patrick.net

astrid,

I can't explain the "intagibles" of life in StumpTown (Portland) either?

I was just born with the good fortune to be self-entertained. If you happened to be in the crowd when I was running the streets and bar hopping you would quickly deduce that nothing good can come of this. I invented the saying:

"Relax, the cops won't be here for another 10 minutes!"

Again I just don't get why anyone would take offense to that. If EC or Chuck thought enough of Portland to give it a hip and flattering name, hell I'd be only too proud to use it!

DinOR,

Not only can I not think of a flattering shortening for Portland, I think it needs to be stretched, so the other person won't ask "Portland, Oregon?"

PNW does have some drop dead gorgeous alpine meadows, coasts, etc.

the VAST MAJORITY of you are feeling good about your jobs, income, and future which contradicts the thesis that home prices are falling. Some highlight ARMs resetting, or the job losses. This is the ‘EVERYBODY ELSE BUT ME’ mentality, which is a fantastic social study.

BigBrother,

Again, what does one (jobs picture) necessarily have to do with the other (easy credit-spawned housing bubble)? House prices are hugely overvlaued by any historical metric you care to use (equivalent rents, HH incomes, "inflation", etc.). They will correct (revert to the mean) even if unemployment remains low and the rest of the economy remains robust --a best case scenario, btw.

The only difference a low unemployment/strong economy makes (assuming it continues to remain so) is that the correction is more likely to play out in the form of slow-drip real-price erosion. As in, nominal house prices stay fairly stagnant, or drop just a little, while the price of everything else (incl. wages) shoots up.

Either way, real house prices revert to the mean, and RE as an investment class remains a stinker at least for the next several years.

BigBrother Says:

> Hi FAB & HARM, I guess I must be living in a parallel
> universe b/c I don’t see much weakness at all in the city.

Have you looked? You didn’t tell us that address of the investment homes you have been buying. If you are not buying let us know why not.

> Here are two examples that were sent to me about homes
> hitting new highs in 2007. One went for 200K over asking
> to 3.7 million, which is a new record for the area.

3319-3321 Octavia is actually two legal units and sold for $1.7mm in late 2000 before a down to the studs rehab.

2752 Filbert is a home with a million dollar GG Bridge view and talking about home sales over $3mm is like talking about Chrysler sales over $250K. There are a small number of sales that are fun to talk about but just because some rich guy pays $1mm for a convertible with a Hemi or $3mm for a SF pied à terre in the city does not really change the market.

P.S. I was just flipping through a copy of Gantry Magazine from earlier this year (my Mom gives me the old issues) and there is a realtor ad that says the total sales in Atherton over the past 5 YEARS above $10mm was 25 and over the past 5 YEARS there were only 123 sales over $5mm

P.P.S. What Real Estate firm do you work for?

justchecking,

No, I have not conducted a large scale survey into this matter. Let me clarify, the vast majority of people I know, many of whom are very intelligent. I feel it myself, as I get older, it's harder to learn completely new information.

Meanwhile:

"It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination."

@astrid

Funny! LOL!

I used to HATE that! You'd be cold callin' your monkey butt off and doing your little "pitch" and the prospect would say "Portland? Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon?" (Laughs at own joke, hangs up). Arghh.

OR:

Portland, Oregon? I only do business with people from Portland, M_A_I_N_E! (Laughs at own joke, hangs up) Double Arghh!

My daughter was doing a Psych Rotation at UCSF. One day she was interviewing a patient with homicidal tendencies. The next week she saw her on a San Francisco bus.
Nice.

I am sure you have people like that in Danville, but there they are behind the wheel of a car instead of sitting next to you on the bus, which is arguably worse.

San Francisco schools are a very mixed bag. There some very good, even great schools here (Lowell HS comes to mind) and there are some real stinkers.

Our plan, which I have finally gotten my wife to buy off on, is to go through the whole school choice ranking and lottery and then see where our daughter ends up. If she gets into the good school near our house, great. If she gets into a good school across town, we will either rent or buy there and keep our current place. If she she gets into a bad school, then we will decide to either put her in private school or move to the suburbs.

Danville is a perfectly nice example of an Ameircan suburb, but I don't really see what sets it apart from all the other perfectly nice cookie-cutter suburbs all over the country. It is a bit pricier than average, but in line with the rest of the Bay Area. I guess the weather is pretty good.

