From the WSJ:
Home prices fell to fresh lows in December, but economists say that a drop in the number of homes listed for sale could help stabilize prices in parts of the country this year.
Home prices fell by 4% last year, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index that tracks 20 metro areas. Prices dropped by 1.1% for the three-month period ending in December compared with the same period ending in November.That was slightly better than November’s reading, when prices were down 1.3% from October.
Tuesday’s report is the latest evidence that the housing market still faces a cloudy outlook after a six-year downturn. The inventory of homes for sale has contracted, reducing competition among sellers, according to The Wall Street Journal’s quarterly survey of housing-market conditions in 28 metro areas.
But a large potential backlog of foreclosed properties hangs over many housing markets. Other headwinds including tight mortgage-lending standards that show few signs of easing.
“These are times of continued, great uncertainty about home prices,” said Robert Shiller, the Yale University economist who co-founded the index that bears his name. “We might be on the verge of a home recovery, but then, maybe not.”
Others are becoming somewhat optimistic. Thomas Lawler, an independent housing economist in Leesburg, Va., said the S&P/Case-Shiller index should hit a bottom this spring. He said many analysts have overlooked positive developments, including a dearth of new construction and the falling share of homes selling out of foreclosure.
…
At the current sales rate, it would take about four months to sell the supply of homes on the market in Denver, Washington, D.C., and Orange County, Calif. That level is lower, at less than three months, in Phoenix and San Francisco, and has dropped to just 1.9 months in Sacramento, Calif., according to figures compiled by John Burns Real Estate Consulting.“The TV and the papers make it seem like there’s a ton of houses out there, but it’s been a shock to us,” said Andy Rysdam, 24, who is looking to buy his first home in Phoenix. He said he isn’t worried about buying and then seeing prices tumble “because it doesn’t seem like they can go much lower.”
But several markets still face supply-demand imbalances that could keep pressure on prices. New York’s Long Island had a 13-month supply of homes at the end of the fourth quarter. Nashville and Charlotte, N.C., had a 12-month supply, and northern New Jersey had a nearly 11-month supply.
Those numbers will rise if banks sell more foreclosed properties as they correct deficient mortgage-handling practices.
Good Morning New Jersey
http://mobile.philly.com/news/?wss=/philly/news/politics/state/&id=140815513
get a good look at the stats in the first paragraph.
From the Press of Atlantic City:
Bookings for shore summer rental properties well ahead of last year’s pace
Some credit the mild winter and the lack of serious snowfall. Others attribute it to the Internet or an improving economy.
Whatever the reason, summer is already on people’s minds, and real estate agents say rental bookings are much higher than they were at this time last year. Many prime properties near the beach are already taken for the peak weeks from mid-July to mid-August.
“People who rented in the past and didn’t (talk to) their agents yet had better get on the ball,” said Carol Baybo, of North Wildwood, rental manager for the Hoffman Agency in Wildwood Crest. “You snooze, you lose.”
Baybo said she doesn’t keep year-to-year records of how far in advance people reserve their summer-vacation rentals, but they seem to be booking them earlier this year, she said. Larger units and those close to the ocean are the first to be snapped up.
Summer rental reservations so far this year through the Van Dyk Group on Long Beach Island are up about 30 percent over the same period in 2011, said David Wyrsch Jr., of Manahawkin, who handles vacation properties.
“We’ve probably reached the halfway point of all (the rentals) we did last year, and this is just February,” Wyrsch said.
Graph porn from Calculated Risk:
Real House Prices and Price-to-Rent fall to late ’90s Levels
From NJBIZ:
Expert: N.J. housing market ready to handle outcome of foreclosure case
The Supreme Court of New Jersey upheld an appellate decision Monday morning on one of the cases experts say is holding up the state’s foreclosure processing — but the timing may work out in the state’s favor.
In the case of U.S. Bank National Association v. Maryse and Emilio Guillaume, the court affirmed the decision by the appellate court to reject the Guillaumes’ motion to vacate a default judgment of foreclosure.
The Guillaumes had contested the foreclosure on their East Orange property because the notice of intention was not issued correctly under the guidelines of the Fair Foreclosure Act, as well as several alleged violations of the Truth in Lending Act.
The trial court threw out the TILA argument and ordered the mortgage servicer, America’s Servicing Co., reissue its notice of intention with the correct information for the lender, U.S. Bank.
The Supreme Court ruled that the order to reissue the notice of intention was an appropriate cure by the trial court, and overruled an earlier decision that stated the only remedy for a violation of the statute is dismissal of the foreclosure without prejudice.
Reed Smith LLP, in Princeton, represented Wells Fargo in the case. Mark Melodia, a partner in the office, said the case could be a significant step in restoring “order to New Jersey’s real estate market, and is expected to help put the state’s economy on track to recovery.”
Jeffrey Otteau, president of the Otteau Valuation Group, said foreclosures in New Jersey were already on the rise in January, but the court decision could “accelerate” the process of clearing the backlog.
Otteau said the majority of foreclosures will arise from urban and rural areas, where housing prices are likely to continue to decrease — but that doesn’t mean the state isn’t ready for the influx of foreclosed homes.
“From a timing standpoint, this is really a much better time for this to all move forward than a year or two ago would’ve been, because the housing market is strengthening significantly,” Otteau said.
Melodia said the decision is “a key step toward resolving the many thousands of foreclosures that have been in limbo.”
From Time (I can not believe Alison Rogers is still around):
Housing Prices Dip for the Fourth Time in Three Years
After the Great Recession, there were some pundits who theorized that real estate would make a W-shaped recovery. With the S&P/Case-Shiller housing prices out this morning, it’s now clear that there are not one but two W’s in the chart — and that’s not a good thing. Index prices fell 1.1% from November to December. In other words, we’ve now experienced a quadruple dip.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that the market oscillations we’ve been seeing over the past three years are contained in a fairly narrow band. While the index is technically at its lowest level in five years, it really hasn’t been bouncing around that much compared with the collapse of 2006–08. In fact, at any time in the past three years, you could have said that “the housing market is at 2003–04 prices,” and you would have been right.
In other words, in 2006, real estate prices were a boxer that got knocked out and hit the mat, hard. The past three years have been a story of watching him struggle to get up again and fail repeatedly. He’s on his knees, but at least he hasn’t fallen to the floor again, either.
Currently, the 20-city Case-Shiller index is down 33.8% from peak housing prices in the summer of 2006. That puts it back at the levels of mid-2003.
From # 2:
“5.8 million Pennsylvanians working full-time to support 2.7 million people on public assistance,”
So, there are two workers for every person on public assistance. Plus those two workers are also supporting another person collecting social security. Do the math. Every worker in PA, and I bet most other big states, is carrying someone else on his or her back, in addition to supporting their own family.
Shore, yes this will work out well.
Another day in hell.
#6 – why do you say that about Alison Rogers?
>>So, there are two workers for every person on public assistance. Plus those two workers are also supporting another person collecting social security. Do the math. Every worker in PA, and I bet most other big states, is carrying someone else on his or her back, in addition to supporting their own family.<<<
It's this kind of shlt that pisses me off. The only thing I want to carry on my damn back is the military industrial complex which costs more than stinking public assistance. What?? You think that's corporate welfare and that we outspend the rest of the world combined on arms?? Shut the hell up– we get a damn multiplier effect out of that, plus we reduce the excess population and that's a program I can get with.
Shore 2 & 7 Dam that’s scary!
But several markets still face supply-demand imbalances that could keep pressure on prices. New York’s Long Island had a 13-month supply of homes at the end of the fourth quarter. Nashville and Charlotte, N.C., had a 12-month supply, and northern New Jersey had a nearly 11-month supply.
