patrick.net

In all fairness, I think I am the extreme case here. I just happened to have a grandad who hammered it in my head all the freakin' time that I HAD to get some mutual funds, CD's, and savings plans underway. This was at the age of 13. I had no clue what he was talking about, but he made it sound like spending money at all was a mortal sin. So we shopped at Dollar General Store, bought grocery store cheerios( which tasted like cardboard) and drove absolute crappy trucks that were sometimes "repainted" with Sears house paint. It wasn't that he couldn't afford the stuff. he just didn't want to.
So I moved out here with that attitude, that you have to save every damned pneey, ask if you really, really needed it, and whether you'll be doing yourself a favor VS socking it away. My grandad died at the old age of 98. He was stingy all his life and it didn't really get hime anything he wanted.
There is a fine line between being too extreme with your money. I think I'm on the other side and more like a scrooge. My wife has repeatedly gotten me to loosen up a bit even though she too is pretty cheap. It feels good to be able to get something you needed, or just plain out want. Makes it feel like your hard work went to something. That's why the housing thing bugs me so much. If I- the stingy bastard that I am- cannot save enough no matter how miserably miserly I am- cannot afford some dump of a place here in Cali, then what the hell is the matter? that's why I come gere to look for the unanswerable answer, which is what's gonna happen?
I also realize that it takes way the hell longer to get established here. So perhaps my above comments aren't appropiate, so I appologize for that. ANyhow, it's adios amigos for me for today! have a good one!

Peter P,

That is the amount the home would have to appreciate by per year to sell for a financial break-even.

HARM,

I can't guess at one's debt load. It is up to them to back out their debt pre-existing debt burden from their affordability. No one should buy a home if they have even $1 of credit card debt they are forced to carry over a payment period. That's because you can earn a HUGE GUARUNTEED RISKLESS RETURN simply by paying off your credit cards. But remember, not all debt is equal. CC debt is revolving, high interest, variable and not interest deductible.

If someone has 20 years of 2.5% fixed, consolidated student loans, then they should NOT pay off that debt unless they have no other debts, interest rates are very low, the market sucks, and they own their home outright.

I was going off of the $196K salary and $588K home that were presented in the initial comment. I didn’t say anything about these figures being reasonable. I know people who make $196k or more. I know people who make a lot less. That doesn’t flaw this specific calculation.

$196K can support a PITI of almost 4600 a month using the 28% guideline.

RE: downpayment.

Recent hikes in prime rate are going to make HELOC/piggyback loans very expensive. This may reduce considerable demand in the starter homes market.

That is the amount the home would have to appreciate by per year to sell for a financial break-even.

I might have missed something. Can you list the assumptions regarding required return?

I’m getting riled up now.

Huh?

S.F. County Median household income (dollars) 2004 estimate: $60,031
Source: http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/counties/SanFranciscoCounty.htm

WW2,

Austin is on my escape destination list for sure (see a few posts back), but I think I'd make less than 90% of my current salary there and be forced into a less interesting job at a much bigger company. Gas will not be $1.20 down there, however nor will Haggen-das be $1.

I bike to work 2/week and took the kids and dog to the beach this last weekend. Went camping at big basin in April and we're headed to the northern coast this weekend. Its often a rat race, but apparently not bad enough to stop me from posting today. BTW - The Learning Company lectures are great for a long commute (which I fortunately no longer have).

Big picture side - We're all renting time on this planet and ultimately have to lose the house and the car. The last thing you'll lose before oblivion and/or nirvana is your memories. Pooh-pooh the area all you want, but if you're into beauty and great weather, this place is hard to beat and we've had a terrific time here. I'll take the renters-stigma with the redwoods until the wife pushes us to make a decision and then its on to the next adventure which will hopefully be right down the street.

I might have missed something. Can you list the assumptions regarding required return?

Assumes the buyer is a "mirror image" of you when you bought it X years prior. That is, they make your AGI, adjusted for inflation. They pay your mortgage rate, appreciating at nominal rate growth (a conservative estimate because mortgage rates lag nominal rate hikes). They put down the same % as you did.

That's for their affordability.

The calculation of what you need to sell for to break even financially in present-value terms is directly solved for from the present value of all cash flows, and has nothing to do with the "next buyer". I'm just trying to show how screwed he is, unless you believe salaries will undergo the same appreciation home prices did over the past X years.

This is the problem, as the numbers go up, they start going up faster and faster. But as they come down, they come down faster and faster too. Thus, the whole closing-gap debate.

Huh?

