[NotARocketScientist]

Found an interesting FDIC sponsored site that allows one to generate reports on any FDIC insured institution. You can set a number of the perimeters yourself and call up a staggering amount of information. Problem for me, of course, is parsing out the relevant numbers (assuming they’re there).

http://www2.fdic.gov/idasp/main.asp

If anybody has a knowledge of this sort of stuff and is included to take a look, I’d sure be interested to know if any of the data available are actually useful or just sound and fury signifying nothing.

[NotARocketScientist]

“As always, I much appreciation for your great posts!”

Huh? I wrote that? Sorry, long week been it has!

[NotARocketScientist]

Powayseller,

Thanks for the hot tip about Weiss. From your research can you give us any hints about what SoCal banks and S&Ls are *more* secure?

I am heavily tied up in Fremont S&L cds right now. Should I be worried? Also curious where IndiMac and Ing stand.

Bottom line: where would you park your money right now? As always, I much appreciation for your great posts!

[NotARocketScientist]

Actually, you don’t need 20/20 hindsight.

My folks bought their first SoCal rentals in 1971 when defense contracts ebbed near the end of the Vietnam War and the local economy contracted.

They bought again in the early 80s when we had the recession described in the article quoted in this thread. All the local newspapers were full of hard luck stories about people who had been burned by real estate and were fed up with California.

I bought my house in the mid-ninties after watching real estate prices get pummeled by fires, mudslides, earthquakes, riots, base closings and the bankruptcy of Orange County.

I thought I’d be investing by 2005, but I’ll probably have to wait 3-6 years. When Time Magazine finally does it’s cover story on how “the Golden State has lost its luster” again, it will be time to start crunching numbers.

You don’t need a crystal ball to invest in SoCal real estate, you just need to pay attention, have patience and save your pennies.

[NotARocketScientist]

“Like someone smart once said, buy when everyone say sell and sell when everyone say buy.”

Right you are, asianautica!

I have in front of me the front page of the Los Angeles Record, a newspaper dated July 13, 1903. The banner headline reads: REDONDO BOOM CROWD GROWS GREATER DAILY, BUT, APPARENTLY THE BUBBLE IS NEARLY READY TO “BUST”

Of course the bubble did bust, within weeks, and a lot of people lost their shirts. Henry Huntington, who precipitated this boom in the first place by buying land cheap in Redondo when nobody else wanted it, turned around and sold the land for a fortune after hinting that he would build a streetcar line to service Redondo. When he retracted the plan, the boom collapsed. Huntington re-bought the land for pennies on the dollar and used the profits thus earned to build his streetcar line to Santa Monica. At least that’s how my grandpa told it. He was selling lots at the time and made a lot of commissions that year!

[NotARocketScientist]

How about:

7. Relaxed PROSPECTIVE INVESTOR waiting patiently for the other side of the market cycle to reemerge — as it always does.

[Author]

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