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ParticipantI think the house is worth $38,585. Add another $38 for San Diego location premium. Subtract $5 for collective delusion.
Start with a stink bid of $800.
ParticipantI think the house is worth $38,585. Add another $38 for San Diego location premium. Subtract $5 for collective delusion.
Start with a stink bid of $800.
ParticipantI think the house is worth $38,585. Add another $38 for San Diego location premium. Subtract $5 for collective delusion.
Start with a stink bid of $800.
ParticipantI actually bought a house in 2003. My county appriasal said I’ve had $100+K of appreciation since then. But I did not go out and do a HELOC to buy useless things or invest in additional properties. Like a lot of people here, I bought a house not expecting to make a killing — it’s just a shelter and roof over my head.
However, I follow this site just like people who can’t resist rubbernecking when an accident takes place along the side of the road. What the heck, I admit it — I enjoy watching a slow-motin trainwreck. Being called a sourpuss doesn’t bother me at all. I just enjoy the feeling of shadenfreude — of seeing greedy people going down in (financial) flames.
I am actively rooting for chaos and bloodbath in the housing market.
ParticipantIf I were your neighbor #1, #2, or #3, and some busybody comes by and offer unsolicited advice, I’d boot that busybody off my property in an instant.
You may be right about the real estate bust, but it is none of your business to approach these people. It _may_ be a different manner if you’re close to these people and they wouldn’t mind your apparently expert opinion.
ParticipantUse this link for a convenient way to check interest rates:
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates/index.html
AS far as USAA goes, I happen to be a member, and after you mentioned it, I did check, and you’re right: they do have CDs that are yielding more than Treasury bills. It comes down how comfortable you feel about USAA’s bank. I feel pretty comfortable. On the other hand, I would avoid Corus Bank’s CDs. It seems they are desperate raising funds via high-yielding CDs: Corus is very exposed to, not only the Housing Bubble bursting, but specifically the _CONDO_ housing bubble bursting. If you buy Corus’s CDs, you’re in a way investing indirectly in the condo lending game!
ParticipantDeleted.
ParticipantSorry for the repoeat, not sure what happened!
ParticipantYou can sort of view the Canadian dollar as collateralized by its vast natural resources such as Gold, Uranium and Oil (nice things to have in a pinch). The socialist tendencies of the Canadian gov’t and people are also on the mend. Their federal gov’t’s finances is probably the best among the G7 now. The bottom line is that it is a politically and economically stable country w/ relatively sane fiscal and monetary policies. The wild card is Alberta and Quebec want to break free, but those possibilities are slight.
As far as the euro goes, the economonic and political situation in the euro zone does not justify the euro’s high price (in terms of USD). Sometime w/n the next 5 yrs, you will probably see some cracks in the European Union, starting, probably, w/ the basket case Italy in terms of currency crisis, or France, in terms of immigrant unrest,or Germany, in terms of a recession. Australian dollar and the British Pound have similar problems as the USD in terms of the twin deficits, so it’s not that much better than USD. The Swiss central bank has lost its Gold religion. In fact, they hired a bunch of MBAs and now fancy themselves as hedge fund managers, dabbling in corporates bonds, junk bonds, equities as reserve assets. Too kinky for my comfort.
As far as Asian currencies go, most of them are pegged to the USD, so not sure what you get for jumping into them. The only exception is the Singapore dollar. But inexplicably, CurrencyShares doesn’t offer the Singapore dollar in an ETF.
ParticipantThis may get lost among the inevitabel degenration of conversation into tit-for-tat sniping between 2 or 3 posters, but nonetheless, to park money in a safe place, consider TreasuryDirect.gov — website run by your own Federal Government. You can buy a ladder of Treasury Bills w/ yields higher than 5%. That’s better than Treasury money market mutual funds, which typically have expenses ranging from 0.25% to 0.75%. Minimum investment in a Treasury Bill at TreasuryDirect.gov is $1,000, which is small.
If you’re more deep pocketed, Fidelity Brokerage and, starting 7/1/06, Charles Schwab will allow you to buy Treasury Bills at Auction for free (as in no commission). But the minimum denomination for Treasury Bill is $10,000, which is more than the min of TreasuryDirect. One advantage of going w/ Schwab is that they have 100% guarantee against security breach and unauthorized activities. TreasuryDirect.gov, astoundingly, does not offer that guarantee even though it is run by the Federal Government. So you do run a small risk if someone steal your TreasuryDirect.gov account id and password
If my opinion, if your purpose is to “park money in a safe place”, then there is no safer place than Treasury Bills. T-Bills are safer than your local bank’s FDIC-insured CDs. For one thing, if your local bank goes belly up, you may get your money back eventually, it’s still a hassle w/ heartburn. Besides, there’s a the $100K max insured amount per account w/ FDIC.
As an additional hedge against the US dollar going the way of soiled toilet paper, you may want to diversify w/ foreign exchange. And, what do you know, you can now buy FX via exchange traded funds. Check out currencyshares.com for more detail on these new ETFs. I am partial to the Canaadian loonie (FXC). But there are others such as Euros (FXE) and Swiss Francs (FXF), but my personal opinion is that the Euro is overvalued, and the Swiss Franc is losing its hard currency status. Stay away from the Pound Sterling (FXB), Australian dollar (FXA), and others.
Hope this helps.
ParticipantDo yourself a favor: buy a ladder of Treasury Bills and ntoes maturing anywhere from 3 montsh to 5yrs. They are yielding 5%+, and exempt from California’s state income tax (9%+ if I recall before I escaped).
Cash is not trash anymore. That 5% from Treasuries is getting more competitive vs stocks or real estate considering the risks you have to take in those markets.
In a year, you will be happy to learn that cash is all of a sudden an “asset class” once again.
ParticipantCan you say “economic crackpot”? It naively assumes that foreign countries won’t react or take countermeasures to what the authors proposed US to do. For one thing, you can kiss the US dollar goodbye, and say hello to hyperinflation.
That this kind of nonsense comes out of a big financial institution like PIMCO is scary.
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