patrick.net

M. Cote,

Crazy prices are fine if they're accompanied by crazy wages or crazy good weather. But most of CA's jobs are not 80% better paying than jobs elsewhere.

I also don't think CA prices have been crazy for 40 years. According to FAB's comments, some of those million dollar homes were still quite affordable in the 60's and 70's. Homes were a lot less crazy as late as 4 to 5 years ago. I recalled seeing decent looking middle class homes in nice areas for $300K or some really nice stuff going for just a touch over half a million.

I don't think anyone here gets shot for going OT. Otherwise, I'd be a very lacy chunk of swiss cheese.

HARM,

I’d call that gender-neutral human nature.

But we've already established that neither you nor I live in the real world.

To be fair I should add I'm not suggesting raising capital with which to speculate on commodities/stocks should be as easy as driving up to the ATM machine!

I'm only asking should it be like falling off a log for every FB and his long lost brother to borrow 500-750-999K b/c he could fog a mirror?

Should we be setting up a GSE that "gurantees" loans to increase participation in the housing futures market?

If it makes anyone laugh, I’m currently wiring the gigabit and telecom and digital cable and my fingertips are raw from the punchdown blocks.

I am laughing. I'm currently working on planning enhancements to my previous company's main software product: the system thatt designs, provisions, and manages those very datacom circuits you're punching.

Randy,

I was born and raised in California, but my mother and her large family are from Centerville. I attended UD and lived in Kettering in the early 90's. I met my husband while I lived in Ohio (he's originally from Germantown). Mom lives here now but would like to move back to OH when she retires in a few years. I keep an eye on the housing market in OH for her, and maybe for us if CA continues to be out of reach.

From my own personal data (that's the plural of anecdote, no?), people who are studying hard in school have internalized a lot of assumptions about where they'll go in life. For some, this includes the idea of eventually taking time off to raise kids (male or female, but mostly female).

The idea of digging out such assumptions to hold them up to the light seems foreign to a great many people. When it does happen, it's often presented as a sudden insight that simply replaces the assumptions with a different set. I don't think there's much that can happen in the 'adult' world to change it on a large scale; it's something that needs to be addressed at the primary school level.

/me blames the problem on anyone who answers a kid's question of "Why" with "Because that's the way things are".

Robert C,

It's been years since I've seen Mr. Blanding so I'll have to check for it under "classics". Thanks.

Robert Cote Says:

No. The Case-Shiller index is still solidly up. There exists a growing number of INVESTORS that PREDICT the future prices will be down. This no-brainer obvious result will kill C-S as an investment vehicle. If it is obvious there is no margin to speculate. If it doesn’t show the massive decline that appears to be in the market at the time people will call it flawed. Either way; dead.

RC, You seem to be derailing from the original point of this article (from the MSM, granted). Any predictions gleaned from investor sentiment seem to me not particularly correlated with whether or not the instrument succeeds or fails, at least not directly. The way I interpret this, there are a core of either smart or out-there investors trying this thing out and betting (or at least hedging) on a housing decline. I have no experience in futures trading at all, but at least this article and Mr. Shiller seem to think this may be predictive of future prices.

As a separate issue, whether or not this instrument will have enough "margin to speculate," I would think that depends on how divergent opinions about the RE market's direction are. Seems right now, opinions are pretty darn divergent about RE across the general investing population. Also, wouldn't there be similar divergence of opinion on the other end of the market cycle, re: "when is the bust going to be over and prices start heading back up?" If it is indeed predictive, it still seems that there will always be RE bulls at any point in the market cycle to counter "bear" hedgers. I do wonder, however, why these bulls would decide to put money into futures rather than to pump it into straight-up RE investments, or even RE-related funds. In that sense, I agree that there seems to be an inherent problem.

As far as you (or anyone else with expertise) know(s), how tightly predictive are futures in other areas, like traditional commodities, currencies, etc.?

Sorry for the futures-trading naivete!

lunarpark,

I was back in OH a couple of months ago. We were driving down 75 from rural Toledo, where my wife's family still lives. I was astounded by the tremendous amount of commercial building that is going on throughout the entire 75 corridor approaching Dayton and then across 35. Not too long ago most of that area was farmland.

I feel a need to go listen to The Pretenders.

SQT,

I'd say America today is just not family friendly and not particularly women friendly.

