patrick.net

San Francisco RENTER, I bought three years ago, after a decade of living like a college student with no car in a communal houshold. At the time, my wife and I both had high five digit salaries.

We got a duplex in Noe Valley and our tenants downstairs pay half the mortgage payments, the boarder upstairs (and old friend) pays another 1/4 of it.

So I know it can be done here, since I have done it.

I am sure we are going to be saving less, probably nothing at all, after the baby comes and my friend moves out.

I was scared the market was at its top 3 years ago but I took the plunge.

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, so you better be willing to plop yourself down in the The Mission or The Excelsior for a decade if you are going to buy anything remotely affordable in this city. Bernal or Sunnyside would probably be safer and quieter, if you can afford it.

SQT,

I think it's called "the dead cat bounce". You can throw a dead cat out of a window and when it hits the ground IT WILL BOUNCE, but that doesn't mean it's not dead (crude analogy, I know). Sometimes referred to as a "suckers rally". We'd seen a number of them on the NASDAQ in 2000. Seeing RealtorsTM doing a mad scramble in the 11th hour to me is reassuring. Like Peter P said, the boredom of certainty. The sheer conclusiveness of the articles linked today was pretty convincing even for the most skeptical among us.

A friend of mine in Perris, CA just wanted out, (have you BEEN there?) Originally he wanted to price below the market just to be able to move on, 3bd/2ba nothing special. Comps @ 360K, he wanted 300K for fast sale in the fall. After a "sale fail" the RealtorTM offered to buy it from him for the 300K figuring he could turn it quick. Now the REALTORTM has backed out and is offering to list/sell the home. My guess is that the Realtor was either over extended himself or thought the commission would be higher than the profit he could make flipping it. Just a guess. Que the Silent Spring theme music!

Many listings also claim a “reasonable price,” but those are usually the more overpriced one’s.

Yes. If the prices are reasonable, they do not need to mentioned them specifically.

Usually when a restaurant says "Authentic X Cuisine", I walk away.

Broadway is one of the worst streets to live on in the Sacto area, basically located in the “hood” and sellers are calling the area “desireable.” Who are they kidding?

It is in the middle of the "action", hence desirable.

I know I mentioned my husbands friend who sold his tiny house for $450K last summer, and now that same house would be hard to sell at $370K judging by the listings.

We need to spread news like this to instill more fear. :twisted:

I love fear.

What stage comes next?

Active humiliation of the realtors? Driving by the open houses with Mr. Up's bullhorn laughing your ass off? The perp walk by Fannie/Freddie Execs?

Usually when a restaurant says “Authentic X Cuisine”, I walk away

WTF? Are you a Surfer-Xist? :)

WTF? Are you a Surfer-Xist?

LOL :lol:

I heard a rumor that at the end of the dot.bomb party there were repo-men circling Cisco like vultures, taking all the Acuras, BMW and Mercedes out of the parking lot. Might this be a good money making venture for the next few years? Ahhh the thought of repo'n John and Jill McDebtor's 50" plasma and the H2 just fills my heart with joy.

Mr. UP, may your candor and honesty serve as a shining light to your kind. May your Mercedes SUV always find a good parking spot at Giuseppe's and/or Bueno Tavola.

They firmly believe that the only TRUE path to wealth is through RESIDENTIAL real estate.

Pathetic. If that is their only path, I truly feel sorry for them. How many on Forbes 400 made the bulk of their wealth through RESIDENTIAL real estate?

I don’t want another “homeowner” lecturing me or anybody else on this board about being an investor again!

I will humor them. Entertainment. I always smile when they do that.

Jeebus H. Christ, first and foremost very very very, vanishingly small numbers of McDebtors "own" their home. They rent, they just rent from a bank. Sure, some have equity but I hazard a guess that most do not.

Own=you have the title.
Not-own=bank has title.

Suck it long,
Suck it hard.

unless you like messing w/wookies

Didn't work for Jabba the hut, and I personally wouldn't recommend it.

:)

What do you guys think about this about my seeing almost no for sale signs?

Your prior comment answers your question.

I was in Santa Cruz county for the holidays- especially in the mountains-

I was in SC also, but in town and there are a bizzilion for sale signs.

test

Update from the best place on earth: I was in Santa Cruz county for the holidays- especially in the mountains- VERY FEW ALMOST NO for sale signs anywhere.

Holiday. No traffic.

I talked to people there- most things sell VERY QUICKLY when they go for a sale.

As of when? How quickly? Most people still remember only the summer peak.

From what i’ve heard from local people that have been there for years, some parts will see a 15% price correction, but when prices go up 50, 100 grand a year, a 15% reduction won’t help people much. -meaning it won’t help young people who want to get in there someday.

Wishful thinking.

Santa Cruz is not even served by a single interstate. I am not sure why it is considered so nice.

Surely the number of interstates a place has doesn't determine its quality of life.

If that were so, LA would be the best place on earth!

@seattledude,

What you saw is an artifact of: 1) A robust booming economy where real wages continue to grow and grow and grow, 2) the fact that Santa Cruz has ample jobs locally to support the average 800K $hitbox, 3) people have Faced Reality and just plain knuckled down, 4) the marijuana trade is up, have you seen the price of a good sack nowadays? (Jack?), 5) the RE market in $anta Cash mirrors what's going on in the rest of Ca, clear market fundamentals at work here. Supply Vs. Demand. period. I think those of bitter, jealous, moronic renters on the sidelines should either buy in now or stay BJM renters forever.

Surely the number of interstates a place has doesn’t determine its quality of life.

If that were so, LA would be the best place on earth!

