Hi Joel, great article today. My wife and I are just back from 2.5 weeks in Europe and In spite of the record inflation, energy crisis and threat of nuclear attack, there seems to be no impact on tourism or the economy as hundreds of thousands crowd the most famous landmarks. Cafes and restaurants are over-run with guests, and in Spain, Italy and Greece, a meal is still cheaper than most places in the US (if you can find a seat). You probably have a few less miles on the odometer than many of us, but I can tell you, the world today is not the world of the late 70´s. In the mid-late 70´s place like New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore were run by thugs, organized crime, corrupt police and governments, e.g. Frank Rizzo. Each of these cities were one match stick away from burning to the ground and none of them had two nickles to rub together. We all felt Armageddon was around the corner - literally. That led to excess in lots of things like drug use and other even more reckless life styles signaling resignation by many. Forget the pandemic, we discovered AIDS and were immediately afraid to use public toilets. Interest rates on things like mortgages climbed as high as 18% and many more folks were without jobs. Highways were obstacle courses of potholes and the cars we drove, death traps. Those who ventured out in cities at night risked mugging or worse. No, today´s world is like being on a Carnival Cruise compared to that of the late 70´s. Everyone who wants one has a job, the restaurants are full and everything is delivered to our door. We don´t even know what cash looks like anymore. Oh and that biddy 3 cent exchange rate over the Euro we got on vacation did save a few bucks on the big ticket items, but the bigger kick is the tax free return on GST. In the mid 80´s the US dollar was 3 or 4 to 1 over most European currencies. We had good fun back then. I look at today´s world and see a lot of well to do folks out having the time of their life. If the end is near, none of then have received the news. By the end of the 70´s it was either us, Russia or Iran who would end the world. And then thankfully we found Mr. Reagan who by the way was the first president to push the national deficit over 1 trillion. The rest have just pushed the cart along. Reagan, when commenting on the horrid state of our infrastructure, famously said, ¨if drivers would just slow down, the bumps would not be so bad¨. How would that sound today? Enjoy the Recession Guys
Self comment on unemployment, no, the work ethic in America. In my general observation there are more folks who either don´t need to work or don´t want to work than those unemployed and currently able and looking for work. This state of our ethics is at an all time low.
Oh, I forgot, the economy is in such dire straits, how could this condition exist?
Yes, that is how pathetically spoiled America has become. Those who need a job may need it badly while most see working as a nuisance or unavoidable interruption to their play time.
Most see this as a good thing, yes America has done good, we live very well, but we must learn to be humble. There are so many countries where folks still struggle for a daily meal, live in dirt and filth and are without medical care.
Ignoring the later is reckless and may eventually come back to haunt us, physically or environmentally.
In a nutshell the American Dream is out of reach for 50% of the Nation. No hope of keeping up or rising to the top leaves most with one alternative maintain the status quo vote socialism. Bill has been preaching most Americans have seen a net decline in salaries for years. Well folks the sleepers have awakened to this fact. I have a tenant $1100 in the arrears since Covid, literally he's unable to spare a dime because the idea of an American economizing or sacrificing is unknown. The poor (wage slave) have cars, gaming systems, pet, and central air conditioning.
Due to the current rental atmosphere in the City of Philadelphia I've sold all but one of my rental homes and the last if for sale. . Not my problem, during his tenancy I offered to sell the house at 100% financing in the same manner as he would purchase a car. He declined the offer, he'll most likely be living under a bridge in a month as there is a massive low income housing shortage in the City.
You read my mind to some extent, I'm currently buying an 14 unit building in the suburbs. It's a great deal, needs some light TLC, coupled with a new management sheriff in town.
All units are single bedroom, the property is pretty much a rooming house. No families, no spouses, target audience is divorced single males who just want a place to be left alone to collect their pension or SSI check. Paying all cash, $7400 gross a month, under $400k purchase price. Compared to Philly landlording this place is a walk in the garden.
If not for the third generation inheriting the place with no landlording experience the place would selling for a million.
