Sunday, November 27, 2011

Old Posts-STILL AVAIL

$1,385,000
 HUGE PRICE REDUCTION. REDUCED $300,000 PRICED TO SELL QUICKLY...Two houses, one 3603 s/f and the guest house is 1,723 s/f This is a hidden treasure in Troon Village, 6.5 acres. Very secluded prestigious property with private arroyo access, unobstructed and undisturbed wildlife and mountain views. a total of 7 bedrooms and 5 baths in the two house 2 outside fireplaces and 3 inside. Over 6000 s/f of covered patio. Private security gate. It is a must see if you love territorial and quiet times.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Spanish Banks

Spanish Banks Have $41 Billion of ‘Unsellable’ Real Estate

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Paradise Valley Sales Analysis for Shirley

There have been Four closed sales in Paradise Valley, Arizona in 2011; Where the home was listed for Over 5 Million.
 5802 E. Cholla Lane
Started at $8,900,000......Sold for $4,225,000
Roughly 9,450 square feet
523 Days on Market (11-09-2009)
 

 5937 N. La Colina
Started at $5,000,000
Closed 11-11-2011
$4,345,000 AT ABSOLUTE AUCTION
Approx. 9523 square feet
49 days on market

 8644 N. Morning Glory
Started at $6,900,000 (10-12-2009)
Closed 1-14-2011 $4,500,000
310 Days on market

 7001 N. Longlook
Started at $7,950,000
Closed 5-25-2011 $5,500,000
436 Days on market


UNDER CONTRACT:
 5600 N. Saguaro
Started at $23,000,000
Currently Listed for $14,000,000
1382 Days on Market
Approx. 14,304 square feet
Foreclosure auction scheduled 06-01-2012
oustanding Balance indicated $8,455,535



Foreign Buyers


Foreign buyers scooping up U.S. homes

 October 21, 2011: 5:23 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Hey, wealthy foreigners! Want to live in the U.S.? Buy a home here.
International purchases of American homes are ramping up, and a new Senate bill designed to boost the ailing real-estate market would encourage globe-trotting investors to buy even more.
The bill, co-sponsored by Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mike Lee (R.-Utah) would grant a U.S. visa to international investors who agree to spend at least $500,000 on residential real estate here.
If passed, the legislation could add to a surge in homebuying by international purchasers over the past year or two that's already given some local U.S. markets a welcome boost.
Growing international interest
Foreigners spent $82 billion buying up U.S. homes in the 12 months ended in March, up 24% from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). That represents 8% of total U.S. sales.
In places like South Florida, international buyers already account for a whopping 25% of the market. California, Texas and Arizona also attract many foreign buyers, as do Hawaii and New York.
South Florida condo sales have been surprisingly strong, said Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a housing analytics company. "And the majority of those sales are to South Americans and Canadians," he said.

Your local forecast

All that international buyer activity has been a tonic for the anemic Florida market. Housing starts were up nearly 20% in the three months ended Sept. 30, according to Metrostudy.
In Manhattan, there's been a steady baseline of foreign condo buyers, said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, a New York appraisal firm. They generally account for about 15% of investors, but in recent years, the buyer mix in New York City has shifted, he said.
When the euro was strong in the mid-2000s, buyers from Western Europe -- and particularly Ireland -- dominated.
The Irish "economy was so strong back home -- the 'Celtic Tiger' years -- that many were flush and wanted to invest and take advantage of the spread between currencies," said Miller. "There were marketing groups that would go to Ireland and sell packages of condos here."
Now, said Miller, the New York market now attracts more Asian and Latin American buyers than in the past.
Wei Min Tan, a real-estate agent with Charles Rutenburg Realty who specializes in selling Manhattan real estate to Asians, said his volume has more than doubled this year.
"I tell [buyers] it's going to be a stable investment that should go up 10% a year," he said. That's "not as much as they might get in Hong Kong or Shanghai," but there's less volatility, he said.
Even better for homeowners, foreign sales can be very easy: The buyers are often affluent and buy more expensive homes. The median sale price of $175,000 they pay in Florida, for example, is well above the median sales price of $136,500 for all transactions.
There's also no hassle over financing or waiting around for a mortgage lender to approve the deal: Overwhelmingly, international buyers pay cash.
Indeed, the Senate bill would require buyers to pay cash for the homes to qualify for the new "homeowner" visa. They'd also need to pay U.S. taxes and spend at 180 days a year in the country, and can't work here or take out home-equity loans against the properties. In return, they'd get to live here for at least three years.
A vote of confidence
The program could improve the housing market nationwide, said Schumer.
"We think a very significant number of people will be brought in," he said. "They'll sop up the extra supply of homes we have right now that has been dragging down the economy."
Foreigners seem to have more confidence in the U.S. real estate market than Americans do. Almost half of buyers surveyed by NAR cited the profitability or safety of their investments as the main factor that persuaded them to buy.
"With the economic distress in Europe," said Miller, "people are still looking for safe havens for investing and the U.S. is perceived globally as safe."