As for Northern Jersey, I guess the cost of food, fuel and healthcare insurance are things they’d rather not discuss; sort of like a traumatic experience. And finally, let’s not even utter the words “property tax” as this is like asking a military veteran what it’s like to be in the field of combat.
“5.8 million Pennsylvanians working full-time to support 2.7 million people on public assistance,”
From those with means to those with needs. Oblama must be proud.
Gary: cost of gas,no problem, the malls are only a short distance. except they close on
sundays. what a bummer
Currently, the 20-city Case-Shiller index is down 33.8% from peak housing prices in the summer of 2006. That puts it back at the levels of mid-2003.
Tick… tick… tick… tick…
freedy [15],
But Red Lobster and Olive Garden are open! Yay!!! :o
By the way, there is a nation-wide OWS demonstration scheduled for today. Suffice it to say that whatever happens is probably justified. I wouldn’t be shocked either way.
#6 grim: From my own unscientific analysis prices appear to be back at mid 2002 levels, and in more than a few cases even earlier.
Coming home from the Bronx last night at 10:00 P.M. on Rt 4 and Riverside lot was crowded, Houston’s, Cheesecake, etc. And on a Tuesday night. I don’t think people care about the economy, they will spend anyhow, in the belief that it will all work out.
#13 gary: The listing below in the land of Unicorns has a yearly tax bill of $17,000.00. Not Wyckoff, Allendale, Franklin Lakes, Saddle River, Ridgewood etc., but in the land of the Unicorns. Ironically the towns I mention above all have lower property taxes than you know where.
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index.cfm?action=dsp.info&mlsnum=1205433
When fresh ingredients are not served, salt needs to be added to fill the gap in flavor. It is incredible how much salt people eat. I think many get 3x the daily requirement.
Fabius Maximus says:
February 28, 2012 at 10:54 pm
All these chains are just serving up variants of the Sysc0 Salt Lick. Everytime I get dragged to Outback, I wake up the next day with a raging thirst, even if I stick to the soup.
2011 4th Quarter GDP revised up to 3 from 2.8, look like some of it due to one time items and first quarter 2012 GDP expected to be 1.9%, but if after the first quarter we see a trend up for the rest of the year, where does this put Bernanke and his no increases until the end of 2014?? The market s addicted to free money, and consumers will be constrained by rising rates; just saying.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-grew-a-revised-3-in-fourth-quarter-2012-02-29?dist=beforebell
But Gary: It’s close to shopping /short commute to the city /
Nicholas #127 from yesterday: I live 24 miles from work because that’s where the job is. I used to work 8 miles from work but was laid off in 2008. When you’re laid off at age 53, you go to where the job is.
Lib – my friend put in a bid on the house. I will let you know how it goes.
Nobody cares about home values anymore. This market reminds me of the 1990s. Remember home prices fell or were stagant but nobody cared. We were all looking at our 401K statements and brokerage accounts instead and bragging who got into netscape or pets.com IPO. The sting of yet another year of falling home prices will be more than offset when people open their 1Q 2012 401K statements. Even though people can’t touch that money and in many cases are 30 years from retirement it still will make them feel good enough to get the soup And the salad at Olive garden.
So a boss has two workers, Jack and Jill. They are both great workers, but boss was told to lay one off. Boss decides whoever takes a break first to go to water cooler he will lay off.
Well around 30 minutes later Jill grabs some aspirin and heads over to water cooler. Boss walks over and says I got some news to tell you, I have to lay you or Jack off. Jill goes well you better jack off cause I have a headache.
Jill says:
February 29, 2012 at 9:11 am
Nicholas #127 from yesterday: I live 24 miles from work because that’s where the job is. I used to work 8 miles from work but was laid off in 2008. When you’re laid off at age 53, you go to where the job is.
Jill [25],
You said what everyone of us was thinking. :)
3b #21: The 70’s called. They want their decor back.
What a day. I love it when working on a $10 mil project and most of the competent staff quits. I asked my wife last night if she would not mind moving back to San Fran to get that job at Facebook I always wanted.
hey everybody twins came last night I’m exhausted but everyone is doing well
Just checked my 401k today, Personal Rate of Return from 01/01/2012 to 02/28/2012 is 9.1%
Normally 9.1% would be a great year. But to get it in two months is pretty wild. That works out to a 54.6 annual return if it kept up, (of course it won’t) but still amazing.
People when they check their monthly 401K statement tommorrow will be so happy Olive Garden better get extra staff for the weekend. The wife is getting treated!!
CONGRATULATIONS!!
That is great!!! Twins are best you save a fortune by combining parties.
Painhrtz – I ain’t dead yet says:
February 29, 2012 at 9:39 am
hey everybody twins came last night I’m exhausted but everyone is doing well
Pain (32):
Congrads to you and the wife!!!!
#32 Pain Congrats!!! All the best!!
3b [21],
There’s a better chance of a 6 mile wide asteroid striking earth than that house selling for anywhere near that price on top of the $1425 per month in property taxes. Slice the price tag in half and it will closer to it’s market value.
#48 gary: Agreed. Scary thing is though at peak this would have sold at around 700K!!! The lesson in this is two fold, 1. It is a story of a town that destroyed itself with out of control spending. 2. Going forward the towns in Bergen Co with lower taxes and equal and in many cases better school systems will do better price wise.
#30 Jill: It is dated, but very well maintained. On another note the house hunt for us continues.
Re 40 – Jill is dated and well perserved?
LI has 13 months inventory no recovery near term. That plus foreclosure logjam was just unblocked. However, I do think on LI by January of next year once we are at maiximun inventory on market as it sells off it could be a slow recovery. All LI Nassau County goes so goes Jersey Bergan county. Same buyers.
#25 Jill #31 Juice
I worked in SF with a load of Super Commuters flying in from NY and Hong Kong.m One of my falback plans is, keep the family in Jersey, take a red eye from Newark on Sunday night and back Friday night. It does suck but it can pay well.
#32 pain
Congrats, now the fun starts.
Grim [4];
Real House Prices and Price-to-Rent fall to late ’90s Levels
http://youtu.be/pnuijDieOvY
Con’t [44];
This would be the ‘overshoot to the downside’ part of the bust.
Grim [3];
Rent now or get priced out forever?
#33 JJ
10.9%, I think is time for a sweep to stable value and lay low until NovemberM
Congrats Pain!! A Double Blessing!
Pain, congratulations. I hope they’re sleepers!
I have a 4 month old at home and she just slept through the night for the first time last night! Thank G0d! I’ve been walking around feeling and looking like somebody punched me in the face.
32.Painhrtz – I ain’t dead yet says:
February 29, 2012 at 9:39 am
hey everybody twins came last night I’m exhausted but everyone is doing well
[32] pain,
Congratulations. You now get to experience your handle in a whole new way.
After a while, I have some brewed beverage to drop by. But not yet. You aren’t getting out much at all, at least not until the kiddies build up their little immunities.
[42] fabius,
And I thought I had it bad doing the same thing between DC and Philly.
Could be, but the cash at near zero rates means with inflation 20 years in case would be a loss of 50% of money. Ben has set up a scheme where we can hid briefly in cash but eventually we have to move.
Fabius Maximus says:
February 29, 2012 at 10:32 am
#33 JJ
10.9%, I think is time for a sweep to stable value and lay low until NovemberM
Just booked a summer rental in Seaside Park for this August. Nice condo. Lady has everything there, towels, sheets, paper towels, TP, Bicycles, fishing poles, crab nets, etc. All we have to bring is food (and wine and beer of course).
