Do me one favor, Team Bull. When you go to sell in five years and can't be made whole, make sure to say "But it beat the widget!"

Posted by: Whuh at October 23, 2009 10:50 AM in response to 20 Clifton Place Sells, Kicks Widget's Ass

Where is DIBS?

Posted by: Whuh at October 2, 2009 2:04 PM in response to Open House Picks: Six Months Later

Sure, in the near term the "bulls" have some small vindication (setting aside the fact that they once thought "RE always goes up" and when it started to go down "BK is different.") And I love that a widget on an anonymous blog is now considered "data." Anyhow, the point isn't whether prices deflated then stabilized without collapsing, as they did. The relevant questions are: Is the recession over, or is this only an inventory correction and a stimulus-induced pause? Is employment going to go back up? Is the financial sector going to bounce back fully, or only by half?

And this leads directly to: The question isn't whether the widget underpriced. It's whether someone can turn around and sell their place in a year, five years, ten years, whatever, without taking a loss. It's a weak consolation to say, "But I beat the widget!"

And: Bulls are vindicated only when RE stops going down --so, has it hit bottom? I think it starts declining again, and noticeably, by the spring selling season.

Posted by: Whuh at October 1, 2009 11:52 AM in response to

How funny --all the emotion is now on the side of panicky buyers. Rest assured, I say with relief, and no envy, that the building is ahistorical, ugly, the developers have miscalculated the cycle and to make good have lied about vacancy rates, the idea that the Times story was written and fact checked in May is silly, and thankfully the problem of owning an overpriced and excrescent white elephant in a down market is not mine. Now what part of that is envy?

Posted by: Whuh at September 28, 2009 11:34 AM in response to The Darkness at Richard Meier's Brooklyn Tower

DIBS, isn't some context helpful here? This was a historic bubble in RE. Why is past performance any guide? You sound like a "Stocks for the Long Run" guru when Naz was at 5000; saying things that are true, but beside the point. OK, the guv wants to reflate, at any cost; and so maybe taking on massive debt is a fine idea, as the dollars you pay it back with get cheaper and cheaper. Or maybe the guv isn't to be trusted, in intent or competence, and if they flub this, you, new mortgage taker, could be a major bagholder. Why be SO sure buying a house is a no brainer? It makes you sound like you're only talking your book (surely you don't have our best interests in mind) and slightly hysterical, at that.

Posted by: Whuh at September 22, 2009 6:40 PM in response to House of the Day: 297 Vanderbilt Avenue

That's a nice return but doesn't compete with what I'm currently in, which is registered and above aboard, btw; I'd be happy to send you those docs.

Why "village idiot"? If I'd bought six months ago, I'd have lost money, esp relative to the very stocks you're now touting. Is a brownstone going to outperform the S and P over the next six months? If it makes you feel better to run together a know-nothing who wants prices to collapse with someone who thinks we still have a way to go, whatever, dude...

Posted by: Whuh at September 18, 2009 4:53 PM in response to Open House Picks

Why sour grapes? Look, this is an anonymous forum. There's nothing I can say to convince you it's not sour grapes. But trust me, I have nothing to complain about.

Posted by: Whuh at September 18, 2009 4:19 PM in response to Open House Picks

Thanks, Dave, I'd love to see it. Can you give me something like a real address to send it to? Like many people with that kind of dosh, I don't send out statements to internet trolls.

Posted by: Whuh at September 18, 2009 4:17 PM in response to Open House Picks

Dave, how much of that gain is due to a combination of government stimulus and Fed reserve liquidity, and how much is due to a return of animal spirits? How long can the feds continue to prop up the economy? What is the growth driver going forward? If you want to momentum invest the S and P, please, be my guest. "Most respected leading indicator." You're funny.

