From the WSJ:
Home Deals in Suburbs Start to Dry Up
When Daniel Allen and his wife, Elizabeth, decided they were finally ready to leave their apartment on West 15th Street and buy a house in the suburbs, the couple found themselves repeatedly outbid.
It wasn’t what Mr. Allen, an architect, and Ms. Allen, who now works part time for a small investment bank, expected when they went house hunting over the past year amid the biggest housing downturn in a generation.
…
But brokers say that so far this year, Manhattan’s bedroom communities have undergone a boomlet in sales and rising prices as city dwellers have been looking for housing bargains in nearby suburbs that were hard hit during the downturn.The stabilization of the Wall Street economy is helping drive sales—and boosting prices—in these affluent neighborhoods that have easy Manhattan commutes and offer good schools, broker and analysts say. From Milburn and Summit in New Jersey, to Great Neck and Manhasset on Long Island, the close-in suburbs are outperforming the rest of the slumbering regional housing market.
The same is true north of the city. “You can measure the recovery in Westchester by how far you are from Manhattan,” said Chris Meyers, chief operating officer of Houlihan Lawrence, the largest brokerage firm in Westchester County.
Jeffrey G. Otteau, president of the Otteau Valuation Group, a New Jersey appraisal and consulting firm, said that New Jersey towns with short, direct train rides to Manhattan outperformed the rest of the state during the first half of the year.
“We have seen the effects of the Manhattan rebound in the market we describe as Midtown Direct,” he said.
The suburban bump echoes rising prices of sales in Manhattan during the past few quarters. In the ring of towns in Westchester nearest to New York City, median prices are up 14% this year, and are only 3% below the market peak in 2006, according to Houlihan Lawrence.
…
Across New Jersey, Mr. Otteau said median home prices had risen less than 2% in the first half of the year. But in the Midtown Direct corridor, with direct commutes of 35 minutes or less, he said prices rose 5.7% and sales rose 24%.Sales rose even more in the New Jersey condo market across the river from Manhattan, but with a surplus of new condominiums, median prices fell by 8.2%.
From HousingWire:
63% of Americans do not want to buy a home according to Reuters research
Despite record low mortgage rates and government policy aimed at promoting homeownership, the majority of Americans would rather stay clear of the housing market.
According to a survey done by FindLaw.com, a Thomson Reuters company, 63% of respondents said they are steered away from buying a home because the current economic conditions. Only 8% said they are more likely to buy a home because of the state of the economy. About one quarter, 28%, said economic conditions do not sway their opinion about purchasing a home.
“The current economic situation has greatly changed the dynamics of the housing market,” said Stephanie Rahlfs, an attorney and editor with FindLaw.com. “Stricter lending requirements are often making it more difficult for many people to obtain mortgages. High unemployment rates are raising concerns about housing appreciation, affordability and foreclosures. Together, these factors are causing many people to shy away from the idea of buying a house.”
From Inman:
NAR airs grievances with lenders
The National Association of Realtors is holding a series of meetings with major lenders over the difficulties would-be homebuyers have in obtaining loans, as well as what the trade group characterized as lenders’ problematic policies on short sales and “real estate-owned” (also known as bank-owned or REO) properties.
Too often, the Realtors’ trade group complained in a report on its initial two meetings with Bank of America and Wells Fargo, decisions by lenders and loan servicers are made in a “black box” and appear to be inconsistent and sometimes irrational.
…
In the short-sale arena, the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program (HAFA) has yet to have an impact, NAR said, because lenders’ front-line loan-servicing staff know little about the program.
…
Lenders all have their own short-sale programs, NAR noted, and Bank of America is undertaking a pilot program that includes identifying the required net proceeds up-front to facilitate both marketing the property and approval of the short sale. Under the program, Bank of America reduced the average time for processing a short sale to under 60 days, NAR said.
NAR acknowledged that lenders waste time processing short-sale offers from “straw buyers” that are not genuine offers. The fake offers are made to determine what price the bank will approve the sale at when a real offer is submitted, NAR said.
Way back in the day, I did some culinary demos in a couple of DC high schools. We had to make everyone put away their gun & ammo magazines before we could start.
Too bad Rhee can’t function under the new mayor, who seems to have been elected by promising a return to the welfare state. And too bad most of DC’s residents have been in the cycle of poverty for so long that the welfare state suits them just fine.
Wait until this takes root in another 200mm or so people all over the US.
Frist!
1. “Do no want” = cannot get.
just sayin.
If you are flush with cash (and believe me, some folks are….however many are ‘not’)
It ‘is’ a decent time to buy lots of cool stuff. Prices are doooooown baby down. Yet, we all know that once the horsemen come and the commie overrun the country, all of this cool stuff will be state property. Dammit!!
From Bloomberg:
`Catastrophic’ Foreclosure Halt Meets Wall Street, White House Opposition
Calls for a total freeze on U.S. foreclosures ran into opposition from Wall Street and the White House amid predictions that clearing up faulty paperwork and resuming evictions may take as little as two weeks.
A complete halt would be “catastrophic” for the U.S. economy and hurt home sales, said a statement today from President Tim Ryan at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, Wall Street’s biggest lobby. A day earlier, David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, also said a moratorium would damage the housing market.
…
“It would be catastrophic to impose a system-wide moratorium on all foreclosures and such actions could do damage to the housing market and the economy,” said New York-based SIFMA. “The mortgage market, investors and the health of the economy are all inter-related.”
Stuytown FK auction halted. Possible problems in conveyances and assignments on the note?
“Has the foreclosure scandal taken its first commercial real estate casualty: tomorrow’s foreclosure auction of bankrupt Stuyvesant Town (which will sell for less than half its cost) has been postponed, without any specific reason, leading some to believe that the residential title scandal may have spilled over into CMBS land. From Reuters: “A foreclosure auction of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village, the massive Manhattan apartment complex that may be worth less than half what it was just three years ago, was postponed on Tuesday for the second time this month. CWCapital Asset Management, which represents the bondholders who own the $3 billion mortgage on the property, declined to say why the auction had been delayed until Oct. 22 from Oct. 13. It was originally scheduled for Oct. 4.” To be sure, this is the second time the auction has been delayed so it may be completely unrelated to what is currently the main topic in the mainstream media, although god’s propensity to play dice has been previously characterized best by one Albert Einstein.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/first-commercial-fraudclosure-casualty-stuy-town-foreclosure-auction-postponed
sx (6)-
The time to get really worried is when the gubmint comes for your gold.
I predict this absolutely will happen.
9. No worries brother. All my ‘gold’ is in the form of guitars.
grim (7)-
…most important of all is the fact that Bojangles’ campaign is about to start in earnest, and he needs all the bankster money he can get to keep the campaign machine going.
144 bn to the criminals who nearly wrecked the economy.
Blow the mf’er up, and start over.
“needs all the bankster money he can get to keep the campaign machine going.”
This presupposes that he is interested in running for a second terrm. I am not persuaded that he will run.
From last thread:
” what does a person do when their relative who professes to love you like a daughter then proceeds to stab us (me and spouse) in the back?”
Sy kaddish, sit shiva, and write them off. Life is too short.
.
If the SHTF … i wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the border.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/mexican-drug-gang-decapitates-investigator-homicide-american-david/story?id=11863267
They behead people like it’s nothing.
More dangerous: Afghanistan or the US/Mexico border?
Lamar – 12
Was told that a big chunk of the 144 B in bonus $ will be in the form of equity and not cash to employees so banks can continue to shore up capital base – no idea if this is true.
At some point folks will trade gold for lima beans if things get bad enough.
They don’t need to physically take your gold or silver. They can just tax the hell out of any gains you make buying and selling it down the road.
shore (13)-
There is enough denial and megalomania in Bojangles to ensure he’ll run again.
If Jimmy Carter could summon the onions to run for a second term, a chihuahua would be able to do the same.
nomad (16)-
To me, the form of payment doesn’t matter.
Unless the bonuses are paid in the form of ownership of questionable tranches of CDOs.
Lamar No. 9 One of my mother’s neighbors in her late 90’s who recently passed still believed that was going on
sl, imagine how black her existence must be if the focus of her anger and frustration is you and your family. The taste of bile is worse ten-fold than its corrosive ability.
Make a pledge to yourself to know that people change and have a plan to either write her off forever or forgive her if she approaches. If she’s in her mid to late 40’s/early 50’s, you may not even know the hormonal and psychological stresses she has. Maybe she does needs a couple of years of Lex@pro. Believe me, I’m going without and flip out occasionally. Well, more than occasionally.
Trouble in the workers’ paradise?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-asia-pacific-11529920
Don’t worry, if private ownership of gold is outlawed, the government will trade you some nice newly-printed dollars to compensate you.
Hey Daniel & Elizabeth Allen check the NJ suburb cities with train stations and a short commute to NYC they’re still up for grabs
6 – “It ‘is’ a decent time to buy lots of cool stuff. Prices are doooooown baby down.”
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or not, Essex.
Any specifics?