Randy,

The amount of building IS truly astounding. I did not believe in a national bubble until I visited Ohio last year. It used to be farmland for much of the drive out to my brother-in-law's house in Lebanon. It is almost completely built out now. With the troubles at GM, Delphi, and their suppliers, I *wonder* what will happen to the Dayton area. I would be perfectly happy with an old house in Oakwood, but where would I work?

Drop a quarter in the jukebox for The Afghan Whigs and Howlin' Maggie too :)

SQT,

Ahem. As a work at home Dad let me assure I share no such delusions. I'm responsible it seems for everything and everyone. It's a stressful thankless grind.

No one in my family even bothers to learn anything! Why! The "old man" will take care of it. Can't remember the number to the bank branch? Don't have time to check the weather? Think they over withheld on your FITW? FICA? SITW? Why bother to learn the calculations? I'm just telling you, now that I'm their unpaid financial adv. there are worse things than putting on band-aids. It gets worse.

Not to worry! Dad's got it.

SQT,

You raise a good point. I think there's a growing sentiment that the so-called "success" of the feminist revolution of the '60's and '70's is turning out to have some major kinks. Women today who want to have a career are often in a bind. They can gun for it and work as hard as their male counterparts, and I do believe these women have equal or at least nearly-equal success. However, what happens when they want a family and kids? Unfortunately, most husbands today still expect, or at least have an implicit hope that their wives will do the bulk of the childraising. These career women then try to juggle the kid-raising and a high-powered job, which is near-impossible. My wife and I are in a similar boat (I hope I'm not doing less than my fair share, though!). Successful female partners at her law firm seem to either have basically a house-husband, a mega-involved nanny, or no kids. Over the several years since my wife graduated law school, her female friends have basically all quit and had kids, not married (or even dated seriously) yet, or moved to a low-stress in-house 9-5 job. Same goes in the medical profession.

Mike Says:

However, a close friend owned a MailBox USA franchise in Los Angeles a few years ago and he had one of these “How To Get Rich in Real Estate”. guru’s as one of his customers. My friend told me this guy’s mailbox was crammed full of envelopes every day and the guy drove a Rolls-Royce and sported all the ostentatious trimmings like gold Rolex watch, etc.

I wonder, was that customer Tom Vu? If so, were both of his arms draped with bikini-clad women?

DinOR,

While you're at it, could you brew a couple gallons of heifweizen for me? And please home grow some organic lemons.

Oh, and while you're at it, could you raise some free range chickens? 18 or 20 would do it. I want Buffalo wings. Oh yeah, don't forget celery and blue cheese dressing? Could you make a trip to Iowa for the Maytag Blue?

Got all that down?

Thanks.

Unfortunately, most husbands today still expect, or at least have an implicit hope that their wives will do the bulk of the childraising. These career women then try to juggle the kid-raising and a high-powered job, which is near-impossible.

There's the problem. The husband needs a serious correction in his expectations, and ideally this should happen before kids come along. (Also, why is it that only women are expected to want family and kids?) I don't think the revolution has kinks; the kinks come from retaining the assumption that women should do the childraising.

Women also have to change their expectations from marriages. Successful career guys have long sought out less ambitious women for wives. Successful women who want their husband to shoulder more child rearing responsibility probably need to look for less successful husbands who are good with kids.

Sherri Says:

With RE market is cooling down, how come the home prices still went up comparing a year ago. Shouldn’t the prices at least be very much the same? How fast the prices should drop to be considered as a hard landing?

There are a few reasons this is the case. As many, many have discussed here, sales PRICES are a lagging indicator of market direction. Prices reflect closings, which in turn reflect purchase agreements 1-2months prior. Prices are also "the last to go." First, sales VOLUME dries up, as buyers are not biting and sellers are slow to lower prices. Prices start coming down after that. Also, in the early stages of a correction, buyers who still purchase won't follow prices down and buy the same type of home for less - they just buy a nicer home than they could previously for the same price. Price per sq. ft. would probably be a way around this issue. Another factor is, at least with new construction, HB's have been throwing in incentives like mad (free kitchen upgrades, free pools, flat-panel TV's, etc.) rather than lowering prices, until recently. Imagine how pissed off a recent buyer in a development would be if all of a sudden an equivalent house were offered at $100K less than what they bought for!

I get flack for not working (ie:, sponging of the husband) and female friends of mine get flack for working (ie:, don’t care enough about the kids to stay home and raise them).

It's tough knife for the husbands too. You want to support the decision of the women you love who was making a similar salary to yours, but you know that adding the additional mouth or mouths is going to make that lost salary all the more painful and that now all the mouths are depending on you.

