I just got a voice mail from Jessica Duarte, one of three frustrated home buyers I mentioned in my story in today’s paper. She was pleased to tell me that the article must have been good luck: Her bid was accepted on the condo she’s pictured looking at in the paper. I think I’m going to petition upper management to change our motto: The North County Times, your four-leaf clover in times of trouble.
Archive for the ‘Minding Your Business’ Category
Frustrated home buyer, frustrated no more
By: Eric Wolff — October 28th, 2009UCSD Ranks 6th Largest Fed Research $$ Recipient — Again
By: Bradley Fikes — October 27th, 2009As universities go, The House That Roger Revelle Built is a puppy, founded just four decades ago. But it’s one of the top dogs in pulling in federal research dollars. And according to the National Science Foundation, UCSD has once again ranked 6th nationwide.
UCSD got $491 million in federal R&D money and spent a total of $842 million in total R&D activities for fiscal year 2008.
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Modest Signs of Biotech Rebound
By: Bradley Fikes — October 26th, 2009(This is my early report from Biocom’s investor conference today and Tuesday).
By BRADLEY J. FIKES
SAN DIEGO —- Biotech’s golden allure is mostly tarnished for investors, who have crammed into the technology sector chasing after the Apples and Googles. But there’s some signs of a modest turnaround, experts said Monday at a life sciences investors forum.
Biotech companies will have to squeeze to make every dollar count, and more mergers and acquisitions will take place for lack of any alternative, said panelists during a morning discussion. The forum was sponsored by Biocom, the San Diego-based life sciences trade group.
However, federal stimulus money is at last flowing to the life sciences sector, providing some reason for optimism, said panelist Dan Owczarski, a senior health care analyst at Avondale Partners, LLC.
“We’re seeing big numbers coming out in grants being awarded,” Owczarski said. “Now the cash is going to start flowing down.”
The largest slice of the money so far appears to be going to the life science “tool companies,” which provide research products used by academic researchers, government agencies and other biotech companies, Owczarski said. These tool providers include companies such as Illumina Inc., based in San Diego, and Carlsbad’s Life Technologies.
Some smaller biotech companies are benefitting from federal grants for H1N1, or swine flu, and biodefense research, said Jason Kantor, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. However, Kantor described those as “niche” areas, not enough for an industrywide upswing.
The various federal grants are mostly going for early-stage research, the panelists said. That’s a good thing, they said, because investors aren’t willing to fund early-stage research anyway.
Panelists agreed that biotech as an investment sector is at the bottom of the cycle of investment popularity. Companies hoping to get funding over the near term will have to show results within about 18 months to get funding interest.
The forum takes place Monday and Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency in the UTC area.
bfikes@nctimes.com
New home buyer credit’s uncertain future
By: Eric Wolff — October 20th, 2009For all the discussion of extending the new home buyer federal tax credit, it seems like no one remembered to check in with the administration. The credit is very popular among congress members, several of whom have proposed various kinds of extensions.
But Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told a Senate Committee today that the administration needs to review the data and do some cost-benefit analysis before it decides whether or not to back an extension.
This is from the Wall Street Journal’s Developments blog:
Donovan told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that there was “clear evidence” that the tax credit had benefited the housing market. But he said that the “real issue” in considering an extension was whether an extension was worth the cost to the government in lost tax revenue.
The actual cost of the credit won’t be known “until Americans have filed their tax returns,” he said. “And so, we feel it’s very important within the administration that we gather as much data as we possible can in advance of that before we make a final decision.”
Scientists Start Social Search Network
By: Bradley Fikes — October 20th, 2009Seven research centers around the country are sharing a $12.2 million grant to create a kind of Facebook for scientists. The goal is to help scientists find potential research collaborators, speeding up the process of scientific discovery.
The two-year grant, from the National Center for Research Resources, goes to a consortium led by the University of Florida, It includes The Scripps Research Institute; Indiana University; Weill Cornell Medical College; Wahington University at St. Louis and the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico.
The network is being named VIVO, after open-source search software that categorizes and organizes results to make them more usable for researchers. Eventually, the NIH wants to make VIVO a national network for scientists.
IRS looking into possible new home buyer tax credit fraud
By: Eric Wolff — October 20th, 2009the IRS is looking into 100,000 suspicious claims for the tax credit for qualified home buyers, the Wall Street Journal reports. As I wrote over the weekend, home buyers are leaping in to the market to take advantage of a potential $8,000 federal tax credit for anyone who has not owned their own home for three years. Many are hurrying to get deals into escrow this month, to give their lenders time to process paperwork.
From the story:
“More than a million claims for the credit have been received so far, and housing-industry experts estimated that the credit has helped generate about 350,000 home sales that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred. But some lawmakers and tax experts now say there is evidence that a significant number of the claims might prove to be unjustified, or even fraudulent.”
Several bills have been introduced in Congress to extend the deadline for the tax credit, make the credit larger, or even expand the program to all home buyers. If the IRS starts to come up with a laundry list of fraudulent credits, the agency could put a chill on all the extend-the-credit enthusiasm.
