http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008070201_webalaskaearn24.html

The economy is STRONG….SPEND, SPEND, SPEND! Is anybody buying that crap besides real estate “professionals”?

Most of the time, the busy bodies that run the HOA just waste our time whining about things that do not affect property values in the least bit and just take the money for stupid crap like a landscaping a small patch of grass for 4K a year. It got to the point where my wife and I don’t even bother going to the meetings anymore because nothing ever got accomplished and the cliques would get what they wanted anyways. Rule enforcement is lax too because no one wants to piss anyone off. Now when I lived in the South, if you had a problem with something your neighbor was doing with their property that could have affected your home, you went and TALKED to them about it. Novel idea, that whole speaking thing. Then you could take the whole key to the car thing if that wouldn’t work. ;-)

“If you’re thinking of buying a house, you couldn’t have picked a better time.”

Hasn’t this always been the case? Prices going up, better buy now! Prices have been lowered, buy now while it is cheap!

That’s why when I decided to buy I made the decision to buy in a neighborhood with fairly strict covenants. Given the lack of mobility that home ownership usually implies, I didn’t want to end up in a neighborhood where a neighbor decided to leave their ugly RV or boat out in front of their house, or mine for that matter.

I decided the opposite, after living in a neighborhood that had covenants. Having to get architectural committee approval, to re-paint my house the same color, wasn’t for me. With covenants, if someone is blatantly unneighborly, the homeowner’s association sues and everyone pays the lawyers. Without covenants, someone keys the car on the lawn and problem solved.

Strict term limits would put an end to almost all of these problems.

Welcome to the United Socialist States Of America, where the profits are private, the losses are socialized, and the taxpayer gets the shaft for the next 50 years

and matthew 49
Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, the new mantra of the United States of America.

I disagree your definition is off and it is not a new mantra.

Socialism is when both the Profits and the Costs/Losses are the States and thus the Taxpayers.
Fascism is when the Profits are Privatized and the Costs/Losses are Socialized.
Fascism is when The Corporations tell the State what the laws are and the Politicians obey their paymasters by passing them into existence. The Citizens are expected to be loyal to the State and ask get nothing from it.

The Citizens are kept in disarray by the concepts of Divide and Conquer and Constant Fear.

the 9% APPROVAL RATING of Congress must mean the Divided Citizens are starting to Wake Up.
They realize that they are not getting anything in return for their vote.

Dr. Roubini [they used to call him Dr. Doom] has recently shifted gears on full fledged bailout. We can’t afford it.

On the recent housing bailout bill King Bush wants to reluctantly sign now; there’s $3B going to Freedie/Fannie to “fix up the repossed homes” in distressed areas (Seattle? LOL) to resell and even King Bush thought that was ludicrous. I rarely agree with Bush, this time I do.

I think what small percentage of the approximate $3 trillion its gonna take to bailout this horrifying mess out over trhe next 2-3 years we can afford to back up with fedral debt should go to simply bull-dozing the excess vacant housing and planting food and more parks.

If we fix them up to resell, they’ll likely end up empty, rotted and rat infested next to our apartments and homes sooner or later anyway.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008067831_apearnsboeing.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008067785_apcostcooutlook.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008067245_wamu230.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aNZvhePqmijg&refer=home

Thanks that link is a good read. It is sad to see where the no money down folks have gone, or I should say that it is sad to see that they are still getting loans…

http://whistleblower.ml-implode.com/?p=22

Congress may have a 9 percent approval rating as a whole, but individual Reps usually have a very high approval rating in their districts.

Call and do nothing and watch Rome burn, or at least attempt to take some action. Unfortunately too many people share your attitude, another reason America is most likely doomed. More people care about Paris Hilton doing jail time than they care about the destruction of our country.

What a shame.

The same economists that said “subprime was contained:”? If you believe them, so be it. I’d rather believe people like Roubini, Derringer, CR, and Tanta, who have nailed the current crisis from the get go. None of the above believe shifting the burden to the tax payer is a good idea. Doesn’t look like the bond market likes the concept of giving Paulson a blank check either.

Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, the new mantra of the United States of America.

You mean the Congress that has a 9% APPROVAL RATING. You really want me to take time out of my day to call them and expect them to do something? Yeah, right.

Well listen to Nourel Roubini (who has been right about the housing bubble all along:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/07/roubini-restructure-fannie-freddie-debt.html

“The simple answer is that we need to limit as much as possible the moral hazard of a bailout of Fannie and Freddie….And such a bailout is neither necessary, appropriate nor desirable.

Of course most of Wall Street, domestic and foreign investors and Congress are already screaming and begging “Bail us out, bail us out!” …. But these screams of “the sky will fall” if we don’t rescue Fannie and Freddie are vastly exaggerated and incorrect for a number of reasons…”

Whew, for a second there I thought we were going to have to be responsible.

