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Chi Heng Canada Origami Event - June 19-20, 2010 (Part 1/2)

Chi Heng Canada Origami Event - June 19-20, 2010 (Part 2/2)

You can't go too wrong following what the big boys are doing!

Blackstone Group LP bought 1,400 properties in Atlanta, many eligible for federal low-income housing subsidies, in the biggest bulk purchase for the fledgling homes-for-lease industry. Photographer: David Beasley/Bloomberg

Blackstone Group LP bought 1,400 properties in Atlanta, some eligible for federal low-income housing subsidies, in the biggest bulk purchase for the fledgling homes-for-lease industry.

The private-equity firm, which has spent more than $4 billion on 24,000 rental properties in the last year making it the largest buyer in the U.S., purchased the residences from Building and Land Technology, said Marcus Ridgway, chief operating officer of Invitation Homes, Blackstone’s single-family rental division.

Private-equity firms, hedge funds and individuals are racing to buy into a shrinking pool of foreclosed or distressed homes to rent. They’re seeking to profit as prices remain 29 percent below their 2006 peak and potential homebuyers can’t get mortgages with banks restricting credit. Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s global head of real estate, said in an interview last week that it’s getting harder to acquire properties for a profit as competition intensifies.

VIDEO: Blackstone Sees Opportunity in Distressed Homes

“Some of the best deals are gone, so we’re really starting to see a consolidation,” said David Lykken, the managing partner of the Austin, Texas-based consulting firm Mortgage Banking Solutions. “It’s a great time for the small to mid-size guys that got in early to exit and start locking in some of the gains that they have.”

‘No Shift’

Blackstone, based in New York, paid more than $100 million for the properties, most of which are already leased, according to two people familiar with the transaction, who asked not to be identified because the deal was private. About 16 percent of the portfolio is Section 8 housing, another person with knowledge of the deal said. Ridgway declined to discuss the price and said the purchase is consistent with Invitation Homes’ plans.

“There has been no shift in our strategy,” he said in an e-mail. “Our goal at Invitation Homes continues to be that we’re building a company for the long term based on long-term holding and renting homes.”

Blackstone, the world’s largest private-equity firm, is leading investors in transforming an industry that historically was a mom and pop business -- which Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates is worth $2.8 trillion -- into an institutional asset class. The firm last month expanded a credit line from Deutsche Bank AG to $2.1 billion for acquiring properties.

Opportunities for bulk deals have been scarce, forcing investors to acquire properties one by one on the open market, at bank auctions, trustee sales and in small portfolios. They’ve targeted states such as Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada that were hardest hit by the housing crash and subsequent foreclosure crisis.

‘Deploying Capital’

“If I had to guess, over the next six to 12 months, it will be difficult for us to continue in our current setup in terms of deploying capital,” Blackstone’s Gray, said in an interview last week.

Competition in Atlanta has pushed out some local investors who’ve complained they can’t compete with institutional firms that are willing to pay higher prices for properties.

At an October courthouse auction in Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, bidders for Colony Capital LLC temporarily ran out of money. They ordered $1 million more in cashiers’ checks to keep buying, since sales at the auction must be paid for on the spot. The firm, run by Thomas Barrack and based in Santa Monica, California, has raised $2.2 billion to buy rental homes.

Investor buying has pushed up prices, with values in Atlanta surging 12.4 percent in the year through February, CoreLogic Inc. reported this month. That compares with a 10.2 percent increase across the U.S. during the period, the biggest year-over-year gain since March 2006.

Buying Competitors

The rush to buy homes at discounts as supply is dwindling means funds wanting to grow are turning to rivals.

“We have plenty of people approaching us to try to buy components of our portfolio or our entire portfolio,” said Jordan Kavana, director of Aventura, Florida-based Transcendent Investment Management, which has been acquiring single-family homes since 2008 and plans to spend $1 billion on properties over the next three years. “We’re not sellers though. We are looking at several of our competitors’ portfolios to buy.”

Over the last year Building and Land Technology’s single-family rental business, known as BLT Homes, has acquired more than 4,000 distressed homes in 10 markets, according to Carl R. Kuehner, president and CEO of the Stamford, Connecticut-based company.

VOUS N’ALLEZ PAS ME CROIRE…

- Vous n’allez pas me croire…
- Je n’ose pas vous raconter…
- Je ne sais pas comment j’ai fait pour supporter ça…
- C’est de la folie, non ? Vous pouvez m’aider ?

Les victimes qui viennent en thérapie sont totalement perdues. Elles n’ont plus de repère. Elles ne savent plus distinguer le vrai du faux, le juste de l’injuste, le bien du mal. Elles se pensent seules – et bien souvent elles le sont. Isolées par une personnalité toxique qui a su éloigner amis, famille, enfants. Qui a su leur faire cesser toute activité professionnelle.
Leurs faits et gestes les plus quotidiens sont conditionnés par le toxique. Il faut regarder telle émission de télé, il faut écouter telle chaîne de radio. C’est à telle heure qu’on mange tel plat, et c’est telle chose qu’on dit dans telle circonstance.
Elles sont conditionnées à "bien" se comporter, "bien" au sens où l’entend la personnalité toxique.
Elles sont infantilisées, n’ayant le droit de s’exprimer que de la manière dont l’entend celui, ou celle, qui manipule.

Comme un parent faussement bienveillant va en fait téléguider son enfant, lui interdisant au nom du "C’est pour ton bien" de s’exprimer, de grandir, d’être un individu à part entière, le manipulateur, ou la manipulatrice, va décerveler sa victime et lui imprimer un système de pensées afin de servir ses propres intérêts – uniquement ses intérêts.

