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(tangent) Ok this confuses me: > (in December, their $1.8 million Palo Alto home was used to secure a $250 million bail package after Bankman-Fried was release
by danso 4y ago
(tangent) Ok this confuses me:
> (in December, their $1.8 million Palo Alto home was used to secure a $250 million bail package after Bankman-Fried was released on a personal recognizance bond.
Their Palo Alto home is worth only $1.8M? Do they live in a 1BR/0.5BA shed?
edit: Apparently the assessed value (for property taxes) is $1.8M. But realtor sites estimate it at $3.1M, and it was apparently renting for $12,000/month back in 2013. Still cheaper than I thought for a 4-br home on Stanford's Dish
https://sfstandard.com/business/inside-sam-bankman-frieds-parents-beautiful-historic-home/ https://sfstandard.com/business/inside-sam-bankman-frieds-pa...
- dragonwriter 4y agoLooking right now at listings in Palo Alto, the few things in that range ($1.5M-$2M) are 2-3 bedroom, 1-3 bath, 1,200-1,900 sq. ft.
- jibe 4y agoThe house is on the Stanford campus, and is under Stanford’s control. It can only be sold to Stanford employees, so it limits the value.
- cdolan 4y agoI think you make a great point and I agree, but to play devils advocate for a second... Do we think Stanford is lacking in people willing to live there? I bet it may even increase the chance (so long as the HOA is not all that bad!)
- mattheww 4y agoYou're right, the thing limiting the value is not demand - there are more than enough faculty and high-level staff that want to live there. The thing limiting the value is the other restrictions that Stanford imposes on these houses - namely they essentially control the price the houses sell for because they all have to be financed through a Stanford-controlled lending program.
- bee_rider 4y agoIt seems weird that they could us a property constrained like that to secure a bail.
- quonn 4y agoWhy not? Many houses can be constrained by a HOA, state law etc. It‘s value and market value can presumably still be determined, so I would assume it can be used.
- strangattractor 4y agoI suppose Stanford could buy it back for the agreed to price thus providing them cash. Seems they don't need it however.
- ksherlock 4y ago$250 million bail secured by a $1.8 million house and that's the weird part?
- NotYourLawyer 4y agoThere’s actually nothing at all weird about that.
- SilasX 4y agoOnly because federal courts are consistently weird about it! :-p From an objective, outside perspective, it's definitely weird to say, "Put up $X to assure us you'll actually appear for trial. Oh, you're putting up .01X? Okay, we're cool." Like, even accepting the validity/logic of the cash bail system, they should just be honest and call it .01X bail. The full X is never actually used for anything beyond "look at us, we're a serious court, taking this flight risk seriously". (To pre-empt a thoroughly well-tread response from the previous threads: Yes, I know, in SBF's case, the parents are on the hook for the rest of the X, so X is, in a sense, "used". But their net worth is nowhere near X -- more like .04X -- so that just pushes the farce ratio down to .96X, which, while better than .99X, is still pretty darn close to X.) My earlier comments about this absurdity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34810830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34810830 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34599868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34599868
- ralph84 4y agoThey live in housing that can only be purchased by Stanford professors.
- moralestapia 4y agoTalk about being sheltered.
- hgsgm 4y agoIt's a big club but you ain't in it.
- compiler-guy 4y agoThe house is on Stanford land and so does can only be sold to Stanford faculty or staff. In fact, it's technically not even owned, it is leased from the university. This changes the pool of potential buyers, and therefore the market is quite different than the normal Palo Alto market.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]