patrick.net

I have started the first new "lurker's" discussion thread by request of AntiTroll from Oz: Dream Homes"

inquiring mind,

C'mon, "bailing unceremoniously"?? I just started two new threads for you, including one designed to help keep the ball rolling in my absence. How much more "ceremonious" am I supposed to be?

This was not a spur of the moment decision, btw. My job is going to keep me on the road for a while, and besides that, my family is needing more of my time these days. Sorry to disappoint you. ;-)

Perhaps you can become a threadmaster yourself? It's really not all that difficult, and has been a lot of fun, actually.

ICEMAN Says:

YEAH, It’s getting kind of old talking about a crash month after month only to see prices continue to rise.

Gee, iceman, I hate to "burst your bubble" ;-) but it looks like we're at or near the top of this market cycle:

SFGate: "Overheated Bay Area home sales take a breather in July"
tinyurl.com/8rlz8

Fannie Mae shares taking a nosedive:
tinyurl.com/abp3p

SD County Inventory Up 350% In 18 Months:
tinyurl.com/8x8fb

Look out below!

HARM, good luck in your future endeavors... we will miss you!

HARM, thanks for writing all these long thoughtful posts. While you are away, I guess the blob will have to live with my short silly posts again. ;)

... unless some other threadmasters step in and save the day.

Question: Why isn't the webmaster, Patrick himself, involved with his own blog? He seems to be MIA here now!

laverty, perhaps Patrick is busy. It is still working out fine, isn't it? ;)

Thank you all (excepting Mr. Right) for your kind words, especially you, Jack. You have most certainly NOT been a "PITA" (boy , those new acronyms keep coming!).

Peter, I'm hope you're still planning on having that Blogger BBQ. I plan to make it, if at all possible. It's been a while since we discussed it, so I can't remember --were you holding off until YoY prices go down statewide?

We should definitely have a party. Gabby already said that she is interested (where is Gabby?). Jack is interested.

Contrary to the name of the blog, we are geographically diverse. It will not be easy to find a place that is convenient for everyone.

Thanks, Mr. Right --I assumed you were being cheeky ;-).
Though we don't we don't always see eye to eye, I always enjoy sparring with a reasonable and well informed opponent.

Contrary to the name of the blog, we are geographically diverse. It will not be easy to find a place that is convenient for everyone.

I have family & friends in the BA, and don't mind driving up from SCAL (with enough advance warning/planning). However, I certainly understand if others are unable to. We also have a large number of regulars from Australia, NZ & the East coast. Though I'd love to meet everyone in person, this I think will be impractical --we'll pretty much have to stick with CA people.

Not your fault, it’s mine for growing up where “**** you” was usually a compliment.

**** = love ?

Though I’d love to meet everyone in person, this I think will be impractical –we’ll pretty much have to stick with CA people.

Perhaps we can have a party in Marina, SF? ;)

You bring the bubbly and I’ll bring the meat?

Bubbly means beer? It thought it is just "froth".

Greenspan will be there as well?

No, but we can try to invite David Lereah.

My First Post after being here for many many months.
Enjoy reading this blog. Appreciate the great thoughtful long posts by HARM and great contributors like Jack Says, Peter P, SactoAt and many others. HARM have great time with your family and good luck on your work.

The fact is that this group of people will not give up on the idea that they are priviledged and filthy stinking rich, and as such will have a tendency to support policies that do not allow the price of basic commodities to rise( = dollar fall ).

"Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps the fear of a loss of power."

-John Steinbeck

Small to medium cap landlords will be in a shitty situation. Slumlords unite!

Going forward, anyone who cannot derive significant passive income globally will be in a shitty situation.

Shmend Rick, it appears that you are more bearish about the world than me. :)

Shmend Rick, think of preferred shares as no more than bonds with indefinite maturity and interesting terms. They are more sensitive to interest rate, credit rating, and dividend payout than anticipated profits.

HARM,

I'm jacked with work too. You've been a great mod. See you on the flip side.

_getting out just in time to avoid the hell I should pay for my 50% by the end of august prediction_

Cheers,
prat

Every few years, there is another gloom and doomer, another prediction of hyperflation, another warning to buy gold and another claim that the Next Great Depression is upon us.

Well it will not happen, you should not buy it and you can't let fear rule your life.

The American economy is much more resilient than that, economics is much more a science today and technology is raising the standard of living of people worldwide.

There is a veneer, okay maybe more than a veneer these days, of casino capitalism, but underneath it all is an America that still makes the best computer chips, the best movies and music and writes the best software. And the best warplanes, too. Don't forget. Don't ever forget that. The rest of the world never does.

I sound like I should write for Wired don't I? I used to work there, not on the editorial side, but I was the pessimist there. All that pollyannaism made me want to wretch. Just as all the pessism here makes me want to grab you all by the lapels and shout "WAKE UP, LIFE ISN'T THAT BAD!"

