Best Regards,
Jim

congrats!! thanks for the forum!!! a friend turned me onto this site almost 2 yrs ago. i was trynig to get him to move back out here and buy a house. he told me “no way” and went so far as to recomend i sell mine. of course, i thought he was nuts. i did, however begin to TRULY follow the market due to this site.

Since then, I have given many clients of mine some very sound advice regarding the housing market here. and of course, none of them listened so it didn’t help much. they now , however, think i’m brilliant (sadly enough though, it’s too late to save a few of them). i simply tell them to start getting their info from places other than CNN and the likes.

because of this forum (and others like it) my wife and i NEVER touched the HELOC (that we didn’t even ask for when we refied)of 65K. Our house went WAY up and then WAY down. whatever it’s worth, i’ve learned that it is our family’s HOME and from that lesson i no longer care what it’s worth….just that it is the place i will raise my family for a long time.

ps: Chase closed our HELOC three weeks ago (as they are doing to many) and we don’t care.

I am indeed honored- particularly given the price of Postum these days!

Happy Birthday Twist! Did you get the flowers I sent?

Ah, the memories…. first, the blog starts and almost everyone is still in denial. John helps out, and is constantly insulted by someone who keeps saying, ‘there is no credit crunch, there will be no Fed problem – they know too much, and they’re too practiced… and of course, Igor was just a babe.
Thanks for the site, and being focused on Arizona… I still love the state, although I hate what it has become.
I toast you, the Mr. and the kids… with Postum.
Hail, all Twists!

Asset Hunter-

I’m afraid with the cold I’ve picked up, I couldn’t manage both at once. Maybe next year. : )

Hope you got all the candles blown out in one try!

I have truly enjoyed the wealth of information on the sidebar and the constant informative and fun comments of visitors…

Keep up the good work!

What a sea-change in two years though! A couple of years ago you were shouting into the wind about RE values. Now the view that RE is busting is widespread. Even realtors are unable to live in denial that \”real estate always goes up\” any longer.

It\’s always interesting watching the general public go through the cognitive dissonance as harsh reality confronts their belief systems.

For this reason I believe this election year will prove to be fascinating for the cognitive-dissonance crowd

Two years latter, and Doom in the housing market becomes more surreal by the day. Thanks for your marvelous insight and staying power

Who would have thought that our old friends the home equity locusts would by now have migrated all over the world; would even have spiked the guns in the Persian Gulf? — for it is only the extreme price for commodities, especially crude oil, that has stopped war with Iran from breaking out.

The housing cycle also rises, but in the meanwhile it will be important to watch the effects as all those dodgy Mortgage Based Securities pass through the system. The next danger looks to be America’s universities and colleges. Not only is a crisis brewing in financing student loans for next September, now governments at all levels in the US are planning to strip the wealth out of endowments at places like Harvard and MIT.

That and many more issues. If ’007 was the Year of the Bond, ’08 is proving to be a Presidential Election year to remember.