From the Courier News:
30-year mortgage rate falls to 3.94%
Depressed by investors seeking safe-havens, the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell this week to its lowest level ever, 3.94 percent, mortgage company Freddie Mac reported Thursday.
The decline could allow more buyers to afford homes and bolster the dormant housing market. And it could allow more owners to refinance, lowering their monthly mortgage payments and giving them more money to spend elsewhere in the economy.
Consider a homeowner who owes $250,000 and is paying 5.09 percent on a 30-year fixed mortgage that he or she got in 2010. Refinancing the loan at 3.94 percent now could save him or her more than $2,000 a year.
For example, someone who got a $200,000, 30-year mortgage at fixed at 5.25 percent last year was paying about $1,100 per month. That same person today can get a 20-year mortgage at 3.75 percent for $1,185. And if that person wants to go to a 15-year mortgage with a fixed rate of 3.25 percent, they would pay about $1,400. The attraction of the 15-year loan is that unlike longer-term mortgages, even on the first payment of a 15-year loan, more of that money would go to paying off the principal than the interest. Amity makes loans to borrowers throughout the state.
…
“The comeback is not here yet,” said Christopher Randall, a vice president at Real Estate Mortgage Network, a mortgage lender in Edison. “We are seeing more activity, but it’s not rampant considering where rates are.”
…
Brian Jennings, president of Princeton Home Mortgage, the in-house mortgage company for Weidel Realtors, and Home Capital Network, the in-house mortgage company for Prudential New Jersey Properties, said that there is money available to all sorts of borrowers, but they need to understand that not everybody qualifies for the lowest rates. People with poor credit scores or people with low down payments cannot expect to get as good a rate as someone with a FICO credit score above 800 points and a large down payment because low scores and small down payments represent higher risks to lenders. For example, a person with a credit score between 720 and 739 will pay more for the same loan than someone with a credit score of 800 points. Or, a person with a credit score of 800 points and a 40 percent down payment will pay less for a loan than someone who only has a 10 percent down payment.“We close loans every day for people with all sorts of credit,” Jennings said. “We have products for people with lower scores, but lenders are taking a bigger risk with them, so they will charge a higher rate.”
Good!
From Inman:
Home-price index falls 4.4% in August
U.S. single-family home prices declined 4.4 percent year over year in August, with Nevada and Arizona experiencing double-digit percentage declines and West Virginia seeing the largest increase, up 8.6 percent, according to an index by property data firm CoreLogic.
Excluding distressed sales, including short sales and real estate owned (REO) sales, the national index fell 0.7 percent year over year in August. On a month-to-month basis, the index dropped 0.4 percent in August, which was the first such decline in four months, CoreLogic reported.
…
Year-over-year index changes in August for the 10 largest U.S. urban centers (defined as “Core Based Statistical Areas”) by population ranged from a drop of 10.2 percent in the Chicago area to a rise of 3.2 percent in the New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.Y.-N.J., area. Excluding distressed sales, the year-over-year index changes in August ranged from an 8.2 percent drop in the Phoenix area to a 4 percent increase in the New York-White Plains-Wayne area.
“Consider a homeowner who owes $250,000″….not in this state.
well, finally, at about 6:00 P.M. last nite, my realtor received the signed written contract from the seller. Since it took them two days to send the contracts i thought “oh no….here we go again”: they are shopping arround and we will never see the contract (hey…happened to me twice already!).
Will have to reschedule with “das uber inspector”.
Of course we are going the FHA route. I assume once we close, the home will decline at least another 10%, however, I am tired of waiting and living in a shitty apartment.
Actually went online to refresh my recollection of the home: its not too bad. In fact, its rather charming.
Now…need to find an expensive combination coal/wood stove that is pretty enough to please the tai-tai. any suggestions, besides harman tlc 2000?
So at what point do these Bergen County shacks that are price at 500k and above for
30/40 yr old homes with 20k tax bills become attractive?
All this new refi/bailout talk is pushing on a string, folks.
The patient is dead.
The corpse has been laid out for three years now.
It is beginning to stink.
The stench of death permeates all, and the aromas of oregano, gyros and Ouzo are wafting in.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em. It is the end of days.
Extinction before recovery.
I don’t know if Will Work for Beer is still lurking around here but, if not, I assumen this might appeal to some of the beer fans here:
Asbury Park Beerfest, at Convention Hall
1300 Ocean Avenue Asbury Park, NJ 07712
Box Office: 732.897.6500
Asbury Park Beerfest
Coming to Convention Hall on October 8, 2011
Tickets Now On Sale!
Craft beers from all over the world, iconic retro beers, a cider bar and more!
Cheers to Beers! The first-ever Asbury Park Beer Festival is set to take place at Asbury Park’s Convention Hall on the legendary Asbury Park Boardwalk on Saturday October 8, 2011 (Columbus Day Weekend). For this unique event, there will be two sessions for beer enthusiasts (21 and older) to partake in: 12pm-4pm and 6pm-10pm.
Tickets are $25.00 in advance and $30.00 on the day of the event, and include an Asbury Park Beerfest sampling glass with ticket purchase.
