patrick.net

They think I’m weird because I don’t go to church.

Some of my friends think that I am weird because I eat veal.

It's like Sushi? What's that? the ethnic diverse cuisine we have in CA we take for granted. I think we've been exposed to more so we forget others have a more limite life experience. But at the same time what you see here is very unsophisticated.

I see you don’t know too much about LI.

No, I don't. Nearly all of our friends in the Bay Area are divorced though. I guess they have too much faith on humanity, thinking that someone "better" is always out there.

Makes me understand finally once and for all that living in california is about opportunity cost not just merely cost of living. We have more diversity and infusion of different cultures. We are more metropolitan and global. There are parts of the south that are still like the Johnson era 60's.

I wonder how it would be if not for cable or the internet?

We have more diversity and infusion of different cultures.

True. Better food too!

If I have my way and can convince my BF I'll be back in 07.

@Sylvie,
But I've heard good things about the relatively cosmopolitan nature of the research triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill), Charlotte, Asheville, and yes allah, Atlanta. Also, at least architecturally, Savannah, Charleston and maybe a few other places seem beautiful. I just wonder if many of "us" Californians are too Cali-centric.

LILL was right right when she told me there s no place like home...

What factors influence rents like rent control, cost basis / mortgage of the landlord, taxes, maint. etc.. Why didn’t all property owners try to cash out like so many condo conversions?

I live in the north midlands primarily forested swamp area. The coast is as expensive as San Fran especially Hilton Head\Charleston. Alot of mexiacan illegals are infiltrating Georgia in fact there is alot of tension ith the local balck population to this newest invasion. Seems that we're exporting our cheap slave labor forces to the south. I've seen alot since I moved here.

Thanks HARM. It looks like I'm a day late and a dollar short. Had I seen that I would'nt have bothered posting!

You see the illegals building homes here and in all the service industries. The wealthy business owners love cheap labor. If they build a fence it's going to stretch all the way to Florida. More coming each month because it's even cheaper here to live.

They are competing with the lower income service industry jobs and they'll work cheaper. It's causing racial tension with african americans down here.

I do really see a time coming soon when we'll see prices revert to 2000. Wages have notdoubled and tripled in five years. The imbalance can't last besides the current GOP s toast and so is the pandering to wealth. Middle class people would eventually revolt.

Goober:

You are so right and I'll never buy into that even if I do move back. I won't pay over 200K period or I'll never own. You can't convince me that the same homes I use to drive past on my way to work on the same land magically turned to gold in five years! If everyone in california said no f'ing way prices would not have gotten where they are now. In fact the frst person who agreed to the inflated price started it all. These stupid sellers would not have the expection they do if not for conditioning. We will pay what we will pay and not a penny more!

I worked all my life I'm older than you and raised two kids. I had to start all or at 42 yeah it sucks... But I have a fico in the mid 700's, low debt, and cash reserve. I had a realtor tell me in 2001 that 50k wasn't enough of a down payment. Yeah I guess if the average house is 500k! who has 100-150k in cash for a 15-20% down. How outrageous!

I guess I'm just one of those stupid chicks who won't turn goldigger just to get a house. My thinking is if I don't buy it myself it isn't mine. Lesson learned from asset division of property(divorce). You can lose it only if you default not the same as shared asset.

I hope we see some major revision in lending standards and practices next year. Throw in a recession and maybe this thing will turnout right for us who've lived responcibly. It seems everything is ass backwards those who are frivilous and spend beyond thier means are rewarded.

I haven't owned a home since 2000

I bought in Aug 1996(2740sq.ft) for 238K. In Aug 2001 I had to split the equity unfortunately the double digit price appreciations hadn't started in So Cal yet. Bad timing and circumstance for me.

Crash:
I was never one of thoseI was a divorce casualty who got priced out of the current CA market. I thought my odds would be better in the south. Turns out I don't like my particular area. I may have to adjust my thinking and expectations. If california stays like it is I'll never own a home even if I return. I'll just invest my nestegg towards early retirement.

