Ladies and Gentlemen. Boys and Girls, and Children of all ages.
Where did that come from- a tv show in the 50's?
It's that time of the year again.
It's the end of another decade. Holiday advertising and sales are over, early Winter, short days, dark at 4:30pm. The New Year starts tomorrow night/Friday morning. That means its' time to review our goals for 2009, and make our new goals, for 2010.
Are New Year's resolutions goals?
Our country is not in its best shape. In fact, some are saying that the "naughts" was the worst decade of our country's existence.
Unemployment is at record high's; and we all have our problems.
That's right, each and every one of us has our own set of problems. There is no one without problems.
Johnny Carson said that having money eliminated money problems, but left him with all of the other problems. Of course, for most of us, our number one problem has to do with money, or the lack thereof. But it doesn't make life any better or any worse then those who don't have money problems. And if you think otherwise, if you think that just having money makes everything honkey dorey then you are mistaken.
(honkey dorey? what does that mean?)
Many of us look around and think that everyone else has it better than we do. Many people live their lives in envy, haunted by the green eyes of jealousy. Many people live their lives thinking that everyone else got a better hand from the deck, gets better chances at life, and has more luck then they do. And many of us might look at a certain someone else, who might seem to have a lot of money, good job or business, lots of friends, and think, "I bet they don't have any problems", or "I wish I had his or their problems". Unless you walk in my shoes, you cannot know what I see, and feel. (There is a great expression that I just messed up terribly). How about- the grass is always greener on the other side.
At various times in my life many people were envious of me. I seemed to have it all.
While writing this story, I was reminded of the old Simon and Garfunkel song, Richard Cory. (Now I can't stop singing it to myself).
They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,
With political connections to spread his wealth around.
Born into society, a banker's only child,
He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.
But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.
The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes:
Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show.
And the rumor of his parties and the orgies on his yacht!
Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he's got.
But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I'm living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be,
Oh, I wish that I could be
Richard Cory.
He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,
And they were grateful for his patronage and thanked him very much,
So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
"Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head."
Oh to be Tiger Woods? I wish my life was as good as Britney Spears'? Charley Sheen? Phil Spector has such a great life -- bet he doesn't have a care in the world! Princess Diana- she really had the world by the short hairs, all of the money in the world.
If we all took our problems and we put them into a hat, the chances are we would want our own problems back, and not anyone else's.
Really it's not about what our problems are, what we perceive our problems to be, but it is our own attitude towards them.
We might consider our problems to be monumental and insurmountable. Some people can't handle their problems. So but what are the options? Run away? Nervous Breakdown? Alcohol or drug? Therapy? Death? Suicide?
But my problems, they're mine, and I'll take them, I'll deal with them, because I have no choice. Life goes on, which is a lot better than the alternative. And besides that, I am happy.
Remember the children's book- The giving tree? The giving tree gave the boy his apples so the boy could sell them and have money, and the tree was happy. The giving tree let the boy cut down the branches so the boy could build a house, and the tree was happy. The giving tree let the boy cut down the trunk of the tree so the boy could build a boat, and the tree was happy, but not really. Then the boy came back, and there wasn't much tree left, just a stump, and the giving tree said to the boy, "I have nothing left to give you," but the boy said, "I am old, all I want is a place to sit and rest." And the tree was happy.
My father had a series of strokes, which took away his ability to walk and talk and communicate with the world; and ultimately he became a vegetable. After the strokes, my parents moved to Florida because Staten Island just wasn't handicap friendly. For my parents to go anywhere, I had a couple of guys who would have to go to carry my father in and out of wherever he wanted to be. Florida is handicap friendly. Everything is on one level, and accessible. I used to visit them quite frequently. I remember one time my mother introduced me to a man in a wheel chair, just like my father, also out to lunch like my dad was at the time, and my mother telling me that this man was the president of this huge bank. This was in the late 80's, when the buzz around was that the person with the most toys at the end, wins. Wall Street was out of control. Real Estate was out of control. The great crash at the end of the 80's hadn't happened yet.
I will never forget that after I met this man and his wife, with all of their money, power and prestige, I realized that the winner isn't the one having the most toys; it's about how you feel as you age.
I guess that is when I really set my first goal- which was then and still is today, to live a healthy long life, without medical problems interfering with my quality of life, by eating right and exercising regularly. Now I have plenty of medical issues. I go days with no hearing, I had toe surgery, and my toes still hurt (I am currently being treated by a pedicurist- not a podiatrist- Blue Cross won't pay Anna Nails, even though they should- manicures and pedicures are probably more beneficial to people than psychiatrists - although I am not getting pedicures for relaxation, I am getting them because I have toe problems - but I definitely see the relaxation benefits. I have terrible skin issues. I've had various types of skin cancer, from basil cell to melanoma, and everything in between (I'd write them down but I don't know how to spell them all). They are not my problems. They are my health issues. Which is how this email started I think, before I started my rambling.
My cup is half full, not half empty.
I have my "monumental problems" but I also have intricate plans to deal with them. And there is also plan B, if plan A doesn't work; and then there is plan C, and plan D. Don't get me wrong, we all have our moments. That's allowed. That's normal. It's okay.
(That's why God created oatmeal raisin cookies).
So the $64,000 question is- How can you reach your goals, if you don't set them?
Just this past week, I changed all of my underwear to the next size smaller. Man did that feel good. Now changing my underwear size was not one of my specific written down goals, and I still haven't reached my ultimate long term goal, but I am making progress, reaching some short term goals, which helps every other aspect of my life run smoother, and helps me maintain my positive attitude, and just feels so good. Last week I reached my short term 3 month goal, (from the weight loss challenge), to get back into a size 38 pants, which I did.
That being said, RIGHT THIS MINUTE is the perfect time to sit down, with a pen (or at a computer) and set your goals for 2010.
These are the instructions I included in last year's 'it's time to set goals' email.
1. Set CLEAR, SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE GOALS: (Health, Wealth, Family, Social, Public Service).
2. WRITE THEM DOWN.
3. SET a REALISTIC DEADLINE. (12-month goal; 3-month goal; weekly goal; and daily goals). There are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic deadlines.
4. Identify OBSTACLES. Make removing the obstacle a priority and work on it every day.
5. Determine what INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE, TECHNOLOGY, is NEEDED TO REACH YOUR GOALS. Come up with a plan to get it
6. Determine what PEOPLE, GROUPS, and ORGANIZATIONS are NEEDED to REACH THE GOAL.
7. MAKE A PLAN TO OBTAIN THE GOAL. Write down every conceivable detail that you can imagine.
8. DO SOMETHING ON THE PLAN EVERY DAY. Review it, read it out loud, write it and re-write it. Update it. EVERY DAY
9. VISUALIZE THE GOAL AS ALREADY ACHIEVED
10. FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION!!!!
Now I recently heard that a highly effective method to set goals is to draw a picture of what you have in mind. Instead of saying, I want to lose weight you visualize yourself as being thinner. Draw a picture of yourself as thin. Additionally, you need to write down in a positive manner, I am so happy and pleased, that here it is, (date in the future), and I am now.........
And when setting goals think big. Shoot for the Stars. Don't let anyone tell you to be realistic or talk you out of setting high goals. The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. Michelangelo.
Tiger Woods visualizes his swing before he swings. He visualizes himself hitting the ball into the cup. He certainly doesn't visualize himself coming in third, or hitting into the Sand trap.
Setting Goals in a positive way, as an accomplished fact, is how we trick our subconscious mind into capitulation.
When we think to ourselves, I am starting tomorrow; the subconscious takes you at your word, and makes it so we don't start until tomorrow. Of course tomorrow never comes, it's always tomorrow. This is very important. Setting goals is a way of taking control of our own life, exercising control over our subconscious.
If it's to be, it's up to me.
Last year I shared my goals. I didn't reach all of my goals. I am still working on reaching my goals. But I did make a lot of progress towards them in many different directions and on several fronts. I also stopped along the way and adjusted my goals. Changed deadlines, and changed a lot of the short term goals.
But before I get into my specifics, I would like to say that I really had a great year, talking to all of you who might have dropped me a note, sent me an email telling me that you enjoy my writing, or gave me a call.
Thanks to everyone who called about a listing, or referred someone to me, or added people to the list.
Thank you to Eileen who told me that she was addicted to my emails, and Anthony who tells me that I am brilliant, and Eve who tells me that she loves my writing, and Richard who engages me intellectually, and my cousin, Larry, the rocket scientist from NASA who thought that I might be expressing an interest in science, and my crazy lawyer friend Robert who wishes he had my professional skills and acumen; and Bruno who tells me he reads my emails in the morning to find out what is going on in the industry; and my cousin, Stuart, who edits for me, and the people who commiserated with me about weight loss, and shared with me their hearing issues, and Ted who points out errors made by other brokers, and all the people who told me what a whippersnapper is, or how to find out myself, and thank you to all of the other people who sent me a note, which unfortunately got lost, when my laptop was stolen last month. Believe me, it is my pleasure.
Goals realized in 2009
I sold every listing that I got (both of them).
I get referrals every day (well not every day/maybe every week) from people who read my emails, and from the people they pass them along to.
I write the most successful email publication on Staten Island.
My goal for 2010
I am so happy and thankful, that here it is: January 1st, 2011, and I am at the peak of my health and fitness, fit and trim, weighing 130 pounds, wearing small and medium men's clothing. I write down everything that I eat, which is 5 or 6 meals a day, small, nutritious, healthy good food, good choices, drink a gallon of water too. I exercise 4 or 5 times per week, because I love to exercise, it makes me feel so good. I feel the fat and the stress just sweating out of my strong lean body. I wake up well-rested each morning, eat my breakfast, pack my lunch, go to the gym, go to work, I sell an average of one property per week, to nice people on my list, and their referrals, I send out emails to 5000 people on my list at a time. Life is very good, and I love my life.
.......................to be continued
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Excess Baggage
It’s just about the end of the year and I am so much lighter than I was going in, in so many ways, having lost a lot of excess baggage.
I am less burdened by the ownership of needless material things.
I had a storage facility room filled with junk that I hadn’t looked at in years.
I’m talking about stuff that used to be in an attic or a basement, moved with every move, without even being opened, until put into storage place after my last move about 4 or 5 years ago. Boxes and boxes of accumulated things, most of which would never be looked at again until I died, and then only to separate the stuff of monetary value and the stuff of no monetary value. But because of a bookkeeping error on my part, I don’t have to think about it anymore, because it was sold in an auction.
I had some photographs from when my father was a student at PS 30. Actually the class photo of first grade, taken in 1925. A friend of mine’s son was starting PS 30, so I gave it to him to give to his kid to give to the school. Perhaps they would appreciate it. He said to me “Oh so altruistic of you”. Months later I noticed that he didn’t give it to his kid, but kept it for himself, put it on his bookshelf. How un-altruistic of him.
The thing about collecting stuff is that it is only exciting before you actually have it. Anticipation is 99% of satisfaction. Once you have it, you don’t look at it, touch it, and think about it any more, it just becomes a collector of dust.
The most joy that I have ever had from material things has always been giving them away.
I had an old advertising picture of an Indian on a horse, beautiful old art work, from an early 1900’s advertisement for some insurance company. One of my friends/partners at the time had expressed that he really liked it so one day I gave it to him. Felt great.
So what do you do with old photographs anyway? My kids haven’t got a clue who all of the dead people in my boxes are anyway (I still have boxes and boxes of more stuff in my attic, I only lost the stuff in the storage place). Sometimes for fun I take a bunch that someone that is still alive might like, and give them to them. I had given a lot of photos to my cousin Bob Tamarin, an attorney here on Staten Island, and he told me who the people were. We sat and talked and laughed.
Want to have a lot of fun? Go to an older relative or friend of yours and ask them to take out their old photos and tell you who everyone is. Both of you will have a great time.
My father was a prolific photographer most of his life. I once had envelopes printed with a picture of a guy under the hood of the old fashioned cameras, with the legend from the camera of Richard Lasher for him to give away his photographs. Used to be you walked into any Judge’s chambers on Staten Island and there would be a wall of my fathers photographs hanging, pictures of the members of the legal community.
Couple of weeks ago I had to go to a funeral in Long Island. I wanted to stay connected, so I brought my lap top with me, the one I used to use to send out these emails. Well I left it in my car the night before we left, forgot to lock the door, and someone stole it. (They also took my gym bag, looked inside, saw that there was nothing in it that they wanted so they left it about 100 feet away, behind my pool. They also left my SIBOR bag that I had the laptop in, and the thing you rest your palms on when typing).
Meanwhile, I had never been to an Italian funeral before. The night before the burial, we all were in the room at the funeral parlor, with the casket, and a priest came, who didn’t know the lady who died (my wife’s Aunt Grace). I was volunteered into saying a few words because they know that I love to speak in public. For some people it’s their worst fear, worse then fear of death. Used to be mine too, until I started the LANDMAX INTERNATIONAL CORP., my land development company "helping the landowner realize the maximum value of his land". When we first started LANDMAX, in 1987, we introduced it to the brokers of Staten Island at a breakfast at the Richmond County Country Club. I had hired someone to be the spokesperson, but after a few questions I had to jump in. I never jumped out. I discovered that I loved public speaking. My partner, Jack, used to sell vacuum cleaners; so he taught me the "tricks of the trade" of public speaking, and I got really good at it. After a while I felt like I was doing standup. We did "dog and pony shows" up and down the North East Coast, promoting the company- Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, upstate New York, Long Island, etc.
Anyway, so the priest said some prayers, and then I stood up in front, and began entertaining the troops, making them laugh and cry, and told all of my personal experiences with “Aunt Grace”. Someone else said a few words, made everyone feel morbid. And that was that for the night. Everyone left.
The next morning, (after hitting the local Starbucks), we came back to the funeral parlor, into the room. Everyone was there from the night before except for the priest. The funeral director read a prayer, and everyone left the room, except for a few of us. Then the funeral director took out his trusty old screw driver-like thing, and started to turn it like you would the knob on a jalousie window, and the body was slowly lowered in the casket. Took a while, was a very eerie feeling. Then he closed the bunting on top of her, closed the cover, and locked it up. Took out a name plate, removed the backing, and stuck it onto the outside of the casket.
Then the casket was put into the hearse, (actually it was a Cadillac. So if it's a Cadillac, can it still be a Hearse? What is a Hearse? Who was Hearse?). Then we all got into our cars, and we followed the funeral director and the casket in the Cadillac, onto the Southern State Parkway, until we were pretty far out in Long Island, when we got off in the direction of the cemetery.
Once at the cemetery, we had to wait in line for our turn. Once it was our turn, we pulled up to this gazebo thing, made out of brick and wood; sort of round, open on most sides, with a closet in the back. We pull up and get out of our cars, the casket is rolled into the center of the area and we sat down or stood up. The funeral director said a prayer, and then we left, left the casket there, got back into our cars, the next funeral took our place at the gazebo, and we drove back onto the Southern State Parkway, went to an Italian Restaurant and had an 7-course meal. (I’m not quite sure which one was the funeral- the night before, or the day of?)
Jewish funerals are not done like this. No wake, you go to the funeral parlor for the funeral. When the service is over, you go to the cemetery, put the casket in the ground, and then people shovel dirt on top to fill up the hole. Then you go back to someone’s house, everyone brings cake, or fruit baskets, your closest people send entire meals, and you eat there for 7 days.
So which is more civilized? 7 days of meals, or eat 7 days worth of food in one shot?
Jon Salmon had an extra computer around; so I loaded it up and thought that I would be back in business. Got myself one of those portable hard drives, called cruiser. I downloaded my email addresses from my home computer, brought it to the office, and downloaded it, and now I had all of my email addresses and I am back in business.
Then I decided that I would move all of my emails, including all of my Lasher’s List emails, to the office computer. Now I am a very organized person. I save all of my emails by category. Lasher’s List land; letters received, my kids, family, surveys, different clients, health and fitness, receipts, cool stuff, legal stuff, etc. Years of emails, totally organized.
Anyway, so I thought that I loaded them onto the Cruiser- the F drive, brought it to the office, tried to download it but nothing. But now I am getting these warnings that they can’t find certain files in the F drive, so I figure out how to delete the data file that had no data.
Then I’m at home again, and I’m trying to move the files, PST not comma separated values (does anyone know what I am talking about?) It asks me where to put them -- in the personal folders? I say 'yes'. (Who am I to argue with Microsoft?). Nothing. But now I have the error notice about it can’t find the personal file on the F drive so I go to delete it like I did the day before, and I deleted all of my emails. Gone. Lost. I looked in the deleted file, not there. I called my friend Jimmy at Stardate Computer Systems Inc who told me that they are gone forever. That there are no hidden secret files where these things go once deleted- they vanish.
So now I don’t know whether to be upset or feel relieved.
I no longer have the burden of worrying about my stored things, nor do I have to pay for their storage.
I no longer have my lap top, but I also no longer have the frustration of the old relic's breaking down and freezing all the time.
And I no longer have all the old emails. They are gone.
But most important, I am a lot lighter than I was at the beginning of the year because I won the weight loss challenge that I told you about three months ago.
Remember I told you that I saw an ad in the supermarket about a weight loss challenge? $35 bucks and the winner gets all.
It turns out that the weight loss challenge was being run by a nice older-than-me couple, Roslyn and Skip, who sell Herbalife. Herbalife is apparently the worlds largest weight loss health company, bigger than Slim Fast, and Optifast, and the others that are around. They claim that their products are the healthiest.
