patrick.net

Also put your 8-ball predictions here. Be honest, even if the 8-ball says no crash!

I have no idea. My magic 8-ball tells me to avoid psychics, soothsayers and guys that latch onto you in Buddhist temples.

My magic 8-ball tells me to avoid psychics, soothsayers and guys that latch onto you in Buddhist temples.

I have never seen that answer before. What did you ask your 8-ball?

Q: "Should I avoid psychics, soothsayers and guys that latch onto you in Buddhist temples?

A: "Yes

Oh.

I take Google ads as a form of magic 8-ball. The current google ad on this page is:

Depression Treatment
Top 6 Websites For Depression Treatment

Either the silent spring is going to be brutal for sellers, or everyone on this blog is going to require depression treatment because we're all wrong.

Santa C.,

Don't know about SF but here in NYC prices are down significantly from last summer. Find it hard to believe about that Mt View home. In any case, the spring will soon be here and the market's condition will become apparent. Perhaps it pays for you to wait at least until then.

As for me, unless the market corrects, I'll continue renting. It's simply a matter of choosing the more economical alternative.

Maybe JBRism is a form of clinical depression...

Maybe JBRism is a form of clinical depression…

Mine says "cannot foretell now".

Shmend,

I live in Rockland county, work in Manhattan and have family in almost all 5 boroughs of NYC.

My crystal ball says the collapse of the housing market will send many illegal immigrants back home by year's end. Two problems solved.

My psychic friend says that "All things natural crave balance."

My Tarot cards tell me that real estate taxes will double in NJ by end of 2008 while prices drop 40-50%.

Who has a personal astrologer?

Maybe Mountain View is more prime than Corte Madera, Larkspur, Tiburon, Mill Valley. Plenty of $1.4m homes here aren't selling at all, and many were listed at over $1.6m last fall.

I have a personal psychic adviser. Goes by the name of Central Limit Theorem.

I think my realtor is now moonlighting as an astrologer. Does that count?

Who has a personal astrologer?

Just one? There are so many branches in astrology. Say, a karmic astrologer is probably someone very different from a horary/electional astrologer.

My Tarot cards tell me that real estate taxes will double in NJ by end of 2008 while prices drop 40-50%.

Are you lying?

Which spread did you use? Which deck did you use? What cards did you get?

Millionaires don't have astrologers, billionaires do.
- J.P. Morgan

Ancient Roman emperors have astrologers.

Ancient Roman emperors have astrologers.

Astrology is really something. At the very least, it is an excellent device of introspection.

Anyone else uses astrology to assist in decision-making?

"What cards did you get?"

A modern Marseilles-style deck created shortly after the Great Depression called "The Bubble".

Just an informal observation. Have seen lots of people going through Open Homes but not much sales activity here in the Danville/Alamo area. A few price reductions, but nothing major yet.

Did see an article in today's paper that Silicon Valley has had a recent increase in jobs so perhaps there is a blip of activity there based on that.

I checked zillow on some of the homes for sale here in the Danville/Alamo area - they are priced between $50,000 to several hundred thousand higher than zillow's estimate.

I use an analysis product called Crystal Ball, does that count?

"hey frank, we should meet up for some scotch or something next time Im in NY"

I'm always game for a scotch!

Well, I didn't think it was going to happen, but my landlord just tried to put up the rent 25% last week. After a 10% hike 6 months ago. Cites 'market rates' and 'interest rates'. The LL built the place themselves 12 years ago 'wholesale' so interest rates aren't it -- it's just a shameless grab for cash.

I've been busy writing to influential people and trying to haggle with the LL, who is mostly not answering the phone.

I predicted rents wouldn't go up, but they are going up in all the major cities apparently. Supply is meant to be tight, also, for some reason. Further, nothing protects you form a 25 or 50% increase -- the Tenancy Tribunal allows 'market rates' whatever they may be, doesn't look at the % increase.

Clearly new LLs are passing on the hurt to tenants. (And old LLs are profiteering to boot.) Maybe the RE gurus were right after all, it's never a bad time to buy, you just manipulate the economy to suit yourself. I now believe that most inflation in Western economies is housing driven...

DS, higher living costs translates into more expensive labor for local business that eventually results in loss of jobs. Therefore, this is a self-correcting process only limited by monetary inflation.

DS, higher living costs translates into more expensive labor for local business that eventually results in loss of jobs. Therefore, this is a self-correcting process only limited by monetary inflation.

This is exactly what I have been saying...people seems to think that the jobs will always be there in the GOOD areas. Companies have been outsourcing to other countries to save money; there's no reason why they can't outsource to other states where the cost of living is much cheaper as well.

