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SK in CV
ParticipantThat’s exactly what I was thinking SDR. I had a friend with a very expensive house who gave his realtor buddy a listing for $10.6 million. Way over market (by a couple million at least), the realtor thought it would be prestigious for him to have the highest listing in the neighborhood. A buyer offered full price. When my friend (the prospective seller) backed out, the buyer was ok with it. The buyers agent however, was not. Judge agreed with the agent. Cost him $300K not to sell his house. (happy ending, his house is now probably worth >$20M)
ParticipantI’m a little bit confused about the timing and what the exact nature of the claim. Are the brokers claiming that they earned a commission because they brought you a qualified buyer, had an offer that you agreed to, and you backed out of, and therefore owe them a commission? Or is the commission somehow related to effectively cancelling the listing prior to its expiration?
I’ve heard of claims similar to the former, but never the latter.
It would seem to me that if your listing agreement (not the sales agreement) didn’t have the qualification for replacement housing, the broker has a much stronger claim. I’m not saying it’s a valid claim. But I have heard of similar claims being affirmed by the courts.
Participant[quote=CA renter]
That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be regulations and restrictions on the supply side, but those products would not have been as prevalent, nor as damaging, if the Fed hadn’t poured on the gasoline and spurred demand.[/quote]
Just one question. How do lower interest rates spur demand for investors in interest bearing securities? It should be just the opposite. Do investors chase after lower yielding dividend paying stocks? Lower the dividend, higher the demand?
Participant[quote=CA renter]It wasn’t the availability of these investments that caused the demand for them. It was the demand (fueled by the Fed’s low rates) that caused these mortgage (and related) investments to come to the market.
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That’s like saying illegal drug dealers have no responsibility for selling drugs, it’s the drug users. If the demand wasn’t so high, they wouldn’t be dealing.
Participant[quote=CA renter]
Agree with livin’ on this. The low rates were a big part of what caused the non-existent lending standards as investors (including pension funds!) kept reaching for greater yield. The Fed’s easy-money policies are largely responsible for the problems with the public pension funds. Bernanke and Greenspan are FAR more responsible for the problems with the pension funds (and healthcare costs due to inflation???) than the public workers are.
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Why aren’t prices spiraling up and out of control across the country now? Not a year ago. Now. Investors have driven up prices in some markets (though investor buying has dropped off sharply in most markets, including SoCal). But better underwriting has kept prices in check. Interest rates are still a full point to a 1.5 points below where they were during that period.
If lenders hadn’t abandoned lending standards, there would be fewer loans for the pension funds to buy and they would have found alternate investments. Nobody forced lenders to make those loans. The Fed made a lot of mistakes and maintaining low interest rates may have been one of them. But they didn’t create the bubble or kill the pension plans. They were no more than a tiny piece of the puzzle.
Participant[quote=spdrun]I have seen many more posts hoping for a housing correction of Bubble 2.0 than hoping for more appreciation. I happen to agree with them.[/quote]
Of course you do, more than 1/2 of them have come from you. I’m not sure there is even close to a majority here who think that we’re in a bubble, much less want it to burst.
Participant[quote=livinincali][quote=FlyerInHi][quote=SK in CV]Just for a different perspective, I think he’s done an absolutely masterful job the last 5 years keeping the economy afloat. And continues to do so, despite the lack of support of legislators.[/quote]
That’s exactly it.
Fiscal policy has actually been very counter productive.
Bernanke did quite well with the monetary tools at his disposal.[/quote]
Nobody thought Greenspan’s low interest rates policies in 2003-2006 to deal with the dot bomb were bad either at the time. It wasn’t until after the housing bubble blew up, that we looked back and said that was kind of dumb. I figure this time will be no different. When Bernanke’s successor is forced to deal with the fed’s bloated balance sheet they’ll look to point the figure at Bernanke’s stupid policies of the time. “If Bernanke wasn’t so focused on the short term we wouldn’t have to be dealing with this mess,” will be the catch phrase 5 years done the line if not sooner.[/quote]
I don’t think those who think that low interest rates were the main problem from 2003-2006 have a clue what they’re talking about. It wasn’t the interest rates, the genesis was the almost non-existent lending standards.