Posted by: Whuh at September 18, 2009 4:14 PM in response to Open House Picks

DIBS is a perma Bull. He is impervious to evidence that counters his, and Larry Kudlow's, views. (OK wealth has rebounded somewhat with stocks. It is still off a cumulative 12 or so trillion from peak.) Would you want someone impervious to counter arguments managing your money? I still believe he is fibbing when he says he helps manage a hedge fund, one that is conveniently unregistered, so we remain unable to verify its size, returns, or even its existence. Setting aside his reliability, does he believe we're in recovery, and will it be a jobs recovery, will that cover NYC, and to what extent? Unemployment is rising, and a fair amount of anecdotal evidence backs up the stats: Wall Street is doing great, everyone else --including exactly the sorts of high end professionals who buy in the Heights, Cobble Hill, FG, etc. --is getting killed. Granted, the finest mansions will continue to move. But average to nice brownstones --worth more or less in six months?

I know it makes him feel like a bigshot to say some people are waiting breathlessly for Armaggedon. But I don't pick that up at all from, say, MM. I think some people are waiting to spend their money wisely, and until prices go UP --got that, Dave? --we're watching patiently as our dollars go further, and further, and further.

Posted by: Whuh at September 18, 2009 3:59 PM in response to Open House Picks

Free only if you ignore the opportunity costs of your money, and if you're not underwater on the house, and on and on. Nothing is "free."

Posted by: Whuh at September 11, 2009 5:40 PM in response to Open House Picks: Six Months Later

For those of you cheering on a new bubble, or maybe just the old one, you're cheering on malinvestment, household and national balance sheet mismanagement, and the withholding of a normal middle class way of life from millions of hardworking would-be homeowners.

Yes, Goldman bonuses will be huge this year. They're playing the Bernanke put to perfection. Shame on them.

Dave, you've called a Jan 1 bottom in BK RE? If prices are higher on June 1, I'll buy you a bottle of Haut Brion.

Posted by: Whuh at September 11, 2009 5:02 PM in response to Open House Picks: Six Months Later

Some bulls are spoiling for a fight today, but aren't these simply the facts: The most unique places have sold, presumably to people in the artificially buoyed financial sector, and the run-of-the-mill places haven't found buyers, or are taking substantial cuts. Doesn't this conform to what everyone knows anecdotally about the labor market and the NYC economy? The recession may be ending, but with super sluggish growth and high unemployment, who is buying meh brownstones at toppy prices anymore? You don't think everything but the finest properties are still going down? Then go ahead and call a bottom. I keep daring you to do it but you refuse. Why? because there isn't a house for sale in the borough I can't get for less in six months, and you and I both know it.

Posted by: Whuh at August 25, 2009 4:42 PM in response to House of the Day: 182 Clinton Street

Oh, come one, anyone who knows music knows Bjork basically sucks; just as anyone who knows art knows Barney is a charming poseur. But god knows they'll move here and we'll all wet ourselves.

Posted by: Whuh at August 19, 2009 12:07 PM in response to Björk Moving to Brooklyn Heights

Brenda --will you marry me?

Posted by: Whuh at August 19, 2009 10:12 AM in response to Björk Moving to Brooklyn Heights

Last Week's Biggest is always going to be a gleaming indicator of market health, because Brooklyn is hot, and Wall Street is living on free money and no reckoning. The choicest places are going to sell. But the market is splitting, and even just below the choicest is at a dead stand still. Anyone here know top tier lawyers? Ask them how they're spending their time. If they're not in bankruptcy law, it's cricket, cricket, all day.

Dave, I think the recovery is a canard; I hope I'm wrong, but other than getting the corpse to twitch with some stimulus, I'm wondering what the growth driver is going forward. And btw, EU is outgrowing us now, by a sig margin. Our house isn't in order, not by a long shot. Again, hope I'm wrong.

Posted by: Whuh at August 14, 2009 3:25 PM in response to Open House Picks: Six Months Later

Even my soft spot for Phil Collins doesn't allow me to think he could up the cool quotient of anything, even the Heights.

Posted by: Whuh at August 12, 2009 5:40 PM in response to House of the Day: 20 Grace Court Alley

oh GAWD not Bono, please. Better Coldplay piped into the F train.

Posted by: Whuh at August 12, 2009 5:21 PM in response to House of the Day: 20 Grace Court Alley

Has Moz ever won any award?

Elton seems plausible. Peter Gabriel is just stuffy and irrelevant enough to take a massive pied-a-terre in the Heights. Oh, come on --spill!

Posted by: Whuh at August 12, 2009 5:10 PM in response to House of the Day: 20 Grace Court Alley

Peter Gabriel?

