Monthly Archives: August 2007

Emergency Preparedness Workshop at tge Neighborhood Resource Center, Long Beach

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Just on time for the Emergency Preparedness Workshop tonight.

The American Red Cross will present an emergency preparedness workshop featuring Casey Chel, disaster management officer for the Long Beach Fire Department, from 6-7:30 p.m. tonight (August 27) at the Neighborhood Resource Center, 425 Atlantic Ave. Attendees will learn about the city’s plan in the case of a disaster, how to prepare a disaster supplies kit, the city’s new reverse 9-1-1 emergency notification, and more.

Courtesy, the Long Beach Business Journal

Those Unknown italian Cars, Long Beach

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A favorite website of mine is Wheels Of Italy. It focuses on my types of automobiles. I was also happy to stumble on this section, The Search Info By Marque.

Yup, you guessed it from the spelling, it is a British website.

Check out Zagato’s beautiful pages on Maseratis where you will see what I consider the most beautiful racer of the 50, an A6.

I found on another great website I religiously read, Veloce Today a picture of the quintessential 50′s car and in my eyes the most desirable one, the A6GC 2000.

Thought you would enjoy.

Who Wins With The Mortgage Mess? Long Beach

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It is becoming more and more obvious that banks are set to be the big winners if they buy stakes of mortgage companies. You lend and have a better control over those people that can present clients to you. It’s almost a win-win situation, until yet again someone exhagerates.

What will make banks act any different from independent lenders? It’s the age old question, what is better between a third party and an institution? It boils down to how much you know and your relationship with either.

Seeking Alpha had a good post on it here. With Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo in the lending business, they are staged to get a lot more clientèle.

Don’t be fooled by all the doom and gloom of the mortgage mess. Sure it’s a mess, but people are still getting loans and buying homes, just not a the last few year’s pace, thankfully. It was unsustainable.

The Mood of the Industry and Local Shops, Long Beach

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That the real estate industry is in turmoil is an understatement. The ramification, though predicted by some, here included, are finally being told.

What I have witnessed in and around this industry is that the morale is rather low. We have a lot of homes inspectors, home warranty, title, termite, escrow companies, that come through our doors. It is a great way to gauge the temperature out there. Mostly, in unison professionals feel the squeeze. Business is down, as far as 30% for most. While some mop, others keep a cheerful attitude. And that is what determines it for me. Not the over the board positive person, but the careful, yet even quilled person whose attitude remains calm. There are a few.

I’m alarmed at how other shops are doing also. Many of them say business is down but they are still paying the bills. That’s a very scary thought. A nation of bill paying people. Whether we are talking on shops on busy second street or on other streets that rely on trusted clientèle, the talks are the same. Business is down. Now what does it mean when they say the economy is good? For whom? Surely for someone as we have seen in the Long Beach Business Journal some city employees have seen their wages go up by 44%. Hum, can you spell something is wrong when the tax payers don’t see climbing revenues?

This is where you divide the wannabes and in it for the money from the professionals. The professionals, like us will always stand above. What we do, we do out of vocation, not out of making money at any price. It’s not about who has the most signs up but who actually is ethical.

Foreclosure Numbers, Long Beach

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I have more numbers here from an article on Seeking Alpha.

One house out of roughly 700 is facing a mortgage problem. That is an impressive number.

Also a correction on yesterday’s post, California is one of the highest hit foreclosure state. I thought it was strange, however Nevada faces a worse market.

Tidbits on Real Estate and Mortgage, Long Beach

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It’s getting harder and harder to get relevant news and stories happening in Long Beach because, quite frankly, there isn’t anything much happening.

I have first time buyers that are coming in to the market as the mortgage mess was becoming apparent. They have been looking for an intelligent loan for over 6 months.

Calculated Risk had a great take by Tanta on Jeffrey Lacker, President, Richmond Fed’s view of the general economy. Apparently, he is aware now of the serious problem. Good and welcome on board.

Another obvious one here with numbers showing foreclosures were up in July. Yeah, yeah, we knew, now we have the numbers.

More news by Tanta telling it like it is and mocking our so-called experts.

I don’t have any ties with Calculated Risk. I just unashamedly like them, like their styles and how they are not afraid to say it like it is. I think that is exactly what a quality personal blog should be. And hopefully, I will graduate to that one day? I will, but it will have to be my own unique way.

