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"Being too charming was never one of my faults." - Kill Me Later
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Well it's official. We've made our first offer. And received our first counter-offer. And to be honest my stomach is still turning at the thought of how much money 586 square feet really costs in this city. According to Zillow it's actually worth more than 84% of homes in the US. There is just something so wrong about that. And yet we're serious about the possibility of owning it. Madness! At least we had the presence of mind to stay out of the market in the first half of the year when things were really at their peaks. We have a sneaking suspicion that this is the extent of the "downturn" that will be felt in North Beach (unless the economy gets to a point where people start losing jobs) - the downturn here being that there are literally only three properties on the market right now that are remotely in our price range. I'm pretty sure that people try to hang onto North Beach property if they can because at the very least you can always rent it out at exorbitant rates. Gah. We are off to EXPO today. Probably not a good idea since we are trying to adopt an "I don't care if we get this place or not" attitude...but oh well, because you know what? Our apartment right now really is better located and laid out. The only problem is that we don't own it. So meh. Labels: house hunters
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Something I didn't expect when I threw my hat into the finance industry ring was that I would have such awesome, thoughtful and generous managers. I thought finance people were all grumpy, uptight jerks who's only goal was to work you until you literally died (one of my cousins who used to be in i-banking said that when he missed several months of work due to a brain tumor - benign but still a brain tumor - his coworkers were only half joking about being annoyed at him for missing that much work). Hm, well, when I put it that way I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking when I thought, "Sure why not" about choosing this career path. Luckily, I am technically in ops so my direct managers are all ops managers (who Paul says tend to be really nice across the board). I'm also lucky to be working out of a satellite office that also happens to be in San Francisco - a city famous for very chill people. So chill that our office uniform is a polo shirt and a north face sweater-vest. My direct manager insists that we use up every last vacation or personal day we've accrued and since she doesn't count the half days we take off as days off I had a couple of personal days to use up before the new year. Which means I get the next five days off! FIVE! Five whole days of wearing pajamas and watching teeny-bopper movies on HBO in the middle of the afternoon, wahoo! Labels: the grind
Sunday, December 23, 2007
I'm talking about myself of course. Look what Paul surprised me with for Christmas! My parents were like, Didn't he give you a camera last year?!? Mmm...yup. (He got a Warriors Mini-Plan including the Warriors-Lakers game we went to last week! It probably would have been a better gift if the Lakers had won but, hey, I'm not complaining!)
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Um. Hey! *crickets chirping* So, yeah. It's been awhile. Life has been happening and all. Things have been alright except on Tuesday I got really sick and was throwing up for several hours and got sent home from work and slept until noon. And everyone thought I was pregnant, except alas, I am not. Because you see, Paul is not hugging himself in a corner and weeping that his life is over. Definitive proof I tell ya. So what has been happening you ask? Ugh. Can't stare at the computer anymore. Later! Labels: Life
Thursday, December 06, 2007
As I've mentioned before, one of the main products I cover at work are mortgage/asset backed securities. Which puts me smack dab in the middle of all this sub-prime-credit-crunch-oh-my-god-the-sky-is-falling crisis. I'm like on the front lines yo. I gotta tell you, I'm really not happy about the plan unveiled today. I never thought I would say this but I mostly agree with a SF Gate editorial writer...the Bush administration's plan really is the "methadone plan for the mortgage crisis." This is one of the things I hate about politics. Since it's an election year all the politicians have to act like they care when people are losing their houses, but let's be honest with ourselves here: These sub-prime borrowers are not people you should feel sorry for. Why? Well, for the most part at least, these are the people who shouldn't have even been given loans in the first place! A lot of them put no money down on their homes, already had bad FICO scores and lose nothing except their mortgage payments (which you can look at as rent anyway) if they default. Why am I supposed to feel bad for them again? They got to live in houses they never should have been able to afford for two years. Sure the lenders and Wall Street and all those funds are to blame for this mess, but that doesn't mean sub-prime borrowers have necessarily been victimized in any way. In fact, they're kinda one of the winners in all of this. Because now the government is bailing them out so they can stay even longer in houses they can't afford. The real loser is your pension fund. Also, from what I've heard around the office is that the issues having the most problems with defaults are from 2006 not 2005. This of course is significant because the 2006 rates haven't even reset yet. Which means the most problematic of the sub-prime loans are those that have been taken out by people who can't even afford the teaser rates. So really this "solution" isn't even going to do anything to alleviate the worst of the problems. The real problem here is that a lot of people took out loans they can't afford period. Not even at the teaser rates. So let's be honest with ourselves, this mess is way too big to "fix" in any meaningful way. It's time to let the chips fall where they may. Labels: all financial like, Politics, the grind wingless was still breathing at 4:02 PM - 1 comments
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