Glenn and AFriend i appreciate your comments. Hopefully provide BPR some ideas for near term articles. It sure feels like we are on the cusp of bad stuff happening. However, while I save, plan and prepare others are continuing to party. Hard to believe with the excesses, 14 years of ZIRP, evil, corruption, pedophiles, banksters, excessive greed, WS front running all government policies, schools in a shambles, a false narrative on a less then pandemic, pandemic, simple cheap solutions for the covid that were not allowed, forced jabs worse than the illness for most, etc. BUT life goes on as most toil away as they always have thinking that still have freedom and liberty and the constitution means something when we have the Fed and state governments just ignoring our rights and violating laws all the times....
at 69 i was around later 60s and early 70s scary times for sure in certain places BUT i do believe the global EVIL we have around us today is worse. the constitution and laws were not as recklessly ignored then - more people had integrity, truth and facts meant something - not today.
But as many ignore all the above, buy their way to temporary safety or party like it is 1999 just seems like this can not last - BUT as both AFriend and Glenn indicate it is???? .....this dump as gone on long enough.........
I wholeheartedly agree with you both. I wanted to provide one reminder to folks on digesting the daily clamor we´re all exposed to - even Bills :). There is an old saying, ¨the map is not the territory¨. It comes from logic theory which when broken down simply means don´t accept what you read or hear as fact without the underlying data and computation to back it up. And who from the media ever provides that? Virtually no one. Yes, you can be afraid now.
We Americans with our plethora of media outlets are quick to hear and accept things as gospel without digging into the underlying facts. For example, who said inflation was 8% this year over last? Is that right? How did they calculate that? Did they include butter and eggs and leave out milk, gas and chicken? What about fast food? You get the idea. No scientist in their right mind would accept a conclusion without knowing the underlying inputs and how they were analyzed, but we poor souls just suck up the media´s numbers like they were gold fodder.
I am no economist but I am a data engineer and the numbers don´t lie unless you cook them the wrong way - gee do you think that ever happens in the public sector?
One of my favorite lessons came from my first economics class in college. The professor presented us with the theory of elasticity. He said, we´ll, nearly every product and service has a price at which people are willing to pay before they will stop buying that product or service. OK, yeah, that sounds reasonable until....
At the same time in my life my family took a number of trips to Florida. Besides stopping to see Pedro at ¨South of the Border¨, we always stopped in NC to stock up on cartons of cigarettes. What better gift to bring back for family and friends, right? In those days the savvy shopper could pick up a carton for somewhere between $2.50 and $4.00 tops. Up north they sold for $9-12. Now, if Mr. Professor was right, folks would have stopped smoking at say $12-$15 a carton.
40 years later I stand in line at Wawa with my $1.50 coffee and watch folks drop $100 bill on the counter for a carton. Wow, that's some elasticity! That price could stretch to the moon and folks would still be smoking.
What does all this say? Human behavior is not always predictable and never trust the messenger - he´s hiding something. As far as I know, omission without intent is not a crime. The number crunchers know that and feed us with their garbage every day.
What we hear and what happens in reality today are often two different things. The 30 something´s don´t care about the Fed Funds Rate, inflation, yields on bonds and gold´s inverse relationship to oil on and on. They are more concerned about how they are going to spend their last raise, the latest series on NetFlix, the ¨pop¨ video game of the day and their next baby.
Who then is all this chatter for? Well, I´m guessing it´s for anyone who´s willing to listen and accept it as fact - buyer beware, ¨the map is not the territory¨
Record corporate profits, 3.7% unemployment, plenty of jobs available, market ok after the rate hikes, gas dropping, manufacturing increasing , billions being spent to bring chip manufacturing here, hotels, flights, restaurants, sports events packed etc etc.
Zip for 14 years then print 6 trillion in 2 years. Inflation at 18%, BOE almost collapsed 2 weeks ago, Credit Suisse a disaster. You think things are OK? This is the problem with an uninformed electorate. You will see what I mean in the next few years. BTW this does mean you are dumb merely uninformed.
Nothing really has changed in Philly, it's still run by thugs. The murder rate is positioned to eclipse the highest rate in recorded history save maybe the American revolution.
