Desert Shores Undressed

Christmas Carolers at the District - Green Valley Ranch

You can enjoy the Holiday Season along Main Street at the District at Green Valley Ranch. The District Carolers are a renowned cappella quartet. They will be performing their unique blend of holiday music for your holiday enjoyment. This Friday, December 14th,  the Carolers will be performing between 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm. The District will provide a great holiday wonderland, with holiday shopping and lovely music every Friday and Saturday through December 22nd.Now if we could just bring the snow down from Mt Charleston.

The Nevada Ballet and The Nutcracker

You might consider purchasing your Nutcracker tickets soon. A great way to celebrate the holidays, perhaps starting a special family tradition. This production of the Tchaikovsky masterpiece is at the top of the list for enchanting seasonal entertainment.

The Nutcracker – December 14 – 27, 2007

Friday, December 14 at 8 pm

Saturday, December 15 2 pm & 8 pm

Sunday, December 16 at 1 pm & 4:30 pm

Tuesday, December 18 at 8 pm

Wednesday, December 19 at 8 pm

Thursday, December 20 at 8 pmFriday, December 21 at 2 pm & 8 pm

Mortgage Rate Alert

This is a very important post for anyone looking to buy a home or refinance a mortgage. As you can see the 10 Year Treasury Note yield is in a free fall.  When the 10 Year Note yield drops this is good for mortgage rates. My guess, based on technical data, is that rates won’t go much lower. My target on the 10 Year Note yield  had been 3.9% and we are there. It is a possibliity that we could see the Treasury Note Yield test the 3.7% range.

What is curious is that the 30-year fixed rate mortgage has dropped about a half a percent in the last couple of days without a corresponding drop in the 10 year Treasury Note yield. I’ve been asking myself why?

Mortgage rates have not been dropping, until recently, even though rates on the 10 Year Treasury Note yield have been falling considerably. My guess is that investors are coming back into the prime mortgage market and feeling more secure now that the Government is talking about helping those borrowers in the sub prime market that are dragging the economy lower.

Less risk in the prime mortgage market means lower rates.

All I know is that last week the 30 Year Fixed rate mortgage was being quoted at 6.125% with an APR of 6.396% now we are seeing 5.5% with an APR of 5.671% and this is a dramatic change.

The stock market is still in turmoil and with the possibility of a recession it would not surprise me if the Dow Jones tests the recent low of 12,750. Should we break that number it could get very ugly. Be cautious,  protect your assets.

On the Oil Market I would suggest that this recent weakness may continue, a break below $89 would suggest that oil could drop to $80. Better than $100!

I love to hear comments and hope that you will pass them my way.

Hoping that you are having a great time getting ready for the Holdiay Season.  

This Picture Reminds Me of Summer

Kind of makes you feel warmer just looking at it. I guess we won’t see the 70’s for awhile. This picture was taken at Loew’s Lake Las Vegas Resort.

This is December 1st, nice snow up at Mt. Charleston a foot of new snow.

For those of you who don’t know, Mt. Charleston is about 45 minutes from Las Vegas.

Mountains Surrounding the Las Vegas Valley

I know that most visitors to Vegas don’t realize the true beauty surrounding our city. In fact, many of  us locals sometimes forget the beauty in this part of the world. Below are a few pictures that I took recently as a reminder.

Pretty amazing as to what Mother Nature has created!

Adobe Homes in Las Vegas

It’s too bad we don’t see more homes like this in Las Vegas. The style is so appropriate to the desert environment that we all live in. This adobe home is located in Centennial Hills. 

Winter Lights Festival - Springs Preserve

You might want to head out the the Springs Preserve and view their Winter Lights Festival. The Winter Lights Festival will be open Friday through Sunday from 6 to 10 p.m. beginning Nov. 23. It will be open daily Dec. 24-30. Admission to only the Winter Lights Festival in the gardens is $4 for adults and $2 for children ages 5 to 17. The cost of admission for the gardens and galleries is $9 for adults and $4.50 for children ages 5 to 17. Admission for children 4 and younger and for annual pass holders is free.

The lights display in the 8-acre garden and throughout the Preserve will be created from half a million LED lights, a leading example of a sustainable holiday celebration, consuming 90 percent less electricity than conventional holiday lights.

Enjoy entertainment from more than 16 performing groups, including Chaparral High School orchestra, Cockroach Theater’s original puppet show “Dickens Done Over,” Raj Rathor, Beth Mullaney and Killian’s Angels, Boy Katindig, Helen Joy’s Young Entertainers, Harmony Ringers and Vegas Valley Swing Band. All are scheduled for the Preserve’s Courtyard Plaza, Garden Amphitheater and Tool Shed Theater throughout the holiday season.

Holiday-inspired refreshments from the Springs Café by Wolfgang Puck, such as homemade caramel-coated apples filled with praline and nutella, mini pecan pies and hot cinnamon-infused apple cider, will add to the festive atmosphere.

Here are a couple of pictures of the Garden area in the daylight.

The Courtyard Plaza

Floating Ice Rink Lake Las Vegas

This is a great time to visit The MonteLago Village Resort on Lake Las Vegas. The weather is wonderful and the lights of the village, at night, add a touch of romance.

Strating on November 16th and continuing till February 17th you can ice skate on the floating ice rink on Lake Las Vegas.

Adults $15 Children (12 years and younger) $12. Groups of 20 or more the cost is $8 per person. Season Pass is $125. 

Monday thru Friday 3 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Saturday thry Sunday 12 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Mt Charleston Lodge Sunday Morning Breakfast

What a great way to spend the day. This quaint lodge has great food and it’s nice getting out on a Sunday and enjoying the crisp Alpine air. 