Astrid, Justchecking

Re: Mental capacity/age

I have seen the same results graphically about mental aptitude and age. I think you are both right. The studies showed actually at 35 learning, and mental faculites start to go. On a chart it is actually pretty dramatic. The reasoning for this is what Justchecking was saying; less practice causes atrophy.

The conclusion was encouraging; teachers, and those sorts of professionals were affected to an almost insignificant degree in comparison to others. The theory is if you don't use it, you lose it and so they estimated that if more people did things like take classes, learn new things, and stay stimulated, their mental faculties wil be preserved into older age.

Frisco vs. San Francisco is more of a social class thing, I think. Herb Caen called it San Francisco or The City and said "never call it Frisco." The Hell's Angels have their Frisco Chapter.

My truck driving step-father calls it Frisco.

Who am I to correct him?

What about San Fran?

Or even SF as in "ess-eff"? I don't know where I picked up calling it that, maybe from all my years in "ell-ay"...

People here do that all the time. Pacific Beach PB, University Town Center UTC. San Diego has its own fun quirky sayings. Mostly in the older hippie parts, OB for Ocean Beach. Maybe it's left over from 60s lingo.

I don't think Danville is quintessential cookie-cutter. For that, head a little further south to San Ramon (aka San Remote) or much further south to Irvine. Literally every street looks the same.

I've heard a couple of theories about the cookie-cutter design. One is that it's easier to maintain control of the look and feel if most of the homes look the same; a non-conforming paint color or what have you stands out more easily. Two is that creating similar blocks makes it difficult for would be criminals to get in and out of the neighborhoods quickly. Cul-de-sacs also thwart that kind of 'undesirable' traffic.

I've only seen a handful of homeless/vagrant types in San Ramon or Danville, primarily by the freeway. I see a marked increase in such folks in Pleasanton, near the BART station. Again, I think the overall pristine design of these areas makes a vagrant or homeless person really stand out. I get the impression some of these folks got kicked off the BART at the end of the line there in Pleasanton, or fell asleep on the way and missed their stop. Regardless, they don't seem to hang around. I know for a fact that in Irvine, the Police swept the streets every night and deported anyone who couldn't prove their residency to Santa Ana. Not sure if Danville or San Ramon does the same kind of sweep, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do.

As a result, I face a long drive to do any kind of meaningful volunteer work. We don't have food banks, shelters, or crumbling schools here. I know that's an odd complaint, but I enjoy helping in a hands on way, and the needy seem to center around SF and Oakland.

I like cookie cutter tract homes which look planned, and have community features, but I am burned out with the cookie cutter mall, and stip mall look. No matter where I go; Denver, Texas, Phoenix especially, or right here, cities are all starting to look the same. Every city in this country just adds it's own trademark single tourist photo spot with a Wal Mart Center. San Diego at least has unique water features, and canyons which force some uniqueness in planning. That was the one thing I liked visiting San Francisco, it is very unique and recognizable.

Since I'm rarely in SF itself, I usually refer to the region as the Bay Area. I think SF prevails in my usage, while my boyfriend calls it "the City."

DC is a lot easier that way, though people who live in DC or close in suburbs always refer to the neighborhoods (since someone living in Georgetown or DuPont Circle would never venture into Southwest DC).

I think a lot of it is building costs, Lowly. There is an economy of scale to building 100 similar homes in one spot that to build one house at a time.

I call everything North of Camp Pendleton LA. My girlfriend who is from Santa Monica takes great offense.

The nice part of Danville is gorgeous and quite inaccessible. I can't imagine how a homeless person could wander into Blackhawk.

It's all LA to me. Los Angeles to me is a city in LA. Los Angeles County, to me is a place in that LA area up there.

I meant Southeastern DC, South western DC is not too bad, especially with recent gentrification.

Yeah, I think you're right Malcolm. What is interesting is how that has morphed into something beyond cost cutting, to a certain psychology. Residents who choose these types of developments actually have begun to desire that sameness, and see it as a plus. Having lived in some of the not-so-so-nice areas of LA, and through the riots, I have to admit that cookie cutter is very appealing to me now.

There are few cities that get the balance right. San Francisco (which I call "the city") is one of them. The variety in architecture across the city along with all the cultural offerings can still be enjoyed without fear of being gunned down, car jacked, or the victim of a home invasion robbery. I know the tenderloin and other parts are dicey, but I tell you, the worst parts of San Francisco are nothing compared to the hell holes of LA. I think this is what people mean when they say "it's different here".