The big difference between the 1970's and today is simply the media no longer investigating government corruption. This allows the citizenry to believe everything is temporary, some how or another the boat will be turned around we have no chance of going over the falls.
I lived through the 70's in Philly, we are a wisp away from total destruction. The building boom in Philly has folks hopeful. I remember the last one 1980's Philly, we were in la la land and then one day it stopped the same happened in 2007. If not for the Fed's QE bailouts Most of my competitors in the hvac business would have again lost everything. If not for some rare gold coins I too would have been up shit's creek when the housing bubble burst. I had a lot of money on credit cards from flipping houses. Selling 4 coins paid off that dept. We all thought ourselves to be financial geniuses. The house we thought would flip for $140k did not, we rented and believe me that was not a good experience in the tenant friendly city. The house just sold for $167,000, it would have been gone long ago if not for Covid. $7000 in loses later we were able to get the tenant evicted.
I believe this time around Philly will simply make it impossible to evict a tenant. Even today after Covid the courts are backed up, a slight of the hand the City could simply limit court hearings in Landlord Tenant court to one day a month or 4 months a year. All landlords are portrayed as greedy suburbanites profiting on the most vulnerable.
By the way, we experienced the very same situation while in Europe the dollar is up, against all their currencies. Money will flow until it stops, they'll all be crying in their beers the same as USA.
In fact everywhere is booming, last week (the season is over) at the NJ shore we waited 15 minutes for a dinner table.
Heck investors are running all over hurricane ravaged Florida hoping to snatch up a flood damaged property at a steal. One of my customers sold his 1930's era homes for $900k nothing to worry about the place is basically intact and just needs to be moved 50 feet back onto the foundation peers. This would be the 3rd time the house was been moved in its hurricane history.
I´m sorry for your losses during the housing bust. So many folks go caught up in the ¨fun¨ of buying, renovating and flipping, it seemed the party would never end. My brother bought a townhouse in an upscale Connecticut neighborhood at the time with a no interest loan. Sounds great, right? Just recently he was able to escape from that horrible decision and ¨dump¨ the place.
I am always amazed at how lessons learned are so quickly forgotten. I've watched the same sort of frenzy occur in my own area during the most recent COVID housing boom. Now I´m seeing houses up for sale that were bought just two years ago at the top of the market. Did they really think prices would go up for ever and even at 2-3% interest they were making money? That is a very expensive lesson learned.
Do you know what the amortization of 2% interest is on $600,000 is? The same as 7% on the same $250,000 house. I never bought into the housing boom, but I did take advantage of the low rates by converting my 7%, 30 year mortgage into a 4%, 10 year mortgage. That mortgage and the related melt down are now happily part of history. I never looked back. We still live in the same little house.
I apologize for my ramblings this week, but we've had fun. I've spent the week at home with COVID thanks with great probability from my flight from Barcelona to JFK. No one can ever say for certain where they contacted COVID, but the writing is often on the wall.
The flight I was on runs back and forth to JFK each day. 600 people per day get on and off that same airplane. The cabin was over-crowded, excessively warm, the bathrooms horrific and lots of folks were coughing and sneezing. Even though I had my N95 on the whole time (sans two sips of water), I still return with a special gift.
Since you're and HVAC guy, you'll appreciate this.
The airlines always spout about how clean their air is and how they change the filters all the time – bah humbug. I can assure you the air quality on that flight was dangerously poor.
Most folks are curiously ignorant to how airplanes process the air they breath. The air used in cabins is taken in though a pitot system whose collectors are just inside the intake cowling on the engines. The ram air is slowed down and run though tanks and compressors prior to being released in the cabin. The air is directed through the HVAC system and is either heated or cooled as needed.
The catch to that system is that the RAM air ingested through the engines has a valve on it. If that valve is run wide open, it causes induced drag on the airplane which consumes additional fuel. Only their airlines know how much.
On long flights they like to tweak that valve to ensure maximum fuel efficiency for the engines. Take a guess what that does? Right, it degrades the air quality in the cabin.
You can use the best filters in the world, but if you don´t have appropriate amounts of air flowing through, people suffer.
