The Los Angeles Dating Scene

I've been busy with the new job, that's my excuse for not writing as much as I need to.


I got dinner with two married couples two nights ago (I was flying solo). At dinner I related the story of my last couple of dates. They both thought the dates were funny and that I should write them down, well, as requested:

6 weeks ago I was at a local bar with a neighbor of mine, it was a pretty standard night expect that just before we left the bar some woman walked up to me and handed me a piece of paper with her name and number on it; 'call me' she whispered.

I did as I was told. We spent a couple of nights together, she's kinda a bitch. She was mean and demanding to the waitresses and waiters of the places we went, and very dismissive of downtown (strike 1. 2 and 3). She was also in the middle of getting a divorce (as an aside, I tend to think that people who get divorces in their early 30s fail at life. How can you get married and then determine it was all a big mistake?) The night of the Pacquio- Marquez fight she calls me (after ignoring my text for a week). I can tell immediately that she had been drinking. She then tells me to come over, I say no, I have buddies come over for the fight. She then says 'Fuck, what do I need to do to have you come over and fuck me?'

Set. End. Scene. I haven't spoken to her since.

I went on a date this Wednesday with a woman I met at a friend's bachelor party. She's got an amazing body. And that's about it as far as assets go. She talked about blow jobs and how she was clairvoyant. She's also 10 years older than me and she's still in the dating scene. 

Ugh. I think I'm going to start going on to dating websites.

In related news, I've gone on a Charles Bukowski (the poet laureate of Los Angeles' skid row) kick. I'm in the process of reading the novel 'Women'. The reader's digest version is that the book is a semi-autobiographical novel of a Harry Chinski who is a late middle aged poet who has suddenly become notable. He's a drunk and a gambler who has sex with woman 20 years his junior. It's an amusing book. At this moment in my life, I can relate to Harry more than I care to admit to myself.

3 Things

First:
I started at the new job two days ago. The job feels extremely comfortable, when I was waiting in the lobby for my new hire orientation I ran into a woman I used to work with back when I first started with Countrywide just out of college. To top that off, as I was walking into the conference room I ran into 3 people I knew. My new company feels just like my old one, except with better pay and much better opportunities.

Second:
Thanksgiving is making me fat. We have causal day at work until the office is moved from Calabasas to Moorpark. I wore a collared shirt that would otherwise would have fit well, if I wore it 2 weeks ago. It was way too tight, it made me feel bloated. In the intervening weeks, I really need to watch what I eat. Salad and really, really lean proteins are on the menu.

Third:
Women. I tend to think that women have the same desires and dreams as men, but only in a feminine way. It's easy to put myself into the mindset of a woman to understand the position she will take on a certain issue. There is only one thing that completely escapes my grasp. Women and their relationship with their breasts.
I've spent some time with women as they go to Victoria's Secret to shop for bras, no big deal. I can do this as both the 'friend' and the 'boy friend.' Most of these trips are memorable not because I get to help women try on bras but because they constantly chat about cup size, band width and the like right after they get done shopping. I mean, do men talk about the underwear they just bought? No, they don't because no one gives a shit. I like breasts (what straight man doesn't?) but I don't understand why women constantly need to chat about this trip to Victoria's Secret and what the attendant said that was either right or wrong about your cup size. I just don't get it. But, maybe that's why I'm just a man.  

Changes

Like the awesome David Bowie song my life has been under going some changes. I took a new job with a different company, after 6 years with Bank of America and Countrywide I've finally moved on. I will still be working in Mortgages, I find that I have a particular talent for Mortgage Finance.

I'm happy to be leaving the bank, but in a way I'm sad. I like the people I worked with, and I liked the work. I'm moving from a position of great responsibility to being a cog in the machine. Although, the company I'm going to has  been growing in leaps and bounds. I feel like there is a great opportunity for growth. 

I have made no major changes to the Condo in the last couple of weeks. I need to save up some coin before I can do the next major overhaul (the bed room). Until then.

Mid-Century Modern

I'm completely exhausted, so I'll keep the post short.

I ordered a mid-century modern light fixture, it finally came today. It took longer than I care to admit to install the damn light fixture. It's a little unbelievable but, standing on the ladder trying to screw in the light plate is quite the work out. I was pouring sweat by the time I had the light installed.

Volia. Instant light.

Inspiration for the week:

A Mondrain painting from LACMA.

Lamps and Modernism

I've been sick as a dog the last week. I came down with strep throat on Tuesday. I had to go to Urgent Care on Friday to pick up some antibiotics for my disease. I was running a light fever for 5 days, it wasn't until last night that my fever finally broke, I could finally swallow with no pain by this afternoon. It's a helluva way to spend a 3 day weekend.

At any rate; I bought a new entry way lamp at 'Rejuvenation' which is a pretty cool store if you're looking for replica lighting. I got a globe light called Sfera 16, it should fit pretty well with the look of the rest of the condo. I'll post pictures when I install the light (it has to come via mail in 2 weeks).

Over my sick time, I've watched two documentaries on Modernism. The overriding theme of both was that modernism, is/ was dreamed of being a new way of living in the machine age. Modern construction and design could enable men to live better and more fulfilled lives. Somewhere, between the failure of Vietnam and the election of Reagan, we lost track of that ideal. In recent times, I think Modernism is in comeback mode. I think the democratic optimism fits well with America's current political and social environment. 

The Month that Was, part II.

I've been meaning to write a blog post, but I just haven't had a whole lot of time to do so. I'm home sick today, so there's no better time to do a full blog post.

In the last month I've gone to Sacramento for a wedding, to Philadelphia for another wedding. There was a huge art show opening in LA for Modernism in LA between 1945 and 1980. I've also had a chance to complete the book case and do some other work on the condo.

 Arnaud was kind enough to create the book cases for me, he cut them and placed them into the condo. There was a huge amount of dust in my condo from the buzz saws and sand paper. I'm still digging myself out of the dust created by the saws.

I went to Philly to see Ben and Marissa get hitched. It was a great time and a much needed (mini) vacation. 

The big news in Los Angeles is the opening of the region wide "Pacific Standard Time", last Sunday LACMA had free admittance in celebration of this region wide event. LACMA had an exhibit on California Modernism. I've attached some photos of my favorite items in the collection.

The exhibit's byline is "Living in a modern way", to me, that's what modernism is all about. It's an embrace of past and an acknowledgment that  design can be harnessed to create a more humane and democratic future.

Bank of America and the Great Abandoning

The rumors finally come to fruition; Bank of America has announced they would be exiting the Correspondent Lending business.  I couldn't be more disgusted with Bank of America in how they handled this whole situation. The whole announcement was completely fucked from the minute the lower level employees found out about the Bank's decision.  

I got a text message from a co worker late last night, my buddy had read a short article in the Wall Street Journal that stated, simply, "According to high placed sources, Bank of America is planning to sell or exit their Correspondent Lending Division." I couldn't find that article last night (in my defense, I was really tired).

When my buddy and I arrived in the office this morning, we found an e mail blast from the President of the Home Loans Division in our e mail boxes (time stamped 1 AM) that stated (again, very simply) Bank of America has made plans to sell or wind down (put out of business) the Correspondent Division. "We do this to further align the to the Bank's core business interests. Furthermore, despite this decision, we will continue to deliver for our customers." Bullshit.

