patrick.net

SFWoman,

With all due respect, the Finger Lakes region is in the middle of nowhere, and as you've noted, the winter heating bills are crazy high. And there aren't much in the way of jobs.

Besides, if making money was no object, I'll take one of DinOR's peso palaces for $150K and get !warm! salt water beach access :)

Besides, if making money was no object, I’ll take one of DinOR’s peso palaces for $150K and get !warm! salt water beach access :)

If making money were dropped as a requirement, I'd take Provence and gain access to some high culinary / low stress life.

Randy,

There's always New Zealand. Buy some land there and drive the locals even more crazy.

Owneroccupier, what's the most desireable rural/suburban area in NZ? I found this site and I'm drooling.

http://www.realenz.co.nz/

astrid,

My sister-in-law (in addition to selling Avon and Tupperware) is also a realtor in the P.I. We have looked at a number of homes in that area over the years and she explained that they never sell for anywhere near what they post them for on that web-site. Typically you can knock off at least half of the price just by being "in country". Since much of the mark up is the realtor's fee if you're family that gets discounted too. Our beach house is only a one floor bungalow a little bit further in (about 300 yds.) and we have about 10-12K into it. I guess the prices they post are just to see if there are any sun starved Scandanavians with deep pockets and trusting souls. My wife's aunt spends half of the year in Miami and the other half in Valencia. I'm told they consider it to be the "Baggio" of the Visayas b/c it is cooler at the higher elevations. You can see all the way to Cebu from her place. Pretty cool!

Oh and can you believe all of the "resorts" they have for sale on that site? I must admit some of them look quite cool but there is almost always something missing from the pictures. Paying customers! It seems every resort has the potential to become the next Cebu! Some of the Aussies have been able to make a go of it by doing scuba diving tours which is really cool fun but most of the "resorts" sit empty most of the year. Certainly during the rainy season (almost 6 months) which is kind of dumb when you think about it. Even though it pours in short bursts, there still are plenty of times during the day when it doesn't rain at all! I still love the rainy season.

DinOR,

I would never actually buy a place sight unseen, that would be specuvesting. I'm not much of a beach bunny so New Zealand or Oregon would be more my kind of place.

Your relatives sounds really cool. I think I'll just rent their beach place whenever I get a warm salt water fixation.

Max,

At least those have some trees in the background. I drove by Riverbank (just NE of Modesto) this weekend and it could have been Kansas. The parking lot of one shopping center was big enough to land a 747 in; I couldn't even make out the signs of the tiny shops on the horizon.

/Wondering what they used to paint the grass...

astrid,

Actually you would be quite welcome there! Their place is a good two hours south of Dumaguette. They did not get electricity until my wife was in high school so even today when they get visitors the whole barrio comes to a halt. I'm not kidding. Little kids need to be run off b/c they press their faces right up to the screens and windows to "get a peek" at the strangers. You just get used to it. The solitude you see pictured above pobably only lasted long enough to take the picture. You can't just go to the beach by yourself. It just isn't possible. If you're heading down there every child not yet of school age will be following you. The only solitude one gets in the P.I is showering and using the restroom. Pretending to be reading a book doesn't help a lick.

Max,

Granddaddy, the band. It used to have Laci Peterson and Chandra Levy, before they *disappeared*

Trees.

I grew up there, by the JC. It used to be a "tree city", for whatever that's worth. On my street, the trees on either side are tall enough to cover it so that in the summer the sunlight filters through the leaves. When you walk down the street, everything is green and cool. In the Fall, the leaves turn red and cover everything. Large crunchy maple-like leaves, the kind to rake into large piles and let the kids play in. A pine in the backyard is at least 50 feet tall, probably closer to 100. We didn't have to run the air in summer; the stone walls insulated very well.

Outside of the old neighborhoods, it's suburban hell. The houses are taller than the trees, and everything is some shade of terracotta. In the summer, the sun beats down on you, forcing you to run inside and cower by the air conditioner while you watch the lawn wither and die, and a drop of water on the cement will boil before your eyes.

