patrick.net

requiem,

I originally stated that there is a threshold problem, which you eloquently described.

I am not stating a new paradigm is emerging today. I am simply saying that anyone who claims to "know for sure" either way is suspect. Very few people can actually see a fundamental shift occurring as it occurs. And usually, those people are deemed crazy.

The other problem with kids with 2 working parents is that nobody but the teachers are watching out for them. The parents don't bother to supplement the kids' education outside of class or to properly supervise the kids. I've seen perfectly good daycare children when the parents were engaged in the kids' education.

Looks like the "Surreal Estate" columnist in the Chronic(le) has picked up the Casey Serin story:

http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/lloyd/

Of course, she fails to cite the blogs that brought his story to everyone's attention (HP, here, Ben's). Figures.

Astrid,

Moms did not replace dads in the Midwest for two reasons.

1. In those days women earned a significant discounted wage as compared to men (doing roughly equivalent work, like teachers for example).
2. Most men still had jobs, they were just underemployed and thus "underpaid" compared to their previous salary.
3. This was all happening during a dramatic inflationary period with stagnant growth, forcing families to either give up significant standard of living or augment their incomes somehow.

As to the social commentary on all this, I am again agnostic. I keep hearing about this and that backlash. It all depends upon your perspective I guess. There are a lot of people with a lot of different backgrounds, and thankfully a great diversity of perspective and opinion.

Oh, and the "rustbelt/midwest" was not the only place to suffer stagflation or dramatic job losses/displacement in the 70s/early 80s. It was very much a national phenomenon. The midwest was at the peak of its population right about then anyway and had 3 of the 5 most populated states. Places like Cali and FL were a lot smaller then.

But isn’t it possible that the Sheeple will eventually wise up and refused to pay those exorbitant house prices?

<stops laughing, picks self up from floor>

Well, um, now that I've thought about that some more, isn't that essentially happens when the bubble goes away? <thinks more...> That might happen in a generation or two. Maybe not living at the McMansion, but in perhaps in roving doublewides travelling in giant packs across the midwest, wrapped in clouds of UAVs, WiFi, and on-demand sidewalk extruders as they drain aquifers and cattle herds for nutrients.

Ok, not sure where that came from. I think that visible consumption is a major part of keeping up with the Jones, and that when renters start driving porsches and inviting their homeowner friends to vacations in exotic locales, the prestige of owning a house becomes a lot less. (Especially if everyone else has one. People want what they think they think is a mark of being above their station, thus houses and LV purses; once they realize that everyone, including the guy who mows their lawn, is a "homeowner", it won't feel so special anymore.)

I’ve seen perfectly good daycare children when the parents were engaged in the kids’ education.

I’ve seen this too, but unfortunately I can’t say it’s the majority.

It must be the daycare. Couldn't be overuse of television and video games as pacifiers, lack of discipline, parental substance abuse, unhappy marriages or unfortunate divorces, terrible McDiets, increasing competitive education pressure, improperly installed carseats... Maybe it's just easier to blame something simple like daycare.

Randy,

My bad! Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I'd argue that it wasn't so much global economics that pushed women to work. Rather, it's the technical innovations that freed them off from the most onerous household chores and made them available for work. Much of this gain went to consumption. Just look at the size of an acceptable house in 2006 v. an acceptable house in 1950. Look at how much more stuff we have.

Yeah, on second thought, I'm not so sure about this second income necessity issue. If we lived like the average people of 1960, many of us could get by on much less than we make now.

astrid Says:

"...The obvious solution to this late Gen-Xer is to resist and boycott Big Boomer..."
_____

Ha, ha!

George Orwell's "Big Brother" is now called "Big Boomer."

No wonder the American Dream has turned into an Orwellian, negative utopia.

Beware of Big Boomer!

astrid,

Normally I agree with you but the obvious way for Gen-X to level the playing field is to have as many children as possible, claim indigence/drug dependency and drop them off at Boomer's doorstep!

