patrick.net

Yeah, well the full page ad definitely sent a flood of emotion over me! So much so that I'm ready to write an offer on Ann's listing in the post above!

"probably leveraged up to his eyeballs"

When Carlotta said for us not worry about him, "he bought in 2002 and 2003" I almost fell out of my chair laughing! Seriously dude/dudette?

Translation? Try 2004 and 2005, or as likely as not "in escrow" on the second buy! I've moved to ban but I can only talk until I'm blue in the face.

What's so sad about our local market (Silverton, OR) being hailed as the "Carmel of Oregon" is that I don't care if you're looking for a mid-60's single wide you'll find the most expensive one in the state here!

Fixers in particular (and not just here by any means) should be viewed with a healthy amount of skepticism. In a seller' market (yes I still consider this a SM) there is all the room in the world for owners of grossly neglected properties to price up to just a bit below what a "turn-key" home would sell for and yet somehow position the whole debacle as a "bargain"!

Without so much as the aid of a clipboard or calculator seasoned homeowners that have done rennovation quickly conclude that by the time you've sunk another 25-50-100K+ into this money pit what you'll have is a home that is every bit if not MORE expensive than one bought new. Only in this case there will be 2 years out of your life that you're not going to get back. I can't wait to stay away from it.

Hey gang don't forget to cast your ballots tomorrow. Just sent my absentee express overnight. We need to let congress know that can no longer take thier seats for granted.. If enough of us do this maybe we'll see some positive changes.

Different Sean Says:

let’s see what happens in the polls tomorrow. altho i’m worried that somehow the repugs will be returned with an even higher majority through some strange artifact…

Be afraid, be very afraid.
Don't know if its reached your side of the Pond (if it ever will), but HBOs documentary "Hacking Democracy" shows up what a total cluster*uck the last election was, due to Diebold's patented vote counting machines....

http://tinyurl.com/sauln

When most realtwhores have added no significant value to transactions in the last few years, they cannot really differentiate their services on a value-added basis.

....but this listing is special, John

"they choose to gang up as a cartel"

Besides, why is it so important to the average American to be buying and selling with such velocity? The natural progression for most couples would have been fixer/starter (ages 25-35) intermediate home (ages 30-45) "dream house" (ages 40-55) downsize home ages (50-55+).

Th panic that you see among realtors is that they have "pulled all their sales forward"! Sure, I could make a ton of money this month by going to each and every client and absolutely "tapping them out" but (A) that may well be not what is in "their" best interest and (B) what will I do next month?

Their problem is that they've totally compressed the chronology of a LIFETIME of housing needs all into the span of about 5 or 6 years! Everybody that could afford a starter (and legions that couldn't) have already been put into a starter! Those that could afford (or not) a move up home or second or vacation home have all already been way over extended. It's not that there isn't more money to loan, it's that believe-ability of anything resembling a manageable debt load has been exceeded. And that's what is so frustrating to them.

Oh, btw it seems to me that while most couples have come to appreciate the modern conveniences and prestige of their "dream" home they often recall their first home the most fondly! Weird huh?

they often recall their first home the most fondly! Weird huh?

We recall our first home very fondly. I could go on and on about every little detail, but it really has nothing to do with the house itself. It has to do with nostalgia about a time when we were younger, and as youth tends to go, more optimistic. I can also fondly wax about my high-school car even though it was a 1978 Ford Granada, one of the worst vehicles ever produced.

gr8vino,

There are several guys that work the "Rose City" airwaves and while I can't think of the firms offhand the one guy does such a great job spinning the latest economic numbers he should have written "stock pitch scripts" for the boiler room I started out at years ago!

No matter what the data that comes out IT'S ALWAYS a great time to re-fi! Is that Spartan Mortgage or some other guys? Usually when you're listening to 750 KXL or 1190 KEX.

Randy H,

Our oldest daughter's first boyfriend had a 1978 Granada and when he "totaled it out" let's just say I'm not sure it was completely accidental?

Yeah, I'm not sure why our first home warrants such a revered status in our memories? Maybe it's b/c of the low taxes and dirt cheap payments (by today's standards) or that so many "firsts" took place there?

On Sunday the Mrs. and I weren't sure where we wanted to eat but one thing we were sure of; neither of us wanted to cook. We wound up at the Olive Garden and the entire UCLA Womens Soccer Team came in! I guess they had just beaten our OSU Beavers 3 to 1 and were "monster" hungry. I just wanted to say that they were really gracious about winning, respectful of their coach and team captain and were a real joy to be stuck in line with! Great kids! (See, not everyone from SoCal is RUDE!)