S.F. County Median household income (dollars) 2004 estimate: $60,031
Source:

lunarpark didn't say $60,031. (s)he said $196,000. I don't have an Excel function for "=WhatYouReallyMeantToPutInWhenYouSaid(196000)".

Michael,

What WWII is describing is the ideal scenario. A friend of mine from college did it. He graduated from college at 22 and got a job with the Defense Communications Service (he's an electircal engineer.) The job didn't pay much, but it enabled him to buy a new construction townhouse in Tyson's Corner, VA that same year. He took in roomates to help cover the mortgage. That was 13 years ago; by now, the townhouse is almost paid off. He also contributes fully to whatever the federal employees' version of the 401(k) is called, and lived well beneath his means for years, drove a used car, brown bagged his lunch, commuted via the Metro, etc., etc. This allowed Ed to build up a substantial nest egg very early on.

I planned to follow his example when I got out of graduate school. It seemed to be working out great for Ed, so I figured that I'd do it too.

Unfortunatley for me, my first job after graduate school after graduating at age 25 was as a temp for $12.00/hour. My first real job paid just enough to cover my student loans ($1,200/month) and a studio apartment ($500/month) in a seedy side of town.

The firm didn't even have a 401(k) until my second year there, and when they finally adopted one it was for something called a SIMPLE-IRA. But once I was finally able to climb aboard the the 401(k) bandwagon I always contributed the max. Unfortunatley this was in 2000, and by that time the huge runup in the S&P was already over, so I've never seen any real appreciation. I haven't lost any money either, but there have been no dramatic gains. I recently changed jobs, and I don't become eligible to contribute to my new employer's 401(k) until I've been here for a year, so my contributions will be put on hold.

I've always earned good money, but it's never been enough to buy a house in a bubble market. At present, there is no freaking way that I can buy one, not even in Compton. A house in a neighborhood where the murder rate is not a concern is totally out of the question, and one in a neighborhood with good schools is impossible.

So for me at least, there really haven't been many opportunities to build real wealth. I am 34 now, and would like to say that my mortgage will be paid off early in just 9 years , but unfortunatley, I cannot.

I haven't really made any stupid mistakes, I ran up my credit cards once while unemployed, but it didn't really make any material differnece in my situation, the interest charges didn't amount to more than a few thousand dollars, we're not talking about a downpayment on an SFH here.

I knew what the ideal course of action was, but just wasn't in a position to take advantage of it.

There are a lot of us in this boat, I wouldn't concern yourself too much. The economic conditions that people our age are dealing with don't permit too many people to follow the ideal course.

One thing I do know is that most people are far worse off than I am. I wasn't able to start contributing to the 401(k) right away, but once I did it started to add up fast. And having no consumer debt helps a lot, if a buying opportunity ever does come along I will be in a position to take advantage of it. My non-retirement savings are nothing special, but they would be enough for a down payment if the housing market were more sane.

If things don't improve here, I will move to a place where housing is cheap.

So I wouldn't worry yourself about it, times have changed.

Randy,

Ok, I misunderstood where you were going with this. You're using your Bubblizer to calculate the BE point at today's prices --even assuming lunarpark's unusually high income --and coming to the conclusion income inflation alone is not likely to bail out FBs.

Didn't mean to rile you up --sorry.

HARM,

LOL, it's all good. I was just trying to show how the numbers don't always come out 1-for-1, and using Lunarpark's example.

There are plenty of FBs, and I'll be in full schendfreude watching them engage in Torschlusspanik.

*schadenfreude

Randy, I am following you... except that the required return of 18%/year seems a bit high intuitively.

If I am to buy a house today, I will be extremely happy to recover the inflation-adjusted original purchase price in 7 years.

Great inpute. Whew! I thought my goose was cooked.

Although not totally financially successful (yet) I did manage to accomplish some things in life that I wanted to and make me fill more fulfilled: BS and MBA degrees (state school guy), two military intelligence schools and doing a talk show & playing drums. Money isn't anything, but I'd sure like to make a few $$ and retire in my early 60s.

I might go back to the Bay Area and become a cop and retire after 15-20 & take the pension then maybe do something else...real estate?

Thanks for the input.

But remember, fortunes change for the better and worse all the time.

People plan then comes the job loss, the health issue, the heart attack, the lottery win, the new big job. It goes both ways.

Run the race but don't kill your neighbor. Prepare for the afterlife. Love your neighbor...

Thanks John!

Who cares. The fools who are looking down at you cant even say they own anything in life. nothing. they own nothing. if they were to liquidate everything they owned and put it towards the debt, they would still be deep underwater.