Grandparents raising children is becoming an epidemic in this country. They have support groups and everything. Sad.

skibum,

Clearly Carol Lloyd of SFGate is "on the team". If we HAD a payroll, I'd move she be on it. She gets it. She also did a great piece on the 500k exemption and it's impact. Giving credit where it's due, she (not I) accurately described flipping as a tax free "cottage industry" back in May. Great minds.......?

Oh and btw she called Robert Cote' a "hyena" for his savage treatment of poor Casey Serin in blogsphere! Rather than be offended, Robert (like myself) takes compliments where he can find them.

DinOR,

That sounds like a negative sum solution. I like to fight my wars with positive sum results for my side.

SQT Said: I think you might be letting personal experience get in the way of looking at the whole picture.

And you're not? Reread your most recent comment, which essentially comes down to an argument from authority: "because I saw it that way, it must be so universally".

All I ever say is that what works for one may not work for another. Generalizations are convenient, and "pareto" nicely. But inevitably the rare, incredible, and extraordinary arises from that part of the "pareto frontier" that falls outside of the simple stereotype. Or in plain language: it's the folks your generalization is wrong about who are exactly the ones who you're missing out the most by alienating.

astrid,

I was only kidding! It's an awful scenario and altogether too common. In a way though it's part of the "garbage-in/gabage-out" result from boomers raising their children to do their "thing" and not worry about what other people might think? Well....... these would be their grandchildren. Many of these people raising grandkids are in their mid/late 50's to early 60's.

I'm so glad I was an AH dad!

astrid Says:

> I don’t think the problem is daycare per se.
> It’s more about the lowly status this society
> accorded to daycare workers

It has nothing to do with status or money it has to do with LOVE, and most (but not all) day care workers (no mater what their status or how much they are paid) don’t LOVE the kids. Most (but not all) parents and grandparents LOVE their kids and grandkids…

On a positive note the increasing number of people who care more about personal fulfillment than their families will help slow down the real estate crash by increasing the demand for housing as people get divorced and buy second homes and increase the population of the state by flying in nannies from Central America (who will work for next to nothing)…

SQT

I didn't personalize this argument, you did. I injected my original anecdotal about growing up in the midwest as a response to an earlier commentor who's entire argument was based on anecdotal experience.

To that you replied: I think you might be letting personal experience get in the way of looking at the whole picture.

I apologize for defending myself against that unprovoked assertion, which was totally unnecessary had you considered the context of my comment in the first place. It surely couldn't be your own sensitivities.

If it makes you feel better for me to grovel before the wisdom of the masses, then so be it. You're right. I'm wrong.

I'll be careful not to dare dissent or question folks when they make shit up and post irrelevant charts as evidence anymore.

I think you might be letting personal experience get in the way of looking at the whole picture. Where you grew up there were massive job losses that required women to work. But this was not the case country wide. Stereotypes don’t come into play for no reason. There were a lot of disaffected who entered the workplace looking for “fullfillment” and thus created a culture that became dependent on a two income family.

This may not be your personal experience, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

I don't know what I could have been thinking. And here I thought I was talking about the logical inconsistency in applying a hedonic adjustment to household income statistics regarding the HSBC HomePulse model of real national real estate. To which, I was told that I was wrong for purely anecdotal reasons, to which I replied with my own anecdotal counter-example, to which I was lectured about day care and greedy "women who chase the dollar and forget about the kids they dropped off for someone else to raise".

Sorry for being so defensive. Like I said, I won't call bullshit anymore. Clearly it's not welcomed here anymore.

SQT

So why did you interject into that particular debate in the first place? I clearly stated, twice, that I was making no judgement about whether 1 or 2 earners are better, let alone the status of children. I was simply talking about economic reality and home prices. I was then engaged in a battle of anecdotes with another person who wasn't you. I shouldn't have taken that bait, for that I apologize. But then you pile on making assumptions about what I must think based upon only my most recent comment.

