patrick.net

Good observations MarkInSF. Redfin was showing spikes that weren't really there on all those graphs.

Suffice to say, there's a good chance the spikes shown now will also be corrected, but some suckers will be fooled to "buy now before it's too late!".

This video explains some of the charts.
http://boombustblog.com/reggie-middleton/2011/02/24/further-proof-of-the-worsening-of-the-real-estate-depression/
Check around 12 minutes in.

He is using total sales (volume * price) as a leading indicator for case shiller. I don't get the US / Japan comparison though. His chart shows the US bubble as much bigger than Japans. IIRC, Japans was bigger than the US's based on an article by Reinhart & ? on property bubbles over the last century or so.

I'd say that is considered high combined income by any standard, but individually may be a bit low, depending on your responsibilities, education and the size of the company. Additionally, if you are management, the number of the staff you oversee and the industry you work in.

Have you been to salary.com?

No one answer; it will just depress me.

10-15 years in mgmt $110-115K is about right. The same is true for other functional positions, marketing, sales, finance. But you have to be at the right place at the right time.

Dual income families have been around for some time in SV. Nothing new about that, but
not the factor some say was the driver of the current bubble or that will keep prices inflated.

Overall today, high salaries may be considered more of liability since we as a local BA employees starting to compete with other lower cost regions. Our $115K per year vs. 75-80K theres in other states.

A good research aid is the Bradford Salary Guide which many HR departments use as guide in setting salaries.

"high salaries may be considered more of liability since we as a local BA employees starting to compete with other lower cost regions. Our $115K per year vs. 75-80K theres in other states. "

Competiting with other states? No. Try competing with other COUNTIRES. You are competing with $15,000 a year software engineers in India. Your also competing against all of the H1-Bs.

Competing with India wages in IT didn't work, we need live awake able bodies at 2PM Eastern, when it's 2AM in India during meetings. It was a rough year, in '02 where virtually every position in my part of town anyway, was outsourced to India. Now there's always positions available and I'm always busy.

Now if Mexico were to ever get their kids to study hard and learn computer science, then we would be in big trouble.

HousingWatcher says

Competiting with other states? No. Try competing with other COUNTIRES. You are competing with $15,000 a year software engineers in India. Your also competing against all of the H1-Bs.

That is also so true. Recently PolyCom is moving from East Bay down to San Jose. Oddly they are moving and consolidating only 350 people locally out of 3200 global. And this is typical.
Symantec has 1400 people in SV out of 17,000 global, and so on and so on. Today is much different than back in the 80s-90s.

Tenouncetrout says

Now if Mexico were to ever get their kids to study hard and learn computer science, then we would be in big trouble.

Believe it or not! Both Equador and Argentina have been building out large IT/IS over the past several years now. Historically both Chile and Agentina way back in the day were heavy users of past tech products (Mainframes) in many of their industries, natural resources, banking, and government. Today they are growing and spending much faster.

Anything is good as long as your employer has not thought of hiring 5 guys in India to replace you.

Allow me to explain:

The best way to find out is to go interview at a few companies and pick the highest paying job. Whatever job you can land with the highest package gives you a good salary that is unique to your skill sets and circumstances.

OO, How is Perth treating you? Have you unloaded any of your position?

I have a brother-in-law that runs a small gaming company and everything techy is done in Argentina.

I wonder how much longer NBC's morning news show will be able to sit next to Barbara Corchoran (sp?) with a straight face, as she talks about the "bargains" available around the country? Of course all the networks probably have their resident shills, but that's the one that pops into mind.

Hey guys, Tim Ellis from Redfin (and also Seattle Bubble) here.

Thanks for catching this.

We've dug into the jobs that generate these charts and figured out that the way we are calculating the list price per square foot has an error that affects the price we display on the chart for past dates. The current point is accurate, but the past points are being incorrectly adjusted downward, resulting in the upward tilt toward the end of all the charts.

We're working on a fix, but at this point I can't say for sure when it will be live.

awesome. thanks for the update tim.

If you are not getting $100k+ from the stock option or bonus, then you are at the bottom of the company food chain.

How else people buy these $2 million house with the $60k average household income.

EBGuy,

not a troy ounce. Holding on till our QE is over.

What simcha might possibly be trying to say is that, when a person uses the professional services of another person, they're often in a position to be taken advantage of. The trust that a woman has for her doctor takes on an idol worship-like relationship, which is ripe for the doctor to take advantage of her vulnerability. This is a line that should not be crossed. If a patient and doctor are attracted to each other, the appropriate action is to find another doctor. There's generally a waiting period for the patient/doctor relationship. This same issue can be raised with lawyers, teachers, therapists, etc. The vulnerability of a patient toward their doctor can also be a man patient woman doctor, or same-sex. It's not exclusive to any particular gender. But it's sick & wrong for a doc to have sex with his patient. FYI

Tim Ellis (Redfin) says

We’ve dug into the jobs that generate these charts and figured out that the way we are calculating the list price per square foot has an error that affects the price we display on the chart for past dates. The current point is accurate, but the past points are being incorrectly adjusted downward, resulting in the upward tilt toward the end of all the charts.

Any chance that the current list price per square foot is ALSO in error? Just curious as the 'up-tilt' glitch has been in the system for a while (at least since November of 2010).

Better to use DQnew data ...been doing for 20 years, long before the web upstarts and their
"mythical algorithm". The public puts too much faith into Zillow's zestimates and Redfin Charts.