[Via Calculated Risk]
Then again, maybe there’s still a shadow inventory danger?
By: Eric Wolff — October 19th, 2009Last week I wrote a story based on a report from ForeclosureRadar arguing that there was no such thing as a shadow inventory, meaning that there was no glut of houses banks were secreting away for future sale in a better market.
Before my story ran, I put in a call to real estate economist Chris Thornberg of Beacon Economics. He couldn’t get back to me until today, but he had some good thoughts about ForeclosureRadar’s analysis worth repeating here:
“He’s right, the number of REO units is falling, but the reason it’s falling is because the inventory is stalled in the pre-REO space. There’s all these crazy programs out there, all these help for home owners programs that banks are forced to indulge in.
“Something like nine percent of mortgages are extremely behind on payments, another six percent of mortgages are somewhere in the foreclosures process.
“So you have about 15% about to be foreclosed on. That the number of REO units is dropping is irrelevant, because there’s an enormous backlog behind them. You haven’t cleaned the pipe.”
If I may rephrase, if the flow of foreclosures is like a river, then the government programs are a dam, slowing the flow of the river. The drop in bank inventory corresponds to a drop in foreclosures, which are the lessened flow beneath the dam. But the water behind the dam is still building up, and at some point it will need to be released. And when that happens, the flow of foreclosures may be another flood.
New real estate reporter here
By: Eric Wolff — October 19th, 2009Hi all.
The last real estate post on this blog was from my predecessor Zach Fox, lo these many moons ago. Well, I’m putting an end to that lengthy hiatus as of today.
My name is Eric Wolff, I come to the North County Times from San Diego CityBeat, a free weekly down in San Diego. I’ve been here at the NCT for a couple of weeks now, and some of you may have seen my first few bylines.
I’m going to write something more substantive in the next post in a minute, but one quick question of for blog readers: Can someone help me come up with a better name for this thing? I’m just not a fan of “On the Realside”. I’m sure we can come up with something better.
Anyway, I look forward to the conversation.
Competitors target San Diego SpaWar cyber security
By: Bradley Fikes — September 29th, 2009San Diego County is facing tougher competition in the growing cyber security sector, and could lose business if it’s complacent, local business leaders said.
With the Obama administration pouring billions into the technology sector, areas around the country are competing fiercely, said Duane Roth, director of the technology entrepreneur group Connect, and Michael Jones, president of The Security Network, a local trade group.
Charleston, S.C. has mounted a particularly significant challenge, Roth said. A business alliance there is seeking to gain cyber security work now handled in San Diego by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, or SpaWar. The agency administers a total of about $2.4 billion in contracts per year.
Since Charleston has its own SpaWar facilities, the challenge is particularly serious, Roth said.
“Cyber security’s a huge area, not only in defense, but in everything —- patient records, business practices, all kinds of things,” Roth said. “We just can’t take it for granted.”
Cyber security’s reach keeps expanding as the Internet and related communications technologies move further into the nation’s infrastructure, Jones said. The “smart grid” that brings two-way communications between utilities and users is one example.
“There’s a huge need to protect the information,” Jones said. “If a bad person gets in, they could turn off the electricity. There’s all kinds of things that could be done.”
Military networks face the same challenge as they move toward being “interoperable,” with common standards, Jones said. The easier it is for the networks to communicate with each other, the easier it will be for intruders to get in.
Part of the region’s expertise will be put on display next week at a conference by The Security Network on robotics, information security and sensors.
San Diego is one of the top areas for cyber security work, Jones said, but quantifying it more precisely is difficult because much of the activity is classified. It includes research centers such as UC San Diego and work performed by the region’s large defense industry.
Stefan Savage, a noted cyber security expert at UCSD, said academic research is less vulnerable to a change in SpaWar operations than business activities, because SpaWar typically passes along money already allocated to a particular researcher.
Insulin, circadian clock genetic link found
By: Bradley Fikes — September 17th, 2009LA JOLLA —- Genes that regulate insulin also influence the body’s circadian clock, according to a study by scientists at UCSD and the University of Pennsylvania.
The finding help explain links between sleeping disorders and development of other major health problems. Moreover, the scientists say, the finding provides insight into possible treatments.
The study, published online Thursday in the journal Cell, found 200 genes that affect the circadian clock. Seven of these genes are already known to help regulate insulin.
(NOTE: I’ll put up a link to the article when it’s up.)
Sleep disorders often occur along with obesity, high blood pressure and insulin resistance. The latter three are part of “metabolic syndrome,” which can lead to heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes.
“People knew that the clock regulates many different processes, but what they didn’t realize what that when you tweak those processes, it feeds back and alters the clock,” said UCSD’s Steve Kay, in a press release. Kay, dean of biological sciences, led the study with John Hogenesch of the University of Pennsylvania.
The genes were found in cell cultures; even outside the body, the cells retain their daily activity cycle.
The study also found evidence that genes governing three other control systems also affect the circadian clock, one that governs the use of folate, a B-vitamin; and two that control cellular life cycles.
The researchers are sharing their discoveries; they’ve put information about the genes into an open-access database called BioGPS, at http://biogps.gnf.org.