patrick.net

An old friend of mine in Sunnyvale who bought a little place in 1998, expanded it in 2001 after having a child, and did more upgrades through 2004 just sold. They had put it up in Spring 06, but only got (as he put it) "joke offers". (funny, because that could have been me making the lowball offer in another timeline)

Anyway, the point is they only paid something like $475K, probably put about $150K in, maybe $200K at most. He listed in 06 at $1.2m, and got no where. They didn't mark down like the realtor pushed them to. They delisted, let the agent contract expire and decided to ride it out (being they had lots of equity and low payments).

Come Spring 07 and they got 3 strong offers, 5 total, and the house went over $1.3m. And they're leaving the state, but still decided not to sell down even a little, rather stay here a year or more longer to "get their price".

This is why prices are sticky. Not everyone is a panicky Casey FB. People are *irrational* and *creative* when it comes to trying to manage their pocketbook.

I've got other friends who are a dinc couple in the hinterlands of the East Bay in a McMegaMansion which is well under their purchase price now (they bought in late 05). They have probably 30-40% equity, and can make payments so long as both work. They want to move because now they're both commuting well over 1.5 hours each way. They won't even consider selling until they "get back to even". They think they can't afford to. Mental accounting is very powerful, and people who don't have NAAVLP loans will follow their intuitions, not our rational calculations.

Peter P.,

I think the UN and WHO vaccination projects are pretty decent. The UN also brokered an agreement in Darfur two years ago to get the rebels to agree to a 21 day cease fire there to vaccinate children for polio. I'm not sure why people would agree to stop fighting for 21 days so kids can get vaccinated, then go and burn down their village and kill the inhabitants, but they did.

I was actually approached on the street one day in Mexico City by UN polio vaccine workers offering to vaccinate my kids for polio. My kids are vaccinated, but with the injectable vaccine we use here, not with the live vaccine, which I think is better. I was tempted, because I'm not getting the live vaccine in the US.

I have used an overseas vaccination programme to get my kids immunized for TB (with BCG). SF has a high rate of TB, and with the xDR TB that's out there now I'm quite glad I did.

Fortress Sunnyvale. :(

I have used an overseas vaccination programme to get my kids immunized for TB (with BCG). SF has a high rate of TB, and with the xDR TB that’s out there now I’m quite glad I did.

Is BCG any good? Doesn't it gives false positives for skin tests?

Mental accounting is very powerful, and people who don’t have NAAVLP loans will follow their intuitions, not our rational calculations.

True, but not as powerful as fear when bubbles are popping everywhere else.

Most people follow their whims and wishful thinkings, not intuitions.

After being rational for 20+ years I have decided to take a vacation from logic. :)

RE: programme

It definitely sounds overseas. ;)

meaning you have to get a chest xray every time you get tested

Yep. It annoyed the heck out of me.

PS - nobody is interested in free veggie seeds? I have 30+ varieties of tomatoes.

Astrid,

I have no yard in which to plant them. I BLAME GREENSPAN FOR MY LACK OF TASTY TOMATOES!

I don't argue that there won't be a lot of good values hitting the market. I'm betting on it, in fact.

But I see that more like the SFH rental market is playing out. Good deals pop up, and are sometimes as low as half the monthly rent for similar houses. But those deals go very fast, and you have to be prepared and ready to pounce.

I'm already seeing easily a $1.3m - $1.5 even $1.6 spread in prices for very similar houses in S Marin. The problem is the 1.3s only make it about 2 weeks on the market, and the $1.5s often get delisted after months of sitting there.

I can't cite my source, but I've recently seen some big agency in-house data and they've got twice as many "canceled" and "expired" listings as they do "reduced".

The good news is the lower-rangers are getting closer to 2004 prices, which many of us less-doomier types here called as a signal. Not a signal to buy, but a signal to start drying out the powder.

It is possible to grow tomatoes without garden soil. You can make a self watering planter with 20 gallon rubbermaid containers.

It is possible to grow tomatoes without garden soil. You can make a self watering planter with 20 gallon rubbermaid containers.

My cats will destroy the plant by eating though the leafs. And then they will throw up. :(

Grow some wheatgrass and catnip for your kitties.

Grow some wheatgrass and catnip for your kitties.

Tried. They somehow overturned the pot and it got messy. :(

http://www.grantspub.com/video/

Enjoy.

Astrid,
I have no place to put said planters that would get any sort of light. :(

I need to rent me a place with a yard. Seriously.

I grew up in Sunnyvale and find it funny that people would be willing to pay that much. $1M for Los Altos Hills, Saratoga or Los Gatos (Much Better Schools too), Yes that anyone can understand.