Abou El Enein?

 Who owns this beauty?

Friday, November 18, 2011

Now for rent

Luxury Villa in Thailand for Rent -
Villa on Natai paradise beach in Thailand

Real Estate Description:
SOLD - Only for Rent
More than a villa!
How about 6,000 sq.m of indoor space?
Built on more than 10 Rai of beach front land (16,000 m2)?
Indoor bowling alley by Brunswick?
A couple of private golf holes by the beach?
 Does this rival Cayo Espanto?

Ira Rennert, interesting reading

In 1988, the government of Israel established the Western Wall Heritage Foundation.
Western Wall Heritage Foundation
587 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10017
tel: (212) 725-0598
With its offices in the Rockefeller Center, Renco Group, of which Rennert is both President and CEO, ranked 89th in the Forbes’ list of America’s largest privately-held companies, with an estimated annual revenue of $2.15 billion. Rennert’s holding company acquired military contractor AM General in 1992 for $133 million, later selling a stake to Ron Perelman’s MacAndrews & Forbes holding company for $930 million in 2004. Other subsidiaries of Renco include: Renco Steel, Baron Drawn Steel, Doe Run – the world’s second largest lead smelter, Unarco Material Handling, and US Magnesium.
Renco Group lost control of WCI Steel (now Serverstal Warren) when the company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2006. In February 2008, Renco Group acquired Delphi's interiors and closures business which has been renamed Inteva Products, LLC. In a series of junk bond issues since 1995, Renco’s subsidiaries have borrowed an estimated $1.1 billion and transferred $322 million (29 percent) to Renco Group, according to documents filed with the SEC.

Google Jet


Year1990
ManufacturerBOEING
Model757-200
PriceCall
LocationCalifornia, California
ConditionUsed
Serial Number24923
Registration NumberN1757
Total Time7220 Hours
Number Of Seats40


Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Getting Cheaper


$1,725,000
  Lender-owned equestrian property on over 46-acres! * Gated & paved access to one of the finest collections of land in Cave Creek creates the ultimate, private estate in a natural setting * An authentic Santa Fe-style home is sited perfectly to enjoy sunset & city light views * Home includes a split floor plan with hand-plastered walls, tongue & groove ceilings, hand-hewn viga & wood beams, five masonry fireplaces, and a chef’s kitchen * Outdoor areas include multiple covered patios, a heated black-pebble tec pool fed by a natural stone waterfall, a large sundeck & built-in BBQ station * Complete equestrian set-up with three-stall riding stable, tack room, feed room, grooming area & arena * The home & facilities have been impeccably maintained & the natural setting remains unspoiled *



Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Sky May Not Be Falling-But Read and Pay Attention

What is the World Reserve Currency?

