patrick.net

You know? Fuck it!
If the Lemmings needs this to make them feel safe, who cares when or how he died.
I think the economy might finally start turning around.

I think people and money really bought into the whole Boogey man package. It has gripped the worlds financial psyche for a whole goddamn decade, which has cast a huge shadow of uncertainty for too long. These scared babies hedged their money on the worlds dinner plate. Because they know even if the worlds financial centers were leveled in tandem tomorrow, the whole world would still have to eat. But this has been risky, because there does come a tipping point, where entire countries revolt because they can't eat, which creates even more uncertainty.

So you see, it was Vital that Obama put an end to the legend and the madness that has loomed over the worlds economic soul for so long. Like Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, haking Captain Benjamin L. Willard with a machete, in the finale of apocalypse now. (Another fictitious death scene.)

But you know the markets and commodities can't be wrong. Capitol will make a mass exodus now, and begin to flood into manufacturing, services and other vertices other than being hedged on volatile risks.

The money is coming out of it's hole now, it's a new day.

Oh blessed be, it's a happy ending. "Zippity doo dah Zippity AYE!"

marcus says

it seems that would get out.

No silly, you just use one of these:

Should have offered $350K or less to begin with.
Of course people would laugh at those low offers back than,
but no one is laughing today...and wouldnt be up shit creek today.

E-man says

This further confirms that the divergence between the more desirable and less desirable neighborhoods are geting wider.

Was there such divergence before the bubble, before 1998 ?

thomas.wong1986 says

Should have offered $350K or less to begin with.

Of course people would laugh at those low offers back than,

but no one is laughing today…and wouldnt be up shit creek today.

san jose and san francisco have been on top for the last 20 years.
vallejo and stockton have been on the bottom for the last 20 years.
the relationship between top and bottom is very stable.

also the last time san jose and san francisco were in line with inflation was 1986 - 25 years ago.
during the last housing bust (1989-1996), only stockon, vallejo and oakland were at or below inflation; all the other cities were above the inflation line even at the lowest point.

ChrisLA says

The fact that a lot of the people in this thread simply generalize conservatives and than make it sound like it is a clueless group just further proves the point about dismissal of ideas.

ChrisLA, would you please take a shot at explaining the poll Shrek posted?

http://www.zogby.com/news/2011/05/03/16-all-voters-30-republicans-continue-believe-obama-not-born-us-/

34% of self-identified conservatives do not believe Obama was born in the US. And this is AFTER he got the Hawaii registrar to provide a copy of his "long form".

How do you explain that, other than something deeply wrong with the large chunk of conservatives' grasp on reality?

Your best bet is to scroll across various address in the area your looking on RedFin or Zillow maps making note of historical prices, actual and per sq ft and plot on spreadsheet. Yes, lots of work, but worth it.

Additional sites that have data

http://www.fhfa.gov/Default.aspx?Page=216
http://www.dqnews.com/Articles/archive.aspx
http://www.housingbubblebust.com/OFHEO/Major/NorCal.html

Pretty funny!

1638 Prince St Berkeley, CA 94703

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1638-Prince-St-Berkeley-CA-94703/24828695_zpid/#{scid=hdp-site-map-list-address}

Make me move for $580,000 back in 2009

Now in 2011 reduced to $399,000 from $425,000

Have fun low balling, why stop at $399K.

MarkInSF says

How do you explain that, other than something deeply wrong with the large chunk of conservatives’ grasp on reality?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

VanillaSky says

all the other cities were above the inflation line even at the lowest point.

one hell of a deviation!

Troy says

MarkInSF says

How do you explain that, other than something deeply wrong with the large chunk of conservatives’ grasp on reality?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

Both lies and bullshit can either be true or false but bullshitters aim primarily to impress and persuade their audiences, and in general are unconcerned with the truth or falsehood of their statements

Yeah, but who is the "audience" in random poll?

I guess where I was going with that is that reality is over-rated.

