Money & Investing | Asian American Poll

MONEY & INVESTING
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:11:59 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

Who handles the household checkbook in your family?
The Wife | 74%
The Husband | 26%

Which of the following ethnic groups attaches the most importance to making money?
Chinese Americans | 51%
Vietnamese Americans | 14%
Japanese Americans | 1%
Corean Americans | 30%
Filipino Americans | 4%

Which of the following do you consider to be your most important investment method currently?
Buy/Upgrade Own Home | 39%
Other real estate | 4%
Stocks/Options/Futures | 31%
Mutual Funds | 10%
Bank Deposits | 16%

This poll is closed to new input.
Comments posted during the past year remain available for browsing.

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WHAT YOU SAY

[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]

Optimist-

Investing in equity securities is going to be tougher than normal because, even though you may pick a good company, that has sound financials, fundamental business model, so on an so forth, a bad market will bring all stocks down just a like a rising tide carrys all dead boats. The stratagies that I would suggest in investing in today's market, is be on the defensive meaning, picks stocks that aren't susceptible or rely their business on one source of income. Use hedge funds - these are investment companies that day trade stocks which includes buying and shorting stocks on a daily, weekly, or monthly durations.

LA Korean guy - I do day trade for a living
Optimist Thursday, July 04, 2002 at 20:15:05 (PDT)

AC Dropout

I can touchtype with my eyes closed because I'm a writer by training, if not by trade (can't feed the furballs on manuscript paper, need green paper with dead men's faces on it). To type the bible out, I'd have to keep my eyes open and follow the words as my fingers are doing its work on the keys (too much work, brother). To write from my mind's eye, I simply close my eyelids and enjoy the live action that's going on in my head, and my fingers do all the work describing what I see, with very little effort on my part.

I didn't know TKD gave out frayed dark grey belts. Maybe it's just ancient and ready for the Goodwill bin, and you just need to replace it with a new one. My suggestion is the newest in fashionable colors of hot pink, key lime green, or leopard skin with gold highlights. Balsa wood? Is that the stuff they pack into wine bottle necks? I have a pair of platform shoes with cork as the wedge part; it's really light weight and if I run my nails across the surface, I can easily scratch it. But I'll take your word for it that you can break my sandals (whooptee doo!). Actually, so can I. The leather strap broke just recently because I was rough-housing with my dogs outside.

No, not that padded pink room (champaign glass? how do you get in if the stem of the glass is going to elevate the cup so far above the ground?) Mirror on the ceiling? is it to reflect light so the room will be brighter? Who would need to see anything on the ceiling unless they were lying on the floor and looking up...ohhhhh I get it...(sexual miscreant, you!)

Who, me? Into sports? Well...I'll watch it if I'm roped into it and there's nothing better for me to do or if tickets to a football game are provided free of charge. My favorite sport is curling.

...my hair, that is.
MLK Thursday, July 04, 2002 at 12:25:51 (PDT)

To: AC Dropout

I used to pull credit checks in the beginning, but that was a real hassle and cause too many delays. When the market was tough – high vacancies like in the early 90’s, good tenants were snapped up really quickly. We’re in that phase again now. Employment checks are a lot quicker, and I can usually get back to the prospect the same day for a committal.

Repost Wednesday, July 03, 2002 at 19:59:33 (PDT)

To: MLK

There’s nothing wrong with a Miata. It handles very well and there’s nothing like a convertible in a warm Summer’s night. It’s just that when you write the way you did about the old bag lady stuff, you sounded more like you drive a Camry.

About the lawyer bit… I’m not sure if I should take it as a compliment. ;) Thanks anyway. I used to be a licensed real estate broker in this state, and had a license for 8 years. But I’ve since let it expire a year ago. Most of my dealings were with multiple unit residential income properties in the East Bay, and I got the broker’s license so I can get the “inside scoop” such as access to the MLS. Time has taught me that the MLS is where real estate agents place properties they can’t sell – usually because the listing agent did a bad job setting seller’s expectations and the seller wants too much. When an agent tells you a property is a “great deal,” remember to ask one question: how long has it been on the market? 60 days? 90 days? Give me a break. If it’s that good of a deal, it’ll be gone before it goes on the public market.

That’s why you want to be a pocket buyer. You basically get the first dibs on the property before anyone else gets to know about it, and it’s usually listed by your agent or an agent in the same brokerage office. The commission of a typical deal is 5-6%. The brokerage office would love to double end the deal, even if the listing and buyer’s agents are not the same person, so they often give incentives to keep deals in-house. By the time the listing is shown to another brokerage office, the pocket buyers of all the agents in the listing office have already passed on the property. And by the time the property is on the MLS, that means all the agent’s close contacts inside and outside the brokerage office have already turned it down.

What’s very important is valuation. Agents will show you all the listings with asking prices, but hey, MLK, do you want to buy my duplex for $2mil? I’ll discount that by 50% and sell it to you for $1mil. How’s that for a great deal? You’ll never know if it’s a great deal until you get the comparable sales figures a.k.a. “comps.” Comps are properties sold in the vicinity that are about the same size, condition, etc. And when you ask for comps, agents will show you high comps to set your expectations to pay more. Likewise, when they show a seller comps, they’ll show low comps to set their expectations to sell low. You get the idea.

MLS has sales figures, but it’s only a subset. It doesn’t have sales figures for properties not listed in the MLS to begin with, and anything sold in the MLS is generally sold at around market price. You don’t want market price. You want below market price, right? If you have a chance, ask the agent to let you personally access their Metroscan. That’s a monthly CD subscription of property data on a county-by-county basis with search functions. The data comes straight from the county Recorder’s office – in your case, the Santa Clara County. You can get the same information from the Recorder office, but it’s much easier to search from Metroscan. Pick a few pockets you feel comfortable with. Then go through Metroscan and drive by some properties to see what they look like, even it they are not on the market. You’re familiarizing yourself with the pockets by doing this. There’s no reason for a good brokerage office not to have Metroscan. I may be off in the price, but last I recall it’s about $100 per month per county.

Here’s a really dirty trick I learned in the income property side, and I don’t see it practiced in the residential side. Back a few years ago, I represented a college buddy of mine in acquiring a 4-plex. Needless to say, it was an in-house listing. The listing price was $529k, and the appraised value was $454k. How much did I get it down for him? $355k. How did I do it? The property had quite a bit of termite damage. We used an inflated termite report of $125k by a very expensive termite inspector to drive down the value. The termite report basically “tainted” the property. Any termite inspectors performing a subsequent inspection will not likely deviate very much from this value. After my friend bought it, he got much cheaper labor to fix the damage for about $30k. Therefore, he walked into about $60k of equity. Today, he gets offers of $900k+. He lives in one unit and gets a positive cash flow of over $2k per month. Honestly, I wanted the property for myself, but since I would have gotten kicked out of my major back in college if it weren’t for him helping me out, I thought that was a good gesture on my part to repay what he did for me. He was one of my pocket buyers. That’s why you want to be a pocket buyer.

If you have a specific property in mind, feel free to ping me.

Repost Wednesday, July 03, 2002 at 19:59:18 (PDT)

SOG,
i know the rules to investing. It one thing to know, it is another to follow. Individual stock investing is not everyone. And options—forgot it unless you actually know bs model. Even than I would not recommend it.

Repost,
Tenants are very important. It is a big pain to kick one out and they can damage the place very badly. Tenants have a lot power in nyc and can stall for months to years.

1/2LostSoul Wednesday, July 03, 2002 at 12:10:48 (PDT)

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