patrick.net

California has one of the largest economies in the world, so a lot of people should be concerned about a RE bust in Ca because it'll affect people who don't even live here. It goes without saying that a lot of jobs in RE, mortgages and construction are going to get cut. I also think businesses like Home Depo and Lowes are going to see a major loss of revenue. After the obvious, I'm not sure. Let me think....

Let's see, what do people do when they refinance? They buy cars, so the auto industry is going to take a hit. And interest rates are going to affect the auto dealers big time because they won't be able to offer the 0% interest rate deals (yeah right) anymore. (My dad's in the business, and all he has to say about the 0% interest specials is that car dealers never lose money on a deal, they just find different ways of taking it out of your pocket.)
What else do people buy? Vacations, so the travel industry may be affected too.
Still thinking.

SactoQt, I think most businesses will be affected. Foreign oil companies may be exceptions because they have pricing power beyond strong demand... especially when many US operations are offline. Just a guess.

(at least that typical American who is 7,200 dollars in credit card debt…not to even speak about those who have multi-thousand invested in a bloated real estate market).

The scary part is that lavish spenders are in serious revolving debt while many "frugal investors" are in housing debt, thinking that they are ahead. Either type will not fare so well.

Hi all, I just found this site (by googling "real estate bubble", of course!) & have really enjoyed the commentary .
Current market data is difficult to find, but below is a pretty good site that shows homes currently on the market, pending sales, & closed sales...but only for south-ish San Jose neighborhoods. It also shows current ask prices...and if a price has been reduced, it shows the reduced price in red font...this I think is quite valuable! It seems the data is contributed by local agents. I'm quite sure it doesn't show ALL list price reductions...but there are some that can be seen...especially in higher-end neighborhoods.
Anyways, just thought I'd share this source of almost-real-time data. Oh, and the data is updated several times a day, as well (time stamps are EDT).

http://www.southsanjose.com/realty.php

Enjoy!

My husband was telling me today that the people who bought his friend's house and are negative cash flow on that are considering buying another investment property. :!:

I don't know if they're high or stupid.. or both. The market in this county is down 16% from last year, most people I talk to figure the writing is on the wall and are leery about the prospect of buying right now. But these guys are still merrily buying figuring that the party is still going. Talk about the greater fool. I will not feel bad when they crash and burn because I know they have been told the risks and they choose to ignore them.
Greed is bad.

SJ_Jim, thanks for the information. I am watching South and East Bay closely because I believe the decline will start there.

BTW, I have been running casual searches and it seems that inventory in South and East Bay has been climbing steadily while inventory in North Bay is quite stable. Are you happy, Jack?

No problem...yeah, at least one recent article mentioned San Jose as primed for bust.
My story...got outbid on a 1bd/1ba condo in early May (386.5 beat my 365 on 359 LP)...I decided that was the best I could do, & that there was a lack of sanity among the crazed bidders, & so I just had to wait and hope for a change since rent is cheap & not going anywhere. Time'll tell, huh?

Time’ll tell, huh?

Yes. Time will ...

Inevitably
Inexcorably
Indelibly

... tell.

SJ_Jim,

The total lack of correlation right now between PITI and rents/cash-flows for equivalent units is the biggest red flag that something is SERIOUSLY out of whack here, with the incomes-to-price disparity coming in a close second. You may want to trawl some of our blog archives for more in-depth material on this (the regulars here have already covered this ground before).

I especially recommend “I See Debt People” (July 12th, 2005) & "Too Big to Fail?" (July 9th, 2005) patrick.net/wp/index.php?paged=4 and Housing Bubble Glossary (August 12th, 2005) patrick.net/wp/index.php?paged=2.

Actually, I understand there is quite a slowdown here too.

"Dead"--looks that way to me. Just yesterday, I noticed a home in Kentfield that included approved design plans as part of the deal. I'm guessing a flipper saw the market and decided to bail. $1.1M for an old house on a 8200 sqft lot ("prime central location").

Regarding Sonoma...I think that county will be hurt worse than Marin: growing inventory of homes, higher incidence of foreclosure (already). Sebastopol is one of the higher in greater BA.

Naples has almost 20% of its housing stock "for sale."

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?page=2&param=archive&guid={72B37618-A32C-4715-BEFF-B565FF3F7732}&siteid=google

Las Vegas is in almost as bad a shape, with over 5% on the market, which is huge for a Western city.

I think the areas that are going to get hit the worst are those regions most dependent on construction in the local economy. So outlying suburbs, like Riverside and Vacaville will be hit the hardest. I think Las Vegas is in for a ride, too.

Less hurt will be diversified urban economies, who never depended on construction or real estate for as many jobs in the first place.

Still predicting no recession, though if oil keeps going up, we will have one.

SJ_Jim,

Welcome! Great site! Now, if I could only find something similar for the Tri-Valley area. Hmmmm.....

BayQT~

This is my last post. I am evicting myself. You cant fire me, because I quit!