3.grim says:
February 29, 2012 at 6:44 am
From the Press of Atlantic City:
Bookings for shore summer rental properties well ahead of last year’s pace
Thanks everyone, once I got home from the hospital I spent last night on the deck with a cigar and a sixer of Dan’s IPA
Nom looking forward to it I’ll send pics when I have a chance
Moose [45],
Overshoot to the downside? Here? When? I try to crunch the numbers from every angle and I still can’t come up with something that will make me sleep at night. $3000 plus in PITI per month for a comfortable house in a liveable town is still beyond ridiculous.
I never understood the complaints about lack of sleep. I mean when I was single I would go out drinking to four am and be drunk as a skunk and be at my desk at work at 8am no problem. When I had a kid I go to bed dead sober and wake up a few times walk around, maybe sit in a chair with a bottle or once drove to Dunkin Donuts drivethrough at 4am to get kid to pass out. I took a total of eight days off from work for all three kids. Heck one was born Holy Thursday. I got home from work 11pm wife went into Labor 12 midnight, popped kid out by five am and by eight am was on cell phone with client reassigning work and giving progress updates. News flash, Men don’t have babies. Women do. I actually miss getting up at night, house is peaceful. I have staff today who crack me up with their kids. I was in busy season with the second one and was getting home at 11pm every night. I always took night shift as wife was exhausted havin a one year old and an infant. She shove kid in my arms along with some food to put in mircrowave. Personally I can go long stretches without sleeping. Record is I was up once form nine am Sunday till ten pm Friday once. Friday started to get really freeky. But I still managed to drive 60 miles that day. Of course singing with window open. Now staff is like I Need Manterniy leave, flex time, nanny, maid, mom helping, telecommuting, jesus, in Bronx ladies had five kids under ten years of age and a husband working three jobs. It is a wonder we still have kids. God bless having twins. I wish I had twins, it just is so cool.
Brian says:
February 29, 2012 at 10:40 am
Pain, congratulations. I hope they’re sleepers!
I have a 4 month old at home and she just slept through the night for the first time last night! Thank G0d! I’ve been walking around feeling and looking like somebody punched me in the face.
32.Painhrtz – I ain’t dead yet says:
February 29, 2012 at 9:39 am
hey everybody twins came last night I’m exhausted but everyone is doing well
Brian I have seen Jersey Shore, those “crab nets” will come in handy. Although Snookie is pregant so one less source of crabs out there.
Brian says:
February 29, 2012 at 11:04 am
Just booked a summer rental in Seaside Park for this August. Nice condo. Lady has everything there, towels, sheets, paper towels, TP, Bicycles, fishing poles, crab nets, etc. All we have to bring is food (and wine and beer of course).
[56] JJ,
There is something to be said for being conditioned to a lack of sleep. When my first was born, I would stay up with her on weekends, often not sleeping at all because it was just easier than getting up repeatedly. When the wife asked me how I could stay up all the time, I answered “Easy. I’m a Skadden associate. I’m used to not sleeping.”
Lesperance is one of the world’s best known expatriation attorneys. And the approach he discusses in this speech is eerily similar to the one I advocated. Spooky.
http://lesperanceassociates.com/wp-content/themes/lesperance/pdfs/DSL%20FFI%20Paper-Final%20doc.pdf
Gary [55];
A friend was teaching me to play Go once. It’s a territory-capture game with opposing black and white pieces. His advice was that if you’re having a hard time seeing which side controled more territory on the board, just sqint (no, it wasn’t an asian slur, he was serious). So, step back from your keyboard and look at the real graph from > 6ft.
On the real graph, from a 30,000-ft level, there is a definite overall, if modest, upward trend. It looks like there was some post-peak price support in ’09-’10 (FTHB $8k spliff), that is right in line with the overall pre-bubble trend. Then prices began to slip lower, less dramatically than post-peak. We are probably now modestly below long-term trend, with some continued declines in store (I personally think any further declines will be more real than nominal) — hence the downside overshoot — with no serious indication of appreciation above-trend for at least a decade.
[59] redux
And note that he gave this speech just after Lehman but before Obama’s election. I suspect that, as he has publicly stated, he is busier than ever.
Moose [60],
We are probably now modestly below long-term trend, with some continued declines in store…
I agree 100% with that statement but here’s the X factor that still hasn’t been programmed into the code: property taxes. It’s a whole different model now.
Please shed a tear for the poor wall streeters. sure, they’ll take donations
Andrew Schiff was sitting in a traffic jam in California this month after giving a speech at an investment conference about gold. He turned off the satellite radio, got out of the car and screamed a profanity.
“I’m not Zen at all, and when I’m freaking out about the situation, where I’m stuck like a rat in a trap on a highway with no way to get out, it’s very hard,” Schiff, director of marketing for broker-dealer Euro Pacific Capital Inc., said in an interview.
Schiff, 46, is facing another kind of jam this year: Paid a lower bonus, he said the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country’s top 1 percent by income, doesn’t cover his family’s private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.
“I feel stuck,” Schiff said. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach.”
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Bonus Caps
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
House of Mirth
Comfortable New Yorkers assessing their discomforts is at least as old as Edith Wharton’s 1905 novel “The House of Mirth,” whose heroine Lily Bart said “the only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.”
Wall Street headhunter Daniel Arbeeny said his “income has gone down tremendously.” On a recent Sunday, he drove to Fairway Market in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn to buy discounted salmon for $5.99 a pound.
“They have a circular that they leave in front of the buildings in our neighborhood,” said Arbeeny, 49, who lives in nearby Cobble Hill, namesake for a line of pebbled-leather Kate Spade handbags. “We sit there, and I look through all of them to find out where it’s worth going.”
Executive-search veterans who work with hedge funds and banks make about $500,000 in good years, said Arbeeny, managing principal at New York-based CMF Partners LLC, declining to discuss specifics about his own income. He said he no longer goes on annual ski trips to Whistler (WB), Tahoe or Aspen.
He reads other supermarket circulars to find good prices for his favorite cereal, Wheat Chex.
“Wow, did I waste a lot of money,” Arbeeny said.
$17,000 on Dogs
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
Still, he sold two motorcycles he didn’t use and called his Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet “the Volkswagen of supercars.” He and his wife have given more than $100,000 to a nonprofit she founded that promotes employment for people with Asperger syndrome, he said.
‘Crushing Setback’
Scheiner pays $30,000 a year to be part of a New York-based peer-learning group for investors called Tiger 21. Founder Michael Sonnenfeldt said members, most with a net worth of at least $10 million, have been forced to “reexamine lots of assumptions about how grand their life would be.”
While they aren’t asking for sympathy, “at their level, in a different way but in the same way, the rug got pulled out,” said Sonnenfeldt, 56. “For many people of wealth, they’ve had a crushing setback as well.”
He described a feeling of “malaise” and a “paralysis that does not allow one to believe that generally things are going to get better,” listing geopolitical hot spots such as Iran and low interest rates that have been “artificially manipulated” by the Federal Reserve.
Poly Prep
The malaise is shared by Schiff, the New York-based marketing director for Euro Pacific Capital, where his brother is CEO. His family rents the lower duplex of a brownstone in Cobble Hill, where his two children share a room. His 10-year- old daughter is a student at $32,000-a-year Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn. His son, 7, will apply in a few years.
“I can’t imagine what I’m going to do,” Schiff said. “I’m crammed into 1,200 square feet. I don’t have a dishwasher. We do all our dishes by hand.”
He wants 1,800 square feet — “a room for each kid, three bedrooms, maybe four,” he said. “Imagine four bedrooms. You have the luxury of a guest room, how crazy is that?”
