patrick.net

Randy H -

Saw your 1996/2006... that was great man!
Dont you want to Bitch slap the banks?
and ask "Whats a matter with you!"

I will agree that most of the South Bay is a soul-sucking oppressive hell.

I lived in SF in my early/mid twenties. Loved it. Not exactly where I want to raise my kids, however. I'd like a yard. :)

I guess you never had a real Italian Cannoli ?

Try Marahs on Columbus....

The point being ... you aint got nothing in the
south bay! Damn boring.

"South Bay is a soul-sucking oppressive hell."

Your being way to nice about the South Bay!

"South Bay is a soul-sucking oppressive hell."

Your being way to nice about the South Bay!

I beg to differ. SF doesn’t have real Italian cannoli. They pale in comparison to those you can get in NYC, Boston, or Philly.

Many of my favorite restaurants are not in SF.

NYC has much better Italian food.

Saw 100 people running in the street buck naked on Saturday Afternoon?

Can I have them arrested for indecent exposure?

Went to a Art gallery ?

Europe has more.

Went to a baseball football or Golf event ?

You mean crowd?

Been to a actual trade or hobby convention ?

I have been to a gemstone show in San Rafael. I Bought a Tibetan meditation bowl.

Go to a night club, where the women actually do go back to your place for the evening ?

Huh?

The point being … you aint got nothing in the south bay! Damn boring.

There are plenty of good restaurants on the Peninsula though.

Los Altos has a much nicer downtown. It has fewer weird people walking around.

Palo Alto has pretty good Italian food now on University Ave.

You still need to go to SF for a nice French dinner though.

At least, you should be able to block by IP addresses and/or keywords.

Many of my favorite restaurants are not in SF.
NYC has much better Italian food. ---> Move to NYC
Saw 100 people running in the street buck naked on Saturday Afternoon?
Can I have them arrested for indecent exposure? ----> Why?
Went to a Art gallery ? Europe has more. --- Move to Europe
Went to a baseball football or Golf event ? You mean crowd? --> Yea!
Been to a actual trade or hobby convention ?
I have been to a gemstone show in San Rafael. I Bought a Tibetan meditation bowl. ---- Ever been to the Heigh Ashbury???
Go to a night club, where the women actually do go back to your place for the evening ? Huh? ......... Oh you prefer the Fat Chunky kind in San Jose.

LOL! Sorry Peter ! Your just not a great date!

3.1B for Double-click ? Crazy. At least they will not add as much legal trouble as YouTube.

There are plenty of good restaurants on the Peninsula though.

I wouldn't say plenty, unless by good you mean passable. SF and the East Bay have MUCH better food.

The spanish is a bit rough on the "raunchy grande" page; But I am not mexican, so maybe that will pass for mexican spanish...It reads more like english written in spanish, the grammer is bad and the accent marks are missing on at least 50 words.

One of the reasons I got my license as a real estate agent (My full time job is university professor) was intense disgust at the abuses I saw other agents and especially loan officers commit on recent immigrants.

On another note, many many times I advised clients to buy less house and use fixed rate financing, but I have never had a client follow that advise. I think countrywide's advertisement from a couple years ago sums it up best: "Don't let the payment stand between you and the house of your dreams." What the f*&^ kind of advise is that?

Try Marahs on Columbus….

I'll give it a try - thanks for the tip. I'll have to say, the cannoli bar is set very high for me!

Similarly, like Peter P said, the Italian food in all of the Bay Area leaves a lot to be desired.

Skibum - I will take your word for it.

I heard that Millers on Polk imports their Bagels from NYC daily.
They have some other good deli items NYC style.

Similarly, like Peter P said, the Italian food in all of the Bay Area leaves a lot to be desired.

"Fifth and Madison" in Palo Alto gets a thumbsdown from me.

In part for their ridiculous name. It's not even a funny joke.

The only redeeming aspect is they have mortadella - that's hard to find.

