The 'Rich Man' died a 'Pauper'… LTV's and Life Cover

There is a risk creeping into the lives of many that they are not aware of, one that every generation has continually faced and also one that is the greatest wealth destroyer of all, namely death and debt. Nothing kills wealth quicker than death and in particular in circumstances where the estate is not settled correctly in advance or where there are large debts that were not covered.

Every person I know is bulletproof in theory but corporeal in practice and that means that many of us have risks that we are not covering, you can’t cover 100% of the bases 100% of the time but some do need to be covered and it doesn’t have to be rocket science.

How did the rich man die a pauper? We’ll take an example of a person with a home and two RIP’s (residential investment properties), We’ll say that the lady of the house is a solicitor earning €120,000 a year her name is Jane Doe, and the man of …

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Banks: give you an umberella when its sunny and take it back when it rains

Samuel Clemens (aka Tom Sawyer) brought us the quote which is the title of this post, ‘banks give you an umbrella when its sunny out and take it back when it rains’, his simply worded expression held as true in Missouri of the late 1800’s as it does today.

Recently we had a client who is on an interest only mortgage, their circumstances have changed right when their interest only period was about to run out, naturally we suggested that they ask for a continuance of an interest only period, while this won’t work down the capital amount owed it will keep their cash flow alive and if you have to chose between owing more and being unable to pay then the former is preferable. Sitting in a pot might not sound great but it beats the raw fire.

The bank were happy to comply and they sent out a letter, it was at this …

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Valuations in property are currently meaningless

Free markets, or indeed markets in general, have a tendency to set prices, not through control, not by one person holding up a placard and shouting from the rooftops, but rather through the process of prices reaching a point at where they occur, where demand and supply are reacting with each other.

So if you look for €3 million for a three bed semi in Donnycarney your property will not sell, no matter how much you want it to. At the same time, if you were to list a property there for €50,000 it would sell overnight, and both of these extremes demonstrate a pricing being totally out of balance with the market. The interesting point now though is this: The market itself doesn’t know what is happening, so valuations are currently meaningless. By that I mean the people who go out and value property are not able to make accurate assumptions about property prices in this market, we are seeing this daily, and then dealing with the end result which is …

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Banks ARE lending, just not freely or irresponsibly

I have read several articles in this week in our  national papers and in them the authors said ‘banks are not lending’ and in one it was implied that this was somehow wrong. A point of order must be raised, firstly, it’s not wrong and secondly they actually are lending, just not freely or irresponsibly.

The frustrating thing is that even after all of the fallout, all of the crashing property prices, all of the international crisis news, that so many people still don’t get it. Cheap credit and easy lending is what go us here to begin with, we won’t fix the Irish economy with more mortgages being freely available.

Lobbyists take note: While you might strong-arm or influence the Government (I don’t know which method lobbyists use but either way they are effective) into supplying money for mortgages via recapitalisation or Homechoiceloan or any other plan, the fact is that reasonable people will not sign up to it, they will buy when …

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Forensic Underwriting, when is it 'too much'?

Lenders will underwrite loans. That is part of the process, it is a natural and normal occurrence in finance, to underwrite, to ensure that you are researching the proposed deal to the extent that you can be sure that you are not taking a pointless risk, but when is it ‘too much’?

Traditionally an employee would be asked to give several forms of documentation as evidence of their position so that they could be considered for a loan. Normally this would have been a straight forward process, and one that generally works.

However, as of late we are seeing ‘forensic underwriting’ becoming more prevalent. The degree to which a lender wants to delve into a persons situation is rising beyond the traditional norms and in some cases we believe it is going well beyond the call of duty.

Let’s be frank, we need banks, who else will lend money to a stranger to buy an asset? Without banks it would only occur between people who have a lot of money personally …

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Forensic Underwriting, when is it ‘too much’?

Lenders will underwrite loans. That is part of the process, it is a natural and normal occurrence in finance, to underwrite, to ensure that you are researching the proposed deal to the extent that you can be sure that you are not taking a pointless risk, but when is it ‘too much’?

Traditionally an employee would be asked to give several forms of documentation as evidence of their position so that they could be considered for a loan. Normally this would have been a straight forward process, and one that generally works.

However, as of late we are seeing ‘forensic underwriting’ becoming more prevalent. The degree to which a lender wants to delve into a persons situation is rising beyond the traditional norms and in some cases we believe it is going well beyond the call of duty.

Let’s be frank, we need banks, who else will lend money to a stranger to buy an asset? Without banks it would only occur between people who have a lot of money personally …

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Homeloan carry trade, profit from your mortgage?

‘Carry trade’ is where you borrow and pay interest in order to buy something else that pays higher interest, the difference (when it is working as planned) is called ‘positive carry’. Usually this is done in bonds or currency, for instance, if you were to borrow money on short term rates to finance longer term bonds. The interest being paid on the long term bonds minus the interest on the short term borrowing would be the ‘carry return’. In currency the Yen was a very popular carry trade currency as their interest rate was 0%. So you could borrow in Yen, buy something else (unfortunately this money often ended up in CDO’s) such as US Tnotes and keep the difference, the main risk being that one that the Yen would strengthen significantly meaning you couldn’t pay back the original loan.

How does this affect mortgages though?

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A SUGGESTION THAT YOU DO WHAT IS DESCRIBED HERE! THIS IS MERELY MAKING A POINT!

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Deflation, the low paid, and expansion of the tax base

Here are some statistics (taken from the SBP) showing that contrary to assertions that the ‘rich don’t pay enough tax’ that in fact they pay more than anybody else. Half of all tax income is paid by the top 6.5% of workers. So about 1/15th contribute 50%. One third of all tax collected comes from the top 2.5% of workers, thus 1/40th are paying 33%. It means that things such as the new 2% levy are merely punishing those who already contribute the most! I wrote about this before when talking about the Laffer Curve and how Ireland may be driving high earners out of its jurisdiction.

Sources have said that the Irish tax base is too dependent on a small number of people, so what would happen if we were to drive them out? The implications are severe.

…

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Trade Unions and recessions, why they should not be considered.

Trade Unions, by definition are not academic organisations dedicated towards finding working solutions for the economy, rather they are protectionist in nature, specifically towards their members, which is why I am constantly surprised by the media leverage they achieve in various ‘solutions’ they arrive at for the current crisis.

To put it simply, Trade Unions are to economic progress as Kryptonite is to Superman. The wage deflation required to restore a working status-quo in our nation will not be achieved with increments, or guarantees of high wages, rather the inverse is true, now more than ever there is an argument for removing the minimum wage and allowing employment to find its own level, alternatively we can tax ourselves into oblivion and support artificially long dole queues and public spending.

‘Artificially’? How? Simply put, there are many people now who would likely show up to work for eight Euro an hour, and there are perhaps employers who would be happy to pay this to them, but the minimum wage …

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The secondary insurance market ‘settlements’

Often you hear about a ‘secondary market‘ and often it is related to bonds, in particular the likes of TBills (Tbills are US Government bonds that run less than 12 months, TNotes on the other hand run longer than a year). What this means is that there is a market which operates outside of the primary market – where the transaction first takes place. In the treasury realm (the likes of Tbills) the primary market is from the Government to the buyer – either institutional or private – and the secondary market is between (for instance) one private individual and another. Why does it exist? Simply because the maturity date on the bond may not suit the holder, so private individual A will sell to B rather than wait until the time the bond matures.

A Secondary market exists in many other areas too, one example is that of Life Assurance. There are companies …

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