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Ten Reasons It's A Terrible Time To Buy An Expensive House


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2015 Jul 11, 12:58pm   939,552 views  470 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (61)   💰tip   ignore  



  1. Because house prices in expensive areas still dangerously high compared to incomes and rents. Banks say a safe mortgage is a maximum of 3 times the buyer's annual income with a 20% downpayment. Landlords say a safe price is set by the rental market; annual rent should be at least 9% of the purchase price, or else the price is just too high. Yet in affluent areas, both those safety rules are still being violated. Buyers are still borrowing 6 times their income with tiny downpayments, and gross rents are still only 3% of purchase price. Renting is a cash business that proves what people can really pay based on their salary, not how much they can borrow. Salaries and rents prove that affluent neighborhoods are still in a huge housing bubble, and that bubble seems to be getting more dangerous by the day.


    2. On the other hand, in some poor neighborhoods, prices are now so low that gross rents may exceed 10% of price. Housing is a bargain for buyers there. Prices there could still fall yet more if unemployment rises or interest rates go up, but those neighborhoods have no bubble anymore.

  2. Because it's usually still much cheaper to rent than to own the same size and quality house, in the same school district. In rich neighborhoods, annual rents are typically only 3% of purchase price while mortgage rates are 4% with fees, so it costs more to borrow the money as it does to borrow the house. Renters win and owners lose! Worse, total owner costs including taxes, maintenance, and insurance come to about 8% of purchase price, which is more than twice the cost of renting and wipes out any income tax benefit.

    The only true sign of a bottom is a price low enough so that you could rent out the house and make a profit. Then you'll know it's pretty safe to buy for yourself because then rent could cover the mortgage and ownership expenses if necessary, eliminating most of your risk. The basic buying safety rule is to divide annual rent by the purchase price for the house:

    annual rent / purchase price = 3% means do not buy, prices are too high

    annual rent / purchase price = 6% means borderline

    annual rent / purchase price = 9% means ok to buy, prices are reasonable

    So for example, it's borderline to pay $200,000 for a house that would cost you $1,000 per month to rent. That's $12,000 per year in rent. If you buy it with a 6% mortgage, that's $12,000 per year in interest instead, so it works out about the same. Owners can pay interest with pre-tax money, but that benefit gets wiped out by the eternal debts of repairs and property tax, equalizing things. It is foolish to pay $400,000 for that same house, because renting it would cost only half as much per year, and renters are completely safe from falling housing prices. Subtract HOA from rent before doing the calculation for condos.

    Although there is no way to be sure that rents won't fall, comparing the local employment rate (demand) to the current local supply of available homes for rent or sale (supply) should help you figure out whether a big fall in rents could happen. Checking these factors minimizizes your risk.


  3. Because it's a terrible time to buy when interest rates are low, like now. House prices rose as interest rates fell, and house prices will fall if interest rates rise without a strong increase in jobs, because a fixed monthly payment covers a smaller mortgage at a higher interest rate. Since interest rates have nowhere to go but up, prices have nowhere to go but down. When housing falls, you lose your equity, but not your debt.

    The way to win the game is to have cash on hand to buy outright at a low price when others cannot borrow very much because of high interest rates. Then you get a low price, and you get capital appreciation caused by future interest rate declines. To buy an expensive house at a time of low interest rates and high prices like now is a mistake.

    It is far better to pay a low price with a high interest rate than a high price with a low interest rate, even if the mortgage payment is the same either way.



    • A low price lets you pay it all off instead of being a debt-slave for the rest of your life.


    • As interest rates fall, real estate prices generally rise.


    • Your property taxes will be lower with a low purchase price.


    • Paying a high price now may trap you "under water", meaning you'll have a mortgage debt larger than the value of the house. Then you will not be able to refinance because then you'll have no equity, and will not be able to sell without a loss. Even if you get a long-term fixed rate mortgage, when rates inevitably go up the value of your property will go down. Paying a low price minimizes your damage.


    • You can refinance when you buy at a higher interest rate and rates fall, but current buyers will never be able to refinance for a lower interest rate in the future. Rates are already as low as they can go.