Don't feel sorry, my wife and I had a good run before the bubble burst. I knew from the beginning it was a bubble, just as it is today. When your pizza guy leaves his job to become a general contractor you know the end is near. During the first bubble, my dental hygienist opted to become a Realtor. Not to worry she came to her senses and begged the position back before the crash.
I was stuck with on home, and $25k in credit card debt. I opted to sell a few coins to pay off the debt because we simply figured it was the end of RE flipping. Who would have thought the Fed would print money like there was no tomorrow. My mistake was not getting back into flips soon enough. I figure buy and hold was a better strategy in that I was buying apartments for pennies on a dollar to their pre crash prices.
The difference from then to now, is simply the will to succeed in America has eroded, the idea on is responsible for the debts they create is gone. In Philadelphia, the courts and politicians believe tenants have a right to housing no matter how they pay or treat the property. Bed bugs, rats, fleas, mice, are all the fault of the land lord. Somehow or another. a single home, painted, renovated, and clean as a whistle magically spawns these pests a couple months into their occupancy. We cannot possibly ask the tenant to foot the bill to address these pests, nor should they have to pay rent until the problem is solved.
These large Democratically controlled cities will all end up in ruin, you can't take the profit out of a business and expect the business to continue. Government housing or projects are always hell holes, and yet tenants by the actions spawn the rise in government housing.
Hi Rick, you are correct. Im guessing you entered through the Navy Yard which was just and extension of the Longshorman´s district. All union, corrupt and even the government piers were not free from organized crime. If you manged to get downtown, without getting mugged, you were probably lucky. As young men we would travel to a ball game on the subway during daylight, but never return the same way unless we had a large group of strong guys to defend ourselves.
America has seen better days, especially for the young with hopes of home ownership and building some equity in life instead of giving their whole paychecks over to greedy landlords, mega grocery store chains and health insurance companies.
BPS is a visual balm of superior normalcy. You speak God's vernacular with smooth aplomb and righteous perspicasity. My bulwark of first choice . . . .
Assessing a criminally influenced beurocracy for signals of any stripe , while drowning in a tar pit of misdeeds, is for a psychologist, perhaps not so much market analysist's , and Sam's Club member's . . . You guys are my life ring of refuge .
With the federal interest rate increases why are our local bank’s still paying sub-par (less than 1/2%) interest in our savings accounts? They are ripping us off.
Would be very interested in a Bolt Hole checklist from Bill at some point, given his extensive and diverse overseas living experience, perhaps with some color on what the most important factors are based on his long experience. I have noticed that Panama, as an example, has been advertised as a great Bolt Hole for Americans in the current environment. But I would rule it out personally because of what alternate sources have informed me about the extensive Chinese presence and influence in Panama. There are things the brochure crowd don’t tell you.
But you can be from any country and sometimes not happy to see that country taking the path they are taking , you can criticize because you love your country... but why shall anybody have to leave for some criticism, no country is perfect than I would say take the criticism and move on . My friends the best gift that I can get them from them is to criticizes me when I am on the wrong path , swallow it Juan and move on . I ll say the same to anybody who refuse to take a criticism done respectfully
Hi PGV I was in Iran from 1976 to 1980 there is no better place then the good old USA!! It doesn’t matter how bad it gets here USA will still be the best place to live.
Hi PG V we rebuilding the Shahs M60 tanks & Jordan’s M48 tanks . I was working for Co. called BMY . Thanks again! You should of been a teacher for the kids in today’s world.
