patrick.net

Silicon Valley is back - thanks to the person who pointed out the WSJ article above!

"People keep saying Silicon Valley is dead, and it's never true," says Sean Randolph, president of the Bay Area Economic Forum, a San Francisco-based group that studies the region's economy. "There's an immense infrastructure for research and development here," he says, that helps push Silicon Valley continually up the skills curve.

One of its big draws is money. Average annual pay for the region's tech workers rose to $70,000 last year from around $64,000 in 2003, according to Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a nonprofit business group. Executive positions typically command six-figure packages. While stock options have come under fire amid cases of improper dating of grants, many tech companies, especially start-ups, are still doling them out heavily. That offers employees the chance to cash in big if their company goes public and its stock price rises.

But in February 2005, fed up with Minnesota winters, Mr. Boos called two recruiters. He told them he wanted a job at a California start-up that was heading toward an initial public offering, which would offer him a chance to get rich. Mr. Boos quickly landed an interview with Good Technology, a fast-growing company that competes with BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd.

Mr. Boos paid nearly $1.4 million for a Silicon Valley home, according to public records, three times what he got for his Minnesota home last year. His wife, Rhonda, who had worked for Sun Microsystems in Minnesota for 17 years, transferred to Sun's Silicon Valley headquarters from Minneapolis and received a 15% increase in total compensation.

Mrs. Odell, a stay-at-home mom, says she worried about moving the family and paying for housing. "It's a big risk," she says. "I was in denial. For a few weeks, I didn't think Jamie would really do this." In February, she and Mr. Odell flew to Silicon Valley and realized they would have to pay more than $1 million for what they considered a passable house. "It's scary that you can pay so much and get so little," says Mrs. Odell, who is also 40.

Argh. If only all my stock options weren't underwater :(

In the tristate area of NYC, real estate taxes are becoming unbearable for many homeowners. In NJ, where the local government had to shutdown for a couple of days due to budget problems, the outlook for future taxes hikes is extremely worrisome for homeowners.

It's not just the prices in BA, it's also the quality of housing stock. Anything below $1 M will be some combination of tiny, far out, tiny lot, next to busy street, bad neighborhood, or in need of major repairs. These houses would be considered working class housing or worse just about anywhere else in the country.

UCSB where the current troll resides has a fair use policy that specifically indicates one cannot engage in this type of behavior.

here is the troll's IP's 128.111.97.162

and here is where the real assfucking begins. please do not delete any of his vile diatribe as i am forwarding it to the admin at ucsb.

OrgName: University of California, Santa Barbara
OrgID: UCSB
Address: Office of Information Technology
Address: North Hall 2124
City: Santa Barbara
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 93106-3201
Country: US

NetRange: 128.111.0.0 - 128.111.255.255
CIDR: 128.111.0.0/16
NetName: UCSB
NetHandle: NET-128-111-0-0-1
Parent: NET-128-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: NS1.UCSB.EDU
NameServer: NS2.UCSB.EDU
NameServer: KNOT.BROWN.EDU
Comment:
RegDate: 1986-02-18
Updated: 2003-10-03

RTechHandle: KS1217-ARIN
RTechName: Schmidt, Kevin
RTechPhone: +1-805-893-7779
RTechEmail: kps@ucsb.edu

OrgTechHandle: KS1217-ARIN
OrgTechName: Schmidt, Kevin
OrgTechPhone: +1-805-893-7779

I think Ol Kevin Schmidt would love to hear what the troll has been writing. The UC does not take kindly to this type of crap.

By by troll, time to go watch girls gone wild for the 78th time while jacking off with your frat bros.

another_troll,

If I had bought, the bank would have owned the property, they only would give us interest only loan - so we get to rent from the bank, pay property taxes and for the upkeep of the house adn be in a much worse school district and farther away from work. If property values even went down 10%, we would have lost our deposit. I AM NOT THAT STUPID.

Different Sean Says:

> hee hee, i’m posting from my new imate pda phone…
> now I can access patrick.net continually from anywhere
> - it’s like a perpetual online heroin fix…

I have a Palm Treo 700W and whenever I try and read the patrick.net on the phone/PDA all the text shows up in the middle of the screen with wide margins. Does anyone know how to fix this??

I kind of think it's fun to have a troll around occasionally, just so you can bash them. Shouldn't you play with them more though? Before really kicking a$$?

Perhaps Brian's mommy worked at this real estate office...

http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_4173269

East Bay real estate fixture collapses

"In yet another sign of the region's cooling housing market and rapidly changing real estate landscape, prominent East Bay firm Century 21 Heritage shut at the end of last month"

Pulte Homes, one of the nation's leading new home builders, is offering a free helicopter ride around Manhattan with the purchase of one of their South Hampton homes.

