dennis yang dot com

With all of the hubbub about the so-called “mortgage crisis,” I guess someone wanted to write a story about people who weren’t screwed by their mortgages.. So, my friend, former boss, and now real estate broker Jessica forwarded my info to a reporter who was doing an article about people that did ok with their ARMs…

Dennis Yang, vice president for a corporate intelligence firm, has a similar story. “I didn’t need to pay for the security of a 30-year mortgage,” he says. “Why pay for knowing what your payment will be in 30 years when you know you’re not going to be there?” Yet, when he bought his Hayes Valley condo in 2004, this wasn’t the first advice he received. “I approached my boss for advice, and he told me I should always get a 30-year fixed no matter what.” Instead, Yang chose an ARM that would allow him to invest more money in stocks. “I didn’t want all of my savings to be in my home,” he explains. “This allowed me to be more balanced in my investments.”

Amassing the knowledge about house buying and mortgages is a whole lot of information to accumulate, and then once you’re done, you pretty much never need to know about that stuff anymore (until you buy another, I guess).. But yah, I feel like they make mortgages over-confusing, and they should just present them in clear terms, without ALL of the numbers.. Like, the way that I felt about the ARM, was that I pretty much didn’t see myself keeping my house for longer than 7 years, so I could deal with 2 years of variability.. That said, back when I bought, I had no idea that rents would come up so much in SF, so now, had I gotten the 30 year, renting my house out would be an interesting option — that said, I think renting a place with an ARM seems like a risky proposition.

[Thanks Ashley for forwarding me the article... Google news hadn't found it yet.]

Like, wow, this is super geeky. Like super geeky. Like, wow.

[Thanks Mike.]

Ok.. so I’ve been saying for years now to invest in corn futures.. My reasoning was that as global consumption of beef increases, global consumption of corn will increase (since cows eat a lot of corn) — so, corn prices will continue to rise.

So, we just hit a 10-year high for corn prices. And, I think it’ll continue to rise, because of the beef thing, and now — ethanol is taking off, so that’ll exert even more pressure on corn prices..

Damn, if only I had followed my own advice and actually put my money where my mouth is.

The future isn’t plastics, my boy, it’s in CORN.

Ok.. this is like the 2nd Techdirt plug in like a few weeks, but I thought this post Mike wrote today was particularly good… Economics Of Abundance Getting Some Well Deserved Attention.. So yah, go read it, it’s good stuff… He quotes Thomas Jefferson, after all, so it’s gotta be good.

And if you’re wondering why I’m still up, this might have something to do with it.

Dutch tulips, tech stocks, and now housing… it seems like every time there’s a huge run-up, someone’s talking about a bubble… In the past few weeks, the supposed housing bubble has been a hot topic of discussion..

• The Economist: The global housing boom
• The Economist: After the fall
• Businessweek: Housing Bubble — or Bunk?
• Babble about a housing bubble
• QandO: The Next Bubble To Burst?

So.. after reading all of this, I’m still not sure what to think — while it’s true that housing prices have, indeed run up dramatically over the past few years, and yes, many of those prices are on the backs of large debt loads (and interest-only loans).. housing is inherently not as volatile as tulip bulbs or stocks — you can’t just dump a home if you get freaked out, right? I mean, you gotta live somewhere, so if there is indeed a housing bubble wouldn’t it deflate slowly instead of pop?

While I’m on the subject of bubbles, remember the bubble gum, Hubba Bubba? That was the gum that didn’t stick to your face after it burst. Man, I wonder if they still play that commercial with the cowboy saturday mornings.. Do they still play cartoons Saturday mornings? Hmmm. Do people still chew bubble gum? Seems like super minty gum like Eclipse is much more popular nowadays.