patrick.net

What is a trophy wife anyway?

I thought it is illegal to hunt humans.

"Cumulative attractiveness"

As much as it pains me to admit, that's a sure fire sign astrid!

"Meet my (drop dead gorgeous) assistant"

I will say though that it's always fun to mess with those guys even years later when the receptionist BECOMES the trophy wife by constantly having to "catch" and correct yourself! "Oh that's r i g h t ! Your w i f e. I swear one of these days I'm going to get it right!" :)

After all, I bail out old people who didn’t save enough for retirement, with social security!

That's not really true - you get social security payments no matter what your net worth. So... a more accurate statement would be "After all, I transfer my income to old people through Social Security."

I bail out poor people who have less to offer society, by paying way more taxes than them!

There's sort of an inherent contradiction there - how would someone with $0 income pay more taxes than someone with $1 income?

DinOR,

There was a lawyer at my husband's first law firm (in Boston) who married five times, all but the first were his secretary with whom he was having an affair. Each secretary was simply replaced by the next. They all were different types, he seemed to have this thing where he really, really relied on his secretary for everything.

Can you imagine the alimony?

There is also a shortcut. When your appearance rates close to that of the last ex at the time of her dumping, you know your time is short.

Did everyone see the great news today?

http://www.burbed.com/2007/02/15/south-bay-is-1-again/
The most expensive market in the latest report was San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif., where the median home price $760,000. That was up $20,000, or 2.7 percent from a year

We're #1!
We're #1!
We're #1!

Remember, every time the median goes up, an angel gets its wings.

SFWoman,

Geez! Was it on the job application for chrissakes? In fairness to some of these gals I've seen many an office where if the off. mgr. calls in sick it's a LOT more disorganized than when "the man" hisself is a no show.

astrid,

Would you rec. the "dumpee" seek the services of one of those "age enhanced" photography technicians in advance?

My wife insisted I visit "True Age.com" and their little survey says I'm living on borrowed time. Bail! Bail! :(

Like Rodney used to say, "When I die they're gonna donate my body to science....... fiction!

I don’t want a government bailout at all. I want people to feel the pain of their screw-up. Maybe if enough people get burned, our collective conscience will remember the pain for longer than last weeks "American Idol" performances.

I know that if held accountable, these people will be financial serfs for years due to the bankruptcy law changes. Hell I would love to see all the toxic loans that end up default investigated. If ANY fraud is found, I want people going to jail and then paying their debt off when they get out as financial serfs. This BS has kept me out of a house because I can’t in good fiscal sense buy a home that is 10x my annual income!

When the government does make a bail out, and I do expect it, I want all the properties turned into Section 8 housing. I want to go all out and make these McMansions in upscale areas to be used by the poorest of people. With the huge inventory of empty homes anyway, we should get some use out of them. It would be wonderfully humbling to the people around them :)

nutty,

Just have them work off their debt. I don't want to pay the tax bill for having 10% of the country in jail.

I do wonder if the rightful resentment of individuals - or whole regions of the country - who have had no part in the credit bubble will get a proper airing when bailouts are proposed. Could Missouri demand that Florida take care of its own damned problems?

I can't remember who but one of the senators was asking BB how he felt about (I guess in particular the 2/28 loans) and the rising foreclosures in NY where employment has been strong?

He responded that he WAS concerned but quickly added that he was ALSO concerned about the financial institutions that wrote those loans too! I believe BofA already is rolling out a "no fees swap out of your adjustable loan program" among other major banks as well. He's more concerned about banks than FB's. Did I really need to say that?

Bay Area housing market continues its slump

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/15/BUGRRO5D624.DTL

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070215/bernanke_congress.html?.v=11

Fed Chairman Challenged on Inflation

http://www.dqnews.com/RRBay0207.shtm

The latest DQ numbers are out.