Fast Eddie Scriptures from yesterday sorry to repeat but I like this one Kids, go back and read that post. Do you believe me or not? Buyers, trust me when I say that you should feel almost embarrassed when you make an offer. You should have the feeling as though you’re trying to steal the f*cking house. If the realtor doesn’t want to put in the offer out of fear of offending someone, find one that will. You’re offer is on the table for 48 hours and is the best and final.
If they write a nasty letter in response telling you how insulted they are, tell them the other two houses you bid on are much nicer at a lower price, no less, and doesn’t reek of cabbage and cat ur1ne. Just because the place is listed at $749,000 doesn’t mean you should feel satisfied and excited because the sellers accepted an offer $724,000. At that price, you overpaid and have an anchor tied to your leg for at least a decade barring a personal disaster. If the house is listed at $749,000, you should feel satisfied coming out of attorney review with a sale price of around 600K. Again, who you gonna believe, id1ots who do nothing but talk or a 15 year two time homeowner who can burn the m’fing mortgage note by this weekend?
Over the short term statistics can be misleading. This is further compounded by the limited number of transaction occurring during the period being examined. Perhaps it would be more correct to say the areas mentioned in the Bloomberg article are not dying at as fast a rate as the market in general.
N.Y. Faces $200 Billion in Retiree Health Costs
“So far, the market doesn’t care,” said Edmund J. McMahon, the director of the Empire Center. “The market seems to assume, on the basis of nothing, that at some point all of these places are simply going to stop paying retiree health benefits.”
The way things are going, the only winners will be the lawyers hired to duke things out in the future.
30 year (28)-
How do you fly under the radar at your office? Or, are you unable to fly under the radar?
I could use 4-5 more agents like you.
Lamar, fly under the radar? How so?
JPM presents its falsified, rigged-up quarterly results:
“Some accounting voodoo to start off the day. In a nutshell – the bank which missed total revenue expectations of $24.28 billion by almost half a billion at $23.824 (which you may find unadjusted on one place somewhere in the attached presentation but most likely not), and which is entering Q4 with the foreclosure fraud crisis chip on its shoulder, and halted mortgages, somehow is lowering its net charge-off provisions estimate by over a billion. Which is why, hey presto, earnings of $1.01 “beat” expectations of $0.88, and the robotic headline scanners go nuts over the stock. More importantly, in discussing fraudclosure, JPM admits that by the time there is a foreclosure sale, borrowers are on average 14 months delinquent. In other words, all those who end up being “thrown out” on the street, live mortgage-free for over a year! And one wonders where all the excess marginal money to buy worthless trinkets comes from…”
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/peeking-behind-jpms-voodoo-numbers-jamie-dimon-confirms-borrowers-live-mortgage-free-14-mont
30 year (31)-
As in drinking the kool-aid, playing the “happy, happy, joy, joy” game, repeating the NAR mantra (It’s a great time to buy!), or just being a retarded bag of blood that takes up space, wolfs down donuts and bagels and farts in the car during caravans.
In 30 years I have been to a handful of Board breakfasts and other functions where the kool-aid is served. Always left wondering if those people didn’t have anything better to do? Never been on an office caravan. Never worked in a corporate real estate sales environment. Wear jeans and sneakers everyday.
Currently ply my trade out of a small Re/max office in Bergen County. Have done REO work almost exclusively since the late 80’s.
I pride myself on telling the truth to buyers and sellers. Sometimes the looks on their faces are priceless!
Had anyone else made a post related to NYC commuting suburbs holding up well, they would be met with flaming darts like “Bagholders, ALL of ’em” and “No one will be spared.”
Grim posts an article suggesting there are no “deals” to be had in the premium burbs including quotes that indicate prices rose 5.7% and sales rose 24% in the first half of 2010 and the silence is deafening.
30-year (28)
Short term statistics CAN be misleading but in the towns mentioned, I am not sure the Year-over-Year data is misleading at all.
Millburn/Short Hills Contract Sales 2009 vs 2010
Apr09=22 Apr10=37
May09=33 May10=27
Jun09=34 Jun10=26
Jul09=26 Jul10=19
Aug09=18 Aug10=20
Summit
Apr09=23 Apr10=44
May09=39 May10=34
Jun09=30 Jun10=25
Jul09=30 Jul10=28
Aug09=18 Aug10=19
Westfield-(not Midtown Direct but here is the data)
Apr09=34 Apr10=41
May09=44 May10=34
Jun09=28 Jun10=31
Jul09=29 Jul10=26
Aug09=31 Aug10=19
They may still make their way down the price scale but a potential buyer must ask themselves how long are you willing to wait for what might be only another 5-10% and could take another 5-10 years to get there? To each their own.
250K #35 – This is kind of like the “all real estate is local” argument. Problem is that the entire sysytem is sick. A crisis of confidence is starting in the real estate market. To say that areas in this region are not meaningfully impacted by the DEAD market is kind of like believing the patient may die of brain cancer but his feet will be just fine.
Larmar JPM has a fortress balance sheet. They own an insane amount of real assets not off balance sheet, intangible, goodwill, carry forward tax losses etc. I tore that one trillion dollar balance sheet apart head to toe a few years back. 2,500 hours later I was done and put that baby to bed and come financial crisis time that bad boy held up. JPM at gun point was forced to take TARP money it did not need or want so as to make it appear everyone was in trouble. It kept the panic from taking down BAC and Citi.
how is everyone enjoying the melt-up I called a few weeks ago. How Now 12k Dow
Yo JJ how was that wet Jets game?
2,500 hours JJ? Come on. Oh wait I forgot that hyperbole is encouraged when you post
How about a little story?
Once upon a time
Anyone else see this?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703358504575544351734226956.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LE
Once upon a time, there was me, two buddies, a case of cheap wine, and four bisexual bimbos in this powder-blue ’75 Lincoln, with crush velour seats…..
JJ [38],
If the dollar index lands in the 40-50 range, you could see 15-20K Dow. Then again, I’m sure the sheeple will be thrilled paying $50 for a pizza.
Now measure the Dow against real money. Pull up a Dow/Gold chart. Which is the horse/cart?
Next line?
Ok, lets try that again…
Once upon a time… there was this little house. The seller is an old lady that has lived in the house since it was built 50 years ago. It is a sad house for her because her husband is now gone to the other side.
The old lady owes nothing on the house and her children are pressuring her to leave it behind and move closer to them. She spends some of her savings at Home Depot and puts some basic kitchen counters, appliances, bathoom fixtures, and general ‘upgrades’ into the house… but lists it at a rediculous price (which is still 10% lower than peak).
After a few months, the old lady looks at comps and drops the price 20% into a reasonable range. She gets a few hits on her house, but still nobody is making offers.
Along comes a doughy guy who sees the potential in the house, but doesn’t want to pay this lady prime dollars for a ‘regular’ house. Even though the house is priced around the same as other similar houses that have sold in the last 6-10 months, he’s going to offer her 20% less.
To be continued…
Shore [42],
There’s a bull market somewhere.
BC,
I think one should invest in paper mills and green and black ink.
JJ,
Melt up?
http://www.barchart.com/chart.php?sym=CIY00&style=technical&p=DO&d=X&sd=&ed=&size=M&log=0&t=BAR&v=0&g=1&evnt=1&late=1&o1=&o2=&o3=&sh=100&indicators=&addindicator=&submitted=1&fpage=&txtDate=&x=55&y=12
Maxine Waters on CNBC, proving that she is brain-damaged.
Says no one takes a loss in mortgage mods.
Now saying that a principal writedown is not a loss for the lender.
Someone needs to cap this ginch.
30 year (34)-
Good for you! There aren’t many out there like you and me.
now that reminds me of the story when I saw Rock Master Scott play at Camouflage on Bell Blvd and we drove in my friends purplish Cordoba with the rich corentian leather that ricardo montivon make fameous. Damm thing got sideswipped early by what some 16 year old trailor trash girl told us looked like a Derrick. I was like a Derrick she was like you know those big things at the SI dump that crush the stuff. Back to her later, anyhow, had two white trash secretary type girls with us and only one door in car worked and was not the driver door. Anyhow Rock Master pulled up in a huge stretch purple lincoln contential limo with match purple valor seats and a purple super fly outfit and afro. That boy was bad. Anyhow sang his big hit All Nigaz eat pu##Y all Bit$ch suck Cuck, (tastes great less filling). On two dollar bud night no less. Even better divided club in half girls on one side boy on other and had ladies suck their talk neck buds like giving a BJ to bottle while guys on other side of room sand All BitShes suk cuck. Funniest stuff ever. Even weirder Miller Beer used taste great less filling as their ad campaign and I always laughed my butt off. I guess that song could never be played on a radio and their was no downloading at the time so why not.
The girls we took did not end well as they were not into the we all switch places when we ring the bell and one girl was a friend of the friend and it was a first date. Then again when we picked her up in a car partially totaled with a case of beer in back and told her we were going to a rap concert that started at one am in Queens she should have known this night was not ending well.
