where are all the idiots who made the 2007 doomsday predictions?!?

Not wishful thinking faustus, just my opinion. As I said before there is no discounting the current facts, the only debate is the outcome. We can agree to disagree.

will, I think you are spot on.

cbsml, the nasdaq may be down overall, but MANY individual stocks are at near record highs.

urbandigs - why do you think that the negative macro environment will negatively impact manhattan prices? go back just a few years to 2001-2002. you had stock and credit markets that got annihilated, and with it substantial job losses on wall street. and of course you had 9/11, an incomparably horrible event for a local market and sentiment for living in manhattan - you couldn't open a paper without stories of how people wanted to flee manhattan, that we would be under constant attack or at least the threat of it, etc. and what happened to prices? maybe they flatlined for 6 months and then went straight up. there has been a tremendous secular trend of manhattan and prime brooklyn becoming the most preferred places for financially elite families to live. this gets to another point which i surprisingly read little about - the massive hidden inventory REDUCTION that has gone on over the past 5 years due to apartment combinations, and multi-unit townhouses that have been converted to single family use. and as to your 15 genius friends at major houses - did they ever let you in on the old saw that 'markets climb a wall of worry'? what is going on in the market right now points to major increases in the near future - minimal inventory increases point to the fact that no one wants to leave manhattan, and all those wanna be owners on the sidelines will jump back in once things settle down, cleaning out what little inventory is out there in frantic bidding wars. supply/demand in manhattan is completely out of whack

prices in housing don't crash over night.....different people have different means of hanging on..read more money than others.....this whole thing is just a slow process....but the fact is that the economy is slowing down, investment banks aren't going to make as much money as they did in recent times...this is the first year that some people in investment banking are worried if they will have a job at the end of the year or not.....not exactly the environment one wishes to purchase a multi million dollar home.

Citigroup layoffs
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1GMHhC.8lls&refer=home

"About 6,500 of the more than 20,000 job cuts will be in the investment bank, the Journal said."

I know I this is not the board to talk about equities but I will be nibbling at some of these financial beginning tomorrow. Citibank and Merill will be on the top of my list to buy.

Merrill sorry

Nice call on Citi, spunk.

printer - whoa, very different! First off, it was a stock collapse after the dot com and housing did not significantly runup yet! Sure there were gains, but not anywhere what we saw from 2002-2006! Also you cant compare the 2000 stock bubble bursting, which was not nearly as highly leveraged, with todays national housing slump after 4 years of bad lending, no standards, and highly leveraged bets! Today, you are talking about a financial crisis AFTER manhattan real estate surged about 100% in 4-5 years! Much different than in 2000!

Careful how you compare the two bubbles. This is totally different, and involves the dispersement of risk across the world due to financial innovations. We have asset deflation and commodity inflation. Not good. Also, take a look at housing outside Manhattan. People put words in my mouth and say that I expect a crash in Manhattan, I dont. We lag in slowdowns and lead in recoveries. And even with tight inventory right now, trust me, places are NOT selling so fast and not at higher levels than in early/mid 2007! What is wrong about discussing a correction in Manhattan due to economic cycles? This environment is much different than in 2000 and you must look at where housing came from preceding our current situation!

spunky - how your stocks doing today?

Bought C at 27.75 and Mer at 54.60. Ask me the same question 5 years from now.

...talking 'bout dumb money...

Maybe, but fortunately over the long run 5 years or more most of my investments have paid off rather handsomely. I'm confident this one will as well. Only time will tell.

yea right spunky, you think I believe you that you did not buy into C or MER at higher levels! Maybe you bought more at those prices.

What do you know about Citi and Merrill that the market doesn't already know, and hasn't already factored into the stock price?

The answer is nothing. That's why individual stock selection is a waste of time and money (unless you get paid to do it for others, in which case it's simply a hustle).

Contrary to your opinion I have never owned C or Mer. I might have them in my mutual funds but not individually. Sorry for the disappointment urbandigs.

Nice call on C spunky. How's that 27.75 looking? how about the 54.60?

still dont believe you

that's okay urbandigs you're certainly have the right to your opinions and beliefs. I still enjoy reading your posts.
zizi I don't invest for the short term but I am quite confident that in 5 years my investment in C and Mer will work out. If it make both of you you feel any better my mutual funds are down in 2008.

well, I tend to have the same intuitive feeling that this is probably a good price for C, but on the other hand they're borrowing money and giving away the house at a pretty terrible rate.

