KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Friday July 17 Housing and Economic stories

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HBO Finally Outs Lenny Dykstra As Bumbling, Sad, Delusional Trainwreck – (www.deadspin.com) It was a little more than a year ago that HBO's Bernard Goldberg naively bolstered Lenny Dykstra's reputation as a simple hustler with a golden touch who earned millions after his baseball career had ended. Oh how things have changed. Wisely, Goldberg revisits Dykstra on tonight's "Real Sports" and he's no longer awestruck by Dykstra's palatial estate or getting joyrides in a $300,000 Phantom. Nope, Goldberg's all business this time around, as he paints Dykstra as a deadbeat loser in a giant empty house on the brink of financial ruin. Philly.com has part of the transcript of their conversation where Dykstra maintains his sad, stubborn f-word filled denials about his troubles: DYKSTRA: Who? Tell me who I owe? GOLDBERG: Let's go through a few people. The printers . . . DYKSTRA: F—- the printers. The printers are criminals. GOLDBERG: The flight attendant? DYKSTRA: F—- the flight attendant . . . They all think they can come here and steal my money. Dykstra says the legal cases against him are "all bull—--." Goldberg asked Dykstra what he would say to people "who think once upon a time you were flying high and now you're broke?" Dykstra laughed and withdrew a wad of bills, which he began counting. Goldberg said, "OK, so you've got $75 in your pocket, that doesn't make you rich." To which Dykstra replied, "I never carry less than $1,000. But flying high? Looks like I'm still flying pretty f—-—- high. And by the way, I'm flying higher." So fuck the printers, fuck the flight attendant, look, I have $75 in my pocket right now to show you, tough guy? Brilliant. Hopefully this is the last public take down of Lenny Dykstra and he'll finally slunk away back into his dirty hole and deal with the issues in his own life and stop ruining other people's in the process. HBO Feature Suggest Dykstra's Empire In Trouble [Philly.com]

Jim Cramer praises Lenny Dykstra (who is a fraud) as a stock picker on HBO – (www.youtube.com) Jim Cramer called Jon Stewart "naive," but he pumped Dykstra as a stock picking genius. Looks like that's not the case.
Read this Forbes article too: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/063... Lenny Dykstra has leveraged his ballplaying fame into a second career selling investment advice. A little-known strategist may be giving a lift to his stock picks.

Reduce your California Withholding NOW! - (www.watchingmarcitz.com) Sure tax season is 10 months away but you still can protect yourself now if you live in the state of California. As you know, California is starting to issue IOUs to those that have lower priority on debt held against the state. The lowest on that totem pole are any taxpayers who are owed a refund. It is very possible that this IOU system will continue for some time, even as late as next calendar year when you are filing your 2009 taxes. Remember. April 15th 2010 is the next calendar year but it is within the current IOU-laden fiscal year for California. What does this mean for you? If you are expecting any sort of tax return there is a chance that you will, instead, receive an IOU. As a result you should seriously consider (legally) reducing the amount of tax withheld to a point where you at least wind up break-even (or even owing a little bit) when you file your taxes for 2009. If the state owes you anything do not expect to receive it in a timely fashion. Better it be in your pocket than there’s. Also remember you have paid half of your income taxes for the year so you’ll need to account for that as well. This is probably extremely critical if fear you may be unemployed in the near future. You may find yourself in a situation where you would wind up with a tax refund but not see the much needed cash in time. Please note that your situation may vary depending on your specific circumstances so you should ALWAYS contact a professional for the right strategy. I just contacted an accountant and wanted others to at least have the chance to do so as well. Forewarned is forearmed.

Closed Sacramento-area car lots look blighted - (www.sacbee.com) Abandoned buildings that once housed bustlingauto dealerships dot the Sacramento area, urban eyesores that pose huge challenges for developers and real estate brokers already struggling in the recession. More than a dozen area dealership closures since April last year have produced hundreds of job losses, millions in lost sales tax revenue and millions more in evaporated advertising dollars. Now, the stark visual evidence of an auto industry in peril remains. Some empty structures, like the huge, earth-toned Elk Grove Ford facility in the Elk Grove Automall, look to be in good shape. But it sits in a massive, empty parking lot – looking like a prop from an end-of-days disaster movie. The former Great Valley Chrysler Jeep Mazda Isuzu dealership at 2329 Fulton Avenue -closed in May 2008 – is more dilapidated. Faded window paint touts a long-ago "close out sale," and weeds have sprouted up through cracked pavement on a site encircled by a chain-link fence. Other U.S. urban areas also are dealing with blight from closed dealerships, which are likely to remain abandoned for months and years to come. Besides the dismal economy and a sagging commercial real estate market, other factors can make empty car dealerships a nightmare for developers and property brokers. Abandoned dealerships typically include multiple large buildings on oddly shaped parcels. You can't just plug a 2,000-square-foot retail store into an old 25,000-square-foot dealership, especially if the site is in an auto mall. Replacing an old dealership with a new one might have been practical five years ago. Today, with Chrysler and General Motors among those shedding dealerships, it's increasingly difficult to find a new auto-selling tenant. Because of their large size and the sizable tax revenue they generate, dealerships tend to sit on land specifically zoned for car stores. It's one thing to seek a zoning change and knock down the abandoned buildings. But most dealerships have auto-service buildings containing various automotive fluids and even underground gas tanks.

