patrick.net

But Sunnyvale’s like most of the BA is pretty featureless, bland, and yeah, uninspiring.

Somehow I like the Milpitas hills near Spring Valley.

DinOR Says:
[re: youwalkaway.com] Hugely successful. That is until the Feds shut them down.

Why would the Feds shut them down?

After all, aren't the banksters trying to stick their crap to the taxpayer and do their own version of "youwalkaway"?

Wasn't Mozilo trying to get conforming limits raised so Countrycide (tm) could shovel all their refuse to Fannie/Freddie and do the "youwalkaway" dance as well?

Didn't the POTUS go on air last night and brag about his own "youwalkaway" plan for the banksters?

POTUS? Are you a Clancy fan?

I have been arguing this on Zillow some today with, of all things, a bunch of self righteous real estate agents.

My point was that since we've turned HOUSES into INVESTMENTS and started treating normal folks like balance sheets, we now shouldn't be surprised if those people start making decisions like businesses instead of sunday school teachers.

We can't have it both ways.

But what was really telling for me was how so many agents started pointing fingers at those terrible McDebtors. For shame, they should be punished.

Ya ya. What about all the agents who had their hand in the till the entire time? Perhaps that's why they're caterwauling so loudly? To cover up their own sins?

And while I am at it, isn't the Fed itself pulling a Youwalkaway by devaluing the dollar that we foolish sentimentalists regarded as a source of value?

F*ck the whole lot. I am going to print out the Youwalkaway homepage and leave copies of it everywhere I go. Plaster the Bay Area with it until every man, woman and in-between has committed the URL to memory...

%s/"source of value"/"store of value"/g

@Randy

Perhaps that’s why they’re caterwauling so loudly? To cover up their own sins?

Agreed.

The mass walkaway is coming to a theatre near us, sooner than I was surmising last year. This thinking, "it's a business decision" will propagate, and the stigma is gone. This spring the pricing denial stage will erode, and when many milliions realize how much better off they will be posting the keys. Holy cow. This is the next stage before price capitulation.

What's needed is a cool logo of a little man walking out of a house then the Youwalkaway url and put it on a sticker.

The BA thing is to put stickers like this on buildings and stop light poles etc.

Put the logo online here for people to do stuff with.....

They already have such a logo (animated) on their website.

Cool.

Good news: McCain won Florida
Bad news: Clinton won Florida

I joined Yahoo in 2006 and could not stay for more than five months. This 1000 layoff is too low in my opinion. They should have layed off at least 2500.

====
Yahoo to Lay Off 1,000 Workers
Yahoo's 4th-Quarter Profit Drops 23 Percent; Company to Lay Off Up to 1,000 Workers

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Yahoo Inc.'s financial funk deepened at the end of 2007, prompting the slumping Internet icon to draw up plans to lay off as many as 1,000 workers.

The Sunnyvale-based company disclosed the upcoming 7 percent reduction in its 14,300-employee work force Tuesday while reviewing a 23 percent drop in fourth-quarter profit and a cautious 2008 outlook. The bad news sent Yahoo shares skidding to their lowest levels in more than four years.

In a prepared statement, Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang warned of looming "headwinds," indicating that the company's tortuous turnaround efforts aren't likely to pay off this year.

"I'm surprised by how slowly they seem to be moving," said Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Derek Brown. "Yahoo still has quite a bit of work ahead."

Yahoo shares dropped $2.09, or more than 10 percent, in extended trading Tuesday after finishing the regular session at $20.81, up 3 cents. The company's market value has plunged more than 50 percent since the end of 2005, wiping out $35 billion in shareholder wealth.

Why could you not stay for more than 5 months?

Speaking of high tech bombs, Ebay's shot themselves in the foot, apparently at chest level.... http://chatboards.ebay.com/chat.jsp?forum=1&thread=2

If you did not own a home in the last 5 years, and are moderately in debt, then you are in great shape right now from a moral and fiscal standpoint.

Moral standpoint: You did not participate or contribute in any way to the current fiasco.
Fiscal standpoint: You are not losing value of savings due the declining dollar, and your debt is actually decreasing as the dollar declines.

I concur with PermaRenter, everyone I know who worked at Yahoo hated the company so much.

I think they should have let go at least 3000.

@Peter P,

Good news, McCain won Florida.
Bad news, Clinton won Florida.

Good news (for anti-Clinton folks), Clinton got zero delegates from the win.

Asian markets were moderately down, and Europe is falling on UBS news.

This, plus the rumored bond insurer downgrades, should give Bendover Ben another good cover to cut rates tomorrow... at least 25 points, but could be 50? I mean, at this point, who is counting anymore...

YouWalkAway has thier shite together.

when you google 'walk away' they are #1 result (paid).

I bet that walk away kit is useful to convince ones reluctant spouse to walk away. I wanna see a you tube parody of the 'suzanne researched it' only with 'you walk away researched it'.