Posted by: Whuh at August 12, 2009 4:29 PM in response to House of the Day: 20 Grace Court Alley

Bruuuuce.

Posted by: Whuh at August 12, 2009 4:16 PM in response to House of the Day: 20 Grace Court Alley

Bryan Adams moves to Brooklyn I move to Canada. Moz moves to the Heights I achieve satori.

Hmmm, Grammy nominated non-American...ups the cool quotient...this is a toughie. Is it a Brit?

Posted by: Whuh at August 12, 2009 4:07 PM in response to House of the Day: 20 Grace Court Alley

Well done, Biggest Sales. Brownstone Brooklyn made it through the apocalypse without collapsing, esp. at the higher end. This seems to me evidence of the Wall Street bailout's efficacy in preserving a social class more than evidence for price rationality in the RE market. If my money or (perversely, inexplicably) my self-esteem (DIBS) were tied up in an illiquid asset, I'd worry about a.) the Goldman backlash, which indicates a zero tolerance policy going forward against mismanaged risk, and b.) the long term health of the dollar, which, when strong, pushes up the price of domestic non-tradables like RE; and seriously worry about c.) BK quality of life, which is crashing at the low end. Say I have a couple mil to spend on RE and am looking at what this market offers me. At some point I have to consider what my quality of life would be living in rural NY in a beautiful Greek Revival with 1.5 in the bank; or watching as my purchasing power relative to bankers and their enablers erodes, even as my neighborhood loses social services.

Posted by: Whuh at August 12, 2009 8:02 AM in response to Last Week's Biggest Sales

Kitchen --Ikea?

Posted by: Whuh at August 10, 2009 5:51 PM in response to House of the Day: 66 Clifton Place

Dave, you're boxed into an illogical corner with your idea about markets. If you're saying a market is a perfect discounting mechanism for future cash flows --or whatever Larry Kudlow said this morning on monkey TV --then you have to explain why the Naz hit 5000 and why the Dow dipped to 6 and change...Why can't these transactions, in an illiquid market to boot, represent a sucker's idea of future price appreciation?

Posted by: Whuh at July 23, 2009 11:13 AM in response to Bearish Brownstoners Miss Mark on 2nd Street Sale

Is it a market bottom, yes or no? If no, then these people overpaid. They may need housing now; they may have fallen in love with their particular pile; they may have money to burn. But those are separate questions. Unless you're willing to call the bottom here, then they overpaid, period.

Who thought this would all play out in four or five quarters? This is a fun parlor game, but really, do you think this is the end of economic hardship, service cuts, and credit complications? I know one good swallow makes your month, Dave, but one swallow doth not a summer make.

Posted by: Whuh at July 23, 2009 11:06 AM in response to Bearish Brownstoners Miss Mark on 2nd Street Sale

Minard, I live right around the corner. There is plenty debating this location. No one from the 'hood thinks of that stretch of Henry as the nicest in Cobble Hill; because it just isn't. Period.

Posted by: Whuh at July 21, 2009 5:37 PM in response to House of the Day: 455 Henry Street

I live very near this house and while this is a nice block, and hardly fringe, it isn't the nicest patch of the neighborhood. Also, I know people now in the market for rentals, and $2400 is not currently the market price for rentals like these -- with $1800/mo and some patience, you can do better. Why anyone would buy this for more than $2 million is completely beyond me. Sits, sits, sits some more.

Posted by: Whuh at July 21, 2009 3:48 PM in response to House of the Day: 455 Henry Street

Comments (mine included) break down less along bull/bear than a.) a lot of macro pseudo-arcana about interest rates, GDP, Case-Shiller, Baltic Dry, etc etc., in an attempt to call what no one in the history of markets has been able to call, bottoms and tops (people get lucky and win a coin flip, so what); or b.) a lot of affective descriptions of how great a house, neighborhood, borough, wine bar, block, public school is. But isn't the truth staring us in the face? No one I know is obsessed with RE anymore; no one I know sees it as a credible asset class above and beyond its consumption value; everyone I know is worried about asset depreciation and job security. With that as a background, and with price appreciation uncertain, who is going to take on staggering debt load to own a house in an iffy neighborhood? I'll call it: massive price reductions in the next six to eight months , or I will happily admit to being wrong, and buy DIBS a beer, armagnac, prosecco, his call.

