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enoch01

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Posts posted by enoch01

  1. My relatives just bought a place at one-third the price of what it last sold for in 2006.

     

    In certain places in Florida an all-cash buyer can earn around 12-14% annual yields right now.  That is after taxes, insurance, and association fees.  Completely free option on future appreciation.  If only I knew how to be a landlord, and had the time - oh, and the cash!

     

    How are you calculating that 12-14% yield?   It sounds like you may be assuming $0 for  vacancy loss, management expenses, and maintenance costs.   After 15 years in the rental business I can tell you that 1 bad tenant can wreck your numbers in a hurry!

     

    I'm sure you are correct!  I was excluding everything except taxes, insurance, and homeowner's association fees (which can include quite a bit of outside maintenance in many Florida communities).  Vacancy loss and management expenses are excluded.  So I'm curious, as a 15 year veteran: where's your business (just general geography), and what do you think of the market in your area at the moment?

  2. sorry to be overly simplistic - wont rents just come down though as landlords fight for tenants?

     

    Perhaps not as much as you think, though I'm no expert.  It depends on how much extra supply was built during the boom, which is not necessarily correlated with the prices that homes were selling at during the boom.  I don't know of a great way of figuring out the magnitude of this dislocation.

     

    A few years ago people were willing to receive too small a yield based on irrational exuberance, now they are passing up much higher yields based on, maybe, irrational fear.  Throughout the boom and bust there was some rental rate that landlords could demand, but these same landlords (or hypothetical landlords who simply purchased and lived in it themselves) changed their attitudes about what kind of yield they wanted.  Price action of the asset simply took over.  Construction certainly trended in the same direction as prices, but they didn't move in lockstep, and certainly not in all markets.

  3. I second (or third now?) nodnub's motion.

     

    I've got to agree here, too.  Knowing that you can delete a thread rewards bad behaviour.  It's a free option on opinions.  You can say any insane thing and then if it doesn't work out or you look like a fool, just remove the thread and voila your record is just as good as it was.

     

    Plus, as S2S points out, there's a handy dose of survivorship bias here.

     

    Agreed!

     

    Parsad,

     

    Would you consider a policy change here?  I was getting a helpful education on the MTR Gaming thread, and am sorry to see it has all disappeared.  Thanks to Harry and given2invest for that exchange, by the way.

  4. That's my observation as well (I'm in Florida).  It seems like a good opportunity to me.

     

    If any board members are interested, I'd be happy to occasionally check in on their place from time to time as long as it's a short drive!   ;D

     

    Is there a difference in markets within Florida? Say Miami-Dade vs something like Naples area? Are there areas with more potential than the others?

     

    I'm not sure, to be honest.  I'm in the Tampa area, and I am seeing those after-fee, after-tax, after-insurance, 12%-14% yield deals around me.  I think the sweet spots are areas that were not relying so heavily on construction to fuel the local economy.  Such areas could still support higher rents relative to housing price since the job market wouldn't have cratered as hard as the housing market.  Anecdotally, I understand the Naples area had a higher concentration of its economy involved in the construction market than other areas of Florida, so I would be hesitant there.  Miami, Orlando - I couldn't offer much of an opinion.

     

    That being said, I'm sure shrewd (and maybe not-so-shrewd!) investors could find deals all over this state.

  5. HomePath houses are available to investors w/ only 10% down and you can always hire management companies to do just about everything, from screen tenants to collect rents to evictions (if need be).

     

    That's true.  But I have enough leverage with my own mortgage - not very interested in taking on more, especially for something that's out of my circle.  Hiring somebody else adds another layer, reduces returns, and adds uncertainty.  Although, admittedly, I haven't looked very hard to see what those costs are.

     

    Where I live (Southeast) there are opportunities to buy houses for $60K and rent them for $1,000 per month.  The returns on something like this are very solid under normal circumstances, BUT if you think inflation is on the horizon then the returns only get better.   

     

    That's my observation as well (I'm in Florida).  It seems like a good opportunity to me.

     

    If any board members are interested, I'd be happy to occasionally check in on their place from time to time as long as it's a short drive!  ;D

  6. My relatives just bought a place at one-third the price of what it last sold for in 2006.

     

    In certain places in Florida an all-cash buyer can earn around 12-14% annual yields right now.  That is after taxes, insurance, and association fees.  Completely free option on future appreciation.  If only I knew how to be a landlord, and had the time - oh, and the cash!

  7. MSFT then, and now.

     

         Five years ago this month, David Einhorn (Greenlight Capital) presented his case for MSFT at the Ira W. Sohn Investment Research Conference for charity.   A link to his speech can be found here.  His case was based mostly on relative value.  His argument was that MSFT “is simply the best company built in the last 30 years” and with its growth potential, it should not be trading at a multiple lower than Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Colgate, Adobe, or RIMM.  He also argued that the market was assigning zero value to the 15% of revenue in R&D spent each year. 

