patrick.net

We know what a house is worth. It is worth what it would cost if it were being rented. A person should be able to rent out the house and pay the mortgage. Otherwise, why would a person buy a house?

Sort of. If all houses were basically the same, or the renter could stay as long as he wished, and you could lock in a long-term rent, then this would be true. But part of what you are paying for is the opportunity to actually permanently reside in a place of your choosing on your own terms.

The other benefit is that (with a fixed-rate loan) you have a known payment for the forseeable future, inflation or no. Rents have clearly gone up by $200-300 in the past 3 years. That's not a lot % wise (~10%), but when the house only costs $600 more a month to own, it eats up that gap pretty quickly.

So I guess what I'm saying is, IF you're mobile (i.e., no kids), and the type of housing you seek is 'liquid' (you can find what you want, and there are more like it if you need to switch), then of course, you can do a direct rent vs. mortgage comparison and I'm the first one to say you should rent.

-mw

There is that little bit of insecurity though. I do wonder if the owner might put the house up for sale when the lease is up.

Just convince the landlord that real estates never go down and that he should continue renting the house to you because it will be worth 1M in no time. ;)

It was like we weren’t on his level because we were renters. My wife and I looked at eachother and shrugged.

I love people who look down upon renters. :)

They will all look funny. Free entertainment soon. :twisted:

"You cannot be “for” RE only some of the time and then qualify it with a bunch of ‘rent vs. buy’ & affordability B.S. (and believe me I know B.S.!). It’s an all or nothing proposition. You’re either for homeownership or against it –there is no compromise! "

Did you really mean to say this???? All we are saying is that there is an optimum time to purchase, and this ain't the time. Has nothing to do with being for or against homeownership. Maybe you are just trying to BS us. :???:

BayQT~

Bull$shitter,

You DO need help.

BayQT~

BayQT, you do know who Bull$hitter is right?

I've been away a while, Peter. Would that be our friend MP?

BayQT~

Well, the economy hit my company sooner than expected.
My whole department was downsized today.

I'm damn lucky I have 11 years there, no debt, and plenty of savings.
I can only imagine if we had just bought a new home, or other massive debt.

Ouch! Really sorry to hear that, Kurt S. Like you said, though, you're in the best position possible --debt-free, cash-rich & mobile. Sounds more like good planning than luck to me. ;-)

Sounds more like good planning than luck to me.

Harm-
Thanks, man. I suppose this means I spend more of the holidays with family--and less with corporate lackies! :)

Did you have some inkling that it was coming?

Perhaps a little from their lack of proactive strategy.
Severance isn't bad...I can survive w/o any work for 2 years. :)

In additon to the bad news from Troll Brothers & the fact that homebuilders stocks have taken a pounding all the way around (tinyurl.com/8k4k5), this just in from FMF Capital in CA: tinyurl.com/dx3ub

"FMF Capital Group Ltd. Reports Second Quarter Results and Announces Suspension of November Dividend; Expects to Defer Interest for November"

And this in the OC: tinyurl.com/7q7vz

"Skeptics worry that numerous lenders aren't collecting enough money from borrowers to compensate for the gamble they're making on housing.

Combine that shrinking profit opportunity with an ominous signal from real-estate service giant First American of Santa Ana. It's bulking up operations that handle troubled mortgages for an expected boost in default and foreclosure activity."

Add to this picture gold being up $10/oz & the 10/2yr bond yield spread down to .07, it's lowest since... (2001?): tinyurl.com/79u6u

"newly abundant liquidity can readily disappear"
--Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan.

Too bad MarinPrime didn't take our bet, Peter.
The yield curve is set to invert very soon and he'd owe us some sushi.

hello everyone
i am a renter and am very happy with that situation.
if something breaks in the house it does not bother me because
i dont have to worry about how to fix it and how much i need to waste on that?

That is what the hindus in india call living without attachment. In fact even when you own a house,one is supposed to live this life without too much attachment. also i might be a renter throughout this life but in the next may be i will be blessed with the hassle of owning a house. Eventually when my time is up owning /renting the house is not going to give this soul salvation.

SQT Says:

Oh dear, should we clue people in on Bull$hitter’s alter ego? Am I allowed to?

