Christmas Coming

Dane has been singing "Deck the halls with thousand collies... falalalala..." He thinks those are the words and I'm not going to dispute it. Especially since we don't have many halls in our house and we certainly don't have hollie (sp?). What is hollie?

Here's how we've been 'decking' -- Meagan bought a very large quantity of large and small marshmallows and big round peppermints. I am told these will form layers in a large clear glass vase-like thing with a lid that looks like George Jetson's boy's hat. Tree and lights are still pending my initiation.

Missionary work takes a lot of faith. So does working in sales. I am enjoying work: the challenge, the freedon, the potential rewards, etc. To be a good missionary you have to be confidant in your message and be willing to fearlessly talk with anyone. In sales, you have to be confidant in your product or service and be willing to fearlessly build and maintain good relationships with people.


As a follow up to my speculation about the shadow market from last post, the following is my revised opinion:

I think it is likely a good portion of the properties going through foreclosure are passing through the hands of investors and a good portion of those are likely becoming rental units. While the ongoing forclosure wave is adding supply to the single-family rental pool (shadow market) it is likely that the folks losing their homes to foreclosure are going to end up renting a home-so the net effect is probably neglible.

This means population, income and job growth could be more important factors on future rent growth than the size of the shadow market... Job growth has been on a decline over the last several quarters and population growth usually follows job growth pretty closely. Interest rates are still low and have the potential for going lower at a time when homes are becoming cheaper which isn't blocking people from buying new homes. Rent growth and vacancies in multi-family housing will likely be weaker than in the recent past looking forward.