This is a view from the deck.

Nice Bike.

A great Sunday drive and not too far away.

Undressing the Financial Markets

In writing this particular post I have drawn from my considerable experience in the Financial Services Industry. This is an industry that I worked in for over 25 years. As many of you know I am currently a licensed mortgage loan officer in the States of Nevada and Washington and this article is something that I feel very strongly about.

So, what’s going on with our economy and the financial markets? Hard to believe that oil is pushing $100 dollars and that gold is over $800. With the U S economy visibly shaken by the mortgage markets you would think that oil prices would be heading down. However, the U. S. Economy is no longer the big dog in the world. China and India are growing and their demand for oil continues to increase. The world economy is actually doing better than ours.

The dollar has been in a free fall since 2002 when the index stood near 120. Currently, it is trading at about 75. The Canadian dollar is now worth more than the U.S. dollar for the first time in 50 years. The British pound is over $2 and the Euro which in 2001 was at .85 to the dollar is now around $1.46 to the dollar.

Now there is concern that the Chinese and the Japanese may purchase less of our Treasury securities. I doubt that we will see the Chinese abandon our securities and sell them since they own so much of our debt. They can only harm themselves by doing so. They need our trade and technology. However, it is disconcerting to find ourselves in this situation; we seem to be losing control of our destiny.

Free trade can be great but you need to have an even playing field and that is clearly not the case with many of our trade agreements. We have been running up huge trade deficits and the decline in the value of the dollar can make that even worse if we are not allowed to sell our products overseas in a competitive environment.

Our products and services are much more affordable to the world with a lower dollar. I just hope that we have a business plan in place to recognize whether in fact free trade is actually happening. (Laissez-faire does not mean that you can assume everything will be okay)

The “American Spirit” seems to be lost in greed. There seems to be too much power in too few hands. Let’s look at the mortgage market and collateralized debt obligations as an example of this greed; this is reminiscent of Michael Milliken’s high yield junk bond fiasco at Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Let’s suppose that I have $2 billion worth of mortgage loans. This package of loans has both prime and sub prime loans. Banks, insurance companies, and pension funds are not allowed to invest in non-investment grade bonds (sub-prime loans) since they are risky investments.

Let’s say that I repackage these loans selling $1.6 billion in loans, however, I pledge all $2 billion. The securities are now over-collateralized. Now the rating agencies, which get a fee, come in. They view this over-collateralization as a positive and they rate the bonds as AAA. So, here we are in a situation where low quality mortgages can be more easily sold. Packaging sub-prime loans like this was done by many of our larger financial institutions. Who does this favor? Who has it hurt? The power of greed is not a pretty thing to see.

We can also ask the question as to why after 30 years since the previous oil crisis have we done so little? Instead of new technology we get the SUV. Great it saved our automobile industry, but at what cost.

Thinking about the past or the future will do little to help the situation. We need to focus on the present and what we can do to turn this country’s economy around.

We may have to raise interest rates to attract investment in the U.S. (our Treasury Securities) and this can and will hurt us in the pocketbook.

It should be noted that Alan Greenspan has recently made comments that the 10 Year Treasury Note yield may need to be increased to 8% or higher to offset future inflation (right now the yield is at 4.3%). His reasoning is that inflation will be a major problem due to high oil prices, the increasing cost of imports from countries like China, and the decreasing effect of Globalization.

Remember, we moved our manufacturing facilities abroad in order to take advantage of cheap labor. Now Greenspan is saying that the flow of cheap labor from the farm to the city will eventually lessen and that the consequence of that will be higher labor costs.

We seem to lack foresight. This instant gratification society that we have looks for profits at any cost without considering the costs of our actions.

It has been said that the U.S. has triple the Saudi oil reserves in oil shale. Some of the environmental issues associated with oil shale are getting handled with new technology. You can view the article from Fortune magazine on the internet just Google Fortune and Oil Shale. We need to accelerate many aspects of what is good for the environment at the same time, but we may have to sacrifice in the present to create some excitement about this country and the great resources that we have.

We can’t be spending trillions of dollars on wars. We have to work together. We are all part of this thing called humanity. Perhaps, it’s time to work with the rest of the world instead of continually pressing the issue as to who is right and who is wrong. Tolerance and acceptance of others values, whether we like it or not is the key to a world in peace. There is always that 5% who ruins it for everyone else, but why is it that the other 95% just choose to sit on their hands. It does not mean that we have to be in conflict with each other it just means that we have to work together for the good of humanity.

So we have problems. How do we stop the oil producing nations and the exporting nations, with trade surpluses, like China, from buying up real assets in the United States? How do we provide for the coming retirement of the baby-boomers? If we just continue to print money to cover our deficits we could be in for more problems, especially if other nations desire less of our currency. We are at a juncture where we can no longer just hope that things will get better. We need to accept some of the cost in the present so that we can overcome the problems that we are currently facing.

In the short term, I expect that mortgage rates will stay pretty much the same with a slight bias to the downside if the market continues to be hit. I know that there are many saying that the world economy will help our corporations. They say that price to earnings ratios are too low and that a large drop in the markets is not in the cards. However, this just feels different to me and I think that we may have a real problem with the financial markets. This is especially true given the “traders of the world”. Look what they have done to the oil markets.

Maybe, a hit to the market will push investors into investments that are creative, like oil shale, solar power and electric or fuel cell technology.

The last time the market tanked investors moved aggressively into real estate maybe this time it will force investors into creating a better world and a better living for the people of this country.

What I am saying is that we need to make our voices heard. We need to hear our politicians respond to these types of issues. They may not have all the answers but dialogue will help us find the answers.