The office just took on an immediate atmosphere of gallows humor. No one was working, business as usual was not the order of the day. My frustration was further ignited when we had an 'All Hands Call' with our Division Chief who said something like the following:
"We didn't want to announce the wind down like we did today, our hand was forced by the Media. Please don't believe what the Media stirs up." Fuck him. Like, the Wall Street Journal was rumor mongering when some high executive in Bank of America told them that they would be shutting down Correspondent. Here's my problem on how this announcement was handled

#1: The Announcement Itself. It says this:
We intend to sell the correspondent mortgage lending division or, if a suitable deal is not identified, we will consider other options, including winding down the correspondent lending business in an orderly manner.  At this time, our correspondent lending operations continue business as usual.

The Bank just telegraphed their absolute desire to fire sell Correspondent or they would wind down the business. This frightens the shit out of their employees, everyone I know is updating their resumes. Worse yet, the suddenness of this announcement has given no one time to prepare for unemployment. 

#2: The Lies. Our Chief said the Media forced his hand. If the Media didn't report this 1,800 people would find themselves out of jobs when the Bank decided to close the division. What the Bank should have done is told it's employee as soon as an offer was put out to sell corespondent that they were doing so, just so people can prepare for job loss.
They needed to do this for several reasons. Their responsibility to their employees. I know two Account Executives with young families, Tom's wife is pregnant with their first child. Chris has two young kids. Both will find themselves out of jobs after January 1st (the date when the Bank will stop buying loans). They should have been given time to prepare for the job loss. The Bank has a responsibility to their clients who rely on the Warehouse Bank's line of funding to do loans. This division is under Correspondent and will also find themselves out of a funding line, and for several of our clients, our Warehouse is their major source of funding. If they don't find another line soon, they could find themselves out of business.

#3: Killing the Golden Goose. Correspondent is responsible for 50% of the Home Loan's division's net revenue. It was a huge money maker in the old Countrywide days. This unit had multiple Clients who were paying the Bank for losses on legacy loans they sold to the former Countrywide. I work in the department that analyzes and collects these losses, how the fuck are we now supposed to collect on Clients who now have no business relationship with the Bank. What leverage do we have to collect on these losses now? Did they not THINK about that when they decided to wind down our Division?

My frustration and disgust with the Bank has reached a new high. I should mention that my department is safe for the time being, we are (effective immediately) being moved under Legacy Assets and we will continue to collect until, well, they Bankrupt the Countrywide Trust and end all Legacy Asset servicing. That would open a whole new can of worms. My job is safe for now, everyone else is screwed.

Revenge is a Bad Yelp Review

This week is the most important week of my professional life. We had a major Client come to the office for a visit today, we proposed a huge (and very creative) settlement. Without explaining too many details, we are structuring the agreement in such a way that the Client will not have to disclose a huge loss to their balance sheet (GAAP rules state that you must declare a reduction in your Net Worth when you have a 'realized' loss). If the Client had to realize that loss as they normally should then they would be out of business tomorrow.

On top of that, I have a big interview with a local (up and coming) Mortgage Company. They want to discuss 'Career Opportunities' with me; I take this as a very good sign, I've never had a company ask me to interview for available opportunities. This could be a game changer.

The Loft is coming along, I completely failed to find new hanging pendants for my track lighting. I went to a place in Thousand Oaks called Thousand Oaks Fans and Lighting. Well, in order to not type this out twice here is my Yelp review:
----
I came in with a pendant from a track lighting that I have in my condo. All I wanted was to check with a professional if they had anything that could fit my track. The woman behind the counter, Kim was her name, was extraordinarily unhelpful and dismissive (I was practically begging for a sales pitch, I mentioned how much I hated my track lighting, and still, Kim dismissed my concerns) . I left the pendant at the store the weekend so their professional can check the wiring.

It turns out they don't carry the type of track I have (which is fine) however when I picked the pendant back up this afternoon I found that it was missing a little glass container over the light. I asked Kim to check for it, she basically told me to my face that I must be mistaken, because they didn't lose anything. I hate being lied to to my face, that is the reason for this shit review.
-----

Revenge is bad Yelp review.

In other news, the book case is nearing completion. Take a gander:

We just need to stain the wood and bolt it into place. It should be ready to go in 3 weeks or so.

White People Love Macaroni and Cheese

I hung out with my buddies Ed Martinez and Eric Wostenberg last night. The last time Eric and I hung out in downtown Pancho was with us, after a night of drinking we walked past a Macaroni and Cheese restaurant. It was either due to the fact that both of us were pretty drunk or that we are white males, but once we saw it, both of us take off in a dead run to get in and order some food. Pancho took a picture of the scene and commented 'Jesus, you white people sure love macaroni and cheese.' Sure enough last night, after a couple of beers, Eric waxed poetically on how much he loved that macaroni and cheese. Fact: White People Love Macaroni and Cheese.

I spent the majority of the day working on the unit, I've finally finished painting the red wall. I put a gallon and a half of egg shell paint on that damn wall and it looked streaky as hell. A co worker said I should switch to flat for better coverage. I've now purchased 3 gallons of the same color paint, I've put on 5 coats of paint. It looks much better, although it's still streaky. I think this will be the absolute last coat I put on it for a while.

I hate my track lighting above the counter, I want it to die a painful death. To that end I spent a couple of hours at Home Depot to try and find a replacement lamp for track lighting. At the current moment the light looks like this:

It's gross. I figure for the short term I could buy some $20 replacement lamps, I was hopeful Home Depot would have a wide selection, specifically, I wanted something that looks like this:

If you can make out those lamps, you'll notice how they look like saucers. I think those have a better midcentury modern look than the IKEA crap the developer installed. At any rate, 2 hours of Home Depot shopping did not yield the track light lamp I was looking forward to installing. I'll have to shop for this on line.

But, I did buy a new faucet for my bath room. I didn't like the one that the developer installed. It had a single pivot handle for hot and cold water, it's not really my style.

I found a faucet that had a cleaner more modern look.

I have a ton of experience install bathroom faucets, it's one of the many things my mom made me do when ever she wanted to change the style of her bath rooms.

I also got a new couch, behold:

I'm a drunk and most of my friends are drunks as well, thus it was critical to get a couch that can convert into a bed (I'm against drinking and driving, but I'm for drinking). This one converts into a full sized bed for anyone, or a couple, that needs to sleep off a night of boozing.

I need to eat dinner, I think I'll go get some macaroni and cheese.
   

Westboro Baptist Church and The Continuing Evolution of the Loft

I recently watched a documentary about the Westboro Baptist 'church', in case you don't know, the Westboro Baptist 'church' is a hate group that became famous for protesting the funerals of American Service Members who had died in the Wars. They believe everyone is America is going to hell because they support homosexuality. The Church is largely composed of the members of the same family. Ultimately, the documentary highlighted the response of society to this extreme intolerance and how regular people can come together to reject the hateful message.