When we survey the conservative view -- the racism, homophobia, religious fundamentalism, climate and evolution skepticism, priapism for the military, voodoo economics, etc -- it's not so much a question of reality, but an effort to substitute their anti-reality, which is a form of dadaism really.

By making us deal with their bullshit, we are blocked from advancing our own aims. The more bullshit they create, the more we are blocked.

Conservatives believe the best defense is a good offense.

This is kinda how the soviets abused their citizenry, and also what Orwell picked up on, how ideologues can control the reality that matters by getting people to willingly deny the factual reality.

Who wants "reality" when bullshit is so much more comforting?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/four-americans-believe-strict-creationism.aspx

Just 1 in 6 Americans don't buy the bullshit, by that poll.

Of course we know about Zillow and the like. I have been cruising the Bank Real Estate Owned sites. For a change. Not the way I usually do things. They are a laugh to. The thing is they aren't holding houses off the market. So the glut of houses they have. They are putting the high dollar stuff on there. Lower priced than usual of course.

The inexpensive stuff. They aren't listing AT ALL. Why because they are moving the higher dollar stuff first. Hoping for prices to rise. Which they aren't and won't. See. A lender does not make that much on a 60k house. He dosen't make anything on a 20k house. There are plenty of those avalible now. They list the junk on there of course the 20k houses they can't sell because they are junk. So a lot of the houses they are holding off the market are the ones you would snap up. Decent houses.

They are shooting themselves by doing this of course. It's funny in a way watching them twist in the sand. So they are there the ones you want. However their greed is getting them in so much trouble they will never be able to get out of it. Just wait you will see.

Hilarious, Trump (Jimmy Fallon) taking credit for killing Osama Bin Laden:

http://video.aol.com/video/donald-trump-on-late-night-50211-tv-replay/1193057313

There has been a global push towards cities. The Bay Area is just part of that. Which would suggest an increase in real value of San Francisco and San Jose relative to Vallejo and Stockton.

As for the topic of houses going from $610K to $350K, you'll easily find a lot worse in Vallejo. C'est la vie. It's still a nice town.

VanillaSky says

thomas.wong1986 says

Should have offered $350K or less to begin with.
Of course people would laugh at those low offers back than,
but no one is laughing today…and wouldnt be up shit creek today.

san jose and san francisco have been on top for the last 20 years.

vallejo and stockton have been on the bottom for the last 20 years.

the relationship between top and bottom is very stable.
also the last time san jose and san francisco were in line with inflation was 1986 - 25 years ago.

during the last housing bust (1989-1996), only stockon, vallejo and oakland were at or below inflation; all the other cities were above the inflation line even at the lowest point.

This just shows the inevitable creep towards reversion to the mean even for those "ultra special, desirable" areas that everyone wants to live in . For those who've recently purchased a McMansion in some tony Bay Area enclave demographics, globalization and the decline of the US economy aren't exactly working for you.

1 sold 20% of my holdings 10 days ago. Now I'm feeling that I should have sold more.

Ardenwood Fremont New Home

http://www.redfin.com/CA/Fremont/5821-Tan-Oak-Dr-94555/home/18796475

2007 sold for 1,388,000 (John Laing New Home)
2011 Listed for Short Sale at 999,999
2011 Sold for 865,000 ( $261/sq ft when the rate in Ardenwood is around $381/sq ft)
The new price matches rent payment

The builder John Laing went Bankrupt and project is incomplete.
This was one of the completed home

^ that's a nice 38% discount from 2007.

an average 9% decrease each year on $1.4M.

funny that people were calling the bottom as early as 2007.

CA is so strange. I live in Freemont up untill I was 7, and having read about CA prices (this was at mkt peak) I was curious about the house I had lived in. Although I didn't remember the address, I was able to locate the house on Zillow having remembered the name of the st (cul-de-sac) and was able to determine which house by the shape of the lot and location. To my utter shock, the "Zestimate" (taking it with a grain of salt, of course) was in the mid to upper $600K. My folks both worked, mom as a secretary & dad as a mechanic. This was a starter home and the neighborhood was modest. I was just shocked that a modest starter home could be in the $600's. In my mind, even if the house is worth 1/2 that figure, it still is beyond me how a typical family buying a starter home for that kind of $. Crazy.

