BG2008

WTF?

It's more that low income people are f&*cked ... again. John Oliver Coronavirus IV Haven't watched this yet. As I get older, I get more cynical and realize that people can make careers out of telling people that they are the oppressed. I wonder what these celebrities are like in person. The question is "Do the guy broadcasting to millions about structural unfairness eat caviar?"

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/10/nyregion/nyc-7pm-cheer-thank-you-coronavirus.html People clapping at 7PM in NYC

My wife tells me that her family looks forward to me cooking the 2 dinners every weekend. They are helping with the 2 kiddos. So I cook up a storm, like steaks, crab legs, fish, etc. The supply chain is tough these days. Lots of fresh seafood has gone away and we are ordering delivery as the risk of catching the virus in NYC is actually quite high. I have noticed that there are no left over anymore lately. Somehow, we finish everything that I cook.

This is true. However, the initial commentary seemed more political than anything else, and while we would all like to think tha tthe general public is thoughtful and discerning it's just not reality. I think that the last election is more than enough to prove that point. Amongst my friend group (mid 30s) this is starting to bubble up as a topic whenever conversation turns to deficits and medicare, etc. Young people are just future old people. The boomers were the free spirit revolutionaries in their times with the summer of love and the anti-war movement and all the drugs and rock and roll experimentation with the long hair and bell bottoms and all that. Now they're decried as the old ossified establishment. The wheels keep turning. People are people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Ha, this is funny and so true. The hippies are being ripped for being leeches of society. I can't wait till people make fun of millennial.

You have a valid point, but if it really gets to that level is there really nothing that can be done as a land lord? Especially in this high rise buildings, are there no options (cutting internet, for example) to at least force a conversation around ability to pay? It's one thing to not be able to pay, it's another thing to choose to not pay. So if one wants electricity or cable or internet, assuming they could be cut off unit by unit, why is a landlord obligated to provide that if the renter isn't paying rent? Dude, what state and city do you live in? You will be skinned and boiled alive for even thinking about cutting off utilities etc as a landlord in NYC.

By the way, these are amazing feedbacks and really helps to paint a better picture. I guess this is a very male dominated board. I kind of wish we had more female inputs where childcare decisions can be bought to the forefront.

Greg, Your mall comments = You're so Jersey. :) I spoke with an accounting employee and she said that "she can't get work done because the kids are home, but if they are in school, she would love to work from home."

I will start with the poll Fund Manager Finance NYC, USA Unexpected - Until I started a Keto diet, I packed on 5-10 pounds of weight every single year because working from home took away 6-10k steps each day when I used to take the subway into the city. Anyone who works from home should try reducing carbs from their diet. I do miss the water coolers and chatting with co-workers. It does get lonely sometimes and that is why we all have other investors/fund managers that we chat with regularly. I think Weight Watchers will have tremendous demand as people will put on a ton of weight being forced to stay home. On FB, many of my friends has already mentioned how they can't stop snacking.

Since there is a very robust thread on Vornado and office REITs, I think it is essential that we gauge whether the work from home trend is permanent or not. If you can also state the following, it will be very helpful if you can provide the following so that we can form some sort of data point Job title/description Industry you work in City and Country Anything expected or unexpected from being forced to work from home Thanks

Thank you

One thing that really annoys me about Buffet in the last 2-3 years is his constant preaching that stocks are not expensive if interest rates stays low. At the same time, Berkshire was building a war chest of $100bn of cash. It's one thing when Bill Ackman says that stocks are cheap with interest rate being low. It's another when it is the icon of value investing pretty much saying that paying 30x FCF is okay due to low interest rates.

Just to add the obvious, my restaurant and travel spends has gone down about 90% this year.

Just curious why electrical engineering is more of a growth industry than mechanical? I worked at a HVAC shop back in the days and we had a couple electrical guys in the office.

Mike, I would like buy you a few beers if we ever meet up. This is awesome feedback!

Kinsale Capital is an insurance company trading at 5x BV

During my 1 year stint as a HVAC engineer, I used AutoCAD to lay out HVAC, fire sprinkler, and plumbing systems that got overlayed with Architectural drawings as well as electrical drawings. It is the bread and butter of most architectural/engineering firms. That was almost 15 years ago. Wow, feels so weird typing it out loud. I know there are some engineers on this board. 1) Do you use AutoDesk products? What field? 2) What products do you use specifically? 3) Is there a substitute? How are the substitute? 4) Do you use the subscription cloud service? 5) How important is BIM features and being able to collaborate? 6) What the heck is Rivit? (Not sure if I am spelling it correctly)? 7) Is machine learning designs a big deal now? In the future? 8) Are there add ons for AutoDesk that are nice features? Must haves? Would love to hear more from this group. Thanks.