Anyway, a month or two into the diet, I had stopped losing weight. So I figured, let me try this stuff, it solves the age old dilemma called breakfast. Every diet in the world tells you that to lose weight you must eat breakfast. They even say its better to eat a donut then to eat nothing. It has to do with metabolism and all that stuff. But I’m never hungry in the morning, and I'm too lazy to make oatmeal.
So I buy a container of Herbalife, “cookies and cream”, which you are supposed to put in the blender and make a malted milk out of. But I’m lazy, so I just put my two scoops into my coffee mug- and you know what- it’s great and, more important, it’s easy.
The current thinking on weight loss is also that you eat 5 or 6 times per day, smaller meals every 3-4 hours. You can supplement the meals with “protein bars” which I was having a ball buying at the health food store and the supermarket. (Like so-called healthy candy bars!)
Turns out that Herbalife makes a protein bar that has less calories then the best ones on the market, tastes better, more protein, less junk, and is cheaper, so I buy them too. (My favorite is chocolate coconut- like a mounds bar).
So I start eating my breakfast everyday at 8am chock full of protein, my regular food which I make and put into Tupperware things (veggies, fruit, and protein), supplemented by the protein bars. At the end of the 12 weeks, December 6th, I had lost 23 pounds an average of 2 pounds per week, which is the absolute healthiest way to do it.
Pretty Cool.
I lost the largest percentage of weight, and the most weight, but we split the pot 3 ways (not my idea). (2nd place lost 5 pounds, and 3rd place lost 3). My clothes fit great, and on January 1st, I break out the next size down waist pants. Can't wait.
So I am lighter at the end of the year, then I was at the beginning, although I didn’t reach my goal, but now I will set new goals for next year, but that will be a separate email too.
I am going to start my own Weight Loss challenge. $35 bucks to join, winners split, or winner takes all, to be determined. We will start the 4th of January, Monday night, at 7pm, at my office, Salmon Real Estate, 1855 Victory Blvd. Please let me know if interested, and if a different time is better.
Happy holidays to everyone.
……………………………to be continued
I am less burdened by the ownership of needless material things.
I had a storage facility room filled with junk that I hadn’t looked at in years.
I’m talking about stuff that used to be in an attic or a basement, moved with every move, without even being opened, until put into storage place after my last move about 4 or 5 years ago. Boxes and boxes of accumulated things, most of which would never be looked at again until I died, and then only to separate the stuff of monetary value and the stuff of no monetary value. But because of a bookkeeping error on my part, I don’t have to think about it anymore, because it was sold in an auction.
I had some photographs from when my father was a student at PS 30. Actually the class photo of first grade, taken in 1925. A friend of mine’s son was starting PS 30, so I gave it to him to give to his kid to give to the school. Perhaps they would appreciate it. He said to me “Oh so altruistic of you”. Months later I noticed that he didn’t give it to his kid, but kept it for himself, put it on his bookshelf. How un-altruistic of him.
The thing about collecting stuff is that it is only exciting before you actually have it. Anticipation is 99% of satisfaction. Once you have it, you don’t look at it, touch it, and think about it any more, it just becomes a collector of dust.
The most joy that I have ever had from material things has always been giving them away.
I had an old advertising picture of an Indian on a horse, beautiful old art work, from an early 1900’s advertisement for some insurance company. One of my friends/partners at the time had expressed that he really liked it so one day I gave it to him. Felt great.
So what do you do with old photographs anyway? My kids haven’t got a clue who all of the dead people in my boxes are anyway (I still have boxes and boxes of more stuff in my attic, I only lost the stuff in the storage place). Sometimes for fun I take a bunch that someone that is still alive might like, and give them to them. I had given a lot of photos to my cousin Bob Tamarin, an attorney here on Staten Island, and he told me who the people were. We sat and talked and laughed.
Want to have a lot of fun? Go to an older relative or friend of yours and ask them to take out their old photos and tell you who everyone is. Both of you will have a great time.
My father was a prolific photographer most of his life. I once had envelopes printed with a picture of a guy under the hood of the old fashioned cameras, with the legend from the camera of Richard Lasher for him to give away his photographs. Used to be you walked into any Judge’s chambers on Staten Island and there would be a wall of my fathers photographs hanging, pictures of the members of the legal community.
Couple of weeks ago I had to go to a funeral in Long Island. I wanted to stay connected, so I brought my lap top with me, the one I used to use to send out these emails. Well I left it in my car the night before we left, forgot to lock the door, and someone stole it. (They also took my gym bag, looked inside, saw that there was nothing in it that they wanted so they left it about 100 feet away, behind my pool. They also left my SIBOR bag that I had the laptop in, and the thing you rest your palms on when typing).
Meanwhile, I had never been to an Italian funeral before. The night before the burial, we all were in the room at the funeral parlor, with the casket, and a priest came, who didn’t know the lady who died (my wife’s Aunt Grace). I was volunteered into saying a few words because they know that I love to speak in public. For some people it’s their worst fear, worse then fear of death. Used to be mine too, until I started the LANDMAX INTERNATIONAL CORP., my land development company "helping the landowner realize the maximum value of his land". When we first started LANDMAX, in 1987, we introduced it to the brokers of Staten Island at a breakfast at the Richmond County Country Club. I had hired someone to be the spokesperson, but after a few questions I had to jump in. I never jumped out. I discovered that I loved public speaking. My partner, Jack, used to sell vacuum cleaners; so he taught me the "tricks of the trade" of public speaking, and I got really good at it. After a while I felt like I was doing standup. We did "dog and pony shows" up and down the North East Coast, promoting the company- Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, upstate New York, Long Island, etc.
Anyway, so the priest said some prayers, and then I stood up in front, and began entertaining the troops, making them laugh and cry, and told all of my personal experiences with “Aunt Grace”. Someone else said a few words, made everyone feel morbid. And that was that for the night. Everyone left.
The next morning, (after hitting the local Starbucks), we came back to the funeral parlor, into the room. Everyone was there from the night before except for the priest. The funeral director read a prayer, and everyone left the room, except for a few of us. Then the funeral director took out his trusty old screw driver-like thing, and started to turn it like you would the knob on a jalousie window, and the body was slowly lowered in the casket. Took a while, was a very eerie feeling. Then he closed the bunting on top of her, closed the cover, and locked it up. Took out a name plate, removed the backing, and stuck it onto the outside of the casket.
Then the casket was put into the hearse, (actually it was a Cadillac. So if it's a Cadillac, can it still be a Hearse? What is a Hearse? Who was Hearse?). Then we all got into our cars, and we followed the funeral director and the casket in the Cadillac, onto the Southern State Parkway, until we were pretty far out in Long Island, when we got off in the direction of the cemetery.
Once at the cemetery, we had to wait in line for our turn. Once it was our turn, we pulled up to this gazebo thing, made out of brick and wood; sort of round, open on most sides, with a closet in the back. We pull up and get out of our cars, the casket is rolled into the center of the area and we sat down or stood up. The funeral director said a prayer, and then we left, left the casket there, got back into our cars, the next funeral took our place at the gazebo, and we drove back onto the Southern State Parkway, went to an Italian Restaurant and had an 7-course meal. (I’m not quite sure which one was the funeral- the night before, or the day of?)
Jewish funerals are not done like this. No wake, you go to the funeral parlor for the funeral. When the service is over, you go to the cemetery, put the casket in the ground, and then people shovel dirt on top to fill up the hole. Then you go back to someone’s house, everyone brings cake, or fruit baskets, your closest people send entire meals, and you eat there for 7 days.
So which is more civilized? 7 days of meals, or eat 7 days worth of food in one shot?
Jon Salmon had an extra computer around; so I loaded it up and thought that I would be back in business. Got myself one of those portable hard drives, called cruiser. I downloaded my email addresses from my home computer, brought it to the office, and downloaded it, and now I had all of my email addresses and I am back in business.
Then I decided that I would move all of my emails, including all of my Lasher’s List emails, to the office computer. Now I am a very organized person. I save all of my emails by category. Lasher’s List land; letters received, my kids, family, surveys, different clients, health and fitness, receipts, cool stuff, legal stuff, etc. Years of emails, totally organized.
Anyway, so I thought that I loaded them onto the Cruiser- the F drive, brought it to the office, tried to download it but nothing. But now I am getting these warnings that they can’t find certain files in the F drive, so I figure out how to delete the data file that had no data.
Then I’m at home again, and I’m trying to move the files, PST not comma separated values (does anyone know what I am talking about?) It asks me where to put them -- in the personal folders? I say 'yes'. (Who am I to argue with Microsoft?). Nothing. But now I have the error notice about it can’t find the personal file on the F drive so I go to delete it like I did the day before, and I deleted all of my emails. Gone. Lost. I looked in the deleted file, not there. I called my friend Jimmy at Stardate Computer Systems Inc who told me that they are gone forever. That there are no hidden secret files where these things go once deleted- they vanish.
So now I don’t know whether to be upset or feel relieved.
I no longer have the burden of worrying about my stored things, nor do I have to pay for their storage.
I no longer have my lap top, but I also no longer have the frustration of the old relic's breaking down and freezing all the time.
And I no longer have all the old emails. They are gone.
But most important, I am a lot lighter than I was at the beginning of the year because I won the weight loss challenge that I told you about three months ago.
Remember I told you that I saw an ad in the supermarket about a weight loss challenge? $35 bucks and the winner gets all.
It turns out that the weight loss challenge was being run by a nice older-than-me couple, Roslyn and Skip, who sell Herbalife. Herbalife is apparently the worlds largest weight loss health company, bigger than Slim Fast, and Optifast, and the others that are around. They claim that their products are the healthiest.
Anyway, a month or two into the diet, I had stopped losing weight. So I figured, let me try this stuff, it solves the age old dilemma called breakfast. Every diet in the world tells you that to lose weight you must eat breakfast. They even say its better to eat a donut then to eat nothing. It has to do with metabolism and all that stuff. But I’m never hungry in the morning, and I'm too lazy to make oatmeal.
So I buy a container of Herbalife, “cookies and cream”, which you are supposed to put in the blender and make a malted milk out of. But I’m lazy, so I just put my two scoops into my coffee mug- and you know what- it’s great and, more important, it’s easy.
The current thinking on weight loss is also that you eat 5 or 6 times per day, smaller meals every 3-4 hours. You can supplement the meals with “protein bars” which I was having a ball buying at the health food store and the supermarket. (Like so-called healthy candy bars!)
Turns out that Herbalife makes a protein bar that has less calories then the best ones on the market, tastes better, more protein, less junk, and is cheaper, so I buy them too. (My favorite is chocolate coconut- like a mounds bar).
So I start eating my breakfast everyday at 8am chock full of protein, my regular food which I make and put into Tupperware things (veggies, fruit, and protein), supplemented by the protein bars. At the end of the 12 weeks, December 6th, I had lost 23 pounds an average of 2 pounds per week, which is the absolute healthiest way to do it.
Pretty Cool.
I lost the largest percentage of weight, and the most weight, but we split the pot 3 ways (not my idea). (2nd place lost 5 pounds, and 3rd place lost 3). My clothes fit great, and on January 1st, I break out the next size down waist pants. Can't wait.
So I am lighter at the end of the year, then I was at the beginning, although I didn’t reach my goal, but now I will set new goals for next year, but that will be a separate email too.
I am going to start my own Weight Loss challenge. $35 bucks to join, winners split, or winner takes all, to be determined. We will start the 4th of January, Monday night, at 7pm, at my office, Salmon Real Estate, 1855 Victory Blvd. Please let me know if interested, and if a different time is better.
Happy holidays to everyone.
……………………………to be continued
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
The skinny on Global Warming
Over the past week on the radio, I've been listening to reports on the Copenhagen meetings which are trying to deal with Global Warming. Also last week, the EPA said that Global Warming is harmful to your health.
So I thought to myself: Hey, it's time for another informative email, maybe explaining global warming to those of us who really don't know what is going on."
So here goes.
In 14 hundred and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Columbus said that the earth (or the world) was round. He was right about that. And when he sailed the ocean it might have been blue.
When we look at maps, globes, photographs, of the topography of the earth, we see blue (for the water although in many places it is now black or green with muck), we see the white snow
-capped mountain ranges, we see the red desert dryness.
But this isn't the earth's boundary. Earth doesn't stop at the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the top of the earth is not Victory Boulevard. The Earth is round, is situated inside a king-sized Ziploc bag, which is also round (without the zip). Now this Ziploc bag makes a seal around the Earth, and establishes Earth's outer boundary.. It holds in what's on our side of it, and holds out what's on the outside of it.
The space between the dirt that we call earth and the outer limits of the Ziploc bag, if you will, is filled in with what is sometimes called our atmosphere. (There are lots of other words like stratosphere, used to describe the various layers which cumulatively, for purposes of this discussion, we will call the atmosphere. I am not pretending that this is a scientific thesis).
Some stuff does break through, like meteors. If you have any trouble understanding or believing this concept think Space Ship Challenger, that evaporated or exploded or whatever while attempting to enter the earth's atmosphere, or pass through the outer circle or break through the Ziploc bag.
You know, we used to think that if we throw something into the ocean (this also applies to rivers, lakes, streams, pond's, etc.) that it will just disappear.
For centuries, industry thought that it would be okay to just dump their waste into the water- courses, because the oceans were so vast and all connected that the "pollution" or industrial waste products, or whatever you want to call them, would be diluted enough so that it wouldn't matter. It would just dissipate.
(I try to explain to my 16-year-old granddaughter that when you throw trash out of your car window, it is going to land somewhere and be ugly somewhere, but it is very difficult trying to explain anything to 16-year-olds!!!)
But now we know better. Now we know that the oceans and rivers do not dilute the toxins. Instead, we have polluted the oceans and rivers and water steams and ground water and drinking water. (Many industries know it but don't care, and continue to pollute the world!) (Washington lobbyists will have you believe that it's in our best interest to allow them to continue polluting the earth for it creates jobs).
Now the air outside is sort of the same as the ocean in terms of vastness, except the atmosphere (cumulatively) is bigger.
Same thing with the air. We think that the emissions from our car just go up in the air and are diluted in the air. That the bad stuff just dissipates.
WRONG: They do not just keep going up. They get trapped in the atmosphere (cumulatively) and hang out.
Now here is the problem.
We use a lot of electricity. Lots and lots.
Where does electricity come from?
Well, in places like in Pennsylvania there are mines where miners dig out coal from coal mines. The coal is eventually put into railroad cars and shipped to where they make the electricity. The amount of coal used is so much that the railroad shipments never end. It is non-stop railroad cars full of coal going to the power plants. 24/7.
Now what they do is they take the coal, and they burn it in huge ovens (like the furnaces or boilers where we make heat). These coal burners then heat water that makes steam that makes the turbines go up and down, creating the electricity that then flows through the electric wires on the telephone poles and underground in the cities creating the power we use to run our computers and television sets and coffee pots and lights, etc.
Now there is this never-ending fire cooking the coal. Next time you drive across the Goethals Bridge at night, notice the "smoke stacks" releasing that white smoke that doesn't dissipate into the air but gets trapped in the atmosphere. At the foot of the Goethals Bridge is a power station. By the way, ever notice the smell at the bottom of the bridge, or when you first get onto the NJ Turnpike?
Coal, and Oil (including gasoline) are what are known as fossil fuels.
So heat rises. So where does it go? Into the atmosphere.
So what's the problem?
The problem is that the Earth is a finite space- from the dirt to the top of the Ziploc bag. Granted it's a big Ziploc bag. Over the past million years or so, it remained fairly constant, since the ice age. There was some change in the climate, but it was slow.
Over the past 40 years, since the advent of the 2 cars in every garage life style, and now the industrialization of the Third World (China, India, Vietnam, etc.) what has happened is that the rates of changes are doubling every 10 years or so. And the rates of changes are increasing all of the time.
The temperature in the big Ziploc bag is rising, because we are creating so much heat from burning all of that coal and oil. As a result, the ice caps are melting, the icebergs are melting. In Alaska and Iceland and Denmark and Canada, there is land and water where there used to be ice. In El Alto, Bolivia, the glaciers melted, and they are now running out of water. A
World Bank report concluded last year that climate change would eliminate many glaciers in the Andes within 20 years, threatening the existence of nearly 100 million people.
The ice has to go somewhere, so it goes into the oceans. The water level of the oceans rises, so places like New Orleans and Venice, Italy, and the SSolomon Islands, Manhattan and Staten Island could disappear.
As the temperature of the ocean rises, many species have died off. Some of the species that died off were responsible for protecting the coral reefs, and some of them ate some of the pollution. Certain sea life are not able to reproduce as well. We are seeing the end of many species of fish and animals, however this is a natural phenomenon anyway, survival of the fittest. Or is it?
The problem with global warming is that the changes are occurring too rapidly, so that in the natural sequence of things, the next group of fish/animals/plant/vegetation don't have a chance to evolve naturally.
The changes are occurring faster and faster. The rate of melting of ice bergs keep doubling. This is the microcosm, the best example of the problem in a nutshell.
The world is getting smaller, and the world is also becoming more industrialized. More of the world is now asking for energy, as new parts of the world discover and are first getting electricity, and washing machines, toasters, and cars.