By Ben Rooney, staff reporter


NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The International Monetary Fund issued a report Thursday on a possible replacement for the dollar as the world's reserve currency.
The IMF said Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, could help stabilize the global financial system.
From GetMoneyEnergy.com:

Also known simply as a reserve currency, or less frequently, an “anchor currency,” the world reserve currency is more like a vehicle or container – like a 401(k) or RRSP – which can hold a certain currency inside.  In other words, there is no essential or necessary world reserve currency.  It could be any currency – even one that does not exist yet. Right now the reserve currency happens to be the US dollar.  It has been since the Bretton Woods agreements of July 1944.  This was when the U.S. was a creditor nation and the fastest-growing worldeconomy.
Reserve currencies have been in effect for centuries.  And in fact, with much of the new recent hoopla about supplanting the US dollar as the reserve currency, it’s worth noting that this may be an escalating trend, but similar calls were also made in the 1970’s over similar worries about the world financing US deficits.
Certain amounts of the world reserve currency are held in foreign exchange reserves by governments (and sovereign wealth funds) and institutions (like the IMF) around the world.  But foreign exchange reserves around the world do not *only* hold the world reserve currency: while the US dollar is always a majority of their holdings, the Euro is a close second (about 25% of holdings), and other major currencies (Swiss Francs, Yen, pounds, Canadian dollars) are also held.  Thus, strictly speaking, these are also reserve currencies, with an important caveat:
The world reserve currency also acts as the international pricing currency for oil, gold, and other products traded on world markets.  You can’t trade oil in Euros and countries can’t trade gold in Yen.  This gives an advantage to the US dollar because other countries need to transact to exchange their own money into dollars first.  It has even been argued that this serves to artificially inflate the US dollar insofar as it becomes the only reason countries need to hold it.
Or, this from Nobel prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz:
“The world is on the verge of moving to another regime of managed exchange rates and fragmented capital markets….A new global reserve system or an expansion of IMF “money” (called special drawing rights, or SDRs) will be central to this co-operative approach. With such a system, poor countries would no longer need to put aside hundreds of billions of dollars to protect themselves from global volatility, and these would add to global aggregate demand…. with such a system, the US would no longer enjoy the extraordinarily cheap borrowing that comes with being the minter of the most important global reserve currency. But the current arrangement is an anomaly. The world is at a critical juncture.” (A currency war has no winners, Joseph Stiglitz, The Guardian)
Soros: U.S. Dollar No Longer World Reserve Currency| Print |
WRITTEN BY JACK KENNY   
TUESDAY, 12 APRIL 2011 12:51
It was President Richard M. Nixon, a favorite of the neoconservative establishment, who announced in his first term that "We're all Keynesians now," indicating that the old Republican bible of balanced budgets and a limited role for government in the marketplace was dead forever. Perhaps a future President — no doubt one who, like Nixon, got elected by preaching the virtues of free markets and small government — will look back at the Bretton Woods II Conference and announce grandly: "We're all Sorosians now."
Whether the conference held at the Mount Washington hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, over the past weekend eclipses in significance its namesake of 1944 is yet unknown. The event — organized by left wing billionaire George Soros, was strictly a private affair — a gathering of kingmakers who, like their 1944 counterparts, are out to reshape the world and redefine its currency. Then the world had been torn apart by World War II and the creation of a "new world order" would, in the early postwar years, be accomplished on such a scale that when President Harry Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson published his memoirs, the book's title was Present at the Creation.
This time the crisis is the burden of debt that is driving the United States and key western allies to the brink of bankruptcy and the declining dollar that had long been the leader of world currencies.
Soros, like British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose pump-priming, big-spending activist role for government became orthodoxy in America during the New Deal of the 1930s, appears to be looking for a more inflatable, adaptable currency, more easily manipulated by the political and economic elite to create yet another "new world order." And Soros, of course, would be "present at the creation" and, presumably, calling the shots.
Speaking to Bloomberg News on Sunday, Soros described the decisions facing the world leaders at the conference:
The big question is whether the U.S. dollar should be the reserve currency. It no longer is[;] it shares that role with the euro, other currencies and commodities. But it's not just gold being used as a substitute, but oil too, which is putting upward pressure on the market.
While the original Bretton Woods Conference created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the second was called to create a new financial "architecture" for the world, Soros wrote when he called for a second Bretton Woods Conference two years ago. Current economic arrangements are not working, he told Bloomberg on Sunday, as developed nations have devalued their currencies and are sinking beneath mountains of unsustainable debt. Yet even as the Obama administration and the Republican-dominated House of Representatives in Washington square off in a battle over raising the legal ceiling on the nation's debt of more than $14 trillion, Soros believes the United States should, Ã  lathe Keynes philosophy, be willing to take on still more debt to jumpstart a stagnant economy. He acknowledged, "There is very a strong push to tighten the budget as a way to reduce government spending. In my opinion, the country could actually absorb some more debt in order to get the economy going."
Soros contends that with a growing economy the United States could "tolerate a higher level of debt." He recognized China as a major new powerhouse on the world economic scene and observed that despite risks of inflation, the Asian giant has emerged as the "big winner" in the current financial crisis. No longer isolated, China has become the "main beneficiary" of the globalization of national and regional economies, Soros commented.
The billionaire investor also indicated that he believes last Thursday's hike in interest rates by the European Central Bank came at a "quite inappropriate" time and called China's reluctance to allow currency appreciation a mistake:
There is a real danger of wage price inflation because prices have gone up and particularly real estate prices have gone up. So, the Chinese government I think made a mistake not allowing its currency to appreciate, which would have controlled the price inflation.
Instead, authorities now face 20-percent to 30-percent wage increases, which seem to be falling out of their control, Soros added. Moreover, he sees a shadow banking system that is "growing out of control" in China because of the strong demand for money while banks are refusing to lend.
China, officially communist since the conquest by Mao Tse-tung's red army and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, has in recent decades relied for economic growth on state capitalism, a system that allows the government to both stimulate and control economic development. Because of the nation's spectacular economic success in recent years, other countries are emulating the Chinese way. But Soros sees the surging Asian giant as an economic threat to the rest of the world. "They are effectively controlling the world currency system," he declared.
More statements regarding the secret conference are expected to come out over the next several weeks, Bloomberg News reported.

