ERICOPOLY

You know, in Canada, there is a company called Home Capital Group, they offer mortgages to people in your situation, where traditionnal lenders do no want to help you. There are probably some players in that niche in the US too? I thought I'd give traditional lenders one more shot before I'd go to hard money route. There is a mortgage out there, it's just that the terms are getting worse. What a bunch of jerks though... their big hangup is that MPIC is "illiquid" because of the potential 90 day lockup. Yet they'll lend to people all day long who might get fired and not find work again for years. And don't they make money if they take the house from me in foreclosure and flip it? I even offered them 50% down and they still said no. What the f*** is their problem? And yes, for you Wells Fargo fans, they did try (once again) to get me to move my assets to Wells Fargo in order to qualify me for a loan with their "private bank". Plus, with all the cash piling up in my checking account (getting ready for the down payment) a branch employee from Los Altos (where I opened the account) called to ask if I'd like to invest in one of their other products that earns more return than my checking account. So they're working hard at selling me even while being relatively useless at the same time. Their problem is that they might get it pushed back on them. They don't care about the 30 years argument, they sell the loan off anyhow so as long as it's up to the rules than they did just fine. Blame regulators for slowing the recovery, banks can only operate in that framework. They don't need to sell the loan. They didn't offer me the loan with terms they are willing to put on their balance sheet. They didn't offer anything at all! There is a lot of room between the lowest quoted mortgage rate (underwritten to Fannie/Freddie) and the hard money usurious rates. They don't even try to gather any of that spread. Why not offer me a hard money rate or something slightly less? It doesn't hurt to ask. It doesn't even have to be a long fixed rate term -- everything is negotiable.

Ha ha ha. That's pretty funny... (and I live in Montecito -- I can send pics of the water trucks) Conservation is going to save our water... for how many days? The real problem is that 100% of our chips are betting on rainfall -- we have no backup desalinization option. We take our sewer water, treat it, and then dump it into the ocean! You've got to be kidding me people -- stop dumping treated water into the ocean. 20% of California's water goes to residential. Cut back by 50%, and you've only saved 10% of the state's water. 80% goes to watering the food for the nation and the world. Cut back there, and that's where you make real headway. 10% of the state's water goes to growing almonds. Yes, we can still survive without eating almonds. 15% of the state's water goes to growing alfalfa. Are you fu**** kidding me? That's 75% of all the residential water usage combined. For alfalfa! Go vegetarian, it would be good for you to diet for a couple of years. I'm not letting my yard die so the rest of you can eat steak and almonds.

My taxable portfolio consists of BAC stock, portfolio margin, and puts to protect it. Then there are covered calls to pay for the puts. There are some JPM puts that I've written. It's basically a tax-efficient BAC bull-spread with some JPM downside. Wells Fargo said that because there is a margin loan that they value it at zero. I told them that it's the net exposure that matters, not the gross exposure. For example, I told them that they have no equity whatsoever in Wells Fargo bank because of the gross derivatives exposure -- they didn't seem to understand the analogy.

I should have guessed it... the big banks are keeping their powder dry so as to loan to people with "spotty histories" instead. But wait, it gets better... these credits appear shaky enough to qualify for below-market rates: Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. will provide mortgages at discounted interest rates as part of their efforts to help borrowers with low incomes or subprime-credit histories. Citigroup, the seventh-largest mortgage lender by volume in the U.S., has agreed to fund 15-year fixed-rate mortgages with below-market interest rates for these borrowers. http://online.wsj.com/articles/citigroup-and-bank-of-america-offer-mortgages-with-discounted-rates-1410906909?ru=yahoo?mod=yahoo_itp

Aware of this phenomena, I did a re-fi last year before retiring :) Does your amortization schedule run out further than your life expectancy? I bet they do that all the time... give people loans that they aren't expected to live long enough to repay. They are expected to stop making payments before the loan is repaid.

I've been referred (by the Wells Fargo employee) to a friend of his at Manhattan Bank. We'll see how that goes. Thank you for the numerous helpful suggestions. It's just painful putting up with this kind of bad decision making -- so what if MPIC is illiquid for 90 days? That problem is so easily solved with common sense. They could have just asked me to prepay the last three months of loan payments. Worst case... there is no worst case! They would already have that money... so the risk is completely mitigated.