Featuring “craft” beers from all over the world as well as the iconic retro beers of a drinking time gone by, the inaugural Asbury Park Beerfest, presented by 95.9 WRAT and the Asbury Park Boardwalk, is sure to be a beer lovers paradise.
The Asbury Park Beerfest will feature some of the finest and high-end brews in the world, beer that has been hatched in historic brew houses that hearken back 1,000 years.
The hard to find brews include: Arcobrau’s Zwickl Lager (Germany), Theakston’s Old Peculiar (England), Steenebrugge (Belgium), Palm (Belgium), Rodenbach (Belgium), Boon (Belgium), Duvel (Belgium), Weltenburger (Germany) and Grimbergen (Germany) which was first brewed in 1128!
U.S. beer makers participating in the Asbury Park Beer Festival include:
Boston Brewery (Boston), Brooklyn Brewery (New York), Blue Moon (Colorado), Blur Point Brewing (Long Island), Erie Brewing Company (Pennsylvania), Harpoon (Boston), Keegan’s (New York), McSorley’s (New York), Ommegang (New York), Peak Organic (Maine), Magic Hat (Vermont), Sierra Nevada (California), Shinerbock (Texas).
Beers brewed in the Garden State include Flying Fish (Cherry Hill), Cricket Hill (Fairfield), Boaks (Pompton Lakes) and from the Jersey Shore, Kane Brewing Company (Ocean Twp.).
America’s favorite drinking beers from a time gone by will be available in our special “Old Man Bar” which will feature some of America’s historic cornerstone beers including: Pabst Blue Ribbon, Schaefer, Piels, Old Milwaukee, Schlitz, and last but not least, Colt 45.
For those who love Cider we have you covered with hippie favorite Woodchuck (Vermont), the infamous Woodpecker (England) and Doc’s (Vermont).
“Extinction before recovery”
I think I saw then at CBGB back in the day.
then=them
People with poor credit scores or people with low down payments cannot expect to get as good a rate as someone with a FICO credit score above 800 points and a large down payment…
Any Questions?
“People with poor credit scores or people with low down payments cannot expect to get as good a rate as someone with a FICO credit score above 800 points and a large down payment…”
This discrimination must end.
#4 morpheus: What kind of mtg rate are you looking at!!
103K added to the payrolls in September; 45K were Verizon workers rehired.
Yes… We… Can…
Bill Gross on Bloomberg this AM said rates can still go lower!
What can the US loose or gain with a trade war with China? 2.8 million jobs were lost due to export from China
Nom [last thread];
Take heart that the BoSox beat the Yankees onto the golf course in October.
#13 gary: The market is cheering this number, above consensus and all of that.
Juice Box says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:19 am
Bill Gross on Bloomberg this AM said rates can still go lower!
Didnt he bet the house (no pun intended) on UST taking a bath across the front end of 2011?
Down goes Frazier!
Anon E. Moose says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:22 am
Nom [last thread];
Take heart that the BoSox beat the Yankees onto the golf course in October.
the problem is that we are fast becoming a NATION of people with poor credit and no cash…is it reasonable to keep tightening the standards when you are just shutting out more and more people? it is reasonable to reduce everyone’s ability to pay to a mere matter of a credit score? i know for a fact these credit reports are often riddled with errors, and the way the scores are calculated is far from scientific…many, many people in this country faithfully paid their obligations until divorce, job loss or medical catastrophe rendered them unable to do so…oftentimes after a bankruptcy they are actually once again very good risks, but the credit reporting agencies look at that “B” word and dismiss them out of hand, despite what might be DECADES of good behavior behind them…we need a more wholistic way of looking at a person’s ability to pay, one that more fully reflects the totality of their situation and not just the one really bad thing that may have happened to them
i have noticed that landlords are loosening their criteria for tenants’ credit scores because they simply cannot find tenants with scores in the 800s or even the 700s anymore, and they realize an awful lot of these folks were fine upstanding individuals before the event that brought them down…i just had a retired police officer who had fallen victim to foreclosure, a jewel of a man, never missed a payment on anything in his LIFE until the housing boom/bust took him down…had to beg a landlord client of mine to accept him with his low credit score, he’s of course turned out to be a perfect tenant, he has a retirement income of about $6,000/month so of course he can pay rent of $1,400–who cares what his credit score is? it’s a bunch of bull if you ask me
Sold that tear down house in River Vale for $110,000 yesterday. I will have the listing on the new construction home to be built on the existing foundation. It will be about 1800 square feet with granite, stainless, wood floors, central air, 50 x 175 lot and a 1 car detached garage. The projected asking price is $399,000.
New construction in a good Bergen County town for under $400,000. Welcome to the new reality.
#20
How can a person closing a credit card loose points for doing the right thing? Why do we loose points when there is excessive checking on your credit?This is needed when applying for a loan.If your shopping around everybody will check for your credit.I agree
Deb,
Those with a good credit score should be able to manage divorce, job loss, or medical catastrophe without defaulting on their debt. If you are not planning for tail risk then you deserve what you got.
Wasn’t that the lesson American’s learned in 2008?
Chi – true he told his clients to move away from UST. PIMCO UST long fund has only 1 billion is assets but is up 25% YTD.
http://quote.morningstar.com/fund/f.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=PGOVX
30 yr
50×175 land for $110,000.I guess that is the going rate up there.$167/sqft on the house seem reasonable.