Allah,

Richmond has been great for my daughter. The cost of living is relatively low (but thanks to the bubble getting progressively worse) which enables all sorts of things for her that would otherwise be unaffordable, and I am not stressed financially to provide it. It is a freedom I am unwilling to sacrifice at this time. (Go to realtor.com and see what your money gets you in zip 23238). The public schools in my zip are very very good.

I believe that if you open your eyes and your mind wide enough you can find that which you seek no matter who or where you are.

I will leave because the reason I live here (my daughter) will have left and I will be free again to explore the world. I don't know where I'll go, but I like doing outdoor stuff, so someplace with a long outdoor season would be nice. I have a reasonably portable job, so maybe I'll just free myself of the shackles of homeownership and do 3-7 year stints in different places until I find my sweet-spot? Who knows. I think every 5-7 years you are the same person but with different and evolved wants and needs. I'll figure it out.

I really like the central coast and SF bay and mountain areas of CA, but I've never lived there, only visited, and there's a big difference between trying to make a living somewhere and just visiting for a few weeks with no job to go to, freedom to come and go as you please, and pockets full of spending money.

Nurses and Doctors are in that field to make money period.

we all have to choose to work at something for a living (with the exception of paris hilton and other such heirs). my observations on patellar reflexes were just concerning mystification, altho i have many concerns with omissions in the way public health is delivered -- and this in a country where treatment is essentially free without insurance, btw. the most time-critical and difficult medical jobs like heart surgery are the best paid also. good points in some ways on how all jobs should be valued tho, including garbage collectors etc.

Noone really suffers if the Internet disappears. But if doctors go on strike…

altho did you hear about that hospital where the doctors went on strike for a while and the death rate went down... (altho no-one got operated on or fixed up either)

re townplanning stakeholding/shareholding, it raises the question of the merits of political and legal equality and equal rights to participation and representation, does it not? this time i agree with sfguy, and not with randy, unlike last time when i agreed with randy and not robert coté, except for the times i agreed with robert coté... wasn't the athenian city state model of democracy one man, one vote (not counting women and slaves, of course). the unanticipated and dysfunctional consequences of proportional rights would become apparent very quickly if such a system were to be introduced, you mark my words.

This is madness. Landowners should be able to do anything to their land unless public health and safety would be materially impacted.

If neighbors do not like what is happening next door, they can buy the land and keep it vacant. If they cannot afford that, TOUGH.

yes, it is madness. i am trying to demolish my bungalow so i can erect a 40 storey glass tower on my land and make a killing. council zoning is so inconvenient and NIMBY. something about overshadowing the other bungalows.

the other thing i intend to do if that fails is excavate the backyard to maybe 200 ft and look for gold or some other precious commodity. i'll probably have to operate the rig 24 hours a day for cost saving, it costs to turn that stuff off. hope the neighbours don't mind the noise thru the night. if i don't find anything, i'll have a convenient hole to turn into a 6 storey underground carpark and a backdoor to introduce the tower idea again...

LILL:
Hi sweety bless you! I caught your reply on the last thread today. I miss my adult daughter Alicia. She came to Columbia on business in August and I cried like a baby when she left. I hadn't seen her since Dec 2005. I have over 50k and that is without having sold a property inthe last three years. I live very spartan and hope as you do that we'll presevere.

Sylvie Says:

> I worked all my life I’m older than you and raised
> two kids. I had to start all or at 42 yeah it sucks…
> who has 100-150k in cash for a 15-20% down.

People over 40 who never got married or had kids...

David J,

Lord no! By all means that is a drum we can't bang on enough!

Look, even as a "financial professional" even I only have so many "tunes". Like most of us, I make every effort to keep current but in spite of say the obvious misery of a POW Camp, every prisoner has something that bugged him/her the most! Yeah, we're all starved, beaten and abused but years later the accounts of torment are actually quite different.

"Every man has his breaking point". "You and I have ours". "Walter Kurtz has reached his.... and he has very obviously gone insane".

David J, I want you to beat that thang like a rented mule!

Yeah well my current boyfriend who is twenty years younger has told me that same thing. He says his generation already has figured out that with inflation and the cost of living to have children is not economicaly sound. Now why couldn't I have met him twenty years ago?

