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What Are People Thinking??!


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2006 Feb 1, 3:22am   10,255 views  66 comments

by SQT15   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

From SFWoman's post.

I just had coffee with a couple of friends and of course the discussion turned to real estate. I said I would like to buy a larger place in SF, but since I am comfortable in my place now I’ll wait for the prices to come down. Instantly I got a stern lecture on how San Francisco prices could at most level off, and how ‘there is no place to expand the city, they aren’t making land anymore, San francisco is desirable and everybody is moving here, prices never drop here..etc…’.

I pointed out that I paid $157,000 LESS for my place in 1994 than the previous owners had paid in 1989, but my friends said that was a blip/anomally/earthquake specific. I pointed out that Tokyo had tanked and was a much more important city but thay said Tokyo had run up much more than SF (I have to look into that). Nothing I said about ARMs, interest only loans or even negative amortization could convince them that people hadn’t been rational about real estate for the last few years. I even said San Francisco had a lot of brownfields in which to expand and there were something like 30,000 condos approved in the South of Market area.

Is there a sort of mental illness (in that people can’t recognize reality) that goes along with real estate transactions in California?

It was amazing, they really believe that the real estate bubble is based on something more solid than very easy credit.

#housing

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53   inquiring mind   2006 Feb 2, 1:27am  

"My question is “based on what?” "

Why, looking in the rearview mirror of course! We've had all these wonderful appreciation percentages for the past X years, therefore it must continue just as it is forever! That is their (weak) rationale.

54   inquiring mind   2006 Feb 2, 2:21am  

SQT: Knowing you're in Sac, I thought you may want to know that Lyon Real Estate has basically stopped updating its market statistics pages by county. Hmmmm...

http://www.golyon.com/pricingtrends_f.htm

Yeah, it's nice they're predicting a good spring, but the problem is we're in February now - Spring is only 2 months away! Can't imagine things turning around that quickly...

55   HARM   2006 Feb 2, 3:43am  

Ok, now it's my turn to be clueless. What's "PPP"?

In the I.T. world, of course it's "point-to-point protocol" or occasionally, "PowerPoint Presentation". Since we're talking finance/prices here, I'll go out on a limb and guess you mean "purchasing power parity (PPP)"?

56   Peter P   2006 Feb 2, 3:53am  

You’re entirely too intelligent to get stuck working the bond desk. They’re looking for “soldiers”.

DinOR, I am probably not as intelligent as you think. However, Trust Departments do sound like fun. I will look into it. :)

Thanks!

57   Peter P   2006 Feb 2, 3:56am  

Yeah, it’s nice they’re predicting a good spring, but the problem is we’re in February now - Spring is only 2 months away! Can’t imagine things turning around that quickly…

I do predict a spring blip. ;)

It will be more anti-climatic than their own little version of "soft landing".

58   marinite   2006 Feb 2, 4:45am  

Is there a sort of mental illness (in that people can’t recognize reality) that goes along with real estate transactions in California?

It was amazing, they really believe that the real estate bubble is based on something more solid than very easy credit.

They HAVE to believe it. They have to because they are so in debted. It's called denial, self-justification, cognitive dissonance.

59   surfer-x   2006 Feb 2, 5:13am  

HARM, ppt is powerpoint, sorry I've been doing mindless ppt's all day

60   DinOR   2006 Feb 2, 5:51am  

Peter P,

There are days where I'm not so sure how smart I am either. Every time I've called a bond desk they are so frazzled they just give you a quick schpeel and then either you buy or you don't. They can't wait to get you off the phone b/c they have 2 other lines ringing and now you're holding them up. It's just not a healthy environment for anybody and your exposure is so limited.

What I would love to see from all of the "techies" out there is a software program where some stock jock like myself can log on, plug in some rudimentary data and be able to tell clients with certainty if owning an income property makes more sense OUTSIDE of their IRA (take the depreciation) or (B) own it within their IRA and be exempt from cap gains. Age, tax bracket, years to retirement, years to Req. Min Distribution etc. Has anybody heard of any platform or calculator that can "tame" this situation? The status quo is to get the client's CPA, the client, property manager, lender (if UBTI is an issue) and myself in the same room at the same time. Everyone thinks they have the client's best interest at heart but it becomes a big dog and pony show with little resolved. I just need a nice tidy package the guy can bring to his CPA etc. If the client doesn't move forward, no big, at least we didn't put a lot of time into it. Anybody?

61   DinOR   2006 Feb 2, 7:56am  

PS,

Other folks on the blog have contacted me personally, I think they contact the Administrator and they will give you my email address. If you have a solution that would save a lot of time (and face) I'm open! Please feel free to contact me, Many thanks,

DinOR

62   DinOR   2006 Feb 2, 11:54am  

SQT,

Thank you! That would be great, sorry about the delay.

63   Unalloyed   2006 Feb 2, 3:52pm  

Okay. A Realtorâ„¢ was stepping out of her BMW to set up for an open house when a truck that was doing 50 smashed into the door of the BMW, ripping it off and running over her foot. After the hit and run, a worried neighbor came over and said, "do you need an ambulance?" The Realtorâ„¢ yelled "F#%K YOU!, look at what he did to my beamer!" The good neighbor replied, "You Realtorâ„¢s are all selfish, self-centered, materialists. Can't you see your foot has been crushed?" Then the Realtorâ„¢ screamed "OH F#%K, MY GUCCI SHOES!"

64   Unalloyed   2006 Feb 2, 4:12pm  

SQT, Yes the BMW joke is a recycled lawyer joke.

65   Unalloyed   2006 Feb 2, 4:33pm  

I would like to post things like "Regression analyses on the Keebler-Palmolive model have shown that a 37% decline in RE prices contradict both the Bernanke Flipper hypothesis and the NAR estimate for Q1 of '06," or "The assertion that the NorCal condo market is 43% over-valued is supported by the Bubblicious Dirigible Theorem, a widely alluded to but not so widely understood metric," but alas I don't possess the education in economics.

66   surfer-x   2006 Feb 6, 5:51am  

RE is so over, how do I know? Watch the super bowl? Did you pay attention the ameriquest commerical? The one that said "don't judge too quickly, we won't". Nice. I recall with fondness the dot.com superbowl and the implosion the next year.

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