"Realtors have canabalized themselves"

Exactly! AND (not to beat this to death......too late) their "new best friend" our ridiculously generous tax code while meaning greater appreciation and sales volumes up front also ran it's course in an ugly fashion. The REIC loves to focus on int. rates but this thing would have run out of gas with or without higher rates of any kind!

The Tampa article you linked earlier should provide clear proof of how addicted to this cycle we've become! (If we can't have "genuine" appreciation, we'll just pencil ourselves in for some!). The one buyer wanting an obscene amount of cash sent to some clandestine "overseas" construction "company"? Oh please.

Pummeling Junior U. is usually considered an endorsement for the opposing school.

You really can't blame the SoCal drivers for driving the way they do, the traffic there is much worse than BA traffic. I laugh when BA people complain about traffic, BA traffic is even better than DC or Seattle.

skibum,

Well there's a reason I don't go to a lot of games all that much anymore and most of it is for the very reasons you describe. I just thought it was a time to give credit where it's due and the UCLA gals conducted themselves w/class. When you're that young getting to go anywhere IS exciting. College athletics has gotten a bad name and it was refreshing to see that some of the student-atheletes don't take their program for granted.

This is funny. Blanche "the douchebag" Evans has a piece in RealtyTimes trying to boost the morale of the army of realtwhores out there:

http://realtytimes.com/rtapages/20061106_bailout.htm

Hey realtors (ConfusedRealtwhore included), hang in there!

"Some of the most successful people in real estate today started their careers during the last real estate downturn in the 1990s," he adds. "They figured out a way to remain in the business during difficult times. If you're passionate about a career in real estate, and approach it with the right mindset, you can do the same."

Pummeling Junior U. is usually considered an endorsement for the opposing school.

@astrid,

These days, achieving this is not a very difficult task.

I laugh when BA people complain about traffic, BA traffic is even better than DC or Seattle.

No way. I go to Seattle a lot and that's just bunk.

Seattle's traffic is bad, but it's understandable because they have a puny 4 lane bridge (520). Yeah I can understand why it would take ~1 hour at rush hour to go from the Eastside to the Westside. And traffic can be bad nearing the Boeing plants at 5pm.

But what the hell? It sometimes takes 1+ hour to go from Downtown Palo Alto to Downtown San Jose. And that's using an 8 lane road!

"Blanche "the douchebag" Evans" LOL! Damn!

Notice how they describe "alternate careers" within RE vice say......chucking it in! "Since 30% of homes sold in 2004 and 40% in 2005 were second homes these people could use a lot of help to keep these properties cash flowing". Rally? Cash flowing? How's is dat?

Ahem, renting that "distance McAlbatross" at Lake Woebegone isn't going to yield you zip, point, squat! So of the 38 homes at the lake you are able to find a "writer" that wants to lease ONE for 6 months? Oh yeah, that sounds enormously lucrative! GFL.

Ahem, renting that “distance McAlbatross” at Lake Woebegone isn’t going to yield you zip, point, squat!

Ah yes, Lake Wobegone, where the realtors are smart, the McAlbatrosses are plenty, and median home prices above average.

I think this guy should be dressed like a sheep instead!

Ooops, This guy

gr8vino,

Yeah! That's the ticket! This guy could "find the pony" in a room full of....... Anyway to hear Hayes talk you'd think the re-fi craze was still in full swing! It's so bad that some of my pals tell me there were MB's that had never actually done a "purchase" mortgage!

While we don't typically have the "nose bleed" prices the BA gets to brag about Portland consistently ranks among the most overpriced markets due in large part that our median income is about half of the BA!

I just keep wondering what's going to happen to all that over development in the "Pearl District" and high end stuff downtown? The realtors are still putting on this "bravado" but then you see the same listing on Craigslist offering discounts and we'll pay one years HOA etc. It's just so sloppy now it's easy for either side (bears or bulls) to make their case. We'll know more by spring.

skibum,

Firstly it's really weird here right now. It's like 69 degrees and supposed to be 75 on the coast. Here in the valley were looking at 5" of rain in the next 48 hours and the coast as much as 10"? Up on Mt. Hood this usually means much fun!