I've learned alot about Gen X and Y how differnt they think. They have the tech saavy skills and understand the economic principles of wealth building. They are a bit lazy but use more and do less to achieve the same goal.

The Housing Bubble is like this huge, open and festering sewer. It stinks to high heaven. And it flows right past your window, every day.

But there's this one......turd. This one little turd. And you decide to yourself, this turd f@cks with me! "This"...... turd..... upsets me. And I'm going to do something about it!

Hell, take your pick.

Yeah it has its moments that inspire despair possibly anger.

I agree LiLLL I've been out of my marraige over six years and the only remenents of that are my two children. I just turned forty nine and I will never regret that part of my life. I'm old school and I was taught that if you were a straight shooter a worked hard life would be wonderful. Our parents were well meaning but,they never saw the future we'd face. Our mother's were the last generation to have the luxury of being at home moms. Yeah it's hard sometimes but we press on don't we?

I'm lucky that my marraige didn't desolve until they were out of high school or it would have been more of struggle for me. I've managed to take care of myself since and for taht I'm grateful. Yeah I have my moments when I service my millionaire clients and wnder what it must be like to have what they do. But I'm realistic and thankful and remind myself there are people who struggle just to pay the rent, eat, and have some left over. That is not me so I'm grateful.

If I'm prudent and stay the course I should recover in time to retire. what did I learn after all this?

1. Don't get to attached to material wealth it can go away death, divorce, illness.
2. Create your happiness with what you have.

3. Don't measure life by material measures or you'll nevre be satisfied.

4. Love is a treaure if it comes your way don't run it off out of fear.

5. Trust yourself if not you'll trust no one and end up alone.

6. There is life after..... fill in the blank

Sylvie, that does beg the question, if so little of life depends on material wealth, why do so many people want homes in the Bay Area? ;)

I did read a really great article the other day on the "Millionaires Next Door". The study is several years old, but it illustrated that the people most likely to be millionaires were hard workers who lived far below their means, drove old cars, devoted themselves to their families and took pleasure in non-monetary pursuits.

It also illustrated that the confused middle class has this image of millionaires as people who own three Lexuses (Lexii?), a 4000 sq.ft. house with granite floors, stainless steel countertops and hardwood refrigerators, and a vacation home in sunny Oregon. And generally the middle class bankrupts itself trying to emulate those millionaires instead of becoming one of them.

Yikes!! 12:42 EST got to hit the hay! Miss PST goodnight LILLL, and Senor Harm..

BTW I have this Link on my blog just put it up today Goodnight all...

I'll be lucky if I get back my same standard of living I had before my divorce. I jus want to own my own modest home not even large. It's not asking too much I don't think. I'm no willing o marry just to raise my standard of living like alot of women. I know men aren't stupid and besides yu can always be traded up again. If own my own propert then if my relationship circunstances change it's still my home.

LILLL,

I'm so sorry to hear that my sympathys. I lost my only brother in 1979 he was nineteen. I was living in NC at the time and just had my son a few months before.

LiLLL,
My sympathies.

Those in urban neighborhoods with good transit spend a mere 10 percent getting around but 45 percent on their homes.

I probably don't want to get into it with RC, but since this is something of a good approximation of my situation, I will attempt to argue the point (and maybe learn a thing or two). Perhaps I don't understand the more nefarious aspect of LEMs, but the main thrust of what I had posted was simply about getting the lending ratio threshold changed from 30 to 45 percent in warranted cases. Telling me I have to move to the suburbs and commute by car seems pretty discriminatory and car centric to me. The cash I save by biking to work allows me to afford that higher home payment. I shouldn't have to resort to a "liar loan" or other questionable practice to accomplish what is already economically feasible.

Senor Cote' your command of double speak is only superseded by the Abbott and Costello-ing of Jerry Lewis, or course the LDM's are giving it to the SUH, it they didn't the SILSIH (suck it long, suck it hard) folks underwriting the entire goat rodeo would back up bags and choogle on back to Oregon to party with DinOR while he lubes the shot-gun in preparation for yet another fools attempt on the DinOR-ettes.