8 months mortgage free is a LOT of dough @5k per month=40k.
Now add in a year of property taxes not paid (they are already delinquent so 1 year is reasonable)= 8k more.

If they strip the house and sell cabinets etc =3k more.

50k easy of savings.

Anyway its nice to see CA returning to its normal state....recession, budget deficits, high unemployment and upside down homeowners everywhere. Thats the CA i grew up in. The 'everyone is rich' CA totally sucks-2 waits at restaraunts.... For some reason its never normal here, its a feast or famine state.

Hellokitty said:
Anyway its nice to see CA returning to its normal state….recession, budget deficits, high unemployment and upside down homeowners everywhere.

It is going to be quite a shock for a lot of people. The millions who arrived in the tech gold-rush since 1996 have only seen the boom. The New Paradigm shit. While driving around, when I point out strip-malls that used to be boarded-up in '92, they look at me like I am talking about unicorns and leprechauns.

Jeebus on a stick, this is going to be a wild ride.

Going back to the original thread topic, are there _any_ banks besides BofA into which one could diversify cash holdings with some confidence?

Citi, Wamu, WellsFargo, all look kind of exposed to problems.

Among credit unions, TechFed seems okay (anyone disagree?), but is there anything else that is viable?

We use CommonWealth Central Credit Union (mainly for credit card and car loans when needed - they do checking accounts and mortgages too) - but I have not bothered to check their financial footing.

They gave us a car loan when we needed one and even lowered the rates after a few months when we enquired - of course this was 5 years ago now.

I work in tech and almost everyone came to CA in the last 10 years even a few white guys from FO.

Although some russians came in early 90's after the soviet crash, they were early birds but missed the late 80's boom times, came in early slump period.

There are so few 'native californians' left that we should be granted special permission to run casinos out of our upside McMansions and/or shitty rental. Thats a great use for 5000 sq feet of home - get some revenue to pay all the state employee pensions.

I work in tech and almost everyone came to CA in the last 10 years even a few white guys from FO.

Although some russians came in early 90’s after the soviet crash, they were early birds but missed the late 80’s boom times, came in early slump period.

There are so few ‘native californians’ left that we should be granted special permission to run ca$ino$ out of our upside McMansions and/or shitty rental. Thats a great use for 5000 sq feet of home - get some revenue to pay all the state employee pensions.

HelloKitty,

Seems to me that California always has been a pyramid scheme, more so than the rest of the country.

SP,

If BK atty's can have their mug on the side of a city bus why NOT YouWalkAway!? I agree, and as Randy points out w/ homes sold as investments there shouldn't be any surprises here.

Do they have a hit-counter on their site?

Evidently "walking away" also includes pets. Just sick.

http://breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UFOH980&show_article=1&catnum=0

There are so few ‘native californians’ left that we should be granted special permission to run ca$ino$ out of our upside McMansions and/or shitty rental.

When I was in public schools back in the 1960's, my fellow students were always amazed that BOTH of my grandparents lived all their lives in the BA. To them, "going to see grandparents" involved getting on a plane and flying to the East Coast. I'm sure we 5th and 6th generation Californians are very much in a tiny minority.

City of San Jose historical population
Year Population
1980 629,246
1970 459,913
1960 204,196
1950 95,280
1940 68,457
1930 57,651
1920 39,642
1910 28,946
1900 21,500
1890 18,060
1880 12,567
1870 9,089

Arlington County Virginia is endeavoring to pass new legislation that would amend zoning to allow multi-family dwellings in current single family areas, faciliating the breaking up of a single large house into multiple "small houses". This to increase "affordability". It would also allow conversions of garages to dwellings, and the erection of stand-alone structures on properties as secondary dwellings. This is a rather big deal in the area, will be interesting to see if it is able to pass council.

Coming soon to a theatre near you.

DennisN Says:

> I’m sure we 5th and 6th generation Californians
> are very much in a tiny minority.

Before gold was discovered in 1848 there were less than 14,000 white men and women in the state.

If you want to hang out with 5th and 6th generation Californians whose relatives came here in the 1840’s you can join:
http://www.californiapioneers.org/

If you want to hang out with 5th and 6th generation Californians whose relatives came here in the 1940’s to work in the shipyards you can go to the housing projects in Richmond, Marin City and Hunters Point.

"Coming soon"

Portland already allows building "mother-in-law" apts. on existing home lots. You have to apply for it and many have. I believe though you can't sell it seperately. High density rulez yo!

HelloKitty Says:
There are so few ‘native californians’ left.

I don't know what a native californian is - the longest I have ever been in one place my entire life is in the Bay Area. I have been moved around so much that I don't even know whether I am a native anywhere. Not complaining though, it was an interesting life.

Although I was relatively sheltered in low-level academia, '91-'93 was a bad time economy-wise. But here is the funny thing - it was actually a _better_ life than the phony "boom" since '97... there seemed to be fewer arseholes in the recessionary times (maybe it is just rose-tinted nostalgia). Now, every other guy seems to be a Class-A sphincter.

It's not clear exactly when certain of my relatives got to CA simply because of lack of official documents. The earliest relative for whom I have a government-issued document showing when she got to CA (death certificate) is my great-great-grandmother Anna Cook. She came out as a single woman in 1862 via the Oregon/California trail. But it seems certain the man she married was in CA for a long time before she arrived.

Some slightly insider information:

Two local virginia counties have as their absolute "worst case" budget projections a 30% local decline in residental RE values. They simply cannot imagine worse, and put a less than 5% probably on this decline. Now patrick community understands this to be maybe a best case, relative to zirp and other factors. Both of these counties under under hiring freezes, both are facing enormous deficits, and both are preparing very large tax (property) increases at this point in time.

Nearly without exception, even the small jurisdictions in this area are endeavoring more debt, bond issues for schools and infrastructure are multiplying like rabbits. When do their ratings finally begin to take a hit and the markets stop giving them money or make it too expensive? I think soon, at least it should be soon. Commercial valuations are in the batters box, that should effectively turn off the spigot.

Retail in this area has been completely out of control, it's overbuilt by a factor of 2 or 3. (the industry thinks excess capacity will be less than 10% in a downturn, what a joke) What is going to happen to all of that empty space? Business opportunity there for something no doubt.

The State of Virginia has a massive budget problem, the cities towns and counties are all in debt way over their heads and have massive budget problems, it's getting very interesting for certain. I've seen stuff written about CA FL and OH, but simply wanted to let the list know that this is a serious problem in the mid-atlantic. The State of Maryland is in budget crisis. Washington DC thinks they are OK, they have been relatively insulated but that won't last long.

Apologies relative to off topic and geography.

northernvirginiarenter Says:
Two local virginia counties have as their absolute “worst case” budget projections a 30% local decline in residental RE values. They simply cannot imagine worse

What is 30% nominal drop in real terms? Also, their livelihood somewhat literally depends on property values, so they probably have a strong incentive to not understand the reasons for a larger drop.

Retail in this area has been completely out of control, it’s overbuilt by a factor of 2 or 3. (the industry thinks excess capacity will be less than 10% in a downturn, what a joke) What is going to happen to all of that empty space? Business opportunity there for something no doubt.

I have been wondering about that too, in the BA - maybe FAB can comment on how much of the current commercial property is "flex" and can be repurposed to some productive use (small export oriented workshops? Call centers for Indian companies outsourcing to CA? :-) ) when things go into reverse...

In "The Old Neighborhood" (Ray Suarez of NPR) tells of a time when 1 in 7 of us could trace our roots back to (1) town. Brooklyn. Additionally up until 1950 L.A was the only town over 800k that *wasn't in the NE/Upper MW.

It's hard to drive the back roads of OR,CA and NV and not see the end-of-the-line for a lot of families legacy. Dilapidated/abandoned farms, mining and logging towns and the die-hards time left behind. It's a mistake to think that just being amongst the first to arrive assured success. I appreciate their contributions nonetheless.

I emailed walkway bidness link to the editors of about 30 local rags, it was easy as I already had the local publicity list in hand. It will be interesting to see if anyone picks up the "story".

Dear Sir (editor):

I wanted to bring to your attention a new trend that will likely be of significant interest to your readership. As you are aware, many families are struggling with rising housing costs most often due to the unethical business practices of the "new and innovative" mortgage financing products. To date, media outlets have not provided much helpful information to those many families that are in this terrible situation. Possibly a balanced story on how to help families act in their own financial self-interest would be both timely and well received. In fact, I would suggest yours might be one of the first to cover the "foreclosure" or "subprime" crisis from this angle.

It is often in the best interests of consumers to walk away from a bad financing deal, indeed it is rapidly becoming a national trend. This is maybe not so good for the financing companies themselves, but ultimately will be better for the economy as a whole allowing a more rapid trajectory through the housing valuation crisis. Please see www.youwalkaway.com for more detailed information.

Thanks and best,
X

If enough readers from this list push this out to the media, possibly we have an effect? Gather all the issues of local newspapers, editors post their emails looking for story ideas in them. One might also hit their local TV stations.

Subversive can be fun.

My definition of a 'native Californian' is someone who knows of no other place his relatives lived. A person who doesn't exactly even know where great-great-great-grandpa came from.

>> Why could you not stay for more than 5 months?

Politics and non cooperation. Basically the Yahoo does not have strong leadership to keep politics low. This is not the case in Google. For example there is a mechanism to provide feedback after Google interview ==> this keeps interviewer honest to a degree. Recently in a tech interview, one interviewer was trying to find my age. I was offered the job and naturally I refused. I would have accepted had the company provided me an opportunity to provide feedback on interviewers.