Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (202366)	5/15/2009 10:15:19 AM
From: saveslivesbyday	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Jazz Violin

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (202366)	5/15/2009 10:27:44 AM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

>>The training for an MD is more rigorous than any professional level degree, without question. Despite everything, medicine still attracts the best and brightest.<< so did wall street. -lol- not to harp too much on doctors, but i bet you your doctor has never heard of a spanish study where diet alone reduced the incidence of diabetes 83% - even for those people who had a family history of diabetes. as smart as they are, their leash to the drug companies is way to short.

To: patron_anejo_por_favor who wrote (202366)	5/15/2009 11:07:44 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

ALAN GREENSPAN TO SPEAK FOR NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS nypost.com May 14, 2009 -- WHO the hell would be stupid enough to pay to hear Alan Greenspan's opinion of anything! Notice, that isn't a question because I already know the answer. Rather, it's a statement with one of those exclamation points to show that my voice is being raised in a mix of bewilderment and anger. The National Association of Realtors, which is probably suffering from combat fatigue, asked the former Federal Reserve chairman and the chief suspect in the destruction of the US economy, to address its Washington conference Tuesday and tell real estate people what they want to hear -- that things are getting better. So Greenspan did just that. "We are finally beginning to see the seeds of a bottoming" in the housing industry, Greenspan told the gathering. Adding, according to Bloomberg News, that the US is "at the edge of a major liquidation" in the stock of unsold houses. Applause, applause. Here's your check, Alan. I figured it was worth knowing how much Greenspan gets these days for defending his own indefensible actions at the Fed while also trying to pull the wool over the eyes of would-be homeowners. So I asked someone named Lucien Salvant, managing director of the NAR's public affairs department. His answer in an e-mail: "None of your business. How much is the NY Post paying you to ask that question?" Whoa! Calm down, Lucien. Most p.r. people know better than to pick a fight with the press, especially when they don't know whether the media guy asking the question is an SOB who'll print the nasty response verbatim in a column that would have otherwise been pretty harmless. Now? Well, Lucien got my blood stirred. The fact is that The Post paid me nothing, per se, to ask that specific question. I was just sitting around on Tuesday watching the wire services when Greenspan's speech came out. Then stories followed saying how the stock market was reacting favorably to news that Greenspan had said the same thing he always says. So I asked myself, which idiot paid Greenspan? Lucien, I'd like to be friends. So let me explain this to you. While The Post didn't compensate me to ask you the question about Greenspan's fee - which is probably thousands -- it does pay me every week (as other papers do their columnists) to find stupid statements that might cost our readers (who are our customers) a lot of money if left unchallenged. Your job, Lucien, I understand, is to shovel crap to the press, which in turn, you are hoping will be disinfected and passed along to readers who are thinking of buying homes. So, just for fun, let's review a couple of Greenspan's past predictions on housing, which -- as you already know -- bubbled because Alan's Fed kept money so loose and oversight so myopic that millions of unqualified buyers were able to purchase (then lose) homes. Reuters had this story on Oct. 8, 2006. "The US housing market appears to be emerging from its recent travails and the 'worst may be over,' former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was quoted as saying Friday." Wrong! Dow Jones ran this on May 14, 2008. "Home prices are likely to reach a bottom early next year when the market absorbs a buildup in inventories, clearing the way for a conclusion of the credit crisis sometime next year, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told audiences in Asia on Wednesday." Wrong, again. Lucien, if you gave Greenspan more than bus fare, you were robbed. * So, what's the real es tate market really doing? It has improved a bit this year. But before you get all excited, re member this: Prices have fallen tremendously, espe cially on foreclosed properties, taxpayers are giving first-time homebuyers $8,000 to help make a purchase and it is springtime. Let's see whether more houses are being sold than listed for sale when we get to summer and fall and then we'll know if we have anything worth talking about. But don't get your hopes up. RealtyTrac, a research firm, tells me that foreclosures should surge in the fall because there has been a sizeable rise in the number of initial default notices being sent out by banks. A lot of these were delayed because the Obama administration had a foreclosure abatement program at the beginning of this year. And, RealtyTrac says more higher-priced homes are being foreclosed than before. So that $8,000 gift from Washington isn't going to help much. * Speaking of real estate, you probably heard that people will soon be able to buy dirt from the old Yankee Stadium. But is it dirt that Derek Jeter stood on at shortstop or that Jorge kicked in anger while getting punched out on a third strike call? Or maybe it's dirt from six feet below the outfield warning track that's never seen a ray of sunlight. Location, location, location -- is the saying in real estate. But if I'm gonna buy dirt sight unseen I need to know its provenance, as they say in the collecting game. Dirt with some of ARod's steroid spit is worth a whole lot more than just ordinary clay. john.crudele@nypost.com