Lake City Blog

The Parade of Homes is coming to St. George next week, February 12-21, 2010.  Every year, starting over President's Day weekend, the Southern Utah Home Builder's Association organizes this amazing event.  My wife and I love to attend the Parade's around the state.  We attend them all.  Over the past 5 years the St George parade is definitely our favorite.  There are several reasons for this.

• The parade is well organized.  Great maps, tons of signs to help you find the homes.
• Only $12.50 per ticket.  Well worth it.
• You can take photos!
• About 25 homes.
• A good variety of homes.  A range of prices, including some amazing high-end homes.  Variety of styles.
• Unique desert architecture that you don't get in any of the other parade's around the state.
• Amazing swimming pools.  You don't see as many of those in Northern Utah.
• Warm weather.  Some years it's cold, but it's always 10-20 degrees warmer than Salt Lake, which is nice come February.

Some of my favorite homes from the last few years:

TIP: If you are going to attend, I recommend arranging your lodging as early as possible.  In this economy you can probably still get a room somewhere.  In previous years every room in town is sold out by November.

For more information check out the parade's official website: www.paradehomes.com

The final tally is in.  140 banks failed in 2009.  And as of last Friday, another 15 have already been taken down by the FDIC in January 2010.  This truly is unprecedented.  Here's a quick crash course on how this happens:

• The FDIC monitors the health of banks very carefully.  They must maintain certain good vs. bad loan ratios.  They must have a certain amount of cash liquid on hand in every branch at all times.
• If their bad loan rate gets too high, or if other health ratios get out-of-whack, the FDIC will put them on warning that they need to fix the problem soon or face closure.  This all goes back to the FDIC guaranteeing deposits to keep the faith of the US citizen in the banking economy.
• If it goes too far the FDIC will step in and take over the bank.  They will sell the (good) deposits to a healthy bank.  They'll take the bad loans and sell them off (usually in bulk pools) to investors and other banks.

This is where Lake City sees opportunity.  Buying real estate assets from struggling banks, or directly from the FDIC after they take over a bank, can lead to some amazing deals for the opportunistic investor.

THERE IS OPPORTUNITY IN CHAOS

There have been 158 bank failures since 2000. Over nearly 10 years 6 bank failures per year was the norm. In 2009 the FDIC has closed 106 banks through October 23rd. That's 67% of the failures in the past 10 years. 25 banks failed in 2008. This economic crisis is responsible for 131 of 158 bank failures...83% of all failures since 2000.



Although we're seeing a lot of good news in the media, good economic reports, a dow near 10,000, the FDIC is still on a warpath. When will it end???