OT: Wall Street goniffs - where are they now?

[trader4]

Wooosh..... Right over the socialist's head.

[Robert Green]

And you should. My error. Should have said "so many people that even the prudent ones (like you) got caught up in the tidal wave." We sold my wife's house into the overheated market and did well, but the taxes on my house skyrocketed just because assessments are based, in part, on comps - what nearby houses sell for. We've been stuck here much longer than we wanted to be, waiting for prices to recover before selling this house.

It's sort of worked out because she's decided to keep working instead of retiring to try to put a little bit more aside for our old age. She's more concerned than I am because women in her family live into their nineties. My grandfather died at age 39, my dad at 69, so I am not so worried about what will happen in the next 30 years. I'll most likely be worm's meat.

However a lot of people, for a lot of reasons (job transfers, deaths in the family, etc) had no choice but to participate in a badly over-heated environment. The tidal wave washed over the good and the evil.

-- Bobby G.

[trader4]

LOL. There you have it folks. He PROFITTED from what he knew was an overheated market. He took advanatge of the seller! OMG. He's a capitalist pig and should be arrested, his wealth confiscated! Did you disclose to the seller that you knew the house was over valued? You expect that of those on Wall Street, but apparently there are different rules for you.

but the taxes on my house

More uniformed nonsense. A municipality needs X dollars for their budget. The houses could all be valued at Y or they could be changed and valued at 2 times Y. The taxes raised would be the same.

=A0We've been stuck here much longer than we wanted to

Yeah, I'm sure that includes you. You were FORCED to sell that house at a high price to a buyer. What a total f****it you are.

[trader4]

On Nov 3, 10:26=A0am, "Robert Green" > It's just a matter of personal responsibility.

Gee, I thought it was all Wall Street's fault. That's what you've been saying here consistently. Now, suddenly there is the issue of "presonal responsibility". That's a start.

=A0I know people with

That is obvious from all the economic nonsense you've posted here. Since you admit you don't know anything, why don't you just shut up?

Neither can you from most of your other posts.

They don't know the power of compound interest and how

Pet the other thread, you too are clueless as to wealth, it's defintion, and how it's created. You think the world is one big zero sum game.

[Vic Smith]

I doubt anyone who is truly prudent got caught up in it. The housing bubble was obvious.

What makes you think prices will "recover?" About a year ago one my sons moved into a bigger home when they had their third child. He was refusing offers on his previous home because he would lose $20k. It sat empty with him paying the taxes for a few months. I told him to unload it, and he did at a $20k loss. Six months later he would have taken a $40k loss.

The way I look at it is if you already had a house, you benefited by the sale on that end if you switched houses. If you didn't already own, you should know what you can afford as a first time buyer. Not saying I'm not sympathetic to some who made stupid mistakes. Especially those who thought their jobs were secure. But thinking your job is secure is another stupid mistake. Anybody could see that coming too, just by noticing that nothing you buy is made in the U.S. I knew the economy was unsustainable, because I worked production and knew its effect on the economy. But a big reason I'm okay financially is simply luck. When I was born, and when I could retire. Before the shit hit the fan. It's funny that many don't understand that.

--Vic

[Vic Smith]

During the height of the "bubble" some people would spend large amounts to "improve" their home before selling. Jacuzzis, granite counters, oak cabinets, stainless appliances, etc. When sold, their house was torn down and a McMansion was erected.

--Vic

[krw]

None that I know of. They just sold to the next sucker, as-is. Now on the burst side of the bubble, one *has* to "improve" one's house to get any traffic; that "competition" thing.

[Vic Smith]

Women don't even have to own it. We used to drive past one nice frame home in Glenview, Il that my wife loved because of the full front porch with rockers and hanging bench swinger. One day that was gone and soon there was a McMansion there.

This (north and west Chicago suburbs) was a hotbed of teardowns. Perfectly good homes in desirable area were flattened. Home builders would pay market value for well-built 1500 sq ft homes. Tear it down and put up a +4000 sq footer using illegal labor. Turn a $300k investment into $800-1m, less-costs. As the bubble burst some sat unoccupied or half built for a while.

I still see some that look empty. Many look nice, except hardly any yard space. No idea about construction quality. I mostly shiver when I see them, imagining the RE taxes and heating/cooling bill.

