Nigel's Cold Shoulder

Pinz isn't gone, he's just ignoring us. Peeking in at the SLC blog we see Nigel's back and with a vengenance! In an abbreviated (312 words) post he now tells us CONDOS might be the thing we're all looking for. After all, Salt Lake City is running out of land!

First time home buyers often fear the repair and maintenance obligations a home brings. There are constant chores like cleaning out the gutters, raking leaves, mowing the lawn and shovelling snow. A condo or townhouse offers the financial benefits of ownership, plus the pride of ownership without many of these maintenance chores.

Plus those great condo fees! It's like owning a home and renting at the same time!

Owning your first home can be intimidating and exciting. By choosing condo living for the first home you can get a chance to see what it's like without the hassles of routine maintenance.

Hmmm... the maintenance theme once again... I never realized how much mowing the lawn really does get in the way of my life. He might be on to something here.

For first time home buyers, condos present tremendous opportunities to find out what home ownership is about without having to make the same financial or upkeep commitments a small house would have.

You're right! While technically my condo fees are a financial commitment, they are different than a house with actual property. Now these upkeep commitments, i'm guessing they are the same as those dreadful routine maintenance tasks. I'm still listening...

Sure, the condo owner is responsible for picking up inside the unit and the minor plumbing and electrical problems that are bound to occur, but those tend to be one time shots and can often be repaired cheaply by the budding do-it-yourselfer or a quick call to the local handy-person.

What the fuck? You just told me i'd be free of routine and life-ruining maintenance here. When I rent and my tub clogs my landlord takes care of that and keeps the grounds nice. What gives?!

Way to go Nigel, in a failing housing market push the worst type of property you can...the one that depreciates the fastest and has additional monthly fees subject to change, to assure that you "never own" the place.

Death Pool

I've occassionally thought who will be the first to go? Casey or Nigel? Although Casey doesn't really seem to have those IT skills he boasted once paid him a cool $30k (or was that $50k) long ago, I really think Nigel will be the first one to mysteriously disappear.

Casey is a small-time scammer who got spanked at the higher-stakes table. Back to Amway and bird-dogging future failures. He can probably eek out another half year living on a few hundred bucks a month the ads will bring him. His big win in life was selling a condo his parents helped him buy (right?). Whoa, a mogul in the making. Everything from that point on has been failure. So he'll draft up his pamphlet and maybe scrape in a another few hundred.

Now Nigel, who's always been a more interesting character to me, is in for a more rapid descent here. Timed entry into the housing bubble pretty well, probably made some nice money in a short amount of time. But Nigel wants more. Aspiring web journalist, wanna be entrepreneur, failed partner of Casey. Nigel does seem to think he's superior in most ways to most people. Regardless of how many people point out the flaws in his economic arguments, etc. etc. Nigel is unaffected. He's taking link-whoring and free blog-site entrepreneurship to the extreme.

The mortgage, and all of housing, business is undergoing changes that will be around for years. When the .com bubble burst, sure there were some people telling you to buy, buy, buy the NASDAQ at 3500, 3000, 2500... same with Nigel, keep pitching for that falling knife.

There are serious affordability issues in the housing market and the jobs that were created (like in the .com bubble) are going away. Soon that pressure and reality will catch up with Nigel and when it does, I predict he will finally push that delete key.

So what's the predictions? I'm asking my loyal viewer (that's right Akubi, i mean you). I think Nigel delete's himself sometime around August. Though what Mr. LeGate reveals has to be causing Nigel the tremors, so it coud happen much quicker, but i'll stick with August. Casey will keep trying for sweet media for much longer.

LeWaterGate: The Movie

The quality of this one is so bad, it made me laugh.

Nigel Swaby's Golden Shower

Our boy Nigel has seemingly moved on to yellow-greener pastures. It seems he's now working with the fine folks over at Gold Medallion Homes. What the fuck is up with the level of marketing prowess in Utah. Integrity First, Gold Medallion... is there a chapter on cheap cliches in the Mormon bible or something?

Why, at this point, someone would want the "publicity baggage" that Nigel brings with him is beyond me. Karma will prove out that not all publicity is good publicity. Good luck Gold Medallion Homes, enjoy the benefits of someone who's judgement leaves him moments away from going into business with Casey Serin. I'm sure none of your potential customers will find that, even though you're just as much in the free-blogosphere as Nigel. Phew, that's some list of blogs.

Albert Einstein, the great mathematician, had some good advice for today’s home buyers

Yes, that Albert Einstein was one GREAT mathmatician wasn't he. Boy, what he did with fractions and integers was something else. Long division will never be the same.

With expanding populations, land is becoming scarce.

Uh oh, someone else apparently graduated from the Nigel Swaby of Paraphrasing NAR Mantra. Oh snap, they have a company song:

However, since we depend on many different trades, suppliers, and inspectors, and build out in the elements, there are things beyond our control that may affect these dates; for example: labor and material shortages, back-ordered components, city inspection backlogs, and inclement weather.

In the event of a delay, we will notify you as soon as we become informed.

This isn't a tired motto, or a half-hearted attempt. It's more than a mission statement, more than a goal. This is our song.

Wow, catchy compelling stuff. Good luck with the joy that Nigel's endless quest for attention and an online reputation brings you.

Economic Dart Theory 101

As presented by Nigel Swaby, soon to be ex-broker.

At the heart of the housing crash debate is whether jobs will remain readily available. Housing bears argue much of America relies on construction and housing related jobs that when that industry goes crashing down, the rest of the economy will follow.

Ummm, I stumbled into the world of Serin starting at the sites that really matter to me in the housing bubble scenario, sites like The Housing Bubble Blog, patrick.net, Immobilienblasen and others.

Now, on those sites there are some extreme bears, predicting another depression, etc. But there are also some very smart, insightful folks who clearly know a lot more about Economics than I do. Unless the drugs of my youth did a lot more damage than I thought, I don't recall the arguments of jobs as the linchpin for Real Estate. I think they are more often referred to as an indicator (lagging?) of the overall health of the economy. I believe some have referred to jobs in construction as an indicator of what's to come in housing.

Nigel seems to be once again inventing his own theories of economics? Maybe i'm wrong, but most of the posts/comments I see on the bearish sites revolve around the lack of affordability in housing in relation to average wages. Most people tend to cite things like historical norms of prices to income rations and all that stuff that requires charts with points and stuff.

In the face of a cooling housing market, the fact wages are rising and jobs are plentiful doesn't make me worry about a housing crash. In fact, temporarily lower housing prices will create a positive mindset for families who want to own a home more than ever.

Hate to tell you Swabby, you should be worried, unless you're really already out of the Broker business. The past few years consisted of fliptards like Casey artificially running up home prices to unsustainable prices. Something like 25-40% of sales were to investors/speculators in that time period... that is unless tons of people all of the sudden bought vacation homes. The buyers weren't even real, now many people who got caught in the hysteria are facing steep ARM resets over the next couple years.

Before that, the Fed stopped house prices from starting to correct with all the interest rate drops.

I know you really don't believe that "temporary drop" mess, it was a bubble and maybe in a year or two it will be time to start looking, but can the glut of mortgage brokers and realtors survive that long? I doubt it.

Fun With Downtime: Brokerback Mountain

Jeez, poor Casey just can't seem to avoid Nigel and his attempts to get a piece of the spotlight. Attention on the web is apparently really hard to quit.