patrick.net

Peter... $1800? Is that cheap? I rent an entire 4 bedroom house with a yard and 2 car garage for $1750. I rent with a few other guys that are never there. I've been here 7 years and never paid over $500 a month to live here.

Peter… $1800? Is that cheap? I rent an entire 4 bedroom house with a yard and 2 car garage for $1750. I rent with a few other guys that are never there. I’ve been here 7 years and never paid over $500 a month to live here.

1800 is not bad at all for about 1000sf of space in a major city. It is slightly more expensive than Silly Con Valley and is slight cheaper than San Francisco.

Hey HARM,
Sorry, I'm sort of a new guy. Didn't realize you'd had an article like that before. I see it through the perspective of the eyes of all my family that still lives in "the sticks" in rural TN,NC. There is a growing resentment with all these people moving in now. Last time I got off the phone with my folks, they are seriously considering moving to a rural part of upper TN because middle TN is becoming a huge megatropolis. I am only 30, and recall as a kid when our road was made out of gravel. As a result of this flooding of recent refugees, the houses are going up and up in value. I'm starting to be a tad concerned that if the bubble doesn't end for CA, then it will cause me some difficulty if I decide to move back because prices will be up there as well. It'd be tragic to not only be priced out of CA, but be priced out of my own damned state.. for the same reasons.

“But that was Japan! Who would want to live there?!?!?! This is California, Dude.”

I would live there! California does not even have fugu. People drive like me in Japan. I feel safe.

“But that was Japan! Who would want to live there?!?!?! This is California, Dude.”

LOL - that one's got to go into the Realt-whore Hall of Fame!

I guess Japan is less desirable for certain illegal immigrants.

The mention of Japan, makes me request a new thread on this very topic - how do we evealuate our bubble in comparison to what happened overseas.

Here is a link from Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aCSL5rNr6wUM&refer=us

Seems like Australia and UK achieved kind of soft landing - as far as housing prices go. The economy has been hurt, may be badly, but still there is no great decline in housing prices there - YET. Australia RE has been flat like a pancake now for 2 years.

Every country is unique. But what does the study of Japan, UK and Australia helps us predict about US ?

Oh, what a relief! Prices only "flattened out" in Australia. That means we're in the clear right? Wrong. The Aussies can make a legitimate claim that they aren't making anymore land. Only about 7% of down under is arable acreage. The rest? Yeah, it belongs to the road warrior. Just b/c they kind of speak english doesn't mean there's an economic parallel. I've been to Perth and just a few miles inland, you're hunting dingo.

Oh also, try submitting paperwork to become a citizen of Australia. Not as easy as here. Also, tougher to swim there.

If you are suggesting California is a better place to live, Mr Realtor at a Party……..

Well, we did invent California Roll, didn't we? I hereby condemn all California Rolls made with imitation crab.

Or worse, crab salad. Why is that becoming so common now? Terrible….

Crab salad with imitation crab? It is a high crime against humanity. :)

Quoting "To BA or not to BA", if there is a soft landing for the bubble in RE in the US, then the prices will remain steady at this rate for another 3 yrs. That means I will still be priced out of the market.
What is everyone's view on - if the bubble never pops but deflates slowly - and the prices remain where it is now for another 2-3 yrs.
We could speculate that speculators will dump their properties... doesnt sound right....

What is everyone’s view on - if the bubble never pops but deflates slowly - and the prices remain where it is now for another 2-3 yrs.

If rent catches up to prices then I will see that there is no bubble.

I doubt the this very high price-rent ratio can be maintained with negative cashflow for long.

I predict the Fed will try to make a soft landing by raising interest rates once or twice more and then lowering them a bit...just to confuse us and get the buyers buying again.
I don't want people to get hurt by a crash...but then again...if prices stay this high, I'm also priced out of the market...as will be my kids and most of my friends and their kids.

Hi guys,

I found something interesting.

I am sure you are of aware of this website called the foreclosure.com. You can enter you zip code to see who in your neighbors are filing for pre-foreclosure, foreclosure, bankruptcy etc. Now, the interesting part is as below: try entering the zip codes for the posh neighborhoods like Los Altos Hills 94022, Atherton 94027, Saratoga 95070, Monte Sereno 95030, etc. then pull up the pre-foreclosure page which will show the defendent's names. Then randomly select these names and do a google search on them, you will find quite a few names who get in yahoo insider buy/sell records, namely some CEOs and executives of publicly listed companies.

Now you start to wonder what is going wrong with our country. Why are these executive/CEO types start to miss mortgage payments on their homes? I even found a public business figure in Taiwan on the pre-foreclosure list, I dug up some of his donation records, every year in the thousands. Someone who has the money to donate 5000, 8000, but can't make payment on property tax and is on the verge of losing his home. Interesting world out there.

