patrick.net

Correct, and the seller has no obligation to sell to people who make full price or higher offers.

I thought the buyer agent can sue to get her cut of the would-be commission. Maybe I am wrong...

Hello All.
Have been lurking for quite a while and agree with a lot of the sentiments, both bulls and bears. I have been quite bearish on RE for a number of years now, and have been a RE invester in both residential and commercial in the past (currenlty out of RE). I purchased my first block of land paying 18% interest (current rates seem very low !).

I find it interesting to see the market dynamics of asset investors as they swing from bulls to bears and the effects of supply and demand.

Usually when an investor feels that have been very successful they become very bullish and cannot see changes coming. Likewise bears wait for the sky to fall and sometimes miss oppurtunities. (Better to be safe than sorry I believe.)

Anyway, saw a comment by somebody that likened the risk of RE price falling or rising as being 50%. These chances are becoming similar to a game of luck (and some people are very lucky, imagine finding a buyer with 1.2M cash. Hope is wasn't inheritance) Unfortunately with this ammount of risk and the sums involved, maybe alot of people should be reconsidering their investment strategy. Some people however, don't mind this level of risk and can afford to play with this level of commitment.

I believe one should invest with their head, not their hearts, as hearts can be sadly broken.

I believe one should invest with their head, not their hearts, as hearts can be sadly broken.

I think gut feel is probably more important. It is too easy to be fooled by over-rationalization too many times. I agree that hearts are completely useless in investments.

Anyway, saw a comment by somebody that likened the risk of RE price falling or rising as being 50%. These chances are becoming similar to a game of luck

It is a lot more than just probability... if I say that you have a 50% change of winning $5 and 50% change of losing $20, will you play the game?

Usually when an investor feels that have been very successful they become very bullish and cannot see changes coming. Likewise bears wait for the sky to fall and sometimes miss oppurtunities.

I totally agree. This gives a lot of insight into the psychology of bulls and bears.

It is a lot more than just probability… if I say that you have a 50% change of winning $5 and 50% change of losing $20, will you play the game?

Only if I can be the House....

Only if I can be the House….

Exactly. ;)

It will be interesting to see if Offshoring will drive inflation in other countries.

Saw a documentary of an Indian call centre where operators were saving to buy cars. I guess consumption may increase and the desire to own more toys will drive wages.

What to you think.

It will be interesting to see if Offshoring will drive inflation in other countries.

Yes, inflation there and deflation here... eventually it will be equalized.

Usually when an investor feels that have been very successful they become very bullish and cannot see changes coming. Likewise bears wait for the sky to fall and sometimes miss oppurtunities.

Very true. It's hard to make rational decisions when things are out of whack. I hope that I will be able to jump in at an appropriate time without waiting too long for the 'sky to fall.'

50% odds. It's a lot like flipping a condo... er.. coin I mean.

I guess consumption may increase and the desire to own more toys will drive wages.

This also depends on whether the workers there would seek imported luxury goods. If I were the government I would try to encourage more domestic spending instead. I do expect India and China to get more nationalistic over time.

Just yesterday, a colleague and I were discussing the retail businesses/jobs that have capitalized on the speculative housing boom, indirectly through homeowner spending. If there's a serious bust, how will it affect retailers such as Home Depot, Expo, Crate & Barrell, Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma, etc? Will shopping malls once again become ghost towns?

I VOTE TO EVICT.

I vote eviction in the form of daily purging. We do value opposition. This is why we love Jack, Face Reality and Fake P (where is Fake P?). But cultural rubbish must be cleansed.

According to Realty Times, buyers are "pausing to see what happens".

http://tinyurl.com/dw5b5

Jack, you are not going to like this...

Marinite said...
" I have yet to hear a Realtor say prices are declining."

9:43 AM

I do think that Marin will hold up better than most of Silly Valley, which is completely trashed.

Face Reality, we certainly do not need MP to see the point. I thought you are the guide in that aspect. ;)

I am sure you are a lot more successful than MP in terms of finances.

On the other hand, we already have veterans in real estate investments such as Zephyr and MerrillClient.

We do not need a fictitious character to educate us.

Here’s the tally so far on Sauce (I hope the data displays correctly this time):

Peter P Evict!
Face Reality Keep
Jack Evict!
TWIT Evict
SactoQt Keep
West Coaster Keep
Stanman Evict
Ptiemann Keep
C F Keep
Jimbo Keep
H B Troll Evict!
Praetorian ?
Primetroll ? (probably keep as a muse)
Inquiring mind ?
Fake P ?
Astrid ?