  4. Because buyers already borrowed too much money and cannot pay it back. They spent it on houses that are now worth less than the loans. This means most banks are still actually bankrupt. But since the banks have friends in Washington, they get special treatment that you do not. The Federal Reserve prints up bales of new money to buy worthless mortgages from irresponsible banks, slowing down the buyer-friendly deflation in housing prices and socializing bank losses.

    The Fed exists to protect big banks from the free market, at your expense. Banks get to keep any profits they make, but bank losses just get passed on to you as extra cost added on to the price of a house, when the Fed prints up money and buys their bad mortgages. If the Fed did not prevent the free market from working, you would be able to buy a house much more cheaply.

    As if that were not enough corruption, Congress authorized vast amounts of TARP bailout cash taken from taxpayers to be loaned directly to the worst-run banks, those that already gambled on mortgages and lost. The Fed and Congress are letting the banks "extend and pretend" that their mortgage loans will get

    paid back.

    And of course the banks can simply sell millions of bad loans to Fannie and Freddie at full price, putting taxpayers on the hook for the banks' gambling losses. Heads they win, tails you lose.

    It is necessary that YOU be forced deeply into debt, and therefore forced into slavery, for the banks to make a profit. If you pay a low price for a house and manage to avoid debt, the banks lose control over you. Unacceptable to them. It's all a filthy battle for control over your labor.

    This is why you will never hear the president or anyone else in power say that we need lower house prices. They always talk about "affordability" but what they always mean is debt-slavery.


  5. Because buyers used too much leverage. Leverage means using debt to amplify gain. Most people forget that debt amplifies losses as well. If a buyer puts 10% down and the house goes down 10%, he has lost 100% of his money on paper. If he has to sell due to job loss or a mortgage rate adjustment, he lost 100% in the real world.

    The simple fact is that the renter - if willing and able to save his money - can buy a house outright in half the time that a conventional buyer can pay off a mortgage. Interest generally accounts for more than half of the cost of a house. The saver/renter not only pays no interest, he also gets interest on his savings, even if just a little. Leveraged housing appreciation, usually presented as the "secret" to wealth, cannot be counted on, and can just as easily work against the buyer. In fact, that leverage is the danger that got current buyers into trouble.

    The higher-end housing market is now set up for a huge crash in prices, since there is no more fake paper equity from the sale of a previously overvalued property and because the market for securitized jumbo loans is dead. Without that fake equity, most people don't have the money needed for a down payment on an expensive house. It takes a very long time indeed to save up for a 20% downpayment when you're still making mortgage payments on an underwater house.

    It's worse than that. House prices do not even have to fall to cause big losses. The cost of selling a house is kept unfairly high because of the Realtor® lobby's corruption of US legislators. On a $300,000 house, 6% is $18,000 lost even if housing prices just stay flat. So a 4% decline in housing prices bankrupts all those with 10% equity or less.


  6. Because the housing bubble was not driven by supply and demand. There is huge supply because of overbuilding, and there is less demand now that the baby boomers are retiring and selling. Prices in the housing market, even now, are entirely a function of how much the banks are willing and able to lend. Most people will borrow as much as they possibly can, amounts that are completely disconnected from their salaries or from the rental value of the property. Banks have been willing to accomodate crazy borrowers because banker control of the US government means that banks do not yet have to acknowledge their losses, or can push losses onto taxpayers through government housing agencies like the FHA.


  7. Because there is still a massive backlog of latent foreclosures. Millions of owners stopped paying their mortgages, and the banks are still not forclosing on all of them, letting the owner live in the house for free. If a bank forecloses and takes possession of a house, that means the bank is responsible for property taxes and maintenance. Banks don't like those costs. If a bank then sells the foreclosure at current prices, the bank has to admit a loss on the loan. Banks like that cost even less. So there is a tsunami of foreclosures on the way that the banks are ignoring, for now. To prevent a justified foreclosure is also to prevent a deserving family from buying that house at a low price. Right now, those foreclosures will wash over the landscape, decimating prices, and benefitting millions of families which will be able to buy a house without a suicidal level of debt, and maybe without any debt at all!


