Top Five Fridays – Baseball Movies
Of the four major sports, baseball, basketball, football and hockey, baseball was my favorite growing up and has become my least favorite as an adult. My romance with baseball grew apart at 13 when a fastball drilled me in the ribs and officially ended the summer the Mets traded away Lenny Dykstra and Mookie Wilson. Baseball season begins this Sunday. When I think of baseball, I don’t think of spring and summer, instead I think of a long and dreary season full of steroid induced records, whiny overpaid athletes, and managers looking ridiculous wearing baseball uniforms. At least we have baseball movies, here are my top five:
- The Sandlot: This is what baseball is all about.
- Major League: Who knew that this movie would launch the careers of Wesley Snipes and Dennis Haysbert.
- Bull Durham: One character sums up this film – Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh played by Tim Robbins.
- Pride of the Yankees: This movie documents Lou Gehrig’s life. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is now known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
- The Natural: While everyone remembers Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs, I remember his bat “Wonderboy.”
Apathy and Ignorance
“Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don’t know and I don’t care.” – Jimmy Buffet
Apathy: the trait of lacking enthusiasm for or interest in things generally
Ignorance: the lack of knowledge or education
According to a Bankrate survey 34% of homeowners don’t know the type of mortgage they have.
These were the key findings of the survey:
Homeowners:
- 36% who now have an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM), plan to refinance to a fixed-rate loan when their ARM changes
- 28% of those surveyed worry either regularly or sometimes about how they will afford their payments next year
- 57% of homeowners polled have a fixed-rate mortgage
Your home is your biggest asset/liability depending on how you view your home. Most people either have one of three kinds of mortgages because there are only three kinds:
- fixed rate mortgage which means it’s fixed for 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 45, or 50 years
- an adjustable rate mortgage which means it’s not fixed, it will adjust at some point
- a amortization »”>negative amortization mortgage which means if you don’t know what kind of mortgage you have then this loan is not for you
If you don’t know the mortgage interest rate and the mortgage loan program you’re in, simply find your mortgage documents and find your NOTE and read it!
Top Five Fridays – Television Doctors
I had originally planned to do a top five fridays dedicated to sports drama queens but then my mind wandered and I couldn’t come up with five. I started thinking about drama and how the top rated shows are always dramas. Currently the top rated show is Grey’s Anatomy, a show about doctors in Seattle, with the drama almost as thick as the foam on a latte. My wife loves the show and has been hooked since day one. I, on the other hand, abstained from watching till this year. Despite all the drama, it’s actually a decent show. I still can’t believe Izzie is the girl from My Father The Hero.
Here’s a salute to the top five who can say “I’m not a doctor but I play one on television“:
- Doogie Howser from Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris): The premise was a little off-beat, a teenage boy as a doctor, and the show was a little quirky. The reason why Doogie is number one, he always ended the show by writing an online journal. He was a blogging pioneer!
- Doug Ross from ER (George Clooney): Men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him.
- Isobel Stevens from Grey’s Anatomy (Katherine Heigl): The aforementioned “Izzie” makes watching Grey’s Anatomy worthwhile.
- J.D. from Scrubs(Zach Braff): The best part about Scrubs being syndicated is that you know when it’s on. Until NBC finally moved this show to Thursday night, you never knew when the show aired.
- Turk from Scrubs (Donald Faison): Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Where’s there’s thunder, there’s rain. Where theres JD, there’s Turk. Equally funny.
Keeping subprime and foreclosures in perspective
On Sunday mornings I usually enjoy a cup of coffee, read the paper, eat a pastry (usually a blueberry or lemon poppy seed muffin) and watch Sunday Morning on CBS. As a news program, they always seem to have interesting stories. This past weekend they had a commentary on the subprime meltdown by Ben Stein:
The U.S. mortgage market is immensely large, spectacularly large. Total foreclosures are a large amount in dollar terms, but a tiny amount in percentage terms. Foreclosures are now about 1 percent of loans. The lenders will sell the houses and recover at least fifty per cent of the value. That means the total loss may be about ½ of one percent of the mortgages made and probably less, and a lot of it is insured. This is an absolutely trivial number in the context of a $14 trillion economy with net wealth in the realm of $60 trillion.
This whole subprime mortgage mess is just an excuse for the gunslingers and river boat gamblers on Wall Street to use their tricks to move markets and make money. The economy is still very strong. The most cagey players on Wall Street like Goldman Sachs are now trying to buy — not sell — as much distressed merchandise in the mortgage area as they can. This is a good clue about where the smart money is going.
As long as people want to buy homes, real estate will always be in demand even the foreclosed homes and eventually mortgage companies will find a way to recapture the subprime market.
Top Five Fridays – March Madness, Things I like
March Madness is upon us. 65 teams (actually 48 after yesterday’s games). One national champion. I filled out my bracket with Oden State University (Ohio State University) beating Florida in the final. Here are the 5 things I like about March Madness:
- Thursday and Friday: The two greatest days in the sports world are Thursday and Friday during the first weekend of March Madness. 32 games are played in 48 hours. If you filled out a bracket, you’re still excited. There will be blowouts, upsets, buzzer beaters, you name it they’ll have it!