Maybe you can sell it to me now, it's at 26.79 ;)

urbandigs, you are missing the point. imagine we are in january of 2000. i tell you that 36 months from now the stock bubble will have burst, with the nasdaq off 60%, we went into recession, Enron and Worldcom, among others, were kaput with their CEOs on their way to jail. Wall Street laid off thousands, deal flow was limited so law firms weren't hiring much. and, oh yeah, two planes were flown into the WTC and both towers collapsed and were now just holes in the ground, leaving NYC with not only the emotional distress, but devastating tourism, and leading several major firms to relocate lots of employees outside of manhattan . and then i told you that knowing all that, how do you feel about buying a co-op? of course you'd tell me no way in hell, the market will atrocious, we'll be at or below the mid 90s lows. and how wrong would you have been? the point is, real estate is the most local of markets, and even 100% knowledge of the macro situation doesn't necessarily yield the results you'd expect. so even if you are an amazing economic forecaster (which would mean you were right about 55% of the time), real estate, especially manhattan real estate, behaves in very unexpected ways.

Well, I guess my response would be that I did buy a condo, and signed a contract in NOV 2001 after the dot com bubble, after the fed started acting, and after 9/11..to me, the market corrected sharply and represented some nice opportunities. The decision also rested on the fact that housing nationally did not experience a major uptrend yet and with rates being lowered so much, I figured many would buy into this sector.

I sold in July 2006, after a 90% appreciation or so. I agree that real estate is local and markets behave in different ways but Im disagreeing with point that housing is the main reason we are in the current miss, ITS the asset that is deflating nationally, carrying wall street and the economy with it, and its AFTER one of the most amazing unsustainable bull markets in housing that we have seen! Now, why would I expect no affect at all on manhattan if the economy were to go into recession, since I believe that this recession will be very different than the short one we had after the dot com bust.

Bank of America Will Cut 650 Jobs in Investment Banking Unit

By David Mildenberg

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp., the second- largest U.S. bank, plans to cut 650 jobs from its corporate and investment bank and sell the prime brokerage unit that caters to hedge funds.

The bank is slashing its so-called structured products business that developed and sold packages of real estate loans to investors, and reducing investment banking in Europe and the U.S., Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis said in a meeting with reporters today in New York.

Lewis, who said in October he'd had ``all the fun I can stand in investment banking'' after about $2 billion of writedowns and trading losses, said today the bank is still committed to the unit. Bank of America remains powerful in syndicated lending, leveraged finance and various other investment banking areas, and investment banking is important to the company's success, he said.

``We've never been an investment banking wannabe,'' he said. ``Where we choose to compete, we will win.''

The job cuts, 12 percent of the unit's staff, are in addition to previous plans to fire 3,000 people, including 500 in the corporate and investment bank, Lewis said.

Lewis didn't disclose any financial impact from today's announcement. The company will report its fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 22. The division's profit plunged 93 percent to $100 million in the third quarter.

Bank of America fell $1.09, or 2.8 percent, to $38.13 at 2:08 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company's shares have lost 7.6 percent this year.

WOAH!!! Now SPUNKY playing with Equities???

Come on Spunkster, after all the BS about me telling people to buy Gold last December, now you go off and buy, of all things, C and ML?

You should have listened to me earlier if you had that kind of cash lying around. Here's some advice, wait for Gold to temporarily correct after its current run-up cycle, then load up on it. That's a much better strategy than trying to buy C and ML now.

And what are you, a sovereign fund? 5 year horizon with equities? Come on now...

Manhattan will NOT, I repeat, NOT escape the effects of a CONSUMER-LED recession. It would be extremely foolish to bet against that. Remember, CONSUMER SPENDING saved us after the DOT-BUST and 9/11... unbelievably resilient in borrowing and spending the Consumer was... now with the Housing and Credit bubbles fizzing out, poor Consumer can't borrow to spend as easily anymore.

This is what Wall St. is afraid of. 70%+ of growth due to consumer spending. Borrow borrow spend spend. HELOC -> Hummer syndrome. No more, after almost a decade of relentless spending.

And he managed to lose 4.4% in less than a day. How cool is that?

On the other hand, people who were betting on div reductions using single stock futures vs cash...

But Merrill and Citigroup's stock prices have gone up over the past 5 years. Therefore they should continue to increase. Why should now be any different?

actually, citi was one of the few stocks that never really could beat cash over the long run.

spunky=dumb money. Check.

Keep in mind, money is a verb, not a noun. Stupid people lose their family's wealth consistently when they inherit it. Case IN point for why the Hiltons, and the Buffets, and the Gates are donating most of it. They don't want to ruin their family for generations to come. Case IN point. The beautiful thing here is that someone is doing it in public and online. You will be amongst the few publicly berated individual to lose his family's wealth, yes, in public. Can't wait to watch it unfold. Please keep us advised as to your purchases so that we can short what you buy as this debacle unfolds. Best of luck to you.