What!? You can't do that!

I am going to Lost Vegas this week again. Perhaps I will take a look at the Ivana Tower and the Trump Tower. ;)

Where did that little piss ant MP go? I miss his arrogance and BS comments.

He is probably arrested by an MP (Military Police).

Peter P,

Jack isn't going anywhere. I think he's just messing around. Too many double espressos. :-D

BayQT~

I think (I hope) Jack's comment was poking fun at a certain someone's departure.

When dealing with the pit vipers (agents, loan officers etc) what is the best way to keep your ass from being violated?

Just insist on 30YR or 15YR fixed. When they try to talk you into something else, cover your ears and say LA LA LA LA LA.

So... you are not waiting for the bubble to pop here?

am I totally off target to think that GSEs cannot really ‘fail’? They are not really the ones who are liable for the risk… the housing market could fail and the GSEs could be having steak for dinner.

Shend Rick, I don't think you're off target at all, in fact that was the whole point of that thread --everyone has a different take on what will happen to the GSEs when this thing really pops. The GSEs still hold a substantial percentage of the MBSs they issue ($500 billion or so the last time I checked), and the Fed has been pressuring them to reduce this exposure in recent months (Gee, I wonder why...?). There's obviously some direct risk there.

tinyurl.com/5btoe

So let’s look a little closer at this GSE’s leverage situation. The most common way to measure leverage is to divide total liabilities by total equity—this is generally deemed a company’s debt to equity ratio. This ratio is used to assess the long-term solvency of a firm. The higher the ratio, the more questionable the firm’s long-term solvency becomes. Using the applicable figures, Fannie Mae’s debt to equity ratio is 43 to 1. Considering that a debt to equity ratio of 12 to 1 is considered acceptable for a bank, Fannie Mae’s leverage is disturbingly high. Consequently, I would judge this firm’s financial condition to be fragile at best.

In addition to retaining a mortgage portfolio of $902 billion, Fannie Mae had a sizable off-balance sheet exposure to mortgage backed securities (MBS). At 12/31/03, the unpaid principal balance of mortgage backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, and held by investors other than Fannie Mae, amounted to $1.3 trillion. It is no trivial matter that this GSE guarantees the payment of interest and principal on over $1 trillion of mortgage backed securities. If just a small fraction of the mortgages (retained or bundled into mortgage backed securities) goes into default, Fannie Mae’s equity position would evaporate thus rendering this lending institution insolvent.

Of course the GSEs and GSE-issued debt (MBS) have the "implicit" guarantee of the U.S. taxpayer. Oh wait, Greenspan recently made statements to the contrary. (Oops...)

@Surfer-X,

Why buy when renting's still such a bargain? I doubt NM has had the kind of insane runaway price inflation we've seen here, but I bet you they've still gone up faster than rents. Wouldn't surprise me if CA "investors" haven't already started driving up property there as well (as in AZ, LV, etc.).

If it were me, I'd stay out of the market until it bottoms (3-5 years?) and then strike when the RE speculators are a distant memory.

Peter P, that’s just it. It may not “pop” here, down where I live, Pismo Beach, man, it is just so beautiful it’s like living in a resort and well there are assloads of GBF’s with their suitcases of money heading here in droves.

I detect a lack of faith... ;)

BTW, Surfer-X, I have been to Pismo. It is indeed beautiful. The crabs at Cracked Crab is wonderful.

Surfer-X,

Are you going to change your moniker Escape to NM? :razz:

Just kidding. :lol:

BayQT~

My story Asking was 330K my realtor tell me with 7 other bids out there, counter with 1.5% per every counter offer.

I am glad he did not say 1% per "eyeball". ;)

@Surfer-X: Albuquerque is beautiful. Definitely more laid back than any part of CA I've been to lately... It's not as hot as you might expect (high altitude desert), but UV exposure is high.

Actually, minus the coastline, Albuquerque is more Californian than most of California is, nowadays. imho.

Not a bad choice at all. Has water resource problems, but not like Oaxaca...

with their suitcases of money heading here in droves. Escalades as far as the eyes can see. Basically I see it happening as follows, boomers tend to run in herds

Surfer-X, lmao your rant. If it's any consolation, investors will soon litter the coast like driftwood, providing sustenance for shore life.

Why 30-somethings are leaving county: Home prices spur exodus of "young families"
tinyurl.com/8nagy
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

"For the price of a condominium in Sonoma County, Joyce and Joel Turner are living in the house of their dreams - a six-bedroom, three-bath home on an acre of property with plenty of room for the couple's five children.

"'You'll tend to see a greater gap between rich and poor in the county, less of a middle class and more poor,' he said, adding that there are still plenty of 'really dirt-poor areas in the county' where low-wage earners can find places to rent."

Will Katrina be the economic tipping point? Interesting article:

http://tinyurl.com/7zfoq

RE the BA losing families, I think that's a frightening trend. Aren't middle and working class families kinda sorta one of the stabilizing factors in any economic region's economy?

