patrick.net

But I do need to make enough to eat all I want.

GC

500K/year is nothing after you take away the taxes.

If by "nothing" you mean "exceptionally more than otherwise normal people have left after taking away the taxes", then yes, I agree with you.

Marginal taxes aren't 100%. Not yet, anyway. So making more $ is _always_ better than making less $, unless you're comparing poor people to really f-ing poor people who get EITC.

Most “normal people” don’t desire to become slaves to their homes.

During the IT orgies in the mid to late 90's, my friend in Toronto was charging PriceWaterhouse $250/hr (not unusal for some Oracle, Siebel consultants), PW in turn charged their clients $500/hr. He made that kind of money for more than a year. He bought a house for $575K (now it's around 800K).

The fear of being priced out is strong in the Bay Area and realtors play that up to many first gen immigrants.

GC,

I'm impressed. Does that amount include treating other people to meals? If not, I'm even more impressed.

All things equal I would prefer to be an heiress, as long as it doesn't involve botched plastic surgery or syphilis.

That BigBrother is a goldmine. Quite possible the smartest Jukubot yet.*

* Unless peter p really is a jukubot.

GC,

No, I'm in envy, no sarcasm. I do agree, we only live once

I'm too lazy to eat out (I also can't afford to eat out very often, but I'm more lazy than poor).

I do agree, we only live once

I disagree. The karmic debt accumulates. But since debt is wealth, we will all achieve spiritual enlightenment eventually.

Unless peter p really is a jukubot.

You will have to hunt me down and find out.

I always found karmic accounting rather Enronish. I was really into Buddhism for a while, but then I took a college Buddhism seminar. My professor, a practicing nun started talking about interconnected karma and throwing around really big numbers.

I dropped out of the class about halfway through. Real math is bad enough, but karmic math is too much. It's a lovely religion but these Buddhist are way too numbers obsessed.

Brand, Malcolm,

I was gone yesterday, so missed most of the Sunday comments on the 'Wealth Disparity' thread. I left you some closing comments.

Real math is bad enough, but karmic math is too much.

This is why we invented Realty Math.

Peter P,

I might not have the opportunity for a while. After talking about moving to BA on this since about the beginning of this blog, it looks like my boyfriend is actually going to move to DC with me. There's a pretty good chance he will do the Berkeley MFE, but it'll be a while longer before I move to BA permanently.

Maybe we can do a Patrick.net eating tour through East Asia.

maybe there's a stone age tribe out there who put up big posters of David Lereah in hopes that he'll bring them untold riches in HELOC, perigranteel, and stainless steel appliances...

Oh wait!

There’s a pretty good chance he will do the Berkeley MFE

My wife may be pushing me to do that too.

DC is a nice place. Free museums and all. I heard that housing prices are coming down over there.

Heck, I may even be moving out of BA myself.

After going lower for the past couple of weeks (~120), the Bay Area Craigslist ReduceOMeter has risen sharply to 158 listings (April 20-21). Ahhh, Spring fever is in the air.

A couple of thoughts on solar... I was looking into this last year but decided to hold off a couple of years until I need a new roof (what, capx begone!) and am waiting for those low cost thin film modules :-)
I was kicking myself as PG&E closed the old TOU (time of use) metering schedule a little over a year ago. It was quite advantageous as you could sell back power at almost 3 times the nightly rate. The new TOU schedule is around 2x for power sold back during the day and the time of use hours are not as generous (to be fair, it is proabably more correct as to the way the grid gets used). I also don't use a ton of electricity a year (no AC), so it does get a bit harder for a system to "pencil out". Most folks also recommend going on a energy jihad around the house before trying to size your system. I found a KillAWatt meter to be helpful in that regard (and of course, doing the whole compact flourescent thing...)

Jimbo,
Get thee back to the three dot lounge. Ess Eff is also classic Herb Caen. Baghdad By the Bay indeed...

DC is a nice place. Free museums and all. I heard that housing prices are coming down over there.

Parts of DC is. Some parts aren't. It's pretty sad that one of the Supreme Court Justices got mugged while jogging near the... Supreme Court.

