E-Pro Certification

As a recent graduate of the Realtor certified E-Pro Coarse I learned quite a bit about the web as it relates to the real estate industry. If your Realtor is not up to speed with the web, you are not getting your moneies worth. Especially since 85% of folks begin their search for real estate on the wen.

Well, December sales are off quite a bit from last year. I still think it is because many folks made a effort to buy in November to make sure they got the $8000 tax credit. So in essence we borrowed buyers from the future in November but that is ok.

Not too bright.

Not Exactly a Résumé Highlight: Madoff Work

Out of work since federal agents arrested their father, Andrew and Mark Madoff have been wrestling with what to do next, according to people who have spoken with them or other Madoff family members.

Mark Madoff, who worked at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC for more than 20 years, climbing up the ladder to director of proprietary trading, recently met with at least two Wall Street contacts to get their opinions on whether he could find another job in finance, people familiar with the discussions say. He talked about working on a trading desk or in trading technology, asking one person to keep him in mind if he hears of any openings.

"He's untouchable in any firm that deals with the public," says someone who talked to Mr. Madoff. He was near tears while describing his feelings about his father, the person added, asking why anyone would bring his son to work at a crooked investment firm. Another person approached by the 45-year-old Mr. Madoff was told by his lawyer not to respond.

Honestly, these guys have more balls than sense. They are branded for life for what their Dad is "solely" responsible for. They should take a page from the book of their former employees.

"I'll never get a job in finance, and I'm one of the lucky ones," says Eleanor Squillari, Bernard Madoff's assistant for many years. She went to beauty school this summer and plans to look for work at a hair salon while selling her handmade jewelry.

Ms. Squillari, 59, lives in a two-bedroom apartment in the New York City borough of Staten Island, near the house she had to sell earlier this year. It makes her angry that former co-workers linked to the fraud still have their big houses and expensive cars. (Ms. Squillari co-wrote an account of her time at the Madoff firm for Vanity Fair magazine, for which she was paid about $50,000.)

Sometimes you have no choice but to walk away and start elsewhere.

Enough

To the douchebag or douchebags who are constantly spamming my comments.

Please cut that s**t out. All comments need to be approved by me personally before being available to the general public. Therefore if your comments do not pass my requirements, they are deleted. All you are doing is wasting my time and bandwidth with your idiocy.

These nutnigs are not even making an effort to be relevant where they comment. I am seeing comment spam on posts that are at least 5 years old.

Just f**king stop it already. It's not my fault that you f**ked up your lives so badly that you are reduced to troll for blogs comment spam.

This is actually pretty cool.

Picking (Up) Winners Without Placing a Bet.

For the past 10 years, Jesus Leonardo has been cleaning up at an OTB parlor in Midtown Manhattan, cashing in, by his own count, nearly half a million dollars’ worth of winning tickets from wagers on thoroughbred races across the country.

During his glorious run, Mr. Leonardo, 57, has not placed a single bet.

“It is literally found money,” he said on a recent night from his private winner’s circle. He spends more than 10 hours a day there, feeding thousands of discarded betting slips through a ticket scanner in a never-ending search for someone else’s lost treasure.

“This has become my job, my life,” he said. “This is how I feed my family.”

Leonardo, who favors track suits and wears his graying hair and bushy beard in long ponytails, is what’s known in horse racing parlance as a stooper — a person who hangs around racetracks and betting parlors picking up tickets thrown away by others. Most tickets are losers, but enough are winners to make it worth his while.

When I hear these types of quirky stories about people making ends meet in New York City, it brings a smile to my face because it displays the ingenuity and drive of someone who figures out a loophole in a system and uses it to their advantage. However, they are proceeding in a honest fashion and are willing to put the hard work into achieving their goals.

Uncashed winnings at all off-track betting operations and all racetracks in New York totaled more than $8.5 million over the past two years, according to the New York State Racing and Wagering Board.

That is why Mr. Leonardo said he would not stop stooping anytime soon, not by a long shot.

“Look here,” he said to Mr. Peguero after pulling a credit voucher from the machine for $6. “Another winner.”