As to whether kids are better off, I don't have the hubris to claim to know what is best for other people's life situations. But I'll gladly offer a guess to that answer as soon as you explain to me why that affects how we *should* measure "per household" income.

LILLL,

That's why you see postings by totally clueless people in Craigslist like:

"We fired our agent and we're passing the savings on to you!"

No....... Your agent listed it at what you TOLD them to list it at (not what they felt the market would bring)! Your agent put it in the "Unrealistic Seller" column and moved on to people that were either open to their assesment, had purchased sometime back, didn't care or NEEDED to sell!

"We fired our agent b/c everybody knows RE is "hot" right now and if they can't sell our "special" property in THIS market then they couldn't get laid in a whorehouse! We advertised w/Craig on Craigslist because it's for people that are more "sophisticated" hip and with the times! (Besides, it's free and we've never sold so much as Girl Scout cookies but we're gonna throw our hat in the ring on this one).

What did we say earlier about every man for himself? (It's starting)

That sad thing is that once again the original issue has become lost a popular hot-topic debate. I wasn't defending any position on anything other than two specific HSBC home affordability metrics.

I apologize that I used a browser instead of my RSS reader, which usually filters out the baits that started this whole thing. I took some effort to pull out data from spreadsheets to support and debate with Gavin's numbers.

To that I was baited with a "Randy must be using old, when mom didn't work" argument. I already apologized for dignifying that. Actually, I wouldn't have, but then George raised a valid question about hedonic consistency, so I got caught up defending why we shouldn't "back out mom's income".

Question: Where am I going with this? Answer: I don't think any of this debate changes the HSBC metrics one iota. Otherwise, I leave everyone else to prove why working moms are anathema.

Well, I think it's no good worrying about whether there's going to be a soft or hard landing at the minute, I just can't plain afford anything except waiting.

@SP,
I more or less agree with you. I find it hilarious how the RE industry shills are all saying, "see - prices haven't dropped this year, they're flat," (see King_Cobra's post) or "prices are now appreciating at a more normal rate," a soft landing. Whatever the reality is, how can anyone use the stats from just one year to conclude the trend for the next 3-5 years? Prices went up nationally at astounding rates; how can anyone think that they will turn on a dime and plummet? Talk about straw man argument.

SQT and Randy H,

Can't we all just get along?

Randy:

Working moms, when married to a working father, are anathema to single individuals not sharing housing with another employed individual, assuming all working individuals in a given comparison are earning reasonably equivalent amounts and housing costs are not subsidized by outside entities. Does that work?

I hope you weren't thinking I was suggesting "backing out mom's income", I was just curious as to whether it was included in the income calculation.

(No, it wasn't intended as a proof, just an attempt at removing assumptions.)

SQT is a stay-at-home Mom (like my wife) and thus believes that her financial and career sacrifice is benefitting her kids. Randy's wife is a hard working gal earning pots of $$$ which makes it easier for her family to thrive; I'm sure she's a wonderful mom when she comes home in the evening and she is providing a positive roll model as well. You two don't need to attack each other to defend your family's choices. It's all good.

SFWoman presents the example of bad absentee parenting which we can all agree is categorically bad: Uninvolved parents who underpower caregivers and teachers (and actually blame them for their failure to raise decent kids).

I think we can also all agree that families who need both parents to work and can barely afford the poor quality child care that their children receive are the true victims of the trend towards two wage families.

I don’t want to get too OT here, but I thought for sure there would be a mass exodus after 9/11 (I eventually left), but there really wasn’t. Yes NYC will fluctuate like the rest of the world, but I still think it has a drawing power that smashes the average persons ability to even understand it.

Uh... New York City is only the center of the world.

That said…being a stay at home mom IS a status symbol. Not many can afford it.

We've come full circle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding

You are right. I’m sure Randy and his wife are excellent parents. I’m not saying that all working parents are bad, and I know there are a lot of hard working people out there doing the best they can.

