Ryan Jones

I hate to be taken advantage of. Thus, I am a person who is always leery of scams or bait and switch schemes. Because I am this way, I regularly identify these tendencies in othes who are equally leery. This comes up often when people talk to me about finding a space to lease. They want to know, "how much will your services cost me?" I inevitably launch into an explanation about how my services cost the tenant nothing because the landlord compensates me for bringing a tenant to his / her space. However, the suspicious side of the person I am explaining this to often feels this is too good to be true. I'm here to tell you that being represented by a broker in order to find space for your office and business is truly FREE. It costs you nothing out of pocket. In fact, it actually saves you money. Without representation, tenants often get taken advantage of by greedy landlords or corrupt landlord representative brokers. A good tenant representative can negotiate a better deal for the tenant than she could negotiate on her own. This is another reason why a person should use a broker. Finally, a broker has accss to all of the currently available spaces that are often located in databases not accessible to the general public without a paid subscription. It is well worth having access to all the options. All of this ought to be good news to tenants looking for an office space or a retail space.

visit San Francisco Office Space for more information.

I was privileged to have the opportunity yesterday to hear Liz Ann Sonders who is the Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Strategist at Charles Schwab. Here are a few nuggets from what she said that I found interesting.

- The dollar has strengthend rapidly over the course of the last month or so. Historically there is some substance to the idea that there is a reverse correlation between the strength of the stock market and the strength of the dollar. There is also a relationship between the strenth of the dollar and the strength of commodities. When the commodities market crashed, the dollar strenthened.

- When you look at the real estate market, it is interesting to note "real" mortgage rates. Over the course of the "boom", properties were increasing at perhaps 17% a year over a 5 year period. Meanwhile mortgage rates were 6%. That is an effective rate of +11%. Right now properties are going down by 10% and when you add a morgage rate of 6% to that is -16%. Why would a bank loan on that property?

- The real issue with real estate is the levels of inventory. Once inventory depletes, things will stabilize and lending will resume.

- About 30-40% of Hedge funds have cashed out and closed up shop.

- With regard to the automakers, they are currently set up to produce 16 million cars a year. There is only demand for 11 million. This is not going to be resolved with a 25 billion dollar bailout. There are serious issues here.

Encouraging signs:

- The US financial institutions have done more to deleverage themselves over the past 14 weeks than Japan did over 14 years with their similar financial collapse.

- Americans are moving aggressively towards a more frugal approach to finances. Personal debt is going down. There has been a 4% drop in private debt as a percentage of GDP in recent months. This is a good sign

- Liz Ann Sonders believes that Hank Paulson and Ben Bernake are doing the right thing. Their recent change of approach seems wise.

- LIz Ann Sonders expressed shock at the revelation that Greenspan wasn't aware of how deeply imbedded greed was in Wall Street. As she says, "I think fear and greed drive everything."

- LIz Ann Sonders thinks we are beyond the 50 yard marker in terms of the financial systems deleveraging.

- The economy will turn around when the confidence returns. This will change the housing inventory and will see cash infusions into the financial sectors. Liz Ann Sonders believes that the US is in a much better position than most of the world. There will be a world-wise recession that will last a total of about 16 months - we are already partly through this time. She thinks the upswing will start in June / July of 2009.

just read an article that I think will be helpful for consumers and professionals alike. It is honest, concise and informative. Basically, it appears that this article is a summary of the extensive report created by Price-WaterhouseCoopers called “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2009″

Here is the link: http://www.compropguide.com/specialreport_08.html

There are literally hundreds of millions of websites accessible in hundreds of languages to the 6 billion plus people on our planet. Of those numerous options, I basically move between a few that I find most interesting and helpful. Here are some of my favorites (not in any particular order):

1) Google - between Gmail, Google Maps (with street view!), Google search, Google analytics, Google Knol, etc., they have made my world a better place.

2) The Daily Beast - A concise and fun way to read the news

3) TechCrunch - Blog that keeps the tech headlines coming

4) Craigslist - for selling and buying and everything else

5) NBA.com - I'm a basketball addict I guess

6) Weather.com - I know when to bring an umbrella

7) Yahoo Finance - For more bad news about the stock market

8) Huffington Post - Unapologetically biased but entertaining

9) www.ThomasLFriedman.com - NY Times Op Ed columnist who I think is pretty sharp

10) www.OfficeSpaceSF.com - Ok, so its my website (and this is a cheap advertisement)

11) SFGate.com - Chronicle website... for local news

12) Real Clear Politics - Has the combined polling for election / politics issues. Was great for election season

13) Economist / BBC - Both of these give a more world centric news perspective

I guess that is it for now. There are other sites I visit, but these are the most common. Check them out!

In tough times things can get tense and relationships can be strained. In the midst of tension, it is often only humor that can break the power of fear or anger or anxiety. Humor acts as a ray of sunlight piercing through the darkness of the storm clouds. Marriage guru John Gottman has written extensively about the power of humor to heal relationships. We ought to pay more attention to humor! I have found that many of my closest friends are people who use humor often and who are just generally funny people. I hope that you are blessed with people like that in your life.

Here is something to provide you a ray of hope: http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1764710