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August 24, 2007
An even exchange
Despite flying just three flight segments last month, totaling 2199 miles, for which I paid approximately $300, my AA statement says I somehow added 18,523 miles to my balance. That's about $300 worth of miles. Maybe coworkers weren't kidding when they called me a "mile whore."
Posted by adrianjo at 11:19 AM
August 16, 2007
Barneys, you got us once again
Mid-day today as the market was down 330 points my stock portfolio had probably lost a couple grand over the course of a few hours. I never took the pain of actually looking to see. Fortunately the market recovered nicely, which gave me all the excuse I needed to high-tail it to the first day of the Barneys Warehouse Sale, where reports of first-day bedlam had trickled out since about 9AM. Racked writes:
We were in and out of the Barneys Warehouse Sale in under an hour, and now that we've had some time to refuel and hydrate, we're ready to reflect on the experience. It is so easy to get swept up in the mania of this event. You walk in and there are racks and racks of designer clothing and shoes. All around you, people are frantically grabbing up garments and dropping trou. It feels like a frantic, now-or-never-type deal; no time for indecision. ... And though the place was claustrophobically packed with the usual toe-stepping-on, shoving-prone crowd and prices were still pretty high, we still caved and dropped a few hundred dollars. Barneys, you got us once again.
While the sale may well have lost some of its luster--prices on the first day are the same as they've been since July in the stores--there were still a few bargains. After getting locked-out of the Prada Sample Sale when I I didn't sign-up immediately at 8AM Monday, I was happy to score a $69 pair of wool Prada slacks.
Posted by adrianjo at 11:54 PM
August 10, 2007
The price chopper comes twice in one week!
That good news I posted below? Yeah, scratch that. The two unsold units in the building aren't sold at all; they were just taken off the website for a day to get a whack by the old price chopper. In fact, they got a double price chopper. One unit was marked from $779K to $769K on Wednesday and today is listed on Elliman's website at $759K! Maybe buy in a few days and you can pick it up for the price of a tall latte, if you've got anything left in your stock portfolio?
Meanwhile the sponsor still hasn't bothered install shower rods or TP holders, which means the water is splashing out and making the TP wet. This is the same developer who hired that psychologically unbalanced lawyer I wrote about earlier. As bad as BFC Partners have been, it could be worse.
Posted by adrianjo at 10:48 PM
August 06, 2007
Some good news in real estate
Some good news today. The building where I bought my condo is now fully sold-out, which is good news for everyone here because there's no longer any inventory on the market. There are now fewer than 30 1BR or 2BR condos available north of 96th Street that cost less than I paid for mine. The second bit of good news is that rents in Manhattan continue through the roof, which is good for owners of real estate:
“The last time [it] was this tight was in 2000, and it wasn’t as unforgiving as it is now,” says Gary Malin, chief operating officer of Citi Habitats, which recently released a five-year study of Manhattan residential rentals. Save for a moment over the winter when the numbers inched up ever so slightly, vacancy rates have stayed well below one percent for a year, with Soho and Tribeca the tightest spots. In 2002, the average monthly rent for a Manhattan one-bedroom was $2,227; now it’s $2,737.
Posted by adrianjo at 11:25 PM
August 02, 2007
The subprime disaster is hitting close to home
Two weeks ago, a guy from American Home Mortgage cut me a check for far more money than I've ever seen in my life, which was promptly handed to the seller of the condo I bought. Today, American Home Mortgage went bankrupt. Forbes says:
Although Thursday began on a hopeful note for American Home Mortgage Investment, by the close of business, the business seemed to have closed.Employees of the Melville, N.Y.-based mortgage real estate investment trust apparently received an email from Michael Strauss, the company’s chairman, at a little after 3 p.m., stating that their last day of employment would be Friday. A copy of the email was provided to Forbes.com by an employee who asked not to be identified. Reached by telephone, another employee said, "We are no longer in business as of this afternoon."
“It is with great sadness I announce today that American Home Mortgage has been forced to close. Unfortunately, the market conditions in both the secondary mortgage market as well as the national real estate market have deteriorated to the point that our business is no longer viable,” Strauss wrote.
AHM is not a sub-prime lender, and I'm not a subprime borrower. But my loan is risky in just about every other way - 100% interest-only adjustable-rate financing with a high back-end backed by an asset in a risky part of the island.
The impact to me will be minimal, since the check has been written. But had this implosion happened just two weeks earlier, I'd have been SOL.
Posted by adrianjo at 08:57 PM