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Here is your open thread for the mid-week on May 2nd, 2012. You may post random links and off-topic discussions here. Also, if you have an idea or a topic you’d like to see covered in an article, please make it known.
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Flood of Foreclosures Still Fails to Materialize
The number of homes entering the foreclosure process rose in March, up 8.1 percent, according to a new report from lender Processing Services, but the volume is down more than 30 percent from a year ago.
Foreclosures sales, which are the final stage of the foreclosure process, not sales of bank-owned homes, dropped precipitously in March to their lowest point in over two years. They dropped most sharply — 14 percent month-to-month — in states where a judge is not required in the foreclosure process (so-called non-judicial states).
Short sales rose by 15 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 from the previous year, while sales of REO’s (bank-owned homes) dropped 12 percent.
“Lenders are increasingly recognizing that short sales may be a better alternative for them than foreclosure,” notes RealtyTrac’s Daren Blomquist.
http://www.cnbc.com//id/39850463
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RE: One Eyed Man @ 38 – RE: Natalia Orinko @ 37 – Get with the times. Socialism is so 20th Century. We’ve moved well past that now, to Obamaism, where the government doesn’t just give you stuff, they force you to buy stuff. It’s much more efficient, because now when the government requires too much stuff to be made, they also require it to all be bought! Less waste that way. Supply equals (forced) demand.
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RE: Pegasus @ 1 – If you look at Tim’s graph of number of trustee’s deeds in April, the number won’t even equal the number of REOs sold in April per my calculations (which are not compiled by or guaranteed by the NWMLS). And part of Tim’s number presumably includes sales to third parties, not just the banks buying their own properties.
I’m only showing less than a month and a half supply of REO SFR in King County (again from NWMLS sources but not compiled by or guaranteed by the NWMLS).
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 2 – You mean Heritagism? Or perhaps Romneyism? Obamacare’s mandate isn’t really a Socialist, or even a liberal, idea.
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 3 –
Sno co on this one:
The REO just across from me and 2 doors down just went pending. Originally listed at 159.9, pending at 137.5. Sold in ’05 for 204 and before that in 01 for 168. Say’s it’s now a moderate fixer. My neighbor who works for a home builder says it’ll take 10-15k of work to bring it up to snuff.
Just around the corner is a pending short sale at 195k – last sold at the peak (4/07) for 319 and before that 8/01 for 183.5. Listing says current “owners” put in 60k of upgrades (ouch!).
There are many other REO’s in my ‘hood that are being held off market or have yet to sell – they’re easy to spot when out for a run (often no window treatments, the stickers on the front window that when you go and look indicate when the place was winterized, etc).
Looks like for entry level homes in my ‘hood of South Sno Co it’s reverted to about ’01 pricing. Seems to be plenty of REO’s around….but of course, this is pure anecdote, not hard numbers.
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By WestSideBilly @ 4:
You still think Obama is liberal? I’ve often said the only difference between him and Bush is Obamacare. With your explanation of Obamacare, maybe there’s no difference? ;-)
BTW, my post was a bit in jest–you need to go see OEM’s post in the prior open thread to understand. But I never said Obamacare is socialist. I don’t think socialists force people to buy things.
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By No Name Guy @ 5:
Granted. And note that I’ve said recently that the buyer’s frenzy hasn’t necessarily extended into the more outlying areas. I do have a listing in Snohomish which had multiple offers, but that’s south Snohomish so it’s not really that “outlying.”
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 6 – In jest or not, people frequently use Obamacare (specifically the individual mandate) to paint BHO as a socialist/communist/liberal. But it’s not a socialist concept, it’s quite the opposite.
Personally I think BHO is more pragmatic than anything else. The problem is he’s dealing with a Congress that is not pragmatic. I always wonder, given the ego involved in wanting to be POTUS, if ex-Presidents look back and think “I really could have done better there…”
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RE: WestSideBilly @ 8 – Personally I think that the thing that best describes President Obama is the old saying that power corrupts. Either that or the University of Chicago Law School has really, really, really bad Con Law professors.