New construction in a good Bergen County town for under $400,000. Welcome to the new reality.
From the source itself, kids. It never fails… it’s simply a matter of physics.
Deb – Your retired PO client should be down on Wall St telling his story.
Yo,
There are a few things that credit issuers are looking at specifically when determining if you are a good bet.
1. Amount of credit applications per period of time.
2. That you haven’t maxed out your available credit.
Imagine that I’m intending to game the system, lets say I got addicted to crack, and I’m out of my mind. I’m going to try to get my hands on as much cash as possible in as short a time a s possible to smoke it all away.
I begin filling out every credit card application that comes my way. I begin bringing every card to their limit. Bang, I default.
They compensate by punishing your score with repeated accesses for new credit, or “looks” if you prefer since the only reason why a third party would be looking is to provide you more credit. Since it takes some amount of months for a new account to start reporting then it is possible that you could have a large amount of debt not reflected in your credit report. This would make me very very very leery of you since I don’t know how much additional outstanding debt you have. Every “look” should be treated as additional debt until a few months have passed.
Those who are in debt trouble begin to pay off one card with the other and thus we begin to see it slosh back and forth between accounts. Any time you have someone holding balances on credit cards above a certain percentage you should start to get worried. This is why closing accounts could be a problem. If it brings one account above a certain percentage of total debt then you bust those ratios.
These behaviors could be legitimate but they could also be legitimately destructive. Since the credit reporting agencies cannot tell the difference they ding you for both. If you want to improve the system feel free. I would suggest that you use information technology to improve the way that companies can report new debt so that you can distinguish between “looks” as potential debt or just a glance from an employer.
Credit reporting agencies have to make decisions based on imperfect information and the end result is the system that we have.
Might be fun tomorrow….Oktoberfest in Warren.
http://www.americantowns.com/nj/warren/events/oktoberfest-2011-public-invited-1
[16] moose
If the Sox are playing golf, then at the very least, I want the Yankees waiting to play through.
and waiting, and waiting . . .
After years of waiting on the sidelines, I finally bought. I got a 3.25% rate on a 15 year fixed. Its an awesome feeling knowing that a majority of my payment from day one is paying down the principal more than it is paying down interested. Its also kind of a strange feeling that my rate is so low that it doesn’t even make sense to pay it off early. Even in this low interest rate environment, I can find low risk investments that can yield higher than that, and keep me much more liquid.
How does the bank even make money on such a low rate?!
Banks can borrrow at basically zero percent.
The End Is Nigh (Celluloid Edition):
Ban on ‘Human Centipede 2’ Is Lifted in Britain
By DAVE ITZKOFF
It’s generally not a good sign when anyone in a horror movie wields a sharp instrument, but by taking some editing scissors to his film “The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence),” the director Tom Six has gained the right to show it in Britain, reversing a ban imposed by the British Board of Film Classification.
In June that board, Britain’s equivalent to the Motion Picture Association of America, said that it would give no rating at all to “The Human Centipede 2,” Mr. Six’s second entry in a series of shock films about madmen who kidnap people and sew them up from one end to the other. Explaining its decision at the time, which prevented the movie from being legally sold or shown anywhere in Britain, the board said it was “sexually violent,” “potentially obscene,” and posed “a real, as opposed to a fanciful, risk” to its audience; the board also said no amount of editing to the film could undo its decision.
But on Thursday the board said it had certified “The Human Centipede 2″ for viewers 18 and older after 2 minutes 37 seconds of footage were removed from the film. In a statement it said the film’s British distributor “was required to make 32 individual cuts to scenes of sexual and sexualized violence, sadistic violence and humiliation, and a child presented in an abusive and violent context.” Among the scenes removed were the “graphic sight of a man’s teeth being removed with a hammer; graphic sight of lips being stapled to naked buttocks,” and, well, quite a bit more.
A version of “The Human Centipede 2″ is scheduled to be released in the United States on Friday by IFC Films. Discussing the British ban of the movie in an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Six seemed somewhat but not entirely disappointed. “I thought, my God, this is brilliant for the marketing,” he said.
Um, so what?
That’s the equivalent of saying “I started the Goodrich common stock fund on September 1st 2011 and we are up over 35% since inception…..”
Juice Box says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:44 am
Chi – true he told his clients to move away from UST. PIMCO UST long fund has only 1 billion is assets but is up 25% YTD.
31
banks create credit (money/debt) out of nothing
and you pay them it back w/ interest
Finally, some with a damn set that’s going to make the stinking buyers pay. Does my heart good to see someone fighting back.
Owner of palatial New Jersey estate ups the asking price
By Yahoo! Local | Local Philadelphia – Thu, Oct 6, 2011
Erin Wright, Y! Local
When the housing market crashed to earth with a resounding thud, one person’s misfortune became another person’s gain, as homes flooded the market at drastically reduced prices. Owners of top-dollar mansions also found themselves steeply slashing prices as their well-appointed estates lingered on the market.
But there’s a contrary view that cautions against turning things into a fire sale. Rather, if a sprawling estate truly is that special, and there are buyers with serious interest in snapping up a trophy home, surely they can unearth another million or two, right?
