Talk about whatever is on your mind.
Super Bowl Shuffle — 1985 Chicago Bears
Who is going to win the Super Bowl? The only important real estate is the gridiron in Tampa on Sunday.
Seriously though, if Pittsburgh loses this game, they should be
embarrassed. Phoenix may be the worst team to ever make the super bowl,
but this wouldn’t be the first Cinderella story for Kurt Warner.
So far more than 200 people have signed up for the free ecourse on
The Great Housing Bubble. If you haven’t done so yet, I encourage you
to do so.
Now that I have signed up for this automated email service and have
some interested subscribers, the next logical step is to produce a
newsletter. I would like some suggestions from IHB readers as to what
you would like to see.
First, some limitations: this is a hobby and not my profession, so
anything too time consuming is probably not going to happen. Also,
since I give away all the site content for nothing, and since I don’t
want to start withholding, I don’t see having a great deal of special
or unique content in the newsletter. This also means I probably cannot
charge for it (Unless you think people will pay for what they could
obtain for free on the site).
The easiest thing for me to produce would be a recap of the 20+ blog
posts I do each month. I could put the post title, hyperlinked back to
the original post, and a one sentence description of the post’s
contents. It would look similar to the Analysis tab on the IHB (which we updated, BTW). With this brief rundown of the
monthly posts, any of the readers who are not daily addicts can scan
the headlines and see if any of the last month’s posts might be of
interest to them. I envision this newsletter as an aid to the less
frequent readers.
I could also add a fresh monthly recap of the major news items and
links to other great stories and blog posts I come across each month.
This would be unique to the newsletter, and it would not take too much
time.
This is where I run out of ideas. Any other suggestions for items
you might find interesting will be greatly appreciated. I can’t promise
I will provide everything asked for, but I will certainly consider
every suggestion.
{book}
For those of you looking for some entertaining reading this weekend, I suggest you check out this delightful rant from Shevy Akason. I love realtors who plead with politicians not to keep prices artificially inflated. Some realtors do get it.
We are also considering some changes to the blogroll. We want to
keep our emphasis on non-commercial housing sites with frequent
updates, although we will link to particularly good commercial sites.
Does anyone have any suggestions for more sites to add?
Here is a press release some may find interesting:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Carrie Bay
Phone: (214)
525-6788
E-mail: carrie.bay@dsnews.com
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Five Star Institute Hosts West
Coast Conference for REO Agent and Broker Education
ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA – The Five Star
Institute, an education provider that offers professional guidance and a
specialization in working with defaulted real estate, will host its first West
Coast Educational Conference in Garden Grove, California, from March 18-21. The
event will be held at the Hyatt Regency Orange County, and provide professional
education for real estate agents and brokers in the area of real estate-owned
(REO), or bank-owned, properties. DS News, the only news source dedicated
entirely to the mortgage default servicing industry, is the media sponsor for
the event.
Markets and communities along the nation’s West
Coast have been some of the hardest hit by the subprime and housing crises, and
many analysts warn not to expect a housing recovery – or even stabilization
within the overall U.S. financial sector– until we see improvements in the West
Coast housing markets, in particular in California.
There is a growing need within these markets for
trained professionals to manage and sell billions of dollars worth of REO
properties that have resulted from foreclosures by lenders, servicers, and
government agencies. The Five Star Institute enables agents and brokers to make
the most of this opportunity by educating them on how to successfully list,
market, and sell these REOs.
The West Coast conference offers in-depth training
by instructors who are recognized leaders in their respective fields. Courses
cover such areas as building an REO business, short sales, broker price opinions
(BPOs), marketing REOs, property preservation, and real estate and the
government, as well as a RES.NET certification course to help attendees
effectively utilize the RES.NET workflow management system for liquidating real
estate assets.
Derived from the educational component of the Five
Star Default Servicing Conference and Expo, the Five Star Institute was founded
in 2005 as an independent service provider that exists to address an
industry-wide need for standardization and education within mortgage default
servicing.
To learn more about the Five Star Institute and
its West Coast Educational Conference, go to www.fivestarinstitute.com. For more
information about DS News,
including its coverage of steps the mortgage default servicing industry
is taking to advance a housing recovery, visit www.dsnews.com.
Carrie Bay | DS News
Suite 500,
LB 11
Dallas, TX 75219
T: 214.525.6788 | F:
214.525.6794 www.dsnews.com
I’m rooting against the Cardinals solely because Kurt Warner attributes all of his success to his belief in God & Jesus, yet does not do the same for his failures. I want him to lose the Super Bowl, and then say to the media afterward, “First of all, I want to thank God and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for this loss.”
Can you tell I detest the thanking of God for victory in sports?
When people pray for God’s intervention in a sporting event, do they believe God actually decides to do so? If so, isn’t God basically giving the bird to the other team? If so, is this a Being you would worship? Won’t this Being give you the bird someday?
I can see praying for God’s help to be all that you can be. Everyone can want to perform their best. It is praying for specific outcomes that gets rather messy.