The family rents a three-bedroom summer house in Connecticut and will go there again this year for one month instead of four. Schiff said he brings home less than $200,000 after taxes, health-insurance and 401(k) contributions. The closing costs, renovation and down payment on one of the $1.5 million 17-foot-wide row houses nearby, what he called “the low rung on the brownstone ladder,” would consume “every dime” of the family’s savings, he said.
“I wouldn’t want to whine,” Schiff said. “All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had.”
Vegas, Ibiza
Hans Kullberg, 27, a trader at Wyckoff, New Jersey-based hedge fund Falcon Management Corp. who said he earns about $150,000 a year, is adjusting his sights, too.
After graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2006, he spent a $10,000 signing bonus from Citigroup Inc. (C) on a six-week trip to South America. He worked on an emerging-markets team at the bank that traded and marketed synthetic collateralized debt obligations.
His tastes for travel got “a little bit more lavish,” he said. Kullberg, a triathlete, went to a bachelor party in Las Vegas in January after renting a four-bedroom ski cabin at Bear Mountain in California as a Christmas gift to his parents. He went to Ibiza for another bachelor party in August, spending $3,000 on a three-day trip, including a 15-minute ride from the airport that cost $100. In May he spent 10 days in India.
Wet T-Shirt
Earlier this month, a friend invited him on a trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The friend was going to be a judge in a wet T-shirt contest, Kullberg said. He turned down the offer.
It wouldn’t have been “the most financially prudent thing to do,” he said. “I’m not totally sure about what I’m going to get paid this year, how I’m going to be doing.”
He thinks more about the long term, he said, and plans to buy a foreclosed two-bedroom house in Charlotte, North Carolina, for $50,000 next month.
M. Todd Henderson, a University of Chicago law professor who’s teaching a seminar on executive compensation, said the suffering is relative and real. He wrote two years ago that his family was “just getting by” on more than $250,000 a year, setting off what he called a firestorm of criticism.
“Yes, terminal diseases are worse than getting the flu,” he said. “But you suffer when you get the flu.”
‘Have to Cut’
Dlugash, the accountant, said he’s spending more time talking with Wall Street clients about their expenses.
“You don’t necessarily have to cut that — but if you don’t cut that, then you’ve got to cut this,” he said. “They say, ‘But I can’t.’ And I say, ‘But you must.’”
One banker who owes Dlugash $20,000 gained the accountant’s sympathy despite his six-figure pay.
“If you’re making $50,000 and your salary gets down to $40,000 and you have to cut, it’s very severe to you,” Dlugash said. “But it’s no less severe to these other people with these big numbers.”
A Wall Street executive who made 10 times that amount and now has declining income along with a divorce, private school tuitions and elderly parents also suffers, he said.
“These people never dreamed they’d be making $500,000 a year,” he said, “and dreamed even less that they’d be broke.”
Andrew Schiff was sitting in a traffic jam in California this month after giving a speech at an investment conference about gold. He turned off the satellite radio, got out of the car and screamed a profanity.
“I’m not Zen at all, and when I’m freaking out about the situation, where I’m stuck like a rat in a trap on a highway with no way to get out, it’s very hard,” Schiff, director of marketing for broker-dealer Euro Pacific Capital Inc., said in an interview.
Schiff, 46, is facing another kind of jam this year: Paid a lower bonus, he said the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country’s top 1 percent by income, doesn’t cover his family’s private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.
“I feel stuck,” Schiff said. “The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach.”
The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,” said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. “Could you imagine what it’s like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?”
Bonus Caps
Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.
“It’s a disaster,” said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. “The entire construct of compensation has changed.”
Most people can only dream of Wall Street’s shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.
House of Mirth
Comfortable New Yorkers assessing their discomforts is at least as old as Edith Wharton’s 1905 novel “The House of Mirth,” whose heroine Lily Bart said “the only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.”
Wall Street headhunter Daniel Arbeeny said his “income has gone down tremendously.” On a recent Sunday, he drove to Fairway Market in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn to buy discounted salmon for $5.99 a pound.
“They have a circular that they leave in front of the buildings in our neighborhood,” said Arbeeny, 49, who lives in nearby Cobble Hill, namesake for a line of pebbled-leather Kate Spade handbags. “We sit there, and I look through all of them to find out where it’s worth going.”
Executive-search veterans who work with hedge funds and banks make about $500,000 in good years, said Arbeeny, managing principal at New York-based CMF Partners LLC, declining to discuss specifics about his own income. He said he no longer goes on annual ski trips to Whistler (WB), Tahoe or Aspen.
He reads other supermarket circulars to find good prices for his favorite cereal, Wheat Chex.
“Wow, did I waste a lot of money,” Arbeeny said.
$17,000 on Dogs
Richard Scheiner, 58, a real-estate investor and hedge-fund manager, said most people on Wall Street don’t save.
“When their means are cut, they’re stuck,” said Scheiner, whose New York-based hedge fund, Lane Gate Partners LLC, was down about 15 percent last year. “Not so much an issue for me and my wife because we’ve always saved.”
Scheiner said he spends about $500 a month to park one of his two Audis in a garage and at least $7,500 a year each for memberships at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester and a gun club in upstate New York. A labradoodle named Zelda and a rescued bichon frise, Duke, cost $17,000 a year, including food, health care, boarding and a daily dog-walker who charges $17 each per outing, he said.
Still, he sold two motorcycles he didn’t use and called his Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet “the Volkswagen of supercars.” He and his wife have given more than $100,000 to a nonprofit she founded that promotes employment for people with Asperger syndrome, he said.
‘Crushing Setback’
Scheiner pays $30,000 a year to be part of a New York-based peer-learning group for investors called Tiger 21. Founder Michael Sonnenfeldt said members, most with a net worth of at least $10 million, have been forced to “reexamine lots of assumptions about how grand their life would be.”
While they aren’t asking for sympathy, “at their level, in a different way but in the same way, the rug got pulled out,” said Sonnenfeldt, 56. “For many people of wealth, they’ve had a crushing setback as well.”
He described a feeling of “malaise” and a “paralysis that does not allow one to believe that generally things are going to get better,” listing geopolitical hot spots such as Iran and low interest rates that have been “artificially manipulated” by the Federal Reserve.
Poly Prep
The malaise is shared by Schiff, the New York-based marketing director for Euro Pacific Capital, where his brother is CEO. His family rents the lower duplex of a brownstone in Cobble Hill, where his two children share a room. His 10-year- old daughter is a student at $32,000-a-year Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn. His son, 7, will apply in a few years.
“I can’t imagine what I’m going to do,” Schiff said. “I’m crammed into 1,200 square feet. I don’t have a dishwasher. We do all our dishes by hand.”
He wants 1,800 square feet — “a room for each kid, three bedrooms, maybe four,” he said. “Imagine four bedrooms. You have the luxury of a guest room, how crazy is that?”
The family rents a three-bedroom summer house in Connecticut and will go there again this year for one month instead of four. Schiff said he brings home less than $200,000 after taxes, health-insurance and 401(k) contributions. The closing costs, renovation and down payment on one of the $1.5 million 17-foot-wide row houses nearby, what he called “the low rung on the brownstone ladder,” would consume “every dime” of the family’s savings, he said.
“I wouldn’t want to whine,” Schiff said. “All I want is the stuff that I always thought, growing up, that successful parents had.”
Vegas, Ibiza
Hans Kullberg, 27, a trader at Wyckoff, New Jersey-based hedge fund Falcon Management Corp. who said he earns about $150,000 a year, is adjusting his sights, too.
After graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2006, he spent a $10,000 signing bonus from Citigroup Inc. (C) on a six-week trip to South America. He worked on an emerging-markets team at the bank that traded and marketed synthetic collateralized debt obligations.
His tastes for travel got “a little bit more lavish,” he said. Kullberg, a triathlete, went to a bachelor party in Las Vegas in January after renting a four-bedroom ski cabin at Bear Mountain in California as a Christmas gift to his parents. He went to Ibiza for another bachelor party in August, spending $3,000 on a three-day trip, including a 15-minute ride from the airport that cost $100. In May he spent 10 days in India.
Wet T-Shirt
Earlier this month, a friend invited him on a trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The friend was going to be a judge in a wet T-shirt contest, Kullberg said. He turned down the offer.
It wouldn’t have been “the most financially prudent thing to do,” he said. “I’m not totally sure about what I’m going to get paid this year, how I’m going to be doing.”
He thinks more about the long term, he said, and plans to buy a foreclosed two-bedroom house in Charlotte, North Carolina, for $50,000 next month.
M. Todd Henderson, a University of Chicago law professor who’s teaching a seminar on executive compensation, said the suffering is relative and real. He wrote two years ago that his family was “just getting by” on more than $250,000 a year, setting off what he called a firestorm of criticism.
“Yes, terminal diseases are worse than getting the flu,” he said. “But you suffer when you get the flu.”
‘Have to Cut’
Dlugash, the accountant, said he’s spending more time talking with Wall Street clients about their expenses.
“You don’t necessarily have to cut that — but if you don’t cut that, then you’ve got to cut this,” he said. “They say, ‘But I can’t.’ And I say, ‘But you must.’”
One banker who owes Dlugash $20,000 gained the accountant’s sympathy despite his six-figure pay.
“If you’re making $50,000 and your salary gets down to $40,000 and you have to cut, it’s very severe to you,” Dlugash said. “But it’s no less severe to these other people with these big numbers.”
A Wall Street executive who made 10 times that amount and now has declining income along with a divorce, private school tuitions and elderly parents also suffers, he said.
“These people never dreamed they’d be making $500,000 a year,” he said, “and dreamed even less that they’d be broke.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Max Abelson in New York at mabelson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net.
congratulations
This is why the UK will always lead the world in Computer Science. I think I’ll order a load for my sons scout troop.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/technology-17190918
re: #63 – A song comes to mind.
They just found your father in the swimming pool. And you guess you won’t be going back to school. Anymore. But Captain Jack will get you high tonight…..
Don’t worry those nominal Wall St Bonuses will have no effect on New Jersey housing prices or Summer Rentals up and down the East Coast.
(63)
“People who don’t have money don’t understand the stress,”
LOL, perhaps, but they/we understand a different kind of stress, more stress.
That’s seaside heights. they don’t let the snookies down to the seaside park area.
57.JJ says:
February 29, 2012 at 11:14 am
Brian I have seen Jersey Shore, those “crab nets” will come in handy. Although Snookie is pregant so one less source of crabs out there.
Pain,
Congrats. Also, you may want to get them all excited about rooting for Rutgers from a young age. That way, when it comes to choosing colleges, they WANT to go to the state school.
“they will spend anyhow”
Why would they deprive themselves? First of all, they deserve it. Second, if they put the debt on cards and don’t pay, they can walk away from it at some point. We have conditioned people to act imprudently by removing serious consequences for such behavior.
I’ve gotten used to it. My wife is home with both kids so she is going bonkers not talking to adults. It is definitely harder on her. It is the same thing in my house, as soon as I get home she hands me the kids. Going to my job actually feels like less work. If I take time off it’s because I feel like she’s gonna lose it. Not because I feel bad. I’ll work through it.
My wife didn’t sleep much when she was pregnant either. So now she has crying baby while begging the toddler to go to the potty, add to that months and months of sleep deprivation and it’s like she’s been suffering under Chinese water torture. Slowly maddening.
I jokingly told her the best cure for insomnia is plenty of sleep (she didn’t like that).
It will be nice to have the baby sleeping cuz I just want my wife to feel normal again.
56.JJ says:
February 29, 2012 at 11:12 am
I never understood the complaints about lack of sleep.
Re 63, 250K or even 350K aint what it used to be. I recall my first day on Wall Street, August 1986 to be exact. The boss of my area was making 100K a year. I was told in ten years I too could be making 100K a year. In 1986 I was think OMG in ten years I will be making 100K a year and I will be rich!! Now 100K is basically nothing. The lifestyles my Bosses had in 1992 on a mere 100K would take at least 500K today. Heck my 1992 40K lifestyle would take 140K today.
In 1992 full shares in Hamptons were under 1k, a one bedroom in Manhattan was $700 a month and pints of beer were two bucks and cover charges were five bucks and a cup of coffee was fifty cents. We also had no cell phones, designer dogs, personal trainers, uggs, smartphones, netflix, organic food, starbucks etc. wastes of money. People on the books making 250K in NYC have extremely high taxes and high costs, if you are married it is practically poverty.
In 1992 on 42K income I had a share in a hampton house, had my own apt in NYC, a mercedes, went skiing, took vacations, a gf, and went to bars around five nights a week. Today that would take at least 242K. Sometimes I would hit this place by office with dollar beers and I would buy a round for five bucks for the four of us. Usually we would get two rounds each. So for ten bucks I had eight beers. Today, eight beers would run you $45 bucks. My friend was telling me she is getting a HALF Share in Hamptons for 5k. WOW, I got a half share when I was 22 for $500 bucks. Elementary school in Manhattan is now 40K a year, 20 years ago there still was parochial schools in Manhatan and elementary school was 2k. Prices of thing in my little blue collar town are not up much since 1992. But the NYC lifestyle prices have skyrocketed, from rents to a can of tuna. The guy in a paid of Levitown house with a used ford Taurus in driveway and two kids in public school cant imagine what he would even do with 250K a year income. But his same square foot house to rent same quality school and insurance and parking his used Taurus in Park Slope he quickly realized it would suck up way more than 250K a year. .
(73)
Yup, JJ and the CPI is running around 1-2%. Wait, no that doesn’t make sense, the numbers don’t add up somewhere. Hmmm
You can have NYC to all to yourselves. I despise manhattan and it’s pretentiousness. 3 yrs ago a non premium vodka was $12 at a g-d applebies.
JJ, Where I work it is like opposite day. Well to do portfolio managers, analysts and traders all live in manhattan and commute to NJ everyday. One lady had a baby recently and used to have an appartment in manhattan. I guess they needed more space or were finding manhattan expensive so they moved to Westchester. So now she does the commute from Weschester to Short Hills everyday.
I guess NYC (manhattan) is not the gritty city it was. Lotsa well to do folks living there now.
#74 NJ: Ironically alot of that pretentious etc, comes from transplants to Manhattan
#76, 3B, no doubt. we native new yawkers are down to earth. :)
CPI for TVs, Cars, Washer, Dryers, blah blah blah. All meaningless. In manhattan most in my building did not own a car, used laundry room, did not buy fuel. In manhattan it is cans of tuna, take out chinese, dry cleaner and shoe maker costs and restuaurant, drinks and movie costs. As well as Hampton rental costs.
When I lived in City rent was only real expense. I was not responsible for unit and electricity was only other bill I had and on a tiny unit was like 20 bucks a month.
