the20year2: If I have control what I do is usually 2% to the listing agent and then 3% + $2500 for the selling/buyer's agent
the20year2: I don't know how many foreclosed houses I've been in that were 2nd time foreclosures in a 3-5 year period where the buyer had bought a foreclosure in the hopes of doing it themselves, then never completing repairs
the20year2: for a owner occupant, they don't want to lend on a property that might have $5k in repairs, or $15k
the20year2: That's why I did the stock offering instead of just going to a local bank and asking for a loan. The bank wants to see properties in good shape with 3-6mo of cashflow before they'll lend
the20year2: Anymore , banks refuse to lend to people who want a property that needs work. From 2004-now one of the highest default categories is wanabe investors/DIYers who buy a house, screw up the rehab and cost the bank money
the20year2: Bank won't ever lend to them
Chris_Sabian_: So if a property is 30k and needs work, why cant a renter just put the 5-6k down with bank loand instead of going through you?
the20year2: It's proven that you're the sum of the people you hang around. Facebook makes it pretty easy to figure out if your renter is just a redneck, or a druggie
the20year2: Correct, and after 3-4 years, the renters are looking at up to $10k in loss from their damage
Chris_Sabian_: makes sense, $0 means the people have no incentive to make sure the property is kept up
the20year2: The quality level of people that have substantial downpayment is much higher than your $0 down types
the20year2: Correct, and you're still allowed to require them to upkeep the property or face default on the loan/rent-to-own
the20year2: So, in that scenario we clear still $100-$150 a month in income off the property, still collect appreciation if the rent-to-owner decides they don't want it anymore (Which is the most likely scenario), AND have $65k-$68k back in our pockets
the20year2: With the scenario of #4, we'd still be eligible for financing on it, which means the new rent-to-owner has paid us anywhere from $5k-$8k in a non-refundable down payment, plus monthly payments of $500-$600 per month. We still are eligible for financing it from a bank (A cashout) and could also get another $60k from the property
the20year2: Correct, however you're gonna have to see major jumps in btc prices to compete with the NAV growth
the20year2: It's a hybrid flip , it's the 'get cake and eat it too' strategy
Chris_Sabian_: but if bitcoin price > NAV property then share price should go down
the20year2: Of which, much would flow back to investors/shareholders because they're paying a down payment on the repaired value, not what we have in it
Chris_Sabian_: so the renter is renting to own?
the20year2: It'll start making more sense in a month or two once we get these properties done, and secure at least one seller financed deal
the20year2: The second option will be much better, especially if we successfully start offering seller financing on properties, as we're trying to do with property #4
the20year2: BTC price would have to exceed $2500 by mid 2014 if we levered in the next 6 months
the20year2: I agree, however it's one of those things, if we can reach a position where leverage is open, btc pricing will largely be irrelevant because we'll just be playing arbitrage on the variations in interest/property ields
Chris_Sabian_: 2014 will either make or break bitcoin. gox, regulations, tax, government interest, huge boost of awarness, it will be interesting to see
Chris_Sabian_: btc prices are low right now, i would hold off selling for $$ until the gox crap is over
the20year2: We've utilized, or have in contract about 50% of the given capital
the20year2: Hopefully we can get to, or close to full utilization of capital by the time 30 days is up
Chris_Sabian_: i'll see how the next 30 days or so go. i may throw 5 btc at rental and see what happens
the20year2: too costly to do it with traditional investors, with bitcoin the startup cost was almost nothing
Chris_Sabian_: what make you persue the bitcoin option instead of traditional investors?
Chris_Sabian_: i may pick up some then
Chris_Sabian_: for the next round?
the20year2: It does take a little while to buy & rehab properties, so the capital doesn't get utilized immediately
Chris_Sabian_: what is the share price?