Shore NOT John Guy says:
October 13, 2010 at 10:06 am
Once upon a time, there was me, two buddies, a case of cheap wine, and four bisexual bimbos in this powder-blue ’75 Lincoln, with crush velour seats…..
jj (37)-
So I can sleep well tonight, knowing that JPM’s 78 trill in notional derivatives exposure is no biggie…and that they know who all their counterparties are and that everything will net out to 0 in a worst-case event?
jj (38)-
Wil E Coyote always makes his way to the highest cliff at the end of each Road Runner episode. Makes that last dive off the edge a lot funnier.
“how is everyone enjoying the melt-up I called a few weeks ago. How Now 12k Dow”
Shiny on a tear this morning, $1367 and change. The market is expecting some serious free money next month. I also talked to the guy who works at the local gas station. Gas has been going up 4 cents a day. He thinks this will continue until further notice.
55.
Japs are buying more bonds and ETF’s. The end game nears.
She could be right. Lots of mods came of pred lending with high up front closing costs and a high interest rate. I I lent you in 2006 200K and charged you 25k to close and you paid an 8% interest rate from mid 2006 till mid 2010 before you stopped paying the mortgage you paid me 64k in interest and 25K to close for a total of 89K. Meanwhile bank can only invest money safety at around 3% which would have netter only 18K during 3 year period. Therefore, I can mod loan from anywhere between 20-70K and not be out.
Lamar says:
October 13, 2010 at 10:16 am
Maxine Waters on CNBC, proving that she is brain-damaged.
Says no one takes a loss in mortgage mods.
Now saying that a principal writedown is not a loss for the lender.
Someone needs to cap this ginch.
shore (45)-
…everybody was chill until we hit a KFC drive through and the gals ordered extra mashed potatoes and gravy…
Yes, I am 100K long chase stock and sleep like a baby. Maybe only a few hundred people in world who looked as closely at those financials as I did. So unless you are in the club you are guessing. I did not begin to get a grasp on those financials until at least 2,000 hours into them, heck hyperion top side adjustment process that is used to consolidate legacy GLs is enough to make a grown man cry each month.
Lamar says:
October 13, 2010 at 10:20 am
jj (37)-
So I can sleep well tonight, knowing that JPM’s 78 trill in notional derivatives exposure is no biggie…and that they know who all their counterparties are and that everything will net out to 0 in a worst-case event?
jj (57)-
I would bet you 15K that Ms. Waters was not following your line of reasoning in making that statement.
Her mom must’ve drunk three 40’s every single day she was pregnant.
The idea of owning JPM stock is less appealing to me than having my eyes gouged out with a spork.
actually we hit white castle, then I get the secretary back to her dingy studio and the girl starts undressing and stops, I was like what up, she was I have something to tell you, I am like is this chick a man!!!!! Anyhow one side of bra was padded and she was lopsided up top and she started to go all doctor joyce brothers on me. I was like I don’t care about the neighbors upstairs then she goes all like I wish I had a bf and would you like to date me, I was like at this point, I drank a six pack in car, had ten beers in club, we hit white castle and I ate a bag of sliders and it is 5am on a Monday night I was like look I can’t solve all your problems in one night and got out of there. A rare story with no happy ending, I would say she was unbalanced both in her bra and her personal life, sadly she called out as I was leaving will you call me, and luckily since I left the well untapped I was able not to call her and not receive a death threath. Just another Monday night.
#35 and #36. we went through open houses this weekend in maplewood, millburn, short hills. Most homes that have been reduced anywhere from 10-30% in just the past few months. it seems prices have gone down since the fed rebate ended.
1380 here we come.
Zimbabwe also experienced a melt up;
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/06/23/13987/the-mad-market-of-zim/
I know that exact White Castle. The only place that used to be open after 2AM, except for the diners….
JJ says:
October 13, 2010 at 10:36 am
actually we hit white castle,
Oh, related to my post #63..
we were the only ones who signed in -or maybe one other person-at some of the open houses we visited on sunday. we hadn’t looked in a long time and I was very surprised how slow it was in millburn, maplewood. it seems that it’s a very slow fall in these areas…
AG [64],
Hasn’t the race to the bottom been a theme, on this site, for years?
“Gold has become the world’s third reservable currency as all currencies seem intent upon racing each other downward,” said Dennis Gartman, an economist and the editor of the Suffolk, Virginia-based Gartman Letter. He advised clients to buy the metal.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-13/gold-rallies-as-dollar-resumes-decline-boosting-alternative-asset-demand.html
I went to the white castle in Jamaica once at 4am and a brother tried to do a throw down on a 50ish gold digger who cut the line drunk as a skunk on way back from night out in city. He is talking big time smack to her about cutting line and she goes you don”t talk to lady like that and she takes off high heel shoe and beats in head, he grabs shoe and goes I don’t hit no ladies get yo man out of car so I can kick his butt. She goes to car to get him, now it is juicy and like 50 of us are gathered for fight, in she comes with a confused old sugar daddy guy like 85 with a cane, bro goes I don’t hit old man either goes this sucks and leaves with no burger. I love WC at 5am.
chicagofinance says:
October 13, 2010 at 10:51 am
I know that exact White Castle. The only place that used to be open after 2AM, except for the diners….
JJ says:
October 13, 2010 at 10:36 am
actually we hit white castle,
68.
Wantan,
Arent the JP Morgan naked shorts getting crushed? I thought it was Sinclair who said that when we break 1400 they will get annhilated and then well gap up.
Keiser was saying yesterday that the gold vigilantes are pissed and they were going to make a move today. I guess this is it.
At what point do we stop considering people to be relatives?
http://mobile.newsday.com/inf/infomo?site=newsday&view=top_stories_item&feed:a=newsday_1min&feed:c=topstories&feed:i=1.2356169
AG [70],
I just hope JPM continues to play the same game; it’s been great being a contra party. Don’t know what their break point is. I’m sure the rules of the game will change before they break.
63/67 puhleze
Prices have come down, no argument there. 10%-30% on insanely priced homes I believe.
There are a few beauties in Westfield that have been for sale for almost two years to the best of my recollection. They are taking the ‘reduce asking price by 5% once every 6 months’ approach and it shows. That being said, I went to one open house in the Brig on Sunday. Half the home was built circa 1750 or something and the other half was circa 20xx. Asking almost three quarters of a million bucks. If you walk out of the master bedroom drunk or sleepy, you will fall down the entire flight of stairs to the second floor. I am not exaggerating at all here. You literally had no landing leading into/out of the master bedroom. ( I believe they converted the storage attic into the Master.)
There were four pages of sign-ins an hour after the OH started. I have no idea how many were lookie-loos but the family that was looking before and after I got there both had NY plates. I overheard another person talking to the agent saying that some family in town who I guess owns a lot of RE would be interested in a cash deal to buy As Is. (It is a large lot.)
Just observing and reporting.
This week I have spoken with several agents who carry listing inventories of 15+ listings. All of them told me they didn’t have one call for a showing on their listings the entire weekend.
Yesterday at the Certificate of Code Compliance office in Newark (the sign in sheet is a who’s who of North Jersey REO agents) I spoke with 2 agents from large REO companies. Both told me 20 to 30% of their companies inventory had been placed in limbo due to title concerns.
The media and posters on this blog can make all the claims they want about healthy segments of the market, it just doesn’t make it true.
Yes, I do have offers on my REO listings. I have pending closings, but the market is SICK! I am waiting for the phone call from a reliable investor buyer telling me, can’t close because I can’t get title insurance!
Based on the current title concerns due to foreclosure irregularities, how can anyone take the risk of buying a property at sheriff sale? Let’s take the notion a step farther, how can you take the risk of buying an REO? Now a little farther…how can a title insurance company take the risk of issuing title insurance on these properties? What about all the foreclosed homes already through the system and in the hands of end users?
As I try to wrap my head around the potential impact of this situation as it unfolds all I keep wondering is, if the general public had any understanding of this situation, who would be stupid enough to buy residential real estate right now?
My impression from places such as millburn and GR is that houses priced reasonably 20-25% off peak are grabbed like hotcakes. You see $600K 3br POS going into contract in a week. The bleak picture that is painted here does not apply to those places and it seems like it will take a couple of years and a serious economic downfall for another substantial cut.
Maplewood and montclair is another story lots of inventory, multiple price cuts etc. So RE is indeed local–at least so far. It might be that high income (finance?) people as well as gov employees kept their wealth intact and support those prices. Other professions publishing-adv not so but just a guess. There will be some pockets of wealth the rest will become ghetto. No middle class left around. Congrats to dems and repubs.
JJ rules.
75 realtor
Just foreclosures???? Look at the documented disconnect between the chair of documents associated with regular sales that have been securitized.
How about this tidbit from yesterday
There is the very real potential that even standard performing homes are clouded by the MERS/securitization debacle.
Not disagreeing with anything 30yr Realtor is saying on the whole, but am agreeing with poor guy. I’ve seen it first hand in GR. Nice homes, North End, priced right, one week, many offers most WELL over asking.