But more importantly, it's not special there.

But more importantly, it’s not special there.

Or, it is special everywhere.

The fear of being priced out is strong in the Bay Area and realtors play that up to many first gen immigrants.

The way to avoid being priced out or anything is to make more money.

From LowlyRenter's link:

"For example, with a $250,000 mortgage, a rise in interest rates from 6.5% to 7.5% means an additional $2000 in annual payments. This may boost currently available homes out of financial reach for potential buyers. Today’s low rates offer a unique opportunity for buyers. "

Just who could this be aimed at? A guy fearing being priced out forever because $167/mo extra would break him? The guy would also have to believe that rising rates would not cause house prices to fall.

That said, IF I were an agent I would definitely play to people's fear. It will be my specialty.

Free museums is a good perk, these museums would cost $20-30 elsewhere. Very few locals take advantage of them though.

I miss the big pre-9/11 blockbuster shows. We never get really big art exhibits anymore.

I wouldn't recommend living in DC itself. It's either too expensive or too dangerous, and often both.

Just who could this be aimed at?

Not only that... if everyone is priced out, no one is.

I am totally priced out.

Another Quote, from a Mill Valley realtor in Tam Valley, on a rare sunny day with no wind or fog:

"You just can't beat the weather here! That's part of the appeal of Mill Valley!"

It’s either too expensive or too dangerous, and often both.

Of course one will instead live in Virginia.

Food in DC is not the best though. NY and Boston have much better food.

Favorite realtor quote from a couple of months ago re Boise, Idaho houses:

"You are losing $50,000 per year by not buying a house right now"

Another Quote, from a Mill Valley realtor in Tam Valley, on a rare sunny day with no wind or fog:

“You just can’t beat the weather here! That’s part of the appeal of Mill Valley!”

I am sure you can find a day to say the same for Portland, OR.

I've got a quote for you, this is from the largest homebuilder in the land, a real classic :

"As I've said to all our salespeople, if a buyer is warm and has a pulse, we want to put them on paper." -DR Horton CEO

This is at the very bottom of the link.

http://p287.news.mud.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070419/bs_nm/drhorton_results_dc

We should play a game in a later thread. The basic idea will be "see how big of a lie you can solicit from a realtor". We'll maybe come up with some kind of a prize for the winner, at least a "virtual" prize.

Perhaps we should do it and name the lying realtors.

We’ll maybe come up with some kind of a prize for the winner, at least a “virtual” prize.

Something like a Second Life sushi gift certificate?

I was actually thinking of asking Patrick for the rights to sell Second Life ball caps with his logo on the front. I'd give one of those to the winner.

This weekend my wife and I were looking at a house, and I asked the realtor to see the reports she had on the house.

The report said the subarea had damp spots in it when they inspected it, with no signs of plumbing leakage, and that likely it was ground water.

I told my wife "The report says there are drainage issues with the house. We'd have to do something about that." The realtor said "The report doesn't say that!" I said "It says the subarea was noticibly wet. That sounds like drainage issues." She said "Well, they did the inspection in March when all that rain was going on." Okaaaaay....

Then I said "The roof needs to be replaced" and the realtor said "Oh, it just needs a few patches! It still has a few years left in it." I said "The inspection report says you can see daylight through it in the attic. It's wood shingling with moss growing in a majority of it, and all of it spitting from wear. It needs replacing."

The best part of the house was the oval-rug shaped section of wood floor that was so moisture damaged that the boards had cupped, stained, and seperated. I asked her what the deal with that was, and she said the owner didn't know, but she had kept a rug there for years that her dogs liked to sleep on.

Apparently they liked to pee there, too. A lot. For years.

Gross.

Randy H Says:

> We should play a game in a later thread. The
> basic idea will be “see how big of a lie you can
> solicit from a realtor”.

As I have mentioned I try not to talk about real estate in a social setting but this weekend I heard a Realtor say “California Real Estate has Never gone Down in Value” and I couldn’t ignore it.

