"I, for one, am planning to take up farming in 2009."

Fat Lenny, commoditized farming options is what you should be taking up in 2009!

Seriously, there are tons of farmers who can't even get small loans for fertilizer or seasonal crop helpers. See Roger's article in fortune:

money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0812/gallery.market_gurus.fortune/5.html

Now, farmers know that no one wants a food shortage (recession and starvation? no thank you!) and so if they have to pay 30% interest for fertilizer loans, they *know* they can pass that cost onto eaters. Now, it's too hard and too much hassle to find individual farmers who need to borrow 15K, but if we put all these small loans together and slice them into commoditized farming options, the street will go crazy for them!

I'm telling you, the smart money in 2009 is on farm loan derivatives. I'm even thinking of starting the "brownsoiler" blog to cover the topic!

Posted by: yass at December 31, 2008 1:07 PM in response to National Prices Fall 18%, New York Further to Go

two contracts a week now at the Meier building? I doubt it's true. Doesn't look that way from streeteasy, anyway.

Posted by: yass at December 9, 2008 10:58 AM in response to Buying Only What they Build

Credit card companies are modifying limits according to the actual and forecast value of real estate in the area.

If you live in central Florida, for example, your credit line was snapped back to whatever your balance is. So was your HELOC. This has caused all kinds of problems with credit rating agencies because their formulas don't really work well when banks take that kind of action and millions of people's credit scores have been battered by no fault of their own, except that they live in an area where housing prices are falling.

On the other hand, banks make money by lending it. These loan-limit reduction actions have reduced risk, but are hurting the bottom line. So, they've correspondingly increased credit limits in areas where housing prices are going up (few) holding firm, or forecast to do so. You can read PMI's actuarial forecast published in October that says NYC real estate has only a 7% probability of being lower in value by October 2010. Banks read that and adjust people's credit card limits that live in NYC. Now, PMI's actuarial analysis probably preceeded the Great Asset Crash of October 10th 2008, so banks might have been rash. But these are big organizations and processes in the pipeline are often cheaper to push through than halt, even if there's a cost to pushing them through.

Posted by: yass at November 20, 2008 11:13 AM in response to Who Says There's No Credit!

Easy decision:

Postpone closing a week (this is always possible), wait until after the election. If McCain-Palin wins, walk away. If Obama-Biden wins, stay and enjoy your new home!

Posted by: yass at October 7, 2008 4:17 PM in response to Front Page Forum: Walk Away from Downpayment?