patrick.net

Hysteresis says

this housing bust is like no other.

Bubble preceding this bust was just unique,hence the bust will be unique. With govt. intervention it could drag on for years. We have created phenominal debt and hence the suffering.

5. Fortress hasn't yet fallen.
6. Prices are still too high, across the board.
7. Interest rates are still too low.

dodgerfanjohn says

Renting for Half the Costs posts a parody and then the parody follows it up by posting the exact same thing.

Lulz.

I didn't know there was narration on this site. Cool.

kashif313 says

You want links or proof, look it up yourself.

I have. And I have posted them. Only they refute your "facts".

That's the bottom line.......

From that graph it looks like the high tier is still on an uward trend

If your buying in the low tier maybe prices noware the same as 2009

Your Chart says the high tier has gone from 130 to 140 since 09 which is more like 10%

dunnross says

Flag

good catch. i knew they would try to resort to these dirty tactics.

I bought a bunch of AAPL in 2009 and I'm happy with being up about 650%, and my stock funds up about 100%, but WTF, it's only money right?
Buying a rental around where I live means having tenants who are 1. Mexican illegals 2. sec. 8 weirdos 3. SSI nuts on disability (#2) 4. University students 5.assorted kooks, freaks, etc who want to fuck you out of the rent because you are the evil 1% rich.
My other dough is not in a checking account but Vanguard Bond funds, my second largest is High Yield Corporate Bond fund and it pays 6%+.
If you were rich, buying rental property is a waste of your life. If you aren't rich, you are tethering yourself to an asset that has pros and cons.
My finest "investment" so far was agreeing to take that business trip with my client to China. What was the reward? The food and the CHICKS!

Beware of realtors submitting links to their sites that include charts about how awesome the sales are in their particular area.

clambo says

Buying a rental around where I live means having tenants who are 1. Mexican illegals 2. sec. 8 weirdos 3. SSI nuts on disability (#2) 4. University students 5.assorted kooks, freaks, etc who want to fuck you out of the rent because you are the evil 1% rich.

Maybe you should consider moving to a nicer area?

thomas.wong1986 says

lostand confused says

The thing with many recent immigrants/new citizens is that they are still willing to buy a house at extreme prices and not spend money on anything else. Just work and pour the money into the mortgage.

Not many other folks are still willing to do that. We will have to wait and see how this goes.

Could you say the same for immigrants from decades past. Perhaps it not immigrants but rather migrants from the east coast.. Connecticut, New Jersey, New York. I certainly have seen and spoken to lots of new people here from the east coast.

And many wrongly believe CA prices have always been higher.

For realtors... "the end justify the means".

CA in general hasn't always been higher but northern CA, at least in our lifetime, has. Our customer engineer in Pasadena told me ten years ago that IBM always has job openings in SF/SJ that go unfilled. Most people cannot afford to live here.

rootvg says

Most people cannot afford to live here.

Many employers cannot afford to hire here.

dunnross says

And you expect us to believe that you sold it at the top. If you are so good, then show me a link, like mine, where you sold you real-estate at the top of the market in 2006 and bought gold with the money.

Boooh! That ain't gonna happen. :)

Maybe just me but it seems like most of the scare tactics are coming from people telling me not to buy a house. who are they?

bubblesitter,

it is fun to blog.

What fun is there in making someone prove himself wrong to lose his face or whatever?

We got enough of that thing going on in the national divide.

I posted the housing vs gold chart the other day. If gold is going up then housing is going up even more. Which makes sense with commodities inflation building costs will go thru the roof.

If you are really saying that buying a house in the BA in 2009 was a great idea because you think it stayed flat, then you are mistaken. All you had to do was put that down payment in gold or any reasonable stock for that matter.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/11/markets/sunday_lookahead/index.htm?iid=Lead

Clip taken from the above site.

"The S&P 500 and Nasdaq have more than doubled in value from bear market lows on March 9, 2009. And the Dow is up more than 97%."

You can be happy that you missed 2x of your money, but I wouldn't be. Now I have twice the down payment and houses are cheaper. It doesn't matter what you say to this, cause my position is all I care about. You keep selling to the prey, and I'll keep gaining the advantage until I feel the tide has changed.

toothfairy says

I posted the housing vs gold chart the other day. If gold is going up then housing is going up even more. Which makes sense with commodities inflation building costs will go thru the roof.

Houses are not made of gold. ;)

E-man says

So what's your hot pick for now?

BRCM (long on 1000)
PVG (long on 2000) Sell only when it equals a BA home. ;)

toothfairy says

I posted the housing vs gold chart the other day. If gold is going up then housing is going up even more. Which makes sense with commodities inflation building costs will go thru the roof.