  8. Because first-time buyers have all been ruthlessly exploited and the supply of new victims is very low.

    From The Herald:

    "We were all corrupted by the housing boom, to some extent. People talked endlessly about how their houses were earning more than they did, never asking where all this free money was coming from. Well the truth is that it was being stolen from the next generation. Houses price increases don't produce wealth, they merely transfer it from the young to the old - from the coming generation of families who have to burden themselves with colossal debts if they want to own, to the baby boomers who are about to retire and live on the cash they make when they downsize."

    House price inflation has been very unfair to new families, especially those with children. It is foolish for them to buy at current high prices, yet government leaders never talk about how lower house prices are good for American families, instead preferring to sacrifice the young and poor to benefit the old and rich, and to make sure bankers have plenty of debt to earn interest on. Your debt is their wealth. Every "affordability" program drives prices higher by pushing buyers deeper into debt. Increased debt is not affordability, it's just pushing the reckoning into the future. To really help Americans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the FHA should be completely eliminated. Even more important is eliminating the mortgage-interest deduction, which costs the government $400 billion per year in tax revenue. The mortgage interest deduction directly harms all buyers by keeping prices higher than they would otherwise be, costing buyers more in extra purchase cost than they save on taxes. The $8,000 buyer tax credit cost each buyer in Massachusetts an extra $39,000 in purchase price. Subsidies just make the subsidized item more expensive. Buyers should be rioting in the streets, demanding an end to all mortgage subsidies. Canada and Australia have no mortgage-interest deduction for owner-occupied housing. It can be done.

    The government pretends to be interested in affordable housing, but now that housing is becoming truly affordable via falling prices, they want to stop it? Their actions speak louder than their words.



  9. Because boomers are retiring. There are 70 million Americans born between 1945-1960. One-third have zero retirement savings. The oldest are 66. The only money they have is equity in a house, so they must sell. This will add yet another flood of houses to the market, driving prices down even more.


  10. Because there is a huge glut of empty new houses. Builders are being forced to drop prices even faster than owners, because builders must sell to keep their business going. They need the money now. Builders have huge excess inventory that they cannot sell at current prices, and more houses are completed each day, making the housing slump worse.




Next Page: Eight groups who lie about the housing market »



The Housing Trap

You're being set up to spend your life paying off a debt you don't need to take on, for a house that costs far more than it should. The conspirators are all around you, smiling to lure you in, carefully choosing their words and watching your reactions as they push your buttons, anxiously waiting for the moment when you sign the papers that will trap you and guarantee their payoff. Don't be just another victim of the housing market. Use this book to defend your freedom and defeat their schemes. You can win the game, but first you have to learn how to play it.

115 pages, $12.50Kindle version available

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20   novaZ06   2015 Aug 7, 11:59am  

Most insightful and accurate analysis on this topic I have seen. Should be required reading.

21   Mels138   2015 Aug 10, 10:30am  

Great article!

22   Bellingham Bill   2015 Aug 10, 7:53pm  

mid-late 70s boom, early 80s crash (Volcker recession)
mid-late 80s boom, early 90s crash (S&L crisis)
late 90s boom, early 00s crash (dotcom / Worldcom / Enron / NASDAQ madness)
mid-late 00s boom, late 00s crash (systematic mortgage fraud bubble bust)

early-mid 10s boom, late 10s crash??

dunno man. You say the fed did nothing 2009-2011, and 2013-2014, but I think it demonstrated that it indeed had a money gun and was willing to use it.

the previous upstrokes had the seeds of their downfalls in them -- I understand the 1990s recession the least but it had to do with WW2 & cold war aerospace leaving LA, the oil patch collapsing due to oil price collapse, and a real estate bubble on the east coast, too

I don't actually see what's all that wrong -- "unsustainable" -- with the current economy.

shows that if this decade is like the 1990s, we've got another 10M jobs to gain.

Demographically, we're totally different compared to 2000.

The baby boom was age 36 to 54 that year, prime work years. 2020, they'll be age 56 to 74, edging off into retirement, opening up jobs for Gen X and promotions.

Plus as they start dying they'll be distributing their estates to Gen Y, and before they die they'll be spending their retirement savings.

Each year of the baby boomer cohort is 4M people! Health care demand alone is going to be colossal. Plus restaurants and hospitality since old people are tired of cooking.

shows the deficit coming down (this graph is adjusted to 2015 dollars) so that's not unsustainable

I don't pretend to understand the macro picture, trade with China or our deepeningly negative NIIP.