Watch Religulous. It will all become clear to you.
I have no problem with someone praying for victory in anything. Why limit God?
I have never heard Kurt Warner say he prayed for victory. I believe he understands that he has been blessed with an athletic ability that few people in the world have ever possessed. He has taken two crap teams to the Superbowl (a first) and is the leading passer in Superbowl history and a certain hall of fame quarterback.
Going from bagging groceries to that level of success in professional football has never been equaled. He also received the NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year award, one of many humanitarian awards he has won.
To root against a man of such great charachter or a team because he believes God has blessed him (and he tanks God for that) seems petty to me.
We need more Kurt Warners in this world and less bitter people in my opinion.
I also believe if anyone was to ask him, he would say that God, being omnipotent, does have the ability to change the outcomes of events, so yes, God did allow his team to lose the game for whatever reason.
That reason could be because Pittsburgh was better on that day…..
I made a post last Thursday that either got buried, or just wasn’t that interesting (which is perfectly fine and I promise won’t offend me.) Just in case the former is true and considering this is an “Open Thread”, I wanted to resubmit the post here:
Irvine Renter,
I have an idea for a future post, if you’re interested. Check this out:
http://www.ufcamerica.com/files/Affluent_Brochure.pdf
It’s a long read, but I found it very interesting. Granted, it’s a sales pitch (as can be seen in the opening page with a cheesy “dream house” and the red section at the bottom of the last page). And, a bunch of it is the same kind of rhetoric that fueled the housing bubble initially. But, that aside, I’d be very interested to see if you feel there is validity to any of the arguments posed here. I feel some of them might hold real wisdom.
I’m sure it would take a good amount of time to truly read, dissect, and write on this material, but figured it might be of interest to the Blog readers especially given [Thursday’s] topic.
How the Affluent Manage Their Wealth (PDF)
Wow! That paper is offensive in its faulty analysis and horrible advice. It is completely wrong on all counts. It might be worthy of a post. Unfortunately, it is a bit too long, so I doubt many people would read the whole thing. Although, I would like to call out the authors for peddling dangerously bad financial advice and making it sound like a good idea. It is yet another example of people providing self-serving investment advice that hurts their clients for their own financial gain. Mortgage brokers like them should have their own special place in Hell.
Haha… I’m glad you enjoyed the read 🙂 Thanks for taking a look. Especially due to some of the comments on the blog I saw last Thursday, I thought this might be highly relevant. Thanks!
Yes this kind of advice only works when interest rates and stock markets are moving higher. When being in cash actually pays you more. And investments are growing in gains. A more balanced approach in needed. High debt is never better as far as I am concerned. Being flexable is always good as well as having some liquid asset for those rainy days.
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=289004&cl=11797922&src=finance&ch=4535474
the majority of this advice is better than that pdf file–(but I would choose different stocks)
The key is DCA over time (dollar cost averaging) in high growth, secure dividends, high to mid cap stocks with secure futures. And yes diversification is a must.
allow your money to grow and reinvest over time and when you retire you have revenue without having to touch your principal.
This is what all of us should be doing on our own–no need to trust a mutual fund to do it for you as those can have huge losses from people pulling out their losses on top of the underlying stocks losses.
Double the pain—People need to learn to take charge of their money and invest it wisely in all areas. Housing and their cash–
hmmm i like what the pdf had to say. Now if someone can point me in the direction of a safe 8% investment? I was always under the impression that safe = rate of inflation and anything higher then that started carrying risk?
The Affluent Manage Their Wealth works with nothing down and lazy banks. Having no cash reserve is always a bad idea. The non-recourse loan and using the saving to invest will get the wealth ahead, but with a moral hazard and a bill to the tax payers. Maybe the new talk before the election is right in having retroactive recourse or at least having the forgiving of loans taxable.
Commercial sites? bankrate.com and irrationalexuberance.com
IPO: THANKS !!!!!
Great Realtor rant against Mr. Frank. I second it.
Mr. Frank’s unending liberalism and market manipulation of Fanny and Fredie to “help the poor” has seriously jeopardized the American economy and way of life.
He should be banned from Congress.
Irvine renter- Thanks again for posting my blog article. I think that it’s important to note that not all realtors are bad and there are realtors that share the same views as the people on this blog.
Alan- Thanks for the comment- comments on my blog are appreciated.
You may block me my post
if anything is related to realtors, real estate, it goes to end, you may try to learn from Rush L. or Obama who created flock to support with money to survive because:
–One side: home buyers
–The other side: Realtors / Builders / Banks / Financial Inst. / Gov. / Brokers / NAR / Land owners / etc.. who all need to sell high to get rich from buyers
Whose support you want, home buyers, do research on Obama wins, you can make it
With confidence
this should be a national movement to wake people up
http://mortgage.freedomblogging.com/2009/01/31/foreclosure-rescues/5824/
From Mathew Padilla’s Mortgage Insider column today, an article by the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Reseach in Washington.
