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lindismith
ParticipantWell, it’s a family business, and we’re immigrants, so we’re here to “live the American Dream,” and be as successful as possible. But success is relative, isn’t it? If you can’t afford a house with a white picket fence, it’s pretty frustrating!
ParticipantBugs, are you coming?
Can’t wait to meet you and Poway Seller!
ParticipantMurray –
Gin and Thornberg both have a vested interest in saying 1% is nothing to worry about.
Gin himself teaches a class through UCSD extension on how to do condo conversions. The class alone brings him thousands of dollars! And that is only one small aspect of how he makes money through real estate. I have met him and he is a very nice guy, but again, it is not in his interest to forecast anything dire.ParticipantWell, this is traditionally the time of year in retail called the “Dog Days of Summer” because it is so slow. I worked at Nordstrom all through college, and watched it every year. That is why Norstrom started doing their Anniversary and Pre-season sales in the middle of the summer – so they could drum up business.
Participantgo to p.4 of this post:
http://piggington.com/the_meetup_day_post?page=3
We moved the meet-up to next weekend, the 22nd.
Last I looked, about 20 people were coming. 🙂
ParticipantJust paraphrasing, so I can make sure I understand you both so far: a period of exuberance is followed by a pull-back and then other factors can influence to what degree it becomes a full-blown recession, vs a slight dip etc.
So in the dot-com exuberance, that led to a pull-back, which was exacerbated by 9/11. But lowering interest rates by the Federal government allowed money to flow back into the economy?
What was the prior recession due to? (I was just out of college in the early 1990s.)
If the Fed knows all this, then don’t they have an idea of what we’re in for? I mean, don’t they have teams of people running forecasts, and analyzing EVERYTHING, and then controlling whatever factor(s) they need to? I realize we’re in a capitalist market, and not everything can be controlled, but why let interest rates get SO low?
Do you think they have models of possible outcomes?
Do you think there’s a ‘consumer-housing-crash model’?
ParticipantAm at work, and so can’t read the article too well via their online PDF, but suffice it to say, it’s a GREAT headline!
Anyone with an ounce of IQ will think twice about buying if those types of headlines continue.
ParticipantThis is great stuff PS. I’ll get that book this weekend. Also, this is just a quick post because I’m literally optimizing our website right now so we can get as many calls as possible in the coming months. (Based on the info I’ve gleaned on this forum, I decided to do a web overhaul last fall, and the site was just completed recently.) Since 90% of my new business comes from the web, it’s imperative we maintain a very strong presence.
I’m convinced some of my competitors will go out of business in the coming months, and so I’ll pick up their business. This has already been happening over the last 3 years (if not longer,) but I only began keeping tabs on them about 3 years ago.
To answer some specific questions – yes, I can sell my evergreen items consistently through a recession, although I’ll sell less of them, so the key is to make sure my phone keeps ringing. On more custom items, it’s actually the same; keep the phone ringing because only a certain % of the calls will turn into business, and in a recession there will simply be less calls and less business.
I just need to make sure my website is always coming up first in search results for the products I sell so I can at least get the calls.
My first job out of college was selling yellow page ad space to small and medium-sized businesses. It was during the recession of the early 90s. The businesses that stayed in business were the ones that ‘ignored’ the recession and kept up with aggressive marketing. (Most businesses are tempted to cut back on marketing to save money, but I saw first hand how that thinking really hurt them in the long run.)
As for my offshore production in China – I suspect the pricing there will get a little more aggressive, because they’ll be scrambling for work too.
The last thing I want to touch on, is most of my labor is Hispanic. Most likely I’ll have lay-offs, causing some of them to return to their families in Mexico. (Yes, they all have green cards, and yes we check their ss #s. If we didn’t our turn-over would be too high.) Yes, even though they are legal, they will leave the US.
ParticipantCan you give any kind of specific examples? I’m in manufacturing, and witnessing some of the same results (or lack thereof.) I thought it might just be the Dog Days of Summer….
What were conversion rates last 3 months? What are they now?
Participantok, found it.
Go here for data from Rich
And check out this thread: http://piggington.com/demand_for_rental_housing
Interestingly (in the thread above,) Powayseller predicted another 65K people out by June 2006. I wonder what the real number is? She’s usually very accurate in her predictions.
ParticipantWe’ve covered this extensively on Piggington. You would have to do a search for past topics to read it. If I have time, I will look and post it for you.
Participant“Rents will likely come down or stop increasing, once the vacant homes start getting filled.”
How long is this time period? Does anyone have any ideas?
Participant“I am wondering if you can quantify your search. How much is the increase?”
A year ago a 1-bedroom apartment in Hillcrest/Mission Hills/North Park/ was about $1000. Now it costs $1200 – $1300. I wish I had actually logged the figures because the increase is so high, I’m beginning to wonder if I remembered it wrong?? But I just confirmed with my siter and brother-in-law, and they agreed.
Interestingly, this morning I called about a rent-to-own house in Mission Hills. The owner is in Hawaii, and previously did a rent-to-own with a millitary couple who gave him a note from the prior sale of their home, and stayed there 5 years. Well, they got transferred to Iraq, so they gave up the house. He claims he gave them back their note, and now he wants to repeat the process. I asked him, “why not sell outright,” and he said, “Well there are 10-15 other homes on the market right now that are comparable properties, so this is a good way for me to unload it because I really don’t want to be a landlord in another state, and it worked before.” He is asking $899K and is willing to finance at 7%. He’s also asking for a 10K security deposit. (!)
I searched for it on Zillow, and the prior sale (to the millitary couple) was never on the books, and in fact he bought it in ’96 for $223K.
I suspect the whole rental market is going to get really wacky for a while.
ParticipantI noticed my credit improved when I started using an American Express card a few years ago. Perhaps because it forces the user to pay it in full every month.
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