Been working from my apartment. My wife and kids have gone to stay with my in-laws and my brother-in-law is working from home. Everyone in my family is in lockdown mode and staying in. The best thing that I can do is cook 2 good meals on the weekends. My wife told me that when I am around and cooking, it takes the edge off everyone as everyone has been cooped up inside. So I try to get everyone to sit down and eat. We stocked up on food a few weeks ago, think like 30 pounds of oxtail, frozen crab legs, frozen shrimps etc. It's amazing how affordable it is to eat restaurant quality food if you can buy it from a restaurant supply store and cook it yourself. My wife has been on point with ordering online. We have switched over to ordering via Instacart and getting grocery delivered.

Everytime I think oil is cheap, it finds a way to impress me on the downside.

Oh, I'm not saying that the banks shouldn't offer flexibility, particularly for landlords and SFH owners who have a decent chunk of equity in their properties -- defer the payments and term them out, and everything will be happy on the other side. That's in the bank's interest and it's in the property owners' interest. My question is what is the bank planning to tell shareholders? If you have a commercial client who doesn't make a payment without first discussing it, what is a bank supposed to do? You throw him on the arrears list! And then what is the bank supposed to do? You are supposed to increase the provision for that particular loan. And if you get a client who can't make a payment, but at least phones you up to ask for a deferment, what are you supposed to do? Well, the bank can definitely make the deferment and term them out, but then what is it supposed to do? If there are enough cases like that, the bank is supposed to increase its provision for that portfolio of debt because it knows full well that a client requesting a deferment is indicative of a higher risk of ultimately defaulting. So, are you comfortable if a bank extends an automatic 3 month deferment to all of its commercial clients and then uses that as a reason to not take a large provision increase next quarter? It's just a little white-lie to shareholders if it's ultimately in their interest right? SJ What banks tell their shareholders is a whole different topic. That's why I decided not to own any banks after the GFC. I worked at one during 08/09 and no one knows what the heck is in the "black box". It truly is a black box back then. I generally don't like owning stuff where you have to constantly decide "is it time for me to get out? because if there's a recession, I'll get slammed." This pretty much applies to all cyclicals, banks, auto, etc. I own some RE that are cyclical. But that's my area of expertise. Very much true. Some friends in the industry said they are not allowed to invest in banks. I asked why? They said it's the CIO's preference. Banks are a black box. I don't know why people even on here are always loving BAC and WFC. Especially now that rates are 0% again, margins are going to get compressed. To be fair, the TARP warrants were pretty interesting. I always thought that if you buy banks, you need to buy an 20% OTM put the whole time for moments like this.

Oh, I'm not saying that the banks shouldn't offer flexibility, particularly for landlords and SFH owners who have a decent chunk of equity in their properties -- defer the payments and term them out, and everything will be happy on the other side. That's in the bank's interest and it's in the property owners' interest. My question is what is the bank planning to tell shareholders? If you have a commercial client who doesn't make a payment without first discussing it, what is a bank supposed to do? You throw him on the arrears list! And then what is the bank supposed to do? You are supposed to increase the provision for that particular loan. And if you get a client who can't make a payment, but at least phones you up to ask for a deferment, what are you supposed to do? Well, the bank can definitely make the deferment and term them out, but then what is it supposed to do? If there are enough cases like that, the bank is supposed to increase its provision for that portfolio of debt because it knows full well that a client requesting a deferment is indicative of a higher risk of ultimately defaulting. So, are you comfortable if a bank extends an automatic 3 month deferment to all of its commercial clients and then uses that as a reason to not take a large provision increase next quarter? It's just a little white-lie to shareholders if it's ultimately in their interest right? SJ What banks tell their shareholders is a whole different topic. That's why I decided not to own any banks after the GFC. I worked at one during 08/09 and no one knows what the heck is in the "black box". It truly is a black box back then. I generally don't like owning stuff where you have to constantly decide "is it time for me to get out? because if there's a recession, I'll get slammed." This pretty much applies to all cyclicals, banks, auto, etc. I own some RE that are cyclical. But that's my area of expertise.