I leaned over and said “You might want to do some research before you say that California Real Estate has “Never” gone down in value. Values were way down in 1993 when I lost my life savings”…

EBguy - I'd be very interested to hear how the solar installation goes.

As time goes on the husband and I are getting more and more interested in finding a small unremodelled SFR, gutting it, and putting in full insluation, double-glazed windows and trying to run it on solar. If you have links to any organisiations, products or builders, I'd love to see them.

A friend of ours just installed a solar powered water heater for his pool, and says, despite the hefty intial cost (around $9K), he's reckoning on breaking even in a couple of years. Sadly, the huge cost of installing it for all power in the main house ($35K - $40K) stopped him from doing a complete refit, but hopes to do it in bits and pieces over the coming years.

I have to say that it amazes me in a place like SoCal that so liitle has been made of using solar power. I looked on my trusty ZipRealty search in Westside L.A for solar houses, and there were 2 - count them, 2! - out of over 2000 houses for sale.

Irony of ironies, then, that Germany leads the world in solar power use, with a cloud cover equal or exceeding that of the murky, twilit UK.

I leaned over and said “You might want to do some research before you say that California Real Estate has “Never” gone down in value. Values were way down in 1993 when I lost my life savings”…

I'm a bit curious. Were you super leveraged in speculation or something? If you waited 10 years, wouldn't your life savings have reemerged?

SFBubbleBuyer Says:

> The best part of the house was the oval-rug shaped
> section of wood floor that was so moisture damaged
> that the boards had cupped, stained, and seperated.
> I asked her what the deal with that was, and she said
> the owner didn’t know, but she had kept a rug there for
> years that her dogs liked to sleep on.
> Apparently they liked to pee there, too. A lot. For years.

My parents have never allowed any pets (other than fish in small tanks) in their rentals, but years ago we had a lady that got a cat without asking.

The cat used to pee in one corner of the bedroom when she moved out:

We replaced the carpet (but on a hot day the pee smell came back)…

We replaced the tack strips (but on a hot day the pee smell came back)…

We then replaced the plywood floor (but on a hot day the pee smell came back)…

We finally got rid of the pee smell when we pulled up the new carpet pulled up the new tack strips pulled up the new plywood sub floor and cut out the portion of the wood floor joists that were soaked with cat pee and bolted in a new section…

FAB,

As a pet owner, I'm always annoyed at how hard to find a rental place for animals. As somebody who occasionally has to clean up after pets, I understand why people wouldn't want to rent to pet owners. I've seen some gross, gross stuff from lazy pet owners.

As somebody who occasionally has to clean up after pets, I understand why people wouldn’t want to rent to pet owners.

I still believe anything has a price. A 10% rent premium and/or double deposit should be reasonable.

The Gov of Oregon is doing something interesting:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/23/politics/main2715513.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_2715513

Oregon Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski and his wife, attorney Mary Oberst, have enough money to get by and meals are generally no problem.

But things will be different this week.

This is Hunger Awareness Week in Oregon, and for the next seven days, Kulongoski and Oberst will be cutting way back – down to the budget one would live on if relying on food stamps – a diet they hope others will also follow for a few days to better understand the plight of those who have no choice.

They'll spend just $3 a day apiece on their meals, $42 in all, to match the amount spent by the average food stamp recipient in Oregon.

"I'm gonna probably go back to what I remember in college, Top Ramen and hot dogs," said Kulongoski.

Is he trying to shore up a base of FB's?

Peter,

You pretty much see that. People offering 'pets accepted' apartments/houses generally charge a higher rent than an identical unit, usually about 5-10%. And they usually have an extra 'pet deposit' on top of the regular deposit that's 5-10% higher.

And it should be that way. Most pet owners will clean up after their pets properly. Just like most parents will clean up after their kids. I'd be willing to bet landlords would love a 'kid deposit' and premium to make up for kid inflicted damage, but you can't get away with that. So instead it gets priced into everybody's rent. Many fewer people own pets, so the extra money we pay for rent subsidizes the lazy bastard pet owners.

FAB, I'd be willing to bet there were many more illegal pets in your parents units, but for the most part the owners cleaned up enough that there wasn't a problem.