patrick.net

If it makes you happy, all that matters.

We bought before the bubble, in retrospect we got lucky. There have been ups and downs, didn't affect us thanks to prop 13. The only thing that has gone up over years have been property taxes, which they didn't bother to raise first few years, and garbage pick up service fees and HOA have increased. Kind of glad we paid cash, saved us a boatload on interest which is the only thing that made this proposition worth it.

Where in LA did you end up buying?

SobOink, you are aware that the ONLY reason house prices stabilized and then crept upward is the massive intervention by the Federal Reserve Bank?

nw888 says

Where in LA did you end up buying?

I don't think he bought in LA County.

RentingForHalfTheCost says

My rent hasn't changed in the last 3 years, so now the rent/own ratio is even worse than before. I didn't buy 3 years for reasons it was much cheaper to rent, which makes it much cheaper to rent now. In the 3 years I have traveled, invested in my kids college fund, bought new cars, stacked up my 401K and IRAs and benefited immensely from the rising stock market. Glad for everyone who bought a house and had it appreciate, but there is another side of things. A rising tide lifts all boats.

The difference in my situation is that I don't need to sell and move to have the cash ready to use. I can stay in my current rental and withdraw the winnings at anytime. Just saying...

My rent declined.

nw888 says

Where in LA did you end up buying?

Reseda

SubOink,

It's nice to hear a success story of a family doing well on a home purchase. It seems like the investors made out like bandits while everyday people where left in the cold. That was a smart move to purchase while rates where higher then refinance your loan when rates dropped. Congratulations!

Congrats on your wise purchase. It's gonna get even better for you and everyone else who made the same choice you did.
Moral of the story is......
Never listen to perma bears. They are full of shit.

dodgerfanjohn says

RentingForHalfTheCost says

My rent hasn't changed in the last 3 years, so now the rent/own ratio is even worse than before. I didn't buy 3 years for reasons it was much cheaper to rent, which makes it much cheaper to rent now. In the 3 years I have traveled, invested in my kids college fund, bought new cars, stacked up my 401K and IRAs and benefited immensely from the rising stock market. Glad for everyone who bought a house and had it appreciate, but there is another side of things. A rising tide lifts all boats.

The difference in my situation is that I don't need to sell and move to have the cash ready to use. I can stay in my current rental and withdraw the winnings at anytime. Just saying...

My rent declined.

I won the lotto 7 times.

Perma bulls are as bad as perma bears.

Btw, bought in mid 2011. Like SubOink, didn't expect interest to decline so low and prices to go up so fast. My philosophy is so long can afford the mortgage, shouldn't bother about the price trend.

Other than a little gloating what is your point?
Is your house still a good deal at the current valuation?
Would you buy it at todays price?
Are you all happy and smug when the price of anything else goes up, or just houses?

Strategist says

Congrats on your wise purchase. It's gonna get even better for you and everyone else who made the same choice you did.

Moral of the story is......

Never listen to perma bears. They are full of shit.

Sigh, Roberto Ribas is a huge dummy who never learns, does he.

Roberto Ribas is a college professor in Arizona who is so emotionally linked to things he reads on the Internet that he can't stop posting even when it has led to career and life repercussions.

Roberto Ribas, according to online reviews by people purporting to be his students, likes to brag about his shoe size to students. Seemingly he does this to attempt to lead said students to believe that he has a large penis, in hopes they will be attracted to him despite his inherent ugliness(which as demonstrated numerous times permeates his personality as well). And that exemplifies exactly how dumb roberto is. He thinks that women will felate him if he lies about penis size and somehow they will over look his worn out mug and putrid personality.

dodgerfanjohn says

according to online reviews by people purporting to be his students

Most likely people he pissed off here. He used to be fairly level headed but over the years went off the deep end.

Thanks SubOink , your post 3 years ago was crucial in changing my perma-bear position.

http://patrick.net/?p=645614

Congrats on getting 12+ years of appreciation in only 3 years.

win

dodgerfanjohn says

Sigh, Roberto Ribas is a huge dummy who never learns, does he.

Roberto Ribas is a college professor in Arizona who is so emotionally linked to things he reads on the Internet that he can't stop posting even when it has led to career and life repercussions.

Roberto Ribas, according to online reviews by people purporting to be his students, likes to brag about his shoe size to students. Seemingly he does this to attempt to lead said students to believe that he has a large penis, in hopes they will be attracted to him despite his inherent ugliness(which as demonstrated numerous times permeates his personality as well). And that exemplifies exactly how dumb roberto is. He thinks that women will felate him if he lies about penis size and somehow they will over look his worn out mug and putrid personality.

I guess I wasnt the only one thinking this was roberta...
Didnt know all this other info about him... pretty hilarious, but doesnt surprise me.