But ... (im dying laughing here) $1M+ for Sunnyvale... Oh man! There is a sucker born every minute. You can count seeing those home down in value pretty deep. There is nothing extordianary about Fremont School District. Its a working class school district many of its graduates turn out out to be junky addicts. Besides SV and Sunnyvale will not have booms like we had before. IPO market is dead and Private Equity/M&A is the path many are about to take... Palm is rumored to be a buy out candidate. No Sunnyvale employer is willing to subsidize that kind of conspicuous consumption by their employees. That was tried and failed badly by late 80's. That why we have tech recession that are seperate from national recessions.

Yea! I know .. Google this google that.. but even when you had Intel AMD National boom years prices never went that far. Maybe check up on Zillow and find that homes in 1993 were around $250-30K in Sunnyvale.
$1M+ what a joke!!! Fortress Sunnyvale has thin walls! Watch it pop!
Anyone who was born and raised here will tell you that.

SFBB,

There are HD lights that could mimic the sun (and stave off winter light deprivation)...however, even I recognize that's going too far for tomatoes.

There's always the local farmer's market or CSA.

No, you actually move the AGI line from the federal income to the state, so if it is deductible from the Fed, it is deductible from the state.

That is how CA does it, anyway.

The only time it becomes sticky is when you pay AMT, then you actually get to deduct some things from state taxes, but not from federal.

I don't know of any situations where it is the other way around.

I am not an accountant, though, you should talk to an expert.

I grow tomatoes in my back yard in Noe Valley, but I have to grow them in pots on the second floor deck so that they get enough light. I tried growing them in the garden last year and none of them produced fruit.

What kind of seeds astrid? Early girls? I like early girls...

I second that Space Acer. I grew up in Mountain View. I remember thinking of Sunnyvale as really gross when I was a kid. Oh wait...

Actually the part the borders Los Altos is pretty nice, but that's a thin slice.

Jimbo,

I'm a tomato snob so no Early Girl. You can read my list at http://dazrulz.blogspot.com

I had my best tomato in Santa Barbara.

No, you actually move the AGI line from the federal income to the state, so if it is deductible from the Fed, it is deductible from the state.

Right, but the AGI is -before- deductions. Right?

1M+ in Sunnyvale? I rather get a condo (with elevator) in San Mateo or Burlingame.

Right, but the AGI is -before- deductions. Right?

Huh? Isn't AGI "adjusted"?

Fortress Sunnyvale has thin walls! Watch it pop!
Anyone who was born and raised here will tell you that.

It's different this time. All the old people in Sunnyvale will be fleeing just like in Cupertino.

Look at: http://wsjclassroom.com/teen/teencenter/05nov_whiteflight.htm

Right, but the AGI is -before- deductions. Right?

Huh? Isn’t AGI “adjusted”?

On the 1040, AGI is computed at line 37.

Deductions happen at line 40 in "Taxes and Credits" (38-57).

It’s different this time. All the old people in Sunnyvale will be fleeing just like in Cupertino.

Sunnyvale has way too many kids. Do people realize that kids have poor ROI in the Bay Area? I prefer mature neighborhoods.

C'mon everyone, tell this realtor on his blog why buying is not a good idea. He wants to know why people choose to rent instead.

oops! Try this link.

My two cents about the Fed: I think they did an amazing job of keeping the US out of a serious and deep recession in 2001, by lowering the interest rates. I was personally expecting a much deeper, longer and harder recession.

The last time we had an asset bubble of the same proportion pop, it precipitated the Great Depression.

The Fed was not the only one that acted wisely, the federal government did a good job in not acting protectionist, allowing global expansion to help pick the US off the floor.

Granted, it just shifted the bubble to a real estate expansion, but so far we have been able to manage that reasonably well as a nation. I know it has hurt many of the regular posters here, so that is probably not a very popular position to take, but if you step back and look at it from a national perspective, a bit of home price inflation is a small price to pay to avoid the suffering that comes from a recession. Some people believe that recessions are needed, to wring excess capacity from the economy, but I personally believe that is very Second Wave thinking. What excess capacity do we have in a knowledge economy? Too many accountants? No one keeps any inventory to speak of anymore. Too many houses? That problem will take care of itself. And yes, there will be something very much like a recession for the homebuilders, but there is no reason that they have to take everyone else down with them. I guess we have replaced economy-wide recessions with rolling sector "recessions" which is a good thing, imho.

Recently, Bernanke has done better than expected. Most incoming Fed chiefs immediately engineer recessions. I don't know why they all do it, but they all seem to. Bernanke has so far pulled off the difficult to do "soft-landing." The jury is still out.