Stiglitz Calls for New Global Reserve Currency to Prevent Trade Imbalances

Q
The world economy needs a new global reserve currency to help prevent trade imbalances that are reflected in the national debt of the U.S., said Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
A “global system” is needed to replace the dollar as a reserve currency and help avoid a weakening of U.S. credit quality, said Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York. The dollar fell to an almost 15-month low against the euro last week, and the U.S. trade deficit widened more than forecast in January to the highest level in seven months.
“By taking off the burden of any single country, we don’t have to have trade deficits,” Stiglitz said in an interview in Bretton WoodsNew Hampshire. “Things would be much worse if it were not the case that Europe was having even more of a problem, but winning a negative beauty pageant is not the way to create a strong economy.”
President Barack Obama and congressional leaders negotiated a last-minute deal two nights ago to avert a government shutdown. Within weeks, the government may be forced to increase the $14.3 trillion federal debt ceiling to ensure the U.S. will meet its financial obligations.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield was at 3.58 percent on April 8, below the average of 7 percent since 1980.
The ratio of general government debt, including state and local governments, to gross domestic product is projected to climb to 100 percent in 2012, the most of any country with an AAA ranking, Fitch Ratings said last week.

‘Extremely Low’

Even so, “the likelihood of the U.S. government failing to honor its financial obligations and in particular make due and full payments on U.S. Treasury securities is extremely low,” Fitch said in a statement.
To finance its budget deficits, the U.S. sells bonds to overseas investors and governments, boosting the dollar reserves of those nations. Overseas holdings of dollar reserves rose to $3.14 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, according to International Monetary Fund figures.
“Reserves are IOU’s,” Stiglitz said. “When IOU’s get big enough, people start saying maybe you’re not a good credit risk. Or at least, they would change in their sentiment about credit risk.”
Stiglitz, who won the 2001 Nobel Prize for economics, was attending the Institute for New Economic Thinking’s conference in Bretton Woods at the hotel where U.S. and European officials met in 1944 to remake the global monetary system.
Nations agreed to fix exchange rates, establish the IMF and start the process of rebuilding Europe’s economy in the aftermath of World War II by encouraging coordinated economic policies.
The existing monetary system means “there’s a very good risk of an extended period of low growth, inflationary bias, instability,” Stiglitz said. It’s “a system that’s fundamentally unfair because it means that poor countries are lending to the U.S. at close to zero interest rates.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Sara Eisen in New York at seisen2@bloomberg.net; John Detrixhe in New York at jdetrixhe1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net

