You may have noticed that the folks involved in finance were concerned long before America thought there was a recession and we've been telling you that it is getting better long before you've seen it in your day-to-day lives.  This is because most of us look at data and are closer to that data than the average news reporter.  A hotel owner can look at the bookings and see if they are up or down and the average room rate he is charging.  A retail store owner can examine sales and average "per … [Read more...]

9344 Ardmore Drive North Saanich, British Columbia Canada is on the market for $13,500,000 CAD.  The down payment would be $2,700,000 and the mortgage $10,800,000. Of course, I don't think you should buy a property like this unless you can do it with much more equity than 20%, but that is just me.  Anyway, at a 6% interest rate, which would be where you'd end up on a jumbo of this size, which would probably have to be placed through the facultative market, you'd be looking at a monthly … [Read more...]

A family member of mine was looking at houses and I started thinking about Charlie Munger when he said it is important to keep a lot of the "silly needs" out of your life.  (This particular family member is doing a great job managing his budget, but in general, it made me wonder about society as a whole.) Had I not wanted to own my own firm, I would have been perfectly happy living in a nice place like this Toll Brothers townhouse outside of New York, staying debt-free, wearing cashmere … [Read more...]

There is something about the exterior styling of the Woodway Bluff Estate that I enjoy a great deal. You could put it in the middle of a significant plot land, gate the entire thing so it wasn't visible from the road, and spend your days managing a mutual fund or hedge fund from the in-home study off the library. I mean, it has a helipad to land your helicopter for a shorter commute.  God willing I live long enough, this is the sort of place I'll have when I'm older and richer.  Another … [Read more...]

I know I'm giving free advertising here but this is a great idea and so I wanted to highlight it.  A company has renovated 47 Park Street in Mayfair Village London as a collection of partially-owned residences.  If you have to travel for business or pleasure, you can buy the right to use one of the apartments in increments of 21 nights per year from now until 2050.  The packages start at roughly one hundred thousand pound sterling.  Think of it as Net Jets for luxury real estate. For a … [Read more...]

If you wanted to be as rich as Mr. Monopoly, how much would it take?  How high would your annual income be?  Your net worth? Those are the question that I pondered sitting at my desk this morning.  Out of pure curiosity, I began to adjust the values of the Monopoly property rents for inflation, using the last full-year CPI figures (2009), knowing that the game was originally released in 1935.  This led to an inflation modification factor of 15.47. First, I started with only the real … [Read more...]