Bruce raises an important point. I was back in the Midwest again a few weeks ago. Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, etc. are getting hammered early in the housing decline. There are tons of huge homebuilder developments, carved out of farmland, sitting there with unfinished streets and no houses, having been abandoned in land option contracts by the builders. An aunt of mine just sold her house in my old hometown. Her house maybe appreciated 15% since 2001, but she couldn't get a price even near that. She had to sell for more like mid-90s prices (luckily she's lived there since the 1960s).

These folks never participated in the fun and games, but they are taking the biggest and earliest relative dollar punch. Perhaps they should send bills for damages to the bubble states, or the subprime lenders...

Looks like an all time record folks!

Did anyone see this software that is out that will determine an FB’s expiration date?

No more "Buy now, before it gets unaffordable".

The new mantra is "Sell now, before it gets unaffordable".

Idea:

Is it worth trying to maintain a comprehensive list at patrick.net of all known housing bubble blogs and websites out there? Once you populated it the first time, the rate of change would be quite slow. This would be akin to the list of articles, but much less work...

Maybe if enough people get burned, our collective conscience will remember the pain for longer than last weeks “American Idol” performances.

30% of Americans do not remember what year September 11th happened in...

and you expect them to remember something like this?

FWIW, on October 2001, The Onion posted this classic "article":

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28129?issue=4228&special=2001

A few years later, we're still talking about Britney, Michael, and Tom.

So sad.

Dallas is really strange - I just ran the numbers I found on it, and it looks like Housing prices have substantially outstripped the "reasonable" housing prices since 1994.

I'll publish some graphs on burbed.com next week to show what I'm talking about.

The desperate attempts to spin still continue.

From the CNN article referred above
"Right now, buyers are responding to seller pricing and incentives, and there's a bit of a pent-up demand as a result of buyer hesitation during the second half of 2006," she said in the group's statement. "We're not looking for big changes, but a gradual rise in sales and home prices is projected - that will be good for the overall housing market and related industries."

And DQ is bent on showing that they are no less than DL
``Bay Area home prices are settling into a plateau,'' said DataQuick's John Karevoll.

And I add on my own ...
In a separate interview, both NAR and DQ analysts said that they do not read the newspaper and unaware of the changes happening in the mortgage industry.

Are most people on this blog from Santa Clara and San Francisco county ? Apart from these 2 counties everything in BA was down. Contra Costa down 10%, Alameda close to 3% decline etc. No reaction from anyone ?

The new mantra is “Sell now, before it gets unaffordable”.

More like "Sell now, before housing gets affordable".

Apart from these 2 counties everything in BA was down. Contra Costa down 10%, Alameda close to 3% decline etc. No reaction from anyone ?

StuckInBA,
You are looking at the homes sold numbers. Median Price is up in "Fortress Bay Area" counties -- SF, San Mateo, Marin, Santa Clara, and even Alameda.

BTW, looks like my local Specuvestor watchlist property now has a sale pending (Sept. 05 to Feb. 06 flip). Was hoping to see it go down in flames, but buyers are in the wings...

EBGuy
StuckInBA,
You are looking at the homes sold numbers. Median Price is up in “Fortress Bay Area” counties — SF, San Mateo, Marin, Santa Clara, and even Alameda.

Yuck. My bad.

Apart from these 2 counties everything in BA was down. Contra Costa down 10%, Alameda close to 3% decline etc. No reaction from anyone ?

Personally I don't consider anything but SF/San Mateo/Santa Clara to be in Silicon Valley.

But then again, I don't really consider Walnut Creek to be in the Bay Area, even though it is served by BART.

Maybe my definition is too strict.

Bruce Says:

> I do wonder if the rightful resentment of individuals –
> or whole regions of the country - who have had no
> part in the credit bubble will get a proper airing when
> bailouts are proposed.

The “real estate bubble” is not in every region of the country, but the “credit bubble” is. The single mom in Ohio making $6 an hour who bought the $120K house will have just as many problems as the single Cal grad I know that makes $100K a year and bought a $1.2mm condo…

P.S. I read something a while back that the number of college kids who graduate with over $10K in credit card debt is amazing…

Median Price is up in “Fortress Bay Area” counties — SF, San Mateo, Marin, Santa Clara, and even Alameda.

