patrick.net

My bet is it jumps from birds to pigs, becomes transmissible between pigs and then to people in a crowded Asian city where the three live in very close proximity.

A very plausible scenario.

Unfortunately that person will probably then get directly onto a flight to SFO about 5 hours before the symptoms start.

There is no defense. Even if we close the airport bird will still get us eventually.

I think us humans have been too arrogant in thinking that we can cheat Nature.

GM’s “PAD” looked pretty cool! Now all it needs is graffiti proof paint.

Just see graffiti as THE new paint. ;)

TEST

First time posting--have been reading all of your posts for days now and am intrigued by the amount of info. and knowledge.

Perhaps we should just see a pandemic as Nature's way to liquidate "malinvesments".

We think that every human being is special, unique, and invaluable.

But Nature thinks that evey one of us is expendable.

Peter P,

Is anyone making $$$ trading the mini's?

You can't imagine the relief I've felt finally coming into contact with sane people like yourselves. I have tried many times with many different people of varying income levels and and 99 out of 100 look at me like I have 2 heads when I tell them that I think buying a home in this market is a bad investment.

Is anyone making $$$ trading the mini’s?

Don't know. It has decent liquidity and it is a 1256 contract for tax purpose (60/40 long/short term treatment), so I think it is no worse than stocks.

ps I wonder why my last post on prefab homes was moderated?

Does it contain links? Some links trigger moderation.

It's coming boys and girls, we'll show those pesky Persians a thing or two, how dare they price their oil in Euros, whoops I meant, lets keep the world safe from Nukler devices.

http://tinyurl.com/h8573

http://tinyurl.com/qw3te

Funny how the rhetoric is increasing as the Bourse is just about to open.

It’s coming boys and girls, we’ll show those pesky Persians a thing or two, how dare they price their oil in Euros, whoops I meant, lets keep the world safe from Nukler devices.

tinyurl.com/h8573

tinyurl.com/qw3te

Funny how the rhetoric is increasing as the Bourse is just about to open.

Davis,
No I haven't, thanks for the info, I'll check it out.

Believe it or not Seattle's RE is nearly as rediculous as CA. I rent a 300sq ft house on 75 ft of lake Sammamish waterfront with a boat lift for my ski boat and a huge yard for my child, in the best school district in the area, 2 miles from the Microsoft campus. $1.5 being offered to the owner to then be torn down and build a castle in it's place. I pay $2700/month

sorry should be 3000 sq ft

Believe it or not Seattle’s RE is nearly as rediculous as CA. I rent a 300sq ft house on 75 ft of lake Sammamish waterfront with a boat lift for my ski boat and a huge yard for my child, in the best school district in the area, 2 miles from the Microsoft campus. $1.5 being offered to the owner to then be torn down and build a castle in it’s place. I pay $2700/month

300sf or 3000sf?

I was a stock broker from '98-'02 i've seen this before and i learned my lesson.
I showed this blog to a few friends of mine and of coarse they said, "that's CA, it doesn't apply here.

I have tried many times with many different people of varying income levels and and 99 out of 100 look at me like I have 2 heads when I tell them that I think buying a home in this market is a bad investment.

Yes, (bad Clinton voice) I feel your pain... I have pretty given up even trying to reason with sheeple. I just congratulate them on their *wonderful* investment, suggest they buy three more just like it --preferably with a 100-year NAAVLP-- and end the conversation as quickly as possible. You can't fight ignorance and mother nature.

I live in a nicer place than almost everyone I know and they all want to come to our house and waterski and bbq but they all ask "so you lookin for a place to buy, only signed a one year lease didn't you?" I can hear the whispering and the derogatory comments insinuating that I am a lowere life form because I rent. Of coarse, that right before they tell me they'd like their burger med-rare. And, I always get the...."yes, but what about the tax deduction?" I can't take it, I'm going to lose my mind.

houselessinseattle,

Welcome fellow Northwesterner! Seattle and much of Portland is every bit as ridiculously priced as any other bubble region. What makes it more acute is that in many cases we don't have near the salaries/wages of the BA. With bidding wars up in our Pearl District rivaling NYC prices you really have to wonder what these people are thinking.

My best friend form college is an up and coming attorney in NYC and has moved a couple times in the last 5 years and made incredible gains on the homes. He makes about 300k, has a wife at home with 3 kids under 5 yrs old. He just bought a fixer-upper in a very wealthy suburb called Rye. The house cost 2mil plus all the ridiculous fees, etc, in NY. He had about 500k down and did a IO loan for the rest, and don't forget the 42k/year in taxes. This is a very frugal and intelligent person who tells me he knows it's a risk but RE in NY always goes up. Crazy

houselessinseattle,

And that's the part that grinds me! Northwesterners love to vilify Californians (that is unless they are selling their house to one)! We seem to want it both ways, the wide open spaces and abundant nature AND a decent standard of living without having any real infrastructure!