He is definitely not stopping anytime soon. And he shouldn't. He put a lot of effort in what he has created and he should enjoy the fruits of his labor.

New Bern Real Estate

November 2009 sales=105. The highest price sold was $845,000 and the lowest was $42,999.

November 2008 sales=70. The highest price home sold was $500,000 and the lowest was $39,000.

Good news. Lets hope so. Not sure why this happened except that perhaps the 1st time home buyers tax credit spurred on a dash at the end of December.

What is the Matrix?

We aspire to be like this.


But the truth is through those aspirations this is what we are achieving.


Below is an interview with Thomas J. Stanley who is the author of the "Millionaire Next Door" which I highly recommend and he just published his latest tome "Stop Acting Rich...and Start Living like a Real Millionaire,". I higly recommend

To Act Like the Rich, Be Frugal

Q: You describe different levels of wealth in the book. There are the glittering rich, the income (statement) affluent and the balance sheet affluent.

A: The glittering rich make up a small fraction of 1 percent of the household population. They have a minimum annual household income of seven figures and a net worth of eight figures and more. They are extremely wealthy people, and they spend accordingly.

But, as I said in "Stop Acting Rich," no matter what they spend their money on, it is just a fraction of their overall net worth. In other words, even the glittering rich spend below their means. There are no more than 80,000 glittering rich households in a nation of more than 115,000,000 households.

3 years ago I did an entry on 740 Park Ave and on the type of people that reside in this building. They should also be considered the glittering rich.

If you watch old episodes of the Apprentice, there are some scenes where the cast meet at Donald Trump's enormous Manhattan apartment and go "Ooh! Ahh! Poppin fresh dough!" over the Fort Knox level of gold displayed in the interior decoration. In his line of work and as memeber of the glittering rich, he needs to be as flashy as possible, he has to show the world that he is a baller. Even though he has declared bankruptcy a number of times. His cost of living is high however, he probably watches his expenses very closely in order to maintain his wealth.


Unless you have their income or financial portfolio, don't even try to be like this group of people. It will only end in disaster.

Professor Stanley also touches upon why people who make a lot of money are not really rich.

The income statement affluent are those with high incomes and relatively low levels of net worth. They are not very productive in transforming their incomes into wealth. Many of the people in this category are highly compensated physicians, attorneys and executives. Many are driven to hyper-consume by their need to display high social status.

Farmers are found in high concentrations among the segment I refer to as balance sheet affluent. The balance sheet affluent are highly productive at transforming their income into wealth

Basically these numbnuts are focused on the perception of being rich rather than putting in the effort in becoming rich, like preparing a strong investment portfolio. Why? I think it is a lot easier to create the impression of being rich rather than doing the work in becoming wealthy. If you are a doctor making 6 figures a year, you buy yourself an expensive car because it is the quickest and easiest way to tell the world that you have money. That status symbol answers the question about your place in society. You can't do that with investing. First of all it is a lot of hard work. It also means exercising a strong sense of frugality which is not as fun as blowing enormous wads of cash on Armani suits. Afterall no one runs around with their financial statement indicating their net worth taped to their chest.

Professor Stanley lays out what the numbers really mean in terms of who is buying into the luxury market.

Q: Who is buying most of the top-shelf brand vodkas, extravagant cars and homes and why?

A: The question of "who" really has two answers.

Status products and homes are more likely purchased by people who have higher incomes. Look at three socioeconomic measures: net worth or wealth, household income and the market value of a home. Which of these variables is best at predicting consumption of the items mentioned? The value of a home ranks first, income ranks second and wealth ranks third.

Again, while it is true that the people at the upper level of these measures have a higher propensity to consume prestige products, it is not necessarily the most significant market.

For example, most prestige makes of cars -- 86 percent -- are driven by nonmillionaires. Yes, people with very high incomes, high levels of wealth are more likely to drive status automobiles. But in sheer numbers, the largest consumer segment for pricey cars, vodkas and homes is not the millionaire population, it is the aspirationals. These are people who think they are acting rich via their adoption of prestige brands, but in most cases they are only acting like each other.

Why do these people act this way? In large part, they are trying to imitate economically successful people. They take their cues from Hollywood and the advertising industry. The problem is that most aspirationals know few, if any, really wealthy to emulate.