Lamar before you give me any more smack, I went to my trading account and went to market peek in 2007 and pulled my three year return rate, which I advertised all my picks on this site. Gold does not impress me. If the world falls apart and no one had money and everyone is homeless, starving and cold who is going to buy a lump of metal from you. Trapped on a a desert island gold is as worthless as cash.
Chifi is only real investor I respect, more so than kudlow, gross and buffet who reigns me in when I am going hog wild.
Your Personal Rate of Return (%)
3-Year (09/01/2007 – 08/31/2010)
Annualized
+26.78%
Cumulative
+103.75%
In response to #73, I will say we went to one open house in Millburn that was absolutely swarming-I mean packed with people looking. I asked a realtor why that house was so busy compared to the other 6 or 7 other properties I saw that day that were absolutely DEAD. The realtor said the busy house had just come on the market the previously Thursday. The slow houses had been on the market for a longer period (and were reduced). Maybe your Westfield house that was so busy had just come on the market???
Maplewood has a unique problem. Crazy high taxes-even for New Jersey. And they’re reassessments are coming in a month. Who would buy a house there when they don’t know what taxes they’ll be paying. We won’t!
In fact in millburn and GR asking prices have gone up. It seems sellers are newly convinced that their properties have weathered the downturn. I am not saying that they will sell at those prices but lowballing is not an option. Good thing that the market is crashing soon.
I would suggest that grim showcases a handful of properties-maybe open houses-each week with last sale prices etc. Then we can revisit them after 6 months or so. Many re sites do that. It will give us a starting point for a discussion, points of reference, and some peek into the market.
poor guy, do you feel that prices in millburn, etc have gone up in the past few months? i agree they went up the first two quarters, but based on what I saw it seemed that they’ve reversed that increase and perhaps then some. visiting open houses is just observational but it is real time…
plze 84
I really don’t know-don’t keep tags-but asking prices are high and there is not much of an inventory so I would not expect any serious cuts soon-hope I am wrong.
Get a room you two.
I can tell you there were better bargains in winter 2008-09 in most towns
i hope so too as we want to buy. buzz off young buck. i could be like so many others and post about how the world is about to end. in the meantime, i just want a place to raise a family!
jj (79)-
Your way works. Until it doesn’t.
JJ,
You should open your own shop!
plze (81)-
Who would buy a house in Maplewood, when you could get shot in the head taking out your trash?
“Trapped on a a desert island gold is as worthless as cash.”
JJ,
LMAO. I guess it’s also possible to be homeless in Paterson while holding a boatload of shares in Apple?
91. funny! agreed. we sold our house in maplewood as we were fed up with the taxes, lousy schools, and crime. someone attempted to steal our car from our driveway at night three times. yes, three times!! my husband stopped them every time. go hubby!
it’s a lovely town with nice parks, pretty village, etc but not enough..
Sunday afternoon, our 11 faced Millburn’s 11 in a championship final. Halftime, we were down 0-1, and the Millburn parents were telling us to shut up and feeling pretty good about themselves.
35 minutes later, they were well-beaten, 3-1, and the parents beat a hasty retreat. Similar to the Brigadoon and Montclair 11, they showed no taste for 50/50’s, hard challenges or regaining the ball. Lots of Red Sox caps with ponytails pulled through, and lots of dads with dyed-out gray…all talking way too loudly and way too confidently. Wish I could say I haven’t seen it before. And too bad their kids played pretty much just like rich suburban kids. No heart at all.
It’s going to be ugly when the bad stuff starts hitting these towns.
very good story….thank you
69.JJ says:
October 13, 2010 at 10:58 am
I went to the white castle in Jamaica once at 4am and a brother tried to do a throw down on a 50ish gold digger who cut the line drunk as a skunk on way back from night out in city. He is talking big time smack to her about cutting line and she goes you don”t talk to lady like that and she takes off high heel shoe and beats in head, he grabs shoe and goes I don’t hit no ladies get yo man out of car so I can kick his butt. She goes to car to get him, now it is juicy and like 50 of us are gathered for fight, in she comes with a confused old sugar daddy guy like 85 with a cane, bro goes I don’t hit old man either goes this sucks and leaves with no burger. I love WC at 5am.
94 lamar
what’s your town? is there a direct train to NYC?
Poor guy-
Housing market is only for those employed at investment banks. Not only that but only front office trader types who make millions. I guess you did not get the memo. The WSJ article is the typical spin that applies to less than 5% of total metro NY area. Of course – their point is to get regular types to feel presssure to buy. It is a hoax garbage article trying to fool smart fence sitters. Might as well read about Wolf boy in Mexico on the cover of Star.
Note to realtors. HDR photographs are bad. They’re even worse when it makes it even easier to see that your neighbor’s house is almost built over the living room window of a $1.3mn house you’re trying to sell in Milburn.
Sometimes blown out white windows are better:
http://www.trulia.com/property/photos/3026401751-25-Hawthorne-Rd-Millburn-NJ-07041#item-3
57 bystander
oh i never thought otherwise. everything is rigged incl real estate. Funny thing however is that I was talking for the $500K-1mil range. For houses over $1mil there are generous cuts I hear.
78 Doyle
just gave a look at GR on gsmls. There is no inventory between $500k and $740K. :)
Shiny is on stereoids, cocaine, and drinking whisky. Unstoppable. Ben’s worst nightmare.
West [98];
What’s up with the square entry door and interior doorway (photo 2)? Either (1) overaggressive use of wide-angle lens; (2) used house sales hack couldn’t figure out how to turn off the “strech to fit” feature or understand why it might not be a good idea; or (3) house built super-custom for extrordinarily short and fat people.
My bet is a combination of (1) and (2).
Awest 98
Its our favorite Realtor, Sue!!!!!
Con’t [102];
Used house sales flack only stands to make about ~$65k for botching that $1.3MM listing — I wonder how much one has to wave in their face to get them to take care or show competence in marketing.
several of the open houses we saw were $1.1 or 1.2 million. may explain the difference between what I and poor boy saw. i also had a hard time finding less than 1million
Nom,
You have mail.
This doesnt bode well for MERS
NEW YORK – JPMorgan Chase’s CEO says the bank has stopped using the electronic mortgage tracking system used by major financial institutions.
Lawyers have argued in court proceedings that the system is unable to accurately prove ownership of mortgages.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101013/ap_on_bi_ge/us_jpmorgan_mortgages
Moose 102
The house was spec’d out for hobbits
plze! #80
>>Maybe your Westfield house that was so busy had just come on the market???
Yes, it was the first week on the market and first open house so perhaps that explains the buzz. It isn’t under AR yet so I guess no one thought it was all that.
Lamar is loaded, I think he played the son on the Jeffersons.
Moose (102),
Good catch, they probably used a wide angle to subtly make the foyer look very spacious, but turned the door, which in photo 1 outside is clearly a rectangle, into a giant square.
“If you lead the horse to water and it won’t drink, just keep adding water and maybe even spike it”
Dallas Fed President, McTeer
chi (95)-
All this, from a guy who can’t manage to show up for a beer at the Capital Grille.
“If you lead the camel to the edge of a cliff and you are arab and stand behind it you will soon find out why they are called the ships of the desert”
MERS has apparently processed about 60 million mortgages nationwide. Thats a lot of unwinding to do.
poor (96)-
Club is not a “town” team. Kids from all over Hunterdon, Somerset, Union, Morris Co.
I don’t think any of them live in a train town.
I am a busy guy, maybe I will go next time if some ladies are going, are these things usually a sausuage factory?
Lamar says:
October 13, 2010 at 2:00 pm
chi (95)-
All this, from a guy who can’t manage to show up for a beer at the Capital Grille.
Guess what, MERS also covers CMBS.
Sue Adler looks more and more like a skank version of Kathy Lee Gifford with every new photo.
jj (117)-
I was under the impression you ran a sausage factory.
hyde (115)-
Wanna bet MERS processed Stuytown?
FK auction cancelled again today.
OT: Did False Autism-Vaccine Link Cause Whooping Cough Epidemic?
http://blogs.forbes.com/robertlangreth/2010/10/13/did-false-autism-vaccine-link-cause-whooping-cough-epidemic/?partner=yahootix
I would say that at least one in four sets of moronic parents in Montclair have chosen not to inoculate their children.
In other news, the budget passed.
I figured there would be at least five followups to #120 by now.
That was a David Price fastball right down the pipe.
#105
I was also talking about the $699 – $1Mil market in North GR, there are homes at $1Mil+ rotting. At that point you’re usually talking $25k+ in taxes.
lib (122)-
When everybody’s kid there is walking around with diptheria or rickets, you can bring them Ethiopian takeout and turn it into a teachable moment concerning Third World issues.
Anybody given that homeless lady in the park near you a one-way bus ticket to Allentown yet?
Here is the latest POMO schedule. Get in the markets while you can. Pump monkeys know free money is the best kind! Of course this market is a blatently inflated so tread lightly.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/tot_operation_schedule.html
Still_looking, what time does your party start on the 23rd?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/magazine/10/12/agent/index.html?eref=sihp
chifi will love this article
is SL around today?