This is very likely true in many cases, but the trick to happiness is to avoid comparing yourself to the other guy. John's right that many who appear to have it made are drowning in debt, but there's plenty who truly have it made financially. So what? Everyone's going to the great equalizer in the end. Enjoy who you are, your friends and family and what you can become. Get some sunshine and some exercise and you'll feel better immediately

- Your friendly 36-year old renting fool

HARM,

Thanks for the link to the Forbes article. Actually I've been saying that stuff for a number of years now. One of the many "sins" that I witnessed first hand was people looking at their 401K balances, thinking to themselves "hey this isn't bad" then creating an unworkable scenario at work, getting laid off/fired/quit FULLY intending to "rollover" the IRA and either plundering it "to pay off some bills and get debt free" or slowly "bleeding" the acount to where they would finally say there's just X amount of $'s left in it anyway, why don't you just send me the money and close the account. Yes I realize that is one long sentence but it is intentional. I've seen people fritter away huge sums of money (and rack up some ugly tax bills) in what feels like a single breath! Oh and all the while they're telling their new friends they "retired early".

Well yeah, for awhile! Now they have a 1,2 or 3 year hole in their resume and their not getting any younger. What makes it better is I've seen a lot of guys that were "playing contractor" doing "improvements" and additions so they can sell their house for major bucks! (That way the Mrs. can "retire too!) Oh and of course they're hittin' up the ol' House ATM ta' boot! After you've heard the "rollover pitch" a few times you feel like just telling them to save their breath and give you an address to cut the check to!

John’s right that many who appear to have it made are drowning in debt, but there’s plenty who truly have it made financially.

You rarely find out who the posers are who isn’t.

Still, the winners of the google lottery will be sitting pretty. $5 Million is hard to completely squander even if you're a total idiot. 5% return on that is $250K/year. I'd buy a $1M place with a 30yr fixed in a second with that kind of nest egg.

Peter P

If I am to buy a house today, I will be extremely happy to recover the inflation-adjusted original purchase price in 7 years.

That's because you're ignoring the other holding costs to owning. Those are the alternate uses of money. So long as what you would Rent is less than PITI of what you would buy, you have something left over. I assume that you're not just pissing that away (a big assumption, as most people actually need something like a mortgage payment to force the to save in the form of home equity). So, there is a cost to what you'd do with that extra money, like put it in the market at the risk-free rate.

I use the halfway point between the expected long-term market return (around 7.2% if I recall...I'm on a different cptr now) and the risk-free rate. The problem is that this investment compounds, and grows pretty quickly, forcing a home you buy to also appreciate or else you're doing worse by buying. This is another reason rising rents is non-linear. For each dollar rent goes up, you lose the present value of a dollar invested less than PITI. Since that compounds over your expected holding period, it's more than $1.

This has been discussed, and we are again hitting the core issue. It's not just about various ratios and metrics. It's about sound financial planning.

If I pay a huge portion of my income towards mortgage interest, how will I save for my retirement, my kids' education ? Hoping that the house will pay for all the future needs is putting all your eggs in one basket. It may work, who knows, but is extremely risky.

That's what makes me laugh about Cupertino. People are willing to take so much loan just to put their kids in the public schools there. When their kids need the money for their college, what happens then ? It is really ironic.

FRIFY,

I know a lot of folks who got only $250Kish out of the dot-com lottery, yet they were very smart with those "winnings" and they are financially very solvent today. These are inevitably the folks who always exercised at every opportunity, and took their gains at that point, regardless of how exuberant people were about potential upside, and paid their AMT correctly. I know one guy who tried to ride the wave, and turned about $1.8M he could have exercised into about $50K, and then he screwed up his AMT trying to turbotax it and ended up losing net.

...note the "loser" above had AMT because of options he exercised and held, I should have mentioned that for the tax-astute here.

assume that you’re not just pissing that away (a big assumption, as most people actually need something like a mortgage payment to force the to save in the form of home equity).

I may fall into that category. ;) Sushi. Food.

If I pay a huge portion of my income towards mortgage interest, how will I save for my retirement, my kids’ education ? Hoping that the house will pay for all the future needs is putting all your eggs in one basket. It may work, who knows, but is extremely risky.

One thing though, if you buy a house with better feng shui and/or positive energy, you will make more money and your retirement will be set anyway.

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

LILLL Says:

I look around and suddenly I’m in my 40s...

Exactly...I'm heading toward 40. God almighty!

Help! Mr. Wizard, help!

If I pay a huge portion of my income towards mortgage interest, how will I save for my retirement, my kids’ education ?