From what I have seen almost all the sales in crappy parts of San Mateo, Redwood City and the Bayview/Hunters Point have been to low income minorities who don’t speak English or understand the term “NegAm/IO”…

That reminds me, I need to move to RWC or somewhere more North this summer. Between 92 and 84. Pref closer to 101 for commute purposes.

And, I'll still be a JBR.

Any recommendations?

“Fifth and Madison” in Palo Alto gets a thumbsdown from me.

Other "Italian" places around here that get my thumbsdown:

- Il Fornaio: overrated, bland food
- Bucca de Beppo: chain store quality
- Rose Pistola: overrated, flavorless
- Kuleto's: bland, feels like a "Cheesecake Factory" inside

Much better, but still problematic:
- Olivetto: good food, but it's not really Italian
- Quince: same as above

I've never been to Don Giovanni up in Napa, but I suspect it would be similar to Olivetto or Quince in criticism.

Peter P,

Even though my professional responsibility professor specifically warned giving any kind of advice over the internet, I think this is generic enough to be okay.

You have an annual gift exemption of $12,000. Those theoretical philanthropic organizations would have to be exceptionally generous for this to ever be a problem.

That reminds me, I need to move to RWC or somewhere more North this summer. Between 92 and 84. Pref closer to 101 for commute purposes.

If you want commute convenience, that particular location, and you don't care about ambience or culture, I'd go for Foster City or Redwood Shores. They'd be fine for renting, but I'd never buy there (built on landfill). For more stuff to do, San Mateo is not bad. Lot's of decent restaurants in downtown.

Oh wait, bad advice. Substitute "philanthropic organization" with "mom dad"

SFBubble says
"I think Prop 13 should be interpereted to make the 2006 buyers’ property taxes grow at 2% a year. See how long until they pay the same as people who buy in a few years. "

It will drop with the current values. It can only go up a maximum of 2% a year if the value goes above an overall 2% per year.

I will never understand Olive Garden, why wait in line for food you can prepare in less time and 1/2 the money (or 1/5th the money if you use their ingredients)?

Wouldn't it have been smarter for him and his friends to buy a farm instead?

Hobby farming is expensive and very tiring.

Whereas career farming will buy you a $720,000 house!

The Housing Bubble Correction be Napoleon's Russian campaign + Hitler's Russian campaign.

Skibum,

My wife really likes Pezzella's in Sunnyvale. It's a bit pricey for the style of food (dishes her grandma would make at home). We're not Italian food connoisseurs though.

Malcolm,

I know they'll go down. Laws like that are never 'fair' or 'balanced' in any way, shape or form.

I'd support prop 13 if it had a means and age qualification.

"So the housing premium required in CA in the 50s and 60s was not as high as the premium required today in an economy dominated by Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Intel and so many companies based in CA."

What about the other side of this logic why not factor in the employers that went under... like hundreds of Computer, Semi, Semi-Equipment Maker, Networking, Software and others..... Bay Networks, Ask Computers, Ungerman Bass, Tandem, Amdahl, Norton, AltaVista, Atari, Excite, "old" Borland, Fairchilds and so many names we lost count. Seibel, Maxtor, Hyperion added to the list recently. .... THEY ALL WENT BUST... you know failed to survive. Many didnt survive because their employees were too expensive.. Their mortgages were far more than the employer can bear and be globally competitive. And that was in the 80 and 90's...

What is this PREMIUM people talk about?

FYI, Microsoft was never in CA. They were in New Mexico and then moved to Washington.

I forgot to add the other Google darling in its day "Netscape"

Hey ever recall that one???

Why fly planes into the WTC? Al Quaeda could have done way more damage to the economy if they had just had the foresight to put their resources into the subprime market.

I forgot to add the other Google darling in its day “Netscape”

I always refer to it as "Nutscrape" in my head.

Actually I don't know of any extreme cases like that in real life. The more extreme cases I know of is like $250K household taking on a $750K to $850K mortgage, which is manageable if you know these people in person, because they live a really really frugal lifestyle, driving an entry-level car, having no vacations, buying clothes only on half-off sale etc., and doing everything possible to minimize tax.