Now if only I had a couple million laying around to buy a nice condo in the Presidio. :)

LowlySmartRenter, you are right, the suburbs do not contribute their fair share to the nationwide mental health treatment problem. About 1/2% of the population is schizophrenic, but you can bet that is not true in Danville. They just dump their mentally ill on surrounding communities.

Jimbo,

Uh or the Hell's Angels for that matter.

I used to love San Pedro (ell-ay). It was like the world's biggest garage sale/swap meet. If they didn't have it, "it" hasn't been invented yet!

Somehow calling Portland "the city" just doesn't feel right?

I don't see anything wrong with well planned sameness, that makes the neighborhood look coherent rather than all jumbled up.

DinOR
Howabout POR???

Drought prone areas of the West are probably most vulnerable to the cookie cutter malaise. On the east coast, a tract home neighborhood gets a little more distinctive after the landscaping matures.

Blackhawk is certainly unique, but Danville has 42,000 residents. Not very many of them can live in Blackhawk, unless it is much larger than I realized.

Malcolm and justchecking,

Thanks for the cite. Still...although I still process a lot of new information, I feel that I'm more and more constrained in my way of learning and interacting to information. Nowadays, I have a very particular way of approaching information and projects. The approach usually works for me, but I do fear that it'll calcify over time, as I see amongst my older coworkers.

I don't think that this is necessarily a bad phenomena overall, people adopt certain approaches over time because they work, but I imagine it is still a hardship for older computer programmers.

Jimbo,

My understanding is that Danville is about half and half, a part of it looks similar to Pleasanton or San Ramon, nice but not supernice. The foothills area I've seen are quite nice. The Wikipedia entry seems to confirm my perceptions about Danville.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danville%2C_California

I (quite by accident) drove thru Fresno last summer and it (along with the rest of the valley) was icky. That’s where my wife invented the term “roof farms” as far as the eye can see.

What's funny is that, as soon as you pass the roof farms, on the real farms they are now raising corn, to put into your gas tank.

Bork,

According to the Wikipedia entry, Blackhawk is unincorporated. Isn't it just one big planned golf course community right next to Danville? Since it's unincorporated but next to Danville, I just mentally lump it in.

Danville is quite mysterious due to its lack of shopping and highway exits. My boyfriend and I sometimes refer to mysterious locations or people as "Danville."

PS -- “roof farms -- I call them feed lots.

BigBrother Says:

> FAB, I live in the city. SFH over $3 million is getting
> very common now, just as $2 million SFH were
> common in 2006, and over $1million were common
> in 2005. The trend is upward pricing.

With less than 1% of all sales in SF over $3mm it is a push to say they are “very common”. You still have not told us the address of even one of your investment homes.

> These $3.5 million houses were in the mid $2 millions
> just a year or two ago. The lot sizes have not changed.

Wow 40% appreciation in “just a year or two”. You have not told us the name of your real estate firm.

> The point is, over time, prices go up. If you’re not building your assets, you’re falling behind.

You forgot to add that “they are not making any more land”…

> Just look at everything you buy: gas, milk, the beef mexi-melt
> at Taco Bell, your salary.

Have you looked at Sun, Oracle, Yahoo, Amazon or Cisco? When do you think they will get back to 1999 values?

Most people (with the exception of some confused posters from prime areas) people on this blog will answer my questions (and I’ll answer any question people ask me). If you don’t want to answer my questions or have a dialog just post over at the Craig’s List forums…

New thread:
All About Wealth Disparity

Does Word 2007 has a table feature? Wordpress does have a table add on, but I’m not sure if that’s worth getting. Our intranet is likely to migrate onto a Sharepoint 2007 platform, so I might as well familiarize myself with Microsoft products.

Word has had tables for a long time. I do not know how well they integrate with bloggin though.

I like Word 2007 mostly because of the real-time word count feature. It dynamically updates the number of words on the status bar.

Word also has pretty good integrated research features (dictionary, thesarus, etc).

I live about a half mile from Blackhawk, and I cannot tell you a thing about it because it's mostly gated. I always thought it was part of Danville.

Among my friends, we say the word Blackhawk through our noses, kind of like the way Mrs. Howell might say it.

Still, I find the Mt. Diablo area on the whole to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever lived. Great place to hike or bike.... until you run into a darn gate.

I live about a half mile from Blackhawk, and I cannot tell you a thing about it because it’s mostly gated. I always thought it was part of Danville.

I have been inside once. It was okay. It has some SoCal feel to it but I cann remember too clearly.

I like the Summitpointe area better. I do enjoy open space.