Yeah, Lake Woebegone. I always kid clients that are/were contemplating a 3,500 sq. ft. "weekender" about what a weekender was supposed to have been about! (Getting AWAY from it all?) Remember? If you look on Cabella's web site they have great 400-1,200 sq. ft. cabin kits starting around 8 grand. Why don't you start there? See how you like it.

Does anyone know who DCI Pacific is?

Seattle and DC seem to be sandwiched right in between SF/Oakland and San Jose. At least on a gross area-wide basis.

Cool - we're both right. :)

It's kind of telling that SF/Oakland has to be broken apart from San Jose - goes to show how awful traffic is both ways. No wonder our house prices are so expensive - bad traffic = high house prices. It's a No Brainer.

3. Contact your local Democratic Party headquarters. There are close races in nearly every state.

Sadly, as Jim Kunstler notes in this entry - even if the Democrats win, we're still on a path to screwedness:

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2006/11/the_time_remain.html

What a great quote:

http://www.kunstler.com/Mags_Bruegmann.html

This sad fact explains why the chronic disappointment of suburbia inspires ridicule even among those who live in it. It hasn’t delivered very well on its promises for a long time now. In its florid, climactic incarnation today – the McMansion precincts of Dallas, Atlanta, or Northern Virginia – it presents the worst elements of urban and rural life in the same package, with few of the benefits of either. The megaburbs have all the congestion of a city and none of the human contact. They have all of the isolation of the country, but no real connection to nature.

What an apt description of McMansionvilles

Did anyone see CNBC this morning? Apparently Nouriel Roubini was on Squawk Box bitch-slapping the NAR president:

http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/155898

Does anyone have any comments on this? I wish I had a chance to catch it!

Simply stunning, now is a great time to buy or sell a house.

1-1=0

"The only thing going up in the housing market are delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures" (Roubini)

Now why I couldn't I have said that? Oh and advertising expense!

I was unaware of the "Orwell connection" but glad he didn't let one little thing slide. (Btw, this is how I used to sound at parties).

RE: illegal immigration debate

Tax policy and border & law enforcement alone can go a long way on this issue, but it cannot completely solve the root causes. As long as birth rate and unemployment/extreme poverty remain high in the source countries, there will be large numbers of poor people seeking a better life here at what we would consider to be "slave" wages, and will be willing to live under what we would consider to be "intolerable" conditions (12 to a room).

The things our government does have direct control over is border enforcement (stick) and the ability to align economic and legal incentives & disincentives with desired outcomes (carrot & stick), but the political will to change the status quo is simply not here yet.

To a working-class working American --especially if you are part of the minority underclass-- "desired outcome" means less illegal immigration, which equates to less competition for low skill jobs, social benefits and housing. To the ruling class (including incumbents of both stripes, limousine liberals, corporate executives, tearful Hollywood celebs, etc.), "desired outcome" means more immigration, which equates to cheap, plentiful (and easily intimidated) quasi-slave labor, cheaper services, and fatter profit margins.

Until the fundamental disconnect between what the working class and ruling class sees as "desired outcome" is resolved and/or converges, I predict more useless posturing and rhetoric on the issue, with little real action.

Unfortunately, the U.S. cannot unilaterally dictate birth control policy (or lack thereof) or end corruption and tribalism among other countries, though we could do a great deal more about it than we currently do. Like for instance, restoring our funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which the Bush administration cut off in 2002: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0622-06.htm.

But I guess promoting safe, plentiful birth control runs counter to the neo-con's notion of "family values". Which roughly translates as promoting any policy that increases the number of ignorant poor people around the world, while simultaneously strangling anything that might increase upward class mobility among the very poor.

I predict more useless posturing and rhetoric on the issue, with little real action.

That's a pretty bold prediction. Do you also predict that the sun will rise? :)

Just kidding - but the reality is that that's what's going to happen. Talking about what you're going to do is so much more important and electable than actually doing something about it.

But I guess promoting safe, plentiful birth control runs counter to the neo-con’s notion of “family values”.

What? Haven't you heard of abstinence and Jesus? :)

Actually, they should just find a way to productize the current malaise in Japan - where increasingly people aren't interested in... uh... certain traditional human functionality.

Actually, they should just find a way to productize the current malaise in Japan - where increasingly people aren’t interested in… uh… certain traditional human functionality.

That would be alright by me ;-).

The birth rate eventually falls to near or below replacement rate in developed countries that have achieved a high general standard of living, universal literacy and where women have widespread access to contraception. It would already be falling here if it were not for --(do I really need to say?).