Forbes.com decided to do a little digging on just how many mansion owners were following that philosophy. Culling data from listing sites like Trulia.com, Zillow.com and Realtor.com, and with a little help from Sotheby’s International Realty, Prudential Douglas Elliman and the Corcoran Group, writers were able to track upscale homes where the ante’s been upped. The hike sometimes occurred with a change in brokers and strategy, or when the furniture was tossed in to sweeten the deal, or when construction was completed at last.
The research uncovered five mega-homes where the owners bought high and are trying to sell even higher.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/philadelphia/owner-palatial-jersey-estate-ups-asking-price-125752831.html?bouchon=504,pa
Chi – PGOVX – started when you were still putting on black eyeliner and Dave Gahan tried to copy Cobain and I don’t think it has ever lost money. Assets in 07 were 87 Billion and now only 1 Billlion. I get it that Gross made a bad call. I gather he did not think Bernake was criminally insane enough.
chi (33)-
Perhaps a GTG is in order? Maybe we can find it on a double bill with Hobo.
“A version of “The Human Centipede 2″ is scheduled to be released in the United States on Friday by IFC Films. Discussing the British ban of the movie in an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Six seemed somewhat but not entirely disappointed. “I thought, my God, this is brilliant for the marketing,” he said.”
My RE-related contribution for the day:
“Several years ago Paolo Pellegrini, Kyle Bass, Michael Burry and several other visionaries were well ahead of the conventional wisdom groupthink curve by not only sensing that the housing market was massively overvalued and riding on the crest of a huge leverage bubble (many others agreed) but by finding a ridiculously cheap, low theta way of expressing an uber-bearish long-term outlook with negligible downside and virtually unlimited upside by purchasing billions in ABX index notional at a cost of a few basis points, and watching it explode as one after another asset manager figured out just what “subprime” means and why it may not be conducive to a healthy career in finance. Virtually all of them ended up being very, very rich in just a few short years having had the foresight and, more importantly, the way to express that vision. Lightning may be about to strike twice as the Subprime implosion of 2007 becomes the Prime implosion of 2011.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/primex-time-next-subprime-trade-has-come
After years of waiting on the sidelines, I finally bought. I got a 3.25% rate on a 15 year fixed. Its an awesome feeling knowing that a majority of my payment from day one is paying down the principal more than it is paying down interested. Its also kind of a strange feeling that my rate is so low that it doesn’t even make sense to pay it off early. Even in this low interest rate environment, I can find low risk investments that can yield higher than that, and keep me much more liquid.
How does the bank even make money on such a low rate?!
Short answer, the banks would never make that loan in a free market. Who here would take that same risk with that same collateral? FNMA makes it possible because they buy the loans. The bank makes a profit on the sale, rinse, repeat. During the depression it was all 5 year balloon loans coming due, only game in town. A large number of people lost their houses because they couldn’t refinance at the end of the 5 year loan, which had always been the way it was done. Banks wouldn’t lend, houses were lost. The government stepped in to change the system and 30 year loans were born and so was the (almost) never-ending escalation in prices. The same thing is happening in higher education as we speak. Nobody would lend a $200K to someone majoring in women’s studies without a government guarantee and thus the (almost) never-ending escalation of college tuition.
Heck, we sure don’t want to questain or detain suspected lawbreakers when probable cause exists:
From a CNN e-mail
The Department of Justice has asked a federal appeals court to block enforcement of Alabama’s controversial new immigration law.
The law allows police officers to check the legal status of people when suspicion exists, detain them and turn them over to federal authorities. It is described by both its supporters and its opponents as the strictest state immigration law in the nation.
snip
The gubmint, guarantor of all those crap loans, is dead man walking.
Game over.
Party over.
Tilt.
shore (41)-
Illegal immigration is explicitly encouraged by both parties, as there is political advantage in it for both parties. Never mind that abetting this illegal immigration is toxic to what shred of our middle class still exists.
Clot,
I love immigration and believe it strengthens the nation — legal immigration, that is. I have little sympathy for illegals. This nation should welcome gifted contributors to society and we should stand as a refuge for those who stand up to tyrany and fail, thus needing a safe harbor. Those who break into the country in order to enrich themselves are criminals and should be treated as such.
A new venue…..
http://www.tauntr.com/blog/occupy-sesame-street-gets-violent
For BC Bob, it will be Occupy the Backstreets.
From CNN:
Iowa Republicans have set January 3 as the date for the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, two members of the committee that will formally decide the date tell CNN.
Drew Ivers, a member of the Iowa GOP Central Committee, told CNN that January 3 is the “consensus date.” Another member, A.J. Spiker, said, “The 3rd will clearly be the date.”
? Its a bunch of UST and there has been a 30-year up market……
Juice Box says:
October 7, 2011 at 11:23 am
Chi – PGOVX – started when you were still putting on black eyeliner and Dave Gahan tried to copy Cobain and I don’t think it has ever lost money. Assets in 07 were 87 Billion and now only 1 Billlion. I get it that Gross made a bad call. I gather he did not think Bernake was criminally insane enough.
Reporters will experience the joy of DesMoines at Christmastime.