One of the issues in the global warming debate, is who is going to pay, and how much each of the countries is going to cut its consumption of energy: The industrialized countries like the US who have caused all of the problems in the first place and use so much energy? Or the newly industrialized countries that in the world right now, who are beginning to use so much energy (India and China).
My purpose of this email was not to place blame, or to criticize anyone group, because it isn't necessary.
My purpose is to help spread awareness of the issues.
What is necessary is an acknowledgment that it is a problem, and that it is occurring.
Imagine you were living in a tent, or a Ziploc Bag, and there is a heater burning logs or coal or gas, or whatever.
Eventually you would get too hot,. you would need to shut off the heater. Well the Earth is a huge bubble with a heater in it. And it is getting too hot. But we are not able to turn off the heater, because the world is begging for more energy, pump up the volume- turn up the heat. Our thirst for energy is insatiable.
So what is the answer?
......................to be continued
So I thought to myself: Hey, it's time for another informative email, maybe explaining global warming to those of us who really don't know what is going on."
So here goes.
In 14 hundred and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Columbus said that the earth (or the world) was round. He was right about that. And when he sailed the ocean it might have been blue.
When we look at maps, globes, photographs, of the topography of the earth, we see blue (for the water although in many places it is now black or green with muck), we see the white snow
-capped mountain ranges, we see the red desert dryness.
But this isn't the earth's boundary. Earth doesn't stop at the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the top of the earth is not Victory Boulevard. The Earth is round, is situated inside a king-sized Ziploc bag, which is also round (without the zip). Now this Ziploc bag makes a seal around the Earth, and establishes Earth's outer boundary.. It holds in what's on our side of it, and holds out what's on the outside of it.
The space between the dirt that we call earth and the outer limits of the Ziploc bag, if you will, is filled in with what is sometimes called our atmosphere. (There are lots of other words like stratosphere, used to describe the various layers which cumulatively, for purposes of this discussion, we will call the atmosphere. I am not pretending that this is a scientific thesis).
Some stuff does break through, like meteors. If you have any trouble understanding or believing this concept think Space Ship Challenger, that evaporated or exploded or whatever while attempting to enter the earth's atmosphere, or pass through the outer circle or break through the Ziploc bag.
You know, we used to think that if we throw something into the ocean (this also applies to rivers, lakes, streams, pond's, etc.) that it will just disappear.
For centuries, industry thought that it would be okay to just dump their waste into the water- courses, because the oceans were so vast and all connected that the "pollution" or industrial waste products, or whatever you want to call them, would be diluted enough so that it wouldn't matter. It would just dissipate.
(I try to explain to my 16-year-old granddaughter that when you throw trash out of your car window, it is going to land somewhere and be ugly somewhere, but it is very difficult trying to explain anything to 16-year-olds!!!)
But now we know better. Now we know that the oceans and rivers do not dilute the toxins. Instead, we have polluted the oceans and rivers and water steams and ground water and drinking water. (Many industries know it but don't care, and continue to pollute the world!) (Washington lobbyists will have you believe that it's in our best interest to allow them to continue polluting the earth for it creates jobs).
Now the air outside is sort of the same as the ocean in terms of vastness, except the atmosphere (cumulatively) is bigger.
Same thing with the air. We think that the emissions from our car just go up in the air and are diluted in the air. That the bad stuff just dissipates.
WRONG: They do not just keep going up. They get trapped in the atmosphere (cumulatively) and hang out.
Now here is the problem.
We use a lot of electricity. Lots and lots.
Where does electricity come from?
Well, in places like in Pennsylvania there are mines where miners dig out coal from coal mines. The coal is eventually put into railroad cars and shipped to where they make the electricity. The amount of coal used is so much that the railroad shipments never end. It is non-stop railroad cars full of coal going to the power plants. 24/7.
Now what they do is they take the coal, and they burn it in huge ovens (like the furnaces or boilers where we make heat). These coal burners then heat water that makes steam that makes the turbines go up and down, creating the electricity that then flows through the electric wires on the telephone poles and underground in the cities creating the power we use to run our computers and television sets and coffee pots and lights, etc.
Now there is this never-ending fire cooking the coal. Next time you drive across the Goethals Bridge at night, notice the "smoke stacks" releasing that white smoke that doesn't dissipate into the air but gets trapped in the atmosphere. At the foot of the Goethals Bridge is a power station. By the way, ever notice the smell at the bottom of the bridge, or when you first get onto the NJ Turnpike?
Coal, and Oil (including gasoline) are what are known as fossil fuels.
So heat rises. So where does it go? Into the atmosphere.
So what's the problem?
The problem is that the Earth is a finite space- from the dirt to the top of the Ziploc bag. Granted it's a big Ziploc bag. Over the past million years or so, it remained fairly constant, since the ice age. There was some change in the climate, but it was slow.
Over the past 40 years, since the advent of the 2 cars in every garage life style, and now the industrialization of the Third World (China, India, Vietnam, etc.) what has happened is that the rates of changes are doubling every 10 years or so. And the rates of changes are increasing all of the time.
The temperature in the big Ziploc bag is rising, because we are creating so much heat from burning all of that coal and oil. As a result, the ice caps are melting, the icebergs are melting. In Alaska and Iceland and Denmark and Canada, there is land and water where there used to be ice. In El Alto, Bolivia, the glaciers melted, and they are now running out of water. A
World Bank report concluded last year that climate change would eliminate many glaciers in the Andes within 20 years, threatening the existence of nearly 100 million people.
The ice has to go somewhere, so it goes into the oceans. The water level of the oceans rises, so places like New Orleans and Venice, Italy, and the SSolomon Islands, Manhattan and Staten Island could disappear.
As the temperature of the ocean rises, many species have died off. Some of the species that died off were responsible for protecting the coral reefs, and some of them ate some of the pollution. Certain sea life are not able to reproduce as well. We are seeing the end of many species of fish and animals, however this is a natural phenomenon anyway, survival of the fittest. Or is it?
The problem with global warming is that the changes are occurring too rapidly, so that in the natural sequence of things, the next group of fish/animals/plant/vegetation don't have a chance to evolve naturally.
The changes are occurring faster and faster. The rate of melting of ice bergs keep doubling. This is the microcosm, the best example of the problem in a nutshell.
The world is getting smaller, and the world is also becoming more industrialized. More of the world is now asking for energy, as new parts of the world discover and are first getting electricity, and washing machines, toasters, and cars.
One of the issues in the global warming debate, is who is going to pay, and how much each of the countries is going to cut its consumption of energy: The industrialized countries like the US who have caused all of the problems in the first place and use so much energy? Or the newly industrialized countries that in the world right now, who are beginning to use so much energy (India and China).
My purpose of this email was not to place blame, or to criticize anyone group, because it isn't necessary.
My purpose is to help spread awareness of the issues.
What is necessary is an acknowledgment that it is a problem, and that it is occurring.
Imagine you were living in a tent, or a Ziploc Bag, and there is a heater burning logs or coal or gas, or whatever.
Eventually you would get too hot,. you would need to shut off the heater. Well the Earth is a huge bubble with a heater in it. And it is getting too hot. But we are not able to turn off the heater, because the world is begging for more energy, pump up the volume- turn up the heat. Our thirst for energy is insatiable.
So what is the answer?
......................to be continued
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Lasher's List: The fire sale is going to end.
Hey,
I know, it’s been a while.
I wrote a story about the time that I went fishing with Fidel Castro, in Havana. We decided not to run it. Too controversial.
I wrote a story about my experiences as a time and space traveler, but decided not to send it out. Too controversial.
I wrote a story about my psychic abilities and mind controlling experiences, but decided to pass on that one too. Too controversial.
I was going to write about the health care issues, but decided to let it play out a little longer first. I’ll take that one on next.
A few weeks back, when the weather first got cold, very cold, I stayed home one day to write.
The change of seasons is brutal to me, because my hearing doesn’t work properly when Mother Nature can’t make up her mind to be hot or cold. Actually my hearing is always the same, but during periods of change of barometric pressure, stress, and rapid fluctuations of hot and cold weather, I develop tinnitus, or ringing in the ear. Once it finally settles on cold, my hearing gets okay, the best that it gets altogether. In fact, this one day I had my best hearing day in years. I took all of the calls on my cell phone, and actually got to speak to people. Felt great.
But anyway, with cold weather, comes heat. We tried to turn on the furnace, and weren’t able to, so we decided that the best thing to do is to call someone. The best they could do was Monday (this was Friday). This is the best time of the year for plumbers. They are at their busiest as the beginning of the heating season. On the first cold days, they work around the clock. 24/7. Good for them. Wish Realtors® had busy seasons. We used to.
The good old days, Realtors® Rush Season: Super Bowl Sunday through Mother’s Day, Realtors® working round the clock to deliver houses for their clients.
Anyway, no heat that weekend, which happened to be the introduction to winter 2009, meant sleeping in sweatshirt, flannel shirt, sweat pants, and socks for three nights. Drinking lots of hot coffee to keep warm, people freezing at Yankee Stadium watching the Yankees beat the Angels. I watched the game, wrapped up in a blanket, and it felt just like I was at the stadium. I could see my breath when I exhaled, just like on TV.
So the guy comes Monday morning and can’t get it going, tries to add water and it comes out the bottom, and says, the furnace is cracked, you need a new boiler, it can’t hold water. “It cracked because I didn’t flush it out properly last winter,” he said “the new furnace would be $7,500, 200,000 mega something’s with all the bells and whistles, including removal of the old one”
Billed us $145 for the house call.
Now I know a couple of things about boilers. One of them was that my boiler has an automatic water feed, and does not have a low water shut off valve, to be flushed.
So I did what I tried to do earlier, I called Mike, the boiler expert.
Mike came over and analyzed the situation, said that the reason water came out was because the boiler was full. There were no cracks. The problem had to do with the pilot and some sensors. He took a wire brush and cleaned the pilot, replaced a sensor, and just like snap crackle and pop, we had heat, better than ever, and at a savings of over $7,000.
My wife asks does this only happen to us? At the beginning of cooling season last summer, one of our units wasn’t working properly. We called 1-800-AC person who said that our compressor was blown, shot, and kaput.
Once again I got Mike to come, he looked at it, and found that the fuse was blown, and replaced it.
I told her that it happens to everyone; just that not everyone gets a second opinion from someone that they know isn’t going to rip them off. Problem with Mike is getting him, because he is so good, he is always in demand and hard to get.
Today I stayed home all day because my wife had her car inspected and the mechanic held it for 6 hours to find things wrong. He wouldn’t inspect the car, but he found $500 worth of work that needed to be done, for which he charged $43.40.
What a world we live in, where you need second opinions on plumbers’, and mechanics for fear that they rip you off.
And don’t let me get started on Doctors.
Which somehow brings us to the subject of this story.
What’s happening in the real estate market?
(It really had nothing to do with the rest of the story, but I thought that it would be a nice transitional phrase
In the beginning, when I first started working on my list, after I had called my friend Randy at Merrill Lynch who told me that they didn’t own any real estate, after they had written down $6 Billion in bad real estate loans, before any of us knew what sub-prime mortgages and derivatives were, before I had a book with an official name of Lasher’s List, but after I had gone through every single listing in the MLS, all 3600 of them at the time, I had a pile of 35 properties, in no particular order, that were bank owned foreclosures- REO as we say in the trade. 35! (I never was able to find out if Randy was one of the traders at Merrill with the big bonuses- he was a “director” which is like partner).
I counted all of the active listings in my Lasher’s List of foreclosures’, short sales, estate sales, and fixer uppers binder, which by the way was just expanded from a 2 inch binder to a 2 ½ inch binder, and now contains (drum roll) 275 listings.
That’s right folks.
And what a job it is to maintain this list as current. If I fall behind a day, there is hell to pay. There are sometimes 200 items on the hot sheets in a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Today I saw a new listing and the owners name was someone who I had been dealing with a couple of weeks prior, on a bunch of stuff. Always one to give the other person the benefit of the doubt, I sent the listing to them, to see if in fact it was his home, and he responded yes.
This also happened the week before with a different customer. He wouldn’t even acknowledge my email, but continues to demand information on listings.
So it has dawned on me that many of you don’t realize that I am a hard working, real estate broker, who sells real estate for a living. There are two brokers in every transaction- the one who lists it onto the MLS, and the one who sells it. Through my emails I hope to be a selling broker, but would also like to be a listing broker. Although I enjoy writing, and I hope that my comments are witty, and enjoyed, and while I realize that I am performing a service for all of the brokers on Staten Island and my readers, by disseminating so much information, on so many properties, there is no one paying me for my time. Some of you take my listings and go to other brokers. Some of you go to the listing brokers thinking that it helps get you a better deal.
Please consider me when thinking of selling. I think I am a marketing genius, well versed in selling properties, yet I remain humble. I haven’t had that many listings, but have sold all I have listed. I take a personal interest in my listings, and will be brutally honest with you about your property, if it is necessary. I could be sending out your listing to over 1500 people, many of whom send them to their friends and others.
As far as those two customers who listed with someone else, my broker Jon Salmon (always the salesman) said to leave them on the list, continue to send them stuff, and hope that at some point they will see the error in their ways, do the right thing, and if they should see something they like, call me.
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you!
Nuff said.
So what’s happening?
In the good times, the mortgage brokers and underwriters’ had their organizations where they partied, exchanged information and got paid vacations from the banks they work for.
In 1989/90 I was promoting a young company that I had started called the Landmax International Corp. Landmax was and is in the business of making land ready to be built on, because land that is ready to build on is worth more than land that isn’t. Helping landowners realize the maximum value of their property. (Since Landmax is no longer a new company, does it mean it is now an old or middle aged company?)
A friend of mine is a very famous Bankruptcy lawyer in Manhattan. He represented Bacharact in the Bloomingdales Bankruptcy, he represented the pilots on disability when one of the airlines filed.
Anyway my friend Harris brought me to the National Association of Bankruptcy Judges conference that was held in Boston in 1988 or 1989 as an exhibitor (vendor). So I set up my Landmax Display, created a special bankruptcy brochure for the event, and sat there while the judges and bankruptcy lawyers had their meeting.
Well at night, after the meetings, the Big 10 accounting firms threw parties for the assembled multitudes, with the most opulence that I had even seen in my life. Certainly the most extravagant parties I had ever attended. There were bankers and lawyers from all of the big institutions who were forecasting doom and gloom for the world and how good things would be for them, (followed shortly thereafter by bankruptcies, foreclosures, banks going under, the RTC, the first President Bush, the failures of all the banks, etc.). The late 80’s early 90’s were bad times for the country, especially real estate.
I remember breaking bread with a guy who was a big mucky muck at Manny Hanny (Manufacturers Hanover Trust) - remember them?
As a result of my exposure at the convention, I was flown all around the county for my opinions on several properties and portfolios in bankruptcy.
The REO trade organizations must be having incredible parties thrown by the servicing companies that are servicing all of the foreclosures now.
I was listening to a radio program about companies who try to recast loans for people to reduce the payments, and they had a whole discussion on the whys the wheres and the therefores, about it, and a discussion about how successful they were and the reasons for the successes and failures.
What was not discussed, and what is not being discussed anywhere else that I can see, is that notwithstanding Government initiatives, besides the programs of the major banks, (Chase, Citigroup, BofA,) who own their own mortgages and in whose own interest it was to make the loans performing instead of non-performing, and with the help of the Stimulus packages, is that the banks that are not going along with the programs, and whom are continuing the large numbers of foreclosures, are the dirty old derivatives.
Remember them?
The mortgages where no one owns the real estate.
Where there is no one who cares about cutting losses, because the government has stepped in to guarantee these toxic loans, so there is not pressure on anyone to do the right thing.
I believe that the real villain, the group that is not part of the solution, so therefore are the problem, continues to be the servicing companies.
You might want to go back and read one of my prior emails at my Blog at http://lasherslist.blogspot.com/ where I started that we should have known something was wrong when the banks became MERS (Mortgage Electronic Reporting Service).
Q. Whom do the servicing companies answer to?
A. Themselves.
If it makes the most sense for a bank like Chase, to reduce the principal amount on a mortgage, and/or lower an interest rate, to take all of the arrears and add it to the top, or even waive them, in the long run, that’s what they do, did and continue to do.
The servicing companies don’t think that way. They think how they can make more money. (Same story as the health insurance industry, but let’s leave that for another email).
When the bank or servicing company decides whether to do a short sale, or reduce a price, they act based upon information provided through BPO’s. Broker Price Opinions. They charge the customer $150 for this, and pay the broker who does it $50.
When the servicing company has determined that they are going to take possession of a house, they have companies that go in to break the locks, and drain the water. Their criterion for hiring these companies is price and results. The less that they are charged, the bigger their profit. Ergo the “mutts” that do the winterizing, instead of disconnecting the radiators, they hit them with a plumbers wrench to crack them. More to fix. It’s easier for them. Rather than nicely open a lock, they break the doors. We see this all of the time.
The servicing company doesn’t care, as long as it is collecting fees for “servicing the asset”
Same with the foreclosures.
The servicing companies get paid for participating in the foreclosures. Signing documents, meeting with lawyers, hiring the foreclosure lawyers, hiring the brokers, every step of the way, it is the servicing company that is making fees. They even get paid to go to lavish parties at REO conventions. And think about it, these are the same people who made the bad loans in the first place. Only in America.
So what is the incentive of these servicing giants to stop foreclosing?
THERE IS NONE!
