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So, yesterday was my solar anniversary of my exit from my mother's womb. It wasn't a bad day, and I've had a few less than stellar birthdays.
The first call was from my dad. This was surprising, because his memory is so bad that its always a crap shoot if he'll remember or not. I also heard from both of my sibs, my step-mom, and several friends.
I spent the day sitting around the house, taking it easy, and listening to the latest issue of Asimov's science fiction magazine. It was a quiet but calm day, except for constantly tripping over Napoleon because he seemed to want to lay everywhere but out of the way. But he handles being tripped over rather well, so it's no big.
My third roommate, Dr. Kim, (He just got his PhD from UNT in choral conducting) left yesterday to go home. He was a good roommate, quiet and easygoing and always one to cook or clean when he saw something that needed to get done, and I bet his wife and kid in South Korea are really happy to see him again. So we're looking to fill an empty space in the house again.
In talking with my little brother I got a clearer picture of the economic picture. He's a realtor and a board member for the Dallas Margarita Society, so he is in close contact with two very strong economic indicators, home sales and charity donations. He said their charity budget was literally less than half what it was last year. This isn't good news -- the Dallas Margarita Society hosts the single largest fundraising event in the world each fall. (Last year they had over thirteen thousand people at it. Guiness shows up each year to get a count because it keeps increasing and it's in their record book)
The other thing he told me is that the GDRA (Greater Dallas Realtors' Association) saw a drop of one third in their total memberships this last january. One third of the real estate agents from last year are now doing something else. That's a substantial drop, and it says a lot. The DFW area didn't have a drop in housing values with this recent real estate devaluation, because we were already at a reasonable value. But getting financing is still extremely hard around here, and people are reluctant to buy something as expensive as a house when they're looking at possible hard times. I think this is actually pretty silly. Most people don't look outside their local area for work, so being tied down to a mortgage isn't that bad an anchor, and you have to live somewhere, so why not build equity instead of helping some other bloke build his or hers? Though I don't classify a personal home as an asset but instead see it as a liability, any living arrangement is a liability, and a personal home you own with the bank is at least something of a forced savings account where you're still building up some equity. (In investor terms, an asset is something that puts money in your pocket every month, like rental property, business investments, paper assets, and Intellectual Property, but not like a personal home, coins and precious metals, or buying up antique furniture)
My brother is lucky that he did so much work for investors in other states who now have him managing their properties -- he manages 39 properties and an office building for them. (Thanks to our properly valued market all this time, this area has been a stellar investment opportunity)
My dad is coming up, possibly with my stepless-mom, to take me to lunch today for my birthday, but that's about the limit of the celebration. (though the neighbors did say something about homemade vanilla ice cream and blueberry cobbler) But that's enough for now. I'm so busy working on school and the album that I don't have time for much other celebration. My birthday celebrations always tend to be rather low key -- I've never had any of the classic celebrations like a surprise party or a romantic birthday dinner or that kind of stuff. It's usually just dinner with family or a trip to a favorite restaurant.
The first call was from my dad. This was surprising, because his memory is so bad that its always a crap shoot if he'll remember or not. I also heard from both of my sibs, my step-mom, and several friends.
I spent the day sitting around the house, taking it easy, and listening to the latest issue of Asimov's science fiction magazine. It was a quiet but calm day, except for constantly tripping over Napoleon because he seemed to want to lay everywhere but out of the way. But he handles being tripped over rather well, so it's no big.
My third roommate, Dr. Kim, (He just got his PhD from UNT in choral conducting) left yesterday to go home. He was a good roommate, quiet and easygoing and always one to cook or clean when he saw something that needed to get done, and I bet his wife and kid in South Korea are really happy to see him again. So we're looking to fill an empty space in the house again.
In talking with my little brother I got a clearer picture of the economic picture. He's a realtor and a board member for the Dallas Margarita Society, so he is in close contact with two very strong economic indicators, home sales and charity donations. He said their charity budget was literally less than half what it was last year. This isn't good news -- the Dallas Margarita Society hosts the single largest fundraising event in the world each fall. (Last year they had over thirteen thousand people at it. Guiness shows up each year to get a count because it keeps increasing and it's in their record book)
The other thing he told me is that the GDRA (Greater Dallas Realtors' Association) saw a drop of one third in their total memberships this last january. One third of the real estate agents from last year are now doing something else. That's a substantial drop, and it says a lot. The DFW area didn't have a drop in housing values with this recent real estate devaluation, because we were already at a reasonable value. But getting financing is still extremely hard around here, and people are reluctant to buy something as expensive as a house when they're looking at possible hard times. I think this is actually pretty silly. Most people don't look outside their local area for work, so being tied down to a mortgage isn't that bad an anchor, and you have to live somewhere, so why not build equity instead of helping some other bloke build his or hers? Though I don't classify a personal home as an asset but instead see it as a liability, any living arrangement is a liability, and a personal home you own with the bank is at least something of a forced savings account where you're still building up some equity. (In investor terms, an asset is something that puts money in your pocket every month, like rental property, business investments, paper assets, and Intellectual Property, but not like a personal home, coins and precious metals, or buying up antique furniture)
My brother is lucky that he did so much work for investors in other states who now have him managing their properties -- he manages 39 properties and an office building for them. (Thanks to our properly valued market all this time, this area has been a stellar investment opportunity)
My dad is coming up, possibly with my stepless-mom, to take me to lunch today for my birthday, but that's about the limit of the celebration. (though the neighbors did say something about homemade vanilla ice cream and blueberry cobbler) But that's enough for now. I'm so busy working on school and the album that I don't have time for much other celebration. My birthday celebrations always tend to be rather low key -- I've never had any of the classic celebrations like a surprise party or a romantic birthday dinner or that kind of stuff. It's usually just dinner with family or a trip to a favorite restaurant.
