Art lost more than I thought 10-16-10

Ouch. And in case that doesn't express it clearly enough, ooooh, that smarts. Yikes simply will not suffice. What am I getting at? Well, the price of Art's Turtle Lake Estate, of course. Even the reader with a slightly foggy memory will recall that I claimed that Art Van paid 6.5 million for his "Bachelor Crash Pad" in Bloomfield Hills back in 2004. I was wrong. In all fairness, I was writing from memory, but I was 1.1 million dollars off! Oops.  Mea culpea. According to tax records on file, my 'ol buddy paid 7.6 million dollars for it! As any resident of Michigan is well aware, real estate is not going up in value in that state. It is still plummeting. Please do not get mad at me, I am only the messenger. More bad news there, Art old buddy. According to those same tax records, I was overly generous when I quoted the Estates current value. In the last writing, I cited a current value of 2.4 million. I sure am glad I am not in the real estate business, because apparently I would have flunked appraisal class. The actual taxable value is only 2.12 million. These new figures would indicate a loss in value of FIVE and A HALF million dollars! Wow, and I thought my Corvette depreciated too much. Pleasant dreams, Art.