California budget cuts pound Sacramento-area economy - (www.sacbee.com) Between furloughs and layoffs, the state's budget crisis could cost Sacramento's beleaguered economy more than a half-billion dollars in the next year. As the state began issuing IOUs last week to help pay its bills, the economic impact on Sacramento became depressingly clear: State government, which normally buffers the region against the harsh reality of recession, could actually prolong the downturn. "The longer this drags on, the worse it will be for the local economy," said economist Jeff Michael, director of business forecasting at the University of the Pacific. He said state cutbacks could blunt the vitality of the economic recovery, once it starts. The effect will be most visible when "Furlough Fridays" return next week, turning pockets of Sacramento into little ghost towns as most state offices close for the day. Thousands of workers will take off three unpaid furlough days a month, all on Friday, until next June. For the past few months they've been furloughed two days but not all on Friday. "It's definitely going to affect us," said Sam England, co-owner of Dad's sandwich shop on S Street. "We won't have that additional person in here, running the register. We'll gear down accordingly." The impact will go beyond the restaurants and stores clustered around state offices in midtown and downtown Sacramento. The whole region, already suffering with 11.1 percent unemployment, will feel it – including those who don't work for the state. Charlene Singley, president of the Sacramento Association of Realtors, said the troubling headlines will make some prospective homebuyers think twice, even if their salaries are untouched. "I do think it's going to affect buyers' confidence as far as making a big purchase," she said. "Any time you see anything major in the newspaper, it affects your confidence."

Foreclosure is a problem for celebrities too - (www.msnbc.msn.com) Wyclef Jean, hip-hop producer and former member of the Fugees, reportedly settled his debts before losing his $2.4 million Miami home. It seems like just yesterday — excess was in and celebrities lived it up, buying lavish cars, expensive toys and over-the-top homes. Now, they're losing it like everyone else. Victoria Gotti, daughter of deceased Gambino family crime boss John Gotti, let audiences into her lavish $4.2 million Long Island estate for her reality TV show, Growing Up Gotti. But now, the mafia princess turned New York Post columnist is behind by $650,000 on her mortgage and will likely lose her home. Part of the problem for some celebrities is that they were allowed to borrow huge amounts of money because of their sizable paychecks during boom times. But Hollywood is fickle, and now some VIPs are struggling with smaller income streams and mortgages worth more than what their homes are currently worth. Some of them could still manage payments but quit paying because they didn't see enough upside. Former baseball slugger Jose Conseco admitted to simply walking away from his $2.5 million, 7,300-square-foot pad because its value is falling but his mortgage payment isn't. "It didn't make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else," the steroid snitch and reality TV star said last May when he announced plans to quit his mortgage contract. But even foreclosure is different for celebrities. "My situation was a little more different than most," said Conseco. "I decided to just let it go, but in most cases and most families, they have nowhere else to go." It's a hard-knock life for Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash. After getting slapped with a foreclosure notice last year — Dash couldn't make his $78,500 monthly mortgage payment on two lower Manhattan condominiums that he bought for $7.3 million — his fashion designer wife Rachel Roy filed for divorce in March. Faced with hundreds of millions in debt, Michael Jackson needed a helping hand to hold onto his Disney-themed Neverland Ranch. After decades of wild spending sprees and a declining career, he narrowly escaped foreclosure on his $25 million Santa Barbara estate in March by taking a loan from Los Angeles-based private-equity outfit Colony Capital. The singer passed away last week.

Hotel Loan Defaults Double as Recession Cuts Travel - (www.bloomberg.com) As many as one in five U.S. hotel loans may default through 2010 as the recession means companies are spending less on travel and perks, according to University of California economist Kenneth Rosen. The value of hotel properties in default or foreclosure almost doubled to $17.3 billion in the second quarter through June 24 from $9 billion at the end of the first quarter, data compiled by Real Capital Analytics Inc. show. The New York-based research firm, which began tracking distressed commercial property in November, expects hotel defaults to increase by as much as $2 billion this quarter, said analyst Jessica Ruderman. “Hotels without question will have the highest foreclosure rate of any commercial real estate sector,” said Rosen, who runs a real estate hedge fund with $310 million in assets and is chairman of the University of California’s Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics in Berkeley. Hotel owners are defaulting as room rates and property values tumble and the securitized mortgage market that fueled an 88 percent gain in U.S. commercial prices from 2001 to late 2008 is dormant. Luxury hotel revenue fell 28 percent in April from a year earlier and has dropped for 12 straight months, according to Smith Travel Research Inc. in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The 29 percent decline in March was the biggest since October 2001. A third of the $8.6 billion in securities backed by hotel loans due in 2010 are at risk of defaulting, data compiled by credit-rating firm Realpoint LLC in Horsham, Pennsylvania, show. ‘High Risk’: “Rates, revenue and cash flow levels across the hotel industry are projected to continue to decline,” said Frank Innaurato, managing director of CMBS analytical services at Realpoint. “If those projections stay true, a lot of these hotel loans that are scheduled to mature are at high risk of defaulting.” Barclays Capital downgraded hotel stocks today to a negative rating because of increasing foreclosures and potential bankruptcies. The outlook is “extremely bearish” with more deterioration to come, New York-based lodging analysts led by Felicia Hendrix said in a note to investors.