Participant[quote=spdrun]In case you didn’t notice, most people here don’t WANT the economy to really be afloat. Chaos == opportunity.[/quote]
I’m not sure you = most people.
ParticipantJust for a different perspective, I think he’s done an absolutely masterful job the last 5 years keeping the economy afloat. And continues to do so, despite the lack of support of legislators.
ParticipantGood choice on his part. He never would have been confirmed, and so would never get a chance to fail as he has his entire career.
Relatedly, I though it hilarious that stock futures gapped up sharply on the news. Mostly filled the gap during the day but still ended up high enough to reverse the trend from the end of last week.
Participant[quote=bearishgurl] Perhaps you are referring to some emergency rooms currently providing “charity” care to non-paying patients (which will supposedly cease come 2014, assuming everyone signs up for a plan). [/quote]
That’s not exactly true. There are, as of a few days ago, still 26 states that have not agreed to expand Medicaid coverage, with no current cost to those states. Three of those are leaning towards expansion. The majority of the rest have declined expansion, with seven states leaning towards not expanding Medicaid. Those currently uninsured, that would qualify under Medicaid expansion will not be eligible for credits under the state run exchanges. They are likely to remain uninsured, and will remain a burden to non-profit hospitals in those states.
Participant[quote=livinincali]
How do figure that it will lower the total cost of health care. Look at it from the vantage point of the ER. They have x amount of staff to pay, y amount of fixed costs, and some profit margin. Whether they charge 10 patients $1 million each and get paid on 30% of them or they charge $300K each and get paid on all of them doesn’t change the total cost of health care at all. Those 10 patients brought in 3 million dollars to the ER. It just changes who’s paying for it. Suppose this scenario.
The ER sees 7 patients cuts the $1 million charge to $500K and gets paid on all of them. The ER just made an addition $500K and total health care costs went up even though each individual patient was charged less.
Now if the ER responds by cutting their workforce (costs) because they see less patients the total costs could go down but nothing in Obamacare makes them do that.[/quote]
Ignoring professional staff for the moment, there are other marginal costs for running an ER. Drugs, consumables, DME, admin costs and salaries. Using the beginning of your example, instead of 10 pts with 8 paying, they may only have 9 pts with all of them paying. Some ER visits for formerly uninsured will remain, but some will entirely disappear as covered patients see non-ER physicians with a much lower cost, and some visits entirely disappear as a result of preventive care.
The cost savings in having more people covered (as specifically related to ER’s only) will come from two areas. First, preventive care is less expensive than acute care. (e.g., successfully treating for hypertension is significantly less expensive than treating for a heart attack.) Second, treating in a non-emergency clinical setting is significantly less expensive than treating in an ER.
One of the by-products will be a reduction in cost-shifting. Currently non-profit hospitals that are required by law to treat indigent patients (where zero-pay patients often reach 20%, in some hospitals much higher) must charge insured patients to cover the cost of their zero-pay patients. With a reduction in indigent patients, that cost-shifting will be reduced.
Participant[quote=livinincali]
What makes you think costs will come down. Say there’s a 20% reduction in emergency rooms visits because patients go see the doctor before they end up in the emergency room. Are some emergency rooms going to close? Are some emergency rooms going to downsize? What if instead the emergency rooms jack up the prices on their remaining patients to make up for the decrease in the number of patients they see. Does that lower the cost of healthcare in this country?[/quote]
You have this kind of backwards. Reductions of ER visits are much more likely to be from patients that previously had no coverage and weren’t paying. That won’t reduce ERs viability, it will increase it. They’ll be servicing a higher percentage of paying patients, so if anything, they can decrease prices. And those patients who were previously getting free ER treatment, are more likely to see non-ER providers, with treatment at a much lower cost. So yes, it will lower the overall cost of healthcare.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi]Doesn’t anyone take exception to Putin’s claim that Americans are not exceptional?[/quote]
I’m sure someone does. I don’t.
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