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

To: John Vosilla who wrote (272765)	9/2/2010 2:38:49 AM
From: Skeeter Bug	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

>>Come on can't you come up with something better?<< no - and that will be hard to top for the rest of the year!

To: John Vosilla who wrote (272765)	9/2/2010 9:17:56 AM
From: Smiling Bob	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Too often this general belief that all real estate is evil clouds this thread. There are always good deals and opportunities to be found. You know your market and I can't understand why anyone would conclude you're not doing your homework and blindly walking into deals. You're obviously buying homes below replacement value and getting a solid ROI either renting or refurbishing and selling. It's not rocket science. Do the legwork, know your market, time things properly, and you can make money flipping anything from pencils to giraffes. As you put it, there are always inefficiencies that can be exploited.

To: John Vosilla who wrote (272765)	9/2/2010 11:46:00 AM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

"I see Time magazine just called the end for housing as an investment in even the place you live in..yes you are on the same side with the sheep..like 95%+ of people now think housing to live in is a bad investment when an even greater number thought the exact opposite five years ago...lol" I remember articles like the one below proclaiming the 'death of equities' just before the huge bull market fired up.. Even the comments mirror today - 'everyone is leaving the markets'... Regards, John The Death of Equities How inflation is destroying the stock market Editor's Note: The huge declines in U.S. stocks in recent months have revived interest in a BusinessWeek cover story from August 1979 entitled "The Death of Equities." At the time the story was written, the stock market had sustained serious losses and the long-term health of the U.S. economy was a significant concern. The story has aroused some controversy over the years, as the stock market staged a strong comeback in the decades that followed its publication. But few, if any, market forecasters were willing to call such a recovery at the time, and the story provides a telling look at how inflation had ravaged the market landscape—and investor psychology—at the close of the 1970s. So step back in time with us and read BW's take on the state of the market in August 1979, as originally published in the Aug. 13, 1979 industrial edition of BusinessWeek. On July 23 institutions that manage pension fund money began operating under a new and far more liberal interpretation from the Labor Dept. of what is a prudent investment under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Pension fund money can now go not only into listed stocks and high-grade bonds but also into shares of small companies, real estate, commodity futures, and even into gold and diamonds. "The decision throws the door wide open to hard assets for institutional investors," says a jubilant Jack B. Backer, a New York diamond dealer. To millions of people, that ruling could mean a higher return on their pension fund assets after years in which inflation has nibbled away at the return from more traditional investments. On another level, the Labor Dept. ruling is just one more in a nearly endless string of unhealthy things that have happened to the stock market over the past decade. Only the elderly remain At least 7 million shareholders have defected from the stock market since 1970, leaving equities more than ever the province of giant institutional investors. And now the institutions have been given the go-ahead to shift more of their money from stocks—and bonds—into other investments. If the institutions, who control the bulk of the nation's wealth, now withdraw billions from both the stock and bond markets, the implications for the U.S. economy could not be worse. Says Robert S. Salomon Jr., a general partner in Salomon Bros.: "We are running the risk of immobilizing a substantial portion of the world's wealth in someone's stamp collection." Until now, the flight of institutional money from the financial markets has been merely a trickle. But if could turn into a torrent if this year's 60% increase in oil prices touches off a deep recession while pushing inflation sky-high. As it is, the nation's financial markets and its capital flows have been grossly distorted by 13 years of inflation. Before inflation took hold in the late 1960s, the total return on stocks had averaged 9% a year for more than 40 years, while AAA bonds—infinitely safer—rarely paid more than 4%. Today the situation has reversed, with bonds yielding up to 11% and stocks averaging a return of less than 3% throughout the decade. As a result, even institutions that have so far remained in the financial markets are pouring money into shortterm investments and such "alternate equity" investments as mortgage-backed paper, foreign securities, venture capital, leases, guaranteed insurance contracts, indexed bonds, stock options, and futures. At the same time, individuals who are not gobbling up hard assets are flocking into money market funds to nail down high rates, or into municipal bonds to escape heavy taxes on inflated incomes. Few corporations can find buyers for their stocks, forcing them to add debt to a point where balance sheets seem permanently out of whack. On Wall Street, the flight from stocks has forced firms to push alternative investments hard—thereby drawing still more money from the stock market. Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next Page