And really, even if the worst of you were right, the housing bubble popped and brought down the economy with it and made us all broke and penniless, are you going to end up any better off than those who took greater risks? If you own enough land, free and clear, to sustain yourself, and enough gold buried in the back yard to pay your property taxes.. maybe. That is if you can find yourself heartless enough to turn away all of your extended family when they come to your door begging for a handout and a place to stay.

As for India and China, I personally welcome their entrance into the global economy. I was born into a liberal Democratic Union family and raised to fear and hate foreign goods, but after reading The Economist for the last decade I realize I was taught a lie. Though there may be winners and losers in the game of global trade, the world is better off and a wealthier and happier place for it. I think for the next 50 years or so, we will see standards of livings fall a bit in the US and rise and rise and rise in India and China. And that is a good thing to me. A few less overweight suburbanites driving to the mall in their SUVs would be a good thing.
And an America that learned to work with its allies instead of piss all over them with taunts of Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys and Freedom Fries would be a good thing too.

Don't get me wrong, I am a Vet and as patriotic as the next guy but I consider myself a citizen of the world as well and have travelled everywhere. We are going to have to change our way of thinking of ourselves in the world or the rest of the world will do it for us.

What India and China do bring to the world is a whole heck of a lot of labor and very little capital. Econ 101 tells us that this is going to lower the value of labor and increase the value of capital. So yeah, if you only have your labor to sell, you are going to find the next decade or so pretty rough. Already the average wage of an American worker has gone down a bit in real terms the last 5 years. This trend will continue, probably even accelerate. And if you own a factory in China or have a pile of cash, wisely invested, you will do very well. I don't think that is a good thing, mind you, just the way it will play out.

And I just don't see any serious social upheaval in America. People are just too well fed, too entertained by the TV and video games and the Internet and too brainwashed by the media and talk radio to really do anything about their slightly worsening circumstance. If things really do fall apart and there really is a big Depression, all bets are off though.

Jimbo

I think you are right that either extreme, pollyanaism/doom and gloom are too over the top to get it quite right. I went to school in Japan before their economy tanked, and back then the Japanese were the evil foreigners who were going to take over the world. I remeber a psych class I took in college and the mention of the comfort a culture takes in a common enemy, and I guess the doom and gloomers have their choice to pick from these days.

Honestly though, the American economy has been resilient in the past and hopefully will continue to be so. I think the fact that China and others have put so much of their money into our economy to boost our buying of their products makes the strength of our economy important enough to the world economy that I doubt they'd want to see us go down in flames. This is a spoiled culture and a pull back in spending/wealth effect housing has had will probably be a goog thing in the long run. I devoutly pray there is not a depression.

For a "meta-thread" that was supposed to mainly be about ideas for creating more threads, this one isn't generating too many --so far just motorcityjim has actually posted one :-(.

Shmend Rick, Walla, Jimbo, SactoQt, Astrid --you've all had a very lively discussion about outsourcing and immigration (esp. from India and China as the looming "twin giants" of the developing world) and how it impacts the U.S. Economy. You all have obviously thought about this quite a bit and all have strong opinions about it.

Can you summarize your viewpoints/theories above in the form of a thread topic? Throw in a couple of questions about how this might impact housing (and maybe a link or two) and --Presto! Hot new thread topic.

RE: CoHousing

I can envision that in the future, families live in "condos" that are essentially clusters of bedrooms and bathroos only. They will share the community kitchen/cafe and living area. We can proabaly pack 3000 families in each "condo" tower...

The future is always scary...

where did I mention race?

... now it is overextended real-estate flippers and transient renters from Asia ...

Listen to Astrid, she has close family in Shanghai, you don’t think that is going to effect her take on economic policy in America?

Shmend Rick, can you refrain from naming other participants of this blog? This can be construed as personal attack.

I understand how demographics and generational changes can have huge economic consequences in the long run. However, such changes can be both positive and negative. Be optimistic! (Yes, you hear this from me, the perma-bear.)

astrid, I do not condone personal attacks or offensive comments. However, let's first try to engage them positively and be nice to them. If they are still not nice, we will then take action. I am sure everyone is capable of being nice (and mean). ;)

astrid, I have created a thread per your request.

How about this question: at what point does equilibrating global wages turn the United States into a place that is no longer an immigration magnet?

This would have a huge impact on housing prices, especially in places like California and New York, that absorb the bulk of the migrants.

I like astrid's question.

As for SR, I am not sure how you misunderstood what I stated to mean the exact opposit of what was intended. I suppose it takes two to miscommunicate, so I will go back and reread what I said and try to see how it could have been presented better.

Most gang violence problems are due to misguided asian youth.

There are just too many misguided youth. Does Australia have a mandatory military service or social program? I think we can use a mandatory social service program here. It is a good idea for young people to develop a more intimate relationship with their communities. What are they doing instead?

There are just too many misguided youth.

This statement applies to all ethnicities though.

I wanted to do Peace Corps but that thing is a total mess.

It cannot "tame" the youth problem if the programs are on voluntary basis though. People who "choose" to join usually belong to a self-selecting group that does not general cause trouble anyway.

message to boomers: I suggest you start making friends under 30 if you don’t have children.

I am under 30 and I do have boomer friends. They are rather