The situation is getting to the point where the Market is practically begging Bernanke to slash rates BEFORE their meeting on Jan 30 (which is only 2 weeks away). It is actually pricing in a 75bps cut on Jan 30, but that might be too much in one go (spook the markets), so Helicopter Ben may step up to the plate and slash before, but first, he has to wait for inflation data (CPI) which is being released tomorrow.

If he slashes, watch out- commodity inflation will skyrocket (along with Gold, milk, wheat, oil, things that we need and pay for every day).

Just to put things into perspective, the last time rates were slashed ahead of a meeting was after 9/11 when Greenspan did it in the beginning of January. Right after, the recession officially started back then. Things are getting that drastic folks.

We could be entering a similar 'panic' phase at the moment- Intel dropped over 15% after hours (along with the NASDAQ) when it released it earnings which did not meet expectations.

It's quite ironic how the title of this thread taunts those who predicted what is going on now. Sorry it's a month or so late, but when we are talking about business cycles that last 7 years, a month is a blip on the radar.

No MMAfia, it's NOT a month late. If it were, I would have not authored this thread.

To requote an earlier post of mine on this thread -

It's the same hue and cry these people made in 2007 when they said it was the end of the road and that real estate prices in Manhattan would collapse.

It's the same hue and cry these people made in 2006 when they said it was the end of the road and that real estate prices in Manhattan would collapse.

It's the same hue and cry these people made in 2005 when they said it was the end of the road and that real estate prices in Manhattan would collapse.

It's the same hue and cry these people made in 2004 when they said it was the end of the road and that real estate prices in Manhattan would collapse.

It's the same hue and cry these people made in 2003 when they said it was the end of the road and that real estate prices in Manhattan would collapse.

And so on....one day, of course, they'll be right - the market will recede to a greater or lesser degree for a while - that's what markets do - they go up and down.

It's not 'a month late.' More like 'five years late.' Five years isn't a 'blip' - it's just a stopped clock finally telling the right time for once. Which (also as I said before) doesn't mean that I don't agree with you that things will get worse before they get better. But people like yourself who infer that they "called" the current economic situation with oracular precision are deluding themselves. They're just a stopped clock finally getting lucky.

Pops sorry to say I come from a hard working lower middle class family. You have some fantasy that I have inherited my wealth in the form of money. The only wealth I have inherited from my family is that of hard work, strong work ethics, integrity, and the strong will to succeed. All of which are foreign to you Pops.
Pops- Jealousy is one of your strongest attributes.

MMafia unlike you I don't buy Gold eagles , maple leaf coins to squirrel them away for some rainy day so I can save enough coins to buy a house for my family. If going in my rented room to count coins each and everyday turns you on then I'm happy for you. Right now all you have is your gold bullion and your rented shack but if that floats your boat so be it.

Spunky, I'm sticking with my dumb money theory. What are you buying?

"it's just a stopped clock finally telling the right time for once. Which (also as I said before) doesn't mean that I don't agree with you that things will get worse before they get better."

Good- I don't care that you think I'm lucky. ALL I care is that you agree with me that things will get worse before they get better. Thanks for establishing and confirming that. We are on the same page now- I don't care to argue about how we got here. BTW- I wasn't posting on this board 5 yrs ago. You must be talking about someone else.

Spunkster, you just exposed yourself with probably the worst possible trade given what's going on right now. While some of your posts are entertaining (and I value them for that reason =D ), I must say, even I shuddered when you exposed yourself like that. I thought you'd learn not to do that after you got called out on curbed.com earlier.

BTW- between owning a home and owning ounces of Gold of the equivalent value of that same home right now, I'd rather own the Gold and be renting. Now pass me the brewskie.

MMMafia let's check back at the end of 5 years or I dare say even 1 year and see what did better from today's date 1/15/08 C, Mer or Gold. Hey didn't Gold drop like 10 bucks today from it's high and ended the day down.

Pops I don't need to buy anything I am quite comfortable. If you want to find out the true meaning and image of dumb all you need to do in the mirror.

Sorry Pops getting kind of late but what I meant to say is If you want to find out the true meaning and image of dumb all you need to do is look in the mirror.

No problem. I don't think anyone needs to buy anything in the market, whether they are comfortable or not. But you bought C and MER today, and you are looking for another apartment in the village, even in your comfortable state of being. So I am wondering what else you are buying.

Oh, and, thanks for telling me to look in the mirror! Surprised you didn't go with: Touch black, no backs!

spunky - "Hey didn't Gold drop like 10 bucks today from it's high and ended the day down."

This is as stupid as when you said "DOW UP 175 - check!" after the DOW corrected 11% in 4-5 weeks. You just dont get it spunky. Gold went up from 800 - 900 as the dow went down 11% in the past 6 weeks! DEC 14th GOLD was at 780..Dec 14th DOW was at 13,550..So, DOW IS DOWN 1,050 points in a month and GOLD is UP $110/oz at same time. Yet you are now complaining that gold was down a bit on yesterdays huge selling day.