If they make the loans performing, reduce principals, the people will be eventually able to refinance at the real banks, they will lose business.
Sure there are still waives of new foreclosures, sure there is record unemployment, but how is it that CHASE, CITIBANK, and the others, that are responsible for their own loans, are able to reduce their foreclosures dramatically, yet Deutche Bank as trustee of series of bonds #1-1000, dated June 2004, continue and increase their rates of foreclosures.
Because it’s good business.
Changes in the Marketplace
I started talking about the trade conventions earlier, (probably held at beautiful resorts in hot climates). The reason I spoke about them was that there are people out there who really want to dispose of the REO. Ultimately the bankers, the REO officers, have to answer to someone, and there are always those spreadsheets and monthly, quarterly and annual figures that must be presented and justified, and improved.
These people who are selling to the Banks and Servicing Organizations, have their resources that at this point are developing strategies to help sell the property. Think tanks, marketing research, and all that, their own branch of Madison Avenue except they aren’t selling Coca Cola and M&M’s.
One of the marketing techniques that I am noticing quite frequently is the lowering of prices dramatically.
For the past few years, when a REO is first put onto the market, it would remain at the same price until there was no longer any activity, and it didn’t sell. Then every month or two, the price was reduced $10,000, or so. It was so consistent that I was almost able to predict the reductions.
Recently, I noticed it with the HUD listings. Two of the houses that I have been following were lowered dramatically and one of them rose dramatically. I am talking about reductions of almost $100,000, or increases as large. I expect the one that they raised to be lowered at some point.
My guess is that HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, and the servicing organizations too, all utilize the same technique.
I’m noticing some properties being listed, priced exactly right.
I’m noticing some properties being listed much too high, but being followed with huge reductions in price after 2 weeks.
Big price reductions definitely get my attention. I’m sure it gets others too.
I’m noticing a lot of the REO listings going to off Island brokers, and I’m noticing a lot of REO sales being made by Off Island brokers too. Staten Island is still the bargain basement of New York City. Houses cost fractions in Staten Island then they do elsewhere in the City. That is why we have such a high percentage of city workers living here, because to work for the City, you have to live in the City. Staten Island is the affordable borough. Add to that low crime and good schools and you wind up with a great standard of living, notwithstanding the commute. However, add to the equation, closeness to public transportation- i.e. bridge or ferry, then Stapleton and Concord, become hot areas, and those are the areas that I especially notice being sold off Island. Finally, I notice some population shifts in Stapleton, Concord, as well as the social changes, i.e. rock and roll shops, and you have what someday will be remembered as gentrification.
I’m noticing more people looking to buy. I’m not seeing more sales, but I am seeing more interest.
I think that a lot of people are looking. They know that there are good deals to be had, but are still nervous. Afraid to make the move.
So what should you do?
There will definitely be more good deals coming to the market in the weeks and months ahead.
While there is still record unemployment, although the indicators indicate that the recession is over or ending, it will take some time before prosperity kicks in. The stimulus programs are working, and in the process of trickling down.
Lowes broke ground on a second Staten Island store. That is a real positive economic indicator.
Macy’s has an ad on SILIVE.com today that they are hiring.
The tax credit for first time home buyers has been extended and expanded. To receive the $8,000 that does not have to be repair, provided you live in the house for three years, you must be in contract no later than April 30, 2010, and must close title within 60 days thereafter.
Additionally, if you have lived in your home for 5 years or more, and wish to buy up to an $800,000 home, you can receive a $6,500 tax credit.
I believe that there will be no more drastic price decreases. The world has more or less settled at where it is, because the worst is over. Not to say that prices won’t come down, especially the overpriced properties.
But I believe that the time has come, that when you see something that you like, that you think is a good deal for you, that it is time to act. We aren’t going to see that many more 2 family homes in good condition for around $200,000. We aren’t going to see semi’s and townhouses, that are priced $100,000 below the market that much longer.
The days of the disposal of the derivates are numbered.
There are only so many toxic loans left. The fire sale is going to end.
Don’t allow yourself to wind up in the never never land of shoulda
………………………….to be continued
I know, it’s been a while.
I wrote a story about the time that I went fishing with Fidel Castro, in Havana. We decided not to run it. Too controversial.
I wrote a story about my experiences as a time and space traveler, but decided not to send it out. Too controversial.
I wrote a story about my psychic abilities and mind controlling experiences, but decided to pass on that one too. Too controversial.
I was going to write about the health care issues, but decided to let it play out a little longer first. I’ll take that one on next.
A few weeks back, when the weather first got cold, very cold, I stayed home one day to write.
The change of seasons is brutal to me, because my hearing doesn’t work properly when Mother Nature can’t make up her mind to be hot or cold. Actually my hearing is always the same, but during periods of change of barometric pressure, stress, and rapid fluctuations of hot and cold weather, I develop tinnitus, or ringing in the ear. Once it finally settles on cold, my hearing gets okay, the best that it gets altogether. In fact, this one day I had my best hearing day in years. I took all of the calls on my cell phone, and actually got to speak to people. Felt great.
But anyway, with cold weather, comes heat. We tried to turn on the furnace, and weren’t able to, so we decided that the best thing to do is to call someone. The best they could do was Monday (this was Friday). This is the best time of the year for plumbers. They are at their busiest as the beginning of the heating season. On the first cold days, they work around the clock. 24/7. Good for them. Wish Realtors® had busy seasons. We used to.
The good old days, Realtors® Rush Season: Super Bowl Sunday through Mother’s Day, Realtors® working round the clock to deliver houses for their clients.
Anyway, no heat that weekend, which happened to be the introduction to winter 2009, meant sleeping in sweatshirt, flannel shirt, sweat pants, and socks for three nights. Drinking lots of hot coffee to keep warm, people freezing at Yankee Stadium watching the Yankees beat the Angels. I watched the game, wrapped up in a blanket, and it felt just like I was at the stadium. I could see my breath when I exhaled, just like on TV.
So the guy comes Monday morning and can’t get it going, tries to add water and it comes out the bottom, and says, the furnace is cracked, you need a new boiler, it can’t hold water. “It cracked because I didn’t flush it out properly last winter,” he said “the new furnace would be $7,500, 200,000 mega something’s with all the bells and whistles, including removal of the old one”
Billed us $145 for the house call.
Now I know a couple of things about boilers. One of them was that my boiler has an automatic water feed, and does not have a low water shut off valve, to be flushed.
So I did what I tried to do earlier, I called Mike, the boiler expert.
Mike came over and analyzed the situation, said that the reason water came out was because the boiler was full. There were no cracks. The problem had to do with the pilot and some sensors. He took a wire brush and cleaned the pilot, replaced a sensor, and just like snap crackle and pop, we had heat, better than ever, and at a savings of over $7,000.
My wife asks does this only happen to us? At the beginning of cooling season last summer, one of our units wasn’t working properly. We called 1-800-AC person who said that our compressor was blown, shot, and kaput.
Once again I got Mike to come, he looked at it, and found that the fuse was blown, and replaced it.
I told her that it happens to everyone; just that not everyone gets a second opinion from someone that they know isn’t going to rip them off. Problem with Mike is getting him, because he is so good, he is always in demand and hard to get.
Today I stayed home all day because my wife had her car inspected and the mechanic held it for 6 hours to find things wrong. He wouldn’t inspect the car, but he found $500 worth of work that needed to be done, for which he charged $43.40.
What a world we live in, where you need second opinions on plumbers’, and mechanics for fear that they rip you off.
And don’t let me get started on Doctors.
Which somehow brings us to the subject of this story.
What’s happening in the real estate market?
(It really had nothing to do with the rest of the story, but I thought that it would be a nice transitional phrase
In the beginning, when I first started working on my list, after I had called my friend Randy at Merrill Lynch who told me that they didn’t own any real estate, after they had written down $6 Billion in bad real estate loans, before any of us knew what sub-prime mortgages and derivatives were, before I had a book with an official name of Lasher’s List, but after I had gone through every single listing in the MLS, all 3600 of them at the time, I had a pile of 35 properties, in no particular order, that were bank owned foreclosures- REO as we say in the trade. 35! (I never was able to find out if Randy was one of the traders at Merrill with the big bonuses- he was a “director” which is like partner).
I counted all of the active listings in my Lasher’s List of foreclosures’, short sales, estate sales, and fixer uppers binder, which by the way was just expanded from a 2 inch binder to a 2 ½ inch binder, and now contains (drum roll) 275 listings.
That’s right folks.
And what a job it is to maintain this list as current. If I fall behind a day, there is hell to pay. There are sometimes 200 items on the hot sheets in a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Today I saw a new listing and the owners name was someone who I had been dealing with a couple of weeks prior, on a bunch of stuff. Always one to give the other person the benefit of the doubt, I sent the listing to them, to see if in fact it was his home, and he responded yes.
This also happened the week before with a different customer. He wouldn’t even acknowledge my email, but continues to demand information on listings.
So it has dawned on me that many of you don’t realize that I am a hard working, real estate broker, who sells real estate for a living. There are two brokers in every transaction- the one who lists it onto the MLS, and the one who sells it. Through my emails I hope to be a selling broker, but would also like to be a listing broker. Although I enjoy writing, and I hope that my comments are witty, and enjoyed, and while I realize that I am performing a service for all of the brokers on Staten Island and my readers, by disseminating so much information, on so many properties, there is no one paying me for my time. Some of you take my listings and go to other brokers. Some of you go to the listing brokers thinking that it helps get you a better deal.
Please consider me when thinking of selling. I think I am a marketing genius, well versed in selling properties, yet I remain humble. I haven’t had that many listings, but have sold all I have listed. I take a personal interest in my listings, and will be brutally honest with you about your property, if it is necessary. I could be sending out your listing to over 1500 people, many of whom send them to their friends and others.
As far as those two customers who listed with someone else, my broker Jon Salmon (always the salesman) said to leave them on the list, continue to send them stuff, and hope that at some point they will see the error in their ways, do the right thing, and if they should see something they like, call me.
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you!
Nuff said.
So what’s happening?
In the good times, the mortgage brokers and underwriters’ had their organizations where they partied, exchanged information and got paid vacations from the banks they work for.
In 1989/90 I was promoting a young company that I had started called the Landmax International Corp. Landmax was and is in the business of making land ready to be built on, because land that is ready to build on is worth more than land that isn’t. Helping landowners realize the maximum value of their property. (Since Landmax is no longer a new company, does it mean it is now an old or middle aged company?)
A friend of mine is a very famous Bankruptcy lawyer in Manhattan. He represented Bacharact in the Bloomingdales Bankruptcy, he represented the pilots on disability when one of the airlines filed.
Anyway my friend Harris brought me to the National Association of Bankruptcy Judges conference that was held in Boston in 1988 or 1989 as an exhibitor (vendor). So I set up my Landmax Display, created a special bankruptcy brochure for the event, and sat there while the judges and bankruptcy lawyers had their meeting.
Well at night, after the meetings, the Big 10 accounting firms threw parties for the assembled multitudes, with the most opulence that I had even seen in my life. Certainly the most extravagant parties I had ever attended. There were bankers and lawyers from all of the big institutions who were forecasting doom and gloom for the world and how good things would be for them, (followed shortly thereafter by bankruptcies, foreclosures, banks going under, the RTC, the first President Bush, the failures of all the banks, etc.). The late 80’s early 90’s were bad times for the country, especially real estate.
I remember breaking bread with a guy who was a big mucky muck at Manny Hanny (Manufacturers Hanover Trust) - remember them?
As a result of my exposure at the convention, I was flown all around the county for my opinions on several properties and portfolios in bankruptcy.
The REO trade organizations must be having incredible parties thrown by the servicing companies that are servicing all of the foreclosures now.
I was listening to a radio program about companies who try to recast loans for people to reduce the payments, and they had a whole discussion on the whys the wheres and the therefores, about it, and a discussion about how successful they were and the reasons for the successes and failures.
What was not discussed, and what is not being discussed anywhere else that I can see, is that notwithstanding Government initiatives, besides the programs of the major banks, (Chase, Citigroup, BofA,) who own their own mortgages and in whose own interest it was to make the loans performing instead of non-performing, and with the help of the Stimulus packages, is that the banks that are not going along with the programs, and whom are continuing the large numbers of foreclosures, are the dirty old derivatives.
Remember them?
The mortgages where no one owns the real estate.
Where there is no one who cares about cutting losses, because the government has stepped in to guarantee these toxic loans, so there is not pressure on anyone to do the right thing.
I believe that the real villain, the group that is not part of the solution, so therefore are the problem, continues to be the servicing companies.
You might want to go back and read one of my prior emails at my Blog at http://lasherslist.blogspot.com/ where I started that we should have known something was wrong when the banks became MERS (Mortgage Electronic Reporting Service).
Q. Whom do the servicing companies answer to?
A. Themselves.
If it makes the most sense for a bank like Chase, to reduce the principal amount on a mortgage, and/or lower an interest rate, to take all of the arrears and add it to the top, or even waive them, in the long run, that’s what they do, did and continue to do.
The servicing companies don’t think that way. They think how they can make more money. (Same story as the health insurance industry, but let’s leave that for another email).
When the bank or servicing company decides whether to do a short sale, or reduce a price, they act based upon information provided through BPO’s. Broker Price Opinions. They charge the customer $150 for this, and pay the broker who does it $50.
When the servicing company has determined that they are going to take possession of a house, they have companies that go in to break the locks, and drain the water. Their criterion for hiring these companies is price and results. The less that they are charged, the bigger their profit. Ergo the “mutts” that do the winterizing, instead of disconnecting the radiators, they hit them with a plumbers wrench to crack them. More to fix. It’s easier for them. Rather than nicely open a lock, they break the doors. We see this all of the time.
The servicing company doesn’t care, as long as it is collecting fees for “servicing the asset”
Same with the foreclosures.
The servicing companies get paid for participating in the foreclosures. Signing documents, meeting with lawyers, hiring the foreclosure lawyers, hiring the brokers, every step of the way, it is the servicing company that is making fees. They even get paid to go to lavish parties at REO conventions. And think about it, these are the same people who made the bad loans in the first place. Only in America.
So what is the incentive of these servicing giants to stop foreclosing?
THERE IS NONE!
If they make the loans performing, reduce principals, the people will be eventually able to refinance at the real banks, they will lose business.
Sure there are still waives of new foreclosures, sure there is record unemployment, but how is it that CHASE, CITIBANK, and the others, that are responsible for their own loans, are able to reduce their foreclosures dramatically, yet Deutche Bank as trustee of series of bonds #1-1000, dated June 2004, continue and increase their rates of foreclosures.
Because it’s good business.
Changes in the Marketplace
I started talking about the trade conventions earlier, (probably held at beautiful resorts in hot climates). The reason I spoke about them was that there are people out there who really want to dispose of the REO. Ultimately the bankers, the REO officers, have to answer to someone, and there are always those spreadsheets and monthly, quarterly and annual figures that must be presented and justified, and improved.
These people who are selling to the Banks and Servicing Organizations, have their resources that at this point are developing strategies to help sell the property. Think tanks, marketing research, and all that, their own branch of Madison Avenue except they aren’t selling Coca Cola and M&M’s.
One of the marketing techniques that I am noticing quite frequently is the lowering of prices dramatically.
For the past few years, when a REO is first put onto the market, it would remain at the same price until there was no longer any activity, and it didn’t sell. Then every month or two, the price was reduced $10,000, or so. It was so consistent that I was almost able to predict the reductions.
Recently, I noticed it with the HUD listings. Two of the houses that I have been following were lowered dramatically and one of them rose dramatically. I am talking about reductions of almost $100,000, or increases as large. I expect the one that they raised to be lowered at some point.
My guess is that HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, and the servicing organizations too, all utilize the same technique.
I’m noticing some properties being listed, priced exactly right.
I’m noticing some properties being listed much too high, but being followed with huge reductions in price after 2 weeks.
Big price reductions definitely get my attention. I’m sure it gets others too.
I’m noticing a lot of the REO listings going to off Island brokers, and I’m noticing a lot of REO sales being made by Off Island brokers too. Staten Island is still the bargain basement of New York City. Houses cost fractions in Staten Island then they do elsewhere in the City. That is why we have such a high percentage of city workers living here, because to work for the City, you have to live in the City. Staten Island is the affordable borough. Add to that low crime and good schools and you wind up with a great standard of living, notwithstanding the commute. However, add to the equation, closeness to public transportation- i.e. bridge or ferry, then Stapleton and Concord, become hot areas, and those are the areas that I especially notice being sold off Island. Finally, I notice some population shifts in Stapleton, Concord, as well as the social changes, i.e. rock and roll shops, and you have what someday will be remembered as gentrification.
I’m noticing more people looking to buy. I’m not seeing more sales, but I am seeing more interest.
I think that a lot of people are looking. They know that there are good deals to be had, but are still nervous. Afraid to make the move.
So what should you do?
There will definitely be more good deals coming to the market in the weeks and months ahead.
While there is still record unemployment, although the indicators indicate that the recession is over or ending, it will take some time before prosperity kicks in. The stimulus programs are working, and in the process of trickling down.
Lowes broke ground on a second Staten Island store. That is a real positive economic indicator.
Macy’s has an ad on SILIVE.com today that they are hiring.
The tax credit for first time home buyers has been extended and expanded. To receive the $8,000 that does not have to be repair, provided you live in the house for three years, you must be in contract no later than April 30, 2010, and must close title within 60 days thereafter.