The Fed has obviously fallen down on their oversight responsibility though. Too many of those sub-prime loans simply should not have been made. I did not even realize that The Fed was expected to manage things like that. How would they do it? Ask Congress to write laws? I don't think The Fed has direct regulatory authority.

"It’s different this time. All the old people in Sunnyvale will be fleeing just like in Cupertino."

Already! did starting back in 1988 due to recession. No one wanted to live here.

Oh i agree about white flight... but wait a minute... you give out dumb exams and asian pass it with flying colors... what does that tell you...
Yes they are smart for passing dumb exams to begin with.

Back in my day it was all Chicano and Whites and few Philippinoes
hardly any from China/Japan.. very rare if all...
We did have lots of Vietnamese back in 1977-80.. (smart kids that aced lots of exams) too but very few here.
The local school system does not deserve any credit for the test scores we see today. That would not have happend if the many from HK prior to 1997 did not settle here. Smart kids yes! but its a dumbdown school district no.

A Asian classmate from my University got 4.0 (Accounting Degree) but could not speak clear english at all. Could not get a job except for the IRS. Like I said he aced every exam!

My two cents about the Fed: I think they did an amazing job of keeping the US out of a serious and deep recession in 2001, by lowering the interest rates. I was personally expecting a much deeper, longer and harder recession.

No, all they did was delay the recession and because of the delay, it is going to be worse than it would have been, much worse.

The recession is just beginning. How could you possibly believe that a recession will just be confined to just a few sectors? Everyone is going to cut back on spending which is going to swallow up many jobs, which will cause more defaults, which will cause prices to fall more... repeat infinitum.

The fact that a great many are already overstretched from buying overinflated houses or drawing out huge amounts of equity that is no longer there is going to probably lead to a depression.

A Asian classmate from my University got 4.0 (Accounting Degree) but could not speak clear english at all. Could not get a job except for the IRS. Like I said he aced every exam!

I will think twice before hiring anyone with a 4.0/4.0 GPA. (3.96 is probably acceptable though) Test-takers are worthless in the real world. I am under the impression that the smartest kids usually have GPA from 1.7 to 3.5.

"Whites aren't quitting the schools because the schools are failing academically. Quite the contrary: Many white parents say they're leaving because the schools are too academically driven and too narrowly invested in subjects such as math and science at the expense of liberal arts and extracurriculars like sports and other personal interests."

Yes these kids are going to do well. They would have done well anyway anywhere because their culture and family puts lots of pressure on education and not sports or partying. I dont expect to see Raj or Ming on Pot possession anytime soon, like so many of my classmates from Sunnyvale High back in the day.

Good luck to these kids.... They will do very well!

allah,

Yes, I know this is the gloom and doom, the sky is falling blog. It has been for years, but so far the American economy has been steaming along just fine. People here have gone so far as to advocate stocking up on gold, food and ammo, just because the stock market had a minor hiccup.

My bet is that we will muddle through somehow. Some smart kid somewhere will discover something new that will cause an unexpected productivity boom. America will grumble, but learn to live with $5/gallon gasoline. Peace (or at least the absence of American soldiers) will break out in Iraq, saving the US economy $100s of billions a year. Internationalization will continue to improve the overall standard of living of people all over the world, perhaps at the cost of the American working class, which is already greatly weakened, but there are going to be plenty of new jobs taking care of the elderly boomers once they start retiring.

Don't bet against the creativity and ability to adapt of America and Americans. It always ends up being a bad bet.

Yes these kids are going to do well.

That depends on what you mean by doing well. Working a 6-digit engineering job is not doing well in my book.

Personal development is much more important than skills. You can hire skills but you cannot hire ideas and insights.

Don’t bet against the creativity and ability to adapt of America and Americans.

I agree.

allah,

Don’t bet against the creativity and ability to adapt of America and Americans. It always ends up being a bad bet.

Considering all the outsourcing, I don't see much of a future for "these kids". We are at the very beginning of a big fallout. No one gets out of here alive!

"Working a 6-digit engineering job is not doing well in my book."

So are we saying the a recent grad should get 7or 8 digit salary.
You got to start somewhere... why not 6 digit at first...the bottom and work yourself up.
Between 5-10 years then you get personal development and creative skills. if at all, or move to another profession.

Besides you do a great disservice to the talented vets who already have 10-15 years experience.

"Don’t bet against the creativity and ability to adapt of America and Americans."

Complancy is not what I call adapting. Too many for example are waiting for the next thing in Silicon Valley so they can join and reap the rewards.
If you have the nack you should be the ONE that will is making the next big thing in SV. Those people are very rare for find.