About Me 0105: People Making Money Online

In times of economic troubles, consumers are letting go of hopes that America will experience a sudden turn-around; instead they are buckling down, and taking their saving money practices to the a new level. These saving tactics apply to everyone from those struggling week to week, to families attempting less wasteful practices. Here are nine ways that today's consumers are saving according to a recent MarketPulse survey which aims to find the impact the economy is having on people's personal finances, shopping behavior, and money-saving strategies.

1. Staying in for dinner. Eating out can be one of the most expensive culprits of an over-stuffed budget. Families are now eating modest meals at home to avoid $100 checks after dinner.

2. Beautifying at home. Women are starting to rethink those weekly manicures and overpriced haircuts. Instead they are painting their nails at home and using do-it-yourself beauty products.

3. Making grocery lists. Instead of wandering hungry into the supermarket and tossing tons of packaged goods into the cart, consumers have taken a conservative approach to grocery shopping: they make lists and stick to them.

4. Rethinking non-essential groceries. Additionally, families are really starting to think about what they need and what they don't. Slices of fancy cheddar cheese may have seemed worthy in months past, but now there's no sense in splurging on items like that.

5. Making simpler home meals. Even family meals served at home can be costly when specialty ingredients and complicated recipes are involved. Many Americans have cut back in recent years by searching for simpler recipes online, and keeping ingredients lists to a minimum.

6. Clipping and searching for coupons. More and more, people are doing some good old-fashioned coupon clipping. Why not, when you can save 50 cents, 75 cents, sometimes even a dollar or two on essentials like milk, pet food, and school supplies? If you're going to buy it anyway, snatching some extra savings is never a bad thing.

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Notice the loan to value ratios of the properties acquired between 2002 and 2007. What you see is the result of the CMBS bubble, with LTVs as high as 158%. At least 17 of the properties listed above with LTV’s above 100% should (and probably will, in due time) be totally written off, for they have significant negative equity. We are talking about wiping out properties with an acquisition cost of nearly $3 BILLION, and we are just getting started for this ia very small sampling of the property analysis. There are dozens of additional properties with LTVs considerably above the high watermark for feasible refinancing, thus implying significant equity infusions needed to rollover debt and/or highly punitive refinancing rates. Now, if you recall my congratulatory post on Goldman Sachs (please see Reggie Middleton Personally Contragulates Goldman, but Questions How Much More Can Be Pulled Off), the WSJ reported that the market will now willingingly refinance mall portfolio properties 50% LTV, considerably down from the 70% LTV level that was seen in the heyday of this Asset Securitization Crisis. Even if we were to assume that we are still in the midst of the credit bubble and REITs can still refi at 70LTV (both assumptions patently wrong), rents, net operating income and cap rates have moved so far to the adverse direction that MAC STILL would not be able to rollover the debt in roughly 37 properties (31% of the portfolio) whose LTVs are above the 70% mark – and that’s assuming the credit bubble returns and banks go all out on risk and CMBS trading. Rather wishful thinking, I believe we can all agree.

For those of you who didn't catch it in the table above, I'll blow it up for you...

Notice anything familiar??? There is a very strong chance that every single property on the list detailed in the forensic reports will be taken over by the lenders, that's a lot of properties. Subscribers should reference MAC Report Consolidated 051209 Retail 2009-12-07 03:46:49 580.11 Kb , MAC Report Consolidated 051209 Professional 2009-12-07 03:48:11 1.03 Mb, those who don't subscribe should download my CRE 2010 Overview 2009-12-15 02:39:04 2.72 Mb. For those who want access, click here to subscribe!

So, why has Macerich and the entire REIT sector defied gravity despite the fact they are getting foreclosed upon faster than a no-doc, subprime, NINJA loan candidate who just lost his minimum wage job amongst all of these “Green Shoots”??? Well, I took the time to answer that in explicit detail... I urge all to read The Conundrum of Commercial Real Estate Stocks: In a CRE “Near Depression”, Why Are REIT Shares Still So High and Which Ones to Short?

About Me 0105

Monday, December 26, 2011

People Making Money Online

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