One thing did catch my attention, the documentary interviewed members of the 'church' and they made the point (confirmed by a civil rights attorney later in the film) that ion the early years they only protested funerals of gay activists and they found that they got no attention for their views, because, no one in society at large cared. Society only cared once the 'church' started protesting military funerals. To out eternal shame we, society at large, allowed the Westboro Church to exist unmolested until they started protesting the military. We should rededicate ourselves and not allow hate to exist in America unchecked.

On to the fun stuff, the work continues on the loft. I finally finished painting the red wall. It still looks a bit streaky, I've put on 4 coats of paint, I refuse to do another coat.

I asked Arnaud Pacaut to design and create a book case for my loft. He obliged and the initial design is here:

  The book case will be a 'built-in' attached directly to the wall. I'm planning on staining the wood to a very dark color so it fits in with the cabinetry in the kitchen. I believe the book case will be about 2 weeks away from being completed.

I took measurements of tiny closet, I'm sick of having the cat box sitting in the middle of my bathroom. I'm planning on creating a wood cat box which can fit in the closet. That way the cat box will be out of the way and easily reachable for cleaning. I just need to buy the wood and build the box, which is easier said than done.

The Decline and Fall

Unless you've been living in a cave you should be aware of the current political battle over the debt ceiling. Personally, I see this as nothing more than political theater by the Republican Party, but what is truly worrisome is that some of the Tea Bagger freshman Republicans are more willing to allow this Country to default than to vote to raise the debt ceiling.

If we default, the United States would lose it's primary position as the World's reserve currency. In our current position as the World's reserve currency we have an ability to borrower at astoundingly low interest rates which bleeds into our mortgage rates, credit card rates, car loans, basically any thing that requires borrowed money. It's frustrating that the Tea Bagging Republicans want to sacrifice this amazing gift for political theater. Fucking Ideologues, I can't stand them.   

I feel like this is the beginning of the end of the American Century. It was fun while it lasted.

In other related news; I tend to read a lot of Urban Development articles,cities are near and dear to my heart. Recently, I came across an article about Los Angeles on the 'New Geography' website.
New Geography Article


New Geography has a conservative slant on development, they tend to high density and mixed use development as anathema to a development of a city. Ultimately, the thesis of this article is that the mayor's pet projects of the Downtown Stadium, the Subway to the sea are giant wastes of money. New Geography seems to think that the blue print for bringing prosperity back to Los Angeles is by implementing the political policy of the Chamber of Commerce. This article summarizes what was wrong with the development of the city for the last 50 years, what Los Angeles doesn't need is another 50 years of low rise development, we need the subway and additional development downtown for the city to really grow again.

With the expansion of the Panama Canal, the Port of Los Angeles will the ultimate driver of growth. How the port goes as will go the city.  

The wheels are starting to come off the bus..

I'm really not a negative guy, I tend to see the silver lining even when bad shit starts to happen. But there have been some Macro Economic bad news and some person (financial) bad developments that have been concerning me recently. Let's start with some Macro Economics

The god damn debt ceiling needs to be raised. Period. The Democrats and the Republicans need to come to a compromise and raise the debt ceiling. I can not express in words how terrible a National Default would be, some of the awful shit would be 1. the United States losing it's reserve currency status 2. an increase in interest rates that the government would have to borrow at 3. the loss or temporary suspension of payments of Social Security would be crippling to a lot of Seniors. The cost associated with a default would be astronomical, it would be passed on for generations. Both parties need to compromise and work a long term solution, my great fear is that the Republican party would rather default than compromise. 

I bought a rental house in Saint Louis last year, my tenant has failed to make his last 3 monthly rent payments. My management company was going to move to an eviction when the tenant told us he would be out by July 6th. Well, my management company went to the house last week and it was occupied by SQUATTERS who threatened them. Instead of calling the police, the management company fled the area.

I took it upon myself to protect my property. It's obvious that the management company is not being proactive. I called the St. Louis Sheriff's department, they did 2 area checks of the property today and found that the property is vacant, but there were blankets in the basement. Tomorrow, first thing I'm calling the management company for them to immediately change the locks. By leaving the property the tenant has forfeited his leasehold estate, I will take every action legally possible to protect my property.

Finally, Sunday in Downtown was beautiful. The weather was perfect so I opened my big loft windows to let in the warm air. I've been keeping them shut in order to avoid the wrath of the downtown mosquitoes. I figured I hadn't been bite by an insect in 3 weeks so the bugs had left the area. I even shut the windows once I went to sleep (thinking I could avoid the bugs that way). Well, I woke up with over 20 mosquito bites on my upper arms. I've turned myself into a mosquito buffet.

Rededication

I've found that whenever I dedicate myself to do something I must make an extra effort to keep up with it. I've been in the loft for 5 weeks, and I've not completed several of the projects I wanted to get done in the first few weeks. I blame my social life for this failure. People have come over, I had a reunion, I had to go out of town, I had drinking to do! At any rate, I've rededicated myself to continue with the loft project until it's completed.

That means I have to re paint the red wall. Which I will do starting Monday. The problem is that I used a full gallon of paint and the wall came off streaky and splotchy. I never thought painting was that complicated, after all, kids without High School diplomas are part of painting crews. What did I do that was so wrong? In order to fix this situation I will speak with the dudes at the painting desk at Home Depot. I think they would be able to help me fix the wall.

I'm in initial conversations to build a 'built in' book case against the window wall. Once the book case is put in it should look pretty damned good. This thought brings me to a thought I've been having recently: Resale Value.

Built ins are phenomenal for re sale value. Built in furniture which complements the layout of your unit can add a lot of value to the building. In the long run I have a '5 year' plan that I want to execute for this unit. I want to live here for 5 years, build it out over the time I'm here and then rent it out to some young, up and coming hipster. Or, if the market has completely rebounded, I could sell it.

These are the goals, let's see if I can pull it off.   

10 Years, Dead and Gone

I had a 10 year High School Reunion over the weekend. To be honest, I had absolutely no desire to go. The reasons for this are intertwined with my growing up in Westlake Village and my family's personal history. I grew up in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles, most of the kids I went to elementary, middle and high school with came from well off families. And, most of their families were still together. My momther divorced my father when I was 4; more unfortunately, my father had terminal brain cancer for the 13 years of my childhood when he was still alive.

Kids are vicious, I was and insecure kid due to the divorce and to make matters worse, some kids would tease me when my father came to pick me up on his bi weekly court mandated visitations. I remember once, I was in 4th or 5th grade and my dad was walking me back to his car after picking me up from school. And due to the cancer, he was unstable and slow on his feet, some of the kids were pretending to kick him from behind as he walked with me through the hallways. It made me so angry, what fucking kid would do such a thing to some other father? They did it my father because he was sick and slow.

I carry these memories with me. They pierce me to my core, they color my life, I can't shake them. I was not excited to be put in a room with the kids (now adults) who did this.  However, there were some people going to the reunion who I was anxious to see.

Luckily, there was a bar there. I was anxious to see some old faces and when they showed up we were able to catch up on the old times.

To my surprise, I found myself talking and catching up some of the kids who were responsible for some of my terrible memories from my youth. Now that they were adults, and the angst of teenagehood is over, they were more reasonable to speak with and to know. Maybe, just maybe, I can try forget about all that trouble from my childhood. We are connected by fate and the bonds of time. We were kids and we had to grow up together, whether we liked it or not. The past has to be forgiven.