Forgot one other thing. The markets look like we are back to 2007. Beloved uncle Ben only knows how to blow another bubble instead of actually dealing with the problems. I have no idea how long this will go…..
autism is caused by rusty sperm
My favorite are 50 something parents shocked when their 5 year old boy is diagnosed with autism and blame the vacine. yea and the day I rapped to tara banks at the mercedes polo event the reason I did not hook up with here cause of the fact I did not have designer shoes on.
You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.
Dorothy Parker
#18
They don’t need to physically take your gold or silver. They can just tax the hell out of any gains you make buying and selling it down the road.
The Collectors Capital gains tax rate is 28%.Much higher?
MERS has apparently processed about 60 million mortgages nationwide. Thats a lot of unwinding to do.
Hyde,
MERS is to big to fail. JJ can you buy their debt?
Evicted folks move back into home they were evicted from, on the advice of their lawyer. After it has been sold at auction and renovated.
The Earls question who owns the loan, as the foreclosure documents list GRP Financial Services, but there have been several lenders listed in the past few years. The original lender was Washington Mutual Bank, which became JPMorgan Chase after the banks merged. The loan went to Bank of America on the same day that Chase sent the homeowners a notice of default. The Earls argue that Chase never properly assumed the loan and thus did not have the right to sell it off. And in turn, the investors, Conejo Capital Partners, did not properly purchase the property either.
http://www.housingwatch.com/2010/10/12/evicted-family-breaks-in-to-own-home/?icid=main|main|dl8|sec1_lnk1|177136
Make 133
JPM has cut bait from MERS, and they were one of the founding companies. I think JPM is just trying to be the first to the exit.
The N.Y. State Banking Department has suspended home foreclosure actions by mortgage loan servicers, requiring that they conduct internal reviews of their foreclosure practices
The servicers were also asked to respond to the Banking Department on the following issues: the steps the servicer is taking or has taken to review the foreclosure process in New York; the results of the review, including a description of the process for verifying affidavits; the corrective action, if any, the servicer has taken or intends to take in response to the review; the measures taken to ensure that affidavits filed in New York foreclosure actions are executed in compliance with New York law; and the status of pending foreclosure actions in New York and measures taken to suspend such actions pending review.
http://www.financialfraudlaw.com/lawblog/mortgage-servicers-must-suspend-foreclosures-ny-state-says/1576
It looks like Linda Green should have taken that brazillian vacation a few weeeks early.
You are hereby commanded to produce at said time and place all documents …
3. Copies of every document signed in any capacity by Linda Green.
LPS has been subpeioned for investigation
http://www.scribd.com/doc/39276129/subpoenaLPS
How many tens of thousands of documents was that woman signing per months? i
hyde (135)-
Generally, JPM is the first rat to bail on any sinking ship.
Hyde – nothing to see here, Market is up anyway even with 50 States Attorney Generals investigating this mess now.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101013-710815.html
“How many tens of thousands of documents was that woman signing per months?”
Hyde,
If she played basketball she’d be Wilt the Stilt.
hyde (137)-
Looks like she’s about to get Brazilian waxed.
“It looks like Linda Green should have taken that brazillian vacation a few weeeks early.”
BC (140)-
I bet she could convert a better FT percentage.
Poon:
The homeless lady has settled in nicely. She does not look like she is going anywhere.
Its all about November. Im guessing 1.7 trillion QE from the Fed. Anything above that and we can all refinance our MERS mortgages for sub 4%. Then it will be time to watch Bernanke dance on the tight rope. That kind of easing should get us another year but the question is whether Bernanke can keep the wheels on the wagon. Will we make it to QE 3.0?
Some talk about the final collapse as something that will occur 10 years from now. We have 3 years IMO.
Train towns doing fine? Then how come there are several 3 bed/2baths reduced to under $500k in Millburn? It’s OK WSJ, don’t look at the listings!!!
Gold Bulls
Gold rally to continue, for an extended period says Goldman Sachs
oct 11 2010
With the prospects for another round of quantitative easing
in the United States increasingly strong, US real interest rates
continue to fall. With 10-year TIPS yields now below 50 bps,
we expect gold prices to continue to climb, and we are now
raising our 12-month gold price forecast to $1,650/toz. We
also recommend opening a long Dec-11 COMEX gold position.
lib (143)-
In any self-respecting town, the cops would beat her up, then drive her out to the city limits and dump her.
juice (146)-
If that’s GS’ call, you know the reversal is at hand.
Might want to keep an eye on the short interest around that 12/11 CRIMEX gold contract.
BEWARE!!!
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Obama administration on Wednesday approved a 50% increase in the amount of ethanol used in fuel blends, but only for newer vehicles, a decision critics say could confuse consumers.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it will allow blends to include as much as 15% ethanol, up from the current 10% limit. The ruling is part of an effort to reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and cut down on oil imports.
Yet a 15% blend is not deemed suitable for older vehicles, so consumers will have to be careful. The EPA said gas stations will be required to clearly label their pumps to prevent customers from buying the wrong fuel.
The agency said the so-called E15 blend should only be used in vehicles built in 2007 or later. The blend should not be used for cars and trucks made before 2001. They were not designed for higher ethanol blends and are more liable to damage
Yome
Corn ethanol is a joke. Increasing the cut of alcohol in fuel actually drops the gas mileage of the vehicle using it since alcohol has a lower unit energy density. Since most of the alcohol comes from corn it is also an oil derivative since substantial amounts of oil based fertilizers must be used to grow the corn that is used to produce ethanol. Its a Rube Goldberg fuel production supply chain.
150
Buying some votes early in the Midwest.
Ms Linda Green has been a VERY busy woman! I would love to see her resume!
From the Subpoena:
Listen closely, no really listen closely, what is the sound you hear?, it is Mr. T spanking the monkey as he is so happy over gold prices.
Juice Box says:
October 13, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Gold Bulls
Gold rally to continue, for an extended period says Goldman Sachs
oct 11 2010
With the prospects for another round of quantitative easing
in the United States increasingly strong, US real interest rates
continue to fall. With 10-year TIPS yields now below 50 bps,
we expect gold prices to continue to climb, and we are now
raising our 12-month gold price forecast to $1,650/toz. We
also recommend opening a long Dec-11 COMEX gold position.
Melt up!!!!!! any day now retail investors are joining the party!
Listen closely, no really listen closely, what is the sound you hear?, it is Mr. T spanking the monkey as he is so happy over gold prices.
Jets fan,
Take the other side then. You can’t call RED unless you put a chip on the table.
JJ (154):
I doubt it. If you read Zero Hedge you would know that the outflows from Stocks and Mutual Funds has been ongoing for about 22 weeks straight. The only things trading is Skynet and HAL9000.
Dan #145
Are 2 listings out of 94 minimum 3BR 2Bath homes statistically significant? One is a short sale (asking 499 with previous sale at 565).
[6] SX
“If you are flush with cash (and believe me, some folks are….however many are ‘not’)
It ‘is’ a decent time to buy lots of cool stuff. Prices are doooooown baby down
I agree. And with the dollar devaluation, that won’t last. . . . ”
Right now, I am continuing to buy up ag and commodity-based items, mostly food. Anything grain-based or -fed, I am purchasing. Probably have about 7 lbs of bacon in the freezer, among other things. A few bags of tortilla chips for the upcoming holiday season, and another 10 lb. bag of sugar.
Will also continue to buy up wines on the great grape glut (french and aussies are talking about ripping out vineyards), and booze because of the triple whammy of grain prices, dollar deval, and sin tax hikes. Gotta figure anything that is half alcohol will be preserved.
Also buying lumber, which has gone back up in price and may continue to rise as I predict a remodeling boomlet. Folks with depreciating dollars will invest in their homes. Getting plywood and boards now for future projects. And no shelf life worries there.
And lets not forget more ammo.
Finally, will look at this season’s sales to get electronics–plasma, laptop, printer, cameras. My contribution to the Delaware economy.
[9] lamar
My metals portfolio no longer has gold or silver.
It consists of three metals: Lead, brass and gun.
“Take the other side then.”
Make [155],
First he has to grow a set.
Nom [158],
Add some futures to your physical.
clot: Richard Thaler speaks to you………………….
Legal/Regulatory
Level Playing Fields, in Soccer and Finance
July 26, 2010, 5:55 am
From Richard H. Thaler, a professor of economics and behavioral science at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, writing in The New York Times’s Economic View column:
Over the last month, one question seemed to be on everyone’s mind at the economic conferences I attended in Europe: How did referees miss a goal that England scored against Germany in their World Cup match? The goal in question struck the crossbar, bounced down and landed a full yard inside the goal, then flew out onto the field, all in the blink of an eye.
Soccer reform wasn’t the stated focus of these conferences. But thinking about how to improve the sport’s regulations comes naturally to economists, especially after a few beers, because some of the same principles should be applied to economic regulation.
The first is that the regulator — in this case, the referee — is fallible. So the rules should make the regulator’s job as easy as possible.
