Recent comments by MBW
Numbers numbers numbers....
Sweet! Thanks, Bill. I know how I'm spending my Saturday.
There's a real leak - WaPo has it and they wouldn't post without at least two sources (unlike Fox).
Romney to announce vice-presidential nominee on Saturday;signs point to Ryan
Curious to see how fast word travels -- I FBed it the same time Trippi did (his post was right after mine in my feed) and those were the first two tonight. I'm friends with a bunch of old-school bloggers (yeah, I was one too,) but most are on the east coast - so might not hit their feeds until morning. How fast can news travel through social media.
I thought it was determined that Romney was living in a mansion in France during his mission year. Living in, and apparently, managing the staff and general business. Might not have left all that much time for canvassing.
Ryan is going to be a wicked hard sell (as we say in Maine) for seniors. Granted, VPs generally have very little impact -- unless they show complete cluelessness on the part of the presidential candidate, a la Palin. But Obama will be able to get some mileage out of Ryan -- especially with all the footage from last year (and the fact Ryan is essentially the reason we have sequestration looming.)
Running for POTUS/VP should not require sacrificing other offices. That would not be fair.
It's not uncommon. I know for certain that Maine has such restrictions. I worked Ohio in '08, and IIRC, it does too.
Why is Romney announcing on a Saturday? Who is running his campaign? Are they hoping to influence the Sunday sermons? Seriously, this is amateur hour - you don't bury a story like this on the weekend -- especially an August weekend.
Have you seen an effort by Canada to improve relations or does that apply more to the Northern or Western groups?
Actually, I think they've done better with the Eastern groups (with the exception of the Mohawk, who the government will probably always hate.) The Cree are pretty much independent these days. My spouse and kids are migrating through Lower Ontario and Manitoba on their way west as the moment, and they've been surprised at how much better off economically a lot of FNs/NDNs appear. But then, it could just be appearances. I've been away for 8 years, so it's hard to gauge the change that was promised.
Algonquin?
Yup, Abenaki specifically (reserve at Odanak, one gr-grandparent Penobscot, some Maliseet thrown in there too.)
finally broke down in desperation and resorted to Craiglist. "Please sell me your damned house - for what it's worth, not some fairy tale figure you pulled out of your tush."
Some CA tribes are also designated as rancherias (similar to pueblos, IIRC -- I'm an Eastern NDN after all.) (and from a Canadian tribe)
The nations that have casinos are recognized as nations, not tribes.
This is true. I tend to get careless and forget I should be clearer when discussing such issues in mixed company.
I rented this place when my land deal fell through.
Hey, a place to set up my cardboard box!
that's somebody's middle name, not much of a city
At 150K, it's plenty big enough. And it has lots of farms all around. Just what I need.
Uh, you know NJ drops a dime on all the local card rooms...
yeah, but we NDNs like to believe we're above all that and that it reflects poorly on all of us. People are already looking for a reason to screw us -- we don't need to give them ammo.
more casinos that law of diminishing returns applies--revenues don't increase w/increase in number of casinos, instead each new casino takes a slice of total "pie" of gambling revenue.
Some tribes will even undermine a neighboring tribes attempts at federal recognition in order to protect their gaming operation. Saw this with the Tigua (see, Abramoff, Jack) and again with the Lumbee and the EBC. Can get pretty nasty.
My MIL was raised in LA. Pulled up her spouse and three kids to relocate to Pacific Grove in the early sixties. Never looked back.
ETA: I actually like LA -- although not to live. But to visit.
Cottage Grove, south of Eugene. Nice little town. A little too little for me, however. But nice to visit.
I don't often agree with Volker, but on beans, he's right. Gotta soak them to start the break-down of enzymes. If you don't, your family will hate you and you'll be contributing to catastrophic climate change. 
Thing I noticed in my housing market: buyers have been waiting so long for inventory, once some sellers determined that it was "bottom" and put their houses on the market, they were put under contract almost immediately -- even at a ridiculously high price. Then, as it sunk in just how stupid they were being, the buyers started getting remorseful and figuring ways out of their contracts. However, the sellers now think it was just an unlucky first deal, and re-list them -- same ridiculous price. It's going to take months for the prices to drop to where they belong. In the meantime, I'm collecting cardboard and staking out an underpass.
I'll buck up soon enough. Just frustrated with delusional sellers in my market.
and thanks, Gnomie.
Evenin' all. Feeling The house I wanted went pending for someone else. Where's my cardboard box icon?
Thank, Kauai -- the bar was two weeks ago, but I don't get my results until next month. Whee.
And with that, I'm off to zzzz land. Thanks again, everyone.
So we seem to be in agreement that the trust, while not an actual person, can get a loan -- namely because it's securitizing the loan with the property itself. guess I'll head into a credit union tomorrow and see what they say to that.
Can't check with the attorney? That's what I would do.
Would rather try and find the answer before committing $300 per hour.
Have you looked into grants for the elderly and disabled?For example, is she a veteran? Widow of a veteran?