   

The Summer of Our Discontent

The Company I work for has faced some major challenges in recent years; the acquisition of Countrywide ended up being one of the worst business decisions any major Bank made in the Subprime crisis. Bank of America has had to pay (by my very rough estimate from media reports) over $30 Billion to settle Representation and Warrant claims with the GSE Investors, the private label securities and the MI companies. Back when Countrywide collapsed I thought Bank of America got a steal by being able to purchase Countrywide's $2 Trillion servicing portfolio, a $15 Billion Corespondent Lending Division, Countrywide's industry leading origination platform and the entire mortgage banking brain trust that had the industry for so long.

 When the crisis hit and Countrywide's losses ended up being much larger than Bank of America had ever anticipated, I believe, Bank of America began to sour on the former Countrywide entity. Most of my division's executive management can see Bank of America's intentions to wind down the Correspondent Lending arm of the mortgage business.  In the last 3 months Correspondent Lending has lost 5 of the 6 top executives to Penny Mac (a tiny rival start-up mortgage banker, google it if you don't know the company), worse yet Correspondent went from $15 Billion in loan purchases a month to $10 Billion in the last 6 months (the rumor mill is circulating that Corporate wants to reduce Correspondent to $3 Billion in a year's time). It's shocking for a company the size of Bank of America to lose all it's top talent to a tiny start up, it makes the people in the trenches (like me) worried about the direction of our division. Personally, I've lost faith in our management team to continue to build the Corespondent Division, in fact people are worried for their jobs.

As I told my co worker, rats are the first to leave a sinking ship, maybe we should take the hint from our executive management team and jump ship too.

The Month That Was.

I write to you today from my new desk. As I sit here an write, I realize that my loft is nearly unrecognizable from when I first moved in. My windows now have full roller blinds that cover the length of the window, I now have full privacy where before I had none.

2 of my walls are now painted. One wall is a cobalt blue and the other is a orange-red. My goal is to paint only in primary colors, so far my goal seems to be in tact.

Unfortunately, the orange-red wall will need to be re-painted, the walls is still streaky as all hell, the work looks half assed. The great irony is that I spent 3 afternoons and a full gallon of paint trying to paint that wall and it still comes out looking like hell. Ugh.

Finally, Closet World came in today and installed the full dresser and desk into my closet. I now have a desk on which I can work, but most importantly, I have a place to watch the remainder of Season 3 of Mad Men. I was worried the day would never come...


It was the 4th of July Holiday this past weekend. I had a friend come into town so I decided to take most of the week off (that was how I was able to get shades and closet installed). I took my guest on a mini tour of LA, we hit Olvera Street, Griffith Observatory, but the highlight of the week had to be a downtown Art Deco walking tour. This was a tour given through the LA Conservatory, I believe there are 5 tours of downtown LA (the historic core, broadway theaters, the art deco tour just to name a few off the top of my head). The tour was lead by a retired Art History Professor at CSUN (not to demean her PHD, but CSUN, really? *scuff*). She was surprisingly informative and lucid. Hands down, the best part of the tour was when we arrived at the Eastern Columbia Building (my favorite building in downtown), she mentioned that she liked how some of the buildings have been converted (and therefore, the Art Deco designs had been saved from destruction). The Eastern Columbia Building just so happens to be a converted building as well, famously, it was the first major successful office to loft conversion in downtown. She mentioned the beauty of the building and symmetry of the portico designs and then spoke this gem (paraphrased) "The exterior is what counts, as long as the exterior shell is kept intact, and maybe, the lobby, then the Art Deco core is preserved. These loft conversions all gut the interior making them all look the same." Friends and family, you just heard it here first! All lofts look the same! I live in a cookie cutter loft per a CSUN PHD.  

I love America. I love Abraham Lincoln. The 4th of July holiday is my favorite Holiday of the year by a light year. I had a somewhat large group of close friends over for a roof top BBQ. I cooked some carne, pork, and my patented spicy salmon. The last couple of years I've celebrated the 4th in various spots around LA, 2 years ago I thought I saw an amazing firework show, I was on the Santa Monica pier (SM doesn't have a firework show) however, from the pier you could see 4 shows going off simultaneously (the Palisades, Malibu, Mar Vista and Venice). The roof of my building trumps Santa Monica by miles. From my roof it appeared as if the entire East Side of Los Angeles was exploding in fireworks. There must have been 20 visible firework shows going off all at once, truly, an amazing sight.    

Sadly, the pictures don't do the beauty of the fire work shows justice.

Window treatments, painting, and photographs

Window Treatments, painting and engagement photos

As of Saturday afternoon the Time Warner cable guys set up the Internet in my loft. I'm back on the grid! Now, I just need to get my desktop computer set up, which should happen once my desk has been created in my closet.

I've been in the loft for less than two weeks, and during these two weeks I've woken up for work on time every day (which hasn't happened in a couple of years) I believe this phenomena is due to the fact that my windows have no treatments because the sun wakes me as soon as it crests over the horizon at 5 30am. After some thinking, and input from Pancho, I decided to purchase roll up shades. When done correctly, the shades look very modern, they roll up and appear to disappear, they also have very square and straight lines. They are Perfect for what I have mind for the long term look of this place. I have a 20% off coupon to 3 day blinds so I called them to come out to take measurements and present me with a bid. By the middle of next week I should finally have some privacy in this loft.

This weekend I plan to paint. I think I'll paint the wall with the windows a cobalt blue color, I'm also thinking of painting the wall in two different shades of blue. I got a ton of paint samples from home depot that I've put on the wall to see how the color would look. Since the overarching them of this loft is modernism, I was anticipating painting the far wall a bright red color (it would make the interior of the loft look like a Mondrain painting).

On a personal note, I spent all Sunday with Pancho and Nancy as they took engagement photos at the location where Pancho proposed to Nancy. I assisted Susanica Tam (a woman who went to high school with us) as she took the photographs (ie holding the reflectors and remote flashes) Even though it was overcast, I still managed to get burned. I earned a righteous farmer's tan for this privilege. Congratulations are in order for Pancho and Nancy for making their relationship work.

On the ride back to LA, Susanica was regaling us with stories of people who work in show business, since she's a professional photographer she's had opportunities to meet a ton of people who work in Hollywood. After our conversation, I had a bit of introspection, maybe I've been too judgmental against people who are 'trying to make it in show biz'. I will have to explore those thoughts a little further at a later time.

Initial Thoughts

I figured out the parking situation yesterday, it required 3 phone calls with two parking attendants who do not speak english all that well and one $25 key card deposit. I now have my very own leased parking space a block and a half from my building. It also so happens that this parking structure is one block away from skid row and abuts the most gritty street corner this side of the midnight mission. At least the parking structure is secure, the damn thing has heavy security access doors and a roll down steel gate blocking the ramp exit and entrance. If there was a downside to owning down town, this parking situation is it. Luckily, there has been street parking in front of my building the last two nights so I've managed to park in my quiet neighborhood the last couple of nights.

Speaking of quiet, last night around 10 pm, some building in downtown decided to have a free punk rock concert. It was LOUD and completely audible from my bedroom a mile away.