PRICE AND VALUE are NOT THE SAME

property was never "worth" 610k to begin with.

appraiser says

PRICE AND VALUE are NOT THE SAME
property was never “worth” 610k to begin with.

Yeah! Where in the hell were you about 8 years ago?

E-man says

You and I will never see home prices in SF and SJ areas hitting that inflation line ever in our lifetime unless the Bay Area will become the next Detroit

this is myopic.
it's not like you've worked out all the possible future scenarios and based on this careful analysis of these scenarios, come to a conclusion that it'll never happen.
it sounds like you can't even see any other future unfolding except your one biased view.

this is the same line of reasoning that had people saying "house prices never go down".

i guarantee the future will be different than you think (generally speaking, not specifically referring to the bay area/inflation).

E-man says

It is “worth” whatever someone is willing to pay for it, no?

No! The actual worth of a house does not depend on what some fool is willing to pay, because he cannot count on the next fool paying the same.

where's that guy who told me I'd be sorry if I dont buy silver.

E-man says

Yes, he may also be wrong. Just want to add a little sense of humor to this thread. :)

A dirty joke related to silver, shit, or bull traps would be preferable here...

toothfairy says

where’s that guy who told me I’d be sorry if I dont buy silver.

He sold his silver last week!

I always thought the main reason to live in Fremont was because it's cheap. and now house prices reflect that.

The houses will eventually get down to 1977 prices. My parents were divorced in 1976 as part of my parent setlement; my father had to by my mom a house. He bought her a brand new 6 bedroom 4 bath house for around $18,975. By the end of the 80's it was valued around $1 million and sold for about $2.3million during the boom. Thats where the prices need to be headed, and eventually they wil become cheap once again.
Maybe

Its not the zestimate. Thats plain to see thats no good. They are holding homes back that have very low prices because of the comps. The one place you can compare this to is HUD homes.

That may not apply in California because it costs Warren Buffets fortune back then to get a loan for a 2 bed house.

HUD homes are lower priced but they are setting records. Even they are holding houses back. I am talking about houses that are fairly nice to nice for 7k to 35k. Check Detriot, Fla, St. Louis etc. At HUD homes.

See anyone that knows anything about lenders they won't even make a home loan below 50k. That was the case till 08. They may have adjusted a little. However its not a loan they like to make because it is not worth it to them.

E-man says

You and I will never see home prices in SF and SJ areas hitting that inflation line ever in our lifetime unless the Bay Area will become the next Detroit

They didnt call it the Booming 80s or Go Go 90s for nothing... Today, not even close.

Vanishing Public Companies Lead To The Incredible Shrinking Silicon Valley

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2010/02/17/vanishing-public-companies-lead-to-the-incredible-shrinking-silicon-valley/

One of the most significant trends I’ve been watching over the past decade is the dramatic drop in public companies in Silicon Valley. Naturally, that number was artificially inflated during the dot-com bubble when it reached 417 in 2000. For our purposes, Silicon Valley includes San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and the southern half of Alameda County.

But the number of public companies has dropped for nine straight years now. Even when IPOs briefly reappeared in 2006 and 2007, they weren’t enough to overcome the net loss of public companies through acquisitions or bankruptcy.

In 2008, the number had fallen to 261. We just updated our records and the latest figure is 241.

That’s not just less than the dot-com era, that’s well below the 315 public companies the valley had in 1994 when the Mercury News started keeping track.

shrekgrinch says

They have been paying interest only and when the reset happened they were suddenly up the creek

These loans were very common in the BA post 2000. I have friends who live a two level condo in SF who's upstairs neighbor is in a similar situation. They've know for quite a while they will have to move this summer when the loan recasts, since they will be unable to refinance. Don't know how it will play out with the lender.

Carl1 says

There has been a global push towards cities. The Bay Area is just part of that. Which would suggest an increase in real value of San Francisco and San Jose relative to Vallejo and Stockton.

