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Registered Jul 18, 2011

bmwman91's most recent comments:

• On 19 May 2013 in Ground report from Cupertino, bmwman91 said:

  LarryPatrickMaloney says
  

  Yellow Alert: More and more houses showing up in Sunnyvale, and now in Mountain View. Three just put up for sale signs on my street this week.

  Spring market, or are owners looking for the exits?

  I have noticed an uptick in listings in MV too. My agent says that inventories are also increasing, although they are still only about 25% of the historic norm. I think that it is a combo of the spring/summer selling season bounce and prices rising enough from a year ago that some people want to capture gains. Most of what I am seeing listed are condos and townhouses, so maybe those people want to try to move-up into SFH's or something.

• On 19 May 2013 in Is real estate bubble 2 showing some strain?, bmwman91 said:

  Quigley says
  

  It has nothing to do with FHA. Those type of buyers will never even get a chance to bid on a house in this market. Unless it's grossly overpriced, and then the loan won't go thru because the house will never appraise. Unless you are a cash buyer or have a f-ton of money to put down you won't be buying in LA soon.
  
  Houses under $600k are getting 20-30 offers right now. I put an offer on a house two weeks ago, $20k over list. The house went to a cash offer no inspection or contingencies, 40k over list.

  God help ANYONE looking in the sub-$600k market in coastal CA. Around here, everything in that range seems to go all-cash to investors. The $600k-$700k range is still rough as hell because it is expensive enough that investors aren't snatching those up quite as readily, but that's the range that most of the reasonably qualified buyers seem to be corralled in and duking it out with one another.

  Every agent that I have talked to has said that a) FHA loans might as well be written on toilet paper, and b) they refuse to even work with FHA buyers. I'd say that FHA buyers have established a price floor at $729k (or whatever the FHA limit is in a given locality), but honestly FHA buyers are not even a factor right now with inventories being non-existent.

  Based on my recent experience in buying a house, a would-be buyer needs to be ready and able to offer up to $50k over what they think a house can appraise for and pull ALL contingencies. This applies to "normal" neighborhoods, not nutty places like Cupertino and Palo Alto where you need $1M in cash or more. I am by no means advocating this wild behavior, but it is what it is for the time being and I generally agree with iwog that this price run-up will have momentum for a while (hell, it could still build more momentum if inventories don't increase). It is just simple supply and demand. If inventories went up 5x overnight prices probably would crash, but I can't see any reason for inventories to do that. I don't like it because a lot of my friends seem to be screwed, and I wonder what my younger sister will be able to do (she is 3 years younger though, so maybe by the time she is looking the next correction will hit). As for me, I don't give a shit what the house is worth ever again because the payments are manageable even on one income (if it comes to that) and I plan to be there for a hell of a long time. I suspect that a LOT of owners have re-fi'ed to under 4% and are thinking, "why would I want to sell and move-up when my payment just got chopped by 30%+, prices are rising and there's nothing for me to buy anyway?" That's a nasty feedback loop there!

• On 18 May 2013 in bmwman91's Buying Adventure Log, bmwman91 said:

  Took care of appliance shopping today. We went to Sears and got a fridge (top freezer), washer (high efficiency, which gets us a $125 rebate from Santa Clara) and dryer with the steam option which will save me some hassles with wrinkled shirts before work. All Kenmore brand, no extended warranties or anything. They are doing a 15% off of everything sale if you buy 2 or more major appliances, so that saved us a few hundred dollars. While it isn't exactly the most economical choice, this stuff should last us a very long time, and I can fix things if they do break.

  Just for kicks we dropped by University Electric and looked at some high end stuff. $10k Sub Zero fridges...no thanks. Unless they can guarantee that food will taste better in one, it isn't my cup of tea.