Night is the best time of the day here. The buildings across the way from my windows are all lit up, the interior lights make the buildings seem larger and older than they do in the day. I've heard it said that Los Angeles at night is a completely different place than it is the day, the heat of the day gives way to the cool ocean breeze of the night. No where is that more true than in downtown, the tired buildings on Broadway seem to take on more life in the cool dark, they appear young again. The last two nights, at about around midnight, the full moon has come into view from my window. It's an impressive sight.

I've taken some measurements for roll up blinds for my windows. At the moment, I  have no blinds. But, that does not mean I have no privacy. To date, I have not seen any one inside the high rise 150 feet from my building and it is impossible for some one from the street to see in without binoculars. It makes me wonder if anyone actually works in that building across the way. The lights are on at night (at least on two of the floors and the stairwells) but still I've seen no one.

The First Night

The first night

I spent Friday night packing up the remainder of my possessions, my entire life fits into 16 medium sized boxes and two cat carriers. My college roommate Jerry came over to help out with the move as did Pancho, Dave and Arnaud.

I hate moving, it's uncomfortable, tiring and expensive. I try to avoid helping people move, there was a time when I owned a small truck so I got called to help people move remember bit. I remember back to 4 years ago when Derek called me to help him move from west LA to Hollywood, Derek had done no packing whatsoever, we had to pack everything in addition to moving all his crap. The lack of preparation slayed me, the whole move should have take at max, 3 hours but since nothing was prepared it ended up being a whole day affair. Since that day, I swore that if I ever had people help me move I would be prepared. To that end, I started packing two weeks ago. I also trashed most of my old furniture (I've had the desk, dresser and night stand since I was a kid, they're probably older than me, they're also made from solid oak so they weigh a motherfucking ton).

The HOA charged me $150 to move in, and they only gave me 4 hours to move in 8am to 12pm on Saturday. They said they would charge for any additional time I spent moving. This did nothing but add to neurotic over preparation. Pancho and Arnaud arrived at my apartment at exactly 7am. I had rented a dolly to help carry the heavy boxes, I figured a dolly would help shave time from the move and potentially help avoid any one from dropping a heavy box and breaking something. The five of us packed up the cars in one hour, we managed to fit everything into the 4 cars we had (including the cats) . But, since it was 8am I was already behind schedule (we were supposed to be at the loft at 8, we were just then driving over to downtown).

To rub salt into the wounds the HOA also had an inspector on site to verify any damage done to the common areas of the building (the cost of repairs would be deducted from my $500 move in deposit). The inspector seemed to be very ashamed of his role in the HOA micromanaged move in. He kept saying 'sorry to do this, but, you know, they pay me' he would say this with a shrug, then look down and fiddle with his clip board.

Due to the absolutely stellar work by Jerry, Dave, Arnaud and Pancho we unpacked the cars and got everything up to the condo in 30 minutes. We had just completed my entire move in just under an hour and a half. We all reconvened in my condo, Jerry surprised us by pulling out a bottle of Verve Courquot champagne. Jerry said that while he was in New York the big thing was to 'saber' the champagne open. This entails using a sword to cut off the cork, the pressure from the champagne would spurt out any shards of glass that would happen to be in the champagne. Jerry Grabbed my grandfather's service sword from World War II. As a child I was never permitted to handle the sword without my grandfather present and I had to wear cotton gloves, I treat the sword the same way as when I was a child. It was disturbing watching Jerry try and fail to saber the bottle open (in his defense, the bottle was partially frozen). This whole scene must have made my grandfather spin in his grave. After the forth attempt I took the sword away and grabbed a dish towel to open the bottle like the middle class men we are. Jerry was muttering something about Napoleon not drinking champagne unless it had been sabered. I poured the first glass and the champagne immediately began to fizz out of the bottle, I had to zamboni that shit to stop it from getting everywhere.

Everyone left the condo around 10am, I was left alone to try and unpack. I'm absolutely certain that having an in unit washer and dyer is the height of luxury. I did 4 loads of laundry, the novelty still hasn't worn off yet. The fridge is brand new and it also has a ice maker and water dispenser, both are items that I haven't had since I lived at my mom's house. At long last, I will now have enough ice for parties. Also, it turns out that new fridges are wrapped in some sort of plastic sticky wrap condom thing. It took me a full hour to take most of the plastic off, I still haven't been able to get the sides deplasticized. My fingers still hurt from pulling on the plastic.

Jerry came back around 4 and we grabbed some pizza at a new hipster pizza place on 7th and Main, we also grabbed a 6 pack and hung out on the roof top (the sun was finally out, June gloom has been really heavy the last couple of days). After Jerry left I took a nap, it turns out I would need the shut eye because Derek said he would come over for a night out.

Derek, his roommate Mike and Derek's exotic looking half Japanese, half Italian cousin Christina arrived around 9. We hoofed it over to the Broadway Bar,  we had a couple of drinks, I was waxing poetic about Broadway and how great it used to be and could be again to Christina. She asked a very simple question when I remarked how it was all run down now, she asked 'so, how did this happen?' I don't know if I can articulate how things went bad on Broadway, I have some ideas of what happened, but it would require another blog post to explain (foreshadowing!)

We bar hopped to the Golden Gopher next, I struck up a conversation with some girl smoking a cigarette she mentioned she was from Sacramento (midtown to be exact). Derek jumped in and started chatting up a storm, we found out that the friend of the Sacramento girl was having a birthday, her party asked if we wanted to go to a strip club in East LA with them, and since Derek loves strip clubs it was only natural that we go.

This strip club (I've forgotten the name, I was pretty drunk by this point) had a line at 1am, it's the first time I've ever seen a strip joint with a line. When we walked in I knew we would be like fish out of water, the place  was 90% Latino and 10% black with a tiny smattering of white people here and there. It was also one of the busiest clubs I've seen, there were 4 women pole dancing at any given time. The front row was filled with overweight Latino dudes getting lap dances from very hot Latina women, there also didn't seem to be any no touching rules, these guys had theirs hands on everything.

Some how we ended back at my loft. Derek had made a run to the liquor store and bought a fifth of jack and a thing of tequila. We drank and talked. I think people left to go home around 3 am. Thus ended my first night.

The next morning, I woke up still drunk and in a room of blazing light, since there are no blinds on my windows the light from the morning sun woke me at 7.

Ending thoughts:
parking around here is a bitch, it turns out that my structure is actually 2 blocks away, I still don't have key card to park yet so I had to park in a lot. I hope this doesn't cause too many problems down the road.
While I was waiting for Derek last night some homeless guy on 8th street was screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. Because of where my building sits his voice was amplified and it was actually scaring my cats. At that moment all I could think about was how I hoped that I haven't made the mistake of my life. 5 minutes past and the guy stopped, Derek came and we had a good night

PS. I posted this from my iPad since I don't yet have the interwebs set up so excuse any formatting or spelling errors.

The Keys to the Kingdom

I picked up my keys last night. I've finally taken possession of my loft.

Now the real work begins, I've got to pack up the rest of my apartment, throw out my old furniture (which I've had since I was a child, and it fucking weighs a ton). Worse yet, the HOA has a requirement that new residents can only take 4 hours to move in otherwise they get charged a fee. Thus, I've got to be ultra efficient during this move.