Hi Joel, great article today. My wife and I are just back from 2.5 weeks in Europe and In spite of the record inflation, energy crisis and threat of nuclear attack, there seems to be no impact on tourism or the economy as hundreds of thousands crowd the most famous landmarks. Cafes and restaurants are over-run with guests, and in Spain, Italy and Greece, a meal is still cheaper than most places in the US (if you can find a seat). You probably have a few less miles on the odometer than many of us, but I can tell you, the world today is not the world of the late 70´s. In the mid-late 70´s place like New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore were run by thugs, organized crime, corrupt police and governments, e.g. Frank Rizzo. Each of these cities were one match stick away from burning to the ground and none of them had two nickles to rub together. We all felt Armageddon was around the corner - literally. That led to excess in lots of things like drug use and other even more reckless life styles signaling resignation by many. Forget the pandemic, we discovered AIDS and were immediately afraid to use public toilets. Interest rates on things like mortgages climbed as high as 18% and many more folks were without jobs. Highways were obstacle courses of potholes and the cars we drove, death traps. Those who ventured out in cities at night risked mugging or worse. No, today´s world is like being on a Carnival Cruise compared to that of the late 70´s. Everyone who wants one has a job, the restaurants are full and everything is delivered to our door. We don´t even know what cash looks like anymore. Oh and that biddy 3 cent exchange rate over the Euro we got on vacation did save a few bucks on the big ticket items, but the bigger kick is the tax free return on GST. In the mid 80´s the US dollar was 3 or 4 to 1 over most European currencies. We had good fun back then. I look at today´s world and see a lot of well to do folks out having the time of their life. If the end is near, none of then have received the news. By the end of the 70´s it was either us, Russia or Iran who would end the world. And then thankfully we found Mr. Reagan who by the way was the first president to push the national deficit over 1 trillion. The rest have just pushed the cart along. Reagan, when commenting on the horrid state of our infrastructure, famously said, ¨if drivers would just slow down, the bumps would not be so bad¨. How would that sound today? Enjoy the Recession Guys
Self comment on unemployment, no, the work ethic in America. In my general observation there are more folks who either don´t need to work or don´t want to work than those unemployed and currently able and looking for work. This state of our ethics is at an all time low.
Oh, I forgot, the economy is in such dire straits, how could this condition exist?
Yes, that is how pathetically spoiled America has become. Those who need a job may need it badly while most see working as a nuisance or unavoidable interruption to their play time.
Most see this as a good thing, yes America has done good, we live very well, but we must learn to be humble. There are so many countries where folks still struggle for a daily meal, live in dirt and filth and are without medical care.
Ignoring the later is reckless and may eventually come back to haunt us, physically or environmentally.
In a nutshell the American Dream is out of reach for 50% of the Nation. No hope of keeping up or rising to the top leaves most with one alternative maintain the status quo vote socialism. Bill has been preaching most Americans have seen a net decline in salaries for years. Well folks the sleepers have awakened to this fact. I have a tenant $1100 in the arrears since Covid, literally he's unable to spare a dime because the idea of an American economizing or sacrificing is unknown. The poor (wage slave) have cars, gaming systems, pet, and central air conditioning.
Due to the current rental atmosphere in the City of Philadelphia I've sold all but one of my rental homes and the last if for sale. . Not my problem, during his tenancy I offered to sell the house at 100% financing in the same manner as he would purchase a car. He declined the offer, he'll most likely be living under a bridge in a month as there is a massive low income housing shortage in the City.
I have been a landlord since 1976. Just sold all but 2 properties. Great business! I I intend to buy all cash again the crash.
You read my mind to some extent, I'm currently buying an 14 unit building in the suburbs. It's a great deal, needs some light TLC, coupled with a new management sheriff in town.
All units are single bedroom, the property is pretty much a rooming house. No families, no spouses, target audience is divorced single males who just want a place to be left alone to collect their pension or SSI check. Paying all cash, $7400 gross a month, under $400k purchase price. Compared to Philly landlording this place is a walk in the garden.
If not for the third generation inheriting the place with no landlording experience the place would selling for a million.
Congrats young man!!
Glenn and AFriend i appreciate your comments. Hopefully provide BPR some ideas for near term articles. It sure feels like we are on the cusp of bad stuff happening. However, while I save, plan and prepare others are continuing to party. Hard to believe with the excesses, 14 years of ZIRP, evil, corruption, pedophiles, banksters, excessive greed, WS front running all government policies, schools in a shambles, a false narrative on a less then pandemic, pandemic, simple cheap solutions for the covid that were not allowed, forced jabs worse than the illness for most, etc. BUT life goes on as most toil away as they always have thinking that still have freedom and liberty and the constitution means something when we have the Fed and state governments just ignoring our rights and violating laws all the times....
at 69 i was around later 60s and early 70s scary times for sure in certain places BUT i do believe the global EVIL we have around us today is worse. the constitution and laws were not as recklessly ignored then - more people had integrity, truth and facts meant something - not today.
