patrick.net

Are you kidding, the jihadists can see his clear superiority a mile off.

Yes, he can probably stop a terrorist with just a look.

Welcome back, brightc. Looks like the Merc is becoming our friend.

@Robert Cote', oddly enough being the pathetic renter I am, the wife and I are looking to rent a 2/1 $hitbox in Santa Barbara. Found a 1920's hovel for $1950 a month, we feel lucky. What's even more odd is that this $hitbox would sell for 1.5mil or so. I've never been very good at anything, especially math, but to me and my marginal intellect, the number just don't jive.

@seattledude: thank Mr. Up for the Santa Cruz info --he posted the link.

Actually the monorail was a lame idea- basically it was just politicians who wanted a shiny new train. There are many problems with the monorail but the main reason is it isn’t flexible enough or big enough- it’s range is too short.

Sounds like it's about as intelligent/cost effective as the L.A. money sinkhole a.k.a. "Metrorail red line". Spend 5-10X as much as comparable above-ground light rail costs to get a subway in L.A., where it rarely rains and never snows. Plus, we have earthquakes, which raises the possibility of cave-ins at some point. Luckily, common sense never comes between a politician and his dreams (and my money).

Darn -- failed to close the italics after 'short.'

I remember one day in 1984, cutting high school, sitting on the
beach at Santa Cruz...or was it Twin Lakes? It was Twin Lakes (right next door to SC but a little less crowded).

Belly full of Cali Coolers (they were new, then)...Blam!
6.4 earthquake! An earthquake of some size feels really weird on
the beach. Sharp, like someone pulling the rug out from under you.

It wasn't until working at the IBM manufacturing plant in South San Jose on that warm Oct. 17th that I felt the REAL wrath of Mother Nature with that 7.1 Loma Prieta. For a few moments, I thought I was a goner.

By the way, what does "uber" mean?

I see that word used here and there.

Thansch...

Mr. Holiday, man, I think I saw there back in '84.

Uber=big large, as in large and in charge. Slang comes from the Hun.

By the way, what does “uber” mean?
I see that word used here and there.

From Urbandictionary.com:

Uber

1. The ultimate, above all, the best, top, something that nothing is better than. Also Ãœber

2. Term with literal meaning of "above" in German. Brought to the mainstream in the early 80's by hardcore American punk band, the Dead Kennedys when using the term in the anti-Californian government song "California Uber Alles", which is a take off the German motto of "Deustchland Uber Alles", which translates to "Germany above all." The term was picked up in their native California stomping grounds by the typical surfers and "punks" and extended from there to many teenagers, the majority of which use the term online.

Thanks, Peter P. Just got back from my vacation. I'm looking at my ZipRealty listings for the first time in the year, and here's what I'm seeing:

* I see some mysterious houses all of the sudden added into my list, although their listing dates are back in October. I guess I just caught a break and these oh-so-wonderful real estate owners have decided to give me a break and drop their house prices into my range.

* I see a couple of townhouses and condos having brand-new prices, probably just to celebrate the New Year, holiday season, and all. The discounts are 2%, give or take. Am I too optimistic to expect a 24%, give or take, annual home value increase?

* When is spring? The spring I've heard so much about? Maybe I should buy now and lock in the 2% discount before spring, when houses will go back to the usual appreciation!

I know I'm gonna love this coming buyer's market! :-)

Oh, so "uber" means pimp.

Thanks dudes.

Prolly did see you there Surfer-X. The waves by the rocks are pimpola.

@Mr. Holiday, no not exactly, but you can be an "uber-pimp". Pimp implies a level of sophistication and refinement. Take my uber-pimp '63 Tbird. Shit all I need is a hat with a feather.

Maybe I should buy now and lock in the 2% discount before spring, when houses will go back to the usual appreciation!

Buy now or be priced out forever! There are no American tanks in Baghdad!

Surfer-X, I'm 39. Not quite a mister. I feel more like 19. This whole growing up & getting old thing is NOT California.

'63 T-Bird, Feathered Hat, 70s platform shoes...definitely uber-fly.

Senor Holiday we are of the same vintage.

My Tbird is definitely fly, much too much for a white guy, which is where the Mexi half comes in. Must fight the urge for hydrolics.

when houses will go back to the usual appreciation!

Can someone else handle this one?

I think you should buy 3 or 4 at these prices, it's a new paradigm, savvy investors like you know a good thing when they see it. Don't let those so called experts or the JBR's sway you, clearly you've done your homework, go for it.

Can someone else handle this one?