I don't want to burden you with this unpleasant chore, SQT. Besides, it's really my responsibility.

You see, folks, Bull$hitter is my evil twin brother. Years ago, he had a falling out with the rest of the HARM family and was disowned for his arrogant ruthless behavior and intolerable cruelty towards renters. Amazingly, my family refuses to acknowledge his existence to this day. I guess they're just too embarrassed to recognize that such a megalomaniacal a$$hole could come from the same gene pool.

Anyway, even though I am in no way responsible for nor endorse his fanatically pro-housing/anti-renter views, I apologize for my brother's extreme rudeness and arrogance. Please ignore him --it only feeds his uber-Troll ego and gives him more ammunition to use against you.

Btw, in real life, Bull$hitter lives by himself in a van down by the L.A. river, just under the 10Fwy offramp. The only real estate he "owns" is that beat-up rusty V.W. he calls home. And I think even that's partly owned by the bank.

The world’s worst mortgage: An interest-only, payment skipping/minimum-payment-option-enabled, negatively amortizing, no-money-down, no documentation, prepayment-penalizing, 3-month LIBOR 40-year adjustable-rate mortgage with a balloon.

No, this is the world's best mortgage! Imagine the possibilities!

Buy a house - any house - with zero down, then make no mortgage payments whatsoever!

The loan balance keeps increasing, but what do you care? Your children will pay it off someday, or you just file for bankruptcy.
Income limits on bankruptcy? No problem, dude! You can stop working and live a leisurely life of luxury off the ever-increasing equity. And the taxable income is $0! Woo hoo!

Now the only cash flow limiting factor is the property tax.
Quick, let's organize a grass-roots movement to abolish property taxes and replace them with a renter tax. Renters are stoopid anyway.

We can inflate the housing bubble forever! $10 million $hitboxes! Yay!

What a country!

Kurt,

If this is a sensitive topic for you right now, I completely understand, but was your job related to housing in some way? Just curious.

Girgl,

I'm sure Bull$hitter's is in 100% agreement with you!

HARM writes:
I’m sure Bull$hitter’s is in 100% agreement with you!

That would be so cool! Bull$hitter is my personal hero now.

LABubblehead Says:

Thanks for the great insights!

Argh. Should have been:

LABubblehead Says:
[excellent analysis about why lack of liquidity drives prices down]

Thanks for the great insights!

Jealous owneroccupier reporting latest drops in listing price here again.

95033 zip code, not even after a week, some more reductions, seemingly the landlords are getting benovolent.

Treehouse Way, 559,900 pending for a while, no longer pending, coming out at the same price

Southview Ave, originally 700K+, reduced to 659K, now 648K. IMHO, this one won't sell until at around 550K for 2005, perhaps the owner is shooting for more reductions in 2006.

Ida Drive, came out at 749K, reduced to 729K, latest reduction 695K. Claiming pricing 60K under appraisal, I'd like that appraisor for my home.

Vina Dr, 699K reduced to 689K

Skyline Road, 1,688,000 reduced to 1,488,000

If this is a sensitive topic for you right now, I completely understand, but was your job related to housing in some way? Just curious.

Nope...my group was textbook publishing, but I think the corporation has a business RE division, so perhaps they're feeling something already >:) (twisted smiley, I don't have the emoticon list)

I will schedule you in for espressos at the Fairfax coffee shop on Tuesday and Thursday mornings EVERY week!

Jack, thanks man! It sure will be good to have that dust settle, and the time to knock back an espresso! :)

KurtS,
sorry to hear. Must be hard for you, after 11 years...
But hey, it may turn out to be a great opportunity to start something new!

B.S.'er, I was thinking of making a post similar to yours (but not as obnoxious) since I began lurking here. Because, some of the regulars on here sure sound like they are bitter.

I agree with them about the valuation, the debt load, and the bubble. But I also agree with you that some of the posts here read too much like bitching and whining because for whatever reason, they were left behind or feel like they were left behind.

Borrowing money to buy a home in San Jose is no picnic and it was a major stressor. For instance, the market value of my 1989 purchase was below what I paid for about seven years, preventing me from taking risks like a career change, and making the idea of selling the house to trade up impractical. Making the extra principal payments to keep the loan balance above water during those seven years of famine was a sacrifice in the quality of life.