There is only one couple that borrowed way over their head, over $1.5M in debt on a household income of less than $250K, but the guy joined GOOG right after it went public, so I figured he'd be ok.

I don't think a typical professional couple household in BA are that crazy. They usually max out at a debt load of 3x income.

"So the housing premium required in CA in the 50s and 60s"

Damn me ... I forgot to add the whole aeropace industry that went belly up. I sure hate to be the fool who purchased a home in San Diego in 1989 (peak year) when the Berlin Wall went down. Yea that turned out well, prices crashed 40%"

Re Prop 13.

With all due respect, I must say I find it curious why people (who I perceive lean slightly left) keep hammering this prop 13 thing. It in essence is a regressive tax benefit, which turns into a regressive tax if you take it away. (Regressive meaning it penalizes the lower brackets more than the higher ones.)

The other thing is that talking about it is a waste of time. It was passed by initiative. If it is not a good law it can be removed the same way. It can only be undone by a general vote with a super majority.

"I always refer to it as “Nutscrape” in my head."

I pitty the FOOL that paid $90 a share for that PIG!

Speaking of Strawberry Fields...

I went to the REO up near the college today. Listed at 188K about ten days ago. The place was built in 1915, probably leased out to students for the last twenty or thirty years. It was a DUMP. Porch slanting into the front yard, all the grass dead as a doornail, cracks in the walls and foundation, the hardwood floor warped so badly that it looked like water damage. None of it looked like spiteful pre-REO vengance, it was really just that badly beaten up. There is no way in hell I would live there. In fact, I would even feel slimy renting it to college students, who were obviously slobs enough to destroy it in the first place.

My agent called me before I got there. 19 offers so far. Highest was well over $200K, all cash, fast closing. While we were there, I got to see some competition. A college kid and his realtor. Couldn't have been more than 21, shaggy haircut, loose jeans and a perky new ballcap. The guy flat out screamed college student.

Maybe I'm misjudging the kid, but I'd like to see this entire demographic of competition just vanish. Subprime can't dry up fast enough to get all the Gen Y "real estate is totally a path to easy riches" speculators out of the market*. I want to see the market require 20% downpayments for the coming 10 years. The next demographic I'd like to leave is the people who have no idea how to do their own comps, employing rookie realtors who have no idea how to do their own comps. You can always compare the property to something in its price range, ignore all the details and come up with the exact asking price.

Bitter? Check. Jaded? Check. Renter? Check.

An engineer at lunch said to me, "Even if prices fall 20%, if credit goes up then you'll still pay more per month." I went off on that. How could a goddamned engineer say that?!? AUGH!!! If college educated engineers can suck that badly at math, what hope is there for the normal people in society? If a $250K house lost -20% to $200K, and I had considered a 20% downpayment, let's examine:

1. $250K pre-drop price, $50K downpayment, I pay 6% on a $200K loan. $1000/month IO, I have lost all of my $50,000 downpayment. The market vaporizes the equity.

2. No money down after the fall, I pay 8% on a $200K loan. $1333/month IO, and I still have $50K in the bank.

3. $200K price, $50K downpayment, after the fall, I pay 8% on a $150K loan. $1000/month IO, and I still have my $50K downpayment in equity.

Hmm. #3 vs. #1--I still have my hard-earned equity, my payment is the same, and I get an even bigger interest deduction for my taxes.

People piss me off. This is like the mockery I got from all the new hires in 2001. People were off buying a Lexus or a house, goading me into getting something nice because we were all newly minted engineers. I looked like an over-conservative nerd (which, to be fair, is probably an accurate description). Six months later, three-quarters of them were fired. Happy trails!

* However, there is no way a college kid made a $200K+ cash only offer on that dump. It had to be an investor, who knew quite correctly that they could lease out the house for far more than the loan amount each month.