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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (164060)	10/22/2020 4:54:50 AM
From: sense	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217753

I was poking at a BK oil company, today... will probably write more about that soon... classic story of greed killing opportunity... if you take money from the wrong people, it can cost you everything. Tracked its former backers / now executioners down to a mid-town New York address... off Madison Ave. Search engine fed me an apartment in the same neighborhood... so, OK, have a look... It was a "condo". Single bedroom, 750 square feet. Looked like a cheap hotel room... old square cornered Formica counters... old appliances... maybe they were going for "retro" ? But, $680,000... Fortunately, no coffee in my mouth at the time... I'm not sure, but think I could find an old Motel 6 for that, somewhere... knock out a few walls... and get basically the same effect in 25 comparable rooms... Have the bagels flown in. /////////////// "They" have been saying the internet would enable you to work on line and live anywhere you want for a long time. Today I think that's actually beginning to prove true. The virus is forcing a lot of companies to work a bit more earnestly at trying to make it work. Might not take much effort to "improve" that potential with properly focused support... a line item replacing the folks who used to do the plants, etc. Myself, as long as the internet speed holds up... I'd much rather have a place on a remote beach with a coral reef as a front yard... or park on top of a mountain somewhere... hiking/biking, climbing, skiing... ? I do have a couple of real estate focused projects in mind... looking at construction technology innovations to build better/higher value/safer/faster/cheaper and green... Looking at building "hospitality" focused guest villages... clustering homes around vineyard/winery/gardens/bistro... or other similar "themes"... maybe incorporating a home for the arts along with food and wine on a river front... supplying the right vibe... and a killer view... Have a nice backlog of worthy places in mind... Putting things in too far out of the way places is a problem for many... but, if what you're doing is taking the remoteness and converting it into a feature... while building a more or less self sufficient destination... that delivers chef prepared meals on demand as the norm ? And, then, move along to the next one when the whim strikes ? Works for me. In Hong Kong... not sure there's anywhere left that gets close to enabling that potential ? Once I got the obligatory shopping done, I did enjoy getting out into the villages a lot more than hanging around in town. Cities, here... don't appeal to me much anymore anyway... but, increasingly, they also don't much appeal to any of the current residents... which makes my plans suddenly a lot more appealing to a lot of other people... who can sell a crappy condo in New York or San Francisco for $680K and find a much better lifestyle for a lot less $ by moving elsewhere. I don't think its a short term "virus related" issue, here... more of longer term trend forming... serious long term economic drivers, in addition to the immediate in virus risks. "They" have said it was coming for a long time... and, now its happening... some 30 years late. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ FWIW, I do understand Kyle Bass' perspective on the nature of the changing risks in Hong Kong... and I don't necessarily think that he's wrong. Hong Kong, as China, does not have the same appeal as Hong Kong did as purely Hong Kong being itself. But, in considering it as an investment potential, I never really bought it... Didn't see a linear path to making it an investment that worked for me. It's horribly time dependent... and inherently requires perfectly timing things in the market that aren't even market-based functions. Even inevitability has that risk in the time wasting functions of $... challenging your solvency. Then, the upside is dependent on leverage... which cuts both ways... and has its own costs... and it still leaves you holding a short position... which limits the upside, or requires more $ in leverage. Seems more like sports betting than investment, to me... So, Bass will probable make a killing by the end of the year. I don't think he's wrong about some of the risks inherent in the HK dollar... and HK real estate. The nature of the risks to the peg, I think he's got right. A changing landscape is very likely to redirect the flows around the new terrain features... as it must. It's not a changing in the tide... or not just that... but, also, a freshening breeze blowing from Beijing. What does it mean ? I'd think it prudent to take profits and trim exposures... until those concerns he's addressed are disposed of positively... or are well enough discounted post-realization. I'm pretty sure the airlines won't be grounded forever... that also introducing both "virus related" specifics... and economic recovery variables... I don't know the calculus required to compute the trajectory on Hong Kong real estate, just now... because I don't know how to compute the near to mid term trajectory of the economy, over all, or locally... as new sets of challenges are emerging. But, exceptions to be found in every market ? Still need to figure out how to pick the bottoms to better avoid the realizations of risks. Same concerns here... Is the economy going to V hard, now ? Or, is the cumulative damage of the impacts thus far... likely to continue weighing things down ? 1987 type burble? 2008 style hollowing out ? Hmmm. Hard to see the shock we've sustained... as an issue that "probably won't matter that much"... Real estate here is booming... in the right places. Not so much in the big cities. I wasn't expecting that. Probably should have been. As it happens... it works for me... so I'll go with "rather be lucky than good".