I'm not even sure what he did is that bad, depending on the circumstances, which are not clear clear at all. Maybe we should ban rock stars and politicians from having sex with their star-gazed groupies? I bet you anything that show would put on Bernie Madoff's, or Charlie Manson's, or any home that belonged to a famous genuinely unsavory character, if it was a photogenic house. Not sure why you're singling out this doctor. Oh. It's because it's about sex. Duh.

The title of that show is pretty funny. For $1M you can get a run down 1200 square foot home in Palo Alto. Yeah! Now that would be a funny episode.

I'll give 50/50 odds it was the boob-job "patient" who brought the charges against him after she couldn't extract out of him what she wanted.

thomas.wong1986 says

Better to use DQnew data …been doing for 20 years, long before the web upstarts and their

“mythical algorithm”. The public puts too much faith into Zillow’s zestimates and Redfin Charts.

Right. I never liked those Redfin charts too much. If you look at the small graph that comes up when you first enter the area you're looking at, and then go to the detail page and look at the large graph, the two graphs don't even agree with each other. Although I wouldn't equate Redfin and Zillow. Zillow is utter bullshit. It's in a league of its own.

Really? Really?

I am reminded of this underrated movie: Breast Men Chris Cooper is always great, but..... my personal favorite moment is David Schwimmer's death scene. It's one of those scenes that just WHAM, it STUCK with me. Funny how that works. Like when Usual Suspects surprised me. Or like nearly 30 years ago Magnum P.I. had a WHAM episode that I saw a scene copied on "Archer" and I instantly recognized it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7vW1oEKP1k

gameisrigged says

Zillow is utter bullshit. It’s in a league of its own.

In my area, its spot on with rent price estimates. And it does show the exact price a house sold at. Not sure what's utter BS about that. Do you mean the Zestimates? Those are sometimes good and sometimes off, because they don't know if a house is updated inside, or mold infested. Our house got appraised by the bank within $1k of the zillow zestimate. I thought it was pretty interesting.

How did I miss Breast Men? Back to "Really?"

zillow is pure BS. I had my house appraised for a re-fi to lower rate/terms... zillow was "off" by $200k.

I'm an agent and this is getting embarrassing to hear NAR open its mouth. They are on the wrong side of the debate. Worse, they want a dues increase to "lobby" congress.
Great, more money to the pimps & whores in Washington.
Folks, please stay on NAR to correct the skyed up sales figures. Still no correction of a + 20-40% overstatement. All I get is,"we're working on it".

I was browsing Detroit area (upscale NW suburbs) houses and "zestimate" for many houses was TWICE the asking price. I.e. DOUBLE. Like, asking $325,000 (and not sold), Zestimate $650,000.

Zestimate is utter BS.

This is awsome. I'm not sure what 'caal' means maybe you should call the site 'FB Parade' or something. Make sure to have a feature where they can print fake unemployment letters and fake paystubs to prove hardship! haha I'm kidding....people do that themselves with a copier at kinkos....no demand.

pkowen says

I was browsing Detroit area (upscale NW suburbs) houses and “zestimate” for many houses was TWICE the asking price. I.e. DOUBLE. Like, asking $325,000 (and not sold), Zestimate $650,000.
Zestimate is utter BS.

Zillow is not bullshit. As long as you know that it shows "Wishful thinking" prices, not actual selling prices. In Detroit the "Wishful" prices are 2x of the actual selling prices. In the Bay Area, the buyers don't seem to be as bright as the ones in Detroit, so the "Wishful" prices closer approximate the selling prices.

Caal (www.mycaal.com) is an online software company for real estate financing. Focused on the consumer, our first product (Caal Loan Modification Software) allows homeowners to see if they qualify for a HAMP or a private Loan Modification in a private and affordable way. Checking if one is qualified can be done in minutes as opposed to 6-12 months wait in a bank queue. Also, even if you find out that you are not qualified, at least you can know that in minutes as opposed to 6-12 months. Check out statistics of http://bailout.propublica.org/loan_mods/list. Why so many canceled mods and canceled trials? One of the reasons is that from the onset many applicants either do not qualify or have not prepared successful applications so they get cancelled out during the process

Caal software is not only good for the consumers, but also for the banks. If the Banks were to have their clients get pre qualified through Caal, they can run their operations far more efficiently and save months of waste time and red tape. With Caal, everyone is better off.

Does the software tell me how long I have to be unemployed to get a loan mod? I want to quit my job, get a loan mod (5 year at 2% interest rate AND a principal reduction). THEN I will start working again and make fun of all my chump ass neighbors for being chumps! "working is fer chumps!". "only dopes pay the mortgage" ,etc. Also does the software provide a list of insults for me to use? Its hard to come up with them. I would pay extra for this, try bundling the services offered! EGGCELLENT WORK!

PockyClipsNow -> the software does not tell you to be unemployed or employed. It simply tells you if you are qualified or not.

In the beginning down here, when the market was on the way down, most of the best listings said no FHA loans. It didn't matter to me, because the market wasn't where it was headed, or where I bought at for that matter. Otherwise I would have gotten more vocal and active, than bitching about it on Patnet.

I think the biggest problem with FHA loans, are the Buyer may be led to believe with a 100% certainty that they have financing. While as much as an hour before closing, the rug may pulled from under the whole deal.

"Bang up job, on Mortgage reform GUYS!"

OH! And thanks for the price fixed inflation in every commodity sector too! BOY did we ever get change?

At this rate, armed robbery will be legal by December. Provided you're a College grad, and have a million dollars in the bank. For the rest of us pissants, it's Pay UP Sucka!