“It would be easy to design these programs to be more effective simply by tying mortgages to rents, since rents never got out of line with market fundamentals.”
OMG, OMG, OMG. The first intelligent mortgage market observation to come out Wash DC since … while I can’t remember. He must be a big fan of the IHB!
and rents typically were higher than owning so what does this still tell us about the OC?
“It would be easy to design these programs to be more effective simply by tying mortgages to rents, since rents never got out of line with market fundamentals.”
I first put this idea out in April of 2008 when I posted my book proposal. In November of last year, I saw an article by the gentleman being interviewed, Dean Baker, where he called for linking mortgages with rents (which is the key suggestion of my book). After I saw the article, I mailed Dean Baker a copy of The Great Housing Bubble. I imagine he came up with the same idea that I did independently. However, I was the first to put the idea in the public realm. I would like to believe he is a fan of the IHB — I imagine he would like it if he read it — but it is more likely that he came up with the idea on his own. I find it gratifying to be thinking in parallel with professional economists. I would find it even more gratifying if he would mention my book publicly…
http://blog.redfin.com/losangeles/2008/12/case-shiller_home_prices_continue_dropping_rapidly_in_la.html
you may have posted this already and if you did sorry for reposting.
amazing to see prices back to 2004 levels–but looking around the net this weekend so many have not lowered their prices.
Checking out the new homes in HB–wow 3k sq.ft. starting at $1.5
http://www.brightwaterhb.net
really over priced –no idea on size of property or hoa fees? Typical
For the record, Pittsburgh, PA has an “h” in it.
Oops…
Irvine Renter
What I would like to see on this website is a more detailed analysis of each neighborhood in Irvine. Maybe instead of analyzing houses in different areas in Irvine each day, you can have the whole week dedicated to a particular neighborhood. Since we know that people buy in a certain area because of the proximity to certain schools, shopping, parks etc it would be nice to see how all these influence real estate prices. It would be valuable to learn what kind of people live in each neighborhood (age, education, race, income etc). If you dedicate the whole week to an area, maybe the first post can include an analysis of schools, parks, demographics etc, as well as disadvantages of buying in that area (like proximity to rail road tracks, airport etc). Then it would be interesting to profile a different type of property each day and see how the prices are dropping for each segment – low, mid and high. Maybe using your statistical models you can predict where the prices would stabilize for each segment. I know the focus of this website is Irvine, but I think a parallel between West Irvine and Tustin Ranch or Turtle Ridge and Newport Coast could be valuable as well.
I am sure this will help a lot of your readers that want to buy in Irvine, and definitely will help them make a more educated choice.
Thank you for the suggestion. Back in 2007, there were a few weeks where I profiled properties only from Quail Hill or only from Oak Creek. I did not go into the detailed analysis you describe though. I will see what I can do.
This is a site that puts a smile on my face:
http://www.lovelylistings.com
The very, very worst in real estate listing photos, with witty commentary.
That should be http://www.lovelylisting.com. No “s”.
My apologies.
I found it. That is a great site. I will ask Zovall to add that one.
IR – I think you have many readers outside the California area who would be interested in their local markets as well. As but one example there is a site the New Jersey Real Estate Report
http://njrereport.com/ which follows prices in NJ.
I’m no blog expert but I think if you link their site to yours and get them to reciprocate in returns it directs more traffic to both sites so is a win-win.
Yep, that would be a good one for a reciprocal link. Thank you.
Feel very sorry for American when I heard Obama said shameful on Wall St’s big bonus if that all he can give.
IMHO, everyone can say and knew this, but as a Harvard law graduated president, do he dear to say the true, this is illegal (by using tax payer money to pay big bonus) and should be put into sentence.
This is the reason American elected he and this is the hope for American.
Remember the changes he promised, and now the bad bank scheme is again giving money to Wall St as before. for now, he can save the ‘shameful’ word, because it to easy for everyone to say. He, as president of USA, should stop this and get those money back to us, that is the change American really looking for.
Why don’t you pose the same dilemma on George W Bush another Harvard graduated president.
How do you expect the banksters to take advantage of all the deflated prices without their assumed yearly bonus?
If someone can’t performance in his/her daily job then he/her should resign or will be layoff.
If Obama can’t fulfill his promise to American, why he should be president anymore?
He is not born to be president, and we don’t have another 4 years to waste, American elect he because the hope and promise he promise. IMHO, he should quit if he really give money to Wall St like before.
Regarding GWB, IMHO, he ‘steal’ the presidency by inflating the House Bubble. Now we all pay the prices. The history book should mark “*” for the reason he winning the 2nd term president election as “cheat”.
Irvine is an offensive place. Plastic people, prettied up with credit cards driving hulking German luxury cars.
I say we surround it with a high concrete wall with mote, then dump all our prisoners there. It will be impossible to escape from!
I have noticed, like it seems you have, a recent upswing in the market over the past couple of weeks. With rates being so low people are buying more than they were a few months ago. Hopefully this continues!