Matthew – As bad as it is, I have not heard a single economist that opposes it. By now, both parties support the bail outs.

Sure, the disease could have been prevented with “a healthier lifestyle”; but now it’s too late for that, the surgery is needed. Let’s hope the lifestyle changes from now on.

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2008/06/02/daily32.html

With people avoiding buying houses, that vacancy rate could head even lower.

compare the monthly payment for the same loan from the January low of 5.25% to today’s 6.5%. getting the same loan today would cost 14.5% more.

and loans are getting harder to get as congress is forcing the GSEs to actually underwrite loans and force people to put some of their own real cash down as a downpayment. no loans. no gifts from sellers..

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080723/BIZ/488537800/1005/biz

Summary: Housing has been so slow in Snohomish, that the Realitors have gotten together to have a massive open house event.. the idea is to entice people into looking again.

The U.S. taxpayer is truly getting screwed. Lets transfer all the debt to the taxpayer, great idea guys!!!

And yet both the stock and the market are up this morning. The short squeeze continues

Its like the gambling addict that only talks about his casino play when he’s winning.

Actually, until the DOW gets back up to 14000 [its about 11500 right now], we haven’t broke even from about 6 months ago. So stocks are just as bad as boats. Here’s the latest 12 month cumulative stock trends:

Returns & Share Prices Current Returns

G Fund F Fund C Fund S Fund I Fund
June 2008 0.32% (0.08%) (8.41%) (7.63%) (8.15%)
Year-to-date 1.79% 1.26% (11.90%) (7.68%) (10.78%)
12 Month 4.25% 7.28% (13.05%) (11.14%) (10.42%)

G= bonds, F= Money Markets, C= Domestic Stocks I/S= International Stocks

Did ya make any dough off those 850 points? I did.
Who’s the choad?

Then why aren’t you out enjoying your new found wealth? What did you make…..50 bucks?

Funny how people like RAL always brag about the money they made in the market, but you never hear about them losing. RAL is the type of guy that ALWAYS wins when he heads to Vegas. Just like houses ALWAYS go up in value.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/business/23rates.html

“The average interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rose to 6.71 percent on Tuesday, from 6.44 percent on Friday, according to HSH Associates, a publisher of consumer rates. The average rate for so-called jumbo loans, which cannot be sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was 7.8 percent, the highest since December 2000.”

A bailout attempt will not bring mortgage rates down. it will bring Treasury rates up. The USG does not have the resources to bail out Fannie/Freddie and the world knows it.

Welcome to the United Socialist States Of America, where the profits are private, the losses are socialized, and the taxpayer gets the shaft for the next 50 years. I can hardly wait to see what interest rates and the dollar do when this passes. Get ready for 10-12% mortgages and a decimated housing market, not to mention $10/gallon gas.

Condos by far are a better rental deal than apartments. Cheaper and larger. I got a ten month lease as I am considering buying next summer. I just can’t buy now while the prices are dropping, that would be silly. I expect either things to sort of gently settle by then, or to really get bad and the end to extend, either way, I can wait.

One hell of a “dead cat bounce” so far!

RAL”

Great! I don’t own a house, but I do have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the stock market. Nice to own an asset which appreciated this week (unlike some assets I could name…).

Did ya make any dough off those 850 points? I did.
Who’s the choad?

One hell of a “dead cat bounce” so far!

RAL

WaMu reports $3.3 billion quarterly loss (just in)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008066316_webwamu22.html

The saga continues…

If you are in the city, there is a 72 hour rule and all you have to do is report them a couple times and they will have to figure out a different solution as moving a boat every three days is a pain. I learned about this rule a few years ago after leaving my car in a great street spot for a few weeks while I was riding my bike to work. Once they are after you it is not worth leaving you vehicle there.

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/Transportation/parking/parking72hour.htm

Sailors like to say that there are two great days in boating: the day you buy your boat and the day you sell your boat.

Hmmm… I thought that saying was in regards to home-owners. :)

some people have a much higher tolerance for stupid than i do.

The price of gas is probably the biggest factor in killing sales of small and medium motor boats like Olympic Boat Center sells. Friends in the luxury yacht business have seen no slow down. Lower dollar has made us more competitive in building and servicing the big yachts.

“Oil shale production consumes large amounts of water and power, both of which are scarce in the West. Shale rock is heated with steam to extract the oil.
…Commercial development of oil shale will not begin until it is technologically viable, which is not expected for several years.”

Good news (kind of) is that the USA has 27% of the worldwide proved recoverable coal reserves (wikipedia).

“would provide enough long-term supplies to meet current U.S. oil needs for 110 years”

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN2231522420080722?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

These deposits dwarf those of the rest of the world. Will the US be the Saudi Arabia of the 21st century?