No thanks, I'll wait for the 2 for 1 sale instead ;-).

On the subject of stocks, what balance do most people hold - mutual funds in a 401K? Are small caps worth investing in or not - what %age? I am currently rebalancing/changing our paltry 401K mix - because I'm bored - really bad reason I know.

Claire, has always the key is to diversify. In addition to your various flavors of domestic stock, try to put some money into international/global stock. Also try Energy, Health, Precious metals and the money market. Fundamentals are favorable for cash in the short term.

tinyurl.com/hxeqa

Using computer resources to harass, assault, slander or libel another person, sexually or otherwise, is untenable, and may constitute a violation of University policy and State laws. Harassment may include correspond ing with another when you have no University business with them and they have asked you to cease, regardless of the nature of correspondence. Public display of offensive materials in any medium is considered harassment.

I.E., troll shall have my fucking size 13 boot right the fuck up his ass.

Oh, goes without saying that it shall be “sans lube”, of course.

No kissing or fondling either, that’s reserved for HARM.

Toll Brothers Sees Deeper Housing Slump

http://www.smartmoney.com/bn/ON/index.cfm?story=ON-20060809-000594-1205

"It appears that the current housing slowdown, which we first saw in September 2005, is somewhat unique," said Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive of Toll Brothers, in a statement. "It is the first downturn in the 40 years since we entered the business that was not precipitated by high interest rates, a weak economy, job losses or other macroeconomic factors."

He said the deteriorating housing conditions appear to be driven solely by an inventory glut and a decline in home-buyer confidence.

"Speculative buyers who spurred demand in 2004 and 2005 are now sellers, (and) builders that built speculative homes must now move their specs," said Robert Toll.

"Faced with heavy discounting by many other builders, we generally have chosen to allow sales paces to slow rather than aggressively discount our home prices," Toll said. Also, he said the company "rarely" starts construction on a single-family home without a buyer's signed agreement and a substantial down payment.

Yes, lock-in that sucker first. lol.

Are there people on this planet that stupid to fall for something like this now?

Lilll, apparently he'd rather not do business than lower his prices. Let's see how long they can keep their doors open without making a sale. lol.

You guys scared the college troll boy away, I’m guessing he was a boy and had nothing to do on a saturday night but bang away on a Blog. Now what is he going to bang away on?

Probably an inflatable doll!

allah,

I'm not too surprised. I've heard of some people in LA who would stave off foreclosure proceedings by giving 1/32th of their worthless equity to a relative, to force the lender to restart the foreclosure proceedings for their relative. Allegedly, this would go on for years, as one relative gets foreclosed on, they'd give another 1/32th to another relative, and so on, everytime a new owner comes in, the bank would restart the process.

The end result is that a lot of people get their credit completely trashed over a couple thousand dollars in mortgage payments, but people seem quite willing to do that over a couple thousand in free rent, so plenty more people should be willing to do it for 10 or 100 times that much money.

I missed all the fun. I spent all day purging needless junk from my garage and come back to find that you guys have been living it up with a new troll toy.

RC,

Yea, I purged all his earlier stuff. He came in here and started lashing out at DinOR, lol. DinOR. He's one red hot controversial character. Then he complained that you'd banned him from Ben's Blog.

Hint to trolls: don't admit you've been banned other places, and don't pick on the nice guy regular (especially an old chicago boy).

FAB,

I don't think you can fix that on your Trio. The way wordpress formats its output is "squeezed" at the margins, so it renders terribly on any kind of PDA that tries to keep the formatting in tact. You might try to find a proxy somewhere for Trio's that takes a URL and reformatts it in plain text for your device. (disclaimer, i'm not a fan of wordpress)

Visited a friend (fellow renter) in Danville (East Bay) today. It looks like the wheels are starting to come off RE in the Danville/San Ramon area. I passed dozens of open houses on the way there. We took a little walk in the afternoon and went by a couple of open houses - no traffic at all.

3 or 4 THs in my friend's complex up for sale. One of them has been on the market since September, price reduced from 680K to 588K (in several stages since Sept), this is for a 3 BR 1500Sq Ft TH in Danville. Homes still outrageously priced there, of course, but it looking as though the bust is gathering momentum. (These THs were selling for 250K-300K about 5 years ago).

Earlier today, was chatting up my neighbor (he quite a tech job for real estate a couple of years ago). He sounded depressed. But he did say that "we've hit bottom and things will look up once school starts". I nodded politely, related the incident to my friend and we had a hearty laugh.

The next few years are going to be very interesting, as ARMs reset en masse into higher rates, and consumer spending slows dramatically. The "silicon valley is immune from RE downturns" theory is about to get a good test.

