4 days after the announced layoffs of 1,200, and Washington Mutual has 1,427 jobs open on their website. Doesn’t look like they’re going out of business just yet.

Maybe there are useless, lazy, and incompetent nurses, but I think the Real Estate industry maybe lends itself a little more to fraud?

The “real estate professionals” were busy selling the homes. Personally I have always been an investor 1st. I only got my Real Estate license to save 3% when I sold and to get the 3% when I bought. I would have NEVER gotten a license if there were 500 Realty and Red Fin type Brokerages. Most Agents I know never bought rentals. They are not investors. Very far from it. I would like to use the term “paper pushers.”

As for Tim running a blog I cannot comment. The current collapse in the mkt I assure you, and everyone it to will correct itself. The cost of materials to build homes and infrastructure will only go up. Most of my remaining properties I have are for my retirement. I will let many go over the next decade and continue to move cash around into other properties and the markets.

I have only had 1 investor file for bankruptcy but that was due to illness and pure foolishness of not carrying health insurance. The rest of us continue to wait and wait until the bleeding becomes arterial. There will be temporary blips up but Cash is king this decade.

Timing is everything. Research and effort. I don’t fly every 4 weeks to Nevada and Arizona to take up the sun. Well maybe a little. Its all research. Just like our mkts here. Every Buyer must spend the time to dig. The GEMS are popping up as they always will. We can’t buy everything but the ones we do Buy can handle any kind of mkt downturn.

I just bought our New office location in Tacoma. 8221 South Park. 3 year contract at 268k. 40k down. Owner pays taxes and insurance for 3 years or I cash him out early for 260k. Its a HUGE Historic home in a commercial area off I5. Its zoned commercial and M/F with an apt. A Pure GEM. It took me a year to get it but the seller finally saw it my way.

Effort friends…Before you invest in anything take the time and do your DD. How do hedge funds and investors lose all this money? I will tell you……As an RN for over 10 years there are many great ones and many horrible. Nurses that do NOT wash their hands when they enter your room and spread infections…Don’t get me started…I was an infection control supervisor. In every profession there are incompetents, unethical, and useless people.

In the end they will always lose.

Ray Pepper
http://www.500Realty.net

i cant believe a RE professional does not understand the link between low rates and increased values. most RE buyers are not cash buyers. they HAVE to watch their monthy cash flow, so they look at payments. the purchase price of the house becomes secondary to the monthly payment. when people realize that due to cheap mortgage rates they can afford more house, they bid up the house prices. when banks stop paying attention to the ability of buyers to pay back loans, b/c the banks are going to securitize the loan to offload the risk, the pool of buyers goes up, and teaser rates and negative interest rates increase the problem, as that lets people buy more house than they can afford based on artifically low monthly payments.

I stopped buying when I could no longer find any under 150k. Many people continued buying. Developments stopped selling to investors. It was all demand. Demand dimished as prices continued to escalate. Our investment teams all pulled out and many of us now just have rentals and many sold. Either way holding or selling was the right decision. The homes cannot be built now for what we paid for them.

It was a great ride and now we just look for GEMS and continue to hold cash. 6 months ago I loaded up on 110k of EGHT at .98…….Its a GEM that I believe will hit 2.00 by EOY and then I’m back to concentrating on homes. The MKT I find far more fascinating now and I continue to find many Gem-Like stock picks……..

Call it fraud. I call it speculation. Just like the stock market and the buying of stocks. Many make money and many lose.

Timing and doing your DD is (and was) everything. Just like the 2000 tech bubble. ALL ABOARD……………………………..!!! EVERYONE OFF…………………….

Ray Pepper
Broker
http://www.500Realty.net

You can “overbuild” housing. If the supply increases to the point where new construction cannot be sold for more than it takes to produce then housing has been overbuilt. In economics 101 they would cally it a supply surplus.

History is being written as we speak…Fraud will always be present..ALWAYS!! Its never a problem as long as people are making money…Now that the buffet is over and the finger pointing has begun…

I think it’s the opposite. I think people need something to comfort them when the weather is poor and decide to buy something they don’t need or decide that a new home will probably make the mhappy and lift them out of the weather depression. It might look like it’s the good weather since there is a lag from deciding to actually finding and closing on a home which can make it happen on the warmer season. In summer people are happier and don’t need any comfort purchases. Just happy consumption as good food, vacation trips, some nice new clothes etc but no big ticket items.

financing arrangements, escrow, and whatnot just take such random amounts of time that it makes it look like sales happen year round.

today is a sarcastic day, if anyone cares.

My friend’s mom didn’t like her assessment for taxes either. Apparently, she just hired her own assessor and he/she determined per square footage and lot size comparable sales with about a mile of her home recently. She attached this to her dispute with the county and not only did it not go to a court hearing [its slam dunk you get money back if you include personal refuting assessor paperwork, hardly no ones does this]; they went back a few years and paid her back taxes overpaid too [they can go back up to 5 years]. She got a huge check from the county and a big smile on her face.

Ohhhh….ya think your home is worth less if you pay less property tax….now I’m rolling on the ground laughing. You won’t get a penny less or a penny more, no matter what those county assessors overcharge you.

Evidently, the wine was the truth serum.

She told me business is totally slacking off, as prices are down about 15%, material costs are way down [no buyers for building materials out there] and agreed with me; its far worse right now than the 1990 Housing Bubble ever was.

The wine tasting went well too, I found a new red wine that’s very tasty, although the $50 a bottle stuff was the best……I went with the $11 a bottle, very close in quality for about 1/5th the price. Sounds like comparing cheaper Midwest homes to Seattle homes….lol

it is now sunny and warm, therefore the RE markets are gonna get hot.

nothing convinces people to make major poor financial decisions quite like pleasant weather.

I’ll leave the usage examples to others…

About tax assessments: it’s completely impossible that there might be a conflict of interest when assessments are made, right? Because it’s not like the same organization making the assessment can gain any value from a higher assessment…