That's all for now. Friends, family and loyal readers: I'll write again once I have the interwebs hooked up in my loft.

Au revoir Westside! 

Douchebag

Last week the Chief Executive of Correspondent Lending suddenly announced that he was leaving the Bank to go head up Correspondent Lending at a rival start up Mortgage Banker. This was completely shocking news, as this Executive runs the largest Correspondent Lending Division for the largest Bank in the Nation. The Sales team was especially concerned. They felt this executive really 'understood' their stance vis-a-vis loss mitigation.

Digression: My job is to negotiate and enforce loan level repurchases from the Bank's many Correspondent Lenders, these buy backs are due to specific violations of Loan Purchase Agreements. The job of Sales is to management the 'relationship' between the Bank and the Client whilst trying to get the Client to sell the Bank more loans. We're two sides of the same coin, and depending on the Salesperson, either an asset or a liability to managing that relationship, one of our Salesperson leveraged their Client's repurchase exposure to have them sell more loans to the Bank, this relationship was strengthened from the repurchase exposure. Other Sales people see my department as a direct threat to 1. their pay check (salespeople get paid on volume they can pull into the Bank, when you ask a client to pay your Bank $1,000,000.00 by next month this can really threaten the business relationship) and 2. the relationship between themselves and their client.

I have a very good working relationship with all of the salespeople, except for one (luckily this guy's office is in Walnut Creek in Northern California so we only speak by phone). The basis for this dislike can be summed up in a single exchange about our Executive leaving the company.

Phone rings: "Bank of America this is Nick, how can I help you"
-"Nick, it's _____, got a minute to speak about Pinnacle Equity"
"Sure, what's on your mind"
"They're freaked out about our Executive leaving [note: most of Correspondent Lending is run on a 'relationship' level, Mortgage Bankers sell to us because they know and trust people at the Bank won't screw them]
"I heard the news, I've know the Executive for a long time, my mother was an underwriter at his mortgage company and I graduated from High School with his daughter, albeit, she was 3 years younger than me"
"Was she hot?"

-My thoughts at this point: Seriously, What the Fuck? What 40 year old man says that about some guy's daughter? Especially some guy who is supposed to be your CHIEF executive.

"Ah, no. Well, I'm kinda shocked that the Executive left his post with no warning. I bet this start up company offered him a profit sharing agreement in order to get him to go over there. You can't offer peanuts to a guy who is running the biggest Correspondent Division in the Nation."
"I met the Executive a couple of times, he always struck me as some one who loved the art of deal, this executive wants to do deals, not sit in front of Congress and talk about low income borrowers"

-Art of the Deal, this fucknut actually ripped off Donald Trump and said 'The Art of Deal' if I could have reached through the phone, I would have punched him. Additionally, he glibly threw away the fact that our Division has credit overlays that prevents certain loans from being sold to us (ie. the minimum FICO required to get a FHA loan is 620, but the Bank won't buy a FHA with a FICO below 660, if we won't buy the loan our correspondent won't make the loan so we've effectively locked out a huge segment of the population from getting a FHA loan). As an aside, Credit Overlays are a huge topic in the industry and, I believe, absolutely critical for a Salesperson to understand. A second aside, it is my personal opinion that low income borrowers absolutely deserve a chance at home ownership and the Credit Overlay issue should be address so that we can treat all borrowers the same.

This Sales guy proved he was a douchebag. It irritates me that someone like this can actually work in the Bank, let alone get promoted to a Vice-President position. People like this guy give mortgage bankers a bad name, mortgage banking was never about 'The Deal' it was about finding responsible lending investments for the Bank's depositors. Fuck this guy and everything he stand for. 

Souvenir Involontaire

I needed to take a small break from packing, I've spent the last 48 hours steadily packing my possessions for the move to Downtown. Sunday afternoon is the best time to go to the Apple Pan, it's not as crowded as it on week days so you can take your time eating your hickory burger. While eating, I was struck with the idea to go to UCLA. I remembered that I had left my camera in my car from Thursday's walk through, for the last year I had wanted to go back to UCLA to take some pictures of my favorite campus locations from my undergraduate years.

Spring has always been my favorite time of year, the Jacarandas carpet the Northern Lights Courtyard in a sea of purple.

While I was walking through the Murphy Sculpture Garden memories of my time at UCLA, a time when everything seemed possible. I only had class in the Murphy Sculpture Garden once when I was an undergraduate, and that was solely due to the fact that my professor was allergic to chalk which just so happened to be covering absolutely everything in our assigned room.

Memories of UCLA fill me with nostalgia, sometimes in my heart of hearts, I yearn to return to UCLA as that wide eyed 19 year old I once was, but which I am no longer. Time is the great traitor, it pushes us (often times, unwillingly) forward to unknown futures. I'm looking forward to my future life in downtown, but I can't help looking upon the past and yearn for a part of it again. 
 

Innovation!

Friday was D Day. The escrow company called me up to let me know that the loan documents had arrived and were awaiting my signature. I gave escrow my work address and they sent a notary to my office for final execution of the loan documents. The signing took no longer than 10 minutes, upon final execution I drove to my local Bank Branch and ordered a wire to be paid to escrow to close this transaction. Once the Deed records on Wednesday, the loft is mine, the transaction is complete.

It was all very painless and easy, but it did leave a sour taste in my mouth. As a professional in the mortgage banking business I'm accustomed to viewing settlement statements (also called a HUD-1, it's a federally mandated receipt of charges for a real estate transaction that involves a loan) nearly every day. But, in work, I'm viewing random people's HUD-1s, never my own. It's different to think about HUD-1s in the theoretical sense of it existing for some one else, when the point is driven home and you sign your own HUD-1 it takes on a different meaning.

When you think of Innovation, what do you think of? I tend to think of innovation in terms of technological achievements, when the original Apple IIe hit stores in 1984 the base model cost $1,300 in 1984 dollars. When the Ipad hit stores in 2010 the base model cost $499. Between the two lie a light year of innovation. In Banking, the idea of innovation isn't how to make something cheaper, better, or faster. The idea is how best to pass on fees to your customers and borrowers.

My HUD-1 is filled with fees, here's a small sampling: loan origination fee, appraisal fee, credit report, tax service, audit, notary fees, recording fees, move in deposit, and my personal favorite, a Move-in Fee from the HOA. These fees are making the lender money and the borrower poor. A co worker was telling me that the average America will refinance their 30 year mortgage once every 7 years, if you add in the fees associated with every refinance transaction they complete, then the effective interest rate on a mortgage loan becomes something like 15% to 20%. Think of how many people pay annual fees for credit cards? No one, at any time, should pay an annual fee to use credit (however, this is a topic for a separate blog post).

Charging fees is not innovation, although the Banking Industry seems to think so. To my knowledge, there has been only one major innovation to Bank in history (a history that expands the entire time man needed to finance construction projects that could not be done by a band of people), that is the double entry book keeping system in the renaissance. After that, there is no further innovation. It is my personal belief that Banks should quit looking for ways to 'innovate' and focus on their historic job in human society, shepherding the risk that economies need to take in order to grow. If Banks had focused on being a shepherd instead of an innovator then maybe we could have avoided the subprime melt down.     