Vote seems to be leaning slightly towards "keep" for now. So, unless Sauce gets crude, abusive or excessively spammy, I guess he stays (for now).

Price war!

4153 EL CAMINO WY #E, Palo Alto, CA 94306
3/2 1,399 N/A 08/02/05 $545,000

4149 EL CAMINO WY #F, Palo Alto, CA 94306
3/2 1,399 1400 SF 08/02/05 $589,000

I have seen one of them before many weeks ago... I think the 545K one is a re-list!

Deleting comments has nothing to do with free speech. MP can start his own blog and we will not stop it. I do not see how cluttering space with nonsense is free speech.

I just finished my law degree and I passed the CA. bar exam last month. I am a 50 year old high tech wash-out engineer who decided to practice construction law.

I figure that my business will be great for next several years, after the bubble bursts representing the folks that are damaged by RE fraud and construction defects.

I am not here to solicit business, as I have been reading this blog for sometime.

It just amazes me the stupidity of the sheeple that are buying these defective bubble infested prosperities.

Like I said, I think business will be good until I retire in several years.

Good luck to us all!

Jack, thanks for the excellent analysis. I really admire your objectivity. :)

It just amazes me the stupidity of the sheeple that are buying these defective bubble infested prosperities.

New Attorney, I totally agree. All new constructions that I have visited recently are all crappy. I guess builders are incentivized to build as quickly as possible in bubble times.

Anon, they are anon buyers. No information is available. ;)

I guess those are innocent flight-to-quality purchases by trusts and HNWIs.

In short: granite on cardboard

I have more faith in modular homes. If the modules are to be transported and craned into position, they need to have at least a certain degree of structural integrity.

"[Marin] could very well even appear to correct more steeply than the Bay Area in general for one or two months in a row, and then shoot up the next month as other BA communities continue a more predictable path of correction....The rest of Marin has a far greater diversity of housing types and small town atmosphere, and is far harder to predict.
"

Just yesterday, I saw a small (~1000sqft) '20s bungalow on Sir Francis Drake (SA) listed at $799K. Despite the "location, location, location" mantra, I simply wonder how that "value" will hold long-term, taking real economic factors into account. If we take Marin home prices from 20 years ago, account for inflation and perhaps some intangibles over 20 years, how do those numbers compare to the market? Are people commiting financial suicide on a grand scale simply to own a home in Marin? I have to wonder...

MP Tally

I vote evict.

Sheeple is now my favorite word.

Houses maybe…no they are crappy in terms of construction but that doesn’t mean they are defective, does it?

hellboy, crappy constructions means that it is easier to find defects. When prices are down, people tend to sue over the smallest "defects" in order to get out.

You must admit though, what is 50K for a prize like a Yugo? They are the cutting edge of Serbo-Croation technology after all!

I thought Yugo is an upscale super car. The salesman told me that prices will only go up because boomers will buy Yugos, and they are not making them any more.

Veritas,

If Jack's suggestion doesn't work, tell her "La Paloma" translates as "the vulture" (it actually means 'the dove').

<i>text</i>

Italics use before the words to be italicized and after to closed the italics. substitute a b for bold.

Oops. That worked before. I'll just put in the tags.

hopefully that will go through ok.

Peter
why does that work when you do it?

To get <, you need to type &lt;
To get >, you need to type &gt;

Wow. How you figure this stuff out is beyond me.

SactoQt, it is part of HTML, the language of web sites.

Oh. Guess I needed to take a computer programming class for that. Good stuff to know for a blog though.

Back to the topic at hand. I've heard of the US buying its own debt too, but I have no clue how that works.

@CF,

"Housekeeping" indeed.
As to your question, the Fed already "owns" about half of its own debt (in the form of U.S. Treasuries/bonds) --as much as foreign and domestic private investors combined: tinyurl.com/atvry. I guess it all pretty much works the way you describe --the government keeps running larger and larger deficits, so it keeps "borrowing" more money from itself. Basically the modern way of printing more money.

How could MP be evicted if this is an open blog?

We can use clues like language, IP address, and e-mail address.

Unfortunately, if they print it and spend it, won't they have to tax the people to be able to pay it back or cover interest at least?