The benefit of a loan is that it offsets some tax liability she has due to cashing out her annuity (albeit, from a bad, bad trust mill annuity farm), and taking out a short term loan would provide some tax credits.
Have you looked closely at the terms, covenants, and conditions of the trust. The fine print?
I think so - I wrote it (with assistance from a licensed attorney.)
Why not put 60% down and use the trust to pay the tiny mortgage and use the remainer as the cash to fix up the place?
I looked into that - getting a mortgage, but was told that MIL would have to take out the mortgage, not the trust. And to be honest, she doesn't have any credit -- not bad credit, just no credit. She doesn't believe in it (grew up during the Depression, blah blah.) So when I ran her credit score, it wasn't awful, but nothing to get her great rates. And then there's the issue of whether her dementia is enough to make her legally incompetent to enter into a contract.
PRO TIP: The first the family applied for was far less than the appraised value of the house.
Yeah, we're only looking for about 15 - 20% of what we're paying for the house. Not a huge chunk of change, but necessary to make it liveable for her.
Since MIL is still the Grantor, it would be valid to use her credit scores without causing a problem, but I feel like the trust itself should be able to qualify -- it has income and it owns an asset free and clear -- the house. I've tried googling and don't see any similar situations (which shocks me, as it should be happening all the time.) I think I'm going to try a local credit union in Eugene. Hope they don't laugh me out the door.
MP, what did BoA use for income? Mom's SS? Or did they require income from you all?
@MBW--The proper course is to pose the question, so that we can all decide if we want to find out the answer. Of course, that does lead to a lot of answers from non-professionals, but those are entertaining, too. The other advantage is sometimes you learn the question is the wrong one anyway.
Ok, I'm game. As I've mentioned previously, I have to buy a house -- with cash -- in which to place my MIL and my family, so that we can care for her in her remaining years (she's 85, moderately blind, a bit of dementia, but very enjoyable company.) She's placed her assets in a trust, and I am the trustee. Trust also gets her pension and SS income (decent amount). I've found a property, but it will need some work to make it accessible for the MIL. In order not to completely wipe our her savings, we need a HELOC or a home equity loan. Problem is, she's not yet here in Oregon, and won't be until after the modifications are done. Both my husband (her son) and I have power of attorney. If I put the house in the trust (which I should), does the trust apply for the HELOC? It's still a revocable trust, although my MIL gave up all control other than the right to revoke. Or does my MIL take out the HELOC or Home Equity Loan, and we sign with our POAs? I realize I need to learn this for my future practice as well, but it's not exactly something you learn in your law school's trusts and estate's class.
What do you mean 'any home equity lenders/recovering lenders in the house?'
Like someone who made these loans?
Maybe in a previous life. Or is familiar with a little more than just the basics.
ok, I guess I'll ask the morning crew -- when the fairy godmother waves her wand and turns HCN back into a housing/finance blog.
Are there any home equity lenders/recovering lenders in the house? I have a quick question on HELOCs.
So apparently I moved from the worse state for job creation... to the second worst state. Guess we need some more dressage schools to open here.
Finance_Fan wrote:
just buy and don't make a single payment. if your lucky, depending on which area you live, you'll accumulate nice savings for 4 years worth of house payments.
Buying with cash. Doesn't have the same effect.
So house-hunting yesterday sucked worse than I imagined it would. Will be living in a cardboard box.
Just in time for the boomers to start divesting their real estate.
Can someone divest it in my general direction... this lack of inventory sucks.
..Yep. Makes you wonder then, why they didn't start paying on the note, rather that have the government garnish their "wages"..
My loan payment will be more than most monthly SS payments -- for any co-signer of debt like that, better to take the max 15% haircut.
Bruce, the article indicates that many of the defaults may be on loans that seniors co-signed -- for children or grandchildren. If the recent grad can't find work, their co-signing elder is on the hook for the loan -- same as the grad. Since many young people don't have the credit to take out Grad-Plus loans, they have to get co-signers (unlike most undergraduate loans.) I suspect that this group of defaultees will only increase.
I'm mostly not looking forward to sellers who have bought the "bottomed out" line and recently put their houses on the market for way more than they're worth - and so it will take a good couple of months of no-offers for them to start dropping to a more reasonable listing. Bleh. Unfortunately, I can't wait for their fairy tale delusions to unravel.
I'm coming in late to a comment above, but I've seen it before, so I'd thought I'd do a little debunking; Someone asked if we should burn 40% of our corn crop as ethanol. While we can all argue the semantics, the real issue is that farmers may have no choice -- most corn grown for ethanol production is specifically engineered, through genetic modification, to be non-edible by both humans and animals. You can't just switch over to a different strain, as the licenses the seed companies (Pioneer, Monsanto) force farmers to sign when they buy the corn prevents them from essentially ever switching -- even if they sell their land, they have to get the buyers to agree to follow the license agreements. The only way to break free is to let the land go fallow for a few years -- to make sure that all patented genes are not transmitted to future crops (as that would result in the patent holder being able to seize said crop - due to patent infringement.)
TL;DR - once you go GMO, there's really no going back.