No. But it would be nice to have at least one freeway that connects to the interstate system. Hwy 17 is not stress-free to drive on, you know. :)

I have to say that San Diego has the best freeway system I have seen though. NoCal has too many design flaws. Just count the number of four-leaf clovers we have here. Many do not have collector-distributor roads and were designed for 55 mph traffic in the 60's.

Maybe I’ll just go pitch a tent somewhere and live there and skip the whole kids, wife, mortgage part

Or as it's know down here, might as well trip out by the beach and drink beer. I lived in Portland for about a year, man I didn't think it was possible to be so depressed. Lovely weather, freaking drizzle all the time, not rain mind you, or sun, just slate gray skys with drizzle. Do I put the umbrella up or down? Screw that place, must be a booming market for prozac though. Cute chicks, good beer, couldn't wait to leave. Never even registered my car there.

seattledude, have you considered living closer to where you work, so that you don't have to commute? I took a 1/3 pay cut in the mid 90s to get a job in San Francisco and give up the 2 hr each way commute to San Jose. It was the best choice I ever made.

I could have moved to San Jose, but then I'd have had to live in San Jose.

I had to pare my lifestyle back quite a bit, sell the car and buy a motorcycle instead, move in with two other people in a big house, but all in all I am glad I did it.

Peter P, yeah I live in San Diego for about a year and half after my stint in the Army. I was just back down there for New Year's. I forgot how great the freeways are there. Wide, new, uncongested.. it was kind of amazing. I am sure the 8 is still crowded at rush hour, but other than that, I didn't see any congestion at all.

Hey, what's up with all the recent Portland & Seattle bashing?

Apparently, some of us here are *still* unaware (despite my best efforts to educate) that the Pacific NW coast is Shangri-La/Xanadu/El Dorado all rolled into one. A true fern-n-redwood utopia where the unicorns roam free between rivers of milk and honey. Jobs grow abundantly there among the many exotic varieties of mushrooms, magic or otherwise. There's no traffic, pollution, social problems or overpriced $hitboxes. Sure, it rains more than most areas, but only at night or when you're indoors.

I've never actually lived there, but I'm sure my unsubstantiated wish-projections are all 100% true.

Mr. UP, good to see you here. Hopefully the UP family BMW/Mercedes/Range Rover fleet made it through the last storms unscathed. :)

Olympia is pretty cool and housing is relatively cheap comparitively.

Ollllll leeeeee beeeeeer.

I know a dude that moved from Ca to Seattle and loves it, but then again he has declared the sun his mortal enemy. Have you considered becoming a Vampire?

@SQT,

Check out Mr. Up's link to Santa Cruz data. It shows inventory rising & sales falling pretty consistently since this summer. Regardless of how many signs are up on any given weekend, there's no question that we're just at the beginning of a long and painful correction and credit tightening cycle. If it follows the pattern of past bear markets, the list-pull-relist game will play out slo-mo over several years. I wouldn't sweat the small stuff.

Santa Cruz Co. is a small market - less than 300K people total - sort of like Marin.

@seattledude & Surfer-X,

Clearly, you're just conspiring to keep people out of the NW with your scurrilous disinformation campaign. So transparent :P .

Update from the best place on earth: I was in Santa Cruz county for the holidays- especially in the mountains- VERY FEW ALMOST NO for sale signs anywhere.

Also, perhaps the storm washed away all signs. :)

@HARM

There is no spoon.

@SQT,

Jack should be fine, it's Marin afterall, the flood waters were likely Evian. And those super savy locals probably just bottled it up and sold it.

seattledude, I understand now. Worse traffic than the Bay Area? Wow, that is saying something.

I know a couple of people that do high tech stuff in Sacramento and live in the Gold Country. They make half of what they would here though. They seem to think the trade off is worth it though.

SurferX, we just managed to board the GV for Mykonos prior to the ugliness, leaving the domestics to protect the compound and the auto fleet.

Oh, I would expect that you have already upgraded the GV to a G550. Hmm...

If Seattle traffic is really as bad as seattledude says, then maybe the monorail (mass transit) wasn't such a bad idea.

Peter P, come on now clearly Mr. UP is a Hawker 4000 type of guy.

Mr.Up you should visit Cairo. It has all those things you would want to see on your Middle East trip. Plus it is an amazing city, especially if you can afford a nice room.

But don't go in the summer or fall. Too hot and smoggy.

as you can see -it’s quickly turning into Carmel North
no sign of correction anywhere in sight.

Carmel, Santa Cruz, SLO, Santa Barbara and Vancouver are similar type of markets. They will turn later in the cycle of MIRAGE effects.

Love Cairo, and we still go even though the level of armed security required there since ‘97 is a pain. It is amazing, you’re right.

Isn't Cairo very dangerous?

I read something interesting today:

http://tinyurl.com/7shql

This news article from the Mercury News describes how someone with a $3,300/month (after tax) was able "afford" a $500,000 mortgage, was promised a rate of 5.3%, but it went up to 6.7% on closing, yet he decided to go ahead without revising his budget numbers.

He also borrowed a second loan, too, because he probably had no cash for a down payment, and wanted to avoid PMI, to start with.

The reporter blames the realtor, but I think the buyer should also share the blame. It looks like he actually believed his own phony income numbers, and never even bothered figuring out whether the monthly mortgage payment can be sustained by his monthly take-home pay.

Mr. UP, couldn't just have your BMW security shipped for your arrival?

Isn’t Cairo very dangerous?

Peter P, for peasant loser renters perhaps, but not for esteemed members of the homeowner community like Mr. UP. Are you kidding, the jihadists can see his clear superiority a mile off.