patrick.net

Lisa,

What I've seen here in Portland has got to be the definition of the "greater fool theory". The Pearl District has been slapping up "lofts" like crazy. A friend of mine bought one a couple of years ago and it's about 500 maybe 600 sq. ft. He paid about $290 per sq. ft. Not long ago he had a great view of the river, Rose Quarter and bridges. Now he has a commanding view of other peoples abandoned balconies! It is so ridiculous, I've heard that they are now using a "lottery" system for new or converted units and they have people lined up to pay $400/500+ a sq. ft. What's more, the city is providing huge tax incentives that allow these speculators to flip the property 2/3 times before someone actually spends the night there! Think about it. If you have people foaming at the mouth to pay those kind of prices do we really need to subsidize this with tax breaks to boot? Like we're not subsidizing RE enough already?!

Rented for approx. $1200, selling for $400K

So, according to my calcs, they are betting on appreciation in the 10% range over the life of their purchase (much more if they are planning on flipping.)

Seems optimistic.

Cheers,
prat

Ha Ha Says:

"My unfderstanding of REAL ESTATE after all these years is

REAL ESTATE is a government sponsored way of liquidity extraction from economy. Government prints money which can be legally taken away via real estate transactions…"

Interesting...

Budget-wise, California seems to have lifted its head out of the water long enough to take a breath, and has finally "come out of the red." But for how long?

Same thing in Arizona, with its new-found windfall, state budget surplus.

I heard this is in large part due to the revenue from taxes on real estate transactions.

The condo conversion mania is just that: hysteria.

How in the world can there be a good ending to this insanity?

I think the Nasdaq collapse is a great example, symbolically speaking, of the results of financial reality exerting itself in the face of "irrational exhuberance."

Perhaps the real estate correction won't be as acute (maybe it'll be even more dramatic) as the Nasdaq collapse. But I think that the sh-tty apartment to condo conversion craze is merely the reductio ad absurdem
of a mercenary society that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Indeed, this frenzied activity is an image of truth with deeper meaning for society as a whole. Call it the zeitgeist, if you will.

Such moral violence to the real economik cannot possibly end peacefully.

What goes up, must come down. Call it the physics of finance.

Oh great. Now those nice realtors are targetting the wives and the frequent female visitors of Match.com.

Of course, you can still find a home that sells for $400,000 in Oakland. But to be sure, buy a gun and learn how to use it.

Then you can be on your way to making $600,000 in 10 years.

Today's women-empowering message: I've just learned how to make $300,000 in 13 years from a website whose color theme is pink and purple.

Plus, there's an incentive for me to learn how to shoot a handgun, and the prospect of meeting an Oakland police officer as my future husband.

Looks to me that the realtors are so pissed that everywhere they look they see doom and gloom stories for real estate. The inventories are rising, they have no clients and perhaps with all the extra time on their hands, they believe if they start publishing their pep talks, they will encourage people to buy again. :)

Have a look at her site.

How dare we question her credibility

Because she has no other names?

My favorite quote from Lydia's homepage:

"Tell me what you want. Then let me deliver. I’m a realist"

How do you reconcile the first two statements with the last?
I can tell you any pie-in-the-sky, needs-based valuation that I'm convinced my home is "worth", and you will 'deliver' a buyer at that price. Or, I can tell you I want to buy a 50,000 sft mansion in Palo Alto on my Wal-Mart cashier salary and you will 'deliver'.

But, you're a "realist".
RIIIGHT....

Lydia’s opinions are meaningless, but perhaps the biggest flaw on her website is her business strategy marketing (only???) to women, which, in this day in age, I don’t think is all that particularly necessary or relevant.

This might explain why she loves to cater especially to women :lol: uh oh...now I feel like a stalker, I'd better stop! ;)

Remember she’s trying to encourage people to buy, so she’s not trying to indicate a weakening market. Basically just more realtor BS.

...but what makes her really dishonest is that she is masquerading as a columnist, not as a realtor. Notice how she doesn't mention anywhere on the page that she is a realtor. Doesn't leave a company name, email address or business phone number. Obviously she wants her pep talk to pass as an unbiased view like she has nothing to gain from it.

Looks like she was a technical recruiter for IT 10 years and her job got outsourced....now shes a realtor...wonder what she'll be next year. :)

Oh man, look at this website she has.....She was in IT, that explains why her name is all over the web.