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By Kary L. Krismer @ 2:
all taxes are forcing you to buy stuff. requiring health insurance is no different than making you buy SS or anything else. there are pacifists who don’t want to buy stuff but the Supreme Court says they have to.
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Euro standard is even worse than the gold standard.
http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-reddit-chat-2012-5#ixzz1tjymaAJk
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By WestSideBilly @ 4:
that’s right. Obama’s plan is just a rehash of what the Republicans themselves proposed as an alternative to Hillarycare. Something that people like Newt Gingrich and Orin Hatch have supported for years.
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By Kary L. Krismer @ 6:
you obviously don’t pay attention to politics!
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By Kary L. Krismer @ 9:
you mean by passing a law through the House, Senate and signing it?
in other news. do as I say not as I do.
Sen. Scott Brown Criticized for Keeping Daughter on His Health Insurance
http://news.yahoo.com/sen-scott-brown-criticized-keeping-daughter-health-insurance-165617834–abc-news-politics.html
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RE: pfft @ 12 – Ergo, Obama is at least a moderate Republican.
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Jeepers, weren’t we just discussing how absurd racial definitions are, and how “white” people are defining themselves as “minorities” to advance their careers?
Sotomayor was an example of such despicable behavior raised on this blog a while ago. And now we have Elizabeth Warren, apparently participating in the same misrepresentation.
This would all be amusing, except that such self-identifcation enables acceptance into schools with lower qualifications, and enables easier access to government programs such as SBA programs. Thereby, people who play by the rules get screwed, once again, this time by hyporcritical, greedy liberals.
Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee Heritage Raises Questions
Elizabeth Warren is under fire for reports she claimed status as a minority lawyer based on a far-back blood connection to the Cherokee line.
The Boston Globe reported that the Democratic candidate challenger to Scott Brown in the Senate race in Massachusetts self-identified as a minority from 1986 to 1995, though she has no recent Native American family.
Genealogist at the New England Historic Genealogical Society Chris Child set out to hunt down Warren’s ancestry last Thursday. In less than a week, he discovered documents citing an 1894 marriage record that lists Warren’s great-great-great grandmother, O. C. Sarah Smith as Cherokee, meaning that Warren is 1/32nd Native American.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/elizabeth-warrens-cherokee-heritage-raises-questions/
Hat tip to pffft for the link.
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By Blurtman @ 15:
not really close.
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By Blurtman @ 16:
huh?
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Bad Models Mistook Housing Bust for Dot-Com Bubble
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-01/bad-models-mistook-housing-bust-for-dot-com-bubble.html
hope that doesn’t happen again.
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RE: pfft @ 18 – See your Scott Brown link, post 14. Don’t you even read the links that you post?
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By pfft @ 13:
Given your severe memory problem, you probably don’t even remember who Bush was, so you can’t compare.
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By pfft @ 14:
Yes, that’s exactly what he did with the recent contraceptive proposal. He was so fast that he managed to get it through Congress twice in two days!
And really, he’s been signing executive order after executive order. If you had a memory you would remember that.
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By Blurtman @ 20:
That was over two hours ago. He forgot about it by then.
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 23 – MoveOn.org has downsized and he/she/robot has been assigned more blogs to troll. ;?)
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Elizabeth Warren destroying herself with even more lies. Why cannot she admit that she lied about being a “minority” to advance her career? Admit it, and move on. Has no one learned anything from the fall from grace of Bill Clinton?
Despicable, Elizabeth. Somewhere there is a well qualifed law professor who played by the rules and whose spot you took by your deceit.
“US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren said on Wednesday that she listed herself as a minority in directories of law professors in the hopes of networking with other “people like me” — meaning those with Native American roots.