I don't mind my wife "sponging", I just mind the fact that we've cut back expenses dramatically and yet still our Net Wealth is growing at a greatly reduced rate from before. The profits from the revolution have been claimed by the Capitalistic wheel. One salary is a lot harder to live on these days.

It's times like these that you've got to dismiss the dismal science, and go play with your kids. And stop blogging, damn, now I've added 20 minutes to my work day.

Unfortunately, most husbands today still expect, or at least have an implicit hope that their wives will do the bulk of the childraising. These career women then try to juggle the kid-raising and a high-powered job, which is near-impossible.

From personal experience, these men are missing out on the opportunity to have better relationships with both their children and their wife.

requiem Says:

There’s the problem. The husband needs a serious correction in his expectations, and ideally this should happen before kids come along. (Also, why is it that only women are expected to want family and kids?) I don’t think the revolution has kinks; the kinks come from retaining the assumption that women should do the childraising.

Who ever implied only women are expected to want family and kids? Not me. I do agree though, that husband expectations need to change. Our friends are all extremely over-educated and many consider themselves "progressive." However, a fair number of the husbands basically act like Ward Cleaver, come home every night, watch TV or read the paper, and wait for the wife to put dinner on the table. That's after she's worked a full day, picked up the kids from daycare, etc etc.

Of course some of the onus falls on husbands like these. But another part of the solution has to come from the workplace. Corporations, firms, etc have to stop automatically derailing the working mother (or even the dad who doesn't work as late to help out with the kids) from the "partner" or "executive" track.

Here's an interesing relevant op-ed from when Betty Friedan died:

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FB0C10FF3F5A0C7B8CDDAB0894DE404482

Login is needed.

Another article from the NYT, longer, but highly relevant:

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F70D11FF3A5A0C758EDDA90994DB404482

Login needed.

FRIFY, you describe exactly the two-career parent trap. As it relates to the bubble, more and more families feel like both parents HAVE to work to afford today's lifestyle. But the cost of two careers - obligate daycare in particular, means both of you "have" to keep working to afford to stay ahead. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Randy H Says:

From personal experience, these men are missing out on the opportunity to have better relationships with both their children and their wife.

Amen!

Arg, I can do the logins, but these want payment.

ISTR reading an article that calculated that with daycare, additional auto expenses, etc. in some cases the double income family was losing money compared to having the lower-income spouse stay at home. Unfortunately I can't find the article itself. (It would, of course, also be affected by housing prices and overall incomes.)

It's not the one I was looking for, but here's an interview with one of the authors of _The Two Income Trap_:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/11/10_400.html
"As Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi note in their book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers Are Going Broke, having a child is now "the single best predictor" of bankruptcy. "

requiem,
Below is the first article, as it's short. If you want to read the 2nd, I'll be happy to email it to you. I don't want to clutter the thread with a long, long, long post.

********

The Parent Trap

By JUDITH WARNER
Published: February 8, 2006
I FIRST encountered ''The Feminine Mystique'' in college, in 1986. We read it not in women's studies, but in a class on intellectual history; and indeed, from the vantage point of a young woman coming of age in the mid-1980's, the world that Betty Friedan depicted -- a world in which a married woman couldn't get a job without her husband's permission, couldn't open a checking account and couldn't get credit in her own name -- seemed like ancient history.

And yet, five years ago, as I settled, for the first time, into a life where I worked minimal hours, spent maximal time with my children and was almost entirely dependent on my husband's salary and health benefits, ancient history became a current affair. I lived surrounded by women whose lives were much like mine, and the sentences that swirled around me on the playground stirred memories of thoughts and phrases I'd read long before.

The voices coalesced into a chorus of discontent that haunted me until one evening, after my daughters had gone to sleep, I went through a pile of boxes and dug up my old copy of Ms. Friedan's book. This time, as it had for many of the homemakers who read it when it was published in 1963, ''The Feminine Mystique'' felt horribly familiar. Looking back convinced me that we needed to start working toward a different future.

You could say that the ''plight'' of 21st century stay-at-home moms -- or part-time working moms like me -- is vastly different from ''the problem that has no name'' experienced by the women of Ms. Friedan's generation, and in one key respect you'd be right: Girls and women today are no longer kept from pursuing their educational dreams and career aspirations. They're no longer expected to abandon their jobs when they marry and -- in theory -- are no longer considered ''unnatural'' if they keep working when they have children.