Do you see where your logic is all messed up or do you just not understand? Problem is, you are day to day, and you put so much weight on what Manhattan real estate did from 2002-2007. We are now now! Who cares what happened back in the day as all that matters for the current manhattan re market is what buyers are doing right now, and right now buyers are very cautious and not paying more than early 2007, they are negotiating! Inventory may be down 20% from last year, but prices are also down from this time last year, so inventory relatd to price is not so cut and dry. Its all about buyer confidence. And stocks are started to price in what me and many others have been discussing for many months now!

This is a very bad debt crisis that is being amplified by wall street innovations. Housing recession is fueling it. And commodity inflation will limit just how hard fed will ease. If the fed does ease hard in the face of commodity inflation, its because underlying economy is in real bad shape. Does that sound like an environment in which manhattan re will surge or possibly give up some gains after a 100% appreciation over the past 5 years? Is that gain sustainable in such an environment?

Here are my predictions:

Dow below 12,000 by the end of 2008!!

Mild Recession through mid 2008!

National Housing market down 20%! - no - 30%! - no - 20%! - no - maybe less -- 15% - by the end of 2008!!!

The subprime/Alt-A debacle will only slightly impact the Manhattan real estate market in 2008 -- down 3-5%!

Low inventory, Fed rate cuts and federal stimulus package will cut the national recession short and save the Manhattan real estate market from significant declines by in 2008!!

Manhattan real estate selling for 97 cents on the dollar by 1 January 2009!

Interest rates up slightly by mid-2009 after declines!

Hillary Clinton elected President in 2008. Robert Rubin to return as Treasury Secretary.

All well with the world and Manhattan RE starting January 2009! (But no significant price increases till 2010 and generally slow growth through 2014)

Condos with gold finishings and Wall Street Journal subscriptions the new rage in Manhattan RE!!

Urbandigs like I said you re entitled to your opinion. I am a long term trader. I bought Citi and Merrill yesterday and I plan on holding it for a long time. I bought my apts in the Manhattan several years ago and I plan on holding onto them for at least or more years.
I realize you know more about short term results because you were a day trader and day traders usually don't hold onto stocks more than 5 minutes. Day traders also view long term investors like myself as you state "stupid" I realize going from day trader to real estate guru in less than 5 years makes you smarter than me but I'll just have to deal with it.

Corrections I am a long term investor not trader and I plan on holding onto to my properties more than 20 years.

Spunky, your portfolio is too concentrated in the real estate and financial sectors - you should consider diversifying. I suggest Intel - it's looking quite cheap today!

buster I do own Mutual funds and as I mentioned my Mutual funds are down in 2008.But you are right I do own a decent percentage of my portfolio in Manhattan Real Estate. So far so good it has appreciated quite handsomely, but I'm also in it for the long run (20 years +).

spunky - I never said I am smarter than you, just talking here. I can see you are a long term trader, but when it comes to analyzing the state of the market, and whether now or 6 months from now may be a better time to buy, you must get an understanding of macro economy and buyer confidence. After all, talk to those buyers outside Manhattan who bought in 2005-2006, and ask them now if they would have been better off renting for another year or two.

I trade stocks and I have account that I hold stocks: long gold (gld,iau), skf, omg, abx, csco & yhoo..I got hit in csco & yhoo and Im not always right, and will probably unload those positions on a bounce. I plan to hold gold stocks and skf for a while as I have.

But all Im saying is some of the things you say here just dont make any sense. Like trying to get back at some posters thath gold is down $10, after a $120 rally! Of course it will retrace, thats expected. Just like Manhattan re will retrace if we are indeed in a recession, or headed for a recession, and jobs will be lost and negative wealth effect occurs. Thats all Im saying. Manhattan has a history of lagging in slowdowns and leading in recoveries, but its not immune! Things change, and all we need is a prolonged credit crisis and recession to quickly change the outlook for manhattan re..Ill certainly be looking to buy any deal if it presents itself, I just dont think it will until 2009-2010, as inventory takes time to build as sales volume and buyer confidence slows.

This discussion needs to drop off the streeteasy top 10. It bores me but like an idiot I keep clicking on it.

Just let it die!!

Urbandigs,are you really spending your time responding to someone called "spunky" who takes everything you say as a personal attack on his poorly timed real estate and securities purchases?? You could be doling out some proper advice to the masses man!

Word!

we can't ...Unless Noah finally realizes that he shouldn't be wasting another second on this "long term trader"...

ok - Im done! Damn, it sucked me in for a while

Deutsche Bank Set to Cut 250 to 300 Jobs, Person Says (Update2)

By Neil Unmack and Aaron Kirchfeld

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's biggest bank, is eliminating 250 to 300 jobs in its global markets division, according to a person with knowledge of the reduction.

The staff cuts, which began this week, are across the unit run by Anshu Jain, including equity sales and trading, debt capital markets and derivatives, said the person, who declined to be identified. The division is making ``some adjustments to individual business lines to refocus resources towards areas with the greatest growth potential,'' London-based spokeswoman Michelle Gathercole said, without giving further details.

Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann said this week that the U.S. housing crisis sparked by last year's surge in U.S. subprime mortgage defaults may not be over and banks may have to report further writedowns. The Frankfurt-based company has announced about 2.28 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in markdowns and trading losses because of the debt market slump.

``There are areas where the markets have shut down and won't come back for a year or more, if ever,'' including the securitization and collateralized debt markets, said London- based Societe Generale SA analyst Alan Webborn, who recommends shareholders sell the stock. ``It will be a common factor over all investment banks in the next three to six months.''

spunky dear, look at the MER pre-open. Are you sure it was a butter knife that you were catching?

zizizi-Pre open shows Mer higher. I don't really care about the day to day fluctuations. If I did I'd be still renting and to scared to do anything.
Check back in a year and let's see how Mer is doing compared to today.

Just a suggestion -

Can we not turn this board into an hour-by-hour evaluation of how one individual poster's stock investments are performing?

Can those who need to do that please create a separate discussion?

I agree with yournamehere

urbandigs - so let me get this straight: you get become a tech stock day-trader during that bubble and stay in it till the market crashed. then you switch to become a real estate broker during that run-up till that market crashed, and now with gold up 400% over the past few years you've become a goldbug? if that isn't the most contrarian signal on what to invest in, please find me another one

spunky -- it's down another 6.5% now. How much have you lost already on your market timing and when do you plan to double down?

Think about it, you raised your imaginary tenants' rents by 6% and already you've lost more in just 2 days!

Zizi let me know how MER and C is doing a year and 5 years from now. Your hung up on following the stock on minute to minute basis. Why didn't I hear from you yesterday when Mer was up 2 bucks a share.
Okay this is what you can do. Follow Mer every minute of the day for the next 12 months and update me on the price on an hourly basis.

“The current stock and asset bubble will deflate by the end of the year as predicted. Remember my promise for Dow at 11,000 before the ball drops.” – zizizi

zizizi, Are you really in the position to question the financial decisions of others after making the #1 bonehead prediction in Streeteasy history? Are you now ready to share more wisdom with the masses?

Spunky, weren't you the one providing daily updates of the Dow's performance? Of course you only reported when it was doing well...

juiceman, if I missed the 11k mark by a month or two while you lot were predicting 15000, I'm still in pretty good shape.

Remember - it's already down from 13800 to about 12300 and it hasn't gone over the 13800 level at *any* point since I said "round two begins today".

If someone who relentlessly bashes others for their successful investments (be it mmafia's gold fetish or my suggestions) buys two stocks and they immediately proceed to drop like stones... that's a different story.

Oh yes, the MMAfia argument. "if I missed the mark by a month or two...." or 6, or 12, or 18. Maybe you should try meteorology as a profession, at least then the 50/50 rule would apply.

I don't remember anyone predicting 15000, I'm pretty sure you made that stellar prediction unprovoked. Good effort though.

Streeteasy Reader: MasterQ, why is this stupid discussion even happening?

MasterQ: Ah, I'm glad you asked that. Gather round.

First, people have very fragile egos on the internet. All these little egg shell egos keep cracking off each other, screeching and retaliating mechanically. I'm sure many of these people are far less monkey-like in real life.

Second, the subject matter here brings out negative emotions in people - fear and greed. A lot of people on this board have invested their life savings in real estate. Also many bought recently, so they're scared of depreciation and negative equity. There's the fear. On the flip side, there's a lot of people who wished they'd bought before, and feel like they've missed out on $$$ (greed). In this thread the latter group are enjoying seeing owners -- particularly Spunky, a long term owner and gloater about that fact -- possibly losing asset value. The owners, meanwhile, are keeping fear at bay by denying that any asset value loss is happening (the subject line of the thread), or trying to change the subject.

When these emotions intermix -- and a reasonable person or two (like Noah) gets sucked in -- you get a 250+ post stream of ... I'll let you add a descriptive noun there, gentle Streeteasy Reader.

Streeteasy reader: Thanks Masterq. And this thread is, like, so over.

on a side note - Mr. Paulson, the other Paulson, who made 4 bil on shorting financial quarantors has been in this trade that was going against him since 2002, the trade has finally unraveled over the past 4 months...

masterq what did you just get out of your psychology 101 class. You sure know what's on the minds and hearts of everyone on this board.