LILL,

Smart move calling in the X-man. Another troll gets a well deserved size-13 boot up his ass. Or perhaps it was just our old pal, Juku/MP/CuriousCat/WoopAss/cruiser/LittleWorried/etc. under a new identity. Either way, good riddance.

No kissing or fondling either, that’s reserved for HARM

Dearest X, I am most flattered (and don’t anyone go and get the wrong impression now :P ). I recommend extending these privileges to our resident hotties, LILL & SQT too!

Blog Party?

Labor day?

X,

Count me in!

I have a Palm Treo 700W and whenever I try and read the patrick.net on the phone/PDA all the text shows up in the middle of the screen with wide margins. Does anyone know how to fix this??

You can display full width by choosing: Menu | View > | One column

I don't think you should delete their(the trolls) comments, but if you do, there should be a troll archive somewhere on this site where all their sniplets can be placed. This way when all is said and done and the house prices freefall, we are in a recession (and possibly lose all our jobs), and there isn't much to talk about anymore, we can take out the troll archives and laugh it up over how wrong they were.

I wrote:

> I have a Palm Treo 700W and whenever I try and
> read the patrick.net on the phone/PDA all the text
> shows up in the middle of the screen with wide
> margins. Does anyone know how to fix this??

Then Randy H. wrote:

> I don’t think you can fix that on your Trio. The way
> wordpress formats its output is “squeezed” at the
> margins, so it renders terribly on any kind of PDA

Then Different Sean wrote:

> You can display full width by choosing:
> Menu | View > | One column

I want to thank Different Sean for the tip. Patrick.net now looks great on the phone.

The Treo is one of those things that I wish I got earlier. I almost didn’t sign up for web access (I was just going to get a SD Wi Fi card), but now I use it many times a day…

The common thread that we seem to find in virtually all trolls is that just can't fathom that someone would actually HAVE A CASH POSITION!

Why is this so incomprehensible to trolls! On any given day I have millions of dollars on my money line in cash with different clients from ALL WALKS OF LIFE! Some are going through life events or just sold out a position and want to wait to see what comes next before redploying their cash.

Why is this SO DIFFICULT for trolls to understand! Sheesh.

I suppose in this "Borrowallyoucangetyourhandson Society" the notion of "saved" or "paid up" equity is totally freakin' alien!

How would the new bankrupty laws affect her? Can the bank not go after her? Is this because of some law about first mortgage on a house?

I still have a lot to learn about this stuff

Claire,

I really couldn't say. For me this is like asking me how do I perform abortions. (Well I just don't). I'm not qualified and I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!

I've got to imagine that it will be difficult if not impossible for the original lenders to monitor. It's not against the law to go out and shop for a new home! (Even with slightly dinged credit). You see, being an FB is all about having flexibility! You know, keeping your "options" ope? This gal had absolutely NO REMORSE and was actually purring like she'd pulled off a quite a little financial "feat"!

Scumbag.

LILLL,

I'm sure I didn't "invent" it but if you're in a generous mood I'll gladly take credit!

I think I read somewhere that on a first loan, the bank can't go after you for the shortfall, but if it's a refi or heloc they can, that's why it's in the best interest of banks to offer you a refi to "help you out". I was wondering if someone more knowledgable would know. I sincerely hope this lady did a refi. Was it on this blog where someone said realtors were buying new homes up Vallejo way, cashing out $100,000, and then planning on living rent free for a year before walking away?

What is this going to mean for all of us? Surely, it will make it harder for us all to get our houses when we are ready - because of all the scandals and tightening of lending standards?

LILLL/allah,

What a great idea! Maybe we could roll out the "Dumbest Things Ever Said by a Troll" for a special October 2006 Pay Per View!

*October marking the first anniversary of the market "peak"!

Claire,

Uh, it's hardly just realtors pulling of this cute little stunt. Isn't everybody that's doing a "cash out re-fi" basically living off of the same borrowed time?

Oh but I do agree, the fact they're "industry professionals" elevates the scumbag factor considerably!

Claire,

The upside to a tight lending market is that it'll push a lot of buyers out and force selling prices down. It'll be very good for anyone with excellent credit and a large chunk of cash for down payment.

DinOR,

That's fairly bad. I guess a lot of Americans don't care if they go bankrupt anymore, "owning" right now is just so important. Maybe they still think housing will go up 20% a year for another 10 years and bail they out (though if that ever happened, they'd just spend the loot on HELOC bought toys.

But I'd still say the daisychain foreclosures is the stupidest and scuzziest practice I had ever heard of. It's hard to believe people would wreck their credit so an irresponsible family member can stay in their home for another 8 months, but it's allegedly a real practice in some parts of the country.

DinOR, that was my point exactly, none of these fools are ballers. Perhaps I am just bitter I didn't borrow my way to riches.