In Search of the Perfect Investment

What’s do these companies have in common?

They’re all dead money.They’re yesterday’s tech leaders. They’re not tomorrow’s  leaders. if your broker sends you a glowing “BUY” report on one of these companies,  you should change brokers.

The new technology leaders include AAPL, BIDU, EMC, GOOG,  PCLN, CRM, RVBD, JNPR, VMW, IDCC and even IBM, which gets whats happening.

Here’s Apple:

You can check out the charts on the others. They’re very impressive.

Real estate rentals boom in downtown New York City. Well maybe. Here’s the deal. This is the tallest luxury residential tower in New York. It was designed by Frank Gehry, whose work I love. It will open in a few months. Despite the real estate slump, there is actually a shortage of rental apartments in downtown New York. The City approved construction of approx 10,000 new apartment units in 2007 in Manhattan, but only 955 in 2010  — a reduction of over 90%

I asked the rental agent, “How much?” I will be able to get a 2 bedroom, one study apartment on a high floor for between $5,000 and $7,000 a month, which actually struck me as cheap, since I’m paying over $6,000 a month maintenance plus two huge capital calls and taxes totaling another $30,000 this year on the apartment I live in on the Upper West Side. Of course, I own my apartment because it’s mine (Susan likes it) and because I think its price will appreciate. That was always why you bought residential real estate. It hasn’t appreciated in value since I bought it for top dollar (around $4.2 million)  in the mid-2000s. I’m still praying for an uptick. I’m told prayer is a new viable  investment strategy.

This one simple example shows how the pendulum has switched from owning to renting. In short, owning makes no sense in New York City and probably elsewhere. Renting is so clean. Ownership is so messy.

The story of this new Gehry building is fascinating. Here’s the building.

Here’s  where it is. The blue line shows how Google would walk to the World Trade Center, i.e. it’s pretty close.

And this is yesterday’s wonderful article in the New York times on the building at 8 Spruce Street. Now to convince Susan to move downtown and get a nice view for much less money.

New Gehry Tower Prepares for Renters by Fred Bernstein

FOR years, New York developers have been trying to maximize the value of residential properties by hiring celebrity architects. At Philip Johnson’s Urban Glass House, Richard Meier’s Perry Street apartments and Jean Nouvel’s 100 11th Avenue, the architects were chosen in part to raise condominium prices.

Now the developer Bruce Ratner of Forest City Ratner is about to determine whether a big-name architect can do the same for rental apartments. His new tower at 8 Spruce Street, just south of the Brooklyn Bridge, was designed by Frank Gehry, who gave it an undulating skin that ripples like the Statue of Liberty’s gown, but in stainless steel rather than copper.

At 867 feet, 8 Spruce Street (which for a time was known as Beekman Tower) is the tallest residential building in the city, surpassing the Trump World Tower. That would make it notable even without Mr. Gehry’s distinctive facade.

In an interview, the architect demonstrated how the folds were conceived, pinching the sleeve of his black turtleneck shirt between his fingers. What is important to him, Mr. Gehry said, isn’t how the folds look but what they do to the interiors, which unfurl in a riot of angled alcoves and bay windows. With more than 600 layouts among the 900 apartments, potential renters may want to see dozens of units before selecting one to live in. That could be a headache for the building’s rental agents, who will begin showing units early next year, said MaryAnne Gilmartin, an executive vice president of Forest City Ratner.

Several hundred apartments, on the building’s lower floors, will hit the market at that time, she said. Additional sections of the building will be rented as they are completed over the course of about a year.

Ms. Gilmartin said that after looking at other high-end rental buildings, including Silver Towers on West 42nd Street, she thought rents would be at least $80 per square foot per year.

That would put the rent for the smallest unit at 8 Spruce Street — a 450-square-foot-studio — at $3,000 a month.

But Ms. Gilmartin said that if demand was strong enough, there would be no qualms about raising the prices, “even over the course of a single day.”