It is my understanding that you can't deduct the mortgage interest from your taxes if you pay cash for the house and later take out a mortgage. You only get the home loan interest tax deduction if the debt was incurred in the purchase of the home. You can still deduct the interest even if you refinance that loan, but only up to the amount of the original loan size (up to the $1,000,000 limit). So I want to avoid losing my tax deduction.

You know, in Canada, there is a company called Home Capital Group, they offer mortgages to people in your situation, where traditionnal lenders do no want to help you. There are probably some players in that niche in the US too? I thought I'd give traditional lenders one more shot before I'd go to hard money route. There is a mortgage out there, it's just that the terms are getting worse. What a bunch of jerks though... their big hangup is that MPIC is "illiquid" because of the potential 90 day lockup. Yet they'll lend to people all day long who might get fired and not find work again for years. And don't they make money if they take the house from me in foreclosure and flip it? I even offered them 50% down and they still said no. What the f*** is their problem? And yes, for you Wells Fargo fans, they did try (once again) to get me to move my assets to Wells Fargo in order to qualify me for a loan with their "private bank". Plus, with all the cash piling up in my checking account (getting ready for the down payment) a branch employee from Los Altos (where I opened the account) called to ask if I'd like to invest in one of their other products that earns more return than my checking account. So they're working hard at selling me even while being relatively useless at the same time.

I was turned down by Wells Fargo again for a mortgage. They won't lend me a figure amounting to 1/7 of my net worth to secure a home with 30% down payment. Farkin' Bastages. This time they came up with a more creative excuse... They don't "like" hedge funds (MPIC) and they "frown" on private equity (Dhandho). Interestingly, my investments in MPIC were given a value of ZERO and my investment in Dhandho Holdings was given a value of ZERO. The reason being is that it is possible that they might have to wait 90 days to redeem the funds from MPIC, and possibly another 11.5 years for Dhandho. The MPIC funds alone are enough to cover the mortgage, even after a 20% impairment. Oh... heaven forbid... waiting 90 days. I guess they would rather lend to 55 year olds on 30 yr amortizations... because don't you know, they will work until 85 to pay it off.

No. I want to know statistically, out of all the millions of contracts out there. On average how much is excersized versus how much is paid (for the option). So if I buy a SPY option at 6, it expires worthless, then I the buyer is out 6. Next year I buy the put option at 6 again and it falls from 200 to 188 so I am up $6 on my option. Minus the $6 I lost this year, I am breaking even. If you play this out for all the options, who is ahead, the seller or the buyer. I wonder if the CME or some other institution keeps tabs of these stats. I am just getting a feel for in the long run who wins, the option buyer? or the seller? or is it even? My question was sort of meant to point out how useless this exercise is (no pun intended). The more expensive ones (in absolute dollar terms) are deep-in-the-money... so nearly certain to be exercised. Thus, it's not informative to discover that how much is paid for the option is strongly linked to it's probability of being exercised. You pay more for a $3 strike BAC call versus a $30 strike BAC call. Gee... I wonder why. And there is no "winner" or "loser" here IMO -- it's a service and both parties benefit. Who is the "winner" in fire insurance... the policyholder is a loser if the house doesn't burn down?

You pay a lot (in absolute terms) for a very deep-in-the-money put, and nearly a guarantee that you will get to exercise it. Yet you pay a little (in absolute terms) for very out-of-the-money put, and unlikely to exercise it. Is that what you are asking about?

I won't be at the Dhandho meeting, so can somebody pickup a set of these paper cups for me? He should be giving them out with "Dhandho" printed on them or something like that: It looks like Pabrai holds the world in a paper cup. http://www.forbes.com/sites/phildemuth/2013/09/23/how-mohnish-pabrai-crushed-the-market-by-1100-since-2000/

I think that future car sales will be a lot less than what it is now -- when the self-driving cars are a reality in 5-10 years, the industry will be changed forever. Yep, you'll be able to have a mini-bar to be enjoyed by the two front-seated passengers, using that space wisely after removing that bulky steering wheel/dash.

