I’m busy, and have been for a week. So I thought I’d leave you with some light reading:

The rental vacancy rates for the nation declined from 8.4 percent in 2009 to 7.4 percent in 2011, according to one of two American Community Survey briefs covering the housing market released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Approximately four times as many metro areas experienced declines in rental vacancy rates as those that experienced increases. The share of U.S. households that rent rather than own increased from 34.1 percent in 2009 to 35.4 percent in 2011. Nearly a quarter of the nation’s metro areas saw a rise in renting households, while less than 3.0 percent of the nation’s metro areas saw a decline.

Rental Housing Market Condition Measures: A Comparison of US Metropolitan Areas examines four characteristics of the rental housing stock using American Community Survey data collected in 2009 and 2011. The characteristics are gross rent, gross rent as a percentage of household income, rental vacancy rates, and renter share of total households and describe changes comparing 2009 with 2011.

The brief found that more renters are spending a high percentage of their household income on rent. Policymakers use gross rent as a percentage of income as a measure of housing affordability, and it is often used to determine eligibility for housing programs. In this report, renters spending 35 percent or more of household income on rent and utilities are considered to have high rental costs.

The share of renters with high housing costs in the United States rose from 42.5 percent in 2009 to 44.3 percent in 2011. However, average rental rates in the United States declined from 2009 to 2011.

“While we saw a decrease in rental vacancy rates and pricing in some areas, the burden of rental costs on households increased across many parts of the nation,” said Arthur Cresce, assistant division chief for housing characteristics at the Census Bureau. “Factors such as supply and demand for rental housing and local economic conditions play an important role in helping to explain these relationships.”

Nationwide, only 11 metro areas reduced their shares of renters with high housing costs, while 62 metro areas increased their shares.

Among the 50 most populous metro areas, some of the heaviest rental costs were borne by renters in metro areas in Florida, California and Louisiana in 2011, despite rent declines between 2009 and 2011. These include Miami with 55.7 percent of renters experiencing heavy rental costs. Orlando, Fla. (52.9 percent); Riverside, Calif. (52.2 percent); and New Orleans (51.3 percent), whose shares did not differ significantly from one another, followed closely.

Among the 50 most populous metro areas, only two became affordable for more renters — Richmond, Va., with a decline of 3.2 percentage points in the share of renters with high rental costs from 42.7 percent to 39.5 percent between 2009 and 2011, and Buffalo, N.Y., with a decline of 3.0 percentage points from 45.6 percent to 42.6.

$AEC and $CLP and the renting class are still in effect.

Comments »

I just finished up looking over CLP’s end of year materials and voting my shares. They did a fabulous job – the multifamily theme continues to have powerful undercurrents carrying the REITs to success. Occupancy is so high right now; money is flowing freely and AEC and CLP are both pushing through massive expansions in the pipelines.

I continue to see good things coming from this sector. I will be maintaining my investment in both AEC and CLP.

Comments »

Sitting by the wayside while men of action seize the day is not an appropriate response to opportunity.

As such, I depleted my cash position to a meager 5%, adding heavily to BAS, CLP and RGR.

This is a trade on a belief that we are making a quick bottom and have higher yet to go. I’ll take expedient profits or losses on this, as I am serious about maintaining at least 20% cash (before hedges) at most times; from now until Summer, be my judge.

Comments »

Alright, so the instant I switched over from “merely rapaciously expectant” to “full blown, mind numbingly jubilant”, the market turned on a dime and started punching participants in the face. That should have been clear before I did it. It always happens like that.

So on behalf of everyone whose kids can’t attend college now, I’d like to say, “I’m sorry.”

In times like this, it can always be difficult to answer that most important of questions. No not, “am I properly managing risk.” I’m talking about the even more important inquiry…”Whose fault is this?”

Now, there are several ways you could play this. Personally, I’ve decided to blame it on people using trailing stops. Dicks…littering their homes with half eaten burgers strewn around in McDonald’s bags all over the floor…all while smoking and ashing right on top of them…just begging to burn their house down…

There, you see how I did that? Make sure you ramble a little and trial off at intervals, to really get the “I’m-slightly-unhinged-talking-almost-to-myself” effect.

At any rate, the markets are getting lit up, and all is despair. If you’ve been living the Pisani lifestyle, I’m afraid you’ll be made to eat your hat by a short seller, who will watch you doing it while flinging small handfuls of sand in your eyes. It hurts, I understand. You have my sympathy.

Thankfully, I had the foresight to sell into the strength as opposed to throwing weight on the downdraft and cutting myself down by 5%+ all in one go.

My anticipation, for the moment, is that we will finish this selloff quickly and then surge higher.

I made a (now obviously) misguided purchase of AGQ a few days ago, but other than that I’ve been very good about holding that cash and keeping my hands off it. EUO, my hedge, is running, as this selloff seems to be driven as much by dollar strength as anything else.

The REITs are holding up decently well; AEC and CLP having nothing but cash and sterling operations.

BAS is not so fortunate.

If you owned BAS and didn’t know this quarter was going to be hard: please dispatch yourself in a grueling fashion. That was the most obvious loss in the history of loss-taking. Still BAS is way up from last year and I will consider adding on dips.

CCJ got hit yesterday as well, and RGR seems to be collapsing predominantly on profit taking. Both are buys; both will see much higher prices.

Finally, silver. Silver is the butt of jokes being told on Twitter; that place where everybody sees everything coming and makes 500% annually. Well, the jokes going to be on all of you. Silver is going to explode higher when you least expect it. I remember the circus at $15 /ounce. How it was going single digits. Then it lit you up.

I remember when it went from $50 to $25, and the same people were guffawing how it was going back to $15. Then it lit you up again.

Now it’s off to below $30 (meanwhile the Fed is dropping money like it’s worthless), and the same folks are howling that it’s all done for.

Comments »

Alright, there’s no sense to go crazy. The markets are busy making levels that haven’t been seen in years. My accounts are topping out, now brushing up against their old highs. There’s no sense being dumb.

I went through the positions (except AEC and RGR), easing each one up, until I got the cash amount I needed; dispersed equally across the lot.

CLP announced numbers, and the earnings were very good. However, funds from operations were down, which disturbs me. It could be a simple timing issue, as they just sold a few apartments, and haven’t managed to reinvest the proceeds yet.

Management claims FFO will be almost 40% higher from where it is today by the end of 2013. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

Occupancy remains elevated in the multifamily space.

AEC reports February 5, I believe. I expect good things.

Comments »

AEC and CLP are ramping.

BAS is ramping.

RGR is making the turn.

Alright, so silver is getting crushed. But I can live with that. It’s a buying opportunity if I’ve ever seen one.

My Christmas rally is here. Santa Clause has delivered.

Ho Ho Ho

Comments »