So the renters should not be so jealous. Instead, the oughta enjoy the freedom they have.

That said, the owner/borrowers should not be obnoxious and arrogant (like your posts). We all know that a lot of those owners are heavily indebted, essentially slaves of their possessions (and of the district cost of funds base rate).

matt_walsh writes:
* decent rentals in decent neighborhoods with ‘issues’ start at $2500 (i.e., near a highway, near a bario, etc.)

I'm sure you've considered that, but if you're willing to drive a bit more, you can get a decent place in a decent San Jose neighbourhood for about that amount.

* rentals that what I really want are like $3000

I've found that many landlords are willing to drop their asking rent in exchange for a decent tenant. Good tenants with stable income are not all that abundant.

* my tax-adjusted monthly outlay is $3100
* my main risk is opportunity cost on the downpayment, or the congressional tax deduction reduction

Add to that your loss of freedom if housing prices actually go down.
You'll have a choice of keeping the house even if you can't live there anymore for whatever reason and dealing with whatever the cash flow difference is, or writing a check at closing time.
Not a good place to be.

Can I say again how much of a hoss Peter P is for calling the top in October? The stream of articles on the housing/bubble.html page is getting fun to read.

Much better track record than 50%-correction-by-August-no!-January prat.

Go Bears,
prat

Hey Kurt S, I'm really sorry to hear about the job situation. But I'm glad at least that it's a good severance package.

@mw:

* decent rentals in decent neighborhoods with ‘issues’ start at $2500 (i.e., near a highway, near a bario, etc.)

I'm in a two bedroom condo right across from Stanford and I'm paying quite a bit less than that. You could get a three bedroom + office here for that amount. From what I saw a few months ago, 2 bedroom houses in Menlo were at around $2500 and 3 bedrooms were $2700.

_shrug_

Cheers,
prat

Landlords will easily drop 200 a month on a $1,800 monthly rent for good tenant. I know that for fact. My sister had her husband are both high-earning professionals who chose to stay out the bubble for the last few years. Once they show their bank account balance and their paycheck, the landlord offered to take a couple hundred off because good tenants are really hard to come by.

A lot of landlords bought their homes back in 1970, 1980, so their cost base is really low. Taking a few hundred off the rent is no big deal since their home is already paid off.

When you see an advertised $3,000 rent for a $1M home, you know this comes from a recent home owner (or indebtor, more precisely) who desperately needs rental income to cover his cashflow. So walk away, let him enjoy his home a bit longer.

KurtS,

Since you have a great deal of experience in publishing and extensive knowledge of the housing bubble (thanks in part to this blog, I hope), have you thought of writing a book about it? If you've ever had a desire to take some time off to write a book, this could be your opportunity.

KurtS, sorry to hear about the downsizing. However, great career moves are usually made during abrupt changes.

http://www.crimsonbee.com/house_graphs/sf_house_prices.html

This is an excellent article all potential home buyers should read. It confirms what I believe, it is going to be a long, painful process on the way down, and don't be surprised we will be stuck like the Japanese for a decade or so.

Anyone who is thinking about buying a home at the bottom should plan to sit at the sideline for another 5 years or so.

KurtS, sorry to hear about your job loss....but don't worry, I'm sure you'll find another.....at least your not an RE agent or work in the housing industry.....you would most definitely have problems finding work if you were.....you can look for work anywhere, since you rent, you can easily move.....be glad you have the mobility..... I wonder how many in your department bought a house in the past few years. :(

As far as this Jealous, bitter, renters thread goes...........who gave a troll the power to create a thread? I'm sure there are a few jealous renters..., me not being one of them...but at the same time, there are probably more jealous owners (if you like to call them that) that are very worried about what is to become of them when the dust settles and the lights come back on. Us renters are waiting for the right moment to buy which is coming soon.....Many of the owners are enjoying their temperary ownership....others are already suffering and having to work 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet while us (jealous) renters are enjoying saving our money without a worry in the world. As far as bitterness goes, I am very bitter about how these wannabe buyers went on a spending spree with AG's monopoly money to drive prices up so us would-be buyers couldn't reasonably buy a house, now we have to wait.....but that's ok because they will be darwinized and will not be able to bid against us the next round.