I saw tear down anything built in the past 50 years, and turn it back into orchards and rice patties.

s/saw/say/

SF Woman wrote:

> Here is a dog of a house. It’s in SF, but yuck!
> Where I grew up this would be the garage behind
> the house, and that apartment over it would be
> rented for free, or almost free, to a young couple
> in grad school, given to the college age son to use,
> or the housekeeper would live in it.

The little ugly box in Cow Hollow sold for $875K in 1998, then sold for $1.265mm in 2003 (~$80K increase per year) so now it's listed at $1.695mm (~$140K increase a year).

I heard a the worst real estate show ever on AM 680 (the sports station) this weekend. The Realtor tm got mad at the host for even suggesting that home values may go down.

One thing I never hear people talk about is how the higher dollar amount in the Bay Area are going to get more people to sell when values start dropping this time.

Back in S. Cal in the early 90's values dropped about 50% on average but only by a few thousand per year. When SF and Marin homes start dropping by $100K + per year we are going to see people running for the doors...

"7. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.7 males."

Sheesh, somebody should have gone to Vassar/Sarah Lawrence for undergrad :)

Ok last year we said next year prices will come down (Mid 06) now we say by next year. How long can we keep pushing the dates? What was not there in 05 to call that prediction wrong and today’s prediction right?

Lets discuss.

Must resist troll-bait, must resist....

Ok, I'll suspend my disbelief for one moment and assume "TimeSaver" is not an alter-ego of MP/Jukubot/Benjammin/etc. Since the thread for our dead-pool for mid-2006 prices (FuckedCounty.com) from last August was mine, I will try to collate people's predictions and present them with DataQuick's YoY numbers when the end-of-June 2006 numbers become available (per the rules).

Dataquick should release them either in late July or early August, so we have approx. 2 more months to go.

Here were my own predictions:

HARM Says:

NCAL
(-)0-9% San Francisco
(-)10-19% Santa Clara
(-)10-19% Sacramento
(-)0-9% San Mateo
(-)0-9% Alameda

As you all can see, actual prices to date are cratering right on track with my original predictions! :-). I see *no problem* whatsoever with me taking the top prize. :roll:

Whether people sell due to the higher prices in the BA or not, it would be nice to see people for once just staying put. Alameda is supposed to be one of those towns where everyone knows each other, people stay in the same homes for decades, and you say hello to the same people at the diner in the morning. In the last 2 years you'd swear the town has a swinging door.
The whole RE boom is a community destroyer. I can easily see the BA becoming more like the giant subdivisions where the neighbors never say hello to each other because nobody is going to stay in one place long enough to get to know one another. sort of sad.

FAB,

Good point. BA plain vanilla homes are going for prices that would fetch an entire lifestyle elsewhere. There ought to be at least some people who would just take the profit and run elsewhere. They've already won the realty lottery, so they might just want to cash out and live large elsewhere.

FAB,

Seriously? The radio guest got all bent out of shape, huh. What was it? The old "it's different this time?" Or, "as long as employment stays strong and rates remain low". Perhaps these "intagilbles" we keep hearing about?

David Lerah had a beauty today. "2006 is going down as the year we get the speculators out of the market" or words to that effect. So I'm wondering to myself who are all these vile speculators? Some big corporate types with evil plans hiding behind an offshore LLC? No David, we are. We are the specuvestors! Your neighbor, your co-workers and even your relatives! By playing it off as some mythological or hypothetical third party it creates some distance from the problem? So what does this mean David? We may get blown out of the water on our 2nd, 3rd or vacation home but our primary residence will stand fast. Even appreciate enough to gets a little HELOC action? Uh, doubt it.

clueless,

Huh? Did you read anything from this site? Your handle seems quite apt.

Btw, it's worth noting that while skeptics/bears may occasionally make a wrong call, we're not afraid to own up to it as trolls/bulls are. Nor do we go back and change/spin our numbers and blatantly lie, the way the Realtwhore-mortgage-industrial complex always does.

In any case, current downward price trends are likely to validate our predictions, if not the exact timing. Significant YoY price drops should start registering either later this year, or early 2007.

SP,

I managed to avoid multi-variable calculus, thank God/gods/liberal arts curriculum!

astrid,

NZ has a bigger property bubble than the US. I went there twice, and all I have to say is, this freaking place is a hyped up Lake Tahoe with no jobs, no infrastructure, and horrible weather.