We women have, in many very real ways, at long last made good on Ms. Friedan's dream that we would reach ''our full human potential -- by participating in the mainstream of society.'' But, for mothers in particular, at what cost? With what degree of exhaustion? And with what soul-numbing sacrifices made along the way?

The outside world has changed enormously for women in these past 40 years. But home life? Think about it. Who routinely unloads the dishwasher, puts away the laundry and picks up the socks in your house? Who earns the largest share of the money? Who calls the shots?

The answer, for a great many families, is the same as it was 50 years ago. That's why when I read the obituaries of Ms. Friedan, who died on Saturday, I was sad, but also depressed: their recounting of her description of the lives of women in the 1950's sounded just too much like the lives of women today.

Although it often seems anecdotally to be true that domestic tasks and power are pretty evenly divided in families where both parents are working full time, the statistics argue quite differently. The fact is, no matter how time- or sleep-deprived they are, working women today do upwards of 70 percent of household chores for their families. The gender caste system is still alive and well in most of our households. After all, no one really wants to do the scrubbing and folding and chauffeuring and mopping and shopping and dry-cleaner runs. (I'm leaving child-minding out of this; in a happily balanced life, it doesn't feel like a chore.) Once the money for outsourcing runs dry, it's the lower-status member of the household who does these things. It is the lower-status member of the household who is called a ''nag'' when she repeatedly tries to get other members of the household to share in doing them.

This is just one indication that the feminist ''revolution'' that was supposed to profoundly reshape women's lives remains incomplete. Another is the fact that there are no meaningful national policies to make satisfying work and satisfying family life anything but mutually exclusive for most men and women.

Ms. Friedan herself anticipated this issue, in the final pages of ''The Feminine Mystique,'' when she called for changing ''the rules of the game'' of society at large. In 1970, she came back to this thought, arguing that if we did ''not only end explicit discrimination but build new institutions,'' then the women's movement would prove to be ''all talk.'' Thirty-six years later, with women having flooded the professions and explicit gender discrimination outlawed, the institutions of our society simply have not changed to embrace and accommodate the new realities of women's lives.

The problems of home life seem to me now to be an all but hopeless conundrum. Yet the enduring failure of our social institutions to realize the larger promises of the women's movement is something we can address, straightforwardly and comparatively easily. We owe to Betty Friedan, to our daughters and to ourselves.

Ms. Friedan said last year, ''We are a backward nation when it comes to things like childcare and parental leave.'' That's just the beginning. We need universal preschool, more and better afterschool programs, and policies to promote part-time work options that don't force parents to forgo benefits, fair pay and career prospects.

We desperately need leadership on these issues. Without it, our national commitment to family values is truly ''all talk.''

Judith Warner, who has been writing the ''Domestic Disturbances'' blog for the last month on TimesSelect, is the author of ''Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety.''

That might be so. But for a lot of professions, you really need to stay in or you won't be able to return to that job.

Ideally, one spouse would go into a flex/part time arrangment until the kids gets older.

Skibum: I'd love to read the second, thanks. (I assume my email is accessible from the admin page.)

astrid,

Oh of course dear! And don't forget to drop off your 1040-EZ so I can calculate how much I'll be "lending" you until your actual tax return check comes in!

SQT Says:

Darn it all, I’m going to write that bestseller and earn a bunch of money. Maybe then I can get my husband to go some laundry.

Better yet, just flip some houses! Oh wait, that doesn't seem to work anymore.

SQT,

"Darn it all, I’m going to write that bestseller and earn a bunch of money. Maybe then I can get my husband to go some laundry."

Cool. Can we all party at your house in that case? (Who needs Danielle Steele when we have SQT)

requiem Says:

Skibum: I’d love to read the second, thanks. (I assume my email is accessible from the admin page.)

Done.

I feel that I would have been much happier before this feminist shift to career women. I like gardening and doing household chores. I find doing laundry and washing dishes and cleaning to be very therapeutic. In this society, I think lots of families push girls into the career track (but also innoculate them with the belief that they should have a family and kids) even though many of those girls would be happier going into the MRS track.

I've read a couple marxist critiques of Friedan's book though I've never read the book itself. The main criticism seems to be that it's very self absorbed and self indulgent, essentially coming from bored overeducated upper middle class women (a sort of a long tail of the Victorian womanhood). The comment is that for working class women, they've always had to work very hard, whether at home, in a hard, or outside of their home as servants or day laborers. These invisible women weren't literate enough to wish for a room of their own and a middle class annuity, they would have been happy if the bills got paid and their kids all survived childhood.

