The Stalwart

But Will They Actually Take The Skyscrapers Home?

One of the news stories this week had to do with the possible sale of certain NYC landmarks to foreign buyers. The big one: reports that Abu Dhabi might buy the iconic Chrysler building. Some will freak out, but as long as Abu Dhabi doesn't pack the building onto trucks and ship it back home, it's really no big deal. Again, if they do ship it back home, that'll obviously leave a gaping hole in the skyline, so that'd suck big time.

The other one is the possible sale of the Flatiron building to an Italian investor. This one really is an outrage: It's a product of decades-old piss-poor olive oil policy. We need a sensible policy now towards a sustainable olive-oil future, or else the Italians (and the Spaniards) will soon own half of Manhattan Island through the cash we send overseas!! McCain, Obama, are you listening?

Foreclosureville Home Prices Catching A Bid?

Too early to say, obv. But anytime you see the price of a house in San Diego moving up, that has to be news.

KB Homes Transcript

Why, what are you doing with your Friday afternoon? What I thought.

Anyway, follow along as I live-read the KB Home transcript. So far, my favorite part is this line, right after explaining how things are getting worse and worse:

While these factors impacted our first quarter financial results, the good news is that the apparent acceleration of these negative trends also gets us closer to the eventual recovery.

Objectively true. If the meteor is hurtling towards earth, the faster it goes, the sooner the the impact, and thus the sooner the recovery from the impact.

More to come

Real Estate Effects

Everytime there's either big layoff news or big bonus news on Wall St., you get a wave of discussion about the effects on home prices in New York City. With Bear Stearns you have a double whammy: A big wave of layoffs and a number of folks whose net worth has been decimated. So it's hard to imagine this not being bad for New York real estate, though I'll pass on saying it will be crucial. Hard to say on that, though I can't abide by the talking head on CNBC right now, Dolly Lenz, arguing that all this tumult could be good for the market. Her reasoning: in times of uncertainty, people will look to hard assets, like homes, as sources of secure investing.

Given the leverage involved with any home investment, are homes really considered hard assets? I mean, they can't be the equivalent of gold.

Apparently Lenz is a superstar broker.

Home Prices In The Motor City

I like to claim the D as one of my homes, even though I was born in the suburbs and didn't live their past age 2.  But between the Red Wings and The White Stripes, it's a cool place to be from, if not necessarily to live. Of course if you wanted to live there, it'd be extraordinarily cheap. Barry found listings of homes in Detroit for, get ready for it... $100. These are homes. For $100.  Here are the actual listings. As you can see, they might classify as fixer uppers.

(btw, I read Barry religiously, but I actually noticed this particular post via the Tumblog j10, which is awesome, but there's no info about it, like who posts it or what not. Not even a contact, as far as I can tell. Very frustrating. Put it in your RSS though, as it's a good source of cool links.)

Playboy To Benefit From Hugh Hefner's Death: Analyst

It's always refreshing when an analyst shows some chutzpah when analyzing a company. David Miller of SMH Capital sees a boost to playboy when the company's iconic founder (who is 81) passes away:

Given the material expense required for maintenance and taxes on the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, and given that Mr. Hefner pays “rent” back to Playboy corporate (recorded as a contra expense) for the privilege of living there, we believe Mr. Hefner’s death could result in a material stock price uptick on the notion that the Mansion could eventually be sold, which would leave the company net debt free.

Via MediaFile

Toll Vs. Toll

Amazing: The daughter of Toll Brothers co-founder Bruce Toll intends to renege on a deal to buy a condo... from Toll Brothers. Barry is on it.

Obama on Housing

I didn't watch the Dem debate last night, but there was an interesting moment in it. Hillary was talking about her plan to solve the real estate crisis by freezing interest rates and freezing foreclosures. Shockingly, Obama responded by pointing out that price controls will have unintended consequences. That banks would stop lending out if the government interceded like this. How... correct. When was the last time a politician said something like that? Obviously it's not Nobel Prize-winning economics, but it's something.

That being said, I caught a second of Larry Kudlow during which stated that the market rallied today, purely because of this exchange. He's always saying this stuff, but come on.

The 2008 Refi Boom. Get It While It Lasts

Meant to write about this earlier, but I've been fascinated by the crescendo of talk and advertising, encouraging folks to refi their mortgages once again to a low-fixed rate. Everywhere you look, it's like 2004 all over again. Countrywide can't stop advertising it. Switching from an ARM to a fixed rate with a lower price tag? It's like the greatest free lunch of all time. I knew something was up, when I got an IM out of the blue from a relative telling me how they were going to be investing in some real estate -- cause rates are just so low! On TV today, during the real estate segment, a couple of the talking heads were all excited cause mortgages are back!

Speaking of TV, I finally caught Jonathan Miller, my favorite real estate blogger on CNBC today. I know he's been on a million times, but I never catch him. When the others were yapping about nonsense, he was good at being polite. Speaking of whom, here's an interesting post from Miller, from back in February 2006, which pretty much got it all right.

But maybe too soon to crack open the champagne and declare the housing economy saved. Paul Kedrosky notes that the mortgage rates are already spiking back up. So that's the problem: money's cheap, there just isn't very much of it.

Anyone Wanna Buy A Homebuilder?

Dominion Homes to Go Private for $5.5M

Seems to me that if the readers of The 'Wart got together, we could buy a homebuilder right now. So here's my idea. We buy one, but we don't build normal homes, cause that's obviously a total non-starter.

I was thinking monolithic domes. They're cheap, energy efficient and disaster resistant. They're also hypo-allergenic, at least according to this movie. Who's in?