SubOink says

We found a place that we love and can afford

Statistically speaking, your story is pretty commonplace mid-level stuff. I mean...wife, job, mortgage. Gloating about these things is like walking by a homeless person with a sack of white castles in your hand and proceeding to make orgasm faces as you jam back two at a time; better than starving, but not as great as all that. Certainly not much to devote an entire paragraph to, let alone make an annual production out of.

Speaking of statistics -- are you gonna come on here with as much gusto whenever Missus Oinker divorces you for some younger jockey, thereby dispossessing you from your prized little cottage? Because that's pretty much commonplace stuff, too. (I'll keep the light on for you here in Victor Valley. You can even work in my headliner replacement shop, under the table, so the witch can't lay claim.)

How do you feel about Emilie's cockeyed arm from that other thread?

JodyChunder says

Speaking of statistics -- are you gonna come on here with as much gusto whenever Missus Oinker divorces you for some younger jockey, thereby dispossessing you from your prized little cottage?

IF...I was to get a divorce then we either sell the house and split the proceeds or I pay her off or vice versa and one of us keeps the house. What about it? No real drama to be honest. Sorry. Whether I divorce or not has really absolutely nothing to do with what I posted. It's like somebody posting about how he made 1 mill in the stock market and somebody saying...well, but if you get a divorce then its only going to be 500k. Huh?

The reason why I posted 3 years ago and keep a repeat post once a year (hardly a "production") is because the perm-bears kept telling me how sorry I am going to be, how 1975 prices were imminent, how I was setting myself up for failure. So I am simply providing an example of my own personal story. I am hardly gloating. I am just really friggin' happy I did what I did. If that is gloating in your book...then ok. I guess I am gloating.

I'm sure you'll be hitched for the long haul, Oinky, I'm mostly pointing out how Patrick.net is a little like Vegas, in that you only hear about the 'winnings.' But in this case, it's just a guy who took out a mortgage. Whether you overpaid or didn't...it's just kinda...tame stuff to gloat about.

If it doesn't work out, though, you can come out here and rent yourself a spread from ol' JC.

JodyChunder says

is a little like Vegas, in that you only hear about the 'winnings.'

Funny - I have only heard about the "loosings" on this site...

:)

You're funny, because you're actually pretty clearly a decent and highly likable person who only pretends to be a shit. You're miserable at it. (That's a good thing.)

mwah!

SubOink says

s because the perm-bears kept telling me how sorry I am going to be, how 1975 prices were imminent, how I was setting myself up for failure.

and yet how odd that became true as in the case for Florida, Arizona, So Cal and many other parts of the nation... excluding SFBA...

picking 1975 or 1995 as base for normal pricing seems to have worked out..

i dont recall anyone calling anyone "loser" over analysis of historical prices ! but certainly Pnet

saw its fair share of Realtors calling buyes/renters losers for not buying...

which place in this country has reached 1975 real estate prices?

SubOink says

which place in this country has reached 1975 real estate prices?

i should be clear 1975 or 1995 plus inflation...

so what should a house that cost $50k 1970 be sold for now in your book?

SubOink says

so what should a house that cost $50k 1970 be sold for now in your book?

plus inflation....

as was the case for LA and SFBA...

what you bought in 1975 or 1980 was same plus inflation by 1995...

or Miami...

or Vegas (SouthWest)

Average home price in 1970 was ~$25000 which is equivalent to ~$150,000 in 2013

Your graphs stop in 2011 ...why?

SubOink says

Your graphs stop in 2011 ...why?

Not my Graphs...

The graphs you posted end in 2011 but it's 2014 ...they are useless. Sorry.

SubOink,

Congrats bud. With the mortgage interest deduction and the inflation rate, you are effectively borrowing this money for free for the next 30 years. Can't beat free money.

thomaswong...You used those exact same graphs 3 years ago when I bought. You tried then to make a case how prices 'must' revert down. They did not. Obviously, whatever you read into those graphs proved wrong 3 years later because prices have gone up. A LOT!

When will you realize that you were wrong?

SubOink says

The graphs you posted end in 2011 but it's 2014 ...they are useless. Sorry.

they prove a point.. as Robert Shiller also points out, its very simple...

over the long run, prices appreciate at rate of inflation... if we went up

20% then its sure prices will correct downwards.. thats what the charts show.

Of course people in LA expect 20-30% per year appreciation forever... and ever !

http://www.youtube.com/embed/d__GPqOVNbE

thomaswong.1986 says

SubOink says

The graphs you posted end in 2011 but it's 2014 ...they are useless. Sorry.

they prove a point.. as Robert Shiller also points out, its very simple...

over the long run, prices appreciate at rate of inflation... if we went up

20% then its sure prices will correct downwards.. thats what the charts show.

Of course people in LA expect 20-30% per year appreciation forever... and ever !