Additionally, if you have lived in your home for 5 years or more, and wish to buy up to an $800,000 home, you can receive a $6,500 tax credit.
I believe that there will be no more drastic price decreases. The world has more or less settled at where it is, because the worst is over. Not to say that prices won’t come down, especially the overpriced properties.
But I believe that the time has come, that when you see something that you like, that you think is a good deal for you, that it is time to act. We aren’t going to see that many more 2 family homes in good condition for around $200,000. We aren’t going to see semi’s and townhouses, that are priced $100,000 below the market that much longer.
The days of the disposal of the derivates are numbered.
There are only so many toxic loans left. The fire sale is going to end.
Don’t allow yourself to wind up in the never never land of shoulda
………………………….to be continued
Sunday, September 13, 2009
I just love this time of the year
Hey
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
Fall is my favorite time of the year.
The apples are ready to be picked!. And even if you burnt the apple pie you made last time or there was too much sugar in the applesauce, you can start again, with this year’s fresh batch of apples.
School is back in session - the beginning of a new year. No matter what happened last year in school, you get to start all over again. Fresh.
I used to love it in New England at this time of the year, the universities looked so beautiful, everyone dressed in their new clothing; the College towns make the towns look brand new for the incoming freshmen.
The next couple of weeks are the high holy days in the Jewish religion, the end of the year and the beginning of the new year. It is the time to say that you are sorry for the mistakes you made this year, get the slate wiped clean, and start a whole new year again, fresh!
Today, I joined a small group, none of whom I ever met before, and enrolled in a 12 week weight loss competition. The winner gets a small cash prize, although everyone really wins. The comradery, working together towards a common goal. Sharing each others victories and triumphs, and helping each other through the failures and losses so that the next time they will also be triumphs and victories. Fresh beginnings.
It doesn’t matter that there have been diets in the past, and that some of them have failed. Wipe the slate clean and start again. Fresh.
I have been trying to lose weight for quite a while - spelled most of my life. I have had several great diets where I have lost lots of weight, and kept the weight off for years, only to gain it back and then some in time. It doesn’t matter.
I am going to do it again, even better than before, I am older, smarter. This is a new program, one that I’ve never done before, (a competition), and it is going to be the best one yet. But it’s a new program, and new start. Fresh beginning.
This could be an email about re-setting the goals for the year too. It’s always a good time to sit down and go over goals, update them, check to see how you are doing on the short term, medium and ultimate big goals. Remember the best way is to write them down; that way you can read and review them periodically (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.).
REMEMBER- FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION!
And while taking this time to look inward, to review your goals, and your progress, it is also a good time to examine the steps that you are taking, and to look at what you thought would help you reach your goals. To look at the things in your life that aren’t working according to the plan, that aren’t helping you reach your goals and may even be hindering you.
This is a good time to examine the steps you thought would help you reach your goals. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t.
But now is a good time to make the changes that need to be made so you are moving forward towards your goals.
One of the changes I am making, is moving my Real Estate license to Salmon Real Estate (although still waiting for the paperwork at the Dept of State). I have known the Salmon’s my entire life. My parents’ last house on Staten Island, and Egon Salmon’s last house on Staten Island were next to each other in Todt Hill. Their properties touched each other, and so do our lives.
Jon has been editing the stories and articles that I send out as emails from the beginning, and Jon and Henry Salmon are two of the most supportive friends I have.
So lookout world, soon you will see the new and improved me, svelte and dapper, reaching for the stars, and setting the world on fire.
I just love this time of the year.
………………………to be continued
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
Fall is my favorite time of the year.
The apples are ready to be picked!. And even if you burnt the apple pie you made last time or there was too much sugar in the applesauce, you can start again, with this year’s fresh batch of apples.
School is back in session - the beginning of a new year. No matter what happened last year in school, you get to start all over again. Fresh.
I used to love it in New England at this time of the year, the universities looked so beautiful, everyone dressed in their new clothing; the College towns make the towns look brand new for the incoming freshmen.
The next couple of weeks are the high holy days in the Jewish religion, the end of the year and the beginning of the new year. It is the time to say that you are sorry for the mistakes you made this year, get the slate wiped clean, and start a whole new year again, fresh!
Today, I joined a small group, none of whom I ever met before, and enrolled in a 12 week weight loss competition. The winner gets a small cash prize, although everyone really wins. The comradery, working together towards a common goal. Sharing each others victories and triumphs, and helping each other through the failures and losses so that the next time they will also be triumphs and victories. Fresh beginnings.
It doesn’t matter that there have been diets in the past, and that some of them have failed. Wipe the slate clean and start again. Fresh.
I have been trying to lose weight for quite a while - spelled most of my life. I have had several great diets where I have lost lots of weight, and kept the weight off for years, only to gain it back and then some in time. It doesn’t matter.
I am going to do it again, even better than before, I am older, smarter. This is a new program, one that I’ve never done before, (a competition), and it is going to be the best one yet. But it’s a new program, and new start. Fresh beginning.
This could be an email about re-setting the goals for the year too. It’s always a good time to sit down and go over goals, update them, check to see how you are doing on the short term, medium and ultimate big goals. Remember the best way is to write them down; that way you can read and review them periodically (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.).
REMEMBER- FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION!
And while taking this time to look inward, to review your goals, and your progress, it is also a good time to examine the steps that you are taking, and to look at what you thought would help you reach your goals. To look at the things in your life that aren’t working according to the plan, that aren’t helping you reach your goals and may even be hindering you.
This is a good time to examine the steps you thought would help you reach your goals. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t.
But now is a good time to make the changes that need to be made so you are moving forward towards your goals.
One of the changes I am making, is moving my Real Estate license to Salmon Real Estate (although still waiting for the paperwork at the Dept of State). I have known the Salmon’s my entire life. My parents’ last house on Staten Island, and Egon Salmon’s last house on Staten Island were next to each other in Todt Hill. Their properties touched each other, and so do our lives.
Jon has been editing the stories and articles that I send out as emails from the beginning, and Jon and Henry Salmon are two of the most supportive friends I have.
So lookout world, soon you will see the new and improved me, svelte and dapper, reaching for the stars, and setting the world on fire.
I just love this time of the year.
………………………to be continued
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Death of Another Kennedy
Happy end of summer (or is it?)
The death of Ted Kennedy brings me back to the summer of 1968, when Bobby Kennedy (RFK) died.
It was the beginning of the summer of 1968, I was 17 years old, thin, I had completed my first year of college at St. Johns University and I was one of a handful of paid employees on the staff of RFK for President, 1968 New York. I was hired because of my experience in running the physical plant of city/wide state/wide political campaigns, and was hired to help run the Eugene Nickerson for U S Senate campaign (run the office, put out mailings, create, prepare, and distribute campaign literature, etc.)
I started working in big city political campaigns when I was 14, when I was on the staff of Screvane, Lehman, Moynihan, during the mayoral election of 1965, and was somewhat of a prodigy. Somewhere in a box are several articles written about me in New York Newspapers when I was a teenager.
I had gotten a call from Ken Auletta, whom I had worked with before in Howard Samuels campaigns, and asked if I would work for the campaign. He was the campaign manager.
I had previously worked for RFK. In 1966 I was employed by “Citizens for a New Constitution”. It was a voter referendum to have a constitutional convention for New York State. It passed, they had the convention, but the new constitution didn’t pass when it was voted on in 1967. I’ll never forget that RFK did the TV commercial to tell people to vote for the referendum. After he made the commercial, we had to go through all kinds of gymnastics to get his social security number, because theoretically he received payment for doing the commercial (the Kennedy’s were never union busters so he got paid scale). There are calls for a new constitution in New York currently, especially with the shenanigans over the leadership of the Senate this past session.
Gene Nickerson was the first democratic county executive in Nassau County. He was a good guy. Bobby Kennedy recognized his abilities and persuaded him to run for US Senate on his ticket. We were running against Joe Resnick, an upstate congressman with a lot of money, who hated Bobby Kennedy; and Paul O ‘Dwyer, who was a New York liberal, running with Eugene McCarthy. We were the favorites, because Kennedy was expected to win the New York primary by a landslide, and we were going to coast in on his coat tails.
Just before the California Primary, Joe Resnick took out a full page ad in the New York Times that said: Bobby Kennedy is a liar. We couldn’t wait for RFK to come in and kick his butt.
The Kennedy Presidential campaign headquarters were set up in a two story store front in mid Manhattan. There was a room where they had the Xerox machine, postage meter, mimeograph machines, etc. A work room. There was also a juke box in this room. But the juke box only had a couple of records on it. The song that kept playing was MacArthur Park. It gets to you after a while, the same long song.
We were located inside in one of the corners. Not a whole lot had occurred in the campaign up to that point, because we didn’t have any money, because the Kennedy money was being used to fight the various primaries around the country. We were busy planning for the day that the campaign was going to return to New York, and what we were going to do then.
That would be the day that RFK comes back to New York to campaign to win the New York Primary-
That was the day after the California primary.
The campaign was supposed to start on June 6, 1968.
We were meeting at 5 am, to start. We were going out on walking tours, rally’s, all over the state with Gene Nickerson along with RFK,
But early in the morning on June 6th, (or in the middle of the night- depends upon how you look at it), my father woke me up to tell me that RFK had been shot.
So on June 6th, 1968; instead of going to work, ready to run, ready to start our state wide senatorial campaign, I walked into a wake.
People were standing around crying, moping, understandably upset.
Well, we had a funeral to run.
First thing that we had to do was send out the invitations.
We are talking about the days before fax machines.
This was the days of the telex. The telex was a cylinder (round) machine that had a metal band around it which spun and sent the message to another telex machine somehow. 1960’s high tech.
We invited every congressman, senator, head of state, governor, mucky muck in the world (except for Joe Resnick, but he showed up anyway). Everyone had to get a telegram or a telex.
We cut the list into manageable sizes, and we delivered them to Western Union offices, and to friends of the campaign who had telex machines in their office.
RFK was laid out at St Patrick’s, and the line to see the coffin was never ending. But they made arrangements for a special time for us to jump the line and pay our last respects.
And then we had to make the arrangements for the train to Washington, the guest list, limo arrangements, seating arrangements, provide for food. All this stuff had to be done.
Can you imagine the arrangements that went into Ted Kennedy’s funeral where they had months to prepare? Longest funeral I’ve ever seen on TV. They even had to provide for umbrellas in case it rained, which it did- did you see all the umbrellas?
Gene Nickerson, the senatorial candidate without a presidential candidate, was still running. But no one wanted to do anything. No active campaigning for a while, don’t forget Martin Luther King had just been assassinated, and now Bobby. All campaigning came to a halt for all of the campaigns.
Except for me.
I didn’t take the train to Washington. I had a campaign to run. I was a professional.
I decided that we would put out a negative mailing about Joe Resnick. The press had noted that he wasn’t invited to the funeral and he showed up anyway.
First thing I did was order One Million Envelopes for the Kennedy campaign. I had them bring it to the shop where the Kennedy mailings were done, so that they would address them (I “borrowed” the Kennedy mailing list). (These were the days before computers also. Rolodex was everything. While everyone was grieving, I was rolodexing).
There was no one to confirm or deny my order, so they did it on my say so, although I had no authorization, just a lot of nerve. I was 17 years old. Besides I had all the right names, numbers, etc.
The campaign finance director owned an insurance company on Madison Avenue. They had three real commercial grade mimeograph machines/ printing presses. I was given access to the equipment, a couple employees, and sufficient supplies after 5pm, and we ran them over night, and printed the million copies of stuff that had to go into the envelopes.
After the funeral, we moved out of the Kennedy Headquarters, into the Doral Hotel on Park Avenue. (I wonder if it’s still there or still called the Doral.) Nickerson and his home staff were from Long Island so they needed a place to change clothes, and stay, etc. I took over their living room, and added an extra room or two to run the campaign from.
I set up a couple of rooms with long tables and showed people how to stuff envelopes (pre-folded the stuffing’s, put them in order, open up the backs of the envelopes- I was pretty good at this stuff).
I grabbed Nickerson, his wife, and his 4 daughters and had them stuff envelopes too. All the mucky mucks from Long Island got to stuff envelopes. And everyone had a great time. Took everyone’s mind off of the assassination.
I stopped people walking on Park Avenue, in front of the hotel, and asked them if they would help Kennedy, and come in and stuff envelopes.
Some of the people who worked in the hotel helped.
I was able to get some of the Kennedy people to help out.
We bought sandwiches’ from a deli on Park Avenue.
I borrowed the Kennedy postage meter. (It had just been loaded because the campaign was about to get started, and they never used it)
I would fill up big postage bags full of mail, and when we had 4 or 5 of them I would take them to the post office. I would go to different post offices because the postal workers often would leave bags around if there were too many. I remember coming back from a run to the post office around 2 or 3 am and parking in front thinking I’d be out again shortly, but I fell asleep. Luckily someone was up when the tow truck was about to take the car (rush hour).
But the mailing got out.
A job well done.
But, unfortunately we lost the primary the following Tuesday.
Thanks to my mailing, Paul O ‘Dwyer won the primary. (His people will say that my mailing had nothing to do with it, but call it literary license, as we get older, our stories get better). I suppose we should have said something in the mailing about voting for us. But we didn’t.
Jacob Javits and Richard Nixon won the general election.
Gene Nickerson went on to become a federal court judge, presiding over Abner Louima, and finding Chin Gigante fit to stand trial. He died in 2002.
Ken Auletta is now a distinguished award winning Journalist, who writes books about media, has written the media column in the New Yorker since 1982, and has written several best sellers. His 11th book, “Googled, the end of the world as we know it” is being published this fall.
After a very short stint with Hubert Humphrey (I quit during the Democratic National Convention), I wound up at Andrew Stein for Assembly but that’s another story for another email.
……….to be continued
NOTES:
After I finished writing this story, I put on my sneakers, and went outside, took out the lawn mower, checked the oil, added some gasoline, took out my hearing aid, and mowed the lawn. Even though I hadn’t done it in almost two months, it all came right back. It’s like riding a bike, once you get started it all comes back.
You know one of the nicest things about mowing the lawn for me is that I don’t have to hear. I put my hearing aid into this small jar with these little balls in it that absorb the moisture, and for a while, I am free, free of having to try to hear, and free of the anxiety of not hearing.
The death of Ted Kennedy brings me back to the summer of 1968, when Bobby Kennedy (RFK) died.
It was the beginning of the summer of 1968, I was 17 years old, thin, I had completed my first year of college at St. Johns University and I was one of a handful of paid employees on the staff of RFK for President, 1968 New York. I was hired because of my experience in running the physical plant of city/wide state/wide political campaigns, and was hired to help run the Eugene Nickerson for U S Senate campaign (run the office, put out mailings, create, prepare, and distribute campaign literature, etc.)
I started working in big city political campaigns when I was 14, when I was on the staff of Screvane, Lehman, Moynihan, during the mayoral election of 1965, and was somewhat of a prodigy. Somewhere in a box are several articles written about me in New York Newspapers when I was a teenager.
I had gotten a call from Ken Auletta, whom I had worked with before in Howard Samuels campaigns, and asked if I would work for the campaign. He was the campaign manager.
I had previously worked for RFK. In 1966 I was employed by “Citizens for a New Constitution”. It was a voter referendum to have a constitutional convention for New York State. It passed, they had the convention, but the new constitution didn’t pass when it was voted on in 1967. I’ll never forget that RFK did the TV commercial to tell people to vote for the referendum. After he made the commercial, we had to go through all kinds of gymnastics to get his social security number, because theoretically he received payment for doing the commercial (the Kennedy’s were never union busters so he got paid scale). There are calls for a new constitution in New York currently, especially with the shenanigans over the leadership of the Senate this past session.
Gene Nickerson was the first democratic county executive in Nassau County. He was a good guy. Bobby Kennedy recognized his abilities and persuaded him to run for US Senate on his ticket. We were running against Joe Resnick, an upstate congressman with a lot of money, who hated Bobby Kennedy; and Paul O ‘Dwyer, who was a New York liberal, running with Eugene McCarthy. We were the favorites, because Kennedy was expected to win the New York primary by a landslide, and we were going to coast in on his coat tails.
Just before the California Primary, Joe Resnick took out a full page ad in the New York Times that said: Bobby Kennedy is a liar. We couldn’t wait for RFK to come in and kick his butt.
The Kennedy Presidential campaign headquarters were set up in a two story store front in mid Manhattan. There was a room where they had the Xerox machine, postage meter, mimeograph machines, etc. A work room. There was also a juke box in this room. But the juke box only had a couple of records on it. The song that kept playing was MacArthur Park. It gets to you after a while, the same long song.
We were located inside in one of the corners. Not a whole lot had occurred in the campaign up to that point, because we didn’t have any money, because the Kennedy money was being used to fight the various primaries around the country. We were busy planning for the day that the campaign was going to return to New York, and what we were going to do then.
That would be the day that RFK comes back to New York to campaign to win the New York Primary-
That was the day after the California primary.
The campaign was supposed to start on June 6, 1968.
We were meeting at 5 am, to start. We were going out on walking tours, rally’s, all over the state with Gene Nickerson along with RFK,
But early in the morning on June 6th, (or in the middle of the night- depends upon how you look at it), my father woke me up to tell me that RFK had been shot.