23   Bellingham Bill   2015 Aug 10, 10:40pm  

Federal interest payments (2015 dollars):

Interest payments as % GDP:

Hello ZIRP trap. How to get risk-free rates back up to 5% is the tricky bit.

24   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:41pm  

"1.Because house prices are in expensive areas still dangerously high compared
to incomes and rents."

Flawed logic. Homes are expensive because people pay for them and will pay even more for them. It's proven prime homes gets people rich. Buying cheap homes keeps you broke. location, location, location is not going to change, ah maybe location x5.

25   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:43pm  

"2.Because it's usually still much cheaper to rent than to own the same size
and quality house, "

flawed logic. whether it is cheaper to own or rent is based on future unknown factors (future rent and future price). The lifetime owner in Palo Alto is at least 10 time richer than the liftetime renter in Palo Alto.

26   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:46pm  

"3.Because it's a terrible time to buy when interest rates are low, like now."

While that may true, interest rate have trended down in one direction for 30 years. Good luck waiting for interest to be back to 1980, which is never. Low interest makes carrying assets cheaper. Most homes are now off the market forever because of low interest rates. record low inventory amid record prices proves this

27   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:48pm  

"4.Because buyers already borrowed too much money and cannot pay it back."

That is a 2005 argument, not 2015.

28   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:50pm  

"5.Because buyers used too much leverage. Leverage means using debt to amplify
gain"

This is also so 2005. real estate leverage is pretty low.

29   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:51pm  

"6.Because the housing bubble was not driven by supply and demand. There
is huge supply because of overbuilding, and there is less demand now that the
baby boomers are retiring and selling."

This is also so 2005 when 2M homes were built for 5 straight years, most in suburbs and exburbs. For the past 8 years, homes are underbuilt, less than 1M, which drives the supply problem now. Boomers are not selling for another 20 years which means the generation x will pay for it.

30   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:54pm  

"7.Because there is still a massive backlog of latent foreclosures"

It's 2015 not 2009.

31   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:55pm  

"8.Because first-time buyers have all been ruthlessly exploited and the
supply of new victims is very low."

Prices are at record in-spite of record low home ownership rate. Money buys home not first time buyers.

32   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:56pm  

"9.Because boomers are retiring. There are 70 million Americans born between
1945-1960. One-third have zero retirement savings. The oldest are 66. The
only money they have is equity in a house, so they must sell."

The boomer will not sell for another 20 years.

33   SFace   2015 Aug 12, 5:57pm  

"10.Because there is a huge glut of empty new houses. Builders are being forced
to drop prices even faster than owners"

It's 2015 not 2009.

34   Nobody   2015 Aug 12, 6:23pm  

Sounds like a great time to sell.

35   Latesummer2009   2015 Aug 12, 7:09pm  

In the words of Warren Buffett "Buy when most are fearful, and sell when people are the greediest" I think I'd listen to him than the other real estate "professionals". Hedge fund giant Jim Paulsen is also liquidating land holdings now. These guys know....

www.westsideremeltdown.blogspot.com

36   Patrick   2015 Aug 12, 9:36pm  

SFace says

flawed logic. whether it is cheaper to own or rent is based on future unknown factors (future rent and future price). The lifetime owner in Palo Alto is at least 10 time richer than the liftetime renter in Palo Alto.

first you agree with me and say whether it is cheaper to rent depends on future rent and future price, then you say that it's flawed logic?

also, where did you get 10x for palo alto? did you just make the number up? did you consider what would have happened if the renter put his money in an equally lucky investment in the stock market?

37   David9   2015 Aug 12, 9:38pm  

Ha Ha, I knew this posting would get a backlash.

Yes, I checked the date, 2015.

I suppose it is a matter of taste. I still love being able to travel. One of my latest pictures from Vienna, Austria, lovely city, well dressed polite people, tolerant, and just enough excitement if you want it. :)

38   Patrick   2015 Aug 12, 9:38pm  

SFace says

It's proven prime homes gets people rich.

you never lived in the midwest, did you? at one time, parts of chicago and detroit were also extremely rich, with huge prime houses which are now falling apart because the neighborhoods went to shit when local industry fell apart.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/13/detroit-1000-mansion-home-auction_n_5310936.html

i know this because i lived in both areas.