But as many ignore all the above, buy their way to temporary safety or party like it is 1999 just seems like this can not last - BUT as both AFriend and Glenn indicate it is???? .....this dump as gone on long enough.........
rick
AFriend and Rick,
I wholeheartedly agree with you both. I wanted to provide one reminder to folks on digesting the daily clamor we´re all exposed to - even Bills :). There is an old saying, ¨the map is not the territory¨. It comes from logic theory which when broken down simply means don´t accept what you read or hear as fact without the underlying data and computation to back it up. And who from the media ever provides that? Virtually no one. Yes, you can be afraid now.
We Americans with our plethora of media outlets are quick to hear and accept things as gospel without digging into the underlying facts. For example, who said inflation was 8% this year over last? Is that right? How did they calculate that? Did they include butter and eggs and leave out milk, gas and chicken? What about fast food? You get the idea. No scientist in their right mind would accept a conclusion without knowing the underlying inputs and how they were analyzed, but we poor souls just suck up the media´s numbers like they were gold fodder.
I am no economist but I am a data engineer and the numbers don´t lie unless you cook them the wrong way - gee do you think that ever happens in the public sector?
One of my favorite lessons came from my first economics class in college. The professor presented us with the theory of elasticity. He said, we´ll, nearly every product and service has a price at which people are willing to pay before they will stop buying that product or service. OK, yeah, that sounds reasonable until....
At the same time in my life my family took a number of trips to Florida. Besides stopping to see Pedro at ¨South of the Border¨, we always stopped in NC to stock up on cartons of cigarettes. What better gift to bring back for family and friends, right? In those days the savvy shopper could pick up a carton for somewhere between $2.50 and $4.00 tops. Up north they sold for $9-12. Now, if Mr. Professor was right, folks would have stopped smoking at say $12-$15 a carton.
40 years later I stand in line at Wawa with my $1.50 coffee and watch folks drop $100 bill on the counter for a carton. Wow, that's some elasticity! That price could stretch to the moon and folks would still be smoking.
What does all this say? Human behavior is not always predictable and never trust the messenger - he´s hiding something. As far as I know, omission without intent is not a crime. The number crunchers know that and feed us with their garbage every day.
What we hear and what happens in reality today are often two different things. The 30 something´s don´t care about the Fed Funds Rate, inflation, yields on bonds and gold´s inverse relationship to oil on and on. They are more concerned about how they are going to spend their last raise, the latest series on NetFlix, the ¨pop¨ video game of the day and their next baby.
Who then is all this chatter for? Well, I´m guessing it´s for anyone who´s willing to listen and accept it as fact - buyer beware, ¨the map is not the territory¨
Glenn
Record corporate profits, 3.7% unemployment, plenty of jobs available, market ok after the rate hikes, gas dropping, manufacturing increasing , billions being spent to bring chip manufacturing here, hotels, flights, restaurants, sports events packed etc etc.
I don't see all the doom and gloom.
Zip for 14 years then print 6 trillion in 2 years. Inflation at 18%, BOE almost collapsed 2 weeks ago, Credit Suisse a disaster. You think things are OK? This is the problem with an uninformed electorate. You will see what I mean in the next few years. BTW this does mean you are dumb merely uninformed.
Nothing really has changed in Philly, it's still run by thugs. The murder rate is positioned to eclipse the highest rate in recorded history save maybe the American revolution.
The big difference between the 1970's and today is simply the media no longer investigating government corruption. This allows the citizenry to believe everything is temporary, some how or another the boat will be turned around we have no chance of going over the falls.