BTW, brightc is a friend.

Go back to the usual appreciation must have meant the inflation tracking appreciation.

I don’t know, I didn’t find Cairo all that threatening. I am sure it is safer than downtown Oakland, for example.

Downtown Oakland? I would not know. I dare not go. :)

There was one harrowing moment on a faluka in Luxor where I thought I was going to get thrown into the Nile and my two companions raped, but that was not in Cairo and it was mostly due to one of my female companions breaking the “don’t look at a guy and smile” iron clad rule in Egypt.

That is not good. In a safe place, you should be able to do pretty much anything reasonable. I am glad that you were safe.

I am sure that riding in a car in Cairo was much more hazardous to me than any risk of terrorism.

Actually the risk of riding in a car in the Bay Area is much more hazardous than any risk of terrorism. However, the risk of riding in a car is much higher in developing countries. They just do not have safe roads and people drive like nuts.

Yeah, I really couldn't believe the way the cabbies drove there. My journalist buddy told me that the most dangerous stretch of highway in the world was the one between Cairo and Alexandria. He said that your risk of dying on that highway in one journey was about the same as the risk of an American soldier serving a combat tour in Vietnam. I don't know if it is really that bad (a 1% risk of death per journey) but even just driving around town we had a number of near misses. None of them would have been fatal, but a fender bender at 15 mph is still unpleasant.

The guide books all tell you sternly not to smile at strange men, if you are a woman. It is regarded as a come on.

Should be at least a $20+ jump in gold tomorrow based on this news!

Bap33,

Ghost town mode? I love it! My wife and I cruise around on the weekends and are starting to see that evidence more and more often. In some of the subdivisions we find the "model" is the only one actually completed months in to construction!

Robert Cote'

The reason I felt that coining the phrase "Silent Spring" was such a landmark is that in a "normal" market, yeah, home sales tend to TAPER OFF in the Fall, not fall off a cliff! I think over the years I've written a few of these scripts. "We've hit a bump in the road". We've become velocitized, when you're used to doing 90 mph doing 55 mph feels like you're crawling" "Once we get on the OTHER side of Labor Day stocks begin to trade on next years earnings" Yada, yada. With home sale volumes seriously drying up Realtors TM will NEED a buying frenzy in the Spring to feel good about their futures.

Should be at least a $20+ jump in gold tomorrow based on this news!

Gold is still trading on e-CBOT. There is no big jump in gold price. Front month contracts are trading at 527.7. It was trading at as high as 537 yesterday.

(Note, there are futures prices, not spot prices)

My journalist buddy told me that the most dangerous stretch of highway in the world was the one between Cairo and Alexandria.

Is it education or just bad roadway design?

NoCal has pretty bad roads too.

From answers.com:

Cairo's roads are amongst the most dangerous in the world. The death rate per kilometre traveled in Egypt is over 40 times as high as the European average and twice as high as the nearest comparable Middle Eastern country. But thanks to often deadlocked traffic, car crashes are rare, and when they do happen, they are almost always non-fatal.

My friend is actually joining the evil empire in Redmond.

Well, some housing bulls consider this website an evil empire.

"Buying almost always beats renting over the long run, which you can prove to yourself with a bit of working with one of the various rent vs. buy calculators on the Net. But at this point it will probably take a decade or more for buying to make sense..." -- Jimbo

I am very well aware of both of these facts Jimbo, although at this point my rent vs. buy calculator is telling me it will probably take closer to fifteen years for buying in SF right now to make any financial sense. That is what I call a "bad investment" of my time and money. If you bought in three years ago I doubt we will see prices drop any lower than your cost basis, but I'm not certain that I'd want to buy into this city even at THOSE prices. It's not because I don't love the place, it's because I think that would still be too much to pay. Maybe I'll just take my earnings away from here in 6 or 7 years and go live amongst the glorious towering peaks of Colorado again.

The more I think about it the more I think the current housing bubble represents the end of huge cycle in the American economy, one that began perhaps as far back as the '80's. It's going to end badly. It always does.

The more I think about it the more I think the current housing bubble represents the end of huge cycle in the American economy, one that began perhaps as far back as the ’80’s.

Quite possible. We will survive.

I am not so sure what will happen if this turns out to be a grand-supercycle top.