39   Patrick   2015 Aug 12, 9:39pm  

http://vividlyvintage.com/2010/08/18/detroits-abandoned-mansions/

We all know that Detroit is known for auto makers, and industry shapers. When Detroit was in its prime many wealthy business owners and high ranking employees of those business’s carved homes out of the community in nearby neighborhoods. Since the ups and downs of the auto industry, many automakers closed their doors in Detroit which left many families with a decision to make. Either stay in Detroit and find work in other business’s in the surrounding areas, or leave Detroit. Many people made the decision to cut their losses and move on and away from the Muscle car capitol...

40   Joy Hong Kong   2015 Aug 13, 4:30am  

Hello, I read your article and have seen your great advise for people not buying an expensive house , avoiding being slavery for bank .

I am now living in Hong Kong . The housing price is going up for ten years , from 2004 - 2015 . The price from 2014 to now (just in two years time ) housing price 250% up. Every months price is going up. The interest rate is very low now, only 2.5% and there is not enough supplies flat for buyers at this moment but I heard news from government that they will have more flat sell in the coming 1 -2 years time . However, local people said that Hk property price only go up, even usa going to rise the interest , even supply increase , these factor won't affect to Hk house price, because : 1) Hk people have much money 2) Hk is too crowded place, many people need home , so rental will support the price .

I haven't buy a house yet. I am waiting the price go down, but seems no hope, I just worry if I don't buy it now I won't have chance to get a house , and also I am afraid if I buy an expensive house , it will let me going ti have a big debt .

Could you please give me advise. Many thanks

41   tatupu70   2015 Aug 13, 5:24am  


you never lived in the midwest, did you? at one time, parts of chicago and detroit were also extremely rich, with huge prime houses which are now falling apart because the neighborhoods went to shit when local industry fell apart.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/13/detroit-1000-mansion-home-auction_n_5310936.html

i know this because i lived in both areas.

What part of Chicago was once extremely rich and now fell apart?

42   EBGuy   2015 Aug 13, 1:47pm  

Our fearless leader said: you never lived in the midwest, did you? at one time, parts of chicago and detroit were also extremely rich, with huge prime houses which are now falling apart because the neighborhoods went to shit when local industry fell apart.
Set the wayback machine to the 1850s and go further east to where John D. Rockefeller once lived. In the words of Spinal Tap "Hello Cleveland".
Dan Ruminski, a business owner who lives in Chesterland, has created a sideline as a history buff who researches and lectures on Millionaires' Row, circa 1850 to 1910.
"There was a time during that period when half the millionaires who existed in the world lived in Cleveland," he says.
That storied portion of Euclid Avenue, stretching from downtown to about East 55th Street, was known as one of America's "grand avenues." The Euclid Avenue of that era was compared to the Champs-Elysees in Paris and Unter den Linden in Berlin....
Tax rates on the wealth of those patrons were nominal in the 19th century. But that started to change in the 20th century.
That wasn't the only thing that began leading to the Row's demise. Many of the owners of the estates were responsible, directly or indirectly, for the industry and commerce that were dramatically making Cleveland grow. Gradually, pollution from industry and railroads and the choking congestion of automobiles and streetcars made their way toward the mansions. Commercial demand for property on the avenue grew, too.
There was another aspect as well: Some of the owners didn't want to see their palatial homes carved up into apartments that the poor, especially immigrants, would move into. They chose to have them demolished instead. So the grand avenue died.

43   bob2356   2015 Aug 13, 6:29pm  


i know this because i lived in both areas.

My condolences.

44   Patrick   2015 Aug 14, 7:49am  

tatupu70 says

What part of Chicago was once extremely rich and now fell apart?

Wicker Park, for example. Though now it's trendy.

bob2356 says

My condolences.

Thanks. It's OK now that I live somewhere beautiful without brutal winters or mosquitoes.

45   tatupu70   2015 Aug 14, 7:59am  


Wicker Park, for example. Though now it's trendy.

Yes, I wouldn't say Wicker Park is falling apart.