I lived through the 70's in Philly, we are a wisp away from total destruction. The building boom in Philly has folks hopeful. I remember the last one 1980's Philly, we were in la la land and then one day it stopped the same happened in 2007. If not for the Fed's QE bailouts Most of my competitors in the hvac business would have again lost everything. If not for some rare gold coins I too would have been up shit's creek when the housing bubble burst. I had a lot of money on credit cards from flipping houses. Selling 4 coins paid off that dept. We all thought ourselves to be financial geniuses. The house we thought would flip for $140k did not, we rented and believe me that was not a good experience in the tenant friendly city. The house just sold for $167,000, it would have been gone long ago if not for Covid. $7000 in loses later we were able to get the tenant evicted.
I believe this time around Philly will simply make it impossible to evict a tenant. Even today after Covid the courts are backed up, a slight of the hand the City could simply limit court hearings in Landlord Tenant court to one day a month or 4 months a year. All landlords are portrayed as greedy suburbanites profiting on the most vulnerable.
By the way, we experienced the very same situation while in Europe the dollar is up, against all their currencies. Money will flow until it stops, they'll all be crying in their beers the same as USA.
In fact everywhere is booming, last week (the season is over) at the NJ shore we waited 15 minutes for a dinner table.
Heck investors are running all over hurricane ravaged Florida hoping to snatch up a flood damaged property at a steal. One of my customers sold his 1930's era homes for $900k nothing to worry about the place is basically intact and just needs to be moved 50 feet back onto the foundation peers. This would be the 3rd time the house was been moved in its hurricane history.
Hi Dennis,
I´m sorry for your losses during the housing bust. So many folks go caught up in the ¨fun¨ of buying, renovating and flipping, it seemed the party would never end. My brother bought a townhouse in an upscale Connecticut neighborhood at the time with a no interest loan. Sounds great, right? Just recently he was able to escape from that horrible decision and ¨dump¨ the place.
I am always amazed at how lessons learned are so quickly forgotten. I've watched the same sort of frenzy occur in my own area during the most recent COVID housing boom. Now I´m seeing houses up for sale that were bought just two years ago at the top of the market. Did they really think prices would go up for ever and even at 2-3% interest they were making money? That is a very expensive lesson learned.
Do you know what the amortization of 2% interest is on $600,000 is? The same as 7% on the same $250,000 house. I never bought into the housing boom, but I did take advantage of the low rates by converting my 7%, 30 year mortgage into a 4%, 10 year mortgage. That mortgage and the related melt down are now happily part of history. I never looked back. We still live in the same little house.
I apologize for my ramblings this week, but we've had fun. I've spent the week at home with COVID thanks with great probability from my flight from Barcelona to JFK. No one can ever say for certain where they contacted COVID, but the writing is often on the wall.
The flight I was on runs back and forth to JFK each day. 600 people per day get on and off that same airplane. The cabin was over-crowded, excessively warm, the bathrooms horrific and lots of folks were coughing and sneezing. Even though I had my N95 on the whole time (sans two sips of water), I still return with a special gift.
Since you're and HVAC guy, you'll appreciate this.
The airlines always spout about how clean their air is and how they change the filters all the time – bah humbug. I can assure you the air quality on that flight was dangerously poor.
Most folks are curiously ignorant to how airplanes process the air they breath. The air used in cabins is taken in though a pitot system whose collectors are just inside the intake cowling on the engines. The ram air is slowed down and run though tanks and compressors prior to being released in the cabin. The air is directed through the HVAC system and is either heated or cooled as needed.
The catch to that system is that the RAM air ingested through the engines has a valve on it. If that valve is run wide open, it causes induced drag on the airplane which consumes additional fuel. Only their airlines know how much.
On long flights they like to tweak that valve to ensure maximum fuel efficiency for the engines. Take a guess what that does? Right, it degrades the air quality in the cabin.
You can use the best filters in the world, but if you don´t have appropriate amounts of air flowing through, people suffer.
Breath cleanly friend.
Don't feel sorry, my wife and I had a good run before the bubble burst. I knew from the beginning it was a bubble, just as it is today. When your pizza guy leaves his job to become a general contractor you know the end is near. During the first bubble, my dental hygienist opted to become a Realtor. Not to worry she came to her senses and begged the position back before the crash.