Les victimes ne savent même plus si elles peuvent penser et réfléchir. Quand elles ont une idée, quelle que soit l’idée, elles ne s’autorisent pas à la développer. Elles ne s’autorisent surtout pas à la garder pour elles – le jardin secret est interdit. Elles doivent tout dire à celui, ou celle, qui les conditionne. L’instant de silence est traduit en instant de mensonge. Et, toujours comme le ferait un parent bienveillant, mais avec l’objectif de détruire et de posséder, la personnalité toxique va expliquer à quel point le silence est un mensonge et une trahison.

Elles restent petit enfant.
C’est ainsi que je les rencontre.
Des enfants. Apeurés, effrayés. Aux nuits hantées de cauchemars. Demandant l’autorisation pour tout ce qu’il y a de plus banal. N’osant jamais dire non. Elles sont convaincues de ne pas en avoir le droit ; et plus encore, que dire non, c’est être méchant, c’est faire du mal à l’autre.

Pour exemple, cette jeune femme que j’accompagne depuis plusieurs semaines. Je la sais allergique à la cigarette. Elle déteste l’odeur du tabac, ne supporte pas la fumée. À la fin d’une séance un peu difficile, je m’apprête à conclure. Elle a la tête baissée. Elle a honte d’elle – elle a tenu tête la veille à son compagnon et s’est entendue dire qu’elle est monstrueuse. Nous discutons encore une minute.
Je lui demande alors – volontairement – si je peux fumer. Elle devrait me dire non.
- Oui, bien sûr !
- Vous êtes certaine ? 
- Je ne peux pas vous l’interdire. Vous faites ce que vous voulez.
- Il ne s’agit pas d’interdiction. Il s’agit de respect. Mutuel. Je vous le demande encore : est-ce que je peux fumer ?
- Je ne sais pas… Oui puisque je vous respecte. 
- Et moi, si je fume, est-ce que je vous respecte ? 
- Moi ? Moi, ça ne compte pas…

Je n’ai pas allumé de cigarette.
Cette jeune femme n’a plus conscience de ce qui est possible, normal, respectueux, adulte. Je suis son thérapeute. Je travaille avec elle pour son bien. Je sais que la cigarette la rend malade. Nous sommes sur un lie de travail. Autant de raisons pour qu’elle refuse. Elle ne peut pas. Pour elle, le refus est signe d’agressivité, de méchanceté, de conflit, de bêtise. Un simple "Non" lui est impossible.

La plupart des victimes sont ainsi quand elles viennent me voir pour la première fois. Elles ne savent pas dire non. Ce serait manquer de respect. Ce serait devenir l’adulte qu’elles n’ont pas le droit d’être.

Il leur faut alors apprendre, autrement. Déplacer le champ de pensée, et se replacer au coeur d’un système.
Car en ne disant jamais non, les victimes le disent tout de même. Ce que je leur demande, c’est de réfléchir à qui, en se taisant, elles disent non.

***************************************************************************************

You do not believe me

- You do not believe me ...

- I dare not tell you ...

- I do not know how I did it to support ...

- This is crazy , right? Can you help me ?

Victims who come to therapy are totally lost. They have no reference. They no longer know how to distinguish truth from falsehood , right from wrong, good from evil . They think only - and often they are. Isolated by a toxic personality that has away friends, family, children. Who was able to stop their professional activity.

Their facts and most everyday actions are conditioned by the toxic. It should look as TV show , you have to listen as radio channel . It is time we eat such as flat , and it is such a thing is said in such circumstances.

They are packaged in "good" behave "good" in the meaning of the toxic personality.

They are infantilized , having the right to express that how one understands , or that which manipulates .

As a caring parent will falsely makes téléguider child, denying him the name of " It's for your own good " to express themselves, to grow, to be a unique individual , the manipulator , or manipulative, will brainwash his victim and print a system of thought in order to serve its own interests - only its interests.

Victims do not even know if they can think and reflect . When they have an idea, whatever the idea , they do not allow themselves to develop. They do not allow especially to keep for themselves - the secret garden is prohibited. They should all say that , or that , which conditions . The moment of silence is now translated into a lie. And always like a benevolent parent, but with the objective to destroy and possess toxic personality will explain how the silence is a lie and a betrayal.

They remain small child.

This is how I meet .

Of children. Frightened , scared. The nights haunted by nightmares . Requesting authorization for everything that has more commonplace. Never daring to say no. They are convinced of not having the law, and even more , that say no, is being mean , it's hurting the other.

For example, this young woman I accompanied for several weeks. I know allergic to smoke . She hates the smell of tobacco , can not stand the smoke. At the end of a session a little difficult, I am about to conclude . She bowed head. She is ashamed of her - she stood up yesterday to his companion and was told she is monstrous . We are still discussing a minute.

I asked him - voluntarily - if I can smoke . It should say no .

- Yes , of course!

- Are you sure?

- I can not ban you . You do what you want.

- There is no prohibition . This respect. Mutual . I ask you again : do I smoke ?

- I do not know ... Yes , because I respect you .

- And I, if I smoke, do I respect you ?

- Me ? Me, it does not count ...

I have not lit cigarette.

This young woman is no longer aware of what is possible , normal, respectful adult. I'm his therapist. I worked with her for her own good . I know that smoking makes her sick . We are working on a lie . All reasons she refuses . It can not . For her refusal is a sign of aggression , malice , conflict , stupidity . A simple "No" it is impossible.

Most victims are so when they come to see me for the first time . They do not say no . It would be disrespectful . It would become the adult they do not have the right to be .

They then have to learn otherwise . Move the field of thought, and put the heart of a system.

Because by never saying no , victims say anyway. I ask them is to consider that , by remaining silent , they say no .

Orlando Florida - Winter Haven