There is some truth to this. I did an analysis of property values in different bay area counties from census data over the last 4 decades. Basically I figured the ratio of median home values with SF being 100. So if the SF median was $100K and Contra Costa median was $50K, then CC would get a value of 50.

The result was somewhat surprising to me. The trend is clearly that over the last 3 decades median home values have gone up more in core countries like San Francisco than they have in the outlying counties.

I had previously thought that these ratios would remain constant over time, and revert to a mean. Not so sure about that anymore.

E-man says

gordongecko says

Ardenwood Fremont New Home

Thanks for proving my point. The home is in Ardenwood, not Mission San Jose Fremont. Can you find a home in MSJF school district has that kind of price drop?
Thomas,
Your graph demonstrated the divergence. They were pretty in line in the 70’s. The gap started to get wider in the 80’s and even wider now.
You and I will never see home prices in SF and SJ areas hitting that inflation line ever in our lifetime unless the Bay Area will become the next Detroit
Be formless, shapeless, like water - Bruce Lee

Wait another 2-3 years .
Even NASDAQ took 3 years to bottom from the 2000 top even though stocks are more liquid than real estate.

Also another point is coming into play
Gradually Ardenwood and other Fremont area schools will approach Mission

Ardenwood
http://api.cde.ca.gov/AcntRpt2010/2010GrowthSch.aspx?allcds=01611766104723

Mission
http://api.cde.ca.gov/AcntRpt2010/2010GrowthSch.aspx?allcds=01611760135244

I met one lady in flight who has been living in Bay Area since long time.
She said Cupertino School District was not as good when they lived there

shrekgrinch says

thomas.wong1986 says

That’s not just less than the dot-com era, that’s well below the 315 public companies the valley had in 1994 when the Mercury News started keeping track.

That is Sarbanes-Oxeley at work for ya. Nowadays, the startups go for being acquired instead, mostly.

Amazing how the right-wingers always think that anything can be blamed on some law or legislation that they do not like.

For the record: Lots of startups would love to go public, but their revenues, profits and the market valuations simply do not allow it. SarBox has very little to do with it, except of course that SarBox does prevent some accounting frauds that otherwise might let some fraudulently inclined company go public.

Ouch!

CME Hikes Silver Margins By 17%: 4th Hike In 8 Trading Days
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/cme-hikes-silver-margins-17-4th-hike-8-trading-days

OUCH! OUCH!

Silver Has Biggest Three-Day Drop Since 1983
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-04/silver-has-biggest-three-day-decline-since-1983-leading-commodities-lower.html

shrekgrinch says

Hell, good luck trying to build one in San Francisco even today.

Acutally, SF is very developer friendly. We've had tons of high rise residential buildings go up in the last 10 years.

Most famously this the Rincon One that was completed a few years ago.

shrekgrinch says

That’s good then..for SF. The rest of CA needs to follow…especially San Jose.

Indeed. South Bay is the main jobs center for the bay area, but housing situation there is atrocious.

See the price range you are talking about generally does not have a lot of stability to begin with. Thats a very touchy loan for a bank to get into. As one or two of those can drag a bank under quick. So price swings in that price range are common. At any time. Take 2005 or even 2004. A 1m dollar house discounted to 600k or 500k is no big doing. See. I can get those houses all day long no matter what year the economy good or bad. See. The payments on those can drag you under quick. Doesn't matter if your a bank or an individual.

The real indicator here are houses that cost 187k and downward. Even that is a high figure. A real pro would never deal in those types of houses. Except to flip them very quickly. As those payments will drag your business into Chapter 13 before you know it. Flip is a tricky word. Not an illegal flip. Just turning a house quickly.

So what your talking about 610 to 350 is no big digs. That happens all the time even in the best of times. Its no shocker at all. Those kinds of houses in that price range cut to even half price. Is way more common than you know.

Where the real meat and potatos are. Would be in the lower price ranges. Payments are lower. They don't suck you under. That house may be fine after youve made your fortune. It sure ain't the way to get there.