Ports Won’t Back Breakwater Study, Long Beach

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Surprised? Not really.

That the port doesn’t embrace removing the breakwater that holds one of the nation’s dirtiest water stagnant is not too surprising and shows how removed the directors are from public concerns. And after, why not? With good paychecks and money in pocket, the world looks different than those suffering from asthma.

This line got me chuckling: “I think this study sends a wrong message … that we are willing to take a look at how far we want to go to put their interests at risk,” said Commissioner James Hankla. “I think this is a dangerous course.”" Really, why and for whom?

Councilman O’Donnell flies to the rescue again, lamenting the port’s self interest. You can read the entire article here.

Foreclosures Up, Market Tumbles, Strange Times. Long Beach

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That the mortgage mess has seeped into almost every aspect of our society is, at last, no longer a secret. Wnat even more prove? Go ask your neighborhood stores and see how they are doing? Get the honest answer, not the easy: “Business is fine!.” That can mean anything. But, everything is alright. Right? At least according to our fearless leaders, the general fondelentals of the economy are good. Right! Whatever that means. I must be looking somewhere else given the low moral of shops around town.

I thought California would be hit badly with foreclosures but apparently, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan accounted for the highest foreclosure rates nationwide.

According to ETFTrends.com, even the hot ETFs are taking a hit. Fortunately, they are still doing good.

Home Depreciating? From What?

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It’s puzzling when people get panicky because prices are coming down. Let’s look at it in perspective.

Many buyers see this market as their homes losing value. Someone who could have gotten a theoretical $1,750,000 a year and a half ago, could still get a theoretical $1,350,000 which is a hefty chunk, especially if you consider how much home values have risen the past decade. The irrational logic is that they lost $400,000. Well, that $400,000 was never in the bank account and was all very, very theoretical.

I am happy to see articles like these on Seeking Alpha by Matt Hougan on price appreciation from a decade ago. Have a look at it and tell me after how would even a 30% depreciation look? Not that bad, considering the overall appreciation.

Over all, the only ones who have lost money, as in any investments, are those that bought high and have to sell low. That law applies everywhere. Investors, know your market.

4 Years With Apple, Long Beach

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Four years ago, as my aging but trusted MicronPC was showing alarming signs of impending death. I was very happy with Micron. It was as reliable as an IBM but Windows was still the weakest link.

I had grown tired, like most people of the endless stream of updates, vulnerabilities, security issues I had to be on top, crashes, slow starts, hangups and the eternal upgrade cycle. No more, did I want to give the Bill more money. After all, he has made enough.

So I took the bold step to leap across to the other camp and join the Unix fray, but this time with an Apple. I have had this 12″ genius PowerBook G4 fr almost 4 years and the only thing I did was to upgrade the ram and charged the hard drive a few months ago. I love it, I go home and plug it into my 21″ Sony and voila, big screen city!

It has been so wonderful, stable, no vulnerabilities. In fact, I still don’t run an anti virus and I would not want to give Norton more money than they scooped on the Windows security swiss cheese platform. I have the firewall turned on and I am careful.

I thought programs would be expensive but they turned out to be on par with their Windows counterparts. At least in the expense department, the ease of use, design and interface are still eon in front of Windows.

Long honeymoon apart, there are problems I foresee. For one thing, I am running Jaguar. While Tiger has been out for a while, Leopard looms. Most programs are now written for Tiger and worse yet, for the new Intel chip.

I feel I am starting to see the ugly days of Microsoft’s incessant upgrade marketing path. Switching to Intel might have been a good move considering IBM and Motorola weren’t delivering on the promises but it seems now, everything revolves around the new chip and OS.

To be fair, 4 years on a computer and no problems means it is a quality product and I still have plenty of programs I can use. It is still faster than my last experiences on PCs but I feel the squeeze.

Will Apple start to squeeze its users into upgrading? I don’t know. New products are better but do we always need to have better and faster products when this setup works just fine?

Oh yes, give me a new Apple latop in a 12″ version and now you’re talking. The new ones just don’t cut it for me and the talks of snafus are not what I have come to expect from Apple’s superb quality. I’ll wait.