Streeteasy Reader: Masterq, so why is it that you keep reading these posts and, subsequently, tossing in your own input every now and then?

Masterq: Ah, I'm glad you asked that. Gather round.
First, I am relatively conflicted in my own thoughts and generally have a desire to belong, but I’m not really sure which side I should choose. So, rather than actually giving an opinion and risk the possibility of alienating myself to a bunch of anonymous strangers on a real estate blog, I take the “to cool for school approach” and pretend that none of this matters to me. In reality, streeteasy.com is my home page and I hit refresh on my browser about 300 times a day just hoping and praying my favorite threads will stay alive. I especially liked the Breezy Point thread and am thinking of bringing that back but I’m not real sure how to do that without maintaining my Swiss-like neutrality.

Streeteasy Reader: Interesting masterq. Did you know that when readers see your screen name they think of an 80’s hip hop artist that raps about the contentions of upper class renters who have been kicked around by the upper class owners?

Masterq: Yes, that makes perfect sense to me, although please don’t make me talk about the lyrics or my message, it is far too controversial and I wouldn’t want anyone to know that I had an actual opinion, I plan to release those songs under a different screen name

Juiceman --Now that's one of the funniest posts I have ever read. Well done

Double word!

i thought we were going to let this post die?

printer - I started trading when I was 14, back in 1990 with money from bar mitzvah and working. Little but a start. I started day trading with Tradescape (lightspeed) in June 1998 during asian financial crisis. I stopped trading in late 2003, and got my re license in 2004. Were you one of the people saying how doom & gloom I have been since early last year about this credit mess and the problems that will come out of it, and how the cycle will feed on itself? Your seeing result now in stocks and you will see result in a recession soon! Ive been bullish on gold for over a year now.

Ill never tell you to buy any stocks, you have spunky for that kind of advice! Damn it, die post die so I can go back to convincing everyone Manhattan real estate is the best investment ever and will never go down and to buy buy buy before its too late!

Ah Juiceman, you've found a new group to attack: those who think that the boneheaded market up or down argument is boring.

It's all that you and Spunky have in life I guess.

Urbandigs the important ones you have to convince potential sellers. This way your buyers and you can get scoop up a good deal. Keep posting and blogging and then go out and sell all the negative news to the hilt. I'm sure you and MMafia can convince some 80 year old widow to sell her apt at pennies on the dollar.

272 posts and counting - boy, can I start a thread, or what?

sellers dont get it..I got 6 calls from sellers in the past month alone asking why their property didnt sell. In every case, the seller used a broker tha promised the highest price when they visited and pitched. Amazes me that sellers still fall for that trap!

Every seller thinks their home is worth more than comparable sale no matter what. Very rarely does a seller acknowledge the market and let the broker guide them properly. Whatever, Id rather spend my time with serious buyers now that have deep motivation to buy than an unrealistic seller who is stuch on 5% appreciation since last years comps. Trust me, all my buyers know whats going on and none are getting involved if there is any sign of multiple bids. All plan to negotiate, and Ill tell you this, seller brokers are secretly telling me to 'just get them an offer' as they are nearing the end of the listing agreement and/or seller is actually very scared and wants to sell NOW rather than wait it out!

I should post on that phenomenom but Ill get eaten alive!

Dam that's got to be frustrating dealing with unmotivated sellers and renters who pretend that they have the means to buy.

malraux you done good but I think I exceeded my quota here.For some reason I keep getting sucked into this.

spunky - umm, somebody pulled the rug from under the stock market

"Trust me, all my buyers know whats going on and none are getting involved if there is any sign of multiple bids."

What if the reason there are multiple bids is because it is a good property at a reasonable price? Do you think buyers are better off trolling 60 day old listings that are either shit or overpriced to begin with? Sounds like fuzzy logic to me.

"seller brokers are secretly telling me to 'just get them an offer' as they are nearing the end of the listing agreement"

Ah yes, the end of the listing agreement. Time for the hard sell from the listing broker. Such an ethical profession eh?

Urbandigs - I think you just did "post on that phenomenon."
Sorry to hear that you're going to be eaten.
Best,
Melvin Carbuncle

unfortunately its not juice! So unethical its scary, and makes it hard for guys like me as its NOT a level playing field. Hopefully urbandigs will level it for me.

Not sure the reason, other than that buyers are not whimsically throwing 10K, 20K, 30K around in this uncertain environment. Portfolios are getting whacked, financial industry jobs are in doubt, recession talk is abound, negative wealth effect, etc all playing role. And lets face it, Manhattan has very little inventory and has NOT corrected significantly. So, its not like buyers have options or feel like they are getting a steal after a 20% correction.

If property is priced right in this environment, it will sell! But thats an ego issue with the owner.

