“How Many A.D.D. kids does it take to screw in a light bulb? …wanna go ride a bike? If you don’t have days like this – pleassseeee skip the rest of this post series – it’s not for you.  Not … Read More

Of a dozen houses and condos that banks seized during a Santa Ana foreclosure auction on June 26, only four have been sold or marketed for sale, according to my checking on sites Redifin.com and SocalMLS.com. Eight properties have been … Read More

From Reuters: US apartment vacancy rate hits 23-year high-report The U.S. apartment vacancy rate rose to 7.8 percent in the third quarter, its highest since 1986, … according to Reis. … “It makes me wonder whether the avalanche is on … Read More

From Vanity Fair: Wall Street’s Near-Death Experience (ht jb) The Vanity Fair piece is an excerpt from Andrew Ross Sorkin’s ” Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and … Read More

Randy Johnson, president of Independence Mortgage Co. in Newport Beach and the broker who regularly answers reader questions on this blog, sent out this note last week (note: he said fixed rates today are 4.625%): Where is Everybody? I look … Read More

From NY Fed President William Dudley: A Bit Better, But Very Far From Best … My assessment of where things stand today is mixed. On the positive side, the financial markets are performing better and the economy is now recovering. … Read More

Press Release : CityCenter Announces Residential Price Reductions (ht Charlie) CityCenter … on the Las Vegas Strip, has announced that a 30 percent price reduction will be offered at closing to the existing buyers of CityCenter’s three luxury residential offerings: … Read More

Three years ago, one of my mentors was debating internally about how to handle a personnel situation. There were enough funds to employ one person. The performance of one worker was better overall, but the other worker often showed flashes … Read More

Steve Thomas at Altera Real Estate in Aliso Viejo reports that the number of O.C. distressed properties (homes listed by agents as foreclosures or short sales) was 2,346 last week, -38 vs. two weeks earlier or a -1.6% change. Thomas … Read More

From Bloomberg: Roubini Says Stocks Have Risen ‘Too Much, Too Soon, Too Fast’ “I see the risk of a correction, especially when the markets now realize that the recovery is not rapid and V-shaped, but more like U- shaped. That … Read More