She said she would not be surprised to get pre-emptive offers for some of the top-floor apartments. Forest City Ratner was even considering leaving one or more floors unfinished — something rarely if ever done in a rental building — for tenants who would like to customize their units.

If the apartments do command high rents, it will mean a big payday for Forest City Ratner. One reason is that the company received tax abatements under a program originally meant to stimulate construction of affordable housing. (In 2006, Community Board 1 passed a resolution criticizing the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development for giving the 20-year abatement to a building with no affordable-housing component.)

Another reason is that the undulating facades cost the company only slightly more than it would have spent on conventional curtain walls, Mr. Gehry and Ms. Gilmartin said.

Mr. Gehry said he wanted dispel a rumor that the building’s south side is completely flat because he needed to cut costs. “It cost exactly the same,” he said, producing a geode from a shelf in his office to demonstrate the effect he had been going for: a rough volume with one very smooth surface.

Since 2004, when the project was first announced, it has had as many ups and downs as the facades have folds. Originally, the top floors were to contain condos. Forest City Ratner brought in the real estate marketing guru Louise Sunshine to help lay out the spaces.

But in late 2006, when it seemed as if there were too many homes coming to market in Manhattan, the company decided to eliminate the condos. Mr. Gehry went back to the electronic drawing board, reducing the ceiling heights to about nine feet — which required adjustments to the facade — and changing the apartment layouts with the help of Nancy Packes, whom he described as the rental counterpart to Ms. Sunshine. Construction on the building was halted twice, as Forest City Ratner worked out financing and labor. (Forest City was a development partner in the Midtown headquarters of The New York Times Company.)

Not all of the building is covered in stainless steel. Mr. Gehry designed a simple brick enclosure for what may turn out to be one of the building’s chief selling points: an elementary school at the base, with room for 630 students.

He said that he deliberately made the school of brick — even after Mr. Ratner offered to pick up the tab if he wanted to continue the undulating metal facade all the way down to the ground. “I wanted to make the base part of the neighborhood,” the architect said.

Part of that base — the building’s residential lobby — already contains an undulating desk-cum-bench by Mr. Gehry. Upstairs, his firm chose finishes and fixtures, including doorknobs by Mr. Gehry for the Italian manufacturer Valli & Valli. Gehry Partners is also furnishing 18 model apartments.

Mr. Gehry said he hadn’t yet been to the top of the 76-story tower, because he is scared of taking the construction elevator attached to its west facade. But the 12 elevators serving the residential part of the building are already being tested, so meaning his first trip to the top could happen soon.

Because hotels are more practical for his short trips to New York, Mr. Gehry said, he has no plans to rent.

What’s your secret to staying warm? Your woolen hat? No way.  For the funny  answer  click  Ihavenosecrets.

On a New York subway.
It was a huge fight. She was furious. He was begging. The subway car was hushed. Everyone was straining to hear what the gossip was.

Finally, he said to her:  “Be reasonable, Phyllis. I made this date with Rita three months before you and I were married.”

Harry Newton who eyes the weekend and says earnestly,  please read this book:

In years past when I was stupid and naive to the ways of Wall Street. I was sold an investment in a private equity fund put together by Citigroup and run by a brilliant fellow called John Barber, who had also put his own money in. Well, things have changed. Mr. Barber left Citigroup.

Citigroup decided it doesn’t like running funds and in fall of 2010 sold mine to something called StepStone, who now manages the fund — sort of.

It turns out there are three types of investors in the fund — Citigroup employees, Citigroup itself and fools like me. Instead of selling the entire thing, Citigroup sold the “fools like me” portion to StepStone, the Citigroup balance sheet investment to Lexington something or rather, and it kept the Citigroup employees.

Instead of there being one brilliant manager — John Barber — there are now three “managers.” Their inevitable bickering will further screw up the value of my investment, which is underwater. I’m told there’s a shareholder agreement beetween the trhree of them. So the bickering will be minimal and we’ll all get rich together.

And if you believe that, I have a flying pig for you.

In short, stay away from investments Wall Street packages, especially long-term illiquid ones like Citigroup Capital Partners II. And read Griftopia.