I have my eye on about a dozen buildings in the West Village, Tribeca and Greenwich Village and only a couple come up on the market for the past 3 months and have gone to contract. The only apts that are going down in price are those that are crappy apt with crappy locations to begin with.

hey spunky, so Im your broker right?

Spunky:

That's not entirely true. I live in the Village, and just on a lark went to a few open houses in the area this past Sunday (amd the one before that) with my wife. Some of the units we saw were quite nice, and had offers/went into contract in the past week or so, but those had already seen a modest price chop.

A case in point were two units we looked at in the Novare (135 West 4th), a reconfigured church. The architects FLANK did a really creative job with this development, and it is pretty swanky, I have to say. The finishes are lovely, the layouts are okay but not great, and on the whole it is very nice. We toured an apartment on the third floor (since gone into contract), and last week we saw one of the the penthouses. They already had an offer on it by the time we came through (no matter to us), but if you check on streeteasy you'll see these units were price chopped once already.

I saw the same kind of stuff happening in other Village and West Village units that we went to see. There's certainly no panic, and things are definitely selling in this area, but the prices seems to be shaved by 2%-5% off the initial ask. This also occured with a three bedroom penthouse at 136 Waverly Place that we viewed, which was priced at $9MM, but sold for $8.7MM a few weeks ago.

The point is not whether markets have in retrospect have gone up or down, but what, at a given point in time, is a reasonable expectation for the future. At this point in time, it seems reasonable to me to expect the following scenario as more than likely to occur:
1) significant layoffs in finance in NYC
2) significant decline in the major financial indices, certainly to 12,000 and perhaps lower, no one knows.
3) general recession in the US lasting more than 2 quarters
4) reduced wealth/expectations effect inhibiting marginal buyers to "stretch"
5) reduced city services for policing, recreation, and the poor, potentially impacting real estate values

Taken together, these factors would seem to reduce the number of buyers and to increase the number of sellers. It seems reasonable to expect that in this environment, all else being equal, real estate prices will decline.

So it could be that the Dow will be at 15k in a year's time and some people will be laughing at the bank. But not because they were smart. They gambled. The smart move now would seem to be to wait.

urbandigs - i'm trying to figure out your position. You are all into touting doom & gloom, but whenever asked you say 'i never said manhattan real estate is going down'. you pat yourself on the back for being ahead of the credit crunch, yet your were openly looking to buy property for investment even after the credit crunch was already in full force and known to the whole world. you say that inventory will build, but on your own website you note that you have 1 seller and several buyers as clients. you can't even come up with a single property in manhattan that i could buy now for less that it traded for in the past year (outside of usual late fall technical weakness). your big advice to buyers is 'don't get in a bidding war'. you say that everyone on wall street is puking their guts out b/c they're going to be laid off, yet that those same wall streeters have entered the market this january just like they do every other year. i don't get it.

printer urbandigs dentist doesn't even know what side of the mouth he's talking from.

At this point, I just want 300+ posts on this thread. Then I'll be content.

printer - how many different things are you going to claim that I said in that entry that is just not true? let me go one by one.

1. "All touting doom & gloom" - have you been reading my site? How many times did I break down the problems, credit crisis, the write downs that will keep coming, and the vicious cycle. Now fast forward to right now and see if that was correct.

2. "i never said manhattan is going down" - now what I said. I said "Manhattan is not going to crash" and then I elaborated that significant price drops (that would consitute a crash of 20%+) would only come if inventory reverses course and sellers face fierce competition. But that process takes TIME!

3. "pat yourself on the back for being ahead of the credit crunch, yet your were openly looking to buy property for investment even after the credit crunch was already in full force and known to the whole world." - I was ahead of the credit crunch. I even broke down why these markets are dysfunctional. The tentacles of the credit beast. The problem with marking to model instead of marking to market. And the problem the fed will have facing commodity inflation at same time. And I will ALWAYS seek to buy when an opportunity presents itself; especially in the face of a disaster. Guilty there!

4. "you say that inventory will build, but on your own website you note that you have 1 seller and several buyers as clients." - r u kidding? So now my personal business runs the entire Manhattan housing marketplace. Probably the stupidest thing in your rant. I just switched firms and had to terminate my 3 listings. Since, 1 sold and the 3rd is renting out instead of selling.

5. "you can't even come up with a single property in manhattan that i could buy now for less that it traded for in the past year" - I am so sure you are wrong on this one. My seller for Trump Place accepted offer 3% lower than what same line sold for and closed in Sept 9 floors lower. Also, 49 E 96th, 15D, I got that client 2.3M offer, all cash, in February. Now they are asking 2.2M and I hear contracts are out for 2M, some 300K lower. I wont make claims to what I cant prove, but I will tell you my experiences that prove this statement wrong!

