patrick.net

Anywhere there is a huge military base in a state w/ influential politicians. We always seem to be bombing someone and we have a military presence in over 140 countries. I've noticed that my sister's neighborhood home prices in Hampton, VA (Norfolk) have held up OK. One of the complaints my brother-in-law has, though, is due to the high turn over. It's hard to get the community to invest in long term projects.

Where there was no bubble from 1998 to 2008 and prices kept up with inflation.

Some parts of Texas never went up (spike) nor did southern metros.
http://www.housingbubblebust.com/OFHEO/Major/Texas.html
http://www.housingbubblebust.com/OFHEO/Major/SouthEast.html

"Most of the posts in the housing forum say “this is the worst time to buy this *** house"

Actually I had said that from 2002 to the peak years 2008, however some regions in CA and the metro Vegas
have corrected.

http://www.housingbubblebust.com/OFHEO/Major/SouthWest.html
http://www.housingbubblebust.com/OFHEO/Major/CenCal.html

Not a bad time to buy there! however you will find SF Bay Area still needs plenty of corrections to take place.
Only a matter of time for reality for the current Bay Area residents to sink in.

"But but it is starting to sounds like an overzealously repeated mantra without sound and reason"

The jing-jang is..Not only do high prices lock out new buyers, it also puts at risk jobs of current homeowners and community as a whole. As prices remain higher here employers will shift jobs elsewhere like Texas, South, Overseas.
We certainly saw jobs leave Silicon Valley for Texas/Washington/Asia back in 1986-88 right before the correction 1989-1995. Those jobs never came back. Im not only talking about manufacturing, but also once highly paid corporate accounting, R&D, Marketing, Financial Analyst and other functions. Yahoo this year, as part of its 'long term strategic goal', moved its Finance to India. All the jobs moved out, will never come back. There just isn't any incentive or business reason. It is no wonder as prices moved higher so have jobs moved out. Things still remain way out of balance around here.

As you can see.. no overzealous mantra. Its based on proven business practice documented in the local history.

Leigh - that maybe what you see today, but as we had seen even in SoCal with the Aerospace Industry, Things change.

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/VA-Norfolk-City-County-home-value/r_3173/#metric=mt%3D34%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D6%26rt%3D6%26r%3D3173%2C6210%2C26067%2C36826

In those charts they lump Round Rock with Austin. The two are not really the same, so I think that's unfair. Round Rock is well outside of Austin proper and barely existed before Dell moved their HQ there. Austin has seen stupid appreciation in the last four years. A cursory look at Zillow on any random house in Central Austin (including 900 sq ft shitboxes) easily reveals a large protuberance in the five year history chart. I think we've lagged the curve, and suspect that this is the same story for other parts of the country that apparently avoided the scourge of the bubble.

Vegas is quite reasonable at the moment - and if prices continue to drop that'll be awesome for buyers. I met a guy yesterday who told me that he bought five years ago for $160k (3,000 sqft); comps were selling for $460k a couple of years ago and now it's back to $160k. Thar's bargains in them thar hills.

The thing about Vegas, Arizona and So Florida is there was lots and lots of media coverage.
Overbuilding, out of state speculation, extreme risky loans, greed, etc etc... and then the bust!

As any native, who lived there in that region must have asked "what the hell changed for prices
to skyrocket that much?" Certainly was not the right time to buy but wait as prices eventually
corrected.

Hello Austin, how has Dells move to Roundrock and their growth over the years had an impact on
prices from your perspective? Several Silicon Valley companies (Apple, AMD, National, etc) moved their operations from CA to Austin but that that was several years ago.

There's been an exodus to Round Rock over the years from downtown Central Austin and surrounding areas. A lot of the tech companies have been laying off over the last year and a half, and there is something of a dearth of high paying tech jobs -- and that's according to the coverage of a recent tech job fair by the Statesman, one of the sunniest, funniest paper I've ever read.

Relatively speaking, Austin is probably better off economically than a lot of other parts of the nation, but in this economy, that doesn't seem like it's saying much. Almost like horses comparing hides in a rendering factory. I also don't see how it is sustainable.

I moved out of California in 2006. Sold my house there for $700k. Bought the same size house 1 hour West of Madison WI for $155K.
Taxes are 2900 year, water is free as I have a well with very clean water (don't have to buy bottles anymore)

I say Wisconsin, outside of Madison is awesome and cheap. Just get yourself a nice awd (I bought a jaguar x awd) and the winters are no problemo.

As the beach boys used to say, "We'll have fun fun fun till the banks take our credit cards and homes away"

don
Gotham, WI