Posted by: Whuh at July 17, 2009 1:14 PM in response to Open House Picks: Six Months Later

DIBS wrote:
There's so much info to process that we make decisions quickly and then have a fair amount of "down time."

Can anyone --in finance or out --make head or tails of this statement?

Posted by: Whuh at July 8, 2009 5:52 PM in response to House of the Day: 448 6th Street Revisited

No idea. I do know that the Naz peaked at 5000, or whatever absurd number, and on that very day some equities messiah was telling a client to Get in, get in, or forever regret it; stocks only go up; if he'd bought Cisco in 1998, etc., etc. And I don't believe we'll see 5000 in my lifetime.

I also think that every little deadcat's glimmer will bring you on here to gloat and whinge, no matter what.

I also think that the i-banks have been bailed out, and this is keeping the NYC economy afloat at the very high end. The irreplaceably nice houses will sell at small discounts for a bit. The who knows. What I do know is I'm totally uninterested at these prices, but that's just me.

Posted by: Whuh at July 2, 2009 1:03 PM in response to Housing Market - Where Are We?

So a bottom in Brooklyn RE? Dave?

Posted by: Whuh at July 2, 2009 12:19 PM in response to Housing Market - Where Are We?

It's pretty obvious to anyone with a brain that a hedge fund manager specializing in equities, of any standing, would not be hung up on the future price action of ghetto real estate. Two questions: Why would someone claiming to be a HF guy be so hung up? (Answer: The bulk of his net worth is tied up in a ghetto RE.) And b.) No one with an even moderately consequential job in equities could possibly spend hours a day fighting with anonymous posters about the price direction of equities and ghetto RE.

If you examine his posts at all, you come across howling contradictions in Dave's own logic: When the stock market collapsed, it was nothing more than a panic driven measure of mob emotion. Now that it's rallied tentatively off its lows, it's a perfectly rational leading indicator of recovery. Literally everything DIBS says is a verbatim repeat of something he's heard on CNBC, from Larry Kudlow.

Dave does not manage money; he doesn't work for a hedge fund. He is an internet troll. I am willing to wager a case of Haut Brion. All DIBS needs to do to prove otherwise is show us some documentation of his employment and some legit evidence of his returns. Until then he is an irritant and a sock puppet.

Posted by: Whuh at July 1, 2009 7:31 PM in response to Case-Shiller: Beware the Head Fake

Sure, Dave --I know I don't have the right to comment on your endless posturing and bragging on here; esp because I don't manage money for a career. But one last sad try on my part: You've never met a real hedge fund manager; and you've never even been in the office of a real fund. And by real, I mean, in operation for more than five/six years, assets under management of more than a billion. I'd bet my future house, to which you are not and will never be invited, on it.

Posted by: Whuh at July 1, 2009 1:37 PM in response to Case-Shiller: Beware the Head Fake

DIBS, a comment like that opens you up to a line of attack. Which is, no real HF person brags about how many cars they have; they'd consider it ghetto. And no real HF person lives in Bed Stuy. My HF friends have houses in Pacific Heights and the W Village and Sonoma and Rhinebeck and London and etc etc. This website gets what, a million hits a month? There are surely many visitors who know something about money, and I can safely speak for them, and say, they smell you from a mile away, for the mid market poseur you are.

Posted by: Whuh at July 1, 2009 1:22 PM in response to Case-Shiller: Beware the Head Fake

Mopar, I live right around here, though in a far nicer subsection of the neighborhood, and am looking to buy; and I can tell you, yes, the bubble continues only slightly deflated at the high end, but it is about to get mercilessly pricked for houses just such as this one. I mean, forget it --no one can get a loan on this POS, and no one NO ONE with that amount in cash is going to wager it on this crap-pile. But the larger point is a lifestyle one. The days of panic buying are over, and people see a house like this for what it really is. A NOTHING house. And ps --Smith Street is so played. And you're telling me to get a clue?

You tell me, since you're clued in --when do you think this sells by, and for what?