Cost to do a load of wash, subway, pint of fried rice, pint of beer, share of hampton house was my CPI I cared about. Taking heating, auto, mortgage, re taxes out of equation leaves a manhattan CPI quite different.
joyce says:
February 29, 2012 at 12:30 pm
(73)
Yup, JJ and the CPI is running around 1-2%. Wait, no that doesn’t make sense, the numbers don’t add up somewhere. Hmmm
Shore that is why I keep in touch with Hype he is rutgers alum : )
Thanks for the well wishes everyone
Moose the only thing I see in that wall street article is a lot of grasshoppers fiddling while winter is coming. Schiff should know better based on who his brother is and well paid folks complaining about bills is tone deaf and speaks to poor planning.
JJ,
I recall 1992 as a time where hardly anyone wanted to live in the city and all the crap stuidios and 1brs were going for like 60k or something like that. Ah, the Dinkins days where you could walk into Port Authority and guys were screaming out loud that they needed to mug someone to drink that night.
Yes those were great times. Hos on my block, after hours bars on my block, crack houses down the block. Even six foot two inch men rarely rode subway by themselves after one am. Those were manly men days. I could drink a tall boy on my front steps, get drunk at st. Pattys day parade, bring a case to the holloween parade. I loved it. They have nancyfied the city. More like the vegas version of NY than Ny.
Dan in debt says:
February 29, 2012 at 1:06 pm
JJ,
I recall 1992 as a time where hardly anyone wanted to live in the city and all the crap stuidios and 1brs were going for like 60k or something like that. Ah, the Dinkins days where you could walk into Port Authority and guys were screaming out loud that they needed to mug someone to drink that night.
“You don’t necessarily have to cut that — but if you don’t cut that, then you’ve got to cut this,” he said. “They say, ‘But I can’t.’ And I say, ‘But you must.’”
I was told by a realtor at an open house in Ridgewood in 2006 that Ridgewood is bleeding wealth. All I could say is thank goodness that that town is exempt! :o
RIP Davy Jones…..
Abe Vigoda lives……
If anyone is in the market for a great cheap generator, you won’t beat this price on an excellent one. If you’ve got money to burn, get a Honda. Otherwise, this is one of the best of the Chinese manufacturers although the company is American, which might be the difference.
http://tinyurl.com/libtard-generator
Adoro me mostrar peladinha na web cam
with health code fines they could give that asian supermarket in the land of Unicorn, why would property taxes have to be so high? Ohh I guess its because no more fines at beemers!!!
Mama Monsanto has opened today there in Rockland County for a test run. They say people up there will eat anything!!!
From the Monkey’s? I guess Mike Nesmith is going to have to keep living on that white out money.
Marilyn [87],
Paint any building red and yellow, apply the hype, serve sh1t on a plate and they’ll line up at the door. The plebians love to be part of something… anything… as long as they feel like they belong.
78
JJ
thats the point, its different everywhere for everyone… everywhere is not nyc
“Abe Vigoda lives”
Maybe the Mayan calendar ends with Vigoda’s death.
Juice (26)… I suppose you can’t reveal the number. Good luck to your friend.
Poor Davey… loved watching the show as a kid.
Shiny getting slammed
Pain…congrats. Twins are awesome…when they’re older.
JJ..I did 8.7%, which isn’t bad considering that I was only 80% stock funds and have been 50/50 since Dow first touched 13K.
Plus he is in a great Beastie Boys song.
Every Friday in Lent should be Abe Vigoda day.
chicagofinance says:
February 29, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Abe Vigoda lives
Isnt great once again to smile when you look at your 401K statement. It has been way too long since that happend.
Libtard and the City says:
February 29, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Pain…congrats. Twins are awesome…when they’re older.
JJ..I did 8.7%, which isn’t bad considering that I was only 80% stock funds and have been 50/50 since Dow first touched 13K.
with Mama Monsanto’s new chain opening we have come up with the new Slogan:
You get your Fine Dining and Medication all in one great dining experience. No reason to go hungry or to the Pharmacy!!
Five Largest Banks ‘Should Be Broken Up’: Fed’s Fisher
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46574251
Of course it’s great JJ. But it’s even better to have avoided the retirement destruction of the tech bubble and the housing bubble. I only which I wasn’t as whimpy as I was to get back in each time. With stocks, I often buy on the way down. I’m just a puss with my 401K. I think I got back in at 9K on the DOW during the financial crisis. Still, I’m probably better off than the overwhelming majority.
The Monkees were great, RIP Davey Jones. I saw them up on the plaza in WTC a few weeks before the attack in 2001 and they were great.
BTW the Monkees were HUGE in their day. On one of their many tours Jimi Hendrix was the opening act for them.
Pain,
Congrats. Losing sleep when they’re infants (and you’re younger) is one thing. It’s when they’re teenagers (and you’re older) that it gets interesting. But that’s a conversation for another time…enjoy!
I love the smell of Napalm in the morning, but it is not for everyone.
Libtard and the City says:
February 29, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Of course it’s great JJ. But it’s even better to have avoided the retirement destruction of the tech bubble and the housing bubble. I only which I wasn’t as whimpy as I was to get back in each time. With stocks, I often buy on the way down. I’m just a puss with my 401K. I think I got back in at 9K on the DOW during the financial crisis. Still, I’m probably better off than the overwhelming majority.
what does that mean? most of my friends are first time parents in their mid 40’s. most of my friends will be 50 at kindergarten orientation. by the time they are older and going out we will be dead.
From a tax perspective no one should ever have a child before the age of 49. Financial aid does not count SS as income and certain retirement income is exempted. It makes since to be retired when your kids start school. The worst is to have kids in your late 20’s and be in peak earning years while kids are in college. Plus when they try to hit you up for weddings or help with downpayment you will be old and retired. Only downside is they may try to kill you with your own pillow for the cash.
relo says:
February 29, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Pain,
Congrats. Losing sleep when they’re infants (and you’re younger) is one thing. It’s when they’re teenagers (and you’re older) that it gets interesting. But that’s a conversation for another time…enjoy!
#21 3b, just saw that listing in the lunar town of RE. You might remember, my mother lives in that town and is paying now over 13k a year in property taxes. Now, as a young homeowner, how on earth could I afford a mortgage plus over 1k a year just for prop taxes which keep on going up up up and away to the moon. Well, schools are good, so I guess it is worth it because good schools = smarter kids (sarcasm)
I think when I bought in South Bergen a few years ago, her taxes were about $10k a year which was a major deterrent to me buying in RE. Totally nuts.
#7 Shore
Don’t forget there is another part of that equation. Apologies for thee source, but it was the only example of the map I could find on my mobile.
http://www.alternet.org/story/154338/ayn_rand_worshippers_should_face_facts:_blue_states_are_the_providers,_red_states_are_the_parasites
104: JJ:
Jeez, now you tell me. As always, I defer to your omniscience. My only regret in having kids “early” is that this blog was not around to impart your wisdom to them instead of the usual nursery rhymes, etc.
106: Cue Westy ;)
Gary,
Yes property taxes are part of the equation, but still, even at $15,000 per year, it’s a bargain if you have kids in a good school system.
It’s all turning to shit. Another manipulated raid on shiny, Davy Jones geeked, cold rain and the continuing slow rot of everything.
Lib that generator is abit underpowered for a standard house. I was in Costco at the weekend and they had a 9000 watt for$700.
My next project is battery backup for my freezers with a charge controler and solar recharge. That way I don’t have to worry about having to fire up the generator.
Lib [109],
I cannot picture you saying that. Seriously? 15K for the average size home in a decent town is ridiculous. Ridiculous! But the point is, the “affordibility” factor in discussing house prices goes out the window when property taxes are put into the equation.
The argument whether high taxes is worth it or not is a totally separate issue from being able to afford the mortgage. Even if the insane property taxes are justified, that means the 600K priced house today will depreciate YOY on a long term basis instead of appreciate. Sky high taxes? Fine. Then, throw equity out the window. In this case, it’s better to rent indefinitely.
