patrick.net

Not to hijack a thread but.

Patrick... the problem you have is that over the years certain posters write the same one or two points incessantly - with minimal or no data to back them up. Call them out on it, and they start getting defensive and assuming that anyone who would question them must be part of the real estate cartel.

When you first started this forum you were ahead of the curve. You saw recognized the bubble for what it was. But now that its seriously deflated, you're theme's a bit tired. Don’t get me wrong I love reading the daily links, but the forum itself has seemed to become a bit of a parody of itself. Very little serious well thought out discussions are present anymore, which is a shame because at one point it was more civl around here and frankly, more engaging.

I still lurk myself, but as I can only tell my story so many times, I’ve chosen not to post as much, lest I too sound like a broken record.

With respect to the OP – I do not know enough about the West coast to offer you any objective advise or commentary, but certainly some around here can – so long as they don’t get drowned out by the white noise that has become certain posters.

EastCoastBubbleBoy says

Don’t get me wrong I love reading the daily links, but the forum itself has seemed to become a bit of a parody of itself. Very little serious well thought out discussions are present anymore.

discussion around here is fairly crappy right now, but it was pretty bad 5 years ago also. there were a lot more super-retarded-brain-dead bulls back then. now they are mostly just irritating.

anyway, it's always the same arguments from both sides. i haven't read anything novel in months. same with all the real estate forums/blogs: irvinehousingblog, redfin, socketsite, burbed, seattlebubblelog - same old folks, same tired arguments, same jokes, nothing new.

also the authors at pigginton, seattlebubbleblog and njrereport have bought homes. irvinerenter will probably buy next in a year or two. another sign that we're getting slowly back to normal.

this is great news. real estate is getting really, really boring which means not many are making big money. this is exactly how i prefer it to be. as people lose interest, demand will lessen and reach a natural sustainable level. buying a house will once again become a lifestyle choice and less of an investment decision.

when all the RE blogss have finally shut down because no one reads them anymore, that really will be a great time to buy.

If you want unbiased opinion you won't get one anywhere. Bias lies in self interest. I'm sure real estate brokers will tell you otherwise.

Here on p.net you'll at least get the rainbow of opinions. If you don't like it, there are plenty of opinions on the internet you can listen to.

Some people bring up some good points. The bubble popped. Prices have come down. But I think the 'unofficial' theme is basically that prices haven't come down enough and in particular in specific areas like the core Bay Area. That probably creates a bit of irritation amongst those who counted on the pop to return to sane prices. What wasn't anticipated was that there has been an enormous amount of interference on part of the government, investors, and numerous attempts to revive the housing market. Thus the correction has been painfully slow as a result. We are basically in a holding pattern of "What now?" In the meantime the same arguments are rehashed over and over again. Thus the content is stale.

The other way I look at it is that people haven't changed. Even the biggest recession in decades and the non-stop blame on housing for causing it hasn't changed habits. People will continue buy the absolute most expensive houses they can barely squeeze into and so on. This is still very much alive and well in the Bay Area.

Hysteresis says

same jokes, nothing new.

I dunno, the Caligula line on another other thread was new to me... http://patrick.net/?p=1207417#comment-791354

ContStinks DeGroot says

GoranK says

Patrick,

Why about a self-moderating system? If someone's post gets 5 flags on any number of posts within a certain time period (maybe 1-2 hours?), the comment immediately goes invisible, or they get put in the jail forum.

Working on it! Give me a couple of days.

Wow. I didn't expect that. I feel like I have a small sliver of voice on this forum. Thanks.

Goran_K says

Wow. I didn't expect that. I feel like I have a small sliver of voice on this forum. Thanks.

Very happy to do what the readers want. Well, most of the readers, most of the time.

Please send me more suggestions.

More than half done with the jail thing, and "following" kind of like Twitter. Current scheme: a net of three "ignores" in one week gets you in jail for a week. Ignores will be offset by "follows". That's what makes it net.

Most people don't have anyone ignoring them. A few people have most of them:

http://patrick.net/users.php?ob=ignoredby&d=desc

Apocalypsefuck is an interesting case. He's got a lot of ignores, but I bet he'll get a lot of followers too.

Too frustrating to come up with an algorithm. And I've spent way too much time on it.

Anyone who insults another user will get put in Jail for a week.

Anyone who uses "libtard" or "libruhl" will be deleted.

Anyone who is acting like a dick will be deleted.

I have spoken.

Well, I'd actually prefer libtard to "realtor bitch", but I get the point!

I only have 2 ignores. Once again - im too nice, dammit!

We're doing our best to create the resource you are looking for.

http://bayarearealestatetrends.com/