Posted by: Whuh at June 18, 2009 6:54 PM in response to House of the Day: 78 Douglass Street

I hate to be impolitic or a snob; but this house sucks. I mean, it just sucks. Do the math, think about how much money someone buying it at or near ask would have to make annually to afford it; then forget all trees, see only forest, and realize: you're asking someone to be a high-end workaholic wage slave --and to live like this? A stone's throw from a project, in this misshapen dwarf of a building? Upon which they need to spend more money, to un-do the crappy, greedy renovation of a flipper? I mean, really. This is what, above all, makes me think the music really has stopped. Who with any remaining dram of self-respect is going to sign on that dotted line?

Posted by: Whuh at June 18, 2009 6:03 PM in response to House of the Day: 78 Douglass Street

It may not have been textbook speculation, but it was speculation. Anyone who took out too big a loan on the premise the house price would go up, and thus cover their overlevered ass, was speculating; anyone who was given cheap credit on a liar loan was enabled by speculation by the bank, which thought they could bundle and trade the asset-backed security. The idea that speculation had nothing to do with the run up in Brooklyn housing prices is juvenile.

Granted Brooklyn is a different borough than in '82. But we're talking about a price spike that is, in its bulk, only a few years old. Is Cobble Hill four times nicer than it was in 1999? Three times nice than it was in '02?

Posted by: Whuh at June 18, 2009 12:46 PM in response to Bank Predicts NYC Market to Fall Another 40 Percent

That the LWBS feature has stayed bullish is as predictable as DIBS coming on here and doing a little chicken dance the minute it posts. It makes sense that the very most unique properties in the borough are being sold at solid if slightly softened prices; we'd be in the midst of a massive crash if they weren't. The spring selling season is over and the pattern is clear: until a combo of divorce, unemployment, and asset depreciation starts to hit the prime market, and set new comps, some people with the dosh are going to throw it at the new "It" digs in NYC, a brownstone in Brooklyn. Unlike Dave I can't pretend to know the future -from the way he talks one wonders why he isn't (and I'm serious) worth north of a hundred million dollars, he knows so much about imminent price action --but if you have the money to buy some of these houses, go ahead, put your money where your mouth is. I just don't want my money anywhere near your mouth. I'll be looking seriously in the fall, when reality sinks in. If I miss the boat, so be it.

Posted by: Whuh at June 16, 2009 7:09 PM in response to Last Week's Biggest Sales

I have negative equity in a shabby chic house in a fringe neighborhood that never sprouted the as-promised wine bars and gourmet providores. To soothe my panic, I go on an anonymous blog, and poke fun at other shut-ins. I've been stone wrong on price action in Brooklyn RE for a year now; but everything is set to turn around. I believe anything Larry Kudlow tells me.

Posted by: Whuh at June 9, 2009 3:15 PM in response to Last Week's Biggest Sales

Hey, No One --tough times, huh, sitting on a declining asset underlying an untenable loan? Good luck with that. Meanwhile, some of us have a nice pile of cash, and a lot of patience.

Posted by: Whuh at June 5, 2009 1:35 PM in response to Open House Picks: Six Months Later

But the tighter the market the more a single comp sets prices --and not even at the margin, but at the middle, too! OK, well, our disagreement has no effect on anything; so now we pull up a tub of popcorn and watch.

Posted by: Whuh at June 5, 2009 12:03 PM in response to House of the Day: 143 Amity Street

I still have to respectfully disagree. My assumptions are: in the next 6 months nothing changes to alter the selling climate, which is dismal; several houses will have to be sold, and they will be at prices normed to 72 Hicks, not 2007; and after 6 months you will have a recent history of sales with which to peg new sales going forward. No one is then going to say, "Oh, those previous sellers had to sell." I know how I feel --I'm in the market for a house at exactly these prices. On what planet would I now consider a three million dollar house in anything but the very nicest parts of Brooklyn, in tip top shape...? I'd have to be pretty gullible to accept the thesis that, Oh, 72 Hicks was a distress sale. Mr. Market has spoken; and he doesn't care whether or not you're distressed.