Yes, I might have to wait a few years to buy at a real price, but I don't mind the wait......seeing prices drop on houses makes me feel richer and richer every day...just like the owners felt when their houses (artificially) appreciated......but I'm not going to do what they did and eat my nest egg to keep up with the joneses.........the joneses will soon be filing chapter 13 bankruptcy and maybe I'll buy some of their toys for pennies on the dollar. :)

new thread : Desperate Sellers

you can look for work anywhere, since you rent, you can easily move…..be glad you have the mobility

Thanks Allah, everyone!
Actually, we don't rent--but that's ok; we can make do on 1 income for now.

And, like PeterP and others said--this is a change for the better.
Better to build yourself a career that no corporation can take away at a moment's notice.

However, if you go to a lender (a mortgage company, for example) and give him $10,000 (10% down on a 15-year note), he gives you $100,000 which you can use to purchase a home. Now you have something that you can improve the value of, by rennovating or remodelling, and resell for a profit. You are in control.

ScottC, you are living in another time......... the neighbors dog fido wouldn't give up his doghouse for $100k. You seem to completely ignore the fact that we are at the very beginning of a serious down cycle in housing! Buying right now is like buying stock at the peak before the crash! Your advice will be good in a few years, but not right now.

And really this is the thing. It’s all about money, whether you work for money or whether money works for you. You’re either on the outside track, the rat race, or the inside track, the ownership circle. You’re either running around, working for money and accumulating expenses, building no wealth, or you’re sitting back, making money work for you and gathering revenues, building wealth, building an estate, a real estate. In other words, you’re either paying for someone else to retain ownership or you are retaining ownership.

Another pep talk....you seem to be good at this....and you should be....your a realtor. ;) "Now is the time to buy".

Renting only makes sense in the short term, as a temporary strategy to reduce living expenses until you can save the capital to invest in ownership.

The only reason I am renting is because I know the big sale is coming soon! You can buy a plasma TV at best buy and if it goes on sale a few weeks later, they will credit you with the difference......with housing the difference is huge and you get no such credit....It's not fun watching that better house on the better side of town sell for tens of thousands less than you paid for your shitbox.

BTW, Scott....I have one question for you......Is it always a good time to buy?

ScottC lives in Texas and therefore probably doesn’t quite understand how wacked out the markets are in California and the East Coast.

Yes the coasts are worse,...but someone mentioned they live in Texas and there is a bubble there too. As far as I know, there is a bubble across the majority of the US....there are areas that are less bubbly in the middle, and in those areas the decline would be very moderate, but there will be some decline. Along the coasts, we're talking major bubble! ...and I'm sure all realtors including ScottC know that better than most of us.....Real estate is their business and it is their job to research this stuff.

Realtors saying not to worry as sales always slow down during the holiday season.

Realtors know it always goes up....even while it is going down!

Affordability is THAT low here and renting IS a bargain.

Right--you can rent the same home here for about 1/3 of your monthly fixed mortgage.
Who really wants to pay $900K for a small, old beater home?
As long as that's the case--there's no reason to buy.

I want to correct a major misconception noted above. Real estate is in no way analogous to stocks, so the dot.com bubble is in now way analogous to the current real estate bubble in certain markets. It is simply a false analogy that reflects nothing but a profound misunderstanding of real estate.

It is the psycology of the stock bubble that is analogous to real estate. What is worse about real estate is that while it is falling, you can't instantly sell it like stock unless you were to (absolute) auction it. In previous crashes the runup was no way near what we are seeing now because there was no funny money in the picture............so the psycology of it falling wasn't anywhere near what we will have this time. Noone wants to be underwater by $100k or more and in this RE environment, this situation is not unlikely......because of this, I believe the fall in prices will be much more quicker than any other time in history as many rush to the exit door like a stampede. Give non-creditworthy buyers access to hundreds of thousands of dollars and you have a serious crash in the making. Hell, I could have jumped in and got a decent house for $1M, but when the liquidity disappears, I would be bankrupt with all the rest of the suckers who drank from AG's fountain of money.