The one that really struck me was near my dentist's office in Park Ridge. Side street full of various nice 1 1/2 story homes on normal sized lots. Then I saw a McMansion had been built, taking up the entire lot and totally obliterating the sun for the house next to it on the north. Bet that homeowner was highly pissed. I was really surprised the village allowed that. Most likely greased palms.

My immediate neighborhood is small brick ranches about 1300 sq ft. There's only a couple McMansions within a half mile or so. Most of the houses are pretty much the same, with minor variations and different exterior design cues. Across the street new owners with kids had a story added, and about a block away a guy bought the house, did the same, and sold it, never living in it. Gives them a boxy look, but 2nd story facade work helps alleviate that a bit. Knowing the space limitations in my house, the stairway to the 2nd floor must really cramp the 1st floor. But to each his own. My view is if you want a 2 story house you buy one designed as a 2 story.

--Vic

[RicodJour]

Life is.

R

[Robert Green]

When I worked in DC, there was a single townhouse surrounded by modern multi-story buildings. The owner was a slightly deranged elderly man who didn't want the money, he just wanted to stay in the house he had lived in for decades until he died. Real estate agents threw themselves at him the way teenage girls did the Beatles.

Yabbut - a company converted the cramped, angled roof attic of the one of the Cape Cods around here to a larger 2nd floor than the first. Did a great job but it still looks way out of place. Maybe it needs company.

I think that's going to happen more and more as people "wait out" the market and decide to put off that day of reckoning by enlarging the space that they have. I think it makes sense since the houses are too small to start with here and this gives you quite a bit more useable living space by converting the "you can only stand up straight right under the ridgeline" attic to space that's got uniform ceilings.

We were thinking about it but our second floor was modified by a fairly skilled cabinetmaker into two rooms with built-in beds, toy bins, closets, shelves, chart drawers, etc in a nautical sort of theme that kids find fascinating. They don't hit the angled ceiling as much as adults either. Will probably be ripped out by the next owner but neither of us could bring ourselves to do it. (-:

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

I'm not doing well explaining this. I watched my real estate taxes skyrocket and my IRA's plummet as a result of the real estate bubble, mostly, that tanked the economy. I didn't have anything to do with buying into a red hot housing market - although I wanted to and for a while, it seemed that if you DIDN'T get in soon, the prices would only skyrocket some more. When that many people take a bath, even the spectators get splashed. Even the prudent got sucked in to some extent if they needed to move for any reason. That's just what houses cost and you can try to lowball like I do, but I recall in 2007 even chicken coops were commanding outrageous prices. The smaller the house, the less you've risked at those high prices. But you'll still take a beating in most cases like the last bubble, especially towards the end of the bubble.

Because panics eventually subside and prices have "ratchets" built into them in that they fall far more slowly than they rise as people try to put off reconciling their losses.

"As people try to put off reconciling their losses." (-:

Good advice for the time. I believe the housing market will recover. Some people will make deals, some will hold out as long as they can but the overall effect will be to restore prices to the slope of the historical and moderate yearly rise in house prices. I believe it was Kurt who said something to that effect. We've had an excursion way above the normal rise in prices, and now we'll see that bubble slowly deflate until it settles back down to the traditional incrementation of value of housing.

The Japanese made that mistake en masse. They had a long tradition of "salarymen" having employment for life if they served their employer well. The rapid changes of the 20th century put that notion to death and created quite a social crisis that country that has yet to fully play out.

It takes a lot to admit that. I've just ordered a book that talks about how highly we think of ourselves in terms of making good decisions that result in prosperity. Part of the book examines stockbrokers and their ability to pick winners for clients. Turns out that most are no better than a coin toss at picking good stocks. Yet they mentally compensate by "forgetting" the bad choices they've made and over-estimating the good ones. They attribute the good choices to their skill and the bad ones to some external market force and not some problem with their forecasting ability. Even when they can examine the facts in detail, they still believe it was some great intrinsic skill that made them pick winners.

I hope the book explains in detail WHY so many people either don't understand the role luck plays or minimize it. The review of the book suggested that our sense of mastery over the environment is very important to us psychologically, and we use a number of "Jedi mind tricks" to convince ourselves that we control far more that happens to us than we actually do.

Sort of like privatizing gains and socializing losses. It can be summed up with: "If I prospered, it must be because I am smart, if I lost out, it's because some evil person or force did me dirty!" We derive a strong sense of comfort from believing we're the captains of our own fates, and not just a cork bouncing over the waterfall of life.

-- Bobby G.