Personally, I don’t understand the notion of marketing STRICTLY to selected demographics.

She didn't say she strictly sells to women, only that she enjoys getting women into houses. It looks to me like she does alot of marketing for gay clients maybe as a marketing strategy since there are alot of gays in her area and I would imagine they would trust a gay realtor over a heterosexual. She may not even be gay.....it could be just a front! All in all, she was in IT, lost her job and got into real estate just because of the boom.

Here is her reasoning to delay buying a house. She says nothing about prices going down......that is dishonest to me!

"...maybe as a marketing strategy "

Purely for humor, mind you, but it's too bad she hasn't this business name:
http://tinyurl.com/xmdz

This might explain why she loves to cater especially to women uh oh…now I feel like a stalker, I’d better stop!

This is hilarious. I mean the irony, not the sexual orientiation.

I've been looking for the Basic Instinct version though, just out of curiousity (isn't it how it's all started?). So far, unsuccessfully.

technical recruiter for IT 10 years

Sounds more like a headhunter to me. She should've chopped it down to 5 to make it more believable.

KurtS, maybe you should send a copy of Ms. Males' website to the Tonight's Show.

I feel sorry for anyone who buys a $300,000 apartment - paper thin walls, bad construction, crappy stucco - just because the developer put out some nice stock-art brochures, showing happy smiling singles.

I don't.....money is dangerous in the hands of the stupid!

From the MSN article:

And San Diego real estate prices now are growing only by single digits, rather than double digits, says economist Raphael Bostic, with the University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate. That retreat reflects the fact that job growth wasn’t keeping up with real estate prices, so the prices were bound to drop some, Bostic says.

Call me crazy, but if someone cannot distinguish between x, dx and ddx when they are writing an article about x, I tend not to take their views very seriously.

I have had this conversation before with my wife: it is a hilarious human weakness (thankfully falling by the wayside) to ascribe expertise to the media. Whenever some jackass comes on the TV and starts talking about something you know about, you immediately either laugh or get annoyed at how utterly uninformed they are. But when the next jackass shuffles on and talks about something you don't know a lot about, suddenly you are prepared to accept that this jackass has a clue what he or she is talking about.

I say all of this, of course, as a complete jackass.

_shrug_

Cheerio,
prat

Whenever some jackass comes on the TV and starts talking about something you know about, you immediately either laugh or get annoyed at how utterly uninformed they are.

Guess I'm a jackass too, or somehow an informed layman knows more than the informed "experts?" I think people naively trust media to serve "the truth," when most likely their own interests are #1.

More specifically, is it really any wonder the RE has been trumpeted by media in the last few years? I wouldn't be surprised by a large vested interest in the RE food chain, from builder's stocks to REITs. When the media changes their tune on RE, I suspect they've already made their money.

"they could have a circle jerk on every balcony floor and have an atrium jizum smigma pond down below."

The next trend in home improvement! Soon HGTV will have a show featuring...well, maybe not.

can count on the media at large to follow the trend, not set it

I'm probably being too suspicious for my own good. However, I remember the media cheerleading during the dot-com boom, when anyone with a moderate IQ should've been highly suspicious of the whole thing. Of course, they're just reflecting the "buzz" out there, but for those controlling information channels, I always suspect a money angle. Say, a network had some major investments in RE, and I ran the show. I'd have more than a little tempation for the news to sound bullish on RE. If I'm thinking that, I'm sure those who can are doing it.

Just gotta love it http://www.craigslist.org/eby/rfs/115296880.html

[snip]
Now is the time to buy while the rates are still low and the multiple offer situations have been reduced so that you may save some money and you will not get outbidden by investor type buyers. Ask me about a 7 day cruise for buyers at close! New Roof! New Dual Pane windows! New wall to wall carpet!

opps...link http://www.craigslist.org/eby/rfs/113966054.html

multiple offer situations have been reduced so that you may save some money and you will not get outbidden by investor type buyers.

LOL...like there would ever be a bidding war on that dump!
That toilet picture is classy.