Randy H/Doug H,

Totally off thread but I was curious to see how you guys handled it when someone you've been good to, sent referrals and thrown them business STIFFS YOU!

I had this attorney (like I should be surprised) that I sent several underwriting deals to along with entity structuring type referrals over the last 10 months. Then he has the brass to e-mail me and say that he didn't much care for the last client I sent his way! I'm not kidding.

When I explained to this a$$clown that this is life in the big city and that you take the good with the bad things take a sudden turn down that old familiar path. It dawns on you, (this guy chumps everybody!). This is a well trodden path and this individual NEVER had any intention of reciprocating! You know you getting the shaft b/c they very calmly and in a well rehearsed manner tell you they have no idea what you're talking about.

What are some of the ways you guys have dealt with that over the years? All my friends have told me that I need to "network" more and cold call less. Pffft. No problem. Who really wants to forage every day? It's just been my experience when you feed people it's like you become responsible for their every well being.

Truthfully guys, I'm open.

DinOR,

Don't sent anymore business and blackball the guy to your friends. Networking is about reciprocity, no point in wasting time with people who doesn't give you anything in return.

Having grown up working class I can attest that women, at least where I grew up, worked heroically hard. I'd say most everyone's mom was a homemaker up until the late 70s/early 80s.

They didn't all go get jobs then because of some feminist ideal, materialism, or home prices. We lived in the rural midwest, which resisted the 60s with all its collective will. I grew up in one of the 5 most republican/conservative counties in the entire US as per 50 year voting record history. The kind of town in which there was 1 church per 150 residents--literally.

No, mom went back to work as a matter of survival, so that working class didn't become poor. Families would do any and everything to avoid going on welfare or assistance. Better to have latch-key kids with 12 year older brother taking care of the younger than have them on the school-lunch program.

And, mom still did ALL of the housework. Mom didn't usually make more than dad, unless you were farmers. My wife had this situation. Her mom went "back" to school to get an associates. She ended up earning 2X farmer dad, but this was never spoken about since dad worked "much harder" and did "more important" work. Even a good number of nonfarmers ended up with mom earning more than dad after dad lost his manufacturing/defense/government job. Dad had been specialized for 20 years, and couldn't easily find other comparable work. Mom had more recently gone to school and/or earned more recent experience, usually in services of some sort.

Most of these dads ended up alcoholics, permanently depressed, or both.

Very few of us actually enjoyed it when dad was around. Better that he wasn't around to yell and start fights, or worse.

Mom was a hero. But she needed help. She usually enlisted the children -- mostly the eldest -- to fill in as lieutenant mom. I've often thought that, ironically, men today who were forced into this role make better partners because they know how much work goes into running a house, and they aren't afraid to do laundry, get groceries, cook, or change diapers.

I'm not so sure feminism was any kind of ideological victory, although Boomers are quick to claim that trophy. It was plain and simple survival forced by the fact so many men were losing their jobs and income levels with little to no hope of return, especially once they hit the bottle. No wonder after a short time mom started demanding better pay and benefits equivalent to male counterparts.

I often think that most folks from money and with money have very little concept of "the real word".

DinOR Says:

> No one in my family even bothers to learn anything!
> Why! The “old man” will take care of it. Can’t remember
> the number to the bank branch? Don’t have time to
> check the weather? Think they over withheld on your
> FITW? FICA? SITW? Why bother to learn the
> calculations? I’m just telling you, now that I’m their
> unpaid financial adv…

You need to stop this as soon as soon as possible or the kids will never learn to do anything… I’ve noticed that “mamma’s boys” or “daddy’s girls” that never had to do anything growing up are hard to live with since they expect their spouse to take over for mommy or daddy. My Mom made me cook, clean and sew growing up and my Dad made me learn to do my own taxes as well as help him with his taxes…

Most people don’t change that much as they get older and I’m always surprised when the women I know complain that their husband does not cook or clean when they never saw him cook or clean anything in the three years that they dated. Guy friends will complain about their wives putting on weight when they have a fat mother and law and married a gal who’s only trips to the gym in the past five years were the month before they got married (to try and slim down for the wedding photos)…

Dinor: It’s just been my experience when you feed people it’s like you become responsible for their every well being.

Nonono, it's when you feed someone, you become bound by hospitality rules are not longer permitted to kill them for the duration of their visit.

err... that sentence lost an "and" while being typed.