The general pay level is extremely low in NZ, a highly educated professional will have a difficulty finding a position there worthwhile of his experience and education. That is generally the problem for places outside of any metros in the world. It doesn't matter how valuable or how talented you are, there simply no such high profile jobs locally to pay you the market price.

Auckland has about over half of the population of NZ, about 2M. You have to stay north of Auckland to get a decent weather, because the rest of the country is only inhabitable between Dec and March, South Island will freeze you butt off for most of the year, think Scotland. General cost of living is VERY high, comparable quality of grocery, clothes, electronics cost MORE than the Silicon Valley in absolute terms, and they have a higher tax rate. Good suburbs in Auckland are generally in the inner east area and north shore, they cost about $500K-800K NZD. While it seems affordable on the surface, what if I tell you the highest local pay hardly pushes over 100K NZD and they have a higher tax rate?

The biggest source of immigrants (note: immigrants) for Australia has been NZ for many years, until recently. I used to be puzzled by such statistics, but after visiting there, I totally understand why so many NZers pack and leave for the Oz.

To sum it up, you can do better by going to Lake Tahoe over the weekend than camping out down there. The daily wind chill makes Boston winter feel warm.

SP,

i think the composition of housing stocks compared to distribution of median income makes more sense.

Median housing price is just too much bullshit. The key is about the distribution of types, and cost of the housing stock compared to the number of target customers for the stock. Also, housing is priced by the next marginal buyer who is willing to hand over X amount for it, so one should also take into consideration the number of marginal buyers left who don't have a home yet (assuming they are not going to buy for investment purpose). Median household income to median house value measure is assuming that all households are willing to pay for all houses available out there, a better measure will be the median household income for people don't have a home yet to median house value of stocks that are being offered on the market. But I guess I am being overcomplicated.

All in all, the current measure is too crude and misleading.

Owneroccupier,

Thanks!

I wasn't thinking of NZ as a place to work, just a place to retire. I'm not convinced NZ prices will come down, it's still perceived as extremely attractive for a lot of wealthy expats. As for prices...Tahoe is already awfully expensive for retirement. Groceries and consumer goods are not a huge concern either, since they're a relatively small portion of overall expenses. The main concern would be healthcare and education expenses

The cold weather is kind of surprising. I heard about the wind, but I thought the North Island was sub-tropical and the South Island was temperate.

You guys won't believe this.

When I was down in NZ in Marlborough region, the northeastern tip of the South Island self-proclaimed as the sunniest area of NZ, also a winegrape area with tons of acres coming online, I met two SoCal specuvestors going down there checking out on houses to buy. I am talking about a small tourist town with about 2,000 population, with scant infrastructure, no broadband, one oil station and one local grocery market. They were telling me that they bought 4 houses over the weekend at 150-220K NZD a piece. They also commented on the booming vineyard business believing that this will be the next Napa Valley.

I didn't want to ruin the weekend. What I should have told them is, the local wage hovers around 25-40K, and the unemployment rate is around 25%. I also didn't tell them that the world is so flooded with wine supply that Oz growers start to bury winegrapes locally instead of paying for their transportation going elsewhere. When gas price jumps, it will cost more to ship their wine around the world than the value of the wine they produce. NZ has only 3M population, they'd better be working on a drinking campaign now to make sure that the NZ population can absorb all that extra supply.

@Owneroccupier,

I just spent a month in NZ last October. While I think you're spot-on about their RE bubble --it's like the whole country is California-- and the overall cost of living is quite high, it's really not quite as bleak as you portray it.

Both islands get plenty of good weather well outside Dec-March (we had plenty of sun in October). While much of the South Island's does stay rainy during their winter --especially along the coasts-- it really doesn't get much colder than Portland or Seattle. Quite liveable really.

Can't comment on the job market as I've never looked for work there, and it's true the cost of groceries & electronics in high vs. the U.S., but consider that you also get free education and cradle-to-grave healthcare, good unemployment benefits, etc. And they do not have to operate under the considerable burden of millions of illegals/free-riders, as we do. Unemployment is somewhat higher among the native Maori, but their numbers are not large enough to swamp the rest of the economy.