Is this trend already established in San Francisco, I wonder? When I walk around that city with my husband and two small kids, I sometimes feel like we're a little pack of aliens--a never-before-seen family unit.

Harm,

That article was absolutely mind-numbing. And although the general media is not reporting this kind of information, I wouldn't be surprised if this scenario is repeated all over the Bay Area....especially in areas where big business is moving out, reducing head-count (i.e., out-sourcing), and our young people cannot afford to buy in their hometowns. Those who are in a position to wait will probably rent until the market cycles back around.

BayQT~

...our young people cannot afford to buy in their hometowns. Those who are in a position to wait will probably rent until the market cycles back around.

My wife and I have been waiting for 2 years now, and I know many who've been waiting much longer than that. And I know many more who got sick of waiting, packed up and left when the opportunity presented itself, including both of my brothers and nearly all of my CA-born cousins. When I get my opportunity (or make it myself), I'm joining them.

This is one of the reasons why I don't buy the "people will pay any price to live here/intangibles" argument (sorry, Jack). When I leave, I promise to turn the lights out and take the flag with me ;-).

I would leave Ca in a heartbeat if the oportunity presented itself. I am sick to death of reassuring my husband that yes a 6 figure income is very good and it should in a rational world be able to buy a very nice home. But in Ca we'd have to take out a NAAVLP at least 5x's my husbands income to even think about buying some tiny shitbox that would be smaller than our rental. We've been looking at rental homes lately, but that's a crapshoot since the market is so squirrelly right now. I'm afraid that we'd move in, and they'd kick us out in a year to sell. My husband's job right now would be tough to transfer, but if it gets easier, we're outta here.

I am sick to death of reassuring my husband that yes a 6 figure income is very good and it should in a rational world be able to buy a very nice home.

A six-figure income is of course very good... did he read too many posts from MarinaPrime? ;)

A six-figure income is of course very good… did he read too many posts from MarinaPrime?

Not if I could help it. Talk about making my job twice as hard.

I remember a while back when FaceReality & Fake P were still posting on a regular basis. One of them (or both) basically said they expected things to devolve here into a sort-of "Running Man" type future, where you have exclusive ultra-rich gated communities on the beaches, surrounded by a wasteland of vast squalid urban ghettos where 10-20 illegals are packed to a room. My response at the time was MIRAGE and CHUMPS (new people --see "Housing Bubble Glossary" thread).

I certainly hope this vision of CA's future turns out to be wrong, current credit/asset Bubble notwithstanding. This is not a future I wish to inhabit, not even as one of the elite landlords. "Gotta go to the store for some milk, honey, can I take one of the bodyguards with me?"

It's kind of a moot point for me, though. At this point in our lives, my wife and I want a better quality of life, and we don't care to wait another 5+ years for it. Prices will no doubt correct in the coming years, but by then we'll be happily settled someplace else. Multiply that by X thousands, and I think you can see where things are headed for Hotel California.

You are right. People ARE leaving in droves. But to my mind, “intangibles” was never an “either/or” argument. Both can be true. People are definitely leaving, AND the reason so many people are leaving is BECAUSE there are still others who will “pay any price” to live there. The bottom line is: Does the exodus out weigh the numbers of people who are buying? Again, the only reason that people ARE leaving, is because someone is paying “any price” (higher price) to live there. I know you will say its also a lot of speculators, and you will be right on that point also. All three can be true also.

Jack, I don't deny that CA has (or had) lots of positive intangibles --great weather, good beaches, lots of fun stuff to do/see here, etc. However, I also see plenty of PIBs (just couldn't resist using that again ;-)) in other places as well that don't require an NAAVLP(tm) and selling your soul to the devil. I wouldn't say high housing prices are the "only" reason middle class people are leaving in droves. Rising population (esp. due to illegal immigration), pollution, flat or falling wages, longer commutes, environmental degradation (see rising population), etc. all play a big role.

This is why I'm so bearish on California --I see the PIBs slowly evaporating right before my eyes every day, right along with affordability. Without a middle class to support them, I believe prices will fall hard over a long period, and may not recover for a long time.

I remember a while back when FaceReality & Fake P were still posting on a regular basis.

Where are they? Are they in hibernation until November 1?

HARM, I agree with you that CA's intangibles are degrading, esp. thanks to increasing population and cost of living. We moved here over 12 years ago--to the desert between LA and Vegas--and stayed for 2 yrs, then were stationed elsewhere. When we were stationed here again 2 years ago, I was astonished at the population increase in those years we'd been away. When a craphole high desert town like Victorville is experiencing a population and real estate boom, you know things are getting bad. It also astonishes me to see the hoards of people crowding the highway each weekend on their way from LA to Vegas. If it's so fabulous to live there, then why must so many people sit in unbelievable traffic trying to escape so they can get drunk/laid/lose all their money gambling?