I would like to just be able to buy a bundle of virtual channels on my Apple TV. Then (if they had it in my area) run my Apple TV over Google Fiber. Comcast/Cox/etc... are just an internet provider that offers a bundle of channels... So they are easily replaceable if a company like Google or Verizon is willing to offer you an internet connection... and they are!. The cable companies offer nothing that can't be bundled virtually over one of these other pipelines. In fact, the cable companies offer a pretty crappy user experience.

I'd like to work with the blonde if possible. I'll forward my resume today. 8) But I think it's pretty typical to use promo photos in the med industry. They show you the blonde to get you in there. Here's the bait and switch: http://premierdiagnostics.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/MRI-BJ-3.png I'll bet you feel all healed up now. No ethics in marketing. I promised myself I wouldn't click your link..............then I did. Maybe my girl is the one taking the picture? ;D Well... go ahead and take the job and escalate the issue up the chain. Perhaps the CEO can acquire La Perla and cross-sell lingerie. There's always the holiday mixer and medical gowns have never been so comfortable.

I'd like to work with the blonde if possible. I'll forward my resume today. 8) But I think it's pretty typical to use promo photos in the med industry. They show you the blonde to get you in there. Here's the bait and switch: http://premierdiagnostics.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/MRI-BJ-3.png I'll bet you feel all healed up now. No ethics in marketing.

I haven't been to China... but I expected there to be a lot of um... Chinese. The racial makeup of the staff on the front-page website's photos seems very different from what I'd otherwise expect to find in a Chinese clinic. Look at the photo of the People's #3 Army Hospital Beijing. Are those the real staff members in the photos?

You could look at after-tax income (the real world) to make the income disparity more realistic. That would narrow the gap. Second, you could add in the working-poor subsidies/benefits to further decrease the gap. Then you'd have a more accurate picture. You've got high earners being taxed at 50% in Cali, and people are acting like 100% of it is "personal income". That's bull sh**.

I suspect the Democrats are behind the median income statistics. They give all these working poor subsidies, and that takes away wage pressures. So then wages stagnate and corporate profits rise -- they are just externalizing their payroll costs to the government.

A 2% surcharge would take BAC to a 10.5% fully-phased-in Basel3 ratio. They should be hitting that under "Standardized" approach roughly by end of Q1 2015 (or perhaps end of Q4'14 under the "Advanced" approach). So in theory they would still be able to return all of the capital they generate beyond that point. The trouble is "that point" just keeps getting kicked further and further down the road.

I did not know this -- does anyone have a source or other material to read on that? I'm looking at Pub. 590 and there's no mention of Roth splits in divorce automatically being considered taxable withdrawals, which I imagine is a relatively common issue. Can the ex-wife not simply rollover the Roth "distribution" to her own Roth and not trigger the tax? I could not find any support for this either. Ericopoly, are you sure this information you gave for a divorce scenario is correct? I believe both traditional and roth assets can be transferred tax free under a Transfers Incident To Divorce (I am not a tax professional though). Thanks for correcting me. I hope I didn't make any of you married folks unduly sweat over your infidelities.

My house is 246 years old (built in 1768). I don't want a sci-fi roof. Mine in 1912. The last year without a Federal income tax. I moved in on the 100 yr anniversary.

Okay, so how much pre-tax income does that cost you? Solar panels generate a tax-free imputed income stream. The higher your income tax rate, the cheaper residential solar becomes. Take for example the peak 50% income tax rates in California... and you pay your utility bill with after-tax income... One kWh consumed at noon that costs 49 cents on my utility bill in fact costs me 98 cents in income. The higher and higher you jack up my tax rate, the cheaper and cheaper solar looks compared to coal/gas... Unless I purchase a coal/gas fueled residential electric generator... I'd love to try getting a permit for one of those ::)

I just need a product like this: http://www.solarreviews.com/news/colored-solar-panels-address-concerns-of-aesthetics-historic-preservation/

That's too bad. And it can't work on the main house? We'd rather not have them visible on the house.