Soros: U.S. Dollar No Longer World Reserve Currency

Source: New American
Written by Jack Kenny
Tuesday, 12 April 2011 12:51

It was President Richard M. Nixon, a favorite of the neoconservative establishment, who announced in his first term that "We're all Keynesians now," indicating that the old Republican bible of balanced budgets and a limited role for government in the marketplace was dead forever. Perhaps a future President — no doubt one who, like Nixon, got elected by preaching the virtues of free markets and small government — will look back at the Bretton Woods II Conference and announce grandly: "We're all Sorosians now." Whether the conference held at the Mount Washington hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, over the past weekend eclipses in significance its namesake of 1944 is yet unknown. The event — organized by left wing billionaire George Soros, was strictly a private affair — a gathering of kingmakers who, like their 1944 counterparts, are out to reshape the world and redefine its currency. Then the world had been torn apart by World War II and the creation of a "new world order" would, in the early postwar years, be accomplished on such a scale that when President Harry Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson published his memoirs, the book's title was Present at the Creation.This time the crisis is the burden of debt that is driving the United States and key western allies to the brink of bankruptcy and the declining dollar that had long been the leader of world currencies.
Soros, like British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose pump-priming, big-spending activist role for government became orthodoxy in America during the New Deal of the 1930s, appears to be looking for a more inflatable, adaptable currency, more easily manipulated by the political and economic elite to create yet another "new world order." And Soros, of course, would be "present at the creation" and, presumably, calling the shots.
Speaking to Bloomberg News on Sunday, Soros described the decisions facing the world leaders at the conference:
The big question is whether the U.S. dollar should be the reserve currency. It no longer is[;] it shares that role with the euro, other currencies and commodities. But it's not just gold being used as a substitute, but oil too, which is putting upward pressure on the market.
While the original Bretton Woods Conference created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the second was called to create a new financial "architecture" for the world, Soros wrote when he called for a second Bretton Woods Conference two years ago. Current economic arrangements are not working, he told Bloomberg on Sunday, as developed nations have devalued their currencies and are sinking beneath mountains of unsustainable debt. Yet even as the Obama administration and the Republican-dominated House of Representatives in Washington square off in a battle over raising the legal ceiling on the nation's debt of more than $14 trillion, Soros believes the United States should, Ã  la the Keynes philosophy, be willing to take on still more debt to jumpstart a stagnant economy. He acknowledged, "There is very a strong push to tighten the budget as a way to reduce government spending. In my opinion, the country could actually absorb some more debt in order to get the economy going."
Soros contends that with a growing economy the United States could "tolerate a higher level of debt." He recognized China as a major new powerhouse on the world economic scene and observed that despite risks of inflation, the Asian giant has emerged as the "big winner" in the current financial crisis. No longer isolated, China has become the "main beneficiary" of the globalization of national and regional economies, Soros commented.
The billionaire investor also indicated that he believes last Thursday's hike in interest rates by the European Central Bank came at a "quite inappropriate" time and called China's reluctance to allow currency appreciation a mistake:
There is a real danger of wage price inflation because prices have gone up and particularly real estate prices have gone up. So, the Chinese government I think made a mistake not allowing its currency to appreciate, which would have controlled the price inflation.
Instead, authorities now face 20-percent to 30-percent wage increases, which seem to be falling out of their control, Soros added. Moreover, he sees a shadow banking system that is "growing out of control" in China because of the strong demand for money while banks are refusing to lend.
China, officially communist since the conquest by Mao Tse-tung's red army and the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, has in recent decades relied for economic growth on state capitalism, a system that allows the government to both stimulate and control economic development. Because of the nation's spectacular economic success in recent years, other countries are emulating the Chinese way. But Soros sees the surging Asian giant as an economic threat to the rest of the world. "They are effectively controlling the world currency system," he declared.
More statements regarding the secret conference are expected to come out over the next several weeks, Bloomberg News reported.

FROM THE IMF
FACTSHEET

Special Drawing Rights (SDRs)

September 13, 2011