Second, regulators can’t detect every irregularity, so the emphasis has to be on getting the big stuff right. Finally, we want performance, not regulators, to determine the outcome. The best regulators are those we don’t notice.
In soccer, one head referee has to cover a “pitch” larger than an American football field. He has three assistants who must stand on the sideline. There is plenty of evidence beyond that missed English goal that referees are indeed human. For example, referees call more fouls against the visiting team, and against bigger players. So, what can be done?
Here are a few suggestions, and some general lessons for regulation in other domains. The first two changes are easy.
ADD REFEREES Put at least one more ref on the field. (Basketball has three referees on a much smaller court.) The idea is under consideration by FIFA, the soccer organizing body.
This is a no-brainer for the World Cup, which generates billions of dollars in revenue, but in the world of financial regulation, adding referees is costly. Governments will need to cut budgets, not expand them, so we need to make regulators more efficient, not more numerous.
ADD TECHNOLOGY Although instant replays showed that England’s goal should have counted, FIFA officials have resisted using technology that could help. Many technological solutions, including embedding an electronic chip in the ball, would make the determination of goal scoring faster and more accurate.
Technology can help in other regulatory areas as well, and is a good way to increase efficiency. For example, requiring banks to file their compliance data electronically drastically reduces the time it takes to conduct an audit.
INCREASE SCORING In the most recent tournament, the teams together scored 2.27 goals per match, the second-lowest number in history. In early years of the World Cup, scoring was twice as high, and the problem with low-scoring games is not just that they bore uncultured Americans like me. Low scores magnify the importance of referees’ decisions. When a team is awarded a penalty kick, it scores about 75 percent of the time, and that’s very likely to affect the outcome of a low-scoring game.
In finance, a useful analogy is to increase the capital requirements for banks. By requiring banks to have a bigger security blanket, regulators themselves have greater margin for error.
REDEFINE ‘OFFSIDE’ The offside rule is now too hard to enforce. When a player passes the ball downfield, no one on his team can have any part of his body farther downfield than any defender, aside from the goalkeeper. The linesman calling these violations runs along the sideline, keeping parallel with the offensive player closest to being offside — all while watching the ball.
This requires wide-angle vision that humans don’t possess. (A bird called the woodcock, with 360-degree vision, would be good at it.) Short of eliminating the rule, we might limit offside calls to players whose entire body is ahead of the defenders. That should be easier to detect, and might lead to more goals scored.
The general point is to make the judgment tasks of regulators easier. The Securities and Exchange Commission had trouble assessing the technical arguments that strongly suggested that Bernie Madoff was a crook, but they could have easily had a rule requiring him to document his assets under management.
RETHINK PENALTIES Another idea is to adjust the silly yellow/red card penalty system. There are three levels of fouls in soccer, depending partly on whether the action is “careless,” “reckless” or “using excessive force.” It is asking too much to think a referee can distinguish between careless and reckless on the fly.
A system similar to basketball’s, in which accumulated fouls lead to expulsion, and “flagrant” fouls are heavily punished, would be easier to put into practice, especially if an off-field official kept track of the running totals.
The general principle here is that we don’t want small differences in behavior, which are difficult for a regulator to distinguish, to lead to large differences in punishment.
REDUCE FAKING Finally, there is the problem of diving. After falling, players routinely writhe on the ground until the referee either believes they’ve been injured, ignores them or, rarely, imposes penalties for “simulation.” These instant injury judgments are very difficult for a single on-field referee.
Such decisions might be turned over to referees watching video monitors — and empowered to impose stiff penalties for faking. Diving is the soccer version of the inevitable attempts to influence financial regulators. We can’t expect to eliminate special pleading by financiers for taxpayer bailouts, of course, but perhaps we can reduce the impact of such efforts by opening them to public view through increased disclosure about the process and its beneficiaries.
Thinking about revising the rules of soccer is a nice summertime relief from worrying about more serious regulatory overhaul, but it also illustrates the key principles that apply to both.
New rules in either soccer or finance shouldn’t put any more burden on individual referees. As Larry Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, said recently, in revising financial regulations, we do not want to require anyone to get any smarter.
Consider the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau now being established. Above all, I’d urge the head of this agency to devise rules under the assumption that, someday, he or she will be succeeded by a nitwit.
unmod?
[18] dissident,
You mean something like this?
“Starting January 1, 2012, the sale to a business of all goods and services (including rare coins and bullion) that exceed $600 during a calendar year will have to be reported by the purchaser to the IRS. For example, let’s say someone has an antique chair that they want to sell to an antique dealer. Under this new law, which was passed as part of the Healthcare Reform Bill, the dealer buying the chair will have to file an IRS 1099 Form to report their purchase of the chair. Through this process, the money paid to the person that sold the chair will be reported to the IRS. . . .”
Gold and other “collectibles” are already taxed at a higher rate than other long term cap gain items (e.g., securities). The Obamunists are concerned that there is an underground market in physical, so businesses are now required to report their purchases from consumers.
You may recall that I predicted a future regime where nearly all future transactions, including consumer transactions, will be reportable to the IRS? This is a step in that direction.
It was the bird…….
162.chicagofinance says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
October 13, 2010 at 4:29 pm
clot: Richard Thaler speaks to you………………….
Legal/Regulatory
Level Playing Fields, in Soccer and Finance
July 26, 2010, 5:55 am
From Richard H. Thaler, a professor of economics and behavioral science at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, writing in The New York Times’s Economic View column:
Over the last month, one question seemed to be on everyone’s mind at the economic conferences I attended in Europe: How did referees miss a goal that England scored against Germany in their World Cup match? The goal in question struck the crossbar, bounced down and landed a full yard inside the goal, then flew out onto the field, all in the blink of an eye.
Soccer reform wasn’t the stated focus of these conferences. But thinking about how to improve the sport’s regulations comes naturally to economists, especially after a few beers, because some of the same principles should be applied to economic regulation.
The first is that the regulator — in this case, the referee — is fallible. So the rules should make the regulator’s job as easy as possible.
Second, regulators can’t detect every irregularity, so the emphasis has to be on getting the big stuff right. Finally, we want performance, not regulators, to determine the outcome. The best regulators are those we don’t notice.
In soccer, one head referee has to cover a “pitch” larger than an American football field. He has three assistants who must stand on the sideline. There is plenty of evidence beyond that missed English goal that referees are indeed human. For example, referees call more fouls against the visiting team, and against bigger players. So, what can be done?
Here are a few suggestions, and some general lessons for regulation in other domains. The first two changes are easy.
ADD REFEREES Put at least one more ref on the field. (Basketball has three referees on a much smaller court.) The idea is under consideration by FIFA, the soccer organizing body.
This is a no-brainer for the World Cup, which generates billions of dollars in revenue, but in the world of financial regulation, adding referees is costly. Governments will need to cut budgets, not expand them, so we need to make regulators more efficient, not more numerous.
ADD TECHNOLOGY Although instant replays showed that England’s goal should have counted, FIFA officials have resisted using technology that could help. Many technological solutions, including embedding an electronic chip in the ball, would make the determination of goal scoring faster and more accurate.
Technology can help in other regulatory areas as well, and is a good way to increase efficiency. For example, requiring banks to file their compliance data electronically drastically reduces the time it takes to conduct an audit.
INCREASE SCORING In the most recent tournament, the teams together scored 2.27 goals per match, the second-lowest number in history. In early years of the World Cup, scoring was twice as high, and the problem with low-scoring games is not just that they bore uncultured Americans like me. Low scores magnify the importance of referees’ decisions. When a team is awarded a penalty kick, it scores about 75 percent of the time, and that’s very likely to affect the outcome of a low-scoring game.
In finance, a useful analogy is to increase the capital requirements for banks. By requiring banks to have a bigger security blanket, regulators themselves have greater margin for error.
REDEFINE ‘OFFSIDE’ The offside rule is now too hard to enforce. When a player passes the ball downfield, no one on his team can have any part of his body farther downfield than any defender, aside from the goalkeeper. The linesman calling these violations runs along the sideline, keeping parallel with the offensive player closest to being offside — all while watching the ball.
This requires wide-angle vision that humans don’t possess. (A bird called the woodc-ck, with 360-degree vision, would be good at it.) Short of eliminating the rule, we might limit offside calls to players whose entire body is ahead of the defenders. That should be easier to detect, and might lead to more goals scored.
The general point is to make the judgment tasks of regulators easier. The Securities and Exchange Commission had trouble assessing the technical arguments that strongly suggested that Bernie Madoff was a crook, but they could have easily had a rule requiring him to document his assets under management.
RETHINK PENALTIES Another idea is to adjust the silly yellow/red card penalty system. There are three levels of fouls in soccer, depending partly on whether the action is “careless,” “reckless” or “using excessive force.” It is asking too much to think a referee can distinguish between careless and reckless on the fly.
A system similar to basketball’s, in which accumulated fouls lead to expulsion, and “flagrant” fouls are heavily punished, would be easier to put into practice, especially if an off-field official kept track of the running totals.