Help! Please buy my house!

http://www.craigslist.org/eby/rfs/114847143.html

Regarding the "media bias" angle of this thread in regards to the MSN article posted earlier in the thread by Windog:

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/Homebuyingguide/P85323.asp

I find the author's selective use of quotation marks to bias the article very irresponsible. For example (excerpts):

[snip]
But the drama that “bubble” theorists have looked for is missing.
[snip]
The inventory of homes on the market is about 45% greater than average, says Bill Wendel, a fee-based buyers’ agent in Boston whose Real Estate Cafe blog contains running articles and commentary on “the real-estate bubble.”
[snip]
Todd Sinai, associate professor of real estate at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, derides bubble theorists as “Chicken Littles.”
[snip]
The market hasn’t collapsed because it wasn’t really terribly inflated to begin with, says Bostic. “I’ve never been much of a ‘bubble’ person,” he says.
[snip]

The repeated placing of "bubble" and "bubble theory" in quotation marks. I don't like it. Anyone who's done any research on speculative bubbles knows there's a lot more going on than just "theory." Speculative bubbles themselves are case studies of historical occurrances--the Dutch tulip bulb craze, the British South Sea bubble, the American 1920's stock market bubble, Japan's real estate bubble during the '80's, and of course America's most recent tech stock bubble. These are just a handful of numerous historical examples that followed the same trend of boom, speculative excess, and bust. There is no "theory" to deride, nor is it responsible to quote as gospel the statement of some random jackass smugly stating "I've never been much of a "bubble" person" with no facts to back up his subjective statement. Finaly, to state that our current RE market "wasn’t really terribly inflated to begin with" has got to qualify as one of the most preposterous statements I've ever heard, period. I guess it's not surprising they didn't publish any of that guys supporting evidence or even his though process in coming to that conclusion.

Correction: "thought process" is what I was trying to type and the end of my previous post!

LOL…like there would ever be a bidding war on that dump!
That toilet picture is classy.

Actually, I've seen bidding wars on houses much uglier than that, but that was over a year ago.......I don't think you'll find a bidding war anywhere now regardless of what the property looks like.

Actually, I’ve seen bidding wars on houses much uglier than that, but that was over a year ago

Some people are fools I guess. Well, I'm still seeing multiple bids, but I think they're a bit better than that ghetto box.

That toilet looks nice, though…. would fetch a nice price on eBay.

On ebay it would sell for more if it wasn't flushed the last time it was used! :lol:

Mortgage defaults rise in Sacramento

Lenders crack down on mortgage fraud

[snip]
"Fraud for property" is the industry phrase used to describe usually honest folks who exaggerate their incomes or tell other white lies to obtain financing.

Now lenders and the authorities are turning their attention to borrowers encouraged to falsify their applications by loan officers who tell them "everybody does it."

Now they are going to do something about it?

Little jump? That is a 14.36% increase in a quarter. Who are they kidding? I am so sick of the spin about real estate.

Well lets see what they say when it goes up to 50%. Remember Alexis is the president of foreclosures.com and informing people that there are more foreclosures is to help her business..... If she was to say that the sky is falling, investors wouldn't be interested in foreclosures until the market completely corrects. She will always say in her articles that the sky isn't falling and that the market will not crash like the 90's.........and she is right...it won't, it will be much worse given the circumstances. I only read her articles for the data, not her opinion........use your own judgement because hers is obviouly biased.

Justice is NEAR!!

Justice? I wouldn't bet on it. Between the likelihood of a federal govt. bailout and the near certainty of economic dislocation, there could be lots of people who deserve far worse than they get and lots of people who didn't participate in the madness who get stomped.

As always, a dark sense of humor will be a handy thing.

cheers,
prat

03/08/05 (Unofficial -- taken from secondary records)
Conditional Salesperson License will be suspended if education requirement per section 10153.4 has not been met by 09/08/06.

Looks like he got his license before finishing his tests......I'm sure he doesn't have to worry though since he won't be needing his license by then. :lol:

Interesting how many news stories are out there that still believe you should continue to buy real estate and that there is no bubble.

Well you would publish such stories if you were a realtor and your job was at stake.......can ya really blame them?

From a realtor's blub I found in the mail yesterday:
For sellers, do you really want to sell your home, or are you just testing the market? If you're just testing, please, take your home off the market.. If you absolutely, positively have to sell, and you haven't had any offers recently, lower your price.

I understand that supply is a realtor's enemy these days because it kills the buying frenzy, but WTF?