More lessons to learn for all you housing bulls out there:

1. Gold is not a commodity. It's currency. Just because our gov't says it isn't, doesn't make it not a currency. Gold is the only honest money, so the FED can lie all they want, gold will still be money.
2. If the FED could make the gold price drop, they would have done it long time ago.
3. We are now in K-winter which is good for gold, not so much for commodities. Gold is at, or close to all-time high, where most commodities are nowhere close to the high achieved back in 2008.
4. Housing prices will not go up in inflation. In fact, inflation will kill housing, because your pay check will be spent on food and gas, not housing, and, also because interest rates will go up faster than wages.
5. This isn't like 1991 or 1979, so don't compare it to that. This is more like 1930 which you know nothing about, because you don't know anyone who lived back then.
6. Housing is not an investment. It's just a shelter.

dunnross says

It's currency. Just because our gov't says it isn't, doesn't make it not a currency

Actually, that is exactly what it means.

dunnross says

5. This isn't like 1991 or 1979, so don't compare it to that. This is more like 1930 which you know nothing about, because you don't know anyone who lived back then.

So, you can only learn history from people who lived it? That's unfortunate. I guess we can fire a lot of history teachers then.

dunnross says

Housing is not an investment. It's just a shelter.

Nope--it is both.

RentingForHalfTheCost says

Sales are dead, not because of fierce competition or rising prices

RentingForHalfTheCost says

Lack of sales is not a good thing

Why do you keep posting this? Sales are up and have been rising for 3 months at least. Most people agree that it has been a good start to 2012.

Are you seeing different info than I am or are you just making shit up?

dunnross says

More lessons to learn for all you housing bulls out there:

We'll see how it plays out over the next few years. I feel fairly comfortable being in the Warren Buffet camp.

I might even buy some gold just for kicks, but only with money I can afford to lose.

toothfairy says

dunnross says

More lessons to learn for all you housing bulls out there:

We'll see how it plays out over the next few years. I feel fairly comfortable being in the Warren Buffet camp.

I might even buy some gold just for kicks, but only with money I can afford to lose.

Your okay with being in the "I was dead wrong" camp? Also, do you have a 5 billion dollar bet on Band of America (aka foreclosure holding company)? Warren was dead wrong and can be dead wrong for a few more years and still smile. I don't have that privilege. If I bought a 1million+ home now, then lost my job, on top of another 10-15% drop over the next two years, then pretty much the last 10 years of savings would be poof, gone! Never to return. Warren can lose 5 billion and still have too much money. Completely different game.

as far as I'm concerned you lose your downpayment the moment you buy. What you have in return is a million dollar house that may go up and down in value with the market.
So it's not like your savings is lost into thin air, it enabled you to buy a million dollar house which you couldn't have done without saving for 10 years.

tatupu70 says

dunnross says

It's currency. Just because our gov't says it isn't, doesn't make it not a currency

Actually, that is exactly what it means.

dunnross says

5. This isn't like 1991 or 1979, so don't compare it to that. This is more like 1930 which you know nothing about, because you don't know anyone who lived back then.

So, you can only learn history from people who lived it? That's unfortunate. I guess we can fire a lot of history teachers then.

dunnross says

Housing is not an investment. It's just a shelter.

Nope--it is both.

For us, housing is shelter AND an investment vehicle because of our tax problem. I know that doesn't set well with people here but that's how it is.

toothfairy says

as far as I'm concerned you lose your downpayment the moment you buy. What you have in return is a million dollar house that may go up and down in value with the market.

So it's not like your savings is lost into thin air, it enabled you to buy a million dollar house which you couldn't have done without saving for 10 years.

Or a 800K home that you owe 800K on, and are now unemployed. I'd rather keep my 200K and let others take that risk for now. Add another 2 years onto the 10 and I save more and buy for less. That matters to me.

Darrell In Phoenix says

LIEWog/SubHuman,

Why are you the only ones who misrepresent the truth about housing?

Wrong wording, again.

You mean, why are we the only ones that PRESENT the truth about housing from what we find. These are not opinions but facts anybody and everybody is welcome to look up. Take a stroll in whatever neighborhood you live in and look at prices and watch how they develop.

You guys on the other hand spread nothing but your wishful opinions. No backup for anything you claim.

First off RentforHalf, just a few's months ago, you were crowing about a cheap rental in Palo Alto on craigslist. Many of us noted that it was a fraudulent post, it took you how many phone calls to figure that out? If you feel the Los Altos market is that soft compared to 2007, feel free to post some more listings for us to look at.