Fortress indeed. Just look at DQnews - median is still going up:

http://www.dqnews.com/ZIPSJMN.shtm

Now, people slam DQnews because their stats don't include the massive discounts/upgrades/etc that builders are offering on new homes - but there aren't that many of those here in the Fortress unlike... say... San Diego.

I read something a while back that the number of college kids who graduate with over $10K in credit card debt is amazing…

This is close:

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/19980605.asp

The average undergraduate has $2,200 in credit card debt, according to Nellie Mae, the nation's largest maker of student loans. That figure jumps to $5,800 for graduate students.

I’d love to tap into zillow’s APIs and query everything that’s currently short.

Try

http://www.mls-2.com/staticpage.jsp?pageName=bargain_hunter.jsp

For example - Short Sales in San Jose:

http://www.mls-2.com/houseSearch.jsp?keyword=house+real+estate+mortgage+agent&city=San+Jose&state=CA&zip=&houseType=any&minPrice=-2&maxPrice=100000000&minBeds=-2&minBaths=-2&minSize=-2&pricedrop=-100&searchKeyword=short+sale&sortBy=4&SearchButton=Search

Argh... could someone unmoderate my comment?

This is kind of funny.

FAB and DinOR,

Honestly, echoing what SQT said a couple days ago about a certain peroxide blonde, I think attractive women, especially lower class born ones, drew a rather hard lot in life. A lot of them grow up with a lot of attention and gets spoilt by family/friends/significant others who lets them get away with bad behavior or ignorance.

Then they hit thirty and lose their looks, and poof, they got nothing going for them. Many of them are lazy, ignorant, unrealistic, and eventually bitter because people stop treating them nicely.

I read on financialsense.com that inflation is an oversized growth in the money supply. Maybe rising prices, maybe not. They said there is a liquidity trap, and/or asset bubbles going on.

They said that we are exporting our inflation, (excess money supply) to China, and, until recently, also to Japan. Like the behavior of the co-dependent to the drug addict, they facilitate our addiction by accepting our excess dollars.

Some of our "exported" inflation is coming back here in their most-favored assets, like real estate in the Bay Area. San Diego is "red-state" type place, better for the Asian property owner to stay away from there. San Joaquin Valley is, well, it's San Joaquin Valley. Bay Area, Vancouver BC, it's the places they want to be. Besides, Bay Area is closer to all the "prestige" that attracts those kinds of folks with that kind of capital. It is where our inflation, created all over the US, is getting re-imported into an asset bubble. Just read the "transactions" in Real Estate section in the Saturday SJ Merc. There's a reason why there's a proderance of Chinese and Indian names on the "buyer side", and a more diverse set of names on the "seller" side.

"CB" and "eburbed" are noticing the effect of this, why premier "Bay Area" counties' prices are holding up, but not San Joaquin Valley type counties.

It is an asset bubble.

Joe_renter,

What's up with that?

Go to the schools over in those places. Look at the faces of the students. THen read my post.

That's what's up with that.

This discussion on median in the "fortress" staying high is interesting. Come to think of it, why should we even expect it to be lower ? The median, as we all know, is what the median buyer SPENT on the house, and does not mean housing prices are going up or down.

The job situation is improved in last year in the BA, mortgage rates are almost unchanged in 12 months - oscillated in a narrow range. So the ability to SPEND has not deteriorated.

There is a little more inventory, and a bit less demand - hence very few bidding wars on very desirable homes.

Now the question is, is cost of similar houses going down ? Are buyers getting better houses in the same price ? I don't think median is reflecting all that's going on.

Now the question is, is cost of similar houses going down ? Are buyers getting better houses in the same price ? I don’t think median is reflecting all that’s going on.

Median prices are just for realtors to use for marketing, nothing more; the numbers have no significance when it comes to determining whether prices are rising or falling.

opps, for got to turn off italics :lol:

I do think that the median will soon fall off though, not just because house prices are falling but because easy money is disappearing and people aren't going to be able those uper-sized toxic loans anymore.