I gave my 10 bps.

Maybe you should rethink changing the name of the blog to:

Calculated Risk Enhanced Leverage

I don't comment much here, because most of it goes over my head. That said, I really appreciate this blog with Tanta and CR. While I may only understand 10% of what you financial geniuses write... its that 10% that makes me a better person than a Realtor(r)... lol.

How about we pool our tips and invest them? Then the fund would be even bigger. And let's not stoop to 10-12% per year -- let's go for the big bucks.

Anyone know any good investment funds with potential to bring in 25%-50% or so per year?

Tanta,

if you start a hedge fund you can invest the tips in this spread:

WEEKEAHEAD-Emerging debt investors wary of subprime, Fed
| Reuters

(Turbo, where are you ? )

Thank you, Tanta,

You make the internets worth booting up every day!

Live well!

Downturn spin in Sacramento. I can't believe the press and these builders think we're this stupid. Shows you how much respect these guys (press and industry) really have for the "apathetic" buyer:

Three executives discuss the challenges of selling homes while buyers wait for prices to hit bottom

View from the front lines
Three executives discuss the challenges of selling homes while buyers wait for prices to hit bottom
By Jim Wasserman - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, June 25, 2007

It's hardly on the scale of two years ago, but across the Sacramento region it's still easy to see entire neighborhoods of new houses rising.

Selling them now has become the challenge for an estimated 84 home builders who work the capital region. The five-year housing boom that crested in July 2005 has given way to some of the slowest sales since the late 1990s.

Locally, as nationally, home builders are cutting costs, production and, in some cases, staff. Through May they closed escrow on 3,564 homes in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties, according to DataQuick Information Systems. That's 1,245 fewer than the same time last year, which was then considered a poor performance.

Now builders come to summer, one of their busiest sales seasons. Executives of three suburban Sacramento home builders met with The Bee recently for a round-table discussion about the area market.

Two are Sacramento division presidents for national builders -- Kevin Carson of Irvine-based John Laing Homes and Christopher Cady of Michigan-based Pulte Homes. A third is the second-generation owner of a local home building firm, Sid Dunmore of Granite Bay-based Dunmore Homes.

Here are a few of their observations as summer begins.

What is it that buyers are looking for today?

Sid Dunmore: What we're seeing in terms of buyers, they're wanting to put very little down, if anything. There's still a lot of people we would classify as subprime. There are still obviously instruments available for that. If they have a high enough credit score, they can still get 100 percent financing.

We're seeing they don't want to pay a lot in HOA (homeowner association) dues or Mello-Roos fees. And they want a lot of amenities for a very low price, in a great location.

Kevin Carson: We have seen a spike in summer traffic. But as Sid said, it's the no money down and the amenities package, and they continue shopping. But there are a lot of buyers out looking in comparison to 60 days ago.

Christopher Cady: I think there's a certain sense of people saying, "Are you at the bottom or are you not at the bottom?" People are still looking for the values. I think the values are there. The mortgage rates are down. ... I think with where the builders have been -- some of the incentives that have been out there the last 15 to 18 months -- I think things h

Dunmore: There are good actors and bad actors on the public side as there are on the private side. I'm talking about the bad actors on the public side, the ones that just couldn't stop themselves from building houses regardless of how many sales they made. There were a lot of public builders that actually did cut back and did like a private did. ... Others just kept building like there was no tomorrow.

A few last words about finding homebuyers

Carson: The main thing you can control is to build a quality house, keep your customer satisfaction, deliver the best house possible and make sure you're in the locations where people want to live. All of us have been in this area a long time and know those desirable neighborhoods and communities and that's where you want to focus.

Dunmore: Our sales staff tries to do that on a daily basis. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the media is a big part of that. As long as we have negative media, it's going to affect the buyers' mentality. If we have positive media, it affects them on the positive side. If you see things coming out that interest rates are low, job growth is good, income growth is good, all those things, buyers feel good about where they are today.

There are prospects for continued employment, advancements, raises, things like that. Then they feel more comfortable about going out to buy in the market. It's the insecurity that keeps them out. Right now, there's just a lot of buyer apathy. Once we get past that, we'll have a different market. It will balance itself out.