The Great Wall Street of China

2007 saw a record $414 billion of foreign investment in American companies and assets. Sovereign wealth funds, which are investment funds or companies owned by governments, accounted for over $21.5 billion of that investment in American companies last year. The concern is that supposedly free markets could be manipulated by state sponsored companies for geo-political goals.

“This is a phenomenon that could be called the growth of state capitalism as opposed to market capitalism. The United States has not ever been on the receiving end of this before.” said Jeffrey Garten of the Yale School of Management. Read more

Congress’ Version of the Dr. Phil Show

Self-appointed watchdog, Rep. Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has invited three high profile, highly paid current or former CEOs to “get real” and “just own” their involvement in the current mortgage mess that is dragging down Wall St and the U.S. economy. Read more

Bank of America to Buy Countrywide

Ken “I Don’t Care If It’s Profitable” Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, finally pulled the trigger with Countrywide. While some in the financial sector were hoping the trigger was attached to something aimed at Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo, it laid to rest the rumors that have surrounded these two lending giants for almost a year. Read more

Lawrence Yun’s Keen Sense of the Obvious

Contracts on existing homes were down in November, prompting NAR to report that the market may not improve tomorrow.

Head soothsayer for the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun, in response to the NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index report that showed a drop in the number of sales contracts entered into on existing homes in November: Read more

Real Estate Portals To Avoid Beta vs VHS Battle

Trulia, Yahoo and Zillow announced yesterday that they intend to develop a common weapon to fight each other for online eyeballs. Agents rejoice at opportunity to speed up their own demise.

From Inman News:

Nearly a dozen Web sites that aggregate for-sale real estate listings — including Trulia, Zillow and Yahoo! Real Estate — have agreed to adopt common data standards that will make it possible for brokers to send a single listings feed to multiple Web sites.

The companies partnering to develop the new data standard, which will be based on the XML format and launched later this year, are working with the Real Estate Standards Organization to make sure it is compatible with the existing Real Estate Transaction Standard (RETS). The standardized data format will include price, square feet, bedrooms, bathrooms and additional descriptions of each listing.

Homes.com, Homescape, Oodle, Point2 Technologies, Realestate.com, Vast.com and vFlyer are also adopting the standardized feed format, which is open to “anybody else who wants to join us,” Zillow spokeswoman Amanda Hoffman said. “It’s a statement to the community — we want to make it easier for you to get your listings in front of as many people as possible.”

A spokesman for Realogy Franchise Group said its Century 21, Coldwell Banker, ERA and Sotheby’s International Realty brands plan to adopt the new standardized format.

“The opportunity for such wide distribution of our listings is an important facet of our marketing strategy,” said Realogy spokesman Craig Cuyar in a press release. “It’s clear these partners are attentive to the needs of our industry.”

Greg Swann at Bloodhound has an indepth overview with comments from Zillow and Trulia.

No Soup For You!

Move over, Al Yeganeh. New York’s newest soup nazi is none other than Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis.

In this CNBC video, Charlie Gasparino tells of a memo forwarded to him from a BofA employee informing the common folk there that recent cost cutting measures would mean that free soup and crackers would no longer be offered in the cafeteria. Hand soap was also deemed an unnecessary employee perk. Read more

Flushing Fiduciary

It has got to be tough trying to make a living as a real estate agent in a bubble market like San Diego.

Think about it for a moment. Since August, prices dropped faster than autumn leaves, inventory ballooned from 3000 units in 2004 to close to 20k units today, sales have plummeted to the lowest levels since they started keeping track in 1988, and seemingly half the population has a real estate license. Is it any wonder that agents feel the need to explain to us poor ignorant souls that the media is misleading us and we really ought to be buying?

I suppose in real estate caveat emptor is still the rule, even though disclosures abound to protect the buyer from the seller. But as poetic license flows freely on real estate blogs, only common sense is there to protect the potential buyer from the agent desperate to make a sale in a depreciating market.

Some things you just expect. It’s a scorpion and the frog thing.

What you don’t expect to see is an agent publicly sell out their client on their real estate blog to justify their opinion of the market:

For example, we have a seemingly impossible listing in Encinitas Ranch. It was likely a fraudulent sale that occurred late last year when the home sold at $1.2 million (with 100 percent financing), and had a value of something less than $900,000 (because the listing had gone off market with that price).

Did this agent just suggest that their seller “likely” committed loan fraud?

Bring Out Your Dead - But I’m Not Dead Yet!

A story that started out as an obituary for yet another casualty of the housing downturn now plays more like a scene from Monty Python.

On December 23rd, The Arizona Republic reported “Major real estate broker shuts down“:

RE/MAX 2000, based in Gilbert, is closing its 13 offices around the Valley. An attorney for owner Robert Kline told 12 News Sunday the company was not generating enough sales to meet its expenses because of the Valley’s depressed housing market. As for the timing of the closing, attorney Dax Watson said, “We felt it wouldn’t be fair to our clients to wait.”

On December 24th, Business Week covered the reported shut down with a statement from Re/Max 2000 founder Robert Kline, who said the decision to close became clear when he couldn’t afford to pay overhead expenses.

“The market has impacted us tremendously, and it was something we basically had no control over,” Kline said. “We cannot any longer invest our personal resources into the business.”

Later that day, the attorney that represents Kline stated that RE/Max 2000 wasn’t dead yet, according to another AZ Republic story.

“It appears there may be some opportunity to save Re/Max 2000 and work through some of these issues,” Watson said in a telephone interview with the owners on Monday.

No doubt that newly detected pulse was directly related to Re/Max International founder and chairman Dave Liniger’s decision to fly to Phoenix on Christmas Eve, where he then met with the owners planning to shut down one of his franchises.

According to the Phoenix Business Journal:

“He got down here quickly,” said Jack Farrar, a spokesperson at Re/Max’s corporate headquarters in Denver. “He wanted to talk to the agents.”

Farrar also assured customers that all current contracts would be processed.

“All contracts that are in place will not be affected and no escrow money has been compromised,” he said.

“No escrow money has been compromised.” WOW. The fact someone felt the need to assure clients that no crime was committed has got to be unsettling, particularly to those agents that told The AZ Republic that they are owed $111,000 in commissions.

Agent Steve Russell works with his mother, Sandy Koeppen, also an agent, and between them they say they are owed $11,000.

“My kids didn’t even end up with any Christmas presents,” Russell said. He told his four children they’d have to wait until he does a closing with another company.

Today Phoenix agent Jonathon Dalton reports that ReMax 2000 plans to keep 5 offices open, and that attorney Dax Watson asked the Arizona Department of Real Estate to conduct an audit to further assure all involved that funds are present and accounted for properly.

Rumor has it that when Robert Kline was asked this morning how things were going after a crazy week, he replied, “I’m feeling better. Think I’ll go for a walk.”

2007 Desperate Agent of the Year

After careful deliberation, it was decided that the inaugural post of this blog, and of the 2008 New Year, should be dedicated to the person who demonstrated the greatest degree of desperation as it relates to real estate in 2007. A vote was taken, tallied, and the result was… a tie. You get three guesses. If two of them include the chief economist for NAR in 2007, you win. Read more