I was stuck with on home, and $25k in credit card debt. I opted to sell a few coins to pay off the debt because we simply figured it was the end of RE flipping. Who would have thought the Fed would print money like there was no tomorrow. My mistake was not getting back into flips soon enough. I figure buy and hold was a better strategy in that I was buying apartments for pennies on a dollar to their pre crash prices.
The difference from then to now, is simply the will to succeed in America has eroded, the idea on is responsible for the debts they create is gone. In Philadelphia, the courts and politicians believe tenants have a right to housing no matter how they pay or treat the property. Bed bugs, rats, fleas, mice, are all the fault of the land lord. Somehow or another. a single home, painted, renovated, and clean as a whistle magically spawns these pests a couple months into their occupancy. We cannot possibly ask the tenant to foot the bill to address these pests, nor should they have to pay rent until the problem is solved.
These large Democratically controlled cities will all end up in ruin, you can't take the profit out of a business and expect the business to continue. Government housing or projects are always hell holes, and yet tenants by the actions spawn the rise in government housing.
i remember in early 70s as a young navy guy going into Philly for a game or something - armed guards in fast food places - I had not seen that before.
Hi Rick, you are correct. Im guessing you entered through the Navy Yard which was just and extension of the Longshorman´s district. All union, corrupt and even the government piers were not free from organized crime. If you manged to get downtown, without getting mugged, you were probably lucky. As young men we would travel to a ball game on the subway during daylight, but never return the same way unless we had a large group of strong guys to defend ourselves.
"Part of that preparedness is financial... Part of it is (unavoidably) political...part of it is geographical."
I suggest that the most important part of preparedness for the coming years is spiritual.
Are my goals aligned with those of the God of truth and love? Am I receiving information from that source?
If not, I'm just part of the problem -- no?
* How it looks from the rock this frog is sitting on. *
escapeartist.com has some great information.
America has seen better days, especially for the young with hopes of home ownership and building some equity in life instead of giving their whole paychecks over to greedy landlords, mega grocery store chains and health insurance companies.
The best financial newsletter there is.
I agree 100% on everything you commented on & again thank you.
I’m setting here watching my Steelers my room mate in college played for them.
BPS is a visual balm of superior normalcy. You speak God's vernacular with smooth aplomb and righteous perspicasity. My bulwark of first choice . . . .
Assessing a criminally influenced beurocracy for signals of any stripe , while drowning in a tar pit of misdeeds, is for a psychologist, perhaps not so much market analysist's , and Sam's Club member's . . . You guys are my life ring of refuge .
With the federal interest rate increases why are our local bank’s still paying sub-par (less than 1/2%) interest in our savings accounts? They are ripping us off.
Greetings. Would you guys please try to observe reasonable right margins when creating your messages. It’s a real pain in the butt to
have to slide the text back and forth in order to read it.
What platforms are you using to read the articles?
Would be very interested in a Bolt Hole checklist from Bill at some point, given his extensive and diverse overseas living experience, perhaps with some color on what the most important factors are based on his long experience. I have noticed that Panama, as an example, has been advertised as a great Bolt Hole for Americans in the current environment. But I would rule it out personally because of what alternate sources have informed me about the extensive Chinese presence and influence in Panama. There are things the brochure crowd don’t tell you.
Please add a link on the Bonner emails. Thank you.
You are bit extreme PG V I deleted
Because did not want to put oil on the fire .
But you can be from any country and sometimes not happy to see that country taking the path they are taking , you can criticize because you love your country... but why shall anybody have to leave for some criticism, no country is perfect than I would say take the criticism and move on . My friends the best gift that I can get them from them is to criticizes me when I am on the wrong path , swallow it Juan and move on . I ll say the same to anybody who refuse to take a criticism done respectfully
Hi PGV I was in Iran from 1976 to 1980 there is no better place then the good old USA!! It doesn’t matter how bad it gets here USA will still be the best place to live.
Thanks for your great comments @ God Bless
Hi PG V we rebuilding the Shahs M60 tanks & Jordan’s M48 tanks . I was working for Co. called BMY . Thanks again! You should of been a teacher for the kids in today’s world.