In terms of scenery and cleanliness of the environment ("intangibles"?), all I can say it is simply stunning. Definitely beats out NoCal and rivals the Pacific NW coast in terms of sheer variety and natural beauty. We no doubt disagree, but I'd take living in NZ over most parts of Oz anyday.

astrid,

wealthy people are actually bailing out of NZ.

Lots of million plus properties at the northern tip of North Island that falls into the so-called sub-tropical zone are being offered at big reductions from the price they were bought for. The locals pointed at these properties and told me that the owners never showed up, and nobody was hired to take care of them. Old people need 1) warm weather 2) high quality healthcare and 3) good public infrastructure to get around, NZ has none of that.

NZ healthcare is free for NZ citizens and PRs, but the quality is much worse than HMO. The problem of NZ is, it is a resource-poor country (except for sand, sheep and lumber) with too small of a population.

There are much better choices than NZ for retirement. If you have gotten housing taken care of, retiring in the Bay Area is actually CHEAPER than retiring in NZ.

The cold weather is kind of surprising. I heard about the wind, but I thought the North Island was sub-tropical and the South Island was temperate.

You heard right, astrid. The North Island is quite warm most of the year, and many parts (Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, Bay of Islands, etc.) have a beach atmosphere somewhat similar to Cali.

HARM,

I have cousins who are first generation Kiwis, and I hear them complain about the weather ALL the time. When I was there in Oct and Feb, I just couldn't stand the hourly weather changes with rain and sun alterating every 10 minutes under a terrible wind chill.

While education and healthcare is free, the quality is very low, especially that of education. NZ is known among Chinese as the "trash haven", meaning that usually the students who fail in Hong Kong, Taiwan or China, and are denied access to US, UK, Canadian and Australian universities end up in NZ. I didn't check out any schools there, but I have yet to meet any world class scientists coming out of the NZ system, there are plenty from Oz. Both of my cousins left NZ for Oz precisely to give their kids a better education.

Yes, I admit that the scenery is stunning. But I am a city person, and I can't stand living among too much nature, especially if it is inconvenient to do so. I would rather head for Canada for that kind of stunning beauty, saves me 18 hours of flight.

Old people need 1) warm weather 2) high quality healthcare and 3) good public infrastructure to get around, NZ has none of that.

Again, I think OO is overstating the cold weather meme. As far as the healthcare goes, can't really say from personal experience. Of course, the U.S. is really in no position to judge, as we have something like 40 million uninsured and still pay the highest rates per capita in the world for rather mediocre-quality healthcare. The fact that they cover 100% of their population for considerably less should count for something, IMO.

On the subject of public infrastructure, I would agree --especially where the roads are concerned. Most of the country is accessible only by little windy 2-lane country roads. Even the major cities (with the exception of AUK & Hamilton) aren't linked with anything remotely resembling our freeway system. I was amazed to see how many bridges --even on the relatively populous North Island-- were single lane.

HARM,

I think the US has a much better chance of fixing our healthcare than most people think.

First, the boomers will put a stress on our system, forcing it to add capacity while enhancing efficiency, not to mention we do have the best healthcare that money can buy. There are parts of the world that money cannot buy much of a healthcare. What we need to figure out is how to get our money stretch further.

Second, size matters. A big population means scale economy. It also means innovation, competition, and more free market pressure to make things work. A country needs to reach a critical mass for population.

Third, if you are in below 40 or so, we are actually going to be the luckiest age group when we reach retirement. Why? Because the bigger boomer wave will pass by the time we retire (hopefully in late 60s or early 70s). So while they were being shoveled through the medicare system forcing it to expand, by the time we reach there we will have more beds per person and more doctors/nurses per patient left over by the legacy system.

So if I were to retire today, I would want to avoid competing with other boomers for that limited resources, probably I would head for some other choices like Spain, Oz or Chile. But if I am going to retire in another 30-35 years, I think the US will again become an attractive place for retirement.

Owneroccupier,

In America, I don't expect to have any government/healthcare coverage when I'm ready to retire, in 20-30 years. Thus, even a pretty basic healthcare system is fine by me. Kiwis live pretty long and healthy lives, compared to Americans. If it's bad, I can afford to supplement my healthcare with out of pocket visits at lower costs (since local wages are lower) than in the BA.