So on June 6th, 1968; instead of going to work, ready to run, ready to start our state wide senatorial campaign, I walked into a wake.
People were standing around crying, moping, understandably upset.
Well, we had a funeral to run.
First thing that we had to do was send out the invitations.
We are talking about the days before fax machines.
This was the days of the telex. The telex was a cylinder (round) machine that had a metal band around it which spun and sent the message to another telex machine somehow. 1960’s high tech.
We invited every congressman, senator, head of state, governor, mucky muck in the world (except for Joe Resnick, but he showed up anyway). Everyone had to get a telegram or a telex.
We cut the list into manageable sizes, and we delivered them to Western Union offices, and to friends of the campaign who had telex machines in their office.
RFK was laid out at St Patrick’s, and the line to see the coffin was never ending. But they made arrangements for a special time for us to jump the line and pay our last respects.
And then we had to make the arrangements for the train to Washington, the guest list, limo arrangements, seating arrangements, provide for food. All this stuff had to be done.
Can you imagine the arrangements that went into Ted Kennedy’s funeral where they had months to prepare? Longest funeral I’ve ever seen on TV. They even had to provide for umbrellas in case it rained, which it did- did you see all the umbrellas?
Gene Nickerson, the senatorial candidate without a presidential candidate, was still running. But no one wanted to do anything. No active campaigning for a while, don’t forget Martin Luther King had just been assassinated, and now Bobby. All campaigning came to a halt for all of the campaigns.
Except for me.
I didn’t take the train to Washington. I had a campaign to run. I was a professional.
I decided that we would put out a negative mailing about Joe Resnick. The press had noted that he wasn’t invited to the funeral and he showed up anyway.
First thing I did was order One Million Envelopes for the Kennedy campaign. I had them bring it to the shop where the Kennedy mailings were done, so that they would address them (I “borrowed” the Kennedy mailing list). (These were the days before computers also. Rolodex was everything. While everyone was grieving, I was rolodexing).
There was no one to confirm or deny my order, so they did it on my say so, although I had no authorization, just a lot of nerve. I was 17 years old. Besides I had all the right names, numbers, etc.
The campaign finance director owned an insurance company on Madison Avenue. They had three real commercial grade mimeograph machines/ printing presses. I was given access to the equipment, a couple employees, and sufficient supplies after 5pm, and we ran them over night, and printed the million copies of stuff that had to go into the envelopes.
After the funeral, we moved out of the Kennedy Headquarters, into the Doral Hotel on Park Avenue. (I wonder if it’s still there or still called the Doral.) Nickerson and his home staff were from Long Island so they needed a place to change clothes, and stay, etc. I took over their living room, and added an extra room or two to run the campaign from.
I set up a couple of rooms with long tables and showed people how to stuff envelopes (pre-folded the stuffing’s, put them in order, open up the backs of the envelopes- I was pretty good at this stuff).
I grabbed Nickerson, his wife, and his 4 daughters and had them stuff envelopes too. All the mucky mucks from Long Island got to stuff envelopes. And everyone had a great time. Took everyone’s mind off of the assassination.
I stopped people walking on Park Avenue, in front of the hotel, and asked them if they would help Kennedy, and come in and stuff envelopes.
Some of the people who worked in the hotel helped.
I was able to get some of the Kennedy people to help out.
We bought sandwiches’ from a deli on Park Avenue.
I borrowed the Kennedy postage meter. (It had just been loaded because the campaign was about to get started, and they never used it)
I would fill up big postage bags full of mail, and when we had 4 or 5 of them I would take them to the post office. I would go to different post offices because the postal workers often would leave bags around if there were too many. I remember coming back from a run to the post office around 2 or 3 am and parking in front thinking I’d be out again shortly, but I fell asleep. Luckily someone was up when the tow truck was about to take the car (rush hour).
But the mailing got out.
A job well done.
But, unfortunately we lost the primary the following Tuesday.
Thanks to my mailing, Paul O ‘Dwyer won the primary. (His people will say that my mailing had nothing to do with it, but call it literary license, as we get older, our stories get better). I suppose we should have said something in the mailing about voting for us. But we didn’t.
Jacob Javits and Richard Nixon won the general election.
Gene Nickerson went on to become a federal court judge, presiding over Abner Louima, and finding Chin Gigante fit to stand trial. He died in 2002.
Ken Auletta is now a distinguished award winning Journalist, who writes books about media, has written the media column in the New Yorker since 1982, and has written several best sellers. His 11th book, “Googled, the end of the world as we know it” is being published this fall.
After a very short stint with Hubert Humphrey (I quit during the Democratic National Convention), I wound up at Andrew Stein for Assembly but that’s another story for another email.
……….to be continued
NOTES:
After I finished writing this story, I put on my sneakers, and went outside, took out the lawn mower, checked the oil, added some gasoline, took out my hearing aid, and mowed the lawn. Even though I hadn’t done it in almost two months, it all came right back. It’s like riding a bike, once you get started it all comes back.
You know one of the nicest things about mowing the lawn for me is that I don’t have to hear. I put my hearing aid into this small jar with these little balls in it that absorb the moisture, and for a while, I am free, free of having to try to hear, and free of the anxiety of not hearing.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
4th of July, Woodstock, Labor Day and Mowing the lawn .................. continued
Well, when we last left off, I had given up on Sears; and I had decided to go to Home Depot. I went in, guy there pointed to a lawnmower, said it was the best deal in the store in my price range, all assembled, got me a dolly to push it out to the cash register and to load it into my car.
By now it was too late to mow the lawn, so I just took it out of the box, put in the oil, and gassed it up, started it up, mowed one diagonal row and back, shut it off and put it in the garage. (So what do you call the plastic gas can anyway, does anyone know? A gas can?)
Woke up nice and early the next day (well not that early), and mowed the lawn with my new lawn mower. Did a nice job, if I do say so myself, didn’t take that long, and I was able to get right into my day.
I was able to go to my doctor’s appointment. I mentioned in an earlier email that I had met a foot doctor (Podiatrist) at the SIEDC thing at the Hilton, right after I met the person who gave me the free haircut voucher for the Barber College on New Dorp Lane. I still carry my lap top in the Northfield Bank bag.
I have arthritis in my big toes. It’s a family trait. Big Brains, Bald heads, bad skin, bad hearing, and arthritic big toes.
Dr. Rouder told me that he could clean up my arthritic toes and I would then be able to walk and run pain free, so long as I get a physical, blood work, and a chest x-ray, then I can have surgery any Wednesday or Thursday morning.. He wanted to schedule it for the 2nd of July, but we were celebrating 5 years Cancer Free for Angela on the 4th, and I would have to mow the lawn.
A few days later, I had a meeting at the municipal building (City Hall). It was a beautiful day; so I parked at the ferry, “took the ocean voyage”, and walked up (north) to Nassau Street; and after the meeting at DOF, I walked down (south) on Broadway, back to the ferry. I enjoyed seeing all of the local advertisements at the Whitehall Station and on the ferry. Tired and hot, I sat outside and completed my New York Times crossword puzzle thinking not a bad ride if you don’t have to do it every day.
Not a bad walk. When I was a criminal defense attorney with the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan in the 70’s, I did it every day (except in the rain). Some days I even ran it.
But that’s before my arthritis set in, and let me tell you, after walking back and forth that day, any doubts that I had about having the surgery were gone. On this particular day I was lucky. I got off the ferry, caught the shuttle to the parking lot, got into my car, and just as I closed my door, all hell broke loose as it started to rain, torrential downpours (remember June was record rain).
Anyway, so I went and got my chest x-rayed, drew blood to be analyzed, and went to my PCP (primary care physician) who signed a paper that said that I am healthy enough to have my toes cut open.
So now it’s nearing the 4th of July and time for me to “mow the lawn” again. And mow the lawn I did, and I did a great job. I am getting so good at it, arthritic big toes and all.
On the 4th, I set up the place, went out and bought ice cubes, fruity wine, beer, soda, grilled the corn (and I don’t cover the corn in tin foil like we did when I was a kid- rip off the husks and right onto the grill- spray oleo on it), grilled the hot dogs, the hamburgers, sausages, & steak. I am actually a pretty organized cook, getting things done so people are always eating hot food, and bringing it out in stages.
But I didn’t buy enough ice the first time I went, so I went back to Pathmark and bought a couple more bags of ice cubes (they are still in the freezer in the garage refrigerator); and while I was there, I decided that since I was having surgery a few days later, I would buy some of those Pathmark store made square oatmeal raisin cookies.
Everyone commented on how nice the lawn looked, especially after drinking the beer and fruity wine and eating my cooking.
Fast forward to July 8th, Englewood NJ where a Staten Island surgeon performs his surgery- why not on Staten Island? Well that’s another story- a good story for Bob Cutrona to write about in his column in Business Trends perhaps.
Anyway, they knock me out (although not a general anesthesia), and they worked on my toe. Right foot first, because it wasn’t as bad. Cut open my toe, took out their trusty old buzz saw, and went bzzzz along one side of the toe, and then bzzzzz along the other side. Then he changed the blade in the saw, and put in a bigger one, and did it again, so that now there would be space between the two bones. Then he inserted a screw to set the toe back into place. Sewed it up, turned off the sleepy stuff, and I woke up.
I had a bagel and a glass of orange juice and went home spending the next few days with my foot elevated and iced.
That Sunday, we had an open house at our home, so we had to leave the house. I went to work, and sent out emails to y’all from my office computer.
When Angela got home she had a panic attack because the garage door was open, and she thought to herself that someone had stolen the lawn mower. Do you believe this?
He repeated this procedure on the big toe on the other foot on July 22nd. After the second surgery I decided to allow myself a final binge before I start my training for the marathon, now that my toes are going to be better. Pathmark Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. I also stopped taking my B5 Pantothenic Acid. After a month of cookies and no B5, I lost my hearing.
And then the grass began to grow.
A few weeks ago I was able to get one of the landscapers who was working a couple of blocks away to mow the lawn.
But the grass has started to grow again…
So the other day I get a text message from Stuart Garber, a lifelong friend, “Alan you should write about Woodstock this weekend.” Previously Stu had asked me to write a story about the fact that his family’s lumber yard is the last family owned lumber yard on Staten Island, after Farrell Lumber closed their doors. Started in the 50’s by Stu’s father and grandfather, on Greenleaf Avenue near the home port, they also now have a second store, Garber’s Do It Best Hardware at 4890 Amboy Road near the Outerbridge.
In August 1969, 40 years ago, (oh man 40 years – some of you weren’t even born yet), I was 18 years old, thin, my hair was getting long, I was about to enter my junior year at St. John’s University, which was still on Schermerhorn Street in downtown Brooklyn, before it moved to Staten Island. I worked full time on the staff of the Howard J Samuels for Governor Campaign. Howard never got the nomination, lost in the primary; the day after he lost, I was with him when Mayor John Lindsay called and asked him to start up Off Track Betting. Howard became Howie the Horse. Couple of years later I became assistant to the President of OTB (eventually I quit to build houses on Staten Island but that’s another story).
So there was a guy who worked in the campaign also named Howard, but this one was Howard Hirsch. He had curly hair and a curly mustache (maybe he had a perm). His claim to fame up until that moment was that he had started something called the Psychedelicatessen (psychedelic delicatessen) an early 60’s hip venue.
Howard Hirsch was asked by the guys running Woodstock to put on an art show to showcase work of some aspiring young hippie artists of the day.
An Aquarian Expedition-
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair.
Howard asked me to bring some friends to Woodstock to help him run the Art Fair.
So I brought my good friend Bobby Garber (that’s why Stuart texted me in the first place), and a few others; and you know, its 40 years later, and I just don’t remember. (I haven’t seen any of these people, except Stuart and Bobby Garber, in years).
We got free tickets, a place to stay, and free meals.
Friday morning I left for Woodstock from Kingston NY, where I had picked up one of our friends. The NY Thruway was still fine, but after we got off of the main highway and started on some of the secondary roads, we began to crawl in the Woodstock traffic.
Eventually, as we approached Bethel, I realized that it made sense to park the car. I pulled into a deli (general store?) and asked the owner if I could leave my car there, which started something, because the owner filled up his lot, side yard, and rear yard, in no time at all after I left. (I can’t remember what kind of a car I drove that day- I remember it was white).
So we started to walk, and caught a ride “on” someone else’s car (people were riding on the trunk and on the roof and on the hood. The communal spirit had begun.
We got to the hotel, which was actually like a 3 or 4 room Inn, and there was a room that was wall to wall mattresses- all next to each other. Not dormitory style, like a room of mattresses. Catch as catch can. No air conditioning.
Then we walked to the fair, to find the Art Show.
The hotel was in “town” (such as it was), and it was a schlep to “Yasgar’s Farm” where the concert (and art show) were being held. Plus there were a lot of people, (hundreds of thousands) so the walk was a journey.
I got to the Art Fair, and this was about the time that they were deciding to make it a free concert. The reason they made it a free concert was that people kept knocking down the fences. During my walk to the art fair I watched (and participated) in fences coming down.
Howard gave me staff passes for everyone (mine is framed on the wall in the kitchen). Remember this was 1969, things were mimeographed. The logo in black print on a green card (construction paper?) that said STAFF, my name, and ART.
It reminds me of the time that JFK came to Staten Island while he was running for President, in 1959. Well he didn’t really come to Staten Island, he took the ferry to Staten Island, where he addressed the crowd at the end of one of the ramps (the old pick up ramp). My father was a big Democrat in those days, but the local Staten Island Democratic Organization was run by the Irish. We went to someone’s office in St George so we could get close to JFK. That person (I can’t remember his name) took a blank card in clear plastic that you pin on your clothes (Hello my name is- w/o the hello my name is), and took out a green magic marker and wrote OFFICIAL on it. He said, we use green because they’re all Irish. It worked. I got right up to JFK on the platform, and did get to shake JFK’s hand. I always remembered while he was shaking 10 hands at a time, I had a whole hand to myself (hey I was 8 or 9 years old).
So back to the Art Show, we are putting up “fences” to hang the art on. As soon as we put up a fence, someone comes and knocks it down, and says- hey it’s a free concert. So up with the fences, down with the fences. Even with art work on them, the hippies insisted upon knocking them down.
There was a van or something parked not far from the art show, and they had an 8 track player in the van, but they only had one tape: Sly and the Family Stone. Sly and Family Stone would start and I thought- great the concert is starting. This happened several times over the next day or so until the concert actually did start.
Then it started to rain.
So much for the art show, we had to protect the art from the rain, so we put it away.
Since it was raining, the smart move was to go back to the hotel and get some sleep. It was hot and muggy in there, but I slept. I can sleep standing up, sleep is never a problem for me. But I remember a couple of my friends couldn’t sleep and wound up outside the hotel all night.
Saturday was the muddy day. It stopped raining. It got nice out.
I walked to the fair, and there was a truck (like a U-Haul) with cases and cases of #10 cans of juices (like the big spaghetti sauce cans), that they were selling for $1 a can. I bought a can.
10 feet away was a hippie, telling people to leave their unfinished cans with him so he could give them to others to take a sip. “Don’t buy from the capitalist pigs, drink for free, or buy and share.” I left the rest of the can with him.
Woodstock Nation.
So it is pretty calm- muddy, but calm.
I walked to the art fair, nothing happening there. Hung around with Howard and others. The van played Sly and the Family Stone, and every time it did, I thought the concert had starting.
I walked around. Saw the information booth. The medical tent. The freak outs. Saw the hog farm. They had this really neat vehicle. Like a little jeep, but small, like a four seater, jet ski size. Really neat.
Bobby Garber (unbeknownst to me) took his staff pass and went back stage. He and a couple of our other friends watched much of the concert from the stage.
All this past weekend on the History Channel they ran a Woodstock show, interviewing some of the people from then, now. I read it on my closed captioned TV.
They said that at the beginning of Woodstock, the press was reporting false information about Woodstock. They were reporting that there were fights, and illness, and chaos.
They also showed the pay phones at Woodstock. They said that so many people called home and told their parents how wonderful it was, who then called their local TV stations, that is how the real story got out that it was a love festival and not chaos.
Being a good son, I called my mother. I didn’t call my father. I didn't not call my father. Wow- what a revelation!!! sorry Zack and Jake.
On the TV, they also showed Woodstock memorabilia, but no staff passes. Wonder what mine is worth? Anyone interested? I’m taking offers. Not!
Back to the concert. All of a sudden I heard Richie Havens. And it wasn’t on the 8 track. The concert had started.
Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.
But I wasn’t dug in for music. I listened to Richie Havens set (6 songs), and started to walk around some more. Couldn’t find my friends. (There were hundreds of thousands of people there). (They were on the stage). Didn’t run into anyone else that I knew there either.
I listened to Santana do Soul Sacrifice, although I had never heard of Santana before, but thought that they were great.
There were a lot of announcements about don’t take this acid or that acid. I didn’t take any drugs at Woodstock.
Sometime later Saturday I met a girl who was with a bunch of people whose car was parked somewhat near the art show. And she had a bottle of Chianti. I can’t remember her name, or where she was from, and I never saw her again. I also didn’t really listen to any more of the concert, and really don’t remember anything else about the fair until it was time to leave.
So we all sort of ran into each other back at the hotel, and leaving Woodstock, we caught a ride on the back of someone’s car, to my car, and came home “the conquering heroes”.