A consumer should be able to shop around to get the best rates without its FICO getting hit.Consumer’s FICO should be based upon how many credits open and the ability to pay.Companies should be able to look at the report with out the consumer’s score getting lowered.Here is my solution:
1.Reporting of Closing on mortgages to reporting agencies should be real time.A Credit report should be pulled 10 min before signing,to check for any changes on the report.Which they do already.
2.Only one loan should close with in a two week span.To verify,again company needs to pull credit score 10 min before signing
3.Eliminate instant credit.If the Credit Card company wants to take the risk let them get compensated for it with the consumers approval.
Nicholas says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:52 am
Yo,
There are a few things that credit issuers are looking at specifically when determining if you are a good bet.
1. Amount of credit applications per period of time.
2. That you haven’t maxed out your available credit.
Imagine that I’m intending to game the system, lets say I got addicted to crack, and I’m out of my mind. I’m going to try to get my hands on as much cash as possible in as short a time a s possible to smoke it all away.
I begin filling out every credit card application that comes my way. I begin bringing every card to their limit. Bang, I default.
They compensate by punishing your score with repeated accesses for new credit, or “looks” if you prefer since the only reason why a third party would be looking is to provide you more credit. Since it takes some amount of months for a new account to start reporting then it is possible that you could have a large amount of debt not reflected in your credit report. This would make me very very very leery of you since I don’t know how much additional outstanding debt you have. Every “look” should be treated as additional debt until a few months have passed.
Those who are in debt trouble begin to pay off one card with the other and thus we begin to see it slosh back and forth between accounts. Any time you have someone holding balances on credit cards above a certain percentage you should start to get worried. This is why closing accounts could be a problem. If it brings one account above a certain percentage of total debt then you bust those ratios.
These behaviors could be legitimate but they could also be legitimately destructive. Since the credit reporting agencies cannot tell the difference they ding you for both. If you want to improve the system feel free. I would suggest that you use information technology to improve the way that companies can report new debt so that you can distinguish between “looks” as potential debt or just a glance from an employer.
Credit reporting agencies have to make decisions based on imperfect information and the end result is the system that we have.
Chi – Gross’s call to go dry powder may be right in the long term. The US government was supposed to be funding trillions and trillions of US deficits at market rates. Gross bet Bernake was not insane enough and he has been proven wrong, and now we are going to get about 2 billion a day in QE on the long end of the curve after owning the short end.
The very structure of the worldwide financial system, where the US is a debtor to everyone else is at stake, if we cannot borrow from our neighbors except at gunpoint then where do we stand?
http://newjersey.watchdog.org/2011/09/27/3575/
43 TOP NJ COUNTY COPS DO THE BIG DOUBLE-DIP
Investigative Report by Mark Lagerkvist
September 27, 2011
Forty-three of New Jersey’s top county cops are double-dipping from public coffers, pocketing millions in pension cash on top of their regular salaries.
A New Jersey Watchdog investigation revealed that 16 county sheriffs and 27 undersheriffs collect $3.14 million a year in retirement pay, using loopholes all but ignored by Gov. Chris Christie’s pension reforms.
Overall, the “County Cops’ Double-Dippers Club” includes sheriffs and undersheriffs from 20 New Jersey counties. On average, each rakes in $181,000 a year – $108,000 in salary plus $73,000 in pension. (Click here for full details) Some simply swap positions – or just switch job titles – to double-dip without leaving the public payroll. And it’s apparently legal.
Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura gamed $1.1 million from a state pension fund. At age 47, Fontoura “retired” as undersheriff in 1990 when his title was changed to sheriff’s officer chief. He never left the department or county’s payroll, but has received two sets of checks for the past two decades. Fontoura currently hauls in $200,000 a year – a $62,000 pension and $138,000 salary.
Morris County Undersheriff John F. Dempsey ranks second in the pension millionaires’ club. He ostensibly “retired” from the county prosecutor’s office on Dec. 31, 1992 and “went directly into the Morris County Sheriff’s Office with no break in service,” according to officials. Dempsey draws $63,000 a year from his pension, plus his $128,000 salary. So far, he has cashed $1.02 million in retirement checks while continuing to collect his county pay.
Others police officers retire for awhile, then return to take advantage of the system. Joseph O’Leary retired as Gloucester County undersheriff in September 2006. Four months later, the county rehired O’Leary back as undersheriff, allowing him to get a paycheck on top of his pension. O’Leary now banks $153,000 per year – a $96,000 salary plus his $67,000 pension.
Some double-dipping cops take a quarter-million dollars a year or more from the public till.
In Bergen County, first-year Sheriff Michael Saudino is on the fast track to retirement riches. He collects $268,000 a year – $138,000 in salary plus a $130,000 police pension. The dual checks began on Jan. 1, when he retired as Emerson Borough police chief to take office as newly-elected sheriff.
Three of the undersheriffs hired by Saudino have followed his lead. Collectively, the four Bergen County cops – officially listed as “retired” – receive $405,000 from pensions plus $473,000 in salaries each year.