Any Moment Now...

Pancho was gracious enough to meet me in Downtown tonight to complete the final inspection of my brand-new-four-year-old-never-lived-in loft. The developer had finished polishing the floors (they look shiny!), but hasn't had a chance to put in the washer, dryer or the refrigerator. We're getting closer, but, we're not there just yet.

  The counter top was longer and bigger than I remembered from my previous two visits (each about a month ago). Additionally, the top is granite which doesn't easily lend itself to modification, Those rail lights above the counter are hideous, they'll be the first thing to go when I modify the kitchen. I want to change the lay out of the counter top, but I'm failing at ways to figure out on how to modify it without having to replace all of the granite (which would cost a kingly sum).

Escrow notified me that the final loan documents were being drafted, which means closing could be hours away.

The anticipation is killing me.

 
I got to downtown in about an hour and forty-five minutes (5:45 pm or so), Los Angeles Street was jammed with cars and people rushing around to the various garment deals in this district. Street life is strangely comforting, seeing people carrying on their work reminds me that, not matter how difficult things may appear to be, life goes on. Work is life, to think otherwise is pure foolishness. Work is that purifying fire which gives meaning to life, we see this in such expressions as 'my life's work.'

The inspection took an hour, Pancho and I walked out of the Cornell building onto a transformed street. Gone were the trucks and the workmen; replaced by people walking dogs and riding bikes in the empty streets.  

My Inspiration at the Moment

My appraisal came back today; thankfully, there was no major hiccups in the appraisal. The market came back as ' stable market' therefore there will be no need to throw an extra 5% into the down payment. There were a couple interesting things that the appraisal noted:
-My unit is #907, I'm on the 9th floor of an 11 story building
-There are 95 units, of which 10 are rented, and 27 are owner occupied, the rest are owned by the developer. The rule of thumb is that property values are higher when more units are owner occupied.
-Unit #807, exactly 1 floor below me, sold for $4,950 more than my unit. #1007 (one floor above) is listed for $5,000 more than my unit. This makes me feel good, as I got a good view and paid less for it than the guys immediately above and below me. Suckas.

I did receive a bit of bad news, it appears my loan won't be ready on Friday as anticipated, therefore the new closing date will be next Wednesday. Ugh! The delay kills me.

Without further delay, my inspiration for the week

"A Bigger Splash" by David Hockney. This is a great pop art painting, note the contrasting lateral blues punctuated by the diving board and the rectangular mid-century style house. I'm thinking that this concept (color/ shape contrast) can be applied to my unit. I'll discuss this further at a later date.

"Composition with Red, Blue, Yellow" by Piet Mondrain. Mondrain was one of the founders of 'De Stijl' (Dutch for 'The Style'). Which, of course, was one of the precursors of Modernism. I enjoy the contrast of white space/ heavy black lines/ primary colors, it's as simple as you can get.

"Counter-Composition V" by Theo Van Doesberg, this is one of the 'Hard Edged' painting from the 50's and 60's, a distinctly California based style. It's a more interesting take on Mondrain's work.

"L'Oiseau Dans L'espace" by Constantin Brancusi. Bird in Space is *by far* by favorite sculpture (you can actually go see it at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena). The purity of the form of the bird is amazing; it's as if Brancusi took a bird and stripped it of all it's unnecessary and extraneous shapes. The bird looks like it is in the midst of some lighting take off, effortless, sprezzatura! The picture doesn't do the sculpture justice, the real thing is 6' tall on a 4' pedestal set in the middle of an ocular room, thus giving it even more of an effortless purity.    

The Walk-Through

Tomorrow I'm supposed to meet the agent at my unit to complete the final walk through. The walk-through is supposed to happen a few days prior to the close of escrow so that the buyer can see that there has been no adverse change to the unit before the purchase is completed. The agents provide the buyer with a checklist and they check off to ensure that everything is repaired and meets the buyer standards.

The only thing that I need to 'check off' will be the floors and the room divider, per my 'upgrade' package I got when I purchased the unit, the developer is to polish the concrete floors and build a room divider between the sleeping area and the living room.

This is the view facing the sleeping area of the loft, hopefully, by this time tomorrow the floors will be polished there will be a divider built on the wall by the second pillar. I tend to think that the room divider will make unit appear bigger than it appears with nothing there. At 670 sq feet, this unit is pretty small, so I was thinking of building an office in one of the two closets to the right of the picture. I would put my computer and office items into a built structure in the closet. This would solve two problems, the lack of space for my current desk and I wouldn't have to move my current desk.

I hate moving. The less stuff I have to move, the better. I'm hoping this will be the last time I have to move for a long time.

Collateral Damage

My LO told me that the appraisal for my unit would be completed by Monday. It's now Thursday and STILL no appraisal.

Please upgrade the Threat Status from Blue to Green.

I'm not worried, yet.

As I mentioned before, the appraisal is the last step in completing the full underwriting file for a loan (the last 'C' in the CCC of underwriting). It should be noted that appraisals are historically late, so this shouldn't be a surprise to me.

Follow up

Please, please include your business unit partners when proposing million dollar settlements to your clients. As a follow up to yesterday, when I arrived this morning there were, no less than, 20 e mails from our sales group about our bomb shell settlement proposal, Sales was less than pleased, on top of that we're supposed to have our first settlement discussion tomorrow. I can't wait...

Out of the blue today one of my woman colleagues told me she could tell I had been working out because 'your back is muscular and you have wide shoulders and a narrow waist' *for added effect, imagine that sentence with in a Bulgarian accent* irregardless, I thanked her for her kind words. Awkward city.

How NOT to present a settlement

It was a pretty busy day at work, which was perfect for me, as it helped keep my mind off how I was so tired and hung over from the weekend. Near the end of the day my VP calls me into her office to discuss how to present a settlement offer to one of my clients.

This client is a big account for Bank of America, they're a direct mortgage banker who does a lot of good business, unfortunately for them, they originated a ton of 80%-20% loans in Arizona and Nevada and these loans took a bath when the market collapsed.

So we talked how to present this huge settlement on 10 loans to the client, my VP told me explicitly to get them on phone tomorrow no excuses. Ok, I said, should we inform our Sales team we'll be presenting a settlement, you know, since, like we've been sitting on it for 5 months? No, she said. Just set up the call.

I write up that e mail, cc the bosses and the Sales team, since it's the end of the day I go wash my plates and come back to my desk, in all I was away for 5 minutes. There are 10 e mails from the Sales team with headers such as "SERIOUSLY! No Head's Up?", and "When were you going to tell us?" along with such gems as "Call me, now!"

Luckily it was 4pm, so I log off the computer and swing by my VP's office to see if she needs anything, she looked absolutely chagrined. I couldn't get out of the office fast enough. I don't get paid enough to deal with irate Sales guys.

How to be Human

I went to see 'The Cave of Forgotten Dreams' this afternoon with Pancho. I was impressed by the film. For those of you who don't know, 'The Cave of Forgotten Dreams' is a documentary of the cave paintings on the Chauvet cave, the paintings are so old they are measured in geological time. The Chauvet caves are over 30,000 years old, the film noted one panel of horses which have over lapping pictures which were created 5,000 years apart, we can't even fathom this huge expanse of time. I am reminded of what Picasso said he first visited the Lascaux caves, "they've invented everything." Their art is near perfect.