You don't at first, and if you keep refi'ing and re-amortizing* or HELOCing then you won't either. But if you do it like your parents did, then you essentially have a savings account that slowly gets bigger infusions each month, and historically meets or beats inflation over the term.

*note, you can refi and not re-amortize so long as you do it right.

Peter P says:

One thing though, if you buy a house with better feng shui and/or positive energy, you will make more money and your retirement will be set anyway.

I don't know you, so I am just trying to understand. Do you mean it, or is this a tongue-in-cheek comment ?

Exactly…I’m heading toward 40. God almighty!

Worse... I am approaching my first Saturn Return. Astrologically, I have such an urge to buy a house.

I don’t know you, so I am just trying to understand. Do you mean it, or is this a tongue-in-cheek comment ?

You can take it either way. I am open to alternative science, but I do not expect people to accept it as is.

craigslist search = 404

Huh? 404 Not Found (HTTP code)?

This spring is silent
The tide is turning
Going into Thanksgiving
What will happen?

What data source is used to generate the rent graph on the front page of patrick.net ?

I think it uses online sources like craigslist but I am not sure. Perhaps you should ask Patrick.

Thanksgiving, what will happen ?

My guess:

Inventory will continue to build
Short term interest rate will be 50 - 75 basis point higher
30YR fixed rate will be around 7%
Psychology will be different
Attitude will be about the same

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE

HARM, If you think we’re “out there” what about the guy in China that’s getting the word out for people not to buy a house for another 3 years!

i say the only question is whether the realtors or the landlords should be the first against the wall come the Glorious Revolution... :twisted:

how's that for 'out there'? :mrgreen:

Returning to BA,

I agree with you. My wife and I make close to $180k and we are just out grad school as well. We are new here from TX and we just cannot understand how ppl with our incomes cannot afford a place. I asked a mortgage lender at WellsFargo about this. He said that many people that are buying bought houses earlier. Well who are they selling to? Others that bought early as well? This does not make any sense. We want to purchase a place but since we just graduated a year ago, we would be forced to pay I/O just to get a 3/2.5 place in a decent suburb - and that would stretch our budget. This is very perplexing for me.

Also if rates increase and prices (nominal) stay flat, even with saving up for down payment we are no better off tomorrow than if we were to buy today except that we have more skin in the game (hence more risk), which means that it is still getting more expensive tomorrow. Prices have to drop in real terms, but when will this happen 5 yrs? 10 yrs? Do we have to wait that long just to own even though we make significantly more than the median income?

one more thing. my wife and I really want to buy too - why? well partly its because of the pride and sense of achievement. Yes we are renting from the bank and taking on the asset risk, we know that - but there is a value to the emotional satisfaction -- especially those around you, friends and family, own homes. One side of me says that there must be a reversion to the mean - and that could be true on a macro level, but not on an individual house level.

Its something that is quite draining to have worked so hard and gotten good jobs and still not be able to afford a place that is not 50 yrs old POS.

Well one reason is that existing homebuyers tend to protect their homes through legislation. How is it that Shanghai and Beijing and Singapore look so incredible and they don't mind tearing down POS houses to build better ones, yet in the BA existing homeowners pass laws to ensure that everyone has a POS just like them.

HARM,

Wonderin' is MP or a close resemblance thereof. I've been editing and deleting his trolls from my last thread for the past few days. He posted the same message above to my last thread, which I've edited, so you can safely delete this one if you see fit.

--Randy H

Wonderinandwaitin,

Wow, thanks for that STATISTICALLY REPRESENTATIVE sample you've provided for the entire Bay Area! You've completely changed my outlook on this whole Bubble thing. How can there be a bubble if some clueless asshole paid way too much for a 3/2 condo sitting on Marina landfill? We've clearly achieved a New Paradigm.

You are truly an amazingly persuasive individual! Now, pat yourself on the back, turn off your mom's computer, and go wack off in your room like a good little Troll.

b) rentals in NYC are cheap because of rent stabilization though I don’t know how it affects the housing prices (infact rent stabilization would keep house prices lower).

I don't know if the BA could ever mimic Manhattan that closely for the reasons given by others. There could be many similarities, especially comparing SF to Manhattan and the greater BA to all of NYC and commutable suburbs.

As to rent controls, they have very unexpected effects on the economics of a market. For one, they tend to cause homes to increase dramatically in price, despite the obvious counter-intuitiveness to this. I forget the microecon reasons as to why, but I do recall that rent controlled areas suffer higher home prices empirically. One of our resident income property managers could probably tell you more about really why it happens. Rent control also creates a whole other set of problems and causes really unpleasant behaviors to emerge as people figure out how to game the system.