But we may just delay having kids until one of us can stay home. Maybe me. :)

My comment wasn't tangential to the specific debate. We were talking about a fundamental shift, perhaps a paradigmatic shift as I claim, that occurred 35 years ago, at which time mom entered the work force. That changed home prices. I and others provided empirical proof to that end.

Then someone suggested that data was being wrongly applied, using personal experience as proof. I provided directly contradicting personal experience.

To that SQT then claimed "I think you might be letting personal experience get in the way of looking at the whole picture." Why didn't you also personally go after the first guy's "personal experience"?

Silly me, feeling singled out for special attention.

You're certainly free to participate. But shouldn't you expect a vigorous defense when you asymmetrically personalize and attack my position? Or are only *my* personal experiences biased, while yours and others aren't?

That said…being a stay at home mom IS a status symbol. Not many can afford it.

Why? You save on tax, daycare, luncheon, transportation, ...

Most people (including myself) just cannot get past the "gross income" psychology.

And stay-at-home dads can be great too!

King Cobra posted an article that said:

> The median price of a single-family home sold
> (in Las Vegas) during September was $310,000,
> unchanged from the same month a year ago,
> the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors
> reported Thursday.

Then SP Says:

> You can always compare to some point before
> the peak and claim that prices are flat - when
> in reality they are down from the peak and
> continuing to slide.

Wait until 2007 when the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors will be reporting:

"The median price of a single-family home sold in Las Vegas during September was $210,000, unchanged from the same month in 2004. The Realtors also mention that it is a great time to buy..."

Completely off topic but worth a peek:

http://www.jibjab.com/jokebox/jokebox/jibjab/id/203350/jokeid/54392

Just the other day I was wondering with a friend if we would see a return to 1930s mores. In other words the boomers will tell their kids they can’t go to college, but have to stay home and get a job to help support the family.

Why? You can just borrow your way out of that. :)

In addition, when I was growing up, practice was held at 3:30 PM after school. My father had to shorten the practices and move them to 5:30 PM because he no longer gets the parent volunteers he used to. The part-time or stay-at-home moms are so few nowadays.

I think realtors sell that as a benefit of the Bay Area - "with so many jobs, the Bay Area makes it easy for both parents to find jobs"

It's easy to spin negatives into positives.

Hey guys - isn't it time for a new thread? Preferably one where we get to attack the Casey Serins of the world and not each other?

Well, I haven't gone to his website, because I didn't want to generate any revenue for him from his ads. So I think I may have missed the fun - any highlights I would love to hear?

Over on Ben's blog somone has posted a memo from Hanovian or some such builder's name, got the spelling wrong I'm sure, but it sounds like hard times are ahead for them - if the memo is for real. I guess I want a big crash now, but even then, I'm probably not in a position to buy until maybe the middle of next year. By then, there will probably be new lending standards, which I worry will again mean that we are penalized for the FB's shenanigans.

Well, late to the party (or is it grudge match?) again...

I'm finding very little free time these days, bouncing between work and upacking/fixing up a new sad pathetic rental we just moved to, so I'll have to keep this very brief:

Randy,

Sorry, but I have to somewhat agree with SQT about your defensiveness. You and I agree far more often than not, but when we have had substantiative disagreements in the past (hedonics, CPI, soft landing probability, etc.), I've noticed a distinct tendency for you to misconstrue EARNEST DEBATE for PERSONAL ATTACK. We're all mature adults here, and I think we can --for the most part-- mentally separate attacking the position from attacking the person. I've also noticed you also tend to shift to playing 'innocent victim' or 'Mr. Reasonable' whenever someone points out this tendency (albeit not always tactfully).

SQT & Randy,

Ok, we don't agree about everything --that's perfectly normal. No two people, no matter how intelligent and respectful of one another, are ever in perfect agreement. Can we just make up and get back to attacking trolls, corrupt politicians & REIC shills instead? :-)

Where's a troll when you need one?

Should we have a cat fight thread? Perhaps some conflicts are healthy? Now that it is becoming silly (waste of time) to attack perma-bulls, perhaps we should attack each other?