New Jersey Watchdog found that three-fourths of the county sheriffs in the state are double-dipping, an apparently legal and widespread practice. Those sheriffs – and their annual double-takes, rounded off to the nearest thousand – include:
* Passaic Co. Sheriff Richard H. Berdnik, $251,000 – $149,000 salary + $102,000 pension
* Union Co. Sheriff Ralph Froehlich, $228,000 – $143,000 salary + $85,000 pension
* Camden Co. Sheriff Charles J. Billingham, $219,000 – $145,000 salary + $74,000 pension
* Mercer Co. Sheriff John A. Kemler, $214,000 – $129,000 salary + $85,000 pension
* Warren Co. Sheriff David P. Gallant, $204,000 – $122,000 salary + $82,000 pension
* Somerset Co. Sheriff Frank J. Provenzano, $199,000 – $123,000 salary + $76,000 pension
* Gloucester Co. Sheriff Carmel M. Morina, $192,000 – $129,000 salary + $63,000 pension
* Morris Co. Sheriff Edward V. Rochford, $191,000 – $130,000 salary + $61,000 pension
* Hunterdon Co. Sheriff Frederick W. Brown, $189,000 – $107,000 salary + $82,000 pension
* Middlesex Co. Sheriff Mildred S. Scott, $188,000 – $127,000 salary + $61,000 pension
* Salem Co. Sheriff Charles M. Miller, $183,000 – $107,000 salary + $76,000 pension
* Ocean Co. Sheriff William L. Polhemus, $166,000 – $123,000 salary + $43,000 pension
* Cape May Co. Sheriff Gary Schaffer, $162,000 – $108,000 salary + $54,000 pension
* Cumberland Co. Sheriff Robert Austino, $134,000 – $75,000 salary + $59,000 pension
The list of double-dippers also includes 27 undersheriffs in Atlantic, Bergen, Camden, Cape May, Cumbland, Essex, Gloucester, Hudson, Mercer, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Salem, Somerset, Sussex and Warren counties.
(Click here for details on all 43 officers)
RE: illegals
Here is an illegal sob story that ran on the front page of CNN this morning:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/05/us/immigration-one-family/
It’s shameless propaganda, certainly not news, and certainly not “fair and balanced.” Much disdain for “Faux News” out there, but what the hell is this? CNN disabled reader comments, naturally.
Double – plenty of out of work kids want to live in a trailer park and install floors. As soon as they move out someone should head down to Zucotti and tell the hippies there is a job opening for them.
From Boston.com:
New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner said today he may schedule the first-in-the nation primary as early as Dec. 6, marking the first time ever that New Hampshire voters would pick a presidential candidate in December.
“Any Tuesday in December would be a possibility, but that’s one of them,” Gardner said today, when asked about a Dec. 6 primary. “It’s not something I would do lightly. It would be done regrettably, but if it has to be done, we’re going to comply with our tradition and our state law.”
Gardner said that, from 1916 until 1972, New Hampshire held its primary in March. But he said it has been forced to move up the date in recent years, as other states have pushed up their primary dates to attract more attention from the candidates.
snip
Since Iowa insists on going a week before NH and NH is intent on being before the other states that keep trying to move before NH, perhaps the first primary will be before Halloween.
They should be packing — to go home, not to another state.
After 5 years in Alabama, new law has illegal immigrant family packing
By Gustavo Valdes, CNN
updated 10:41 PM EST, Wed October 5, 2011″
Uhuh-huh….
http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/698767/beavis-and-butt-head-trailer.jhtml#id=1672102
I guess illegal factory workers in the U.S. are cheaper than legal labor in China
Transportation Goods, Electrical Equipment, and Furniture Are Among Sectors Most Likely to Gain Jobs as U.S. Manufacturing Returns, Predicts The Boston Consulting Group
Analysis Finds That U.S. Could Gain 2 to 3 Million Jobs and an Estimated $100 Billion in Output as Seven Industry Clusters Approach a ‘Tipping Point’ Over the Next Five Years
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/transportation-goods-electrical-equipment-furniture-are-among-sectors-most-likely-gain-1570304.htm
2 guys buys a bunch of vacant lots in Paterson during the bubble. The partners fight. Years of litigation ensue. Finally one of them prevails and owns the 10 lots they paid $400,000 for. The victor is recommended to call me to dispose of the lots. We talk and I find out there is $73,000 in open tax liens. I told him to walk away.
Needless to say the guy was a bit disappointed!
Handling a recent tax sale foreclosure for a client. Place was boarded up and stripped over the years. I was the first person in the house in several years. Found a cat skeleton. Brought back fond memories of when there were new REO everyday. I miss the squatters, foul odors, dead animals and former mortgagors.
Protests may grow fast folks, batten down th hatches
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/page/3
The sad reality in America
from the end of the Second World War to about 1980, we had enough inequality to reward hard work and raw talent and creativity, and enough equality to build the world’s greatest middle class and allow poor people a reasonable chance to work their way into it.
And the distribution was the bottom 90% had 65% of the income; the top 10% had 35% of the income; the top 1% had about 9% of the income.
And those numbers have changed in the last 30 years. The 90% share has dropped from 65 to 52. The 10% share has gone from 35 to 48. The 1% share has gone from 9 to 21.
That’s a breathtaking increase in inequality, and I don’t think it’s good for our long-term stability
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/07/bill-clinton-economy-interview/?iid=SF_TS_Lead
Some Unemployed Find Fault in Extension of Jobless Benefits
by Shaila Dewan
Friday, October 7, 2011
Dan Tolleson, a researcher and writer with a Ph.D. in politics, has been out of work since 2009, except for brief stints as a driver. Still, he opposes President Obama’s call for Congress to renew extensions on unemployment benefits.