The general principle here is that we don’t want small differences in behavior, which are difficult for a regulator to distinguish, to lead to large differences in punishment.
REDUCE FAKING Finally, there is the problem of diving. After falling, players routinely writhe on the ground until the referee either believes they’ve been injured, ignores them or, rarely, imposes penalties for “simulation.” These instant injury judgments are very difficult for a single on-field referee.
Such decisions might be turned over to referees watching video monitors — and empowered to impose stiff penalties for faking. Diving is the soccer version of the inevitable attempts to influence financial regulators. We can’t expect to eliminate special pleading by financiers for taxpayer bailouts, of course, but perhaps we can reduce the impact of such efforts by opening them to public view through increased disclosure about the process and its beneficiaries.
Thinking about revising the rules of soccer is a nice summertime relief from worrying about more serious regulatory overhaul, but it also illustrates the key principles that apply to both.
New rules in either soccer or finance shouldn’t put any more burden on individual referees. As Larry Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, said recently, in revising financial regulations, we do not want to require anyone to get any smarter.
Consider the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau now being established. Above all, I’d urge the head of this agency to devise rules under the assumption that, someday, he or she will be succeeded by a nitwit.
[163] redux
Of course, the upshot of this is that those holding a lot of physical will take it out of the country and sell it to avoid the reporting regime. But guess what? IRS changed its rules on cross-border money transfers to include collectibles. So if you take bullion out of the country, and don’t tell IRS, its a crime.
[161] BC
It seems like it may be a bit late for that. I think that QE is priced in, and I missed the run up.
Nom [166],
It will be QE till infinity. Only QE 2.0 has been priced in. Also, there will be huge retracements as we move forward. Late comers/weak longs will be thrown overboard; give everybody an opportunity to get/add to longs.
As someone who has been closely watching the GR and Montclair listings for 6 years now, I can intelligently speak (and not anecdotally) to what I’m seeing.
GR is insanely stubborn. Montclair not so much so. The high end (>750K) in both of these towns is getting hammered. The low end (>450K) in both towns are also getting the hammered unless the home is intelligently renovated. The person smart enough to put in a viking range, repaint the interior and exterior and do some nice landscaping still brings in the stupid bids. The middle is where the pricing has been sticky, especially in GR. The only difference today than a few years ago is that the bidding wars have mostly subsided, but people are still paying near ask. Another difference is if the house is a true TLC (sellers lived there for 30 or more years) no one is buying them until they sit for a year or so and the prices are dropped. The best deal we’ve seen in years just closed on Ridgewood Ave. It’s on the North side of town, but on a corner near Mountainside hospital. It was huge (I think over 4,000 sf) and went for 560K after sitting forever. This would not have happened 5 years ago.
So if you are handy (and I mean really handy) you can get a home in the middle for close to 30% off. If you want something ready to go, well you’ll get at most about a 10% break off the peak and this is only because there are less people in the bidding wars.
I’m buying in the Spring either way. If it held up for five years, then I don’t see why there is any more risk buying now in these train towns, then there was buying 5 years ago. As insane as it is to spend 550K on a 2500sq ft colonial in GR. It’s still a lot better than spending $20K per year for the next twelve years (plus property taxes) to send the little guy to a private school in a town with homes that are priced $100,000 less. Smart people move into towns with good schools and short commutes. They are even getting smart enough to not waste an extra 500K on extra bedrooms and land that they really don’t use and will need to furnish, clean, heat and maintain.
There are some decent deals in Montclair which was never the case in the past. Decent, though is relative. Mediocre schools, pipe bombs in driveways, spies as neighbors and spend-all day politicians come with the great housing deals.
jj (154)-
When the retail investors (should I say, IF the retail investors) ever come back to the party, the rug will immediately be pulled out from under them yet again.
250K (157)-
What is of real insignificance are your trolling posts. Nobody here is buying your bullshit, or that of any of the other hucksters attempting to cheerlead more unwitting people off a cliff.
[149] yo’me
” The Obama administration on Wednesday approved a 50% increase in the amount of ethanol used in fuel blends, but only for newer vehicles, a decision critics say could confuse consumers.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it will allow blends to include as much as 15% ethanol, up from the current 10% limit. The ruling is part of an effort to reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels and cut down on oil imports. . . . ”
Got Corn?
[167] BC
GS called for 1,400 then a retracement. We are nearly there now.
I see now that they are calling for 1,650.
Problem is, it’s real money and making me queasy.
[150] hyde
I smell some lobbyists as well.
Got ADM?
plume (171)-
Anybody got a feeling for what quality Moltov C@cktail you can make with the new, higher-ethanol content gasoline?
Layoffs Watch ‘10: RBS
By Bess Levin
ShareThe Queen has a holiday surprise for her corgis. Ten percent of them are getting fired.
http://dealbreaker.com/2010/10/layoffs-watch-10-rbs/
Lamar 174
It will be a cleaner burning Molotov!!!!
WHEEEEEE!!!!! vai ZH
“In depositions released Tuesday, many of those workers testified that they barely knew what a mortgage was. Some couldn’t define the word “affidavit.” Others didn’t know what a complaint was, or even what was meant by personal property. Most troubling, several said they knew they were lying when they signed the foreclosure affidavits and that they agreed with the defense lawyers’ accusations about document fraud.” And here is punchline: ” In what is perhaps a sign of things to come, a Simi Valley, Calif., couple and their nine children broke into their foreclosed home over the weekend and moved back in, according to television station KABC of Simi Valley. The family was evicted from their Spanish-style two-story in July. The home has been sold, and the new owner was due to move in soon.” And this is a problem that will go away in a few months?
Nom [172],
I hear you. I can name 20 bullish factors, 1-2 bearish factors. That said, I concentrate on the bearish factors. Defense wins in these markets. There have been huge gains since the Aug contract expired, over $200 per contract. To lock these gains in, I just began buying trailing puts and will spread out and move up as the market continues to rally. It protects me against my 1-2 scenarios. Note: these are futures contracts; highly leveraged. I would not employ the same strategy with a cash position.
I do think, at this time, any declines will be quick spikes. Owning puts allows one to take advantage of any sprikes down.
Disclaimer- Come the Dec option expiration, a whole new set of variables will need to be addressed.
thanks, libtard
#168
Lib, agree with you for the most part, but the bidding wars are there, right now, for the right house/right block. Saw it first hand two weeks ago, 9 bids (best and final), 1 week, at least 5 over ask. So there are 8 people currently looking for the next “prime north end house” in GR. And, I realize they deliberately price these homes aggressively.
It sucks, but its happening.
Absolutely nuts to use 40% of the US corn harvest to make ethanol. Funny thing about ethanol is it cannot be mixed with gasoline and sent via pipleline, because it will separate and evaporate. It needs to be shipped via rail and then mixed locally. Also the refiners get a $6 billion dollar subsidy to blend ethanol into gasoline, so the more they make the more they make….
The last EPA head said during the green energy push said that the national goal of reducing oil use trumps any effect on food prices from making fuel from corn, and they said that back in 2008 when food inflation was about 8.1 percent a year.
The EPA is trying to save us all by staving people to death…
#146 Nom (previous thread)
While not an expert in any way, venison does not worry me. Most of the problem cases have been found out west and not in this area. My buddy taking down a buck in NY/NJ is a lot safer in the food chain that most of the meat in the supermarket. In the end, venison as with all game, comes down to the butchering of the animal. If it is done properly, it should take care of any issues. The spine and most of the offal can be disposed of straight away. Debone all meat an you should be good. If you are a hick in Montana making soup from the spine bones, maybe evolution has a plan for you.
Juice,
Just be warned. I’ve been lied to time and time again about the number of competing offers. There was one we were so sure the selling agent was lying that I simply said, take the competing offer. I received a call later that night.
actually, we were told that one of the houses was under attorney review when, in fact, it wasn’t.
Mr T on bloomerg radio now yammering about gold might be time to sell.
Lib, think #183 was for me? It wasn’t like that at all, it was thanks but no thanks. They had at least 5 offers over asking and one was “significant”. My wife was at the open house last minute on a Sunday and there were 10 couples giving the house a once over one last time. It showed up in the offers. I will let you know when I hear what it closes at.
Also, take a look at 390 Forest, what it closed for vs last list price. Can’t remember off-hand, but pretty sure it was ridiculous.
zero hedge is written by a gamer in his moms basement
What do you know? When you take foreclosed homes off the market, turns out it benefits the other 2/3 of the market where the sellers are prepared to swear and pretend that they have good title.
He says home shoppers are bypassing banked-owned homes in favor of new units and owner resales. “It’s almost like you have to throw out a majority of the foreclosures,” he said.
http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2010/10/13/foreclosure-delays-nail-in-the-coffin-for-housing/
Sometimes it really sucks being right so right, so often.
A Real Estate agent misrepresenting the truth – hey, it’s what we do. It never ceases to amaze me how dumb intelligent, educated people can be and for that I am grateful. And so it goes …
Lamar 170
Here are some more insignificant posts:
>> Final Doom says: June 9, 2010 at 3:54 pm Die, market, die!!!!!!