Fab,
It’s good enough to run the computer, the tv, the fridge and some lights. I didn’t recommend it to power the whole house tho. To spend $700 on a Chinese generator that might not work when you need it is crazy. Better off stepping up to an NG Generac at that point. The generator I recommended, kept our sanity through our 6 day outage back during Irene. I start it every month and let it run for 5 minutes. I also put Stabil in the gas. It starts and runs like a champ. If it doesn’t, no biggie, just run out and get another one.
Fab [106];
And yet still the blue states champion expanded redistribution while red states oppose it. Lefties talk down their noses at their perceived inferiors ‘voting against their self interest’. There must be something in it for the blues — and its power; the arrogant self-affirmation that they are the smartest guy in the room and know better than anyone/everyone else how to run their lives for them.
Actually if I had to do it over again. I would have had a quickie marriage to my college GF, dumb me did not want to as although she was hot I knew it would end in divorce. In retrospect should have married herat 23, had 2-3 kids and divorced by 29. Spent 30 to 45 single then remarried a young hottie and banged out another 2-3 kids. If it all went to plan have the first two kids boys, the next four kids girls and last kids a boy. That way when I want to escape first wife I have two older sons to hang out with at the bars and nightclubs. I have three older daughters to help me out when I am old ad with the youngest a son I can learn from my mistakes from two older sons who mostly likely will be in rehab or reality tv stars and raise that one right.
relo says:
February 29, 2012 at 2:34 pm
104: JJ:
Jeez, now you tell me. As always, I defer to your omniscience. My only regret in having kids “early” is that this blog was not around to impart your wisdom to them instead of the usual nursery rhymes, etc.
John,
I am sure your wife agrees.
thanks Lib
Fab from that article
We didn’t ship them our hard-earned tax dollars to see them squandered on worse-than-useless abstinence-only education, textbooks that teach creationism, crisis-pregnancy misinformation centers, subsidies for GMO crops and oil companies, and so on.
the one thing the moron author fails to realize is why send it all. If they want to live in a state of idiocy let them. I think the author likes the smell of their own farts as their elitism is showing. It is lost on this moron that why tax for these things at all, nor should the government pick winners and losers through subsidies. I don’t think the idiot ever read Atlas shrugged nor looked around their blue state utopia. This moron dosen’t have an issue with the taxation. The problem it is that the majority of it is not going to support their socialist dreams. Rather it is being wasted on ungrateful boobs who don’t understand the glory of their progresssive vision.
Thanks for getting me pi$$ed off
Con’t [114];
Besides, this is just more leftie trope that since they’ve imposed themselves into other’s lives by giving them something (asked-for or not) like a dam, airport, etc., those people no longer have the right to object. It’s been dealt with here before (by West, as I recall). The left can’t steal people’s money, throw a bit of it back at them, and claim to have bought off their victim’s right to object.
Gary,
I’m not calling it justified, but it’s a lot less ludicrous then paying $25,000 to send Grayson to private kindergarten. Imagine if you have twins like Pain?
Now the rent argument is moot as the landlords will just jack the rents up to cover the tax increases. Think they won’t? The lack of affordability of homes in our area (taxes too) have the rents increasing like crazy. No one can save in this economy for the necessary DP to buy a home so there’s much more competition for what rentals are available.
Whether you’re a renter or an owner, you still want the best schools and the shortest rail commute to the city. I think the average Schmoe would pay $15,000 per year to have these things rather than pay $10,000 per year, lose another hour of their day on a longer commute and have to subsidize their children’s public schooling with classes from the local learning center. Certainly $416 per month is worth that. No? And you don’t think the loonies running these train towns don’t know that?
Earlier today a friend sent me a link to an article that said that men prefer women with a BMI in the 20s and that the fashion models that women yearn to look like have BMIs in the teens and ratios of hips to waists that are lower than that of males, and that men don’t like that. My question for the guys around here is whether they prefer a woman of the runway-model type, of the Christina Hendricks type http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/archive/2010/10/1_123125_123050_2240796_2270148_101012_cb_animatedgifofchristinahendricksbutt.gif, or somewhere in between or beyond those points.
One of the big problems which gets overlooked in”good school” towns is the pressure put on the kids to out do one another, it is like a giant p-ssing contest on who has the latest handbag or jeans. When I was a kid, I dated a girl who went to Ridgewood HS, which happened to have a high suicide rate and was fiercely competitive.
#21 tbw: I disagee only in that it is prevelant in ALL of the towns.
#19 Lib: No one can save in this economy for the necessary DP to buy a home
FHA?? Just saying.
re: #120 – Shore, BMI? When I was 14 all I wanted was a girl with a big chest. Now that I am in my 40s all I want is a girl with a big chest. Any questions?
kate upton was turned down as a victoria secrets model as she is too curvey and her breasts are too big.
Shore Guy says:
February 29, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Earlier today a friend sent me a link to an article that said that men prefer women with a BMI in the 20s and that the fashion models that women
#19 Lib: and have to subsidize their children’s public schooling with classes from the local learning center.
Alot of people are doing that anyhow, because in many cases they are not getting it from the local Blue Ribbony school system. Alot of these so called “better schools” are not, and I speak form experience, and with other parents that have had the same issues. It may be different in Glen Ridge, but in other places it is not, your guy is young yet, so too early for you to tell. Also alot of these blue ribbony schools good on the elementary level, and than they decline on the middle school and high school level.
3b,
FHA is expensive and about to get even more expensive. It also doesn’t help that people have a fear of housing, justifiably.
Stu,
No one can save in this economy for the necessary DP to buy a home so there’s much more competition for what rentals are available.
Understood, and that’s fine. And the train towns run by the loonies can get as looney as they want to be. It’s inevitable though, that house prices are going to continue to fall until the PITI is affordable based on long term trend. And as far as schools go, there is the alternative to private schools in the form of Jewish, Christian, Muslim schools, etc. which are much cheaper than private and offer the same level of education.
Shore, your mind’s in the gutter again. please proceed. :)
#09 Lib: The problem is even with two incomes, the property taxes are a killer for many people (except the people that live in JJ’s world). I know people who have not gotten raises in 3 or 4 years, and yet property taxes have been increasing 5 to 7% or more a year for years now.
#27 Lib: True, but even the increase is not that bad compared to trying to save 20%, so my point is if people cannot even save 3.5% for a down payment than they should not be buying period.
We are looking now, and can put down 20% and more, but the thought of putting all that money down and than it is gone, does not sit well with us.
And even though we are out looking, and would like to buy this year, I still believe prices will continue to fall.
#05 tbw: Yes I remember you telling me, and 13k on one of those ranches down around Valley/Howland is insane. RE has shot itself in the foot with the out of control spending. Meanwhile Oradell is fighting tooth and nail to get the funding formula for the regional school system changed. You dodged a bullet by not buying there.
Fuel costs, insurance, pension fundings, health care costs and contract mandated raises for union employees cuase costs to rise 5-7% each year which is why your taxes rise 5-7% each year. My taxes started out at $5,900 11 years ago, at time we could have got a bigger house with taxes or $8,900. But 11 years of 6% on $5.900 is a lot less than 11 years of 6% on $8,900. High end homes are getting killed with taxes.
Bigger issues will also effect these houses. High end homes take longer to foreclosure on, inventories on high end high tax homes are rising, high end homes are usually further from cities and as gas and fuel rise become less desirable. High end homes have 5-6 bedrooms at a time lots of families stop at two kids. As these factors cause high end homes prices to fall in 2012 to 2013 the bright side is you can greive in 2014 your taxes as the home will be worth less. Syosset Long Island has crazy high RE taxes. I see homes listed there at 999K with 36K property tax. Now that is a manly RE tax.