Woodstock’s anniversary is now over, my hearing has returned, the ringing has stopped. (Was it stress? Was it lack of vitamins? Was it too much sugar? Who knows.
I have now decided that I am going to start to get into the best shape of my life. No more oatmeal raisin cookies from Pathmark.
But before I run the marathon, I first have to be able to get my sneakers on my feet. However, as soon as I do, the first thing on my agenda, before Labor Day weekend, is that I am going to mow the lawn.
By now it was too late to mow the lawn, so I just took it out of the box, put in the oil, and gassed it up, started it up, mowed one diagonal row and back, shut it off and put it in the garage. (So what do you call the plastic gas can anyway, does anyone know? A gas can?)
Woke up nice and early the next day (well not that early), and mowed the lawn with my new lawn mower. Did a nice job, if I do say so myself, didn’t take that long, and I was able to get right into my day.
I was able to go to my doctor’s appointment. I mentioned in an earlier email that I had met a foot doctor (Podiatrist) at the SIEDC thing at the Hilton, right after I met the person who gave me the free haircut voucher for the Barber College on New Dorp Lane. I still carry my lap top in the Northfield Bank bag.
I have arthritis in my big toes. It’s a family trait. Big Brains, Bald heads, bad skin, bad hearing, and arthritic big toes.
Dr. Rouder told me that he could clean up my arthritic toes and I would then be able to walk and run pain free, so long as I get a physical, blood work, and a chest x-ray, then I can have surgery any Wednesday or Thursday morning.. He wanted to schedule it for the 2nd of July, but we were celebrating 5 years Cancer Free for Angela on the 4th, and I would have to mow the lawn.
A few days later, I had a meeting at the municipal building (City Hall). It was a beautiful day; so I parked at the ferry, “took the ocean voyage”, and walked up (north) to Nassau Street; and after the meeting at DOF, I walked down (south) on Broadway, back to the ferry. I enjoyed seeing all of the local advertisements at the Whitehall Station and on the ferry. Tired and hot, I sat outside and completed my New York Times crossword puzzle thinking not a bad ride if you don’t have to do it every day.
Not a bad walk. When I was a criminal defense attorney with the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan in the 70’s, I did it every day (except in the rain). Some days I even ran it.
But that’s before my arthritis set in, and let me tell you, after walking back and forth that day, any doubts that I had about having the surgery were gone. On this particular day I was lucky. I got off the ferry, caught the shuttle to the parking lot, got into my car, and just as I closed my door, all hell broke loose as it started to rain, torrential downpours (remember June was record rain).
Anyway, so I went and got my chest x-rayed, drew blood to be analyzed, and went to my PCP (primary care physician) who signed a paper that said that I am healthy enough to have my toes cut open.
So now it’s nearing the 4th of July and time for me to “mow the lawn” again. And mow the lawn I did, and I did a great job. I am getting so good at it, arthritic big toes and all.
On the 4th, I set up the place, went out and bought ice cubes, fruity wine, beer, soda, grilled the corn (and I don’t cover the corn in tin foil like we did when I was a kid- rip off the husks and right onto the grill- spray oleo on it), grilled the hot dogs, the hamburgers, sausages, & steak. I am actually a pretty organized cook, getting things done so people are always eating hot food, and bringing it out in stages.
But I didn’t buy enough ice the first time I went, so I went back to Pathmark and bought a couple more bags of ice cubes (they are still in the freezer in the garage refrigerator); and while I was there, I decided that since I was having surgery a few days later, I would buy some of those Pathmark store made square oatmeal raisin cookies.
Everyone commented on how nice the lawn looked, especially after drinking the beer and fruity wine and eating my cooking.
Fast forward to July 8th, Englewood NJ where a Staten Island surgeon performs his surgery- why not on Staten Island? Well that’s another story- a good story for Bob Cutrona to write about in his column in Business Trends perhaps.
Anyway, they knock me out (although not a general anesthesia), and they worked on my toe. Right foot first, because it wasn’t as bad. Cut open my toe, took out their trusty old buzz saw, and went bzzzz along one side of the toe, and then bzzzzz along the other side. Then he changed the blade in the saw, and put in a bigger one, and did it again, so that now there would be space between the two bones. Then he inserted a screw to set the toe back into place. Sewed it up, turned off the sleepy stuff, and I woke up.
I had a bagel and a glass of orange juice and went home spending the next few days with my foot elevated and iced.
That Sunday, we had an open house at our home, so we had to leave the house. I went to work, and sent out emails to y’all from my office computer.
When Angela got home she had a panic attack because the garage door was open, and she thought to herself that someone had stolen the lawn mower. Do you believe this?
He repeated this procedure on the big toe on the other foot on July 22nd. After the second surgery I decided to allow myself a final binge before I start my training for the marathon, now that my toes are going to be better. Pathmark Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. I also stopped taking my B5 Pantothenic Acid. After a month of cookies and no B5, I lost my hearing.
And then the grass began to grow.
A few weeks ago I was able to get one of the landscapers who was working a couple of blocks away to mow the lawn.
But the grass has started to grow again…
So the other day I get a text message from Stuart Garber, a lifelong friend, “Alan you should write about Woodstock this weekend.” Previously Stu had asked me to write a story about the fact that his family’s lumber yard is the last family owned lumber yard on Staten Island, after Farrell Lumber closed their doors. Started in the 50’s by Stu’s father and grandfather, on Greenleaf Avenue near the home port, they also now have a second store, Garber’s Do It Best Hardware at 4890 Amboy Road near the Outerbridge.
In August 1969, 40 years ago, (oh man 40 years – some of you weren’t even born yet), I was 18 years old, thin, my hair was getting long, I was about to enter my junior year at St. John’s University, which was still on Schermerhorn Street in downtown Brooklyn, before it moved to Staten Island. I worked full time on the staff of the Howard J Samuels for Governor Campaign. Howard never got the nomination, lost in the primary; the day after he lost, I was with him when Mayor John Lindsay called and asked him to start up Off Track Betting. Howard became Howie the Horse. Couple of years later I became assistant to the President of OTB (eventually I quit to build houses on Staten Island but that’s another story).
So there was a guy who worked in the campaign also named Howard, but this one was Howard Hirsch. He had curly hair and a curly mustache (maybe he had a perm). His claim to fame up until that moment was that he had started something called the Psychedelicatessen (psychedelic delicatessen) an early 60’s hip venue.
Howard Hirsch was asked by the guys running Woodstock to put on an art show to showcase work of some aspiring young hippie artists of the day.
An Aquarian Expedition-
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair.
Howard asked me to bring some friends to Woodstock to help him run the Art Fair.
So I brought my good friend Bobby Garber (that’s why Stuart texted me in the first place), and a few others; and you know, its 40 years later, and I just don’t remember. (I haven’t seen any of these people, except Stuart and Bobby Garber, in years).
We got free tickets, a place to stay, and free meals.
Friday morning I left for Woodstock from Kingston NY, where I had picked up one of our friends. The NY Thruway was still fine, but after we got off of the main highway and started on some of the secondary roads, we began to crawl in the Woodstock traffic.
Eventually, as we approached Bethel, I realized that it made sense to park the car. I pulled into a deli (general store?) and asked the owner if I could leave my car there, which started something, because the owner filled up his lot, side yard, and rear yard, in no time at all after I left. (I can’t remember what kind of a car I drove that day- I remember it was white).
So we started to walk, and caught a ride “on” someone else’s car (people were riding on the trunk and on the roof and on the hood. The communal spirit had begun.
We got to the hotel, which was actually like a 3 or 4 room Inn, and there was a room that was wall to wall mattresses- all next to each other. Not dormitory style, like a room of mattresses. Catch as catch can. No air conditioning.
Then we walked to the fair, to find the Art Show.
The hotel was in “town” (such as it was), and it was a schlep to “Yasgar’s Farm” where the concert (and art show) were being held. Plus there were a lot of people, (hundreds of thousands) so the walk was a journey.
I got to the Art Fair, and this was about the time that they were deciding to make it a free concert. The reason they made it a free concert was that people kept knocking down the fences. During my walk to the art fair I watched (and participated) in fences coming down.
Howard gave me staff passes for everyone (mine is framed on the wall in the kitchen). Remember this was 1969, things were mimeographed. The logo in black print on a green card (construction paper?) that said STAFF, my name, and ART.
It reminds me of the time that JFK came to Staten Island while he was running for President, in 1959. Well he didn’t really come to Staten Island, he took the ferry to Staten Island, where he addressed the crowd at the end of one of the ramps (the old pick up ramp). My father was a big Democrat in those days, but the local Staten Island Democratic Organization was run by the Irish. We went to someone’s office in St George so we could get close to JFK. That person (I can’t remember his name) took a blank card in clear plastic that you pin on your clothes (Hello my name is- w/o the hello my name is), and took out a green magic marker and wrote OFFICIAL on it. He said, we use green because they’re all Irish. It worked. I got right up to JFK on the platform, and did get to shake JFK’s hand. I always remembered while he was shaking 10 hands at a time, I had a whole hand to myself (hey I was 8 or 9 years old).
So back to the Art Show, we are putting up “fences” to hang the art on. As soon as we put up a fence, someone comes and knocks it down, and says- hey it’s a free concert. So up with the fences, down with the fences. Even with art work on them, the hippies insisted upon knocking them down.
There was a van or something parked not far from the art show, and they had an 8 track player in the van, but they only had one tape: Sly and the Family Stone. Sly and Family Stone would start and I thought- great the concert is starting. This happened several times over the next day or so until the concert actually did start.
Then it started to rain.
So much for the art show, we had to protect the art from the rain, so we put it away.
Since it was raining, the smart move was to go back to the hotel and get some sleep. It was hot and muggy in there, but I slept. I can sleep standing up, sleep is never a problem for me. But I remember a couple of my friends couldn’t sleep and wound up outside the hotel all night.
Saturday was the muddy day. It stopped raining. It got nice out.
I walked to the fair, and there was a truck (like a U-Haul) with cases and cases of #10 cans of juices (like the big spaghetti sauce cans), that they were selling for $1 a can. I bought a can.
10 feet away was a hippie, telling people to leave their unfinished cans with him so he could give them to others to take a sip. “Don’t buy from the capitalist pigs, drink for free, or buy and share.” I left the rest of the can with him.
Woodstock Nation.
So it is pretty calm- muddy, but calm.
I walked to the art fair, nothing happening there. Hung around with Howard and others. The van played Sly and the Family Stone, and every time it did, I thought the concert had starting.
I walked around. Saw the information booth. The medical tent. The freak outs. Saw the hog farm. They had this really neat vehicle. Like a little jeep, but small, like a four seater, jet ski size. Really neat.
Bobby Garber (unbeknownst to me) took his staff pass and went back stage. He and a couple of our other friends watched much of the concert from the stage.
All this past weekend on the History Channel they ran a Woodstock show, interviewing some of the people from then, now. I read it on my closed captioned TV.
They said that at the beginning of Woodstock, the press was reporting false information about Woodstock. They were reporting that there were fights, and illness, and chaos.
They also showed the pay phones at Woodstock. They said that so many people called home and told their parents how wonderful it was, who then called their local TV stations, that is how the real story got out that it was a love festival and not chaos.
Being a good son, I called my mother. I didn’t call my father. I didn't not call my father. Wow- what a revelation!!! sorry Zack and Jake.
On the TV, they also showed Woodstock memorabilia, but no staff passes. Wonder what mine is worth? Anyone interested? I’m taking offers. Not!
Back to the concert. All of a sudden I heard Richie Havens. And it wasn’t on the 8 track. The concert had started.
Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.
But I wasn’t dug in for music. I listened to Richie Havens set (6 songs), and started to walk around some more. Couldn’t find my friends. (There were hundreds of thousands of people there). (They were on the stage). Didn’t run into anyone else that I knew there either.
I listened to Santana do Soul Sacrifice, although I had never heard of Santana before, but thought that they were great.
There were a lot of announcements about don’t take this acid or that acid. I didn’t take any drugs at Woodstock.
Sometime later Saturday I met a girl who was with a bunch of people whose car was parked somewhat near the art show. And she had a bottle of Chianti. I can’t remember her name, or where she was from, and I never saw her again. I also didn’t really listen to any more of the concert, and really don’t remember anything else about the fair until it was time to leave.
So we all sort of ran into each other back at the hotel, and leaving Woodstock, we caught a ride on the back of someone’s car, to my car, and came home “the conquering heroes”.
Woodstock’s anniversary is now over, my hearing has returned, the ringing has stopped. (Was it stress? Was it lack of vitamins? Was it too much sugar? Who knows.
I have now decided that I am going to start to get into the best shape of my life. No more oatmeal raisin cookies from Pathmark.
But before I run the marathon, I first have to be able to get my sneakers on my feet. However, as soon as I do, the first thing on my agenda, before Labor Day weekend, is that I am going to mow the lawn.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The long road to the bottom of the market.
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Those of you that receive my emails of foreclosures have been seeing notes on some of the properties saying things like “This price must be the bottom of the market,” or “this house is another sign of the bottom of the market.” (Those of you who don’t receive these emails, and would like to, please tell me. Those of you who would like to receive the cheapo cheapo listings, that I no longer send out, email me to be put on the cheapo cheapo list).
In preparation of writing this article, I gazed at my crystal ball, read tea leaves, threw tarot cards, and counted the bumps on my head, to find the answers. What did I find? I found Questions, like:
Which market are we looking at for the bottom? We have the stock market, we have the bond market, we have the gold market, we have the Real Estate market, and lots of other markets.
The Stock Market
The stock market reacts to all of the markets. Wall Street says that this recession and fall of the stock market is in response to the crash of the subprime mortgage market. My friends in the market tell me that the market still hasn’t dealt with the inflation, and unemployment, so the stock market has not hit bottom, and could even have another serious down spin, or crash. Of course that’s easy to say.
The Unemployment Factor
Many say that we haven’t peaked in unemployment as yet. That as unemployment grows, more people will lose their houses to foreclosures, and there will be more REO property on the market, less buyers due to unemployment, and on and on.
345,000 US jobs were lost in May 2009, and the unemployment rate jumped to 9.4%, its highest point in 25 years (1984- just before the wild 80’s took off?). Economists said that job losses are likely to continue to pile up through the rest of the year.
Yet the stock market took this as a good sign, because the pace of losses was lower than they anticipated, and that is was showing sustained signs of stabilizing (does stabilizing mean hitting bottom?).
But does the stock market really ever make sense?
There are lots of people selling books and emails, and courses that offer advice on how to buy and sell stocks, and play the market, based upon their formulas which always worked, always did better than the stock market. I just Googled “bottom of the market” and came across one of these guys, who shows how to tell the signs of the bottom of the market. This particular genius stated that after a crash; check the BKX index for a 10% rise…that will be the bottom. He also said when the economy reaches the front page of the NY Times, and every other major newspaper, that is when the market has hit mega bottom, and it is time to buy. He was wrong, the market continued to tank.
I never trusted the stock market. I never trusted the prices of stocks, IPO’s, stock tips, etc. If I got a stock tip, I know how far down the food chain I am, it can’t possibly be any good at that point. It was probably time to sell, by the time I got the tip. Especially after watching the films Wall Street and Pretty Woman. And what about Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and Nicholas Leeson,… companies manipulate stock prices for their own accounts, and to big Wall Street players. We all know that.
Over the past several years, prior to the crash of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, I sat on the side lines, and watched as the prices of real estate climbed, and the stock market went up, despite our financial losses and costs in running the war in Iraq. (Which at this point seems small). I never could understand why the prices of stocks kept going up, and why the prices of real estate kept going up. Made no sense then.
So why should the stock market make sense now? Has anything changed? Aren’t the big players, just buying up the bargains while they can? They have the money; they borrowed billions from the fed. They had to have done something with the money; they bought stock that they can manipulate later. And didn’t they clean house? Got rid of the older high paid employees? Trimmed the fat, as it were? But mark my words, when the time is right, when the money is flowing again, when their customers are in the mode called buy and spend, they will re-sell these companies and stocks at huge profits. Next time the stock market is on the rise.
Housing Market
Now the housing market is different than the stock market. The major difference is that housing is a necessity shelter. People have to have a place where they can go with a roof over their heads to protect them from the elements. I don’t have to explain the use and necessity of housing.
But in the housing market there are certain constants, and there are always new people entering the housing market, and people ready to make a move to their next house:
People graduate; get married; have babies; get new jobs; get promotions; hit the lottery and/or have other windfalls and inheritances; children grow, and leave the house (empty nesters- I wish).
So there is a constant flow of new people entering the housing market, but what happens during the bad market times (or whatever you want to call whatever it is), these people don’t enter the market.
Why aren’t they entering the market now?
People aren’t entering the market for the obvious reasons, like they are afraid, they want to wait until the bottom is hit, they are waiting for the buy of their life to come knocking on their door. No one wants to buy on the way down, when it could still go down further. When things start to go up however, “when the train is starting to leave the station” according to my friend Jon Salmon, that’s when everyone wants to buy!
While there are good reasons to buy now, and good reasons not to buy now, the result of these people not buying is being felt in the market. Today, there is a growing amount of pent up demand for housing. At some point, we will understand that we have passed the bottom, and that it is “okay” to buy real estate now. At that time, there will be a rush, which will bring the prices up, because of this pent up demand. (Look what happened with the stimulus package to buy a new car and trade in your clunker- all of the pent up demand hit the market and the program was overwhelmed- The amount provided to last for 3 months, was used up in 3 days).
