patrick.net

TOS,

Yes, taking a 50% bath in Real Estate eventually will work out assuming you never have to sell. But I'd rather not wait 45 years to break even.

An investment property in the bay area is a bad idea right now.
You'll have negative cash flow for too many years. The risk will be that you wont be able to afford the cash out of pocket every month and lose the property. Your burden would be a minumum of $1000 per month. The maintenance will also eat you alive. There are much better investments available at this point. Money markets are paying a risk free 5%. That's just for starters.

Head for the exits on housing. This bubble has just started to deflate.

Idea for a new thread -

Rent in the city and own a house in the country!

Paul,

Sonoma County real estate dropped almost 10% the past year. Owning a place up there won't be as expensive as it used to be.

If I hadn't bought in the city ages ago I would probably rent a large flat in town and then buy a country place. I'd try to get into a nice building that lets you get long term leases and renovate. One of my friends sold her house and rented a really nice four bedroom apartment on Nob Hill, renovated the bathrooms and kitchen, has a country house on Fisher's Island (the New York one, not the Florida one), and will stay in that rental until she dies.

It sounds to me like what SUDs is saying is that a little bit of spare cash or spare income burns a hole in the pockets of working class people. It's not cool, and it's not hip, to save it conservatively.

It is the liquidity trap on a micro-scale.

theotherside Says:

> Suds, Very smart rebuttal….although the bubble believers
> will very shortly start calling a troll or a real estate agent
> or worse a Casey Serin….

I don’t think that Suds is a troll, I really think he is a guy from India that does not know much about Real Estate or Investing, but I do think that theotherside is a Realtor hoping to convince people that buying a home is always a good investment…

New thread: Just who are the willing buyers?

I plead laziness (besetting sin) and an unwillingness to consider an MIT publication to have erred in this way. Evidently Himmelberg and friends do in fact conclude there is no affordability crisis.

As with Forbes, I expected better.

Academic publications are quite fallible, esp. outside of the natural/hard sciences. Otherwise, how can one explain the prevalence of campus Marxist and those Che T-shirt wearing drones?