Asked whether she considers herself to be a minority, the Democrat said, “Native American is part of my family. It’s an important part of my heritage.”
http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2012/05/elizabeth-warren-said-she-called-herself-minority-professor-find-other-people-like/SBfS3w5CVV8KCFmN6TLgeN/index.html?comments=all&plckCurrentPage=3
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RE: Blurtman @ 25 – At least we know where she was born and if she is a US citizen……..She is either very stupid or is telling the truth. What sociological group has advanced the most in power and stature in America in the past 50 years while Warren was pursuing her career? Well the answer is “white women”. It would be pretty stupid to separate yourself from the group that is getting the most advancements and declare you belong to another group…..
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Here are some stats from my old home in Sacramento CA. Commercial vacancy rates were 23.6% at the end of 2011. While this information is not directly applicable to Seattle, it is still interesting. Just 600+ miles from Seattle the real estate collapse is in catastrophic territory. Scarry stuff.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/print-edition/2012/01/20/office-vacancy-rate-hits-record-level.html?page=all
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RE: Natalia Orinko @ 27 – California’s state government is a mess, and it’s dragging down the entire country’s economy because it’s so big.
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 28 –
Many people compare California’s government to Greece and Spain. The liberal policy makers mean well, but the reality of things is something else all together. California is broke. They pass countless laws (including Nanny laws) that are unenforceable. Millions cheat on taxes because they won’t/can’t be caught. I expect to see a default in 10 years.
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RE: Pegasus @ 26 – In the link provided in post 16, a genealogist traced Warren’s ancestry back to her great-great-great grandmother who was a Cherokee Indian. Marriage records from 1894 were utilized to establish the genealogy. Warren has therefore been described to be 1/32 American Indian. Harvard cited Warren as an example of their pro-minority recruitment policy. Those are the facts.
If you had applied to graduate school in the ’70′s-’80′s, you would have first hand knowledge of why one might want to pretend to be a “minority.’ Admission qualifications were much lower. And so whether you were a man or woman, you were admitted with lower qualifications than your non-”minority” peers, including both “white” women and men..
Your logic is a bit flawed if you think about it. Here you have a “white” moman who is by your statement in the group that has done quite well in the last 50 years. And she has done quite well and is an example of what you claim. And we have the fact that Harvard touted her hiring as an example of their pro-”minority” policies. One did not hurt one’s carreer by claiming to be a “minority” which I believe is at the center of your argument. Warren is clearly “white” in appearance, and undoubtedly did not suffer from anti-Native American discrimination. And yet she advanced her career by claiming to be such a “minority.”
She is the worst type of scum. Affirmative action is well intended racism, designed to help those who suffered the effects of discrimination. It is impossible that Warren, a “white” woman, suffered any such discrimination. For her to utilize a “minority” claim and then to deny what even Harvard has obviously said is the case, is reprehensible, and clearly points to a character flaw that is troubling. Lying to gain advantage and then lying to cover it up.
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RE: Blurtman @ 30 – Ah…you can’t have it both ways. Yes she is white in appearance and mostly white in heritage. Yes there were many affirmative action programs but my statement still is that white females gained the most in stature and power while she advanced her career. Trying to denigrate her for claiming that she had Native American blood which she appears to be proud of and according to you is true is beneath you and typical of meaningless accusations made during an election. Warren isn’t perfect but was one of the few willing to publicly question and challenge the banking cartel that runs this country. That is why they fought so hard to make sure that she did not become the head of the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection even though she built it. You appear to have lost your way. Will you next be promoting the agenda of convicted felon billionaire George Soros?
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By Natalia Orinko @ 29:
Yep. With their tax system companies avoid doing business there. If it wasn’t for the great weather and the tech industry, they would be in real trouble.
But not all tech companies are stupid enough to do business there.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500395_162-57425636/apples-tax-avoidance-sour-grapes/
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George Orwell’s 1984 No Speak By Our MSM
“..Retailers are reporting sales gains for April that show a slowdown in spending from the previous month….”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/retailers-sales-april-show-spending-121708200.html
Why SWE rarely reads the news anymore.