Then there's the long held myth that Californians are to blame for OUR affordability issues and at the same time chuckle under our breath b/c all these people move up here and pay whatever we ask b/c they're "stupid" and yet somehow have lots of money? To further the insanity they then insist that a correction or outright crash in CA won't affect us! I've given up.

Dinor,
I'm with you. I get less frustrated when I kick back on my deck overlooking the lake sipping on a beer knowing that I am living in a place that I have only dreamed of and I better enjoy it while i can.

SF Woman,

That was a great time! Before the "bleaching". You could go to a classy place or go slummin' on the same block! No more. The funny part is that everyone goes out of their way to act oh so sophisticated. I get it already!

waiting,

thanks for the rapport. When I talked to my wife about the elusive pending sales signs coming and going in packs, she thought I was suffering from some kind of hallucination. I almost wanted to document exactly on which date which pack became "on sale" and which pack "fell out of pending". I know it in my heart that some kind of marketing manipulation is going on (btw, I work in tech marketing, so we do some kind of tricks on people's psychology too, but not to the extent of white lies for fear of being sued). Is false "sale pending" sign in the RE industry some type of false advertising? Worse still, it is false data reporting. I think when everything unfolds, there may be some sort of class action suit possible.

courtesy of Rainman18 & cereal at Bens's blog:

“Flipagain’s Isle”

So this is the tale of our flippergang,
they’re screwed for a long long time
Trying to make the best of things,
but it’s an uphill climb
NO PHONE, NO CASH NO PLASMA SCREEN,
not a single luxury.
Like kids right out of med school,
they’re broke as broke can be.
So join us here each day my friend
you’re sure to get a smile.
From legions of dumb FB’s,
here on Flipagains Isle!

houseless,

I have a very good friend who grew up in Seattle and is still living there. He saw the 1991 crash up close and personal and sold both his own and his parents' residence in 2004, renting and waiting.

In 1991, he was living in Bellevue near Medina where the top packs from MSFT lived, including Bill and Steve of course. Such a prime area lost around 35%-40% within a year. He said the reported median price loss was much more mild because people who could afford to live in the prime areas, instead of paying less for the same house, chose to spend roughly the same amount and live it up. If one were to look at the transaction record of the same house, the value loss became much more significant.

He told me Seattle was always very much affected by CA in terms of RE price. When CA sneezes, Seattle catches a cold, since all the refugee money will be drained rapidly. Direct lakefront on Sammamish or Washington may hold up better, but if you are looking at somewhere along the I90 corridor in the Issaquah direction, expect at least a 30% drop. I can't believe how built up that corridor is!! I90 used to have so much better traffic a few years ago when I was visiting, I was told that it is getting almost as bad as 520.

Owneroccupier,

I held a mort. bkr. friend's feet to the fire on that one and I didn't much care for the answer. In typical "bubble speak" the response was "realtors are getting jumpy, they want to get their buyer to the head of the pack and later find they aren't qualified or whatever". I said, I'll go with whatever. Totally unsatisfactory.

The obvious alternative is to rent here. craigslist has, among others, a 4BR/2000sf house in Cupertino for $2,200 (probably negotiable, too).
----
Does house rents including utilities? I have not rented houses but I would like to. I know utilities run around $100 a month in an apartment. How much does (elec, gas, water and garbage) utilities run for a house ?

Phil,

utilities will be on your own, it depends on how large the house is and how much time you spent in your house. For a home of around 2200 sqft, you may be looking at 300-500 utilities a month in the winter and 150-300 for the rest of the year. I paid a 1,100 bill a few years ago when PG&E was all messed up. If you rent a smaller home, the cost will obviously be lower.

There are plenty of landlords out there who threw in the freebie water, garbage and gardener, so the big ticket items you should be looking out for is really gas and electricity.

OK Bay Area people, at least we can feel good about this- my little brother’s heating bill in upstate NY was $1000 last month, and he said that’s normal.

Unless it is too cold for the cats we do not usually bother heating the place.

SF Woman, Peter P,

I have a space heater under my desk that I bought for $9.99. Other than that I think the condo below keeps things just about right. $1,000 a month? Ouch!

@SFWoman,

Is your brother heating his place by burning $100 bills or something? Unless it's a McMansion, I don't get how that's possible. Maybe he should invest in some insulation or double-pane windows.