Have fun.

There is also a home just built in 2005 in Saratoga which is recently foreclosed and repossessed by the bank on the market for 3M+. The advertising says, no expenses spared, yeah of course, the owner goes belly up building this home.

I am really starting to think that the high-end properties are in fact more fragile than the lower end. Who is going to take over this 3M+ home? Certainly not a power couple who can *only* make 500K. You are talking about 40,,000 property tax every year on this piece of beauty. For people who can afford the 3M+ homes, they are no dummies, or they will find it to be too crappy. I think this home can get a serious haircut of another 40%, which will still be beyond the affordability of most middle class families in the Valley, but at least more hopeful in finding a sucker.

A real-whore, a mortga-whore and a Chicken meet up.

The real-whore Says: “When I roar in the open house, the entire tract shivers with fear.

The mortga-whore says “If I roar on the TV, the entire state is afraid of me.”

The Chicken has the final word: “Big Deal. I only have to cough, and the entire planet shivers.”

In December I came back from four months in Paris, ate like a king while I was there, and didn’t gain weight. The women are so slim and eat very, very well. Everybody walks. It really shows what automobile culture and cheap gas do to a country’s figure!

That is right. I do not remember gaining much weight in Paris/London. I gained weight visiting Japan though. But I eat 4 - 6 meals a day (breakfast, lunch, tea, pre-dinner, dinner, supper) when I travel.

Big Deal. I only have to cough, and the entire planet shivers.

LOL :lol:

Peter P,

either you were on the corporate when you visited Japan or you have a deep pocket, I cannot afford to eat 6 meals in Tokyo if I am to foot the bill. Each meal costs at least 20 bucks, 6 meals a day will get me on the foreclosure.com in no time.

There are the cheaper ramen options, but they just don't fill my stomach, I am constantly amazed at how Japanese can survive on so little food while Americans have to supersize everything.

Owneroccupier Says:
I am really starting to think that the high-end properties are in fact more fragile than the lower end. Who is going to take over this 3M+ home? Certainly not a power couple who can *only* make 500K.

I've been wondering about that... Exactly how many ultra-rich people live here? They sure built a LOT of multi-million dollar mansions in the West Bay hills in the last 10 years.

I remember that in 2001 the highest sale price listed in the SJ Mercury for Santa Clara & San Mateo counties was only in the low $1 millions for more than a year. I assume that means that none of the numerous houses listed at higher prices sold.

What happens to the mid end if the high end of the market crashes like that? Will prices compress, i.e. $1.2 mil will buy you a mansion, while $900k still only gets you the 3BR rancher in West San Jose?

For anyone who caught Dave Leonhardt's recent NYT article ("Don't fear the bubble that bursts"), there's an excellent rebuttal from Paul Kasriel here:

http://www.ntrs.com/library/econ_research/weekly/us/ec030206.pdf

Very interesting data about the differences between the situation right before the last RE crash in 1989 and today.

either you were on the corporate when you visited Japan or you have a deep pocket, I cannot afford to eat 6 meals in Tokyo if I am to foot the bill. Each meal costs at least 20 bucks, 6 meals a day will get me on the foreclosure.com in no time.

Just for a few days... it is clearly unsustainable.

Took a look at the Ben Stein piece "Think Grim" that ha ha posted above.
Lo and behold the end of his piece is sprinkled with suggestions for what mutual funds to buy. It seems as though every doom and gloom story I read ends up with a link to:
a) equities / mutual funds, or
b) gold or oil or whatever commodity, or
c) religion.
Why can't they just end with "And I don't know what the hell you should do."

SFWoman,

I believe that if this is the ONLY home and primary residence of these people, they should be able to turn in the keys and walk away. Not the case if 1) they have refinanced, or 2) this is not the primary residence, and people who can make payments on the 1M+ homes definitely fall into the "higher-than-median-income" category which makes filing personal bankruptcy difficult under the new law.

It is just amazing to see how many people out there (including some business elites with an affluent facade) are living a borrowed lifestyle. There are quite a few tax liens in Los Altos Hills for around 50-100K, and obviously they are not the retirees who only need to make meagre prop 13 payments that can never add up to such a significant amount. We are seeing people who can buy a multi-million dollar home but cannot make the annual property tax. Oops, honey, I forgot to budget for the prop tax.

Girgl,

it is already the case as you mentioned. If you look at anything above 1.5M, you can actually find some relatively reasonable properties (1 acre+ land with 2500-3000 sft home in a posh neighborhood in West Valley), but if you look for anything between 1-1.5M, it is just crap, anything between 800K-1M is nothing but crap.