- Upsetville: When colleges from powerhouse conferences (Big 10, Big 12, ACC, etc.) lose to the lower seeded mid-major colleges or below, it’s considered a major upset. Consider last night when Duke lost to Virginia Commonwealth University, what an upset! Good thing I didn’t have Duke going very far in the tourney.
- Bill Raftery: When discussing basketball analysts, most people know who Dick Vitale is but very few would know Bill Raftery. He’s not annoying. He’s coherent. More important, he has his own style. “Onions!”
- The Big East: I grew up on the East coast so I grew up watching Big East basketball. The conference has changed with defections (Boston College) and additions (Louisville). While some critics might say that the conference is overrated, I’d like to remind college basketball that Syracuse won the national championship in 2003 and Connecticut won it in 2004.
- Gerry McNamara: Speaking of Syracuse, they won the national championship with Gerry McNamara, a 6 foot somewhat stocky point guard with an uncanny ability to shoot the three point shot. While he may not be the best player, he definitely played with the most heart. The tournament just isn’t the same this year without Gerry (he graduated last year) and Syracuse (they didn’t make the tournament).
Let’s Go Shopping
The best blogs for real estate discussion are the Rain City Guide and the Blood Hound Blog. Made up primarily of real estate enthusiasts from around the blogosphere, these two blogs kick ass!
This article initially caught my attention because it discusses the perils of rate shopping. However, it generated a lot of commentary. By a lot, I mean you could write a 30 page dissertation on the comments alone.
Why Selecting a Lender by Rate Alone is Not in Your Best Interest
This article caught my attention because it discusses the trials and tribulations of shopping for a loan via Lending Tree. It’s quite lengthy but the lessons learned are worth reading especially if you’re shopping for a mortgage.
If you’re going to shop for a mortgage, caveat emptor!
Going full tilt!
I like to play poker. I almost never play with real money because I play less aggressive when I’m playing with my own dough. When I play for free, I’m more inclined to take more risks. If I go “full tilt” and lose it doesn’t cost me a dime.
Full tilt: full force, all out.
The subprime mortgage world went full tilt the last couple of years by lending to borrowers who have shown that they can’t pay their phone bill, let alone a mortgage. At the time it looked like a solid play and they became the darlings on Wall Street. Now the subprime lending world is going full tilt in the opposite direction. The risks these borrowers posed were greater than anyone could’ve possibly imagined. With loan defaults en masse, these lenders are going bust!
The problem with going full tilt is that being aggressive just can’t be sustained for long periods of time. It’s true in poker and in lending.
Top Five Fridays – March Madness, Things I don’t like
Next week, March Madness will be in full gear. 65 teams. One national champion. Filling out a bracket at the office has become a rite of spring. It’s truly one of the best sporting events in the country mainly because you feel part of the action. However, there are some things I really don’t like about March Madness and here they are:
- Duke Basketball: They’re a clean program. They have a great coach. They consistently win. I can’t stand them. Why? For all their greatness during the regular season, they don’t seem to get the calls in the post season. Hence they have busted my bracket so frequently, I refuse to pick them to win it all ever again out of spite.
- Tattoos: With their jerseys that look like eerily similar to wife beaters, basketball allows you to show off your tats unlike any other sport. But having both arms covered in tatoos is just bananas. The worst offenders have their names tattooed in olde english letters. Disclaimer: I don’t have any tattoos and have never had any desire to get one.
- Overpaid College Coaches: Is Marquette’s Tom Crean really worth $2 million? If Dwayne Wade goes elsewhere, Tom Crean never gets to the final four and never gets his payday.
- Free Throw Shooting: On the playground, basketball is the only sport where you earned your spot. There’s no getting picked. If you sank a free throw, you were on the team. In college and in the pro’s free throw shooting is atrocious. It’s not a difficult shot, it just requires practice. You’d think players would practice it more often since it’s usually is the difference between a win and a loss.
- Baggy Shorts: At what point do they stop calling them shorts? When women wear shorts that end at their calves, they’re called capris.
Got ads Part Deux
I came across a fsbo blog that discusses using technology to create a classified ad of a real estate property and post the ad to services on the internet:
The name of the service is called Postlets. Create one, post to all. Seems like a great concept. The only drawback is that it the service doesn’t auto post to craigslist; you have to do it yourself.
Got ads?
Last summer I spoke to a borrower who was having a hard time getting his house shown. He said he couldn’t understand why. His house was priced right and had a lot of upgrades. The real estate agent he chose to list his home told him that it would take time and to be patient. However, the borrower was getting impatient. I asked the borrower if he had heard of craigslist. He responded with “who’s list?” I told him that craigslist was an online classified ads service that was free and receives “a lot” of internet traffic. He was intrigued. So, I walked him through putting an ad on craigslist. Within a week, he had a couple of showings.
Craigslist has become a major weapon when selling a home. It was started by Craig Newmark (hence, Craigslist) in 1995 in San Francisco and has grown to serve most major cities over the world. Denver was up and running in 2001. The traffic craigslist receives is staggering. Currently it’s ranked in the top 50 sites. While many competitors have sprouted such as Propsmart, oodle, backpage, et. al. none come close to Craigslist’s traffic.
If you’re in the market for a new home, check out craigslist’s real estate section.
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