It's funny how despite the fact human population is growing in every corner of the world except a few highly developed countries like Japan, there are plenty of Cornucopian wingnuts out there that decry this as an example of a so-called "birth dearth". As though falling population levels in a country as densly populated as Japan (at roughly 4X California's pop. density) is somehow a bad thing.

Not to be one to defend the Cornucopian wingnuts, but...

Wingnuts aside, there is a very real problem with shrinking populations (negative replacement rates): impact on economic growth. The entire global economic system is built upon the premise of infinite growth. Now before anyone points out the obvious, this isn't as ludicrous as it sounds on the surface. That's because growth is the sum of population + new capital + replacement of old capital + productivity.

In the long run, it is assumed that all those variables cease to grow except for productivity, which itself essentially reduces to technology growth. So, an assumption of an ever growing economy is only as crazy as the assumption of ever increasing technological knowhow, which probably isn't so crazy.

So a sustained shrinking population would be a significant problem in the short/medium term if it dampened or reversed total growth too much. But, as productivity/technology continues to expand, population becomes ever less significant.

So, although worries about shrinking populations are legitimate today, they are becoming less relevant with every passing day, bar any mass regression (like WWIII). If we were to go backwards too far, then population will again become the most important variable.

Unfortunately, the U.S. cannot unilaterally dictate birth control policy (or lack thereof) or end corruption and tribalism among other countries, though we could do a great deal more about it than we currently do.

But the US can withhold foreign aid to countries who do not implement a birth control policy. It can also influence WB and IMF to do the same.

"...But, as productivity/technology continues to expand, population becomes ever less significant."

Randy, are you saying that we need to reach a certain critical mass of population before technological growth can take over as the prime driver?

Or are you saying that we just plain need net growth, and that as long as productivity grows faster than the population declines, then we are okay?

Or something else?

Wingnuts aside, there is a very real problem with shrinking populations (negative replacement rates): impact on economic growth. The entire global economic system is built upon the premise of infinite growth...

So a sustained shrinking population would be a significant problem in the short/medium term if it dampened or reversed total growth too much. But, as productivity/technology continues to expand, population becomes ever less significant.

Well put, and I basically agree. A shrinking population can and does cause significant problems in the short term, especially when --as you pointed out-- the entire global economic system is built upon the premise of infinite growth. One example would be our own infamous Twin Towers of Financial Doom in the form of unfunded SS & Medicare liabilities, which all but requires an ever-expanding pool of new workers to fund payments for current retirees. Can you say "welfare Ponzi scheme"?

However, I would argue that all a permanently expanding population really does is mask some of the symptoms of persistent structural problems in these programs that would exist with or without population growth. For instance, the wisdom of still setting SS's retirement age based upon much lower life expectancies originally formulated in the 1930s. Or of providing the rather unrealistic expectation that people who have long since exhausted every dime they ever paid into SS (because, again, SS withholdings were based on obsolete LEs) are somehow entitled to "their" retirement money, regardless of the costs to society and/or future generations.

Regarding the long-term impact of a shrinking population, I am reminded of the Black Plague, which killed at least a third (and possibly more than half) of Europe's population in the 14th century. Most historians seem to agree that, despite plenty of pain in the short run, it was incredibly benficial to the survivors --especially the peasant class-- and to the economy in the long run:

From Wikipedia Black Death

The great population loss brought economic changes based on increased social mobility, as depopulation further eroded the peasants' already weakened obligations to remain on their traditional holdings. In Western Europe, the sudden scarcity of cheap labour provided an incentive for landlords to compete for peasants with wages and freedoms, an innovation that, some argue, represents the roots of capitalism, and the resulting social upheaval caused the Renaissance and even Reformation. In many ways the Black Death improved the situation of surviving peasants. In Western Europe, because of the shortage of labour they were in more demand and had more power, and because of the reduced population, there was more fertile land available; however, the benefits would not be fully realized until 1470, nearly 120 years later, when overall population levels finally began to rise again.

Now the only question for me is, how do we infect the REIC with the Plague? :twisted:

But the US can withhold foreign aid to countries who do not implement a birth control policy. It can also influence WB and IMF to do the same.

I completely agree. However, good luck getting that resolution passed under the current anti-science/anti-rationalist Administration and Congress.

If only there was a deadly STD that targets stupidity in reproduction...