3B says:
February 29, 2012 at 3:24 pm
#09 Lib: The problem is even with two incomes, the property taxes are a killer for many people (except the people that live in JJ’s world). I know people who have not gotten raises in 3 or 4 years, and yet property taxes have been increasing 5 to 7% or more a year for years now.
3B,
I think there’s a big difference between towns who think they’re sh1t don’t stink versus towns whose sh1t don’t stink. I know there’s a big difference between Montclair (supposedly good schools) versus Glen Ridge (top 5 in the state). I’ve seen in it in their practices. My son gets a lot of homework. In Montclair, homework is frowned upon. In Montclair, they teach from a text book. In Glen Ridge, they use worksheets to reinforce the lessons, but no textbooks. This fosters critical thinking. Only time will tell if this is not the case in the higher grades, but then again, I’m really not that picky. I graduated from East Brunswick High School which was a good school, but not top ten.
JJ Kate Upton makes me believe in baby jesus and I’m an Atheist. I dated a girl that looked somewhat like that when I was nineteen. I think my love for miss upton is me just missing my youth.
Lib seriously these twins are not going to private school. Why i moverd to one of those “good” districts
#87 Beemers is gone!!! And the shopping center where that market is located is a dump; it always has been.
Obviously with that spelling i’m the product of an Abbott district. Garfield b!tches
3B,
I’m not saying housing prices are not prone to fall further. If I recall correctly, I called for a 40% drop peak to bottom. And I’m one of those suckas who is suffering through limited increases. I make 1.6% more today, than I did in October of 2007. If it weren’t for the increased rental demand for my multi, I would be in a much tighter position financially. But I honestly think (at least at this point), that one is better off buying than renting. Keep in mind, in 30 years, I will have something and the interest deduction on top of it. I’m not sure it will be worth much more than it is today, but it should be able to pay for my son’s education. That’s my plan.
“Obviously with that spelling i’m the product of an Abbott district.”
Sheyit….look at my EB grammar.
#34 Lib: Understand, and note that not all towns are the same. But some who bought in blue ribbony towns are going find out the blue ribbon is frayed and faded.
Until three minutes ago, I had never heard of Ms. Upton. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.
Lib the sad part is I actually am. First two years of college were a lesson in humility and relearning how to learn.
#38 Lib: Understood and agree basically (we are starting to look now), but I don’t plan on getting more than I paid for it when I sell, those days I believe are gone, and property taxes will continue to eat into values going forward.
The twenty something/thirty something crowd are loaded down with student loan debt (mtg like size in many cases), this was not something past generations had to deal with.
House has been listed for 1848 days on Zillow. I’m thinking this one is due for a price correction. 2.3 acres…sheeeeeeit…there isn’t even enough room behind that house for 2.3 acres even if you drew a parallelogram in that guy’s backyard.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5205-Cottonwood-Dr-Lothian-MD-20711/35988209_zpid/
Shore anytime just don’t google Kate Upton and Carl’s Jr together. I’m warning you not to.
Fed says banking/housing improving in all areas NY area not as well; just saying.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-finds-housing-banking-conditions-improved-2012-02-29?dist=countdown
http://www.kateupton.com/
I know Kate’s sister who works for Jets. Last Fall took friend to game and we were talking to Christie Upton for like ten minutes who was at game. Kate was at game too. But she did not talk to us as was on sideline doing some promo stuff. She was already nominate in 2011 as SI rookie of year, she got cover this year. My friend was like Kate who. Meanwhile he goes back to office and every guy was drooling. I got one or two photos from game as Christie and Kate were near me. Now my buddy is like Kate Upton yea I know here. I know the sister like three years. Enough to email with her and chat on phone a few times. She is extremely nice. Funny if I was single I would have asked her out as she is pretty too. But then I would be at thanksgiving table across from Kate Upton every year and I think that would be trouble long term.
Shore Guy says:
February 29, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Until three minutes ago, I had never heard of Ms. Upton. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.
jj (98)-
Not when the balance is expressed in USDs that are rapidly losing value.
“Isnt great once again to smile when you look at your 401K statement.”
Clot (110):
No doubt, zero ounces of gold were sold today. No way anyone is letting go of the physical shiny anytime soon.
Today was just an entertaining dog and pony show courtesy of the Federal Reserve.
I would like my 401k re-stated in Uptons.
hype (150)-
Wait until the failure-to-deliver event. That should be more fun than a tractor pull for spastics.
Shore [141];
Until three minutes ago, I had never heard of Ms. Upton.
I hereby issue an order for you to appear at the next NJRER GTG and show cause why your man card should not be revoked, with prejudice.
Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.
This may be admitted in your defense.
I want to eat at Carl Jr’s.
JJ #41: Why yes, I am. Of course there’s that issue of you can either have the youthful face or the youthful body without spending a fortune on plastic surgery, and I have the former. But thanks for asking. ;-)
A 401k is not money. How great was a 401k to someone retiring in 2007?
Actually fantastic, they could have rolled whole thing into a self-directed IRA. Actually a lot of people say your allocation should be 100 minus your age. So at 21 you would be 79% in stocks and at 65 you would be 35% in stocks. Someone retiring at 65 in 2007 would have invested in their 401K mainly in stocks in 1970s/1980s and early 1990s and by 2007 they would have been mainly in bonds. On retirement date they would have been 65% bonds and 35% stocks in perfect positon for the bull market in bonds. Plus some stocks for rebound in stocks. Flash forward to 2012 and they would be 70% short term bonds and 30% equities. By time we have the next crash in a few years it would be irrelevant.
Double Down says:
February 29, 2012 at 5:03 pm
A 401k is not money. How great was a 401k to someone retiring in 2007?
You are same age as Christy Brinkley that is hot hot hot.
Jill says:
February 29, 2012 at 4:59 pm
JJ #41: Why yes, I am. Of course there’s that issue of you can either have the youthful face or the youthful body without spending a fortune on plastic surgery, and I have the former. But thanks for asking. ;-)
106
from the article:
“After all: it’s now a stone fact that the blue states and cities are the country’s real wealth creators.”
my questions:
Pushing paper around in the FIRE industries is wealth?
Farming, mining, etc is not real wealth?
“those regions are simply feasting off the sweat of our ennobling labor, and expecting us to continue supporting them as they go about their wealth-destroying ways.”
wow, just wow
Wasn’t someone saying something about skads of wealth flowing from Manhattan keeping up NNJ house prices?
New York City 5th lowest in country for wage growth.
http://career-services.monster.com/yahooarticle/worst-cities-pay-2012#WT.mc_n=yta_fpt_article_worst_citites_pay
157: Lots of people bought r/e within self-directed IRAs. Did not work out so well.
Why would anyone buy a low yielding investment that already have tax breaks in a IRA. Like buying Muni bonds in a IRA, stocks, junk bonds, corporate bonds should be in IRAs. Treasuries should not even be in an IRA.
relo says:
February 29, 2012 at 5:49 pm
157: Lots of people bought r/e within self-directed IRAs. Did not work out so well.
[106] joyce,
Those troglodytes in flyover country who do mining, manufacturing, agriculture, and energy production should learn to mind their coastal betters and not do too much thinking for themselves. Better to let Fabius do their thinking for them. After all, as a euro, his thoughts are even more pure than those of our Harvard-educated betters.
Funny thing is, who are the red staters sponging off of in the blue states? Not much of that coming from rank and file dems if IRS stats are to be believed.
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