I also watched that video 3 years ago when you posted it. Luckily, I ignored it then.
As a family that was in need for a place to live we had 2 options...rent a house or buy a house. It only came down to monthly payment. Had I trusted your Robert Shiller I had stayed renting and now 3 years later another $90k in rent would have been thrown out the window and the house prices are much much higher. It would have been a very costly mistake that I luckily didn't do.

You have to realize when you and your sources have been wrong. People that listened to you are paying a hefty price for it. So another few years of rising prices are ahead of us...then they crash but how far? Who knows? In the meantime you have to rent - that money is gone. And if prices only crash 20% at that point you are still not getting it at 2011 levels. What have you gained? What if inflation takes off...your green line will go up steeply all of a sudden and meet house prices. So you can claim that you were right but you still missed the boat because instead of prices coming down inflation went up.

Btw, I don't even care if prices had stayed flat or came 20% down from where I bought because once again...renting my own house would at this point be almost $1000/m more than what I am paying. I cannot live anywhere cheaper if I like the neighborhood and size of house.

It's all about monthly!!! For a family like mine it's the choice of renting vs monthly payment and for an investor it's about the monthly because he is looking for a return for his money. Very simple!!

Donjump, I hear ya.

Mine was around 120k. Where did it come from? Years of working our asses off and saving! 2 incomes. One going straight to savings. It was not easy because I like to keep a cushion of 2 years of living expenses around. I am weird like that. (Has to do with my freelance lifestyle)

In my book if you can't put aside the 20% then you probably cannot afford the house and it's better to wait and invest in your career. I doubled my income from 2003 to 2013. So I am 'ok' that we didn't buy back in 2003. We didn't have the downpay plus cushion then. Just weren't ready. Funny that we ended up buying at 2003 levels anyways just 8 years later.

No one knows the future. Let's hope we all get what we want :)
I wouldn't jump in the market because 'you will be priced out forever' , I would only jump in when your life and the market meet at what works for you. Maybe you will be buying at 2013 levels in 2018...in the meantime try to save some $.

Thomas--

You really need to give up on those old graphs you post. You're trying to apply a macro concept to an individual market. Individual cities are certain to rise (or fall) at rates different that what the overall average suggests as people move. Detroit is one extreme--Bay area might be the other.

You might as well be saying that Apple or Microsoft has been overvalued for the last 20 years because the S&P500 only appreciates at 7%/year. Therefore, those individual stocks are impossibly overvalued.

I couldn't imagine even wanting to live somewhere I could rent cheaper than if I bought.

SubOink says

I also watched that video 3 years ago when you posted it. Luckily, I ignored it then.

As a family that was in need for a place to live we had 2 options...rent a house or buy a house. It only came down to monthly payment. Had I trusted your Robert Shiller I had stayed renting and now 3 years later another $90k in rent would have been thrown out the window and the house prices are much much higher. It would have been a very costly mistake that I luckily didn't do.

You have to realize when you and your sources have been wrong. People that listened to you are paying a hefty price for it. So another few years of rising prices are ahead of us...then they crash but how far? Who knows? In the meantime you have to rent - that money is gone. And if prices only crash 20% at that point you are still not getting it at 2011 levels. What have you gained?

Suboink - I couldn't agree more. My story is similar to yours albeit a decade earlier. I also had to deal with hysterical screeching from doomsday permabears - the difference was these were only a handful of people I knew - I shudder to think what would have happened had sites like this existed back then with literally hundreds of hysterians (the majority of which have no idea what they are talking about) telling you in unison that you will be financially devastated soon enough.

Had I listened, I would still be renting today - having paid over a quarter million renting over the past 13 years. Moreover, even at the 2009 bottom prices were far far above what I too was told was "unsustainable" so many years earlier. Also, at this point I am blitzing off principal such that I am now seriously considering paying it off and living essentially payment free.

The problem of course is that many posters here have difficulty distinguishing between a "bubble" which existed say, 2003-2009, and "insanely high prices" which may exist for decades upon end. It is the difference from being a "bear" which is a temporal condition between periods of bullishness and a "permabear" who stays 2-3-10 steps behind the current market prices such that they stay forever sidelined.

The irony here is that with an unlimited timeline (literally hundreds of years) I feel certain that Thomas will be right. However, as I am also reasonably certain that Thomas' moment of vindication will not come in his or our lifetimes, I strongly encourage you to continue to update your progress on an annual basis.

In all seriousness, years from now, Thomas very well could still be here, not changing his tune in the slightest, literally telling the year 2019 newbies the same tales that he did in 2006-2008 (when he was on his way to being right), and 2009-2013 (when he was horrendously wrong) damning each successive generation into a lifetime of renting - thus it would be helpful to see a former success story like you come back and counteract his unrelenting pessimism and deterministic thinking.

I could literally see some graduate psychology student reviewing a lifetime of back and forth between the two of you, set against the backdrop of Thomas' utterly wrong predictions and writing a treatise on the destructive power of permabearish thinking.