46   Patrick   2015 Aug 15, 4:25pm  

Joy Hong Kong says

local people said that Hk property price only go up

lol! that's what realtors told everyone here just before our huge crash in 2008.

47   PickaName   2015 Aug 20, 4:21am  

Can I just pipe in and say that I just noticed that the
usual internet name-calling, etc is missing from this reasoned discussion
between people who fundamentally disagree (on the fundamentals :) )?

I KNEW something was missing...

48   aminata   2015 Aug 28, 6:49am  

Thanks for this posting Patrick.

I was thinking about buying a house in Davis, CA, where the prices are just nutso. I kept doing the math, but it didn't make sense to buy when we could rent a similar house for almost $1000 less. We're good at saving money, so I figure it's better to invest. Emotionally, it makes my husband and I feel bad not to buy because we've been programmed by society to do so. I feel better about our decision to put off buying until we can find a really good deal now that I've read this. I'm going to show this article to my husband to let him know our decision was the right one.

Keep writing. Your ideas are extremely insightful and can't be found anywhere else.

Thanks again!

49   Sophieil   2015 Aug 31, 11:31am  

This was a very insightful thread! I thank you.
Could you wise gentlemen, please give me an advice?

I live in Silicon Valley and have to live here for another 15 years at least. I am divorced, single mom of two children and have to stay in close proximity to my ex, who lives in San Jose. So I am tied to this completely insane housing market, that goes on in the valley.
I earn an ok tech salary, but pay 2780$ rent for a one bedroom apartment and there is no rent control in South Bay (yeah.. crazy, I know...)
From the savings division in divorce settlements, I got about 120K which I could put for a downpayment for a tiny condo (550K doesn't buy you much in this area) or invest it and be afraid for the market to crash. Currently, I just keep the money rotting in my bank account, being liquid and not tied to the stock market.

The big question is - and I would highly appreciate any logical answer, is whether I should keep renting and wait for the housing market to go down and then buy something. Or should I bite the bullet and buy something small now? (the 30year fixed mortgage+HOA will be around 3K a month, by my calculations).

My real estate agent says - "buy buy buy as prices will only go up and the supply is much lower than demand" and "this is the tech area and tech will not go down for many more years to come" (Google and Facebook are doing great and their people are earning crazy salaries). I know that nobody actually knows the future, and am fairly intelligent. But still, an advice is highly appreciated.

Thank you!
Sophie

50   Patrick   2015 Aug 31, 8:50pm  

Hi @Sophieil have you tried the NY Times rent vs buy calculator?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html?_r=patrick.net

51   anonymous   2015 Aug 31, 11:38pm  

Sophieil says

I live in Silicon Valley and have to live here for another 15 years at least.

that's usually the key factor - if you need to sell too quickly, then buying can be risky.

compare the rental units with a similar condo/th. for about the same price, you can be paying down a mortgage and building equity over 15 years with protection from rent increases. you also don't have to dump all your cash into the down payment up front, if you don't want to.

the crux of the rent vs. buy comes down to what you pay for a similar unit. rent has gotten so out of control lately that the calculation ought to be reconsidered for certain locations.

on the other hand, the tech industry is as boom-bust as any. SFBA has a dangerous 70% PITI to income ratio (30% to 35% is normal). prolonged economic distress could cause quite an impact on house values.

however, SF is now officially a "luxury city" like paris or manhattan. when the world dreams of living there, it's hard to rationalize a long term decline in pricing.

just my 2 pennies.

52   B.A.C.A.H.   2015 Sep 1, 11:28am  

I'd think long and hard about putting down roots here.
Life here is becoming miserable: traffic, people coming from all over the USA and all over the world bidding up the rents, lots of obnoxious people. Everything busy, crowded, working class employees in service industries stressed out. Stressed out from long commutes, stressed out from high rents, stressed out from overcrowded sharing housing, stressed out from unpaid sick leave and child care hassles.
K-12's becoming bipolar between grade-grubbing families that will do "whatever it takes" to get above 4.0 grade average and all the accolades for acceptance to an elite UC, and warrens of future gangsters.
You really wanna put down roots here for a job?