It seems that the ceiling of any 200K+ household can borrow is about 1M. So anything above 1.5M has to clear at a "more realisitic market price" not financed by cheap loans, and anything below that is hopelessly inflated.

Governments have been unsuccessfully trying for over a century to get people to move away from the cities, and especially inland (80% of Australians live within 30 miles of the ocean).

Just as I suspected, Crocodile Dundee glamorizing everthing outback was just a front man for the Auzzie Government's master plan to disperse the population. Now that walkabout animal guru Steve Erwin is pushing the same subversive cause.

ajh,

The article linked stated that our own FED was looking at bubbles in the UK and AUS mkts. as in "barometer" of what we might anticipate here in the U.S. The ONLY point that I was trying to make was that other than being english speaking countries there is little of value that the FED should expect to glean from looking at your data. Australia is so unique in so many ways that it seemed to me that they were just grasping at straws for some kind of "long shot" at a soft landing. Btw, saying that there was "only" a 15% decline in median price doesn't qualify as a crash (unless of course you put 10% down).

SFWoman,

I pulled the "15%" out of thin air, from what I've read (particularly in Sacremento) 15% price reductions are now low hanging fruit. For a recent buyer (suddenly turned seller) he/she probably doesn't have 3 or 4 months of cash reserves let alone 3 or 4 years to allow inflation to "bail them out". B/c this situation is becoming more acute by the day I would say my reference above is "actual prices". We're moving into real time here.

Davis_Renter,

Interesting post! Bomb proof? Centex has "extended" the 12 Hour Sale for the entire month of March? Would that make it a 744 Hour Sale? Gas baby, stone gas!

Like I say, we're moving into "real time". Houses can't be traded like stocks? Then why am I getting Level ll Streaming Quotes?

SQT,

Do you have to do some kind of subscription to have access to that data?

If you look under Preforeclosure, the defendent's name will show up. I have already found one acquaintance in a posh zip code who is known for his lavish lifestyle. I thought he cashed out big time before the dotcom bomb, but I guess his core competency must be spending.

SFWoman,

I am not sure if it is essential for the trophy wives to get on the deeds, we are in CA, if couples split, the wives get to go half with their hubby for any wealth accumulated after the marriage, right? Plus, most trophy wives need to sign a pre-nup anyway.

SQT,

Thanks. Isn't it incredible how we're reduced to "cobbling" together data from multiple sources in order to create a more complete picture of a property or a neighborhood? I understand protecting peoples privacy but I'm willing to bet that the people that complain the loudest about Zilliow for instance are the ones most delusional about their home's FMV.

I just looked on foreclosure.com and there are 201 homes in foreclosure/preforclosure in my zip code. And it’s just beginning.

Am I reading this right? 148 foreclosures underway in Mill Valley? Prime Marin indeed. Maybe all those $3M Strawberry McMansions are going to crash after all.

Randy,

these preforeclosure numbers include all those that were filed dating back to 2004 (perhaps it took a while to go back and forth on making the payments), so the real *prime* for foreclosure is yet to come. The date of filing is coded but you can easily decipher which number refers to what. The 2006 preforeclosures are only a few in each zip code. From my limited knowledge acquired from the web search, preforeclosures typically end up in FSBO first so that the owners can attempt to recoup as much as they can. When you see a listing these days with bold lettered "owner must sell", it probably means a preforeclosure FSBO.

See how things can only get worse? 2004 and 2005 were the GOOD years, and still some people had to give up their homes. I can't fathom what a mediocre year will be like.

SQT,

Part of the reason, a GOOD part of the reason I am so anti-bubble is that I definitely feel we had alot of neighbors "coat tailing" on our improvements. The upgrades/improvements we had done over a 10 year period involved a hell of lot more than putting up some flaky gazeebo project or koi pond eye candy. It seemed like all my neighbors were having the time of their lives, ATV's, 5th wheel campers etc. Most only did the absolute essentials and then only grudgingly, like when when you see someone painting on the last dry weekend in Oregon. Yet they will be beneficiaries all the same b/c now you have set the bar high and neighbors can play off of the potential of your success. I wanna see 'em tank!

Davis_renter,

I hear ya! Somehow saying liberal and collegetown seems redundant. Not..... that there's anything wrong with that! What I DO resent is the whole "captive population" scenario. We have that in Corvallis and Eugene right along with the outright persecution of college students. People, it's college, they're college kids, they're SUPPOSED to have fun!

New thread: Yield curve

I hear ya! Somehow saying liberal and collegetown seems redundant.

Yes, but some more more liberal than others. I bet UCSD is probably more conservative than UCB. :)