Chris_Sabian_: so did you raise all of the ~$1 million?
the20year2: Really don't want to go with the overly-dramatic HGTV videos
the20year2: The video logs for properties #4 and #5 make me excited, since they're both big rehab jobs and I do believe they'll come out good. I've got part of the #4 video edited and voice-overed. My plan is to break up the voice-over version between properties so I can get feedback on what people like
the20year2: I try to keep everyone updated. The video logs and the audited finaicial reports I think will put us over the top in terms of quality of transparency
mike_c: the oracle of omaha speaks.
mike_c: One of the ironies of the stock market is the emphasis on activity. Brokers, using terms such as "marketability" and "liquidity", sing the praises of companies with high share turnover (those who cannot fill your pocket will confidently fill your ear). But investors should understand that what is good for the croupier is not good for the customer. A hyperactive stock market is the
Chris_Sabian_: The level of communication from 'Branny' is excellent. Sad to say that it is a rarity in bitcoinland
Chris_Sabian_: Is that the Rental Company in Ohio?
MisterE: they have missed so many deliveries and are being sued by a bunch of people
MAKABEakira: BingoBoingo, jush needs the money
BingoBoingo: Thanks. I've got a piece to sell, because fucking Dreamhost emailed me that the hosting's renewal is coming up soon.
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benkay: ^^ again with the absurdities.
benkay: american white-collar folk are generally sent to the hospital, where the peeing happens in a luxurious room, in private.
BingoBoingo: From stories it seems most of the enlisted drug tests now happen as an absorbent patch that collects sweat.
asciilifeform: always seems to be happening to some other fellow.
asciilifeform: this (and airport arsesearch) is more or less the only place where it is permitted.
asciilifeform: everybody gets the correct witness, it is said.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform except men can't piss in the company of womenz generally speaking
asciilifeform: i imagine the pisstest is a massive boondoggle for folks selling GC/MS gear.
asciilifeform: by tradition, one is expected to actually piss in the company of a witness
MAKABEakira: the romans had a peeconomy for realz
asciilifeform: all i can tell from my perch - somebody must be buying those false bladders and their refills.
benkay: it's the kind of hilariously fucked up situations you get under communism i guess
benkay: "did you smoke pot in the last thirty days? oop - insurance doesn't cover that. guess you're out an arm!"
benkay: the post-incident piss test.
benkay: senior management generally being reluctant to sacrifice the potsmokers, you see.
asciilifeform: a few days warning suffices for everyone save the potsmokers.
benkay: if insurance companies insist on tests actually happening, managers are discreetly dispatched to discover who the safe testing targets are.
asciilifeform: chum of mine worked at a military lab where they occasionally tested people (oddly enough, the one where i worked - never. other than enlisted men) and noted that there was usually warning.
benkay: the testing is not random, it rarely even appears that way.
benkay: gotta keep risk down on insuring those line operators, and can't sow dissent in the ranks by testing the operators and not the engineers.
asciilifeform: (of the piss)
asciilifeform: (other traditional drugs have very short half-lives)
BingoBoingo: Shit, It would be less than a 12 Km drive to asciilifeform if I wrote off the necessary distance that happens on US 40
asciilifeform: it may or may not be happening. only the 'national seekoority' bureaucrats are theoretically subject to pisstesting.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform so you live there, do you ?
gribble: (ticker [--bid|--ask|--last|--high|--low|--avg|--vol] [--currency XXX] [--market <market>|all]) -- Return pretty-printed ticker. Default market is Bitstamp. If one of the result options is given, returns only that numeric result (useful for nesting in calculations). If '--currency XXX' option is given, returns ticker for that three-letter currency code. It is up to you to make sure the (1 more message)
gribble: Bitstamp | There are currently 17296.977 bitcoins offered at or under 20000.0 USD, worth 15399449.7301 USD in total. | Data vintage: 1.6530 seconds
gribble: Bitstamp | There are currently 11017.05 bitcoins offered at or under 800.0 USD, worth 7802457.34039 USD in total. | Data vintage: 0.3021 seconds
gribble: Bitstamp | A market order to buy 800 bitcoins right now would take 525811.5155 USD and would take the last price up to 660.0000 USD, resulting in an average price of 657.2644 USD/BTC. | Data vintage: 0.0440 seconds
gribble: (buy [--long] <amount> <thing> [at|@] <priceperunit> <otherthing> [<notes>]) -- Logs a buy order for <amount> units of <thing>, at a price of <price> per unit, in units of <otherthing>. Use the optional <notes> field to put in any special notes. <price> may include an arithmetical expression, and {(mtgox|bitstamp)(ask|bid|last|high|low|avg)} to index price to mtgox ask, bid, last, high, (1 more message)
MAKABEakira: he -10'd you, if i am reading it right. he banned me from mtgox for having the temerity to suggest he might be helping a crime happen
mircea_popescu: but be that as it may : get in the wot.
BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu: Less Bitcoin's weaknesses then its necessary inefficiencies
mircea_popescu: MAKABEakira a better idea would perhaps be to re-structure the program so as to work better with bitcoin's weaknesses.
mod6: BingoBoingo: ok, will check it out then. thx.
Duffer1: never seen it either
BingoBoingo: mod6: It's definitely worth catching at least the pilot on the shady streaming site of your choice
mircea_popescu: but then users would have to "log in" which... gpg ?
mircea_popescu: that kinda killed your idea right there
dexX7: because you may need to keep in mind that there are confirmation times
mircea_popescu: do yourself a favour get in the wot today.
mircea_popescu: reasonably open to this in principle then.
BingoBoingo: MAKABEakira: See http://thewhet.net/2012/shall-be-delivered/
MAKABEakira: mircea_popescu, we are pretty visible, kinda hard to run from the romanian a-team if we burn y'all
mircea_popescu: MAKABEakira in principle it is externalisable, but in practice it's a problematic point, because if you scam the users on my trademark i'll have to kill you.
BingoBoingo: mod6: Kenny Loggins was the greater part of that though.
BingoBoingo: MAKABEakira: Well, the thing is... Audience interaction may be good for business but it is shit for art, even barely art art
mircea_popescu: it can be done, if you have the volume to justify it. otherwise, just so it exists generally, it's not gonna happen
mircea_popescu: well, consider the business caseas first and foremost. bitbet takes 1%
MAKABEakira: mircea_popescu, we wont do it if we cannot. i didn't even consider this idea till you brought up bitbet, but i like the prospects.
BingoBoingo: MAKABEakira: Well, honesly this got less interesting when you said game show. Honestly I was hoping you'd say drama, like The Blacklist, Almost Human, Archer, Chozen, or Hannibal
mircea_popescu: MAKABEakira so why can't these be week bets like in sane land ?
mircea_popescu: the total actual exposure bitbet has to bets (ie, stuff people bet that hasn't been yet resolved) is 414.9x
mircea_popescu: but anyway, since we have been doing some auditing on bitbet : the total BTC held in currently published addresses is 1778.18326295.
mircea_popescu: how the hell do you imagine an admin would get to it.
mircea_popescu: yea see the mod comment
MAKABEakira: top bet 10k BTC. whats that, only $30/day rise every day till then, to win it.
MAKABEakira: according to all my armenian friends (and in LA, you cannot not have them) they are all the direct issue of the big G himself.
joecool: oh well, i respect the mystery
joecool: mircea_popescu: i never can tell if you're serious or trolling most of the time, imma roll with it though
MAKABEakira: hmm on there now. grep deadpool section
BingoBoingo: Bitbet is the best bet
mircea_popescu: they're kickass.
MAKABEakira: mircea_popescu, i am not up to speed on bitbet. are they buy|sell|trold?
BingoBoingo: Well since the gox collapse last names with the Si* pattern of spelling are hard to track without pulling the redbook out of its safe place
mircea_popescu: what i don't love is how many people need to be hurt into comprehending that they're better off following than trying to lead.
MAKABEakira: dexX7, good catch. i love the way they float the ideas until they coalesce into precipitate. makes the fanclub think that these things 'just appear' somehow
dexX7: the plans of the sm exchange go back to at least november. a "ny based exchange" was mentioned several times during the senate hearings and i guess that's no coincidence. also a bitlicense was promoted via the press at that time.
