An interesting article on the "Death Tax" (estate taxes) - Page 6 - Politics and War Forum

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Re: An interesting article on the
Friday, August 13, 2010 8:25 PM on j-body.org
Bill, didn't you say that your business did quite well, fueled by the easy credit available to the homeowners who took out HE loans?
It seems to me, that you lined your pockets too. People made stupid decisions during the bubble and you were only too willing to take tha cash off of their hands.


“Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh, oh, the irony!” -Jon Stewart

Re: An interesting article on the
Saturday, August 14, 2010 3:13 AM on j-body.org
Hey, good point! However, my end of it was more economic commerce than pure equity attainment. The money people spent with me fueled the economy, paid wages, etc...and as much as I'd like to tell you otherwise, I didn't get rich off of it. I provided a real product for the money, I didn't essentially "print money" by selling homes for megabucks more than I paid for them, or by raking in hugely inflated sales commissions or interest.

In the end, I don't think the purchases people made with me ruined their investment lives quite so severely as the real estate collapse tragedy.





Re: An interesting article on the
Saturday, August 14, 2010 3:21 AM on j-body.org
R.W.E. of the J.B.O. wrote:
Take Back the Republican Party wrote:Actually, in that chart Notec posted, I don't see a bubble "starting in the early-mid 90's." Not unless you consider the reasonable yearly appreciation from 1963 to 1988 shown to also be a "bubble", which it most certainly was not. Note that both slopes are similar (up until 2002 anyway), and the only discerning feature is that the average price of a home sold in the years 1988-1994 rather held steady (flatlined). If one takes away this flatline section, and studies just the slope, one can see that the rate of "value gain" started to be practically vertical in 2002 and up. This was the bubble, and THIS is when obscene profit-taking begain.
If you look at it closely, the upward slop that began after the flatline from the late 80's to the mid 90's is steeper than the rest of the slopes. It gained speed around 2000, but most importantly, if you look at the housing price index vs. the consumer price index, inflation, or owner-equivalent rent, you will see that is in the 90's when the housing price index broke away from everything else. I'll try to dig up the databases with all of these in it, and show you what I mean (I had them once before, but due to a hard drive crash, some of the info I had was lost). All of these indices tend to stick relatively close together, up until the 90's. Because housing values actually dipped below the line for a few years, it could be argued that for a few years of the 90's it was still following a normal trend, but the slope started there and didn't stop until the crash.

In any case, the true "bubble" of unsustainable fake value increase didn't commence until about 2002, as we all well know. That's when the reasonable equity appreciation went fcuking NUTS, and the entire upward trajectory just skyrocketed. I recall feeling very uneasy witnessing the beginning of this rise, and I was not alone. By the middle of the decade, I was shaking my head at how home "values" had risen so sharply. I already knew that there would be a problem someday. I just had no idea how significant a problem it would be.

It's also important we all keep in mind that the average home value figure is also affected by a host of other factors, not just appreciation of existing home values. Over the past decades, average square footage of houses increased rapidly, as did features, thus also driving the average price upward. I'd think a more accurate snapshot of what we're discussing here (equity appreciation and the hit it took from the bubble) would be sales/values of existing homes, not just ALL homes.






Re: An interesting article on the
Saturday, August 14, 2010 5:20 AM on j-body.org
Take Back the Republican Party wrote:It's also important we all keep in mind that the average home value figure is also affected by a host of other factors, not just appreciation of existing home values. Over the past decades, average square footage of houses increased rapidly, as did features, thus also driving the average price upward. I'd think a more accurate snapshot of what we're discussing here (equity appreciation and the hit it took from the bubble) would be sales/values of existing homes, not just ALL homes.
This makes sense, although it's not necessarily the case in all areas. I know as you head south, there was certainly far more of that going on, but in the Northeast, not so much. In my area, for example, over the past 8 years that I've lived here, I've seen more 1,000 sq ft single floor homes being built in various developments, and they were selling for $150-200K on a half acre of land. When you get down into MA, it's the same, except right around Boston, where people have been buying postage-stamp sized lots and building 3,000 sq ft houses on it. This is, of course, due to the money concentration in that area.

I'd definitely be interested to see data on existing homes over the years, though.







Re: An interesting article on the
Monday, August 16, 2010 1:24 PM on j-body.org
I tried posting this Friday, but Google ads on JBO were making my browser flip out.
Case-Shiller Index

It doesn't measure every market, but the sample size seems to be pretty impressive. It takes out many variables by only factoring in the sale value of the same home when resold.




fortune cookie say: better a delay than a disaster
Re: An interesting article on the
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 3:57 PM on j-body.org
OHV notec wrote:I tried posting this Friday, but Google ads on JBO were making my browser flip out...It doesn't measure every market, but the sample size seems to be pretty impressive. It takes out many variables by only factoring in the sale value of the same home when resold.
Yes, this is a very good index, because it throws out the new construction, and gives a much better picture of what's happening with prices. As you can see, the curve began prior to 2000. It was accelerating, but it didn't start as late as some believe. I found a few charts which compare the Case-Shiller index to other market indicators, and you can see what I was talking about before, where housing prices began to break away from everything else over a decade ago:










Re: An interesting article on the
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 7:57 AM on j-body.org
Great graphics. How in the HELL did we, as a nation, think what was happening was anything but madness?

The 2000's were a decade of living on literally borrowed time (and money) with absolutely ZERO consideration for the next generation. Sure, call my hindsight 20-20 now, but wtf...the entire decade was downright irresponsible, and anyone who didn't see it coming is a fcuking greedy idiot who just wanted to make bank while they could.

And who controlled the White House and Congress for the majority of this Decade of Decadence? We all know THAT answer...the party of self-indulgence and self-righteousness. Nice play, guys...is it any wonder a one-term Dem Congessman was able to be elected President in the wake of such a feeding frenzy? Not only was the nation fleeced, it was thus persuaded to elect an inexperienced man out of pure desperation. Yep. Republican miscues and an utter lack of viability in their Presidential ticket caused Obama to be elected. I am convinced the Republicans did more to get him elected than he or the Dems ever could have. Nice assist!

I can still recall when I was proud to be called a Republican.





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