Frankly speaking, Forbes has dropped off my reading list for a long time. It has turned disgustingly biased (and I am a freaking Republican for god's sake), defending this admin's fatal mistakes left and right, while pumping totally unsubstantiated optimism about our economy. Where the hell is my small government??? Where the hell is my sustainable tax cut that won't be paid by my kid's future???

Forbes has now turned into a Fox TV of business mag, just a bunch of brainwash stuff. I seek comfort in the consistenly conservative yet wise Economist, which has made impartial calls on multiple issues.

Bay Area Homeowner,

Northwest is nice. If the job opportunities are just as good, I'd take Seattle any time. Too bad that apart from MSFT, Amazon, some wireless things and Starbucks (which doesn't employ that many people at HQ), there are almost no jobs.

You would assume that it should have evolved into a little Silicon Valley by now, but no, the amount of startup activities going on there is laughable.

"I almost wanted to document exactly on which date which pack became “on sale” and which pack “fell out of pending”."

It might be worthwhile to make some small effort at doing this, IMO.
Maybe do shotgun approach...jot down random pendings w/out paying much attention to details. Then parse the data at some point in the future when time allows.

Economist online is only around 59? (perhaps more, not more than 89 I am sure). I don't get paper any more, it is more convenient to read online anyway. Even when I was getting it in paper, I don't remember ever paying more than 100. There's always those 75% off deals for magazines.

SJ_Jim,

yeah, I am thinking of taking one random week and documenting what happened in that particular week. When the time comes, one more data point for the reporters...

"Forbes has now turned into a Fox TV of business mag, just a bunch of brainwash stuff. I seek comfort in the consistenly conservative yet wise Economist, which has made impartial calls on multiple issues."

"Brainwash stuff" is everywhere (i.e. "all the news that's fit to print" haha).
I like FOX because their personalities are up front with their beliefs, so you know what you're getting; it is then up to you to apply your filters. At the same time, their actual news updates are just that...news. Hey, everyone knows it's owned by conservative person so of course it trickles down...same deal exists with CNN. Mostly I like Brit Hume (classy) & Neil Cavuto (chummy). But I really can't stand when they over-expose a story...days & days of 24/7 coverage...which they tend to do with stories that touch on moral issues.
Overall, though, there are some relatively colorful personalities & I think it is a pretty good entertainews station.

Gotta love internet anonymity...I can actually admit to watching fox news and then choose not to read any rxns.

SJ_Jim,

watching Fox news is perfectly ok if you turn off your brain and say, let me be entertained. Nothing wrong with that. In a sense, Fox is better than Forbes, which pretended to be impartial and deep, but instead feed you with nothing but cool-aid. If I want cool-aid, I know where to get it, thank you very much. At least Fox doesn't pretend that its average readers are making six figures and business elites of the society.

Forbes has gotten really thin lately. That magazine used to be as thick as a phone book prior to the dotcom bust. Went downhill from there.

"Forbes has gotten really thin lately. That magazine used to be as thick as a phone book prior to the dotcom bust. Went downhill from there."

So, you're saying Forbes was *slightly* more diversified than Red Herring...!

You can look at parts of the Economist online. Or at the library or benevolent employer's, I suppose ; )

Have you seen 'Outfoxed'? Well worth a look. Rupert Murdoch (News Ltd) is an Aussie who inherited one smallish regional paper, and now owns 175 newspapers worldwide, many American TV and radio stations, all of Fox operations, Harper Collins and a few sundry other things. Because of his large influential media holdings, politicians more or less answer to him in fear. Some commentators say he really makes or breaks govts. He became an American citizen in order to buy the TV and radio stations, and suddenly became more republican than republicans. Owns many significant newspapers in Oz, UK and US.

it's interesting how the accumulation of capital allows a shrewd operator to accumulate even more capital. note that another aussie, frank lowy, 'owns' or is chairman of all the westfield shopping malls, many of them in CA... went from owning one delicatessen in sydney to a $42 bn empire...

just look at the wikipedia entries for 'rupert murdoch' and 'frank lowy'...

I still do not understand how the value of a house can go up by 75K after you do an upgrade with new appliances that cost 15K. You redo the bathroom with 10K in hardware and 5K in labor but the value of the house is now 75K more. Thats ridiculous. The value of the house just went up 15K. Can someone explain this logic to me. : )

slightly dead thread, but when the housing market was booming, it was hard to disentangle the value added by renos from the boom effect, so people started saying it was the renos that did it. there is possibly a slight psychological effect to selling a nice renovated house to someone over an unrenovated one, particularly when people aren't handy or don't know the cost of a reno, or can't be bothered attempting it themselves. now that the market is turning in Oz, the bureau of stats is finding that much less is being spent on renos, because speculators doing a 'quick fix' for resale aren't sure they are going to get their money back as the market cools...