53   Sophieil   2015 Sep 1, 1:00pm  

BACAH, I hate living here as well. I absolutely agree with you on all the points you've mentioned. Totally. It is like that. I would move from here in a heartbeat. But like I wrote in my original post, I have to live in this area because of the kids and the shared custody situation with their dad who owns a house in San Jose. I have to live in a reasonable radius around his house and the kids' school, while I work in Sunnyvale and San Francisco. So Silicon Valley it is for me... Thats a given. Whether I want it or not.

In the current rental market, what I would pay for rent is approximately what I would pay for the 30 year fixed mortgage. Though of course, the whole thing can go bust, the market could crash and the rent could go down, while I will still be paying the 3K a month for my mortgage+HOA.

Just trying to make a decision what to do now, after looking for houses from February. My money just sits in the bank account, after I liquidified everything. And that feels stupid, while I pay a lot for rent. And no, there is no rent control here, like in SF.

I can keep renting and hope that market will go down, home prices will go down, and then I buy. The thing is that Silicon Valley is not like the rest of the country. The tech is booming and will keep booming. It is going strong for now. People are coming here from all over the world. There is not enough housing and houses are sold within a few days, after multiple offers, and almost always above the asking price. Its pretty insane. Its true that it was similar in 2007, but the crash then was triggered by subprime mortgages. Now its different. Will it crash so much now as well? Nobody knows...

On the other hand, I can buy something now. I can afford something very small, crappy, in average to bad area, and far from ideal. Basically put all my money in it, leaving me with no savings and no backup. Not to mention that it seems not that wise to buy on the peak, on the upward move. Doesn't sound like a good financial decision as well.

54   B.A.C.A.H.   2015 Sep 1, 1:46pm  

Sophieil, I understand.
BTW I don't hate living here at all, it's my hometown, and nearly all my extended family and in laws live in the region.
We anchored ourselves here for the same reason as you, to be near family.
But I see how icky it is for my adult kids.
It sounds like what you are interested in is your own personal "rent control", owning is the only way to do that, but even in that case some of the costs are not so much in your control.
My spouse and I, and a lot of local kids like me, made renting work with adult roommates. It was the tradeoff we made. When we bought, it was always the backup plan too.
About the frenzy, we've seen this "Sky is the limit" employment situation before.
The Apple Orb is a harbinger of what's to come (Edifice Complex).

55   Sophieil   2015 Sep 1, 2:24pm  

Renting with roommates is challenging when you have two young kids.
So judging by your Apple comment, you think that the real estate here won't go down any time soon?

56   B.A.C.A.H.   2015 Sep 1, 2:36pm  

I dunno about house prices.
To some extent, that's more a dynamic of the stampede of elites out of Communist China to communities they covet along the Left Coast.
But about the employment situation, of course it's a Bubble. Social networking, etc companies gonna choke on their own selves. Silicon Valley people are not smarter or harder working than elsewhere; as we choke on our growth, the jobs will leave the region. We've seen it all before.

57   Sophieil   2015 Sep 1, 2:57pm  

Amen :)
I want all these people to go somewhere else. Well, not all, but many of them.
All these young, techie, dual-income-no-kids Facebook-Google couples are really annoying... (my personal rant)

58   turtledove   2015 Sep 1, 3:58pm  

We had moved back to So Cal after living in another country. When we came back in 2011, we wanted to wait for everything to shake out before buying something. So, we rented for a few years. With the exception of 2011 - 2012, we found that we were paying more for rent than we would be had we bought. I kept waiting for prices to do something favorable, but with each year I waited, my rent went up right alongside the sales prices. After a couple of years, I realized that it was getting harder and harder to buy a house. My rent was eating more and more of the paycheck and housing prices were not heading down any time soon. So, we finally decided to buy when, after doing the calculation, we learned that we would be paying $1,000 more to rent each month rather than own. Personally, I see it as a way to control costs. At least I know that my monthly payment isn't going up on the whim of the landlord.

59   Strategist   2015 Sep 1, 7:07pm  

Sophieil says

The big question is - and I would highly appreciate any logical answer, is whether I should keep renting and wait for the housing market to go down and then buy something. Or should I bite the bullet and buy something small now? (the 30year fixed mortgage+HOA will be around 3K a month, by my calculations).

If you think prices will go down, why in the world are you even asking the question? I think you have already made up your mind.

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