My sister in law's sister gave me a ring today. Out of the blue she wanted advice. You see, she is selling her townhome in the mid-Wilshire district and wanted to know if she should:
1. Put money in the bank or
2. Buy a new home immediately in the beach cities.
This shocked the heck out of me. Both my sister and law and her sister both believe "real estate only goes up." Thus... I left the room when they talked real estate. However, my sister in law's sister (MSILS) asked a bunch of relatives about the state of real estate.
Apparently, one after the other went quite and said "ask Neil, he's the one who knows what's happening in real estate." That surprised me... most of my relatives were "buy now" types... so something has changed. Either that or they agreed with me and just played "devil's advocate" when talking real estate with me (my family is known to do that).
So she called and we talked. I warned to put the money away for two years and then buy. She liked the idea (THUD, Neil was on the floor in shock...). But then the kicker.
The home is for sale... She has an offer for $25k under her list price. She even has a 2nd lowball offer (ok, who was it?). So MSILS wants to hold out. I argued. She went "you are too anxious to have me sell." I noted the first offer is often the best offer... five minutes later I could put the phone back to my ear. Last words were something like "you know I'm bearish, but its your home and your money." I do wish her luck... I hope I'm wrong for her sake (this month).
Sigh... I guess partial recognition. But where is the disconnect... prices can go down in the beach cities but not mid-Wilshire?!? Yes... "its different here."
I've already said my piece... so now its going to be interesting.
Oh, only my fiancee, sister, and dad have a link to my blog among family. So I'm safe blogging this. ;)
Speaking of my dad, he shorted Fremont... So I know I'll hear the bragging for a bit. ;)
Got popcorn?
Neil
7 comments:
I could only pray my sis would call me, but I'd likely get the same response. Sigh.
You can only lead a horse to water...
She can't say later she wasn't told...
Neil!
For a guy about to get married, you still manage to hit THBB pretty regularly... ;-)
For a guy about to get married, you still manage to hit THBB pretty regularly... ;-)
Exactly how many hours of a day can one think about a wedding... riddle me that!
Got popcorn?
Neil
Before you eat any more popcorn, here's some of your own words to chew on... ;-)
You'll get updates... but expect a quarter to pass before I write anything more. Wedding plans have priority.
Gee, that was like, how many posts back???
While your so busy posting everywhere but your own site, check this out over at Mish's (credited to Mr. Practical at Minyanville):
Total U.S. debt is now 3.6 times GDP and continues to grow. But new debt is having less and less effect in driving economic growth: more income is going to service that debt and less to creating production, the stuff that generates income. The second highest U.S. debt has ever been was 2.9 times in 1929. Despite Mr. Bernanke’s false recollections of Fed actions back then, they created an immense amount of liquidity (credit) trying to cure the stock market crash. The market did rally back temporarily as a result, then slowly crashed much worse as that new credit just went to short term speculation in stocks. The new money did no real good because there was already too much capacity, so the credit never went to creating production. The same thing is happening today. It now takes $7 of new debt to make $1 of GDP where it only took $1 in 1980 and $3 in 2000.
And the consumer, which is most of the economy, is in trouble too. Today household debt is now 130% of income. That is up from 100% just in 2001, 70% in 1986, and 40% in 1953. How quaint we were back then.
TJ,
That was on out economics. ;)
Read the new post. Ziprealty just exploded! Real? Glitch? I wish I knew... Endgame? (Already!?!???)
Yea... debt now is no longer multiplying in the economy (at least not multiplying significantly).
Got popcorn?
Neil
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