“They’re going to end up spending more money on unemployment benefits, while less money is coming in on tax returns,” he said, suggesting that the government should focus on measures that might encourage businesses to hire. “Far better to relax some of these outrageous regulations.”
Make no mistake — Mr. Tolleson, 54, has collected unemployment checks, saying he had little choice. But his objection to a policy that would probably benefit him shows just how divisive the question has become of providing a bigger safety net to the long-term jobless, a common strategy in recessions.
President Obama wants to continue offering benefits for an extended period of time, a maximum of 99 weeks, as is now the case. The measure is part of his jobs bill, which he once again called on Congress to pass in a press conference on Thursday.
If the extension is not renewed, benefits for more than 2.2 million people will be curtailed by mid-February, according to the Department of Labor. The Obama administration estimates that with no extensions, a total of six million people will run out of benefits over the course of next year.
Unless job growth picks up sharply, many of those people will struggle to stay out of poverty. Unemployment benefits, which average $298 a week, help families and serve as economic stimulus because most of the money gets spent right away on basics. Liberal and many centrist economists say that the economy is too weak now to withstand the shock of a sharp drop in those payments.
Still, conservatives contend that extending benefits pulls money from other parts of the economy, discourages people from finding work and increases the unemployment rate. Some Republican politicians have gone so far as to suggest that people living on unemployment are simply lazy. Even President Obama’s pick for head of the Council of Economic Advisers, Alan B. Krueger, has acknowledged that increasing unemployment benefits prolongs unemployment, as conservatives were quick to point out when he was nominated in August.
To some taxpayers, unemployment extensions are just another big government expenditure that comes out of their pockets and goes into someone else’s. Some would rather see the money spent on projects with a return, like building highways and schools. Others prefer freeing businesses of expenses like the health care plan and new regulations.
Even among those struggling to find work, Mr. Tolleson is not alone in his views. In a recent survey of the unemployed by Rutgers University, more than one in four respondents was opposed to renewing the current extended unemployment benefits. Three out of five said recipients should be required to take training courses.
Mr. Tolleson, who lives in Houston and whose last good job was working for a group that aims to replace the income tax with a national sales tax, said he filed for unemployment after a church said it could not help him otherwise. But, he said, he knows the money is not free: “They either tax it from somebody who’s making money or they’re going to print it — either way, the economy goes down.”
Theresa Gorski, a pharmaceutical sales rep in Detroit before losing her job 17 months ago, once shared his skepticism of prolonging unemployment benefits.
“If you would have asked me five years ago, I would have said no, because I always considered myself a Republican,” said Ms. Gorski, 50. “But now being in this position, with a college education and lots of work experience behind me, I find myself swinging more liberal, and more Democrat. And that would never have happened before.”
This recession has left more people unemployed for longer than ever before. In September, nearly seven million people were receiving unemployment benefits, and the Census Bureau says the payments lifted more than three million people out of poverty last year. Keeping the extensions in place for another year would cost $49 billion, the White House estimates.
Unemployment benefits vary from state to state and are based on the worker’s previous earnings, with most states using a tax on employers to cover 26 weeks after a job loss. In mid-2008, the federal government began to pay for a series of extensions that brought that total to 99 weeks in the states with the highest unemployment rates. About 20 states now offer the maximum of 99 weeks, but under Mr. Obama’s proposal, that would drop to nine states in March and three in April. That would leave most states offering about 70 weeks of benefits.
Republican leaders in Congress have not said whether they will support the extensions, but they have opposed them in the past. In a Congressional hearing Thursday, they expressed frustration that repeated renewals of the extensions had not yielded better results.
Economists generally agree that unemployment benefits encourage some job seekers to delay accepting a job, thus raising the unemployment rate. A study by the San Francisco Federal Reserve last year found that the benefit extensions had increased the rate by four-tenths of a percentage point.
A more recent paper by Jesse Rothstein, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, found that about half the increase was simply because recipients were required to look for work and therefore continue to be counted in the labor force. Otherwise, many would have dropped out. Only people actively looking for work are counted among the unemployed.
Though his nomination was approved by a Senate committee on Thursday, Mr. Krueger is avoiding speaking publicly as he awaits confirmation. That has prevented him from defending himself to those conservatives who have happily cited his acknowledgement that benefits may prolong unemployment.
But he has written that the impact was likely to be smaller in a harsh economic climate. In a study conducted between fall 2009 and spring 2010 in New Jersey, Mr. Krueger and his co-author, Andreas Mueller, found that only one out of five unemployed people had received a job offer, and that workers did not spend more time looking for work or lower their acceptable salary level after their benefits lapsed.
In interviews, job seekers insist they are applying for jobs at salaries far below what they are used to, in fields they have never worked in before, and are still not having any luck.
Preston Venzant, 47, who lost his job in Houston repairing commercial kitchen equipment, said he had decided not to apply for unemployment benefits over the objections of his wife.