Duffer1: i expect they'll still try to do an exchange, i have doubts about longevity of the venture though
MAKABEakira: i am sure there were some. i think it's more of PR 'not it' move
Duffer1: nobody paying attention for more than a month would have known to not have $$ there
BingoBoingo: MAKABEakira: It is a talk of some kind. Just... when you name nobodies like Barrys and Larrys, you have to mention what they are trying to do.
Duffer1: you mean are they going ahead with SMs bitcoin exchange?
mircea_popescu: ther'es a space between lossy and lousy.
BingoBoingo: MAKABEakira: How lossy depends on the person
Duffer1: i doubt the suckers he scammed have forgotten
Duffer1: When it comes to markets and finance America is the 'short bus' that is slowing down global growth.
moiety: they have a whole nude in public section! love it!
mircea_popescu: there's actually people who make it their business to organise a "photographic vacation"
BingoBoingo: So... Looks like Obama's suit budget might go bust http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/03/11/men_s_wearhouse_to_acquire_jos_a_bank_for_1_8_billion.html
MAKABEakira: and no, haven't had the plesh
mircea_popescu: it is a reasonably common name, so there's a dozen or so other people by the same name
BingoBoingo: MAKABEakira: He's not the Mircea Popescu that does pottery if that is your question
dexX7: B007: well i once paid a tiny amount and can enjoy trilema probably for lifetime. that's comfort vs. "need to reset my ip now and then"
mircea_popescu: moiety "should have known", "reasonable person standard", "duty of care" etc etc. the jurisprudence is taller than you,
moiety: mircea_popescu: how to prove a publisher knew something was illegal when they advertised it though?
MAKABEakira: no lack of content, but quality content has evolved some rather effective parasitic mimics
mircea_popescu: i mean some people are just deliberately being stupid, but in many more cases people just don't have the info, at all.
Duffer1: welcome to the club makabe
dexX7: nubbins`> the point is to make it annoying enough to make you want to spend the dollar it takes to buy credits ;p < flip the statement: it's more comfortable to buy than to leech. kinda nice approach btw.
nubbins`: couldn't give any less fucks these days
nubbins`: was nice at the time
nubbins`: i used to be with this ISP and if you connected a switch to your dsl modem, they'd give a public ip to every connected machine
B007: well one of them yes
mircea_popescu: well then you're not in target anyway.
mircea_popescu: 10 secs are, for most people in the civilised world, worth more than the respective satoshis.
nubbins`: the point is to make it annoying enough to make you want to spend the dollar it takes to buy credits ;p
mircea_popescu: B007 the point isn't really to make it impossible to get past.
dexX7: not like anyone made any effort to hide what's the website is about
dexX7: why the fuck should this be "illegal"?
BingoBoingo: moiety: Well the pirate case might touch on Thermos's responsibility as he said sure Pirate, you can start a thread, allegedly
moiety: also BingoBoingo re first comment in ponzi ad thread... theymos doesn't actually have legal responsibility in reality does he?
mircea_popescu: they have one
BingoBoingo: There was a thread in Meta, I'll dig it up
BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu: Ponzis buying ads on the forum openly is no new news.
moiety: THATS ^ what i said other day!!!
mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo well for what it's worth they seem to more or less have moved a bunch of coins in november
mircea_popescu: good, cause on re-read the first verion seemed to me to be making little sense if at all.
BingoBoingo: Well, bitcoin. It's hard to tell Buttstamp knew what an audit was, other than having had one seemed like a good thing.
mircea_popescu: these considerations sink the entire thing, either way. either way they've lied, which means they can't audit.
mircea_popescu: or else, it is in fact related, and for whatever reason the respective disreputable russian group does not wish to admit to it. so it's more like a front.
mircea_popescu: these facts allow two constructions : either firestartr is simply lying, and has no relation to badoo any more than it has to skype
mircea_popescu: whereas skype, claimed by firestartr, is obviously not theirs to claim.
