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American in Japan says

Anyone else planning to buy before year's end?

I'm looking at 2016 or so.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-economy-california-budget-gap-idUSTRE7A28L520111103

California's got tons o' problems still. $600 per person state shortfall that's got to be closed.

$11B owed on unemployment:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/25/business/la-fi-california-unemployment-fund-20111025

I don't see how California is going to turn things around at all.

But Fukushima-I really did a number on my retirement plans. Tokyo might still work, I don't think the Cesium release is a present health threat, but who the hell knows.

Bellingham Bill says

But Fukushima-I really did a number on my retirement plans. Tokyo might still work, I don't think the Cesium release is a present health threat, but who the hell knows.

Sorry -- what did you mean by this? You wanted to retire in Japan?

corntrollio says

You wanted to retire in Japan?

It's one option. I found life in Tokyo to be pretty cool. Though it might be cheaper retiring to a Fortress, even Los Altos is cheaper than Tokyo as far as cost of living / quality of life goes.

Kinda depends on what happens in California. I don't think Silicon Valley's economy will materially worsen going forward, but I do think whatever trends have established themselves since 1995 will continue as they have.

In the wider scheme of things life in California may or may not become more difficult. I think we're on the path to more 1992-style street actions. 1992 wasn't just about police brutality, LA was deep into a major recession then:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=3am

things are a bit worse now, of course:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LOSA106URN

Living in West LA during the 1992 riots really colored my thinking about wanting to hang around if this place starts looking like Soyent Green.

Though I'd also probably be happy up in Bellingham, hence my name.

American in Japan says

Has anyone bought, or know anyone who has bought in 2011?

Yes. After being driven insane in the apartment we rented (the nice couple upstairs who we rarely even heard was replaced by a mother/daughter/dog from hell, with the daughter hyperactively running around with its shoes on and playing with a ball hours at a time every day with usual start times around 7am and ending at 10-11pm on a hardwood floor over our bedroom, the dog barking four hours straight at a time until the neighbor got tired of dealing with the police and had it de-barked, etc.) my wife looked at the rental situation, buying condos (would have the same common wall problem), buying houses, and after months of things like applying to rent places ("We were hoping for a family that would raise their children here"; we don't want pets; etc.) we became open to a new possibility I describe as affordable high-density (actually not worse than some new tract home developments) detached single family housing.

We bought a good double wide trailer (it's QUIET, has double pane glass windows, central air, over 600 square feet of deck and patio for outdoor living) on a perimeter lot in a great park (the location couldn't be better, people need to landscape the front of their lots so things look nice, rentals aren't allowed, a 700 credit score is required to get in, if we later sell to a family with grade school aged children they'll get Sunnyvale schools).

Our monthly cash flow is $500/month better than if we bought a similar house in the same neighborhood (which would have been built in 1950 and not had an open floor plan), would only get $150 worse instead of $500+ if they get rid of the mortgage deduction, if we don't decide to pay it off sooner the mortgage is done in 20 years not 30, and the down payment was a quarter of what it'd be on the house with a good mortgage rate. Prices should be more stable since there aren't many funny alternatives to chattel mortgages with 80% LTV requirements and amortizations over less than 30 years. It's about $1300 less a month than if we rented a small house in the area or even a similar sized condo that had common walls/ceilings/floors with other potentially horrible people.

Plus I don't need to deal with mowing a lawn or hiring a gardener to do it for me, although there's plenty of space for our gardens (harvested tomatoes, tomatillos, jalapenos, basil, chives, and parsley at the end of summer and have snap peas planted for the winter; ornamental plants include our palm tree, fuschias, a couple of succulent gardens, and more of my wife's flowers than I can name).

^ yeah, I lived among the mobile home parks in Sunnyvale for 5 years. Didn't seem that worse than anything else, really.

Apparently the space rents are capped or something? I'd hate to have the land inflate out from under me.

Bellingham Bill says

Apparently the space rents are capped or something? I'd hate to have the land inflate out from under me.

Sunnyvale and Santa Clara county lack rent controls although a 2-3% increase is typical (about $25/month) plus a $50 increase every time a property is sold.

We're gambling that the cash flow situation will remain better than the alternatives for long enough to cover maintenance, transaction costs, and drops in value less equity accumulation. That seems near certain given 1) the huge gulf between renting land and either renting land plus housing or renting money to buy land plus housing and 2) monthly housing rental prices increasing hundreds of dollars each year.

San Jose was capped at 3% annually but is now 75% of the area CPI increase with a floor of 3% and ceiling of 7%. Milipitas and Los Altos also have rent control.

Where I'd want to work and therefore live there's no way to win at housing without owning a time machine that lets you retroactively purchase before the bubble, although some options are arguably less bad than others.

@Bill (Troy)

>I don't see how California is going to turn things around at all.

>But Fukushima-I really did a number on my retirement plans. Tokyo might still work, I don't think the Cesium release is a present health threat, but who the hell knows.

I may be buying a house in Mejiro... more to come.

Mejiro is nice. A bit too far from the National Azabu, but I guess with the internet you can get home delivery now.

I used to ride my motorcycle from Takadanobaba to Azabu to get stuff like applesauce, peanut butter, taco shells, etc.

Got tired of that so I just moved such that National Azabu was on the walk from the station.

Wish I was still there, sigh.

@Bill (Troy)

Actually, National Azabu closed last month (at least the one in Hiroo). I am not sure if it is gone or will reopen. A bit shocking...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

ah, just going to refurbish it maybe:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20111008f2.html

One more month to go...

Bought a house in Monterey. Nice view of the bay. No idea how much more prices will go down, but we've been waiting 6 years now and this is the nicest house we've seen in that time (that we can afford). Time will tell, but I'm happy with what we got and that's all that counts as far as I'm concerned.