20 kids would have to pay for an adequate building/room, provide safe access to a playground, support a school lunch program, provide enrollment services, and perform billing. These things cost money.
You also seem to have made the assumption that hourly day care on a large scale is equivalent to school. Day care is more like going to buy a soda from a convienience store, you pay more for the convienience to drop off your kid whenever and pick him up whenever.
All your base are belong to us.
A corolary (sp?) of this theory is that to the extent NYC is dependent upon the “securities industry,” NYC will not recover until the underlying businesses located elsewhere in the country, whose cash flows are being securitized, recover.
#244
Right, I could add in the cost of the physical plant and that would make the cost in my example like $8 an hour. Its still a valid comparison becuase the single biggest cost for a school district,as with any business, is labor.
If I want, I can pick up and drop off my kid at school anytime I want to (during school hours of course) and there’s nothing the school could do to me.
Re: teachers:
I would much rather make $45k in Wisconsin than $70k in NY/NJ/CT.
In a perfect world, the unions would be broken, administration done solely at the county level and pensions reduced to only what is actually paid into the system, with no taxpayer guarantee.
But I agree with those who say the salaries are not the problem, because they are not very high relative to the cost of living around here. Even with the generous benefits, many rich school districts have trouble hanging onto good teachers who tend to move to cheaper places unless they have a high earning spouse.
PMI Group on prospects for NYC area real estate:
“Riskiest Cities
In New Jersey, the Edison-New Brunswick area and Newark have an 89 percent and 84 percent probability, respectively, of lower prices in two years. Nassau-Suffolk in New York has a 78 percent chance; Washington has an 88 percent chance; and Baltimore has an 84 percent chance, according to PMI.
“The suburbs of New York and D.C. are high-cost areas that had substantial run-ups in prices,” Berson said. “They are the next group down from the sand states.” ”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a_i8BlV5UrnM
Even though you can still pick up your kid any time you want you still pay for him to be there full time.
poor guy says:
April 1, 2009 at 12:53 pm
3b 143: true just thought that bailouts helped this region more than others. What makes NJ housing prices persist at this level is beyond me. OK there are no foreclosures but this is a symptom not a cause.
pg: read a little…it isn’t such a big mystery…
The whole attack on teacher and police officer salaries is crazy, the salaries are not exorbitant. One problem is the paper pushers and fake jobs, seems rather unnecessary and costly. but the far bigger problem is the benefits cost. Like GM the government is crushed by pensions, so someone works 30 years and get paid for 50 or 60. They need to reform the system, they need to do it now. Your retirement benefits should be some percentage(10%) of your salary placed in an account annually that you can match out of personal funds optionally(tax free and only released at retirement) and you can how ever you wish, want stocks, or how about bonds, or maybe fdic insured cds, money market etc. (couldn’t possibly do worse than state pension funds CALPERS anyone?) Governments running pension funds lose tons of money and are there to enrich wall street bankers and just knowing in advance what the benefits cost makes it a lot easier to budget. Additionally it lets everyone know what the real salary is and it eliminates the government playing games with the pension money which inevitably leads to corruption. Eliminate pensions and replace them with a new system, 401k sucks so not that and reform the healthcare plans to save some money. The problem is not that difficult it is getting people to accept a new system which may them less as they are responsible for getting an 8% return it is not guaranteed. Low interest rates and years or pension fund mismanagement are to blame for a lot of problems. Similarly insurance companies have had the same issues.
The whole attack on teacher and police officer salaries is crazy, the salaries are not exorbitant. One problem is the paper pushers and fake jobs, seems rather unnecessary and costly. but the far bigger problem is the benefits cost. Like GM the government is crushed by pensions, so someone works 30 years and get paid for 50 or 60. They need to reform the system, they need to do it now. Your retirement benefits should be some percentage(10%) of your salary placed in an account annually that you can match out of personal funds optionally(tax free and only released at retirement) and you can how ever you wish, want stocks, or how about bonds, or maybe fdic insured cds, money market etc. (couldn’t possibly do worse than state pension funds CALPERS anyone?) Governments running pension funds lose tons of money and are there to enrich wall street bankers and just knowing in advance what the benefits cost makes it a lot easier to budget. Additionally it lets everyone know what the real salary is and it eliminates the government playing games with the pension money which inevitably leads to corruption. Eliminate pensions and replace them with a new system, 401k sucks so not that and reform the healthcare plans to save some money. The problem is not that difficult it is getting people to accept a new system which may them less as they are responsible for getting an 8% return it is not guaranteed. Low interest rates and years or pension fund mismanagement are to blame for a lot of problems. Similarly insurance companies have had the same issues.
Sorry… forgot to say great post – can’t wait to read your next one!
Against the grain,
Very few would pay for daycare that only lasts until 3pm.
But I’d be very much in favor of making it easy for private schools to compete with public schools, and letting taxpayers make the choice of where that $5/hour goes to – the government school or the private school.
I suspect the reason that the university system in the US is globally competitive is that the private universities provide enough competition to prevent total complacency by the college bureaucrats.
Home prices have not fallen that much in the DFW metroplex. I am a broker in Southlake Texas and homes prices are pretty stable in Southlake.
Some of the cities around the Southlake Texas area have experienced some major low downs and some drops in home values but not nearly as bad as many parts of the country.
it seems fitting that they announced the dismissal of Ted Steven’s case on April 1st