BingoBoingo: Well, when ButtStamp dies this fall, I reckon people outside the WoT will largely be outside of BTC forever.
mircea_popescu: also important, that same group of russian folk run a number of other ventures, which are inexplicably absent from the firestartr claims,
mircea_popescu: specifically, their claim as to be behind badoo is immediately suspect, seeing how a) badoo is not particularly a respectable venture and b) it is run by a certain group of russian folk, well known to be disreputable.
mircea_popescu: this copy fails the form test, and more importantly makes some claims, which would seem to be false.
nubbins`: BingoBoingo: yeah, you tell him that there's no way in hell and that he's wasting his time, and he tries to argue that it's worth his time and it's totally a possibility
mircea_popescu: more importantly, the purported auditor does not substantially exist. it consists of a recently registered, domain-by-proxy website, upon which some random copy has been plastered.
mircea_popescu: so, this purported audit is in very poor form, for a myriad of reasons, such as for instance it being published by the audited entity rather than by the auditor.
dexX7: well then, why not :)
mircea_popescu: i'd like to lay the thing out so it can be followed.
nubbins`: people are all hung up on 2011 "error coins" (series-1), oblivious to the fact that the series-2 2011s are so much more rare
mircea_popescu: so, bitstamp is this bitcoin exchange. people have been havng their doubts about it for a while. bitstamp came up with this theory whereby it's been audited.
moiety: ok. i woke up. i have no idea wtf ive been thinking for the past ....months. *new leaf*
mircea_popescu: someone should tell cary it's a bad idea to CONTINUE signing in the company of such doofusry.
mircea_popescu: seeing how kraken managed to fuck up deposit addresses creating a mess worth 100s of btc, that they lied about.
mircea_popescu: anyway, that aside, i appreciate the humour of jess powell signing statements,
dexX7: so what are you saying? do you doubt that the result of the "audit" is legit and bitstamp is running a fractional reserve?
mircea_popescu: and if they list badoo, which is owned and operated by the russian... shall we not call it online fraud division, but merely refer to it as "Андрей Оганджанянц".
mircea_popescu: what the fuck parallel reality is this.
mircea_popescu: "team". whio ? they have a website which consists of... "we"
dexX7: Firestartr's team has been behind €6.7Bn in transactions over the last 20 years; a dozen trade sales and IPOs and started eight companies from scratch covering brands like Skype, Orchestream and Geneva. Our current community of ventures includes names like Rightster, Teleportd, Badoo, Pusher, Fanatix and UC4 Software.
dexX7: well, it would certainly be nice, if it were firestartr.co who hosted the file and even more, if it were gpg signed, that of course
kakobrekla: >>Kodrič also projected this process would “raise the bar” for other exchanges to follow suit.
Bunnyh: from what i can tell it looks like bitstamp isn't using any spf rules on their domain, wouldn't that block many phishing attempts?
jurov: http://www.ehackingnews.com/2014/03/bitstamp-hacked-users-are-receiving.html says they admitted it to eleuthria
dexX7: but nevertheless i think they were attacked, the number of reports of spam to bitstamp users is very, very high
dexX7: they don't have one and were audited
mircea_popescu: (this is useful for the fractional reserve business not exactly because it improves cash flow, which it does not, but much moire because it allwos it to "see into the future", as it were, ie to know ahead of time what financial resources it will need down the road)
mircea_popescu: Bunnyh unless they have a fractional reserve problem and then they do rolling window withdrawals
Bunnyh: i had only 6 BTC there so unless everyones withdraws were blocked at that time, i can't imagine it was any kind of liquidity problem
Bunnyh: first support response was the same message, even with the "Please contact support part", that was a bit funnyt
mircea_popescu: kakobrekla is that what they say when an acct is unverified ? or is it what they say when they're out of btc ?
mircea_popescu: but literally it'd be "they go looking for cunts to make fall-in", as in the military thing.