6. "your big advice to buyers is 'don't get in a bidding war'" - you misread. I said my clients are electing NOT to take place when their are multiple bids. I am reporting this observance to you so you can get a sense of what I am seeing on front lines. But you are consistent with putting words in my mouth and changing it to compliment your argument. In this case, you turned it into my advice to my clients.

7. "you say that everyone on wall street is puking their guts out b/c they're going to be laid off, yet that those same wall streeters have entered the market this january just like they do every other year." - do you have real proof of this? Show me. Fact is, you dont! No one does. And I know alot of employees in finance whose confidence has dropped and are more conservative with their bonuses. But again, you exaggerate. Trust me, job security is a concern now whereas last year at this time it was not. I also publicly stated that 2008 bonuses will be fine, its how they are spent that is the question mark, and that to expect 2009 bonuses to be hurt as 12 month revenues for brokerage firms will be drastically lower and that is what bonuses are based off.

I started trading when I was 14, back in 1990 with money from bar mitzvah and working.

As annoying as shecky is now, can you even imagine a teenage Noah?

just read this from 5 1/2 months ago when:

http://www.urbandigs.com/2007/08/its_a_risky_new_world_credit_s.html

CITIGROUP - $48
MERRILL LYNCH - $70
MORGAN - $61
COUNTRYWIDE - 26.75

and on and on. Look, the purpose of this is to talk about it right? It all started in FEB 2007 when HSBC warned: http://www.urbandigs.com/2007/02/credit_update_h.html

Everyone I know in this industry started talking and going out for dinners again, to discuss how bad this might get. Thats when I knew it was serious. In my opinion, the whole world changed in early AUG, a few weeks after Bear Stearns came public that their mbs hedge funds crumbled.

Everyone I know in this industry started talking and going out for dinners again, to discuss how bad this might get. <---Since they essentially caused it, they should know.

So, what you post isn't really your own thoughts, per se, but more of an aggregate of other peoples [who let you sit in on their dinner and actually have jobs in the business/didn't have to settle for real estate] opinions/insider info.?

Hmm..no using brackets, I see. So, Noah, what I wanted to know:

Based on the comment above..are you saying your site is basically an aggregate of your friends opinions/insider info.?

I have to be rude but I am very not impressed with someone who talks the business but sells real estate.
That makes no sense. My impression of you is that you are obsessive and a bit of a sycophant.

Just my opinion but I actually think things are looking so bad that the Fed and Congress will take action with a cut and stimulus package. There will likely still be a recession, but it will be a bit shorter (maybe 3 quarters) and not quite as deep. We may be in for a couple of years of sluggish recovery, but I think it may be sufficient to minimize any big hits to Manhattan RE. I am slightly to the left of Urbandigs and slightly to the right of Spunky. (Not sure if left/right analogy holds but you get the idea!)

wow. your right. I should have locked myself in a cage and not had contact with anyone. you are quite impressive though eah. your arguments are compelling.

What the hell is wrong with you people?

It's not the issue of contact...more that you spew about things you clearly cannot be an expert on. Your blog covers so many trends/areas of the business/topics in such detail it is virtually impossible (especially seeing how much time you're on here) that they are truly your own. Your blog is you making statements and then going over in a few weeks time how right you were. At least give the people who called it credit.

Noah - for christ's sake. As I said 13 days ago, it's your time to waste, but you're not doing yourself any favors staying on this board and using logic.

Pearls before swine, dude.

The Bonfire of the Vanities. Needs to be written for this decade.

So Noah has posted, and now faustus has commented.

If pearls come before swine, and Noah = 'pearls,' than faustus = ?

NO ONE POST AFTER THIS. That way Malraux doesn't get to see post 300. Don't give him the satsifaction. Someone start part Deux. First off, I agree with Spunky on one thing and one thing only - Juiceman, that was the funniest post ever, about 6 hours ago. Seriously. Now back to the lesson at hand. I almost wavered in a moment of weakness a few days ago, but then realized the flaw in my thinking. Eventually the fear will strike in the heart of NY'ers and foreigners alike. The same way it has struck into the hearts global investors the world over in the equities markets. Guess what? The US Equity markets are JUST as cheap as to foreigners as the Manhattan RE market is. Both trade in US dollars. There is a "little" more liquidity in the equity markets, and foreigner and US investors alike are running for cover. Where there is no liquidity, guess what? Fear will strike.

Interesting words from Donald Trump w/Jim Cramer on CNBC.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=625091311&play=1

eah, maybe you should email streeteasy.com and have a footnote process implemented. That way when someone like urbandigs works his ass off to summarize a bunch of macro babble that few of us understand and posts it out there for free, he will then be able to spend more time quoting all of those sources you are so worried about. It could look something like this <*>.

<*> uranidiot