The bottomline is: In America, if I'm uninsured (and I am currently uninsured, I pay my dentist appointments and clinic visits out of pocket) and get really sick, I would have to file bankruptcy. In most OECD countries, I would be able to recover financially because of universal coverage. Even if I get private coverage, I would worry that the insurance company can try to kick me out or try to deny coverage.

Healthcare is something 40M people in this country has almost no access to, except for emergency care. A good chunk of those people are children, who don't get proper care early in life and suffer for it later in life. I bet NZ has a superior conception to 10 care on avg., compare to this country. On the other hand, old people lingering on respirators...maybe that's not the best way to spend healthcare dollars. If they want that, maybe it's most economically efficient if they pay for it, if they can.

As for infrastructure. The reason why America has relatively good infrastructure in the boonies is because Californians and New Yorkers and Bostonians subsidize them for it. NZ has nobody to subsidize them for the infrastructure so they go without.

@OO,

Well, given that you've visited more than I and have close relatives living there, I'll defer to your expert opinion, sir. :-) Personally, I'd rather take living close to nature over dense urbanized living (though I too need to have some basic technology & modern plumbing/electricity/internet, etc.). To me NZ represents high Q.O.L. over high GDP, which counts for a lot in my book. Too bad about the education system & employment situation, though --sounds like they just need to start investing heavily in education, R&D and roads/infrastructure.

Alterego,

Sounds like some locals decided to go the self-employment/consulting route. No doubt you hung out amongst the elites there. ;)

astrid,

it is very difficult to speculate on situations 35 years down the road. As I said, if you are retiring today, then perhaps NZ is not a bad choice (but they want 2M NZD if you want to retire down there). Well, with $1.2M USD (2M NZD), I think you will be just fine retiring in the US. No free lunches here.

Now, if you are looking at NZ as a place to work and build your career today, forget about it. There is no career to be built, the income distribution in NZ is like Peter Jackson and everybody else. After the Bush re-election, lots of disgusted Californians look at NZ as an utopia, so I went down with an open mind to see what it is about, not that I was serious about thinking going there. I was just genuinely curious in living situations around the world wherever I went.

The key for younger people like ourselves (not that I want to pretend to be as young as you are) is, opportunities come first. Perhaps when you get beaten up enough later in life, then you go to a lower-cost, lower-earning place. But as Joe Schmoe once said it, mental stimulation and working with the best people is also part of the intangible. You really get none of that in NZ.

Also, many so-called lower-cost places are deceiving in the true cost of living. Housing usually skews people's perception. If you look at just the rental situation in the Bay Area, the cost is relatively reasonable. Housing in NZ compared to wage is even more outrageous than here! Since NZ has a tiny housing market, a few SoCal or NorCal specuvestors can easily bid up the market 100%. Healthcare is a big plus, but again no free lunches, you pay with your tax. And because of the smaller healthcare market down there, you get even less efficiency. If a country has exceptionally good healthcare, it may either not last, or something else has to give.

If gas price keeps climbing, countries like NZ will suffer a lot. It is too isolated from the rest of the world, even hopping over to Oz will take 3 hours of flight. I would want to see the sustainability of their model under higher energy cost.

SP,

NZ feels colder than it should because of the wind chill.

What happens here is, the wind coming down from Arctic is mostly blocked by the huge mountains range up in Canada, yet down in NZ, there are no big mountain ranges in the south stopping the wind blowing from Antarctica. The wind chill effect usually adds another 20-30 Farenheit on the negative side.

Owneroccupier,

"the income distribution in NZ is like Peter Jackson and everybody else"

Hehe, even after King Kong?

Fair enough. I'll just have to gather together my frequent flier miles and go see it one day. :)

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and thoughts. You've definitely given me a lot to think over.

RE: NZ

Where is Gabby?

As bad as the income inequality/distribution is in NZ, it's even worse here. Scroll down to "Figure 14: Income Inequality (Gini Co-efficient)":

http://www.forfas.ie/ncc/reports/ncc_annual_05/ch02/ch02_01.html

@Peter P,

Gabby occasionally lurks, but has little time for contributing these days. I actually met her dad when visiting NZ --really nice guy, btw.