"Quite possible. We will survive." -- Peter P

This is true. What is going to be interesting to see is what happens if/when the dollar drops, interest rates go up, and therefore our current account defecit starts to go away. Econ 101 snippet: a current account defecit MUST be made up with a capital account surplus (usually financed by foreign investment as it is today). If foreigners no longer perceive value in our currency/expected economic growth rate, they will stop investing and the dollar will devalue. We won't be able to rely on all these cheap imported goods anymore if our currency takes a hit. In the long run we'll have to rebuild our domestic manufacturing economic base. Not necessarily a bad thing. The question is will our collective standard of living have to drop from what it's been the past 20 or 30 years? We shall see.

In the long run we’ll have to rebuild our domestic manufacturing economic base. Not necessarily a bad thing.

It is strategically illogical to deplete the entire manufacturing base. This will be a test of globalization.

The question is will our collective standard of living have to drop from what it’s been the past 20 or 30 years?

This is a certainty. We will see.

Just count how many bears are waiting to get in, you may get some sense of why the bubble refuses to go away.

Yeah, but bears here will not give in until P/E ratio drops to a reasonable level.

What is not circular is that even extreme bears want to own. The “American Dream” just goes too wide and deep.

Perhaps, but the urge to want dwindles when the valuation is skyhigh and is posed to head down. :)

I am an optimistic person. We will prevail.

I was born in Oakland and lived in various housing projects there until I went out on my own.

I have great respect for people who have made wealth on their own.

Oakland is safer than Cairo.

Perhaps.

That looks like envy solicitation, when my intention was just to comment on Oakland vs. Cairo.

I bet you can fly your GV from Oakland to Cairo non-stop. ;)

I am willing to bet you Mr.Up, that the murder rate is higher in Oakland than Cairo.

For native residents at least.

I don't know what the murder rate is like for tourists in Cairo, but I was never once molested or threatened or even made to feel uncomfortable my three weeks there. Often children would come up to me and say "Are you happy? Are you happy?" and I would say "yes!" and they would say "good!" and run away giggling. The people there understand the importance of tourism on the economy.

But then again, I lived in Oakland for only one year, my first year at Cal, on a drug infested street in 1989, during the middle of the crack wars, so perhaps I have an unfairly negative idea of the place. I actually got along pretty well with everyone there, only being threated with murder once (by a teenage girl, no less) but I did hear gunfire out the window every Saturday night, usually not too far away. I finally left after someone got shot and killed in the front yard.

Here is an amusing article analyzing murder risk in Egypt:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/touristsafety.htm

I actually got along pretty well with everyone there, only being threated with murder once (by a teenage girl, no less)

Huh?

I finally left after someone got shot and killed in the front yard.

Horrible. What is wrong with those people?

Peter P Says:

"Gold is still trading on e-CBOT. There is no big jump in gold price. Front month contracts are trading at 527.7. It was trading at as high as 537 yesterday...

...(Note, there are futures prices, not spot prices)."

True. Maybe I jumped the gun a bit. IF China actually moves in that direction it should cause some instability...we'll see.

Peter P Says:

"Gold is still trading on e-CBOT. There is no big jump in gold price. Front month contracts are trading at 527.7. It was trading at as high as 537 yesterday...

...(Note, there are futures prices, not spot prices)."

True. Maybe I jumped the gun a bit. IF China actually moves in that direction it should cause some instability...we'll see.

The article "So many Lenders, So few Borrowers" said it all for me. For the bigger more diversified institutions the "retrenchment" means laying off a "few" people in their Mort. Dept.". No big, happens every day at the Bank. For the "niche" houses where their sole source of revenue is cranking out mortgages this downturn WILL be devastating! In the authors opinion the industry is overbuilt on a grand scale, "like a V-8 engine stuffed into a tiny ford focus".

SQT, another article cautioned buyers about being duped by stale comps! I've kept wondering where some bulls have drawn their faulty conclusions from and now I have "the rest of the story". If nothing in your area/price range has sold for gee, let's see now, 2, 4 or 6 mos. then the seller is leveraging ANCIENT history to bail them out! It just strikes me funny that bulls, doggedly defending outrageous run ups in prices by whatever means available refuse to acknowledge stale comps on the way down!

Just for example; if you, (soon to be John and Jill McMansion homedebtor) were to tell an agent a year ago "on the way up" that homes in this area where only selling for 999K just 6 WEEKS ago the agent would have laughed in your face and kicked you to the curb!

This cuts both ways people! If an agent were to tell me, "Homes in this area are going for 999K" I would want to know exactly what their definition of "going for" was! Going for 999K on what, Ebay, Craigslist, Wish List? Agents are leveraging the fact that most people do what they're told (although not here) and the ones that don't have lost the art of haggling generations ago. Like I'm afraid of being blacklisted!