Housing may not be the best investment right now, heck it could be below average at this time but it's just disingenuous to state that it's not an investment. I'm sure I can make 120k (deducting the 6%) on my purchase from earlier this year. There's a unit that is 30% smaller, on the noisier side of the building, with a much smaller patio that has closed for 50k over my purchase price. Certain neighborhoods in SF are just that frothy.

DukeLaw says

Certain neighborhoods in SF are just that frothy.

You guys almost had me agreeing that since 2008 there was money to be made in the housing market until I ready the word frothy in the DukeLaw comment.

When you say frothy you mean sales hype.

There is another idiot buying property every minute. Just because a bigger idiot than the last one purchases a property doesn't make property a good deal.

The only good deal is one where you can buy, and sell it for a profit.

The whole point is that Real Estate is now a volitile investment filled with uncertainty depending on how you look at it.

Frothy is this years sales line, last year it was historically low interest rates, low inventory.

The Professor says

We dislike realtors because they have squoze out as much money as they can and have now left us with an overpriced house and a future promised away to the bank.

In 2006 I bought a house. All economic indication were that we would see massive inflation. I'm not the only one that felt that as oil began to climb it was a good indication that it was a good time to take on debt.

A lot changed in that year, and we sold that house, and another before July 2007 when all we retained was the family home.

So I don't fault Real Estate agents as much as I fault the government, and the banks who were making the loans.

The bank loan is supposed to be backed by the asset value. I may not have seen a crash coming as quickly, but banks surely did. There is no way in hind sight that banks, lenders, and investors, who had global perspective, could have not known we had an over heated market place.

I blame the bank loan process that lent money far in excess of property value.

If our foreclosure system were allowed to function properly, we wouldn't be having this mess.

The Professor says

I agree. RE agents were as ignorant as the rest of us.

But they still got their commision.

i doubt you will find the rest of us.. creating fictitious bidders.

Of course RE agents can create as many fake offers they like and repeat the cycle.

thomaswong.1986 says

creating fictitious bidders.

You can't create a ficticious bidder on a property.

Where do you get that?

David Losh says

thomaswong.1986 says

creating fictitious bidders.

You can't create a ficticious bidder on a property.

Where do you get that?

"We have 13 competing bids sir. Please submit your best and final by eow tommorow."

dodgerfanjohn says

"We have 13 competing bids sir.

Your best, and final is always what you originally thought, and never get yourself into a multiple offer situation.

Multiple offers mean wait for the market to cool off.

The point is that an agent can't arbitrarily say there are other offers, without having those offers in hand.

The next time that happens to you ask to see the other offers before you escalate, because you are willing to go highest, and best offer.

The problem with amatuers is they get weeded out of the market place. If I'm the agent with a buyer I'm going to want the agent to produce other offers, if I were ever to encourage any buyer to go into a multiple offer situation, which I wouldn't.

Where do you guys get this kind of phantom offer stuff from anyway?

Darrell In Phoenix says

Ask yourself that question my dear used house salesman.

That's not an answer because you don't have one. You're speculating that inexperienced agents will say anything to get a Real Estate commission. It does happen, but those agents leave the business because other agents won't do business with them.

Your reputation, as an agent, in the Real Estate community is what gets more transactions.

That is the problem with agency, any one can join, but only a few survive.

Are you doing business with an agent that is in the business for the long haul, or a newbie?

You, as the buyer, or seller still need to get a deal, so you should pick an agent on ability rather than likability.

Darrell In Phoenix says

Ask an honest question and you'll get an honest answer

I guess you are trying to say that this phantom offer thing is an industry standard for used house sales people, I guess, because you aren't saying anything.

The truth is that is one of the most debunked illusions people have about used house sales people. Any agent can ask to see the highest, and best, or the volume of offers.

The very, very sad truth is that agents do write multiple offers on properties.

Writing a highest, and best offer has to be the stupidest thing any agent can get involved with, but they do it, usually at the buyer's insistence.

There are some agents that encourage the multiple offer situation because it creates urgency.

But the very, very sad truth is agents do write into multiple offer situations, and buyers, and sellers go along with that.

Darrell In Phoenix says

Ask an honest question

Please post your definition for "honest question"

Darrell In Phoenix says

Because it is.

I guess we are in a he said, she said situation.

I've been in the business of Real Estate a long time, and what I know is that it is sad we have multiple offers, but they do really happen.

Now if you are talking short sales, that is an industry standard to have the loss mitigator collect offers to counter at highest, and best. Those are always situations to walk away from.