Posted by: Whuh at June 5, 2009 10:19 AM in response to House of the Day: 143 Amity Street

All due respect, North, I don't think that's how markets work, even one as illiquid as brownstone Brooklyn. It's true that only people who have to sell will sell now; but the motivation of a seller doesn't alter pricing power. What will move prices up after we have six or eight places sell like the Hicks St place did? The sellers who waited will have to sell at the new comp-level, or wait and hope the bar doesn't slip again. This is classic deflation.

I know if I'm looking to buy now, on Amity St., or in Fort Greene, or anywhere in the borough, and I know I could have purchased an historic charmer in prime heights for under three -well, I'm sorry, that's my comp. You want to hold out that's your business, Mr. Seller. But there are going to be more distress sellers then panic buyers going forward --many more. 72 Hicks has set a new bar, and set it quite low.

Posted by: Whuh at June 5, 2009 7:31 AM in response to House of the Day: 143 Amity Street

The Norah Jones house is in no way a comp here. That house was wider, on a far nicer (read: away from LICH) section of the next block, and has had a recent and truly mind-blowing reno. 72 Hicks is the new comp: a house some brokers pushed as the nicest in the borough, which slid from an asking near five down to a sale under three. Now, if 72 Hicks, an elegant clapboard house in the heart of the poshest part of Brooklyn, with a lovely renovation, goes for under three, how is everything out there not about to take a 25% minimum haircut from their current bizarro world asking prices?

Posted by: Whuh at June 4, 2009 8:39 PM in response to House of the Day: 143 Amity Street

hey, bedstuyhoya --I know what those terms are, and also know that if you threatened someone like that in my shop, I'd have your desk clear within the hour.

Posted by: Whuh at May 28, 2009 6:40 PM in response to House of the Day: 859 St. Marks Avenue

I'm confused. If Dave isn't calling a bottom in Brooklyn RE now, how is it I'll be left behind, napping, if I don't buy a home here now? Also --what do Roubini, Soros, various bloggers like Calculated Risk, all have in common? They all called the housing blow off and the recession. And they all think Dave's "recovery" is driven by quantitative easing, and is a charade. But I'll take Dave's advice any day of the week, over those chicken littles. Right, Dave?

Posted by: Whuh at May 27, 2009 2:38 PM in response to Case-Shiller: Record Drops in NY and Nationwide

Dave --are you calling a bottom in Brooklyn housing?

Posted by: Whuh at May 27, 2009 10:52 AM in response to Case-Shiller: Record Drops in NY and Nationwide

As someone whose been on both sides of this --I've been a jerk to, and been berated by DIBS --one thought as to how he became a lightning rod. First, there is a double standard in finance, financial journalism, and policy that is reflected on the board: i.e., a bubble years bias in favor of bullishness, as nearly always an entirely rational expression of the stock market's pricing power, and a bias against bearishness, as panic, doom saying, chicken little, etc. When the bulls started losing out to the facts, sure enough, much of the discussion suddenly shifted to the life-negating jaundice of the bears. How about, instead of insinuating that I'll never savor the good life because I refuse to fork over 3 million for a house, a tiny bit of contrition on the part of people who told us RE always goes up?

Dave is talking about missing out on the latest move in stocks; ok, it's possible a new bull market is underway; it's also possible it's a sucker's rally. But I'd like to point out that I sold a huge portion of my equity portfolio when the DOW was above 12,000; and by the same prudence, am uninterested in townhouses that still seem overpriced by 40% at least.

Now, what in the above suggests I'm a fool an idiot, a stockboy at Target, etc etc? And yet this is what DIBS insists on calling me. And yet the bulls let this pass, while leaping all over What, cornerbodega, etc.

Posted by: Whuh at May 8, 2009 4:05 PM in response to Open House Picks: Six Months Later

Lot of x factors. At what discount to Brooklyn do you start eyeing the UWS? Would a crime spike hit Manhattan or Brooklyn harder? What are credit and job conditions going to look like going forward? Is there a foreclosure/distressed sale wave in the near future? I vastly prefer Brooklyn to Manhattan --would never move back in fact --but even in the face of that preference one needs a down payment, credit and a job to buy a house.

Posted by: Whuh at May 7, 2009 10:47 AM in response to Pam Liebman: Brooklyn Doing Better Than the Rest