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Here’s a graph of states’ 90-day delinquency, and I was surprised to which states were having problems.
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2012/05/01/ny-nj-rank-among-five-states-with-highest-foreclosure-rates/
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By Natalia Orinko @ 27:
You are absolutely correct about this. I was down there last year for my job, and I walked through several blocks along the southern edge of downtown looking for a place to have lunch on a weekday afternoon (for about 45 minutes, without success). The place was a ghost town, and I was shocked at the number of empty commercial properties – entire blocks were empty! I finally ended up eating at a place over in Old Sacramento.
And this is the place they want to build a new NBA stadium in? Would we build one in Olympia, or Salem (PNW state capitol towns)?
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I’ve been alluding to this for a few days now, but the official King County SFR median is now out! $360,000. Up from $308,125 in February and $330,000 in March. And up from just under $350,000 last year, so it’s the first YOY increase in a long time.
It’s due somewhat to fewer REOs in the mix, but hey, I know a lot of you don’t think they affect the median, so apparently the median went up about 10% in a month, right? ;-)
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RE: Pegasus @ 31 – No one is denigrating her from being proud of her 1/32 Native America ancestry. She is being “denigrated” for portraying herself as a member of a disadvantaged minority group when she suffered no such disadvantage. Is she on a Cherokee tribal registry? Did she ask Harvard to cease describing her as an example Harvard’s policy of hiring disadvantaged minorities?
She is a “white” woman who consciously used the system to advance her career. A roughly similar example would be for an immigrant from Spain claiming to be a member of the Hispanic ehtnic/racial group, and claiming disadvantage due to being a “Hispanic.”
“Law School directories from the Association of American Law Schools from 1986-1995 list Warren as a minority law professor.”
Do you really believe Warren’s explanation, that she described herself in as a Native American minority in the Association of American Law Schools from 1986-1995 to connect with other Native Americans? Certainly there were/are more effective ways. If she was active with local tribes, she would not need to even attempt this impossible to believe action.
By no definition used by the US government is she a Native American. Please note the “and.”
“The U.S. Census Bureau defines a Native American as follows:
American Indian and Alaska Native. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment.” http://definitions.uslegal.com/n/native-american/
Warren is a pathetic example of another greedy liberal lying to advance her career. And her lies to explain this lie are even more unfortunate, and an illustration of a troubling character flaw.
There are victims to this type of behavior – folks who played by the rules and who also worked hard who were passed over for the likes of liars like Warren.
Regardless of whether this scores political points for her opponent, the truth remains the truth, from which neither Democrats or Republicans should be immune.
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did big government cause the European crisis? nope. no correlation.
Big Government and the Crisis
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/big-government-and-the-crisis/
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By Kary L. Krismer @ 22:
not every thing has to go through the legislative process for any president.
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By Kary L. Krismer @ 21:
no I remember.
Charts: GOP shifts right
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/01/10550542-charts-gop-shifts-right
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RE: pfft @ 39 – Rather obviously, but he’s pushing the limit, as did the President before him, as did the President before him.
Remember, the post you’re responding to is where I said power corrupts.
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By Kary L. Krismer @ 32:
it’s one of the largest economies in the world. that is why people do business there. there is also a lot of people.
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By Kary L. Krismer @ 41:
it’s just a rule and not that a big a deal. it’s probably legally what he had to do you know because you can’t discriminate and must give equal protection? remember that?
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RE: Blurtman @ 37 – Please show me where Warren was hired because she claimed she was a minority other than a white female. You are making a mountain out of nothing with no proof other than innuendo. Unlike most people that have a small minority interest she chose to expose instead of hiding it like the majority have done in the past because of hate. Who really knows what her real percentage is? Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, since it is popular now, claim to have Native American heritage but strangely no one has been able to find evidence of that.
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