Ah, the good old days of easy money

40 Mohawk Lane

I see that 40 Mohawk Lane, 4 ares on the Merritt with a tear down, is back on the market after having been lost y its former owner to strict foreclosure. Looks like the new owner paid the foreclosing entity $900,000 for it back in August and is now asking $1.195 (which makes me think that both parties are corporately linked). I think it’s exceedingly unlikely they’ll even see $900,000, but I was struck, once again, how loose the loans were back in the day: in this case, 2006, when Washington Mutual gave the owner two loans, one for $1.785 million, the other for $490,000, on the same day. That’s bad enough, considering the land was never worth even half that, but look who they loaned it to, an Iranian named Bezahd Farahani.

Here’s part of his bio (I can’t copy it, but it’s worth clicking through to get the full flavor) – my question is, why isn’t someone in jail for this? And I don’t mean the “self-taught astro-physicist, artist, computer programmer and professionally certified, world-class chef” Mr. Farahani.

A couple of sales reported

163 Clapboard Ridge Road

163 Clapboard Ridge Road, $2,379 million, on an ask of $3.350. Perhaps the listing broker (Ogilvy) used Zillow to set that price because their “Zestimate” is $3,296, 675. Owners paid $1.778 for it in 1992, so I suspect all the renovation they did to it in 2012 turned out to be a gift to the buyers.

If you like this style, and I do, I think the buyers got a great deal.

11 Stoney Ridge Lane

11 Stoney Ridge Lane, Riverside, sold for $2.145 million, after selling for $2.2 in 2011.

It not only CAN happen here, it IS happening here

Missouri campus police interact students to report all “hurtful” conduct and speech.

The Missouri University Police Department (MUPD) sent an email to students Tuesday morning urging them to call them and report any hurtful speech they encounter on the campus.

In an email that was flagged by several Missouri-based journalists, the MUPD asked “individuals who witness incidents of hateful and/or hurtful speech or actions” to call the department’s general phone line “to continue to ensure that the University of Missouri campus remains safe.” They suggest that students provide a detailed description of the offender, their location or license plate number, and even to take a picture if possible.

 As agents of the state, the campus police are the same as state police, in terms of state action. The awful thng about this story is that the students apparently see nothing wrong. A rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem.

I used to take pride in eliciting hisses from my college and law school classmates – now, I’d be greeted at the classroom steps by armed goons.

And Lyon Farm is looking more and more obsolete itself

612 W. Lyon Farm

612 W. Lyon Farm listed at $1.695 million, sold for $990,000. Owner paid $745,000 in 1990. Zillow says it’s worth $1.3, so gee, someone got a real bargain here (snark).

The 1930 era is passing, slowly

16 Old Mill Road

In 2002, 16 Old Mill Road was put up for sale at $6.495 million and sold immediately in a bidding war for $6.8. The “winner” of that war completed renovated it to the tune of millions of dollars and placed it back on the market last spring, asking $17.350. Today it was reduced to $15.250 million. That’s still a huge amount of money, of course, but it also hasn’t sold. Whatever it finally fetches, t almost certainly won’t be the subject of a bidding war.

MSU fired its president, shouldn’t this woman be next?

Melissa Click, future major media star

MSA professor of media throws student reporter off campus

The continuing tensions at the University of Missouri sparked a debate about media freedom on Monday afternoon as a group of students tried to block a student reporter from taking pictures of and filming a tent city that was part of an on-campus protest.

At one point near the end of the video, a woman later identified by The New York Times as Melissa Click, an assistant professor of mass media at the university, tries to grab the video camera from Mark Schierbecker, who was recording the interaction between the students and reporter Tim Tai.

Click then calls for some “muscle” to “get this reporter out of here.”

 

 

The trouble with housing bubbles is that sooner or later, you run out of people with money

Basic economics: as San Francisco prices soar, demand slows.

As Herbert Stein liked to say, “when something can’t continue, it won’t.”