I am all about the govt not getting involved. I think that applies when you have idiot individuals who take too much risk. They hand their keys back. But a pandemic that forces restaurants and contractors to stop work. That's nobody's fault (okay, maybe the govt as they could've acted sooner). Tenants/Landlords/etc did not act recklessly and they don't deserve to be punished on a mass scale here. If you are worried about communist policies in housing, welcome to New York City. The rent control and stabilization laws here are so nuts. The haves and have nots are not divided on economic earnings. It's the people who got subsidized housing and subsided everything vs those who are free market. Someone on VIC mentioned that if you make $600/week in unemployment, who's going to flip burgers. That was a very valid question. Disincentives are very powerful. There were a few Republicans who wanted to limit unemployment benefits to people's previous earnings, not the auto $600/week. I thought those guys are hero trying to stop excess waste.

The goal here is to share real world anecdotes as I have picked up a few in this thread that would paint us a good picture of the overall economy 1) NYC renters are asking for a lot of rent deferrals. I have relatives where 1/2 of their tenants have asked for rent deferrals. 2) On Instagram, famous chefs like Thomas Keller, David Chang, Jean George, etc have banded together and been very vocal about the stay in place orders and what that is doing to the restaurant business. I am very afraid that we come out of this with no mom and pop restaurants. Although, I would not own a restaurant, I do appreciate what they do and where my family and I can go and find a good meal. 3) Most banks are offering deferrals. I have heard that First Republic has offered up to 6 months deferral if you submit a statement saying how Covid 19 has affected your income. TD Bank is terrible. Chase is fairly easy to do via an online interface. Would love to hear more. 4) Hotels and retail real estate are actually losing money. All the RE investors that I talk to have mentioned that they tend to underwrite to a 20% drop in NOI for retail and maybe 50% for hotels during a recession. But they don't underwrite to a negative NOI. This is different. How long it last is very distressing. 5) I personally believe that the Fed and the government will allow for a temporary 3-6 months deferral on rent and mortgage payments across the board in the US. If they don't , the consequences are dire. Politically, it is very difficult for 80% of the homes to be foreclosed on. It is probably the same for 80% of retail and hotels to be foreclosed on. It is not any of the owners' fault that they were put in this situation. 6) Grocery and warehouses are the only two areas where they are still hiring people. My wife is a champ and has been on top of this. She bought us face mask, sanitizers, formula, etc a couple months ago and people thought we were nuts. I have done 2-3 runs to restaurant depot and Costco early on to stock up on 10 pounds of shrimps and 30 pounds of oxtail etc. You gotta eat well even during times of quarantine. My wife told me that it is about the only thing keeping everyone from tearing into each other at this moment, nice dinners on Saturday and Sunday night. We have decided to not go grocery shopping and have people bring it to us. Placing orders through Instacart is really stressful. There aren't any windows open. Within the Chinese WeChat, there are now people specializing in running errands for you for $40-$100. Frankly, we will gladly pay that. 7) A few of my high school friends have mentioned that staying home means they have been munching on food and gaining weight 8) This one is obvious, we all started using Zoom If you have stories from industries that you work in, please share. I would love to hear them.

Man, I just want Kyle Dake, David Taylor, J'Den Cox, Kyle Snyder, and Yianni to win Olympic Gold medals in 2021. All other sports, I kind of don't care.

Guys, I get the cynicism on the extend and pretend. I think the AirBnb arbitragers will get bent over and treated properly. The house flippers will likely get their due as well. But if you have good hardworking tenants. The 3 months deferral is a great solution and an unofficial way to put money in the hands of renters and landlords. Frankly, is it anyone's fault that some virus forced hardworking cooks, waiters, and construction guys to have to sit at home and not work? I don't think so. The tenants didn't do anything wrong and neither did the landlord who chose their tenants the right way. I have no idea how the banks treat this. I'm sure the Fed is giving the A-OK for the bank to push back payments. What would you prefer? Let 90% of the homes go into foreclosure and feel righteous because you saved enough and have a nice nest egg? Most of the US live paycheck-to-paycheck. We are a disciplined bunch on CoB. But we are like the 1% (in terms of discipline, curiosity, and likely smarts). The rest of the country is not as lucky and/or well off. This is a good solution. But I do hope that the arbitrager with 15 Airbnb get punished. If you want to rent out a spare apartment or room that you own, it's fine. If you have 20 SFH on Airbnb that you lease from a landlord, you deserve to be taken to the woodsheds. House flippers? Let's them go broke. But normal everyday tenants and homeowners, give them this pass.