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Nothing a goatskin (or Camelbak) full of booze won’t solve.

Or this…
http://www.thebeerbelly.com/

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ER – I am doing the best I can despite what Mr. BS at the Fed is doing. I’ll probably do fine IF current trends continue.

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^^^

Boutique developments like that are unusual, even if there are a few going up in a given area, and have a limited market. You and I both know that they’re not the norm for new construction in Phoenix or Vegas.

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FlyerinHI, I have no desire to ever spend an extended amount of time in either Vegas or Phoenix. I do not handle heat well and I dislike both of those so-called “cities” intensely. Jury is still out on Texas; I haven’t been there enough. Maybe also Tucson.

And why bother when there are FNMA foreclosures in NJ/PA (including near a nice college town where I went to school) that rent at 8-10% cap in acceptable areas?

Also still 1/1 condos that do 7-8% cap in San Diego, and rent very quickly to single people or students.

To be clear, the ONLY way Phoenix would interest me would be if an especially good deal came along that I could flip for 1.25-1.5x purchase price with minimal work. I could deal with spending a month in Hell if it netted me a quick return and I didn’t have to deal with coming back to rent the thing and deal /w tenant issues.

NYC vacancy rate: under 2%
SD vacancy rate: 5%
Vacancy rate in areas of NJ/PA where I’m looking: 5-10%
Vegas vacancy rate: 13%
Phoenix vacancy rate: 20%

More vacancy means more chance of finding tenants who are “jumpers” — exploit the property for all it’s worth for the 3 months it takes to evict, then move on to the next sucker landlord.

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And builders are building again. A lot. And the market is absorbing what they’re building, and the distressed inventory on the market has shrunk to less than 20%. (It was over 50% a little over a year ago.) And that’s after large investors have pretty much exited the market as buyers.

Apparently, Phoenix’s rental vacancy rate is close on 20%, so the vacant foreclosures were just replaced with vacant rentals. How is it efficient to be building outward when a lot of housing closer to job centers sits vacant?

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Perhaps food prices will rise but that’s not bad for our waist lines and still well within historical share of income.

Wrong. Cheap food is actually more likely to cause obesity — witness the fact that more of the poor are obese than the wealthy. Higher food prices will just mean that people are pushed towards less healthy/cheaper food choices.

[spdrun]

For example, demand for housing is increasing now so you see boulders getting back to work, even in hard hit markets like Las Vegas. More construction will lead to a better economic outlook.

More construction while distressed properties sit vacant (LV’s vacancy rate for rentals is 14-15%, apparently) or in bank limbo is retardedly stupid. Not to mention extremely environmentally wasteful.

Especially in a place with a horrid climate where no sane human would want to live, other than because of certain historical legal differences between Nevada and the rest of the country (which are shrinking by the day).

Overbuilding was one of the causes of the 2008 collapse, and is not the solution. As a friend from Phoenix said half-jokingly, the major industry of Phoenix before 2008 was expanding itself.

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I speak from both self-interest and public interest.
(a) the Fed will have to exit at some point
(b) it ain’t gonna be pretty (think of the early 80s with 10+% rates)
(c) the Fed may have already lost control of markets and rates (people are talking about an 0.1-0.25% drop in mortgage rates vs the ~1.25% rise in May). Dow also plunged 220 points in the last two days — even before the budget vote, the Dow was down 40 points yesterday. QE was novel in 2009; now it’s the status quo.
(d) I have no desire to invest in third-world “emerging” pestholes — lack of rule-of-law and widespread corruption means that I don’t know what is really happening with my money. No thanks. I’ll stick to US property when opportunities with the appropriate cap rate present. And there are still many, more to come as well.

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I’m not confident that it will blow up soon, but the law of gravity still does apply. I’m a simple SoB. I don’t go short either 🙂

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Cash is trash.

Even a skinflint like me gets the message.

Not so sure. A lot of corrections and bears have happened during (or despite) periods of loose monetary policy. You might be very glad to have held on to some cash when the stock bubble blown up by Mr. B.S. Bernanke pops.

Dow down 40 yesterday, down 55 today. Up ~135 on the initial “no taper” news — could the market be becoming immune to Fedspeak and tracking the fundamentals?

Anyone who doesn’t keep some cash around is in danger of being burned hard.

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Lower interest rates == more demand for RISKY products that (promise to!) pay higher-than-normal interest rates.

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(a) I’m not convinced that printing more money to make necessities like housing, food, and energy (conveniently excluded from inflation metrics) more expensive is right by anyone.
(b) Even if I believed that it was right, I don’t actually care about the average American all that much, so long as I, my family, and a few close (and smart!) friends do well.

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I’m just glad that prices in NJ are bouncing along the bottom. Hopefully they’ll stay that way for the next 1-2 years, so I can buy up enough foreclosures to be able to sit on my arse, collect rent, fix the occasional problem, and mostly stay on the couch, surf the Web, gain weight, and be drunk 50% of the time.

I hate working and productivity, and hope to get out of the game as soon as possible. I’m tireder in my 30s than most people are at 80, and I saw the 2008 crash as one mofo of an opportunity to be able to spend the rest of my life doing exactly what I want (i.e. as little as possible). Hope it works out for me.

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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.

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In case you didn’t notice, most people here don’t WANT the economy to really be afloat. Chaos == opportunity.

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