Money and Finance

[plush]

topher said:

This killed me. Do you have a link?

I do


Now I can pretend that I'm doing research on Bloomberg if my boss comes this way.

[topher]

Plush, what do you do? I love my Bloomberg.

[plush]

Topher, for the moment I do accounting in one of those firms mentioned in the article, and no it's not Commerzbank. . I graduated last year for finance but when you need a job to start off you take what you can get. I don't mind it that much, but it's not what I want to do in the long run.

Re: investing in real estate. I completely agree with everything you said. The last 5 years the estate market has been booming but I feel like it's going to blow any day now. Not only have people invested in it, but they take loan on top of loan using their houses as a collateral (I think you can take a second loan up to 80% of what your house is worth), and when the price of these houses will go down, (it can't go up forever, even in NY and L.A) all these people will be stuck with some heavy bills to pay.Or file for bankruptcy which is more like it. Whoever was smart to invest 5 years ago has made a nice profit, but to start now would be a mistake imo.And word on those 2-5 arm loans. We tried to talk one of our friends out of it but she didn't listen since her mortgage payment is very low now ( she's only paying the interest). Who knows what will happen in 5 or 7 years and how the interest rates will be?Stoopid.

[dwanollah]

Topher...you are so right. Some are in big ass trouble in the very near future. Way overspent on what they have bought.

Friends of ours had that problem in Silicon Valley. We both bought within the same time frame, and they ended up spending close to $700,000 on a TWO BEDROOM CONDO, whereas we got a 5 bedroom 1927 house. Four months later, the big crash happened, and their home wouldn't've sold for $400,000. Luckily for them, they moved to Japan, rented the place (at a loss at the time) and now, six years later, sold it for close to a million. Five years seems to be a good rule of thumb for real estate. Flipping houses can be a lot dicier, although we're doing that with a place in Boston we bought with my brother Sugarbear, who's going to Berklee for a couple years. And right now, we're seeing houses in West Hollywood go up close to $100,000/yr in value right now. It's insane!

ETA:

Re: investing in real estate. I completely agree with everything you said. The last 5 years the estate market has been booming but I feel like it's going to blow any day now. Not only have people invested in it, but they take loan on top of loan using their houses as a collateral

And that's the crux of the problem. If you have ten million mortgages on the place, you aren't going to make money unless you hold onto it for 20 years or something.

[topher]

I graduated last year for finance but when you need a job to start off you take what you can get. I don't mind it that much, but it's not what I want to do in the long run.

I started as a floor clerk for a trader on the CBOE. I am now, nice and far away from that position.

[dwanollah]

One of these days, Toph, I need to get you and THTM together to talk your geeky stock-and-commodities-trading asses off. 'Cos I can't understand a gawddammed thing y'all're saying.

[woodchipper]

Chonies I'll put in a plug for using ING Direct as a savings account for your money if you don't want to have it tied up in a CD. home.ingdirect.com/ The APR is currently at 4.15%, no minimum balance. I've been using it for a couple of years now with no complaints.

There are other librarians here? Cool! Actually, I'm a records manager, but my position is located in the library and I went to library school. I even cataloged something today. Does that make me a honorary librarian?

[Peggy Lane]

Real estate has been kind to me, as well. Part of it was luck and part was restraint. I can see ARMs and whatever if you KNOW you are just going to live their two years to go to grad school or something, but my "I was raised by grandfather who weathered the Depression" brain can not fathom thinking that would be a good long term plan. I'm also pretty horrified at the house as piggy bank trend. I've done the home equity thing to pay for expensive repairs that needed to be done, but there's a commerical where parents do it to pay for a wedding for their daughter. Um, hell to the no.

I also think there are good deals in real estate if you are willing to take risks. My cousin and I bought at the same time; she in a very trendy, hot to live place and I bought in a place that nice, but no one wanted to live. Yet. Her value has stayed the same, mine has almost quintupled. I'm about to sale because I think I'm at the top of the market, and then we're off to the next place I think is up and coming.

Stocks terrify me. There's something about standing on a piece of land and saying this is mine that soothes me.

[sleepy]

This thread is fascinating to me, but also very scary. It's only scary because it's a topic I really know very little about, so I guess it's in my power to change that.

I'm really worried about student loans coming due. Really worried. We both took out more than we needed for school (dumb dumb dumb!), and we're going to have to start repaying soon ( I hope to be Dr. Sleepy in a year, while Mr. Sleepy's got a few years yet). I don't even want to tell you what I owe in school debt.

*commences nervous twitching*

[lpatrice]

I've heard that if at all possible investing in gold is the way to go, is that true?