mircea_popescu: His Most Eminent Serenicy, Patrick Byrne, Messiah-CEO of the Bitcoin Realms
mircea_popescu: you gotta dash the audience
mircea_popescu: another one ?
jurov: i did not get the overstock spam, should i fear i'll be left behind by impending rapture?
gribble: The operation succeeded.
dexX7: sometimes i wonder why such experts dare to think their contribution was asked for in the first place
dexX7: The stability and longevity of the virtual currency, which exists outside of government and bank regulation, has been in question ... yeah well, tells enough
mircea_popescu: because privileged upper class british explorer people got bored playing the anthropologist
mircea_popescu: dub i thought the monkeys gave us aids
dub: they shared AIDS with us, its only fair
benkay: the20year2: your operation can't possibly file an0.
ThickAsThieves: "privilege" is in the same toolkit as "mean"
mircea_popescu: all these kids running around acting as if universal equality is somehow a fait accompli.
mircea_popescu: some people are better than others. intrinsically so. unequivocally so. what of it ?
mircea_popescu: all this aside : nobody has so far explained what the problem is with privilege in the first place.
bitcoinpete: More from another MK, Marcus instead of Lords
ozbot: Check Your History : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education
bitcoinpete: "Those in the 21st century who are most enamored of the word privilege—and often wield it as a bludgeon—make two mistakes. First, as Skwire shows us, they underestimate the complexity of power dynamics and social context. But they often take it a step further. In the name of reducing their newer, fuzzier kind of social privilege, they often advocate increases in the simple, old-fashioned, government-based variety."
mircea_popescu: lulzy : as it is downgraded to "one of the worlds leading advocacy groups for the cybercurrency," bitcoin foundation hires jim harper and some pr
mircea_popescu: and to wash the horror of all that text,
mircea_popescu: anyway, the hate re finance industry continues, http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1983.html
mircea_popescu: sence in the picture will accentuate erratic price swings unrelated to underlying business developments.
mircea_popescu: split or in anticipation of one would definitely downgrade the quality of our present shareholder group. (Could we really improve our shareholder group by trading some of our present clear-thinking members for impressionable new ones who, preferring paper to value, feel wealthier with nine $10 bills than with one $100 bill?) People who buy for non-value reasons are likely to sell for non-value reasons. Their pre
mircea_popescu: k because of the split or in a
mircea_popescu: Were we to split the stock or take other actions focusing on stock price rather than business value, we would attract an entering class of buyers inferior to the exiting class of sellers. At $1300, there are very few investors who cant afford a Berkshire share. Would a potential one-share purchaser be better off if we split 100 for 1 so he could buy 100 shares? Those who think so and who would buy the stoc
mircea_popescu: with at least several thousand public shareholders and more than $1 billion of market value, we are almost certainly the leader in the degree to which our shareholders think and act like owners. Upgrading a shareholder group that possesses these characteristics is not easy.
mircea_popescu: Investors possessing those characteristics are in a small minority, but we have an exceptional collection of them. I believe well over 90% - probably over 95% - of our shares are held by those who were shareholders of Berkshire or Blue Chip five years ago. And I would guess that over 95% of our shares are held by investors for whom the holding is at least double the size of their next largest. Among companies
mircea_popescu: Through our policies and communications - our advertisements - we try to attract investors who will understand our operations, attitudes and expectations. (And, fully as important, we try to dissuade those who wont.) We want those who think of themselves as business owners and invest in companies with the intention of staying a long time. And, we want those who keep their eyes focused on business resul
mircea_popescu: e can buy a ticket to either.
mircea_popescu: In large part, however, we feel that high quality ownership can be attracted and maintained if we consistently communicate our business and ownership philosophy - along with no other conflicting messages - and then let self selection follow its course. For example, self selection will draw a far different crowd to a musical event advertised as an opera than one advertised as a rock concert even though anyon
mircea_popescu: acceptable dress. Shareholder eugenics, therefore, might appear
mircea_popescu: in the market for Berkshire.
mircea_popescu: it is in both your interest and ours to minimize their occurrence