Dow closes @ 9899
>> Final Doom says: July 16, 2010 at 10:10 am Die, market, die!!!!!!
Dow closes @ 10097
>> Final Doom says: August 27, 2010 at 10:04 am Die, market, die!!!!!
Dow closes @ 10150
juice (181)-
What ethanol really is, is the biggest vote-buying scam in US history.
We could import sugar cane ethanol- cheaper and with less impact on the environment- from Brazil and have all this crap we’d ever need, and more.
190. If you think about it firms are flush with cash. They trimmed the ‘fat’. Now watch em take off.
What is that you say? It’s illegal to bring in sugar can ethanol from Brazil?
Why would that be?
More immigrants to make the country better.
NEW YORK – A vast network of Armenian gangsters and their associates used phantom health care clinics and other means to try to cheat Medicare out of $163 million, the largest fraud by one criminal enterprise in the program’s history, U.S. authorities said Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere charged 73 people. Most of the defendants were captured during raids Wednesday morning in New York City and Los Angeles, but there also were arrests in New Mexico, Georgia and Ohio.
The scheme’s scope and sophistication “puts the traditional Mafia to shame,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a Manhattan news conference. “They ran a veritable fraud franchise.”
Unlike other cases involving crooked medical clinics bribing people to sign up for unneeded treatments, the operation was “completely notional,” Janice Fedarcyk, head of the FBI’s New York office, said in a statement. “The whole doctor-patient interaction was a mirage.”
The operation was under the protection of an Armenian crime boss, known in the former Soviet Union as a “vor,” prosecutors said. The reputed boss, Armen Kazarian, was in custody in Los Angeles.
Bharara said it was the first time a vor — “the rough equivalent of a traditional godfather” — had been charged in a U.S. racketeering case.
Kazarian, 46, of Glendale, Calif., and two alleged ringleaders — Davit Mirzoyan, 34, also of Glendale, and Robert Terdjanian, 35, of Brooklyn — were named in an indictment charging racketeering conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and identity theft.
The indictment accused Terdjanian and others of hatching other schemes involving stolen credit cards, untaxed cigarettes and counterfeit Viagra. It also alleges that during a meeting last year at a Brighton Beach restaurant, Terdjanian pulled a knife on someone who owed him money “and threatened to disembowel the individual if the debt was not paid.”
A judge jailed Terdjanian without bail on Wednesday at a brief hearing. Afterward, his attorney said his client denies the charges.
Kazarian and Mirzoyan were scheduled to appear in court Wednesday in Los Angeles.
Authorities began the New York-based investigation after information on 2,900 Medicare patients in upstate New York — including Social Security numbers and dates of birth — were reported stolen.
The defendants in the New York case also had stolen the identities of doctors and set up 118 phantom clinics in 25 states, authorities said. The names were used to submit fake bills for care that was never given, they said.
Some of the phony paperwork was a giveaway: It showed eye doctors doing bladder tests; ear, nose and throat specialists performing pregnancy ultrasounds; obstetricians testing for skin allergies; and dermatologists billing for heart exams.
In the New York portion of the case, more $100 million in fraudulent bills were submitted and Medicare paid out at least $35 million, sometimes by wiring it to the clinics’ banks accounts, investigators said.
Most of the defendants “were Armenian nationals or immigrants and many maintained substantial ties to Armenia” and criminals there, the indictment said. Couriers would often carry cash proceeds from the fraud back to Armenia, it added.
Prosecutors were seeking forfeiture of real estate in Las Vegas; Palm Springs, Calif.; and elsewhere, and of a 2007 Maserati and a 2006 Jaguar.
The state has begun an investigation into the validity of a Washington Township administrator’s retirement, according to a spokesman from the Department of Treasury.
Dianne Gallets retired on June 1, 2009, and began collecting her $6,200 per month pension, which was based on 31 years of service, according to the Division of Pension and Benefits.
Since that time, she has continued to work approximately 30 hours per week, earning a salary of $50,000 for her role as part-time administrator, and $6,125 as the township clerk.
Mayor Ken Short said the move saved the township more than $150,000 in salary, health care and pension costs.
“It was a very smart business decision and very frugal,” Short said. “We kept all the knowledge and reduced the costs. I feel very confident that we were within the law with what we did.”
Gallets could be asked to return more than $80,000 in pension payments if her retirement is deemed invalid.
The state’s investigation began one week after the Division of Pension and Benefits denied retirement requests for the administrators from Chatham Township and Mount Arlington, who sought to set up similar arrangements.
Matt Giacobbe, a lawyer for Washington Township and Mount Arlington, responded with a letter to the state, arguing that the move was legal and decrying the investigation.
“What is troubling is that the State expects small municipalities like Mount Arlington to do more with less and now chooses to investigate the Borough for doing exactly that,” Giacobbe wrote.
Giacobbe, who did not respond to calls seeking comment, wrote that he had been told by Ken Hartman, manager of education programs for the Division of Pension and Benefits, that a town could rehire an employee even if that employee was already collecting a pension.
The state, however, said that while it is legal to rehire a retired employee, the retirement is not valid if a deal to rehire was set up in advance.
“Clearly, when the re-employment is arranged before an employee retires, the Division would have grave concerns as to the bona fide nature of the retirement,” Florence Sheppard, acting director of the Divisions of Pension and Benefits, wrote in a letter to Mount Arlington’s administrator, explaining the refusal.
Bill Quinn, a spokesman for the Department of Treasury, did not know how many of these types of deals have been struck throughout the state, but said anecdotal evidence suggests there has been an increase as municipalities have tried to find new
ways to cut costs.
The Division of Pension and Benefits, Quinn said, investigates those matters as they come up.
“They are trying to be vigilant about it,” Quinn said. “They are trying to follow up on the any cases that are brought to their attention.”
250K (190)-
Please either explain to me how any of those calls were wrong, in light of this chart…or inform us all when your mother dropped you on your head.
http://www.istockanalyst.com/images/articles/4684361960_dd127c3e87_b201064313.jpg
Settlement talk already? How about some perp walks first? We could all use a good dog and pony show.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101013/ap_on_bi_ge/us_foreclosures_states/print
250K (190)-
The Dow is priced in dollars, right? If you’re having trouble with #195, maybe you can discuss it in light of this:
http://www.quote.com/us/stocks/quote.action?s=DX%20A0
189.
“A Real Estate agent misrepresenting the truth – hey, it’s what we do. It never ceases to amaze me how dumb intelligent, educated people can be and for that I am grateful”
I say the same about the well educated idiots who will have the store of their life savings vaporized by an openly criminal monetary and g_overnment simply because they would rather watch dancing with the stars.
As I try to wrap my head around the potential impact of this situation as it unfolds all I keep wondering is, if the general public had any understanding of this situation, who would be stupid enough to buy residential real estate right now?
A quote from a realtor with 30 years of experience. Any questions?
System of a down:
http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/usdollar-index/
gary (199)-
Hey pal, we should both go back to watching Dancing with the Stars. The Dow is closing in on 12K (albeit priced in a worthless currency that is declining against everything more durable than Marcal), we got bidding wars in Glen Ridge (or Rock…or Rook), JPM is gonna double down that pesky little silver short, and the HFT gamers have figured out a way to make the markets go up every single day.
It is the best of all possible worlds.
199. People with money want a place to live and love a “bargain”. Case in point….still looking…and her recent move to upper snootyville. See? Even the most diehard skeptics want a nice place with a view.
Lamar (195)
Long Equities and Long Gold, Bitchez! (of course, Orwell’s sheep could make money in this market so nothing to brag about.)
Now please inform us all if your mother had any children that lived.
The treasonous JP Morgan crime syndicate will at least get squeezed out of the silver manipulation scheme. Whats the matter boys? Cant keep the game going? The vigilantes will continue their attacks until the manipulators are castrated.
Heres the article. http://seekingalpha.com/article/229890-cot-signals-short-squeeze-in-silver?source=yahoo
AG [205],
Net short 1/3 of total world bullion inventories. Yet, all the pundits claim it’s a bubble. Sounds like the bubble is the pillars of the Crimex, about to pop.
Lamar,
Watch this video. Youll love it.
Rollover 1981… world economic collapse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPYLJoq_40Y&feature=player_embedded#!
People with money want a place to live and love a “bargain”.
tick… tick… tick… tick…
[182] fabius
” If you are a hick in Montana making soup from the spine bones, maybe evolution has a plan for you.”
From what I know of Montanans, they are smarter than that as a rule.
That said, I appreciate the word, and I suspect that you are, by and large correct. The hunting community would be smart enough to lay off otherwise. I am more afraid of what I don’t know.
[207] al gore
Funny that they mention capital controls as the final finger in the dike. I have been seeing capital controls writ small for the past 16 years, most of them in the past year.
Canaries in the coal mine. A few have dropped.
BC,
A little Bruce for ya, just about 30 minutes:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/39560345#39560345