The immensity of the time scales involved in these pictures makes me feel like a child staring at the night sky. Such an immense amount of time makes me question the permanence of our society, conversely, even 30,000 couldn't change the soul of man. We still have hopes, dreams, visions and nightmares.

Upon leaving the Cinerama Dome I was jolted from my day dream and confronted the realities of twenty first century America, where a trip to the movies ends up costing you $25 dollars (tickets, a $5 soda, and paying for parking). Maybe the Cavemen had it better.

Is Los Angeles the most hated city in America?

On Thursday, my buddy Andrew Kurtz and I hung out for a bit before going to watch the movie Thor (!). I had just got done watching the new music video from Death Cab for Cutie which was filmed entirely in Echo Park.

The video can be found here:
http://echopark.patch.com/articles/sheperd-fairey#youtube_video-6114435

As a soon to be card carrying hipster [wouldn't be so, like, ironic if hipsters gave out cards to denote membership in something?] Death Cab is one of my favorite bands, I told Andrew that my sister went to see them back in 2005. She said that Ben Gibbard (the lead singer) got on stage, said something to the effect of "We hate Los Angeles" and then proceeded to play the entire "Plans" album from start to finish with absolutely no energy. Telling Andrew that story reminded me of when I went to San Diego to visit my buddy Andrew Matey and see The Hold Steady. Two songs into the set Craig Finn shouted "You guys are so much cooler than Los Angeles!"

Smearing Los Angeles in pop songs is nothing new, some examples that come to mind are the Decemberists "Los Angeles, I'm Yours", Tool's "Hooker with a Penis" and Strung Out's "Cemetery." Calling Los Angeles vapid is like having the kettle telling the pot that it's black, it's pretty damned obvious some times. Andrew brought up the point that people move to Los Angeles for all the wrong reasons, actors 'trying to make it' get my goat. Once, I met a girl at a bar and I learned that she was an 'Actress' I then asked her where she waits tables. The girl didn't take my question very well and stormed out of the bar (Derek, I'm still not sorry for ruining your game that night). As a native of this city, I tend to see actors as people who don't want to get educated, and don't want to work. To me, and many others, they are people who simply want to be famous and have money. They are the tinsel in tinsel town (this very euphemism denotes the falseness of Hollywood 'glamour').

Los Angeles occupies such a central part of America pop culture that it is nearly impossible to divorce the Los Angeles of fiction from the actual, living, breathing, city. Even the most sensational murder in Los Angeles' history was named after a movie (the Black Dahlia murder was named after the movie the Blue Dahlia which was playing in theaters when Elizabeth Short's body was found)! It's this falseness which is the real core of the disgust of LA.

I tend to believe that as the city grows up and undoes the mistakes of the past (i.e. putting in a reliable mass transportation system) that this disgust of LA will vanish. Until that time, we'll have to deal with tinsel town and all it's falseness. When you choice to live some where you must accept all its faults along with its beauty, I hope others can come to appreciate the city and it's history. But until then, forget it, Nick. It's Los Angeles.

The End of Escrow

I got an e mail from my loan officer (LO for short) today, he said my loan *should* close 'on time'. This means that my Credit and Capacity have been been fully analyzed and found to be satisfactory. The only thing that remains is to order the appraisal and have the Collateral reviewed. The LO stated that barring anything unforeseen we should be able to close on time (like, ah, the first week of June, which means could be any day between June 1 and 5, not that it matters or anything). The inability of some one in escrow to give me a hard date to close is frustrating, but like many things in this experience, to be expected. It's not unusual to not have a closing escrow date until a you're a couple days away from it.

The only hiccup I could occur is that the appraisal comes back stating that the neighborhood is a 'Soft Market', which means that there are too many distressed properties (distressed as being in foreclosure, or bank owned) in the neighborhood. Current GSE guidelines require an additional 5% down if this is the case, which means I would have to throw down an additional $9,700, something that wouldn't cripple me, but it would be something I would like to avoid.

If that happens; I don't think it will because the unit (from my meandering experience) is priced exactly right for the market, then I could break escrow and cancel the transaction. The possibility exists for people to back out of real estate transactions if the terms of financing change. I don't expect this to happen.  

Underwriting and Self Doubt

When I returned home from work today the fully executed purchase contract was waiting in the mail for me (finally). This means that the underwriting of my loan has begun.

For those of you not in the mortgage business, allow me to explain underwriting for a minute:
Underwriting is simply the process by which a processor obtains all the relevant financial information from the prospective borrower in order to make a 'risk' decision to lend the money for the purchase or not. Ultimately, the underwriter is looking for the 3 C's: Capacity (can they afford the payments?), Credit (will they pay you back?), Collateral (is the property worth lending against?).

Capacity is the biggest of the three; an underwriter takes your gross total monthly expenses (projected housing expenses as well) and divides that number by your total gross monthly income, this is called 'DTI' or a Debt-to-income ratio (expressed as a percentage). A 30 year conforming mortgage has a hard cap of a DTI at 50% meaning your total regular month expenses can not exceed 50% of your monthly income (however, borrowers with shitty credit scores have a much lower allowed DTI).

At times I have an incredible amount of self doubt, I think this may be a hold over from the tribulations of my youth. I told my older co worker how I was "excited and terrified" at the prospect of this purchase he opined that when he was young and purchased his first house he felt the same. I believe this sensation of terror is a by product of committing to a very long financial relationship with a piece of property in a certain neighborhood. For renters, this sensation is the same as that which was felt by the sailors of Columbus' voyage, they are leaving known surroundings for a vast ocean of unknowns. Ultimately it's a journey that we all must take at some point (that is if Congress doesn't destroy the Secondary Mortgage Market) it will be important in the coming weeks and months to control this doubt and prepare for a new stage of life.

After all, wouldn't be funny in ten years to look back at this post and think "I don't know why I ever thought this wouldn't work out?"

First Post!

Friends;
A couple of days ago I signed a purchase contract for a small loft in Downtown Los Angeles. And since I'm leaving the 'safety' of the Westside of Los Angeles to live by myself (for the first time) in a 'box in the sky' that I bought. I figured I would use this opportunity to create my own blog to chronicle my mis-adventures in Real Estate ownership.

I want this blog to do two things for me; allow me to express my interest in 1. Interior Design 2. Architectural Design 3. Mortgage Finance 4. Writing.
My mother was a trained artist and I picked up much of my tastes and interests from her. It's important to me to practice creating interiors that reflect some form of art. Additionally, I work for a Bank and I have a very esoteric position in the Bank (Risk Operations in Correspondent Lending, Loss Mitigation Division) thus mortgage finance is my 9 to 5 job (and I like what I do). Last but not least, I hope this 'exercise' in writing and expressing ideas allows me to improve my non verbal communication.

I hope you will join me on this journey for self discovery, together learn from my mistakes and profit from my successes. As I gain more experience using Blogger I will try to design the thing to look professional. But, for now, it will have to remain not much difference than a High School Student's blog.

I leave you with a image from Unit #907, my soon to be loft: