patrick.net

Randy H - great so now we can't trust Zillow, I wonder though - if we just take the 2006 or mid 2007 data points on their graph - would this be more of less right or skewed? Of course I still hope that the prices will regress to 2000 levels - but I'm wondering if that is just wishful thinking for this area? If it is, then I can see that we will never buy here.

I rather have Casey Serin as the Fed chief. At least he is entertaining.

The U.S. State Department is not identifying the tipster, but media reports say he is 69-year-old Clarence Prevost, a former airline pilot and flight instructor from the state of Minnesota.

Prevost became suspicious after Moussaoui expressed interest in learning how to fly jumbo jets at his flight school, even though he had no experience flying smaller aircraft.

Prevost sought to alert authorities about Moussaoui and later became a key witness at his trial.

The State Department awarded Prevost the $5 million Thursday, as part of its "Rewards for Justice" program, which seeks tips about terrorists and terrorist activities.

Moussaoui pled guilty to six terror conspiracy charges and said he was supposed to be part of a second wave of al-Qaida attacks.

The Moroccan-born French citizen is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Calif. farmers want to sell water

FRESNO, Calif. — With water becoming increasingly precious in California, a rising number of farmers figure they can make more money by selling their water than by actually growing something.

Because farmers get their water at subsidized rates, some of them see financial opportunity this year in selling their allotments to Los Angeles and other desperately thirsty cities across Southern California, as well as to other farms.

"It just makes dollars and sense right now," said Bruce Rolen, a third-generation farmer who grows rice, wheat and other crops in Northern California's lush Sacramento Valley.

Instead of sowing in April, Rolen plans to let 100 of his 250 acres of white rice lie fallow and sell his irrigation water on the open market, where it could fetch up to three times the normal price.

Damn ! I hope today's stock market action is a temporary blip and the bounce continues from next week. With good MSFT earnings, I was hoping the indexes to go higher. Did not get any chance to load up on ultra-short. My limit buy order for QID was not filled.

Randy H,

"educating the buyers", heh.

See, you are fighting back. And I think bloggers and alternative media have played a big role in getting the story out. I bet there are tons of journalists that read this blog, and others like it.

Any journalists want to fess up? You can be anonymous, I'm sure Patrick is quite decent enough not to rat you out. :-).

FRESNO, Calif. — With water becoming increasingly precious in California, a rising number of farmers figure they can make more money by selling their water than by actually growing something.

Water is BLUE GOLD. Any investment idea?

@BayAreaIdiot

I too am an idiot renter - and deep down I know you're right about the housing/commute thing - but when you compare prices and what you can get for those prices (plus Walnut Creek is definitely crashing whereas here it's business as usual) - I start to wonder whether I should change my target area.

EBGuy :

You left out the link.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080125/bs_nm/usa_mortgages_bonds_jumbo_dc_1

This is why I still have a lot of hope for this country. There are still some people who understand how free markets work.

If Randy would explain how z is gamed I would greatly appreciate it. I *know* it happens as I've seen estimates which I deem very optimistic - and these are homes I've been inside. One thing they all (seem?) to have in common is that they've been claimed by owner (I think)

Well, you can't mess with the market. :)

BayAreaIdiot and Claire :

The East Bay commute discount is increasing very fast. During the boom, the discount was not worth it. What's nice is that discount will keep growing and still manage to pull down the mighty Fortress BA - at least IMO.

The Investor's Resource for Investing in Water Stocks

http://waterstockblog.com/

@Claire
I totally see your point. And naturally only you can weigh the pros and cons of any decision given your specific circumstances. I would make the following suggestion. If you feel really tempted, rent in an inexpensive hotel somewhere in East WC for a week. Then, commute every day to the Peninsula. Crossing any bridge/tunnel or getting on 880 during rush hour will soon cure you :-) Hope this helps!

Agents are gaming Zillow, especially in the Bay Area where a lot of agents are internet savvy and used to using Zillow.

What, Realtors are dishonest??? I am SHOCKED, SHOCKED to see fraud among Realtors!

However, the asking rents in this area seem to have climbed which is a bit disheartening - we will just stay put for now.

Ok, then. I can finally contribute something to a Bay Area discussion from personal direct experience. I have been looking for rental houses & townhomes (no apartments) in the East Bay, centered mainly around W.C. --an area roughly bordered by Martinez in the north, Clayton on the east, Moraga/Orinda on the west and San Ramon on the south. Here are my observations:

1. There is actually a fair amount of 2-3Bdm rental inventory available for a "reasonable" (by CA standards) price --under $2000/mo in my case. I mainly used Craigslist, Realtor.com & Hotpads.com, and despite having 2 cats (which reduced available inventory by at least half), I found 2-3 dozen potentials, which I whittled down to a short "best" list of ~5 properties. We just put in for our #1 pick and got accepted. Our new LL made a point of complimenting us on our high credit scores and excellent references, which should give you an idea of what a *typical* renter must be like here.

2. The house rental market here seems to be bifurcated (much like the economy ;-) ). Most of the owner/LLs we dealt with directly (vs. agent-shown properties) fell into one of the following two categories:
--Desperate to rent (one guy dropped the asking rent $100 even BEFORE we asked for an application).
--Smug, arrogant, and in no hurry to rent or compromise in any way.

3. The house rental market here is either at par with L.A. County, or even a bit better --as in, you get a little more for same money here, quality-wise. I was astonished to find that most LLs here provide W/D & refrigerators --sometimes new ones-- in the units. That's almost unheard of in SCAL.

Good news to agricultural investor that our farmers are not growing food any more.

Blue gold is kind of difficult to invest in, but you can always invest in DBA or RJA if farmers decide water is too precious to use on irrigation. That will drastically reduce the amount of food grown, or if food is grown, they will charge a lot more.

Why has Zillow all of a sudden become the Gospel Truth about housing prices? Who died and left THEM in charge of "determining" "market value"???

The mistake many people seem to make is to take the "zestimate" as the actual value of the home, like it's an actual appraisal, or better yet, an actual sale price. That just simply is false. Even if you give these guys full benefit of the doubt that their zestimates are based only on recent sales comps, the zestimate is likely to underestimate prices in a surging market and overestimate in a declining market, as the recent comps are a lagging indicator by definition.

That's basic crap even Realtards should be able to understand, high school degree and all.

HARM :

I can relate to your experience. Before we signed our lease a few weeks back, we just browsed through a few rentals. In our experience, the private LL were very reasonable in terms of price. In case of apartment complex the rents are much higher. If the name starts with an A (like Archstone, Avalon) then you have to pay a premium.

If the name starts with an A

As in, "a$$hole"? :-)

StuckInBA,

How did you find your renteals -- which website?

Thanks,
PermaRenter

BayAreaIdiot Says:

> I would make the following suggestion. If you feel really
> tempted, rent in an inexpensive hotel somewhere in East
> WC for a week. Then, commute every day to the Peninsula.

It is about 45 miles from San Mateo to Walnut Creek and at 2:00 am with no traffic the drive takes just under an hour (580 & 24 is the half way point).

It will be a rare to ever make the one way drive in under 2 hours from 7:00 - 9:00 am or 5:00 to 7:00 pm on a work day.

If you make $100K/year that is about $50/hour. 4 hours a day @$50 hour x 5 x 50 weeks = $50K (enought to service almost $700K in debt at 6%).

P.S. The car expense for a 90 mile round trip commute will be at least an extra $1K a month...

But Walnut Creek has Buchanan Field. San Carlos is only 22 minutes away!!!

http://tinyurl.com/2xuxtm

PermaRenter :

I used Craigslist. What I discovered was these days, the apartment complexes have better deals there and rent.com etc sites just put the official rates.

FAB at 2:36pm gives a more cerebral way to judge the cost/value of the commute. However, I am a stupid monkey. I only "get it" if I "do it". Hence, my method is to try it out and see.

RE: Zillow.

You've hit it on the head. It has to do with "owner claimed" entries. The owner has the ability to modify the base value of their address by entering improvements and adjusting "mistakes" in the data. Normally what really happens is their agent will claim it for them, and do all the "correcting" his or herself.

Z-Estimates are primarily an interpolation algorithm with some kind of a similarity weighting scheme (number of bedrooms, sqft, etc.) It seems that recent sales also command serious weighting in the formula.

By contacting Zillow you can request "corrections" or "clarifications" to the county data. There's a legitimate reason for this: abnormal transfers. A lot of times the county records will show $1mm homes selling for ridiculously low prices when they're transfered around within the family (or for other reasons I don't understand as well as others here). People were complaining that their homes were being dragged down by non-sales sales numbers -- and that those numbers were depressing the entire neighborhood.

But, as would be expected, it took a matter of hours before agents realized they could pounce on Zillow and change their client's Z-Estimates. I've been in a handful of homes now in Mill Valley & surrounds where the agents had pretty, color, glossy printouts of the Z-Estimates & graphs right there on the table next to the cookies. Sure sure. That's not suspicious at all (but I still eat their cookies).

However, there is currently a $3-400,000 price difference for similar properties in Wanut Creek vs Mountain View

>> If you make $100K/year that is about $50/hour. 4 hours a day @$50 hour x 5 x 50 weeks = $50K (enought to service almost $700K in debt at 6%).

This is a priceless piece of calculation. Thanks for the insight! I have never commuted and always rent apartment complex within five miles of work.

@ Claire,
Have you thought about Orinda? Just as nice as WC but cooler in the summer.

Also imagine the physical discomfort of two hour commute. Do these people take any interest in their kid's education?

Have you thought about Orinda? Just as nice as WC but cooler in the summer.

Orinda is quite nice. How about Lafayette?

...and there were unsubstantiated claims made on the Zillow forums that you could request/demand they remove your data (all or part) from your history "for privacy reasons" and they would do it rather than risk any exposure.

There was some legal debating going on about whether a 3rd party could legally disclose public information if it enabled harassment. I followed up to the point where some of the lawyer-types were debating the differences between why it's not ok if the information is free, but it is if the info is paid for in use of other transactions or legitimate purposes (like PropertyShark or title databases).

Remember, you can always make more money, but you can never recapture lost time.

@Claire
well then you still have 3-400K to spare according to FAB! Besides, that differential is bound to narrow isn't it? I remember someone describing housing bubbles exploding outwards (to suburbs) and imploding inwards (towards central areas).

On the day he took office, Jan. 14, Mr. Bruce did something more contentious. He delivered a swift kick to the knee of a photographer for The Rocky Mountain News who was snapping his picture during a ceremonial prayer. Mr. Bruce refused to apologize. The paparazzi, he defiantly told members of the House, would not leave him alone.

The kick was captured by a television camera, splayed across the Internet and led to a legislative inquiry that ended Thursday when Mr. Bruce, an antitax crusader from Colorado Springs who was appointed by his party to fill a vacancy, became the first member of the Colorado General Assembly to face censure.

@ Randy

thanks for confirming my suspicions. I think all those homes where I noticed the optimistic z-estimate were not only claimed, but also "make me sell"! What a joke that is...Maybe Patrick can set up the anti-z with a "make me buy" tag?

what the hell is suspicions?
i beg your pardon...now you know why I mostly lurk...

I really like Lafayette. Cute downtown, houses nestled on narrow, hilly streets, good architecture, all around neat place.

Moraga/Orinda & Lafayette are very nice and also very expensive --to buy or rent. Better have a fat checkbook with you when you go looking.

Claire Says:
we will probably wait at least another year - however, I worry that my daughter would benefit from a better school.

If you have a five mile commute to work, the extra time you get to spend with your daughter will be of much more benefit, than if you moved to a better school district but had to spend 2 hours commuting. Some colleagues commute from Fremont to Mtn.View (880+237) and it takes them roughly an hour each way. Not a fun way to live...