patrick.net

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.

Perhaps unwind triggered by "War on Terror is OVER!" ?

I dunno, the general stock market seems sliding though too.

This morning's BL&S number probably didn't help either - 474K initial claims.

What does unemployment have to do with silver going down? I don't get it. People losing their jobs were not the ones buying silver anyways.

@Vicente

Perhaps unwind triggered by “War on Terror is OVER!” ?

Are you kidding? Even most of the teapartiers still want to up military "defence" spending to !get those terrorists!.

Vicente says

What does unemployment have to do with silver going down? I don’t get it. People losing their jobs were not the ones buying silver anyways.

Rising unemployment is an indicator of economic slowdown. Demand for commodities typically drops during economic slowdowns. Today's BL&S number was way above expectations (~410K). That said, it is just icing on the cake of many other recent US economic indicators over the past month or so (Q1 GDP, manufacturing indices, ISM non-manufacturing index, the high price of oil and gas, etc., etc...) that suggest a slowdown in Q2-Q3.

Note that commodities across the board have been taking a beating over the past few days.

If we hit $25, I'm picking up a monster box.

In the bottom half of the article it says: "There’s a big difference, however, between finding a job and earning a decent wage as an artist. The study found that stable, salaried jobs in the arts are rare — 63 percent of arts alumni were self-employed. Nearly 60 percent of working artists said they hold at least two jobs; 18 percent are working three or more jobs." Sure, but self-employed doesn't mean well paid. " Very few of those surveyed were satisfied with the income they were making: only 12 percent of graphic designers or illustrators said they were happy with their pay, while 13 percent of writers, authors or editors were content. Even for web designers, which are in high demand, only 24 percent said they were satisfied. The survey found that 60 percent of working artists made less than $40,000 in 2008. " If you pick the Debt & Earnings tab at the SNAAP website, you'll see a salary of around 30k/yr looks pretty typical. http://snaap.iub.edu/snaapshot/index.cfm

did you post every single link from the fiscaltimes you could find? Couldn't you just put them all into the same thread?

shrekgrinch says

What seals? Show me the seals? What? Can’t? Wow! How convenient.
Do we EVEN know that Seal Team 6 even exists?
As for other ‘countless people’ they are all politicians. I’d like to see some retiring general say whether it is all true or not, myself.

There was a Pakistani talking about it on twitter as it happened. He heard the helicopter and the gunfire. Or was he in on the hoax too?

I'm not surprised at all. There are a lot of houses and fences out there that need painting.

RayAmerica says

I’m not surprised at all. There are a lot of houses and fences out there that need painting.

I was thinking that a lot of these Starving Art Grads were asking you if you wanted fries with that.

shrek, we already know they were wrong about talking up the economy for the "Summery of Recovery", and that's largely why the Dems got tossed out of the House and lost big in the Senate last November.

Old news is old.

I lean towards the opinion that they really didn't understand the importance of the credit bubble to the general economy, 2003-2007, and without getting that bubble going again (not that THAT is a good idea) we're not going to be able to get the employment numbers we had during the Bush Boom.

This graph:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=pA

charts the credit bubble (blue, year-on-year growth in household and business credit) vs. the stimulus (red, Y-O-Y growth in government spending) vs. Y-O-Y growth in personal consumption.

We've recovered somewhat, but we are just running to stand still now.

Consumer debt: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CMDEBT is still an immense burden.

There has been some job recovery:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=pB

but things go so fucked under Bush's watch that it's buried by how bad the Bush team made things for Obama.

to illustrate this, here's M-O-M change in employment since 2005:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=pC

notice that the job market is growing at the same rate it was during Bush's 2nd term.

Given the $1T+ deficits we're running:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=pD

this is neither good nor bad. It is what it is. Of course, trying to reduce the deficit spending will just send this economy back to the 1Q09 days, if we're lucky.

In this graph, you can see the mortgage credit bubble, red, being replaced by the deficit spending (blue), as the monetary injection via home debt went from $1.8T/yr in 2006 to negative $300B/yr in 2010, while the deficit went from $500B to $1.5T+:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=pE

I find it striking that nobody in the entire world right now is using the St Louis Fed's graphing facility but me.

Another graph:

makes it clear that Biden's optimistic numbers were taking advantage of the census hiring boom since the dotted red lin is ex-census jobs.

Eyeballing that chart, we're going to be needing 15 more months of the current hiring rate to get back to the worst of the Tech recession.

Yeah.