All three of those houses are completely remodelled on the inside and were immaculate from the photos - also the one on Seena is listed for 30-40k below Zillow zestimate - so may encourage people to go out and look. All of them are in good school districts. The one on Cuesta for sale not long ago was priced in the high 800,000's - priced to attract interest and it also will be in the Los Altos School District - highly sought after!

Tampa Renter Says:

> Being someone who voted for George Bush twice (I know….).
> I thought that George Bush and a conservative government
> would restore fiscal responsibility to a country addicted to the
> craziness of the late 1990s bubble.

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in politics where the people that get elected are appealing to their partisan conservative or liberal base while using free money and free stuff to bring in enough swing voters to win.

I just read an article that said that the (free spending liberal Democrat) Clinton had a budget of $1.9 Trillion in his final term, while the (fiscally conservative Republican) GW Bush has just proposed a $2.9 Trillion budget (increasing the budget more in a term and a half than the increase over the four full terms of his Dad and Clinton).

Bush got the swing vote in the last election with his free drugs for seniors plan. I’m thinking that our next president may win by giving free healthcare or college to all (or maybe Obama will promise 40 acres and a mule)…

P.S. One more person to the spending out of control list is Arnold Schwarzenegger. The current CA budget is about 30x higher today than when Regan was Governor and is close to ¼ of the entire US budget when Regan was President!

OpinionsPlease Says:

> “Location, location, location. Buy in the best location
> possible. Look around you. Where do you see prices
> falling…

San Diego, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Tiburon (Agassi sold for millions less than he paid), Pacific Heights (the Biotech guy recently sold for millions less than he paid), Hillsborough (my parents told me that a family near them just threw in the towel and sold for hundreds of thousands less than they paid in 2005 after almost a year of making mortgage payments on their new home in CT and their empty home on the Peninsula). I guess Tiburon, Pacific Heights and Hillsborough are not considered “best locations”…

> and where do you see prices continuing to rise?

Areas with a short commute to Google and areas with good schools and a lot of well paid recent immigrants…

> Life is short. If you can afford to buy, buy.

Buying is a bad idea right now (even if you can “afford” it)…

frank Says:

> DS, higher living costs translates into more expensive
> labor for local business that eventually results in loss
> of jobs. Therefore, this is a self-correcting process only
> limited by monetary inflation.

Then allah Says:

> This is exactly what I have been saying…people seems to
> think that the jobs will always be there in the GOOD areas.
> Companies have been outsourcing to other countries to
> save money; there’s no reason why they can’t outsource to
> other states where the cost of living is much cheaper as well.

Many of my friends from business school work in corporate finance. Their primary goal is to increase the bottom line (to increase their bonuses and get more stock options). Every time they can move a single job out of the Bay Area $25-$50K on average drops to the bottom line (due to lower salaries, benefits, support cost and the cost of office space)…

This one here thinks that BUYERS are greedy :lol:

I would not recommend a retirement home in the snow belt to anyone, except my enemies.

We are facing either a dollar collapse, or a deflationary credit collapse, or both. EIther way, the purchasing power of our dollars will go down a whole lot for stuff that people in other countries also need to buy with their stronger currencies.

Like energy.

So unless you're very wealthy, retiring to the snow belt is probably a bad idea. So is, retiring to a place with high summer AC bills, like Dallas or the Mojave.

Many of my friends from business school work in corporate finance. Their primary goal is to increase the bottom line (to increase their bonuses and get more stock options). Every time they can move a single job out of the Bay Area $25-$50K on average drops to the bottom line (due to lower salaries, benefits, support cost and the cost of office space)…

FAB understands well that this is the (oft painful) process of capitalistic creative destruction. As a net macro analysis, it makes the local area and greater economy stronger, not weaker. Although that is not an idea well received by those displaced.

Good areas, of course, won't be good forever. But, they will remain good for far longer than those cheering for them to turn bad hold their interest in the subject.

Put up Edwards style protectionist trade barriers and retaliatory anti-free-market hurdles. Then I'll start worrying that places like Manhattan and the Bay Area are headed for Detroitism.

By the way, there is a fairly healthy net influx of new labor force into the Bay Area right now, for the first time in many years.

(Housing prices will still go down though. And since this will occur despite a strong job market, sellers will finally start to 'throw in the towel', as FAB's parent's neighbors did.)

Long cold winters are not conducive to the health of the elderly. Repetitive shovelling, stooping down to chain tires, effect of cold on already clogged arteries, responding to slippery wet conditions with geriatric responses... And we're not even getting to the unsavory elements of these rust belt cities.

There's a reason why Florida is choked full of "snowbirds" in winter.

Much of the purported savings of living in the rustbelt would be burned up (quite literally) by winter heating. It's cheaper and easier to retire to the south.