“I don’t want the federal government giving me an incentive not to work, period,” he said. “My personal opinion is, you’re supposed to go find work, and if you can’t find it in the business that you were once in, be it a C.E.O. or a street sweeper, you have to find employment and your lifestyle has to change, so be it.”
After months of looking, Mr. Venzant said, he has gotten an offer that will give him two years of work, with free room and board and five weeks’ vacation. All he has to do is move to Russia.
Confused 64: 6 mil people over the next year, get ready to pay for food-stamps. Damned if you do damned if you don’t. Now if you want to go to the mattresses & cut that also these recent protest will look like a Sunday stroll. Que North com .
65.Mikeinwaiting says:
October 7, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Confused 64: 6 mil people over the next year, get ready to pay for food-stamps. Damned if you do damned if you don’t. Now if you want to go to the mattresses & cut that also these recent protest will look like a Sunday stroll. Que North com
The point being made is still valid, they are not trying to solve the problem, which they created. The Globalists have sold out the country. Maybe it’s time to go to the mattresses, as that may be what’s required to reverse course and solve the problem. A Service Only Parasite Economy is Invalid.
“The Globalists have sold out the country. A Service Only Parasite Economy is Invalid.” Couldn’t agree more & you may be correct on the remedy. Time will surely tell as it is going to hit the fan as “O” is not getting his bill by the looks of it.
12—- its a 30 year fha at 4%
64 –
Article re Unemployed Opposed to Paying for Further Unemployment Benefits —
I saw that somewhere and went to NY Times to read it. This guy here deserves some kind of “award” as “_______” of the Week, if not the Month:
“Dan Tolleson, a researcher and writer with a Ph.D. in politics, has been out of work since 2009, except for brief stints as a driver. Still, he opposes President Obama’s call for Congress to renew extensions on unemployment benefits.”
If he’s been out of work, he’s gone through all or almost of his unemployment. So he got his maximum unemployment and doesn’t want the people who came after him to get theirs — what a fair-minded and kind-hearted fellow he is.
And another thing: It would never occur to me to go bypass substantial government benefits to which I entitled for over a year — unemployment — and instead go looking first for financial help from a church. To me, churches are charitable organizations that only have limited resources so people shouldn’t go to them first for financial assistance. Tthey should get their government assistance first, see how that goes and then if they still have needs, they should turn to the church for help. The needs of Americans are far too great to be met primarily by our charitable institutions. I would have thought someone with a PhD in politics would have realized that.
toomuchchange [69]
The problem with Dr. Tolleson’s job search is that his future employer has to be yet nuttier than the candidate himself – so the field is extremely limited. Not taking the UE that you and your employer paid for is akin to having medical insurance and refusing to use it to pay for the hospital stay.
Fine. Let the guy Tolleson decline his UI benefits. That’s his business and he’s just going by his own particular moral code. But don’t judge others, especially with children to support, if they take what is due them. It’s a lifeline to many, many people and we will end up paying for them anyway through other social programs the longer they are unemployed.
Sure, there are some people who are taking advantage of the system but there are so many just holding on to what they have. In the past 2 weeks I learned that 3 more of my acquaintances have been laid off. It’s not pretty and it isn’t going to be easy for them. So before you judge others, have a bit of compassion.
#68 Thanks
well:
dropped the kid off at a wife’s friend’s house in dover. Tiny postage stamp lot. At least 3 bedrooms, maybe 4. bought at the height of the market for $300K. 300K!!!!
Lot looks like .09 acres. Getting hard to remember the insanity of the bubble. Though, I would have probably made the same mistake in a different town if the seller had not taken his house off the market.
Thanks grim for all your help in running this blog. Helped me keep my sanity and gave me info to ‘shut the wife up’.
Funny how all the “advice” given to me during the bubble turned out to be wrong:
+ borrow from your 401 K
+dont wait till your student loan is paid off before buying a house. Just combine it into your home’s mortgage.
+real estate always goes up.
I hope my sale actually happens. In attorney review at this moment. Lets see if we can get out of that, see what the inspection reveals (I should have actually climbed into the attic this time to inspect. . . DAMN… I usually do that), and see if I can get a mortgage.
worried about the appraisal. Not a single comparable that I could find. However, using the tax records, i did find a house that was on a little small lot and did a 2% yearly from the time it sold in 1996 to come up with my price. So I hope that the appraisal hits that number.
If I do buy the house, I suspect my skiing may be curtailed for the near future.
Why does shiller data show condo prices rebounding off soft landing level? Condo prices are stupidly high yet they barely fell. What’s up???
actually grim just ban cf from posting any links or ban him outright
(77)chifi
Here’s how to pass the bar exam’s essay day.
1. Learn the buzzwords.
2. Write your answer very messy except for the buzzwords.
3. Underline the buzzwords.
Of course, you can’t game the MBE, so that won’t really help you pass the bar exam.
And in case you were wondering Fabius, I SMOKED the MBE and the essays. Twice (in two different states and ten years apart).
Oy Vey!
Posts 77, 78 & 79 are not me…someone used my ID
Bost, Shore and Coast….
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/bruce-springsteen-dvd-set/1361093
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-foreign-insects-diseases-got-us-070735077.html
I’ve been studying buildings for over 20 years. It is safe to say that this building is the most aspiring one on the planet. Visit it once and you will agree with me!