CDC National Health Interview Survey Has Some Interesting Data

For example, it found that adults in wireless-only households were more likely than adults in households with landlines to report binge-drinking, smoking, uncovered health insurance, and limited access to health care.

Shocking! How many "adults" do you know who don't have a landline phone? Its a youtube generation thing folks, or at least a more youthful one. My guess is that if we controlled this study for age distribution, we would conclude that:

"younger people are more likely to use cell phones in favor of having a landline phone"

As opposed to:

"people in households with no landline tend to be binge-drinkers"

No knock against the youthful cell phone sector here - my mother is brilliant, but teaching her to use a computer was maddening because she learned how to type on a typewriter. Word Processing felt weird and strange. Just took her longer to adopt the idea, but now she's working on a PHD and setting the curve academically. Try doing that today without a computer.

To all you cell-phone only kids out there, there once was a time when we had to plug the phone into the wall, and dial with our fingers. I know, crazy, right?

Who wants a drink?

John C. Glynn, CMPS
Real Estate Finance & Mortgage Planning
San Francisco

Family & Estate Planning Basics

A good checklist found in a recent article in Money Magazine is below. These are items that you should discuss with your parents - at any age. You don't need all the info now, but you should know how to find it:

-Will
-Life Insurance Policies
-Long-Term-Care Policies
-Banking & Brokerage Accounts
-Social Security Cards
-Medicare & Insurance Cards
-Doctor's Names & Numbers
-List of Medications
-Lawyer & Accountant Numbers

Seems pretty basic, but helpful to review. I mention it here because of the frequency with which I work with people who have lost their parents, and are facing major financial implications that we are coordinating through strategic mortgage planning. Its not a fun topic to discuss, but help yourself by cutting out some of the chaos that ensues when you cannot find the items listed above.

John C. Glynn, CMPS
Real Estate Finance & Mortgage Planning
San Francisco

If You're Like Me, Refurber Might Be For You

I grew up the son of a proficient handy-man. When I was a kid living with my parents, my dad made a living in the courtroom, but somehow knew everything possible about how to take care of the home. Gardening, fix-ups, painting, moving, storing, and especially anything requiring a 'gnarly set of tools' - he could do it. As a kid, I assumed it was a rite of man, and that it would someday translate to me... somehow.

Then I eventually moved out into a flat in San Francisco. My roommates and I didn't have time for home improvement projects, with all the work and happy hours. But more importantly, we didn't have space for tools. Therefore, we ignored basic property maintenance and called the landlord when necessary (remind me to post later on how to find tenants for your precious home who were NOT like us...). Eventually I realized I had some challenges. Seriously. At one point I tried to hack up a dried Christmas tree with a pocket knife so we could use it for indoor fires. The butcher knife didn't work. The end of that story has to do with a call to the fire department (see parenthetical comment above), but let's keep me on point here...

I moved again, and now I have space for tools. I also have a bigger house, that I care more about, and no landlord to do the dirty work. It is my domain. And I still feel like I know nothing. I am trying to accumulate a good set of tools, and a good set of experiences with these tools, but every little project always turns out bigger than expected, in physical and intellectual scope. It gets overwhelming, and can be demoralizing at times. I have dreams that I am walking through Home Depot in my underwear (no, not really).

So where do I turn for help? I buy books and manuals for specific projects. I call my dad to come over and help when he's up for it (almost always is). I hired a gardener when I realized I couldn't keep up with the yard. And I go online. A luxury that was not available in my dad's time, and until recently, one that usually did not live up to its potential with all the message boarding and googling and waiting and waiting when I want to screw in my light bulb right now, darn it!

Enter Refurber. This site centralizes the effort. Its a social network (web 2.0 for 'community') of people all built around handy-manning, refurbishing, repairing, and remodeling. Its a fantastic resource. Forget the random message boards and obscure sites. This is a place where people who have as big of a tool shed as my dad - and know how to use it - come to boast about their work, get excited about sharing tips, and find value in helping their virtual neighbors. Check it out.

John C. Glynn, CMPS
Real Estate Finance & Mortgage Planning
San Francisco

Trabajadores Escondidos - Why Construction Industry Contraction and Unemployment Data Do Not Correlate

With the slow-down in the housing market comes a slow-down in the housing industry. This is why economists fear that a drastic correction in housing prices will have the kind of ripple effect that could send the US Economy into a recession. If the appetite for housing slows, fewer construction workers (and Realtors, mortgage brokers, appraisers, title/escrow... etc) can find employment. We are seeing pretty big drops in some of the housing construction data now - fewer homes being built, fewer permits applied for - and expectations have been that we would see a rise in unemployment related to this. The housing industry is assuredly large enough to influence that number.

But the unemployment rate has remained stubbornly low, keeping pressure on the Federal Reserve to watch out for 'wage-based' inflation, aka too many workers making too much money. So where are all the laid-off construction people now, if not unemployed?

A few months ago I read a fascinating piece forwarded by a favorite economist and author, John Mauldin, which explored not only the concept that much of the construction labor is undocumented workers, and therefore not showing up in official unemployment records, but also the impact this might have on the global economy. Much of the money earned by undocumented workers is sent back across borders to Latin American family back home. The central banks of these countries literally count on this cash in their economy, and it affects their own policy decisions and economic steering. The essay's question: do these countries know as much about this housing slow-down as we do? If not, there is risk of a ripple-effect well beyond our borders. And in today's global economy, those ripples bounce back and forth across borders. Interesting stuff.

Last month at the Pacific Coast Builders Conference in San Francisco, there was a panel titled Immigration, Labor and the Future of the American Workforce which focused on the importance of immigrant laborers to the home-building industry. And Jerry Nickelsburg with the Anderson Forecast group at UCLA recently published a report about a study on these "Hidden Workers".

With the immigration debate and legislation proposals, keep an eye on this topic in the coming months...

John C. Glynn, CMPS
Real Estate Finance & Mortgage Planning
San Francisco

The Yield Curve Is Sloping Upwards

With the current sell-off in the bond market, we have finally returned to an upward sloping yield curve in the 2yr - 10yr chart. It's still pretty flat, and bonds have started to retrace some of the steps they took during that little three-week selling frenzy, but we have not had an upward slope for a long time. Check out this site for a great illustration of the yield curve over the last 9 years or so (make sure to hit the 'animate' button). If it didn't make a lot of sense before, this will help. Pay close attention to the last few years where we see the Federal Reserve's steady 0.250% rate hikes (on the left) and the corresponding long term rates (on the right). This stubborn long-term rate has stayed relatively calm in the face of all those Fed tightening moves.

John C. Glynn, CMPS
Real Estate Finance & Mortgage Planning
San Francisco