It is not what you make but what you keep and you can't keep a lot of if your engaging in a lifestyle perceived as a "luxurious". What I find interesting about the three indicators of predicting consumption is the role real estate plays. It is obvious that this last real estate bubble we experienced was also a consumption bubble. Afterall, once you buy a new house, you need to buy new furniture, you also ned to get a new car and a new wardrobe to match your new lifestyle.

Q: How do you recommend that people become prosperous if they would prefer to get off the consumer treadmill?

A: The simplest way is to live below one's means.

The typical household should be able to put away 5 percent of their annual income while they are in their 30s, 10 percent when they are in their 40s, and 20 percent when they are in their 50s.

This is also related to satisfaction with life overall. There is a highly significant correlation between satisfaction in life and living in a home and neighborhood which are easily affordable.

What is a good rule if you are determined to become wealthy?

The market value of the home you purchase should be less than three times your household's total annual realized income. Also, if you are not yet wealthy, but want to be someday, never purchase a home that requires a mortgage that is more than twice your household's annual realized income.

Frugality is difficult but not impossible to achieve. It is a matter of budgeting and deciding on the value of goods and services and determine their added value. In the end the rewards are enormous. Not just monetarily but it also provides the skill sets that enables me to survive.

Q: Do you have a sense that American consumer values are shifting from aspirational luxury purchases that seemed to be heavily marketed in the early 2000's asset bubble days to more frugal ones?

A: No, I don't think that the values are shifting.

The only reason that people aren't spending as much as they did prior to the current economic meltdown is that they don't have as much money to spend right now. We are a nation of hyper-consumers. We encourage our children to major in consumption and minor in frugality!

The smartest people in the world are in the marketing and advertising industries in this country. How else can you explain that 300 different brands of vodka coexist in our domestic market? In 2009, about 2.3 million American seniors will pass away. What did they do with the more than $2 trillion in income that they earned in their lifetimes?

I estimate that only 2.3 percent will leave behind a gross estate (all assets included) of $1 million or more. What did the other 97.7 percent of the decedents do with all of their income? If they did not save their income, invest it or allocate it to things that appreciate, where did the money go?

Beyond the basic necessities, an awful lot of it was spent on things, many things that now reside in landfills and thrift shops. We are and will continue to be a culture of hyper-consumption.

Speaking of Vodka, I was once informed by a liquor store owner that despite the many brands of Vodka, they are all pretty much the same. The reason why some brands are more popular than others is due to marketing. Which is why liquor stores always have a rotating inventory of Vodkas because they know that sooner or later a popular brand will fall out of favor.

Yet, here we are. We still shell out money for what is perceived as top shelf vodka despite the fact that there is no such thing. Consumption plays a critical role in our society. It makes things move. But when the money runs out and all the credit is tapped out, it all comes to a standstill.

Once this depression ends, the machine will begin to roll, as the advertising and marketing factions of this country implement a new of strategies to emotionally hijack the masses into buying products of aspiration.

The more I learn about economics, I realize how critical consumption is to our economy, yet I am disgusted by it the rising levels of hyper consumption that society indulges in order present the facade that are one of and the same with the glittering rich. Mind you, I am not a communist. I believe in the idea of social status because has human beings we all have the desire to be better than what we truly are. However, this mentality that you can better yourself simply by buying a product or service is twisted. It is akin to people who join McDojos and buy a black belt and are convinced that they can actually hold their own if they are attacked.

Our economy is a Matrix, but my argument is simply that one does not need to be controlled by it but instead be in control of it.

Obviously.

From 6:43.

Same-Sex Marriage Bill REJECTED in New York State Senate


I don't know why this is such a shock for everyone. As I stated before in a previous entry, regardingthe rejection og gay marriage in California is about money and power. The same rules apply to New York State.

And with the economic landscape barely holding together, there is no way in hell that NYS is going to give up that access to all that gay disposable income. For all we know, that money is what supporting the state.

The Democrats and Republicans are shredding each other apart, the last thing they want is to embolden LGBT community and have them jump into the fray.

This isn't the end.