History has this strange habit of repeating itself.
In the late 70’s and again in the early 80’s, our economy was in really bad shape. We had left Vietnam, in disgrace, and the Shah of Iran was overthrown and our embassy was held hostage for 444 days. Our cities were falling apart; New York was on the verge of bankruptcy. Money for mortgages disappeared. Interest rates were up to 16% for a home mortgage, if you could get one.
And the real estate industry, including new home construction, grinded to a halt.
So some of the builders and some of the bankers came up with an idea, where they could lower the interest on the mortgage for a short period (3 years or so), and make them affordable.
Woodbrook Condominiums had just opened its first phase, and they offered a deal where you could get a mortgage at Citibank where the interest rate for the first three years was 10.5%. The builder paid the bank three years interest on the difference in rates, and sales were phenomenal. (they were called negative amortization mortgages).Other builders got the idea, and the market began again, slowly. And then we ran out of inventory, the builders that had the jobs ready to go, became the biggest builders. (Does Mirador ring a bell?).
Perhaps what really kick started the real estate market was the influx of foreign money, in the mid 80’s, as the United States had become such a terrific bargain. Large buyers from Japan, Germany and other European countries went on a buying spree, stimulating the market, as these dollars trickled down. Of course they not only spent money on real estate, they also spent money buying companies, and stocks. Next came the wild days of the 80’s where people made so much money that opulence was the way of the day.
The buzz around was he who has the most toys at the end- wins. Michael Douglas’ movie Wall Street had a scene where he was preaching GREED to his shareholders.
The builders on Staten Island decided that the best way to go was to utilize existing zoning laws and build as many townhouses on a piece of land as was possible. Houses went from 20 feet wide to 12 feet wide. Townhouses’ were built attached on all sides including the rear so the only property would be the 8’ front yard. And the price of houses went through the roof. I remember wondering how a person making $40,000 is going to be able to buy a house that cost $180,000. The price of homes went up faster than the salaries.
But then in the late 80’s government got into the act and all of a sudden the market crashed, and all of the banks built on their houses of cards fell with them.
In New York City, government (city council) decided to change the zoning laws and created something called contextual zoning. This only affected houses in Staten Island and Queens. It meant that from then on, garages counted in the computations of FAR (Floor Area Ratio’s), and other changes that made absolutely no sense to us on Staten Island were enacted. The net effect was that houses would either be 1/3rd smaller, buyers would get less room (no more garages, lofts, splays, etc.) and builders would get less units or yield from their land.
At the same time, President Reagan changed the tax code and eliminated capital gains treatment in real estate. That meant that profit from real estate was taxed as ordinary income, instead of as capital gains, which is taxed at a lower rate.
Bye Bye foreign money, hello recession.
Bye Bye banks, hello RTC (Resolution Trust Corporation.)
And then there were lean years and slow markets, etc., but then a funny thing happened.
Instead of building townhouses, some builders started to build detached one and two family homes, and the people who were ready to move out of their “starter home” into their next home, started buying these homes. The new entry level buyers, with all of that pent up demand, started buying the resale’s from those I just mentioned, and again we ran out of inventory, and prices started to climb again.
Only this time, they were fueled by real easy credit, and the subprime mortgage business, which enabled anyone who could breath and had a driver’s license (or was it a library card) could get a mortgage and buy a house.
So what will happen this time?
Smart money is already buying up the bargains. How much longer do you really believe that you will be able to buy a two family house for under $200,000? C’mon. Maybe we haven’t hit bottom, but some of the merchandise has.
Is now the time to invest in Real Estate?
Yes
Here are some of the reasons why:
First: $8,000 Tax Incentive available at closing- does not get paid back. (Unless you don’t live in the house as your primary residence or violate the other terms). Expires November 30, 2009. (First time homebuyers- haven't owned a home in 3 years)
Second: 96.5% Financing FHA & SONYMA
Third: Lowest Rates in History, and below market programs available.
Fourth: Lowest prices in 20 years
Fifth: This is a buyer’s market- Huge Inventories. Sellers are nervous and are negotiable.
Sixth: High amount of foreclosures and short sales available. There are bargains galore in every area of town, even Million dollar short sales.
Seventh: Prices in the neighborhood that you are interested in are relatively stable- either they are holding their own, increasing, or the pace of decline is slowing.
Eighth: You plan on staying in this home for more than 5 years. That way regardless of the market at this point, it will have stabilized and you will ride out any downturn, and come out ahead in price.
Ninth: Your rent equals a mortgage payment.
Tenth: You can use the tax deduction against your income.
Eleventh: You’ve found the right house in the right area for you. The schools are great. You know that if the market were better, this house would have been sold already, or there would be more competition for it.
Twelfth: You’ve got equity in your house, and want to move to a smaller house (empty nester). Although you will not be getting as much for your sale, you will more than make up for it in your purchase.
Thirteenth: If you don't buy now, you will kick yourself for the rest of your life.
Fourteenth: There probably will never be another market like this one in our lifetimes.
There is a lot of competition for the bargains
While there are lots of good deals out there these days, there are also a lot of savvy real estate professionals in the marketplace that are buying up the good deals wherever they can. Here on Staten Island, because of the large numbers of foreclosures on the market, there are a whole new group of OFF Island Realtors® who have joined SIBOR, because they receive foreclosures (REO) from the banks. These off island realtors also have “off island customers” who have discovered Staten Island as a fantastic bargain basement -the best bang for the buck- (compared to the prices of real estate in Brooklyn and Queens, and are grabbing huge amounts of these great deals as they occur.)
So how will we know that we’ve hit the Bottom of the Market?
We will know for sure that we've hit the bottom of the market, well after we are on the way up. We will read about it in Newsweek and Time Magazine, we will see TV shows about it. More and more of the articles and stories we hear and read about will be talking about the bottom, and then they will be talking about the bottom as having passed the bottom. In other words, we won't know for sure officially that we are at the bottom, until we are well passed it.
So are we there yet?
Yes and No.
The June numbers are in, and new construction sales are up for the 4th month in a row, although still below last year's numbers.
New Building Permits are up for the 4th month in a row, which means that the Building Industry is confident that the worst is over.
I am getting more calls than ever before, and more inquiries and requests to be added to the email list to receive free foreclosure listings.
Some aspects have hit bottom, others haven’t. Some things will get worse, some things are getting better.
Some house prices have hit the bottom, others have a ways to go.
So what is the answer?
…………………to be continued
Those of you that receive my emails of foreclosures have been seeing notes on some of the properties saying things like “This price must be the bottom of the market,” or “this house is another sign of the bottom of the market.” (Those of you who don’t receive these emails, and would like to, please tell me. Those of you who would like to receive the cheapo cheapo listings, that I no longer send out, email me to be put on the cheapo cheapo list).
In preparation of writing this article, I gazed at my crystal ball, read tea leaves, threw tarot cards, and counted the bumps on my head, to find the answers. What did I find? I found Questions, like:
Which market are we looking at for the bottom? We have the stock market, we have the bond market, we have the gold market, we have the Real Estate market, and lots of other markets.
The Stock Market
The stock market reacts to all of the markets. Wall Street says that this recession and fall of the stock market is in response to the crash of the subprime mortgage market. My friends in the market tell me that the market still hasn’t dealt with the inflation, and unemployment, so the stock market has not hit bottom, and could even have another serious down spin, or crash. Of course that’s easy to say.
The Unemployment Factor
Many say that we haven’t peaked in unemployment as yet. That as unemployment grows, more people will lose their houses to foreclosures, and there will be more REO property on the market, less buyers due to unemployment, and on and on.
345,000 US jobs were lost in May 2009, and the unemployment rate jumped to 9.4%, its highest point in 25 years (1984- just before the wild 80’s took off?). Economists said that job losses are likely to continue to pile up through the rest of the year.
Yet the stock market took this as a good sign, because the pace of losses was lower than they anticipated, and that is was showing sustained signs of stabilizing (does stabilizing mean hitting bottom?).
But does the stock market really ever make sense?
There are lots of people selling books and emails, and courses that offer advice on how to buy and sell stocks, and play the market, based upon their formulas which always worked, always did better than the stock market. I just Googled “bottom of the market” and came across one of these guys, who shows how to tell the signs of the bottom of the market. This particular genius stated that after a crash; check the BKX index for a 10% rise…that will be the bottom. He also said when the economy reaches the front page of the NY Times, and every other major newspaper, that is when the market has hit mega bottom, and it is time to buy. He was wrong, the market continued to tank.
I never trusted the stock market. I never trusted the prices of stocks, IPO’s, stock tips, etc. If I got a stock tip, I know how far down the food chain I am, it can’t possibly be any good at that point. It was probably time to sell, by the time I got the tip. Especially after watching the films Wall Street and Pretty Woman. And what about Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and Nicholas Leeson,… companies manipulate stock prices for their own accounts, and to big Wall Street players. We all know that.
Over the past several years, prior to the crash of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, I sat on the side lines, and watched as the prices of real estate climbed, and the stock market went up, despite our financial losses and costs in running the war in Iraq. (Which at this point seems small). I never could understand why the prices of stocks kept going up, and why the prices of real estate kept going up. Made no sense then.
So why should the stock market make sense now? Has anything changed? Aren’t the big players, just buying up the bargains while they can? They have the money; they borrowed billions from the fed. They had to have done something with the money; they bought stock that they can manipulate later. And didn’t they clean house? Got rid of the older high paid employees? Trimmed the fat, as it were? But mark my words, when the time is right, when the money is flowing again, when their customers are in the mode called buy and spend, they will re-sell these companies and stocks at huge profits. Next time the stock market is on the rise.
Housing Market
Now the housing market is different than the stock market. The major difference is that housing is a necessity shelter. People have to have a place where they can go with a roof over their heads to protect them from the elements. I don’t have to explain the use and necessity of housing.
But in the housing market there are certain constants, and there are always new people entering the housing market, and people ready to make a move to their next house:
People graduate; get married; have babies; get new jobs; get promotions; hit the lottery and/or have other windfalls and inheritances; children grow, and leave the house (empty nesters- I wish).
So there is a constant flow of new people entering the housing market, but what happens during the bad market times (or whatever you want to call whatever it is), these people don’t enter the market.
Why aren’t they entering the market now?
People aren’t entering the market for the obvious reasons, like they are afraid, they want to wait until the bottom is hit, they are waiting for the buy of their life to come knocking on their door. No one wants to buy on the way down, when it could still go down further. When things start to go up however, “when the train is starting to leave the station” according to my friend Jon Salmon, that’s when everyone wants to buy!
While there are good reasons to buy now, and good reasons not to buy now, the result of these people not buying is being felt in the market. Today, there is a growing amount of pent up demand for housing. At some point, we will understand that we have passed the bottom, and that it is “okay” to buy real estate now. At that time, there will be a rush, which will bring the prices up, because of this pent up demand. (Look what happened with the stimulus package to buy a new car and trade in your clunker- all of the pent up demand hit the market and the program was overwhelmed- The amount provided to last for 3 months, was used up in 3 days).
History has this strange habit of repeating itself.
In the late 70’s and again in the early 80’s, our economy was in really bad shape. We had left Vietnam, in disgrace, and the Shah of Iran was overthrown and our embassy was held hostage for 444 days. Our cities were falling apart; New York was on the verge of bankruptcy. Money for mortgages disappeared. Interest rates were up to 16% for a home mortgage, if you could get one.
And the real estate industry, including new home construction, grinded to a halt.
So some of the builders and some of the bankers came up with an idea, where they could lower the interest on the mortgage for a short period (3 years or so), and make them affordable.
Woodbrook Condominiums had just opened its first phase, and they offered a deal where you could get a mortgage at Citibank where the interest rate for the first three years was 10.5%. The builder paid the bank three years interest on the difference in rates, and sales were phenomenal. (they were called negative amortization mortgages).Other builders got the idea, and the market began again, slowly. And then we ran out of inventory, the builders that had the jobs ready to go, became the biggest builders. (Does Mirador ring a bell?).
Perhaps what really kick started the real estate market was the influx of foreign money, in the mid 80’s, as the United States had become such a terrific bargain. Large buyers from Japan, Germany and other European countries went on a buying spree, stimulating the market, as these dollars trickled down. Of course they not only spent money on real estate, they also spent money buying companies, and stocks. Next came the wild days of the 80’s where people made so much money that opulence was the way of the day.
The buzz around was he who has the most toys at the end- wins. Michael Douglas’ movie Wall Street had a scene where he was preaching GREED to his shareholders.
The builders on Staten Island decided that the best way to go was to utilize existing zoning laws and build as many townhouses on a piece of land as was possible. Houses went from 20 feet wide to 12 feet wide. Townhouses’ were built attached on all sides including the rear so the only property would be the 8’ front yard. And the price of houses went through the roof. I remember wondering how a person making $40,000 is going to be able to buy a house that cost $180,000. The price of homes went up faster than the salaries.
But then in the late 80’s government got into the act and all of a sudden the market crashed, and all of the banks built on their houses of cards fell with them.
In New York City, government (city council) decided to change the zoning laws and created something called contextual zoning. This only affected houses in Staten Island and Queens. It meant that from then on, garages counted in the computations of FAR (Floor Area Ratio’s), and other changes that made absolutely no sense to us on Staten Island were enacted. The net effect was that houses would either be 1/3rd smaller, buyers would get less room (no more garages, lofts, splays, etc.) and builders would get less units or yield from their land.
At the same time, President Reagan changed the tax code and eliminated capital gains treatment in real estate. That meant that profit from real estate was taxed as ordinary income, instead of as capital gains, which is taxed at a lower rate.
Bye Bye foreign money, hello recession.
Bye Bye banks, hello RTC (Resolution Trust Corporation.)
And then there were lean years and slow markets, etc., but then a funny thing happened.
Instead of building townhouses, some builders started to build detached one and two family homes, and the people who were ready to move out of their “starter home” into their next home, started buying these homes. The new entry level buyers, with all of that pent up demand, started buying the resale’s from those I just mentioned, and again we ran out of inventory, and prices started to climb again.
Only this time, they were fueled by real easy credit, and the subprime mortgage business, which enabled anyone who could breath and had a driver’s license (or was it a library card) could get a mortgage and buy a house.
So what will happen this time?
Smart money is already buying up the bargains. How much longer do you really believe that you will be able to buy a two family house for under $200,000? C’mon. Maybe we haven’t hit bottom, but some of the merchandise has.
Is now the time to invest in Real Estate?
Yes
Here are some of the reasons why:
First: $8,000 Tax Incentive available at closing- does not get paid back. (Unless you don’t live in the house as your primary residence or violate the other terms). Expires November 30, 2009. (First time homebuyers- haven't owned a home in 3 years)
Second: 96.5% Financing FHA & SONYMA
Third: Lowest Rates in History, and below market programs available.
Fourth: Lowest prices in 20 years
Fifth: This is a buyer’s market- Huge Inventories. Sellers are nervous and are negotiable.
Sixth: High amount of foreclosures and short sales available. There are bargains galore in every area of town, even Million dollar short sales.
Seventh: Prices in the neighborhood that you are interested in are relatively stable- either they are holding their own, increasing, or the pace of decline is slowing.
Eighth: You plan on staying in this home for more than 5 years. That way regardless of the market at this point, it will have stabilized and you will ride out any downturn, and come out ahead in price.
Ninth: Your rent equals a mortgage payment.
Tenth: You can use the tax deduction against your income.
Eleventh: You’ve found the right house in the right area for you. The schools are great. You know that if the market were better, this house would have been sold already, or there would be more competition for it.
Twelfth: You’ve got equity in your house, and want to move to a smaller house (empty nester). Although you will not be getting as much for your sale, you will more than make up for it in your purchase.
Thirteenth: If you don't buy now, you will kick yourself for the rest of your life.
Fourteenth: There probably will never be another market like this one in our lifetimes.
There is a lot of competition for the bargains
While there are lots of good deals out there these days, there are also a lot of savvy real estate professionals in the marketplace that are buying up the good deals wherever they can. Here on Staten Island, because of the large numbers of foreclosures on the market, there are a whole new group of OFF Island Realtors® who have joined SIBOR, because they receive foreclosures (REO) from the banks. These off island realtors also have “off island customers” who have discovered Staten Island as a fantastic bargain basement -the best bang for the buck- (compared to the prices of real estate in Brooklyn and Queens, and are grabbing huge amounts of these great deals as they occur.)
So how will we know that we’ve hit the Bottom of the Market?
We will know for sure that we've hit the bottom of the market, well after we are on the way up. We will read about it in Newsweek and Time Magazine, we will see TV shows about it. More and more of the articles and stories we hear and read about will be talking about the bottom, and then they will be talking about the bottom as having passed the bottom. In other words, we won't know for sure officially that we are at the bottom, until we are well passed it.
So are we there yet?
Yes and No.
The June numbers are in, and new construction sales are up for the 4th month in a row, although still below last year's numbers.
New Building Permits are up for the 4th month in a row, which means that the Building Industry is confident that the worst is over.
I am getting more calls than ever before, and more inquiries and requests to be added to the email list to receive free foreclosure listings.
Some aspects have hit bottom, others haven’t. Some things will get worse, some things are getting better.
Some house prices have hit the bottom, others have a ways to go.
So what is the answer?
…………………to be continued
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