     

    I thought it would be interesting to take a snapshot of MSFT five years ago vs. today, here are the results:

     

                                    LTM                         LTM

                                    March 2006              March 2011             % Change

                                    ---------------           ----------------           ------------

    Revenue (bil)                     43                         69                         +60%

    EBIT   (bil)                         17                         28                         +65%

    EBIT Margin                     39%                      40%                 

    Avg Shares (bil)            10,578                     8,562                        -19%

    EPS                               $ 1.26                      2.52                      +100%

    Dividend                         $  .42                        .61                       +45%

    R&D  (bil)                        6,387                    9,000                       +41%

    Share price                    $23.00                  $25.82                       +12%

    Net Cash/share               $ 3.17                   $ 4.15                   

    Price less net cash          $19.83                  $21.66                        + 9%

    P/E adj. for net cash           16X                         9X     

     

           Einhorn believed it was a sure thing that MSFT would grow earnings, and he was right on that part.  The stock price, however, hasn’t even come close to keeping up with earnings growth.     

     

     

    Thanks for that update.  I finally had to capitulate and buy earlier this week.  30% profit margins, growing revenues, selling at 9X trailing - incredible.  Never thought we'd be saying that about Microsoft.  Honestly I thought I'd never own this company...

  8. In the last 96 years, 14% of the years have had a negative CPI and 86% had a positive CPI. Of the 14%, about 90% was in 5 years of the Great Depression. The story of the past - and of the future is inflation. A deflation hedge, in my opinion, is a waste of time and money.

     

    I think this is a widely held belief, and it is growing in breadth and depth.  Consequently, cash has been building in my port for the past couple of months.  It seems very few people want cash right now.

  9.  

    A businesses numbers has to have that make sense, and management should act rationally if their business is trading at a crazy price (where were the huge buybacks with all that supposed cash they were making?).  You can't blame this one on the auditor... the numbers didn't make any sense, and it was all over the internet for any to see that was the case.... why do insanely profitable companies go public via reverse mergers (a regulatory dodge) to sell themselves to retail US investors????

     

    ANSWER: They don't... frauds do.

     

    Ben

     

    Correct.  Fantastic point Ben.

  10. Not often you see a company down almost 5% on takeover talks...what a roller coaster!

     

    So is anybody interested at this price?  I haven't looked at it, don't have an idea of the value, but there's potential catalysts here.

  11. How much is there? How would you go about answering this question?

     

    (I know this is an odd thought exercise, but I think that an explanation of an answer may be quite interesting)

     

    Nice thought exercise to burn the holiday calories...

     

    Theoretically, "money" is an agreed-upon medium of exchange.  As such, I would say there is an amount equal to all current plus expected output of human endeavors.

     

    If we talk about the specific bits of media (paper, gold, silver, rice, goats, etc), then I haven't the foggiest idea  :)

     

     

  12. Looking for another net-net?  How about Peerless Systems (PRLS)?  It's a former printing technology company that is phasing out of that and looking to deploy capital in more favorable environments.  They had bought a decent-sized stake in Highbury Financial, and recently helped force a sale of Highbury to Affiliated Managers Group.  As a result of all that, PRLS is now trading at less than cash value.  The management doesn't seem intent on burning cash like we tend to see with other technology companies that happen to trade so cheaply - they are walking away from their printing technology operations.

     

    Granted, it's not trading way below cash value, but still...

     

    Just following up on this one.  Peerless has decided to offer $3.25 for anyone who'd like to tender their shares.

     

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Peerless-Systems-Corporation-prnews-1871047385.html?x=0&.v=1

  13. Looking for another net-net?  How about Peerless Systems (PRLS)?  It's a former printing technology company that is phasing out of that and looking to deploy capital in more favorable environments.  They had bought a decent-sized stake in Highbury Financial, and recently helped force a sale of Highbury to Affiliated Managers Group.  As a result of all that, PRLS is now trading at less than cash value.  The management doesn't seem intent on burning cash like we tend to see with other technology companies that happen to trade so cheaply - they are walking away from their printing technology operations.

     

    Granted, it's not trading way below cash value, but still...

  14. What I do is make sure 25-50% of my portfolio is long in special situations -- (liquidations mostly whose performance is independent of the market).  In 2008 I had maybe 40-50% of my portfolio in FTAR, ECRO, MAIR (all liquidations in some form) plus BUD (which I added to in October when its arb spread blew out).  While the general portion of my portfolio did about as well as the S&P, my special situation portion outperformed and allowed my total portfolio returns to stay positive.

     

     

    wabuffo,

    Do you use any particular methods to find liquidations?  Do you just check the SEC for form 25 registrations and go from there, or something else?

    Thanks,

    E

     

  15. I live in the Tampa, FL area.  FWIW, within the past couple of months I have seen one or two unoccupied commercial buildings (stand-alone restaurant size) with signs announcing a new tenant with a huge banner saying "We Buy Gold!".

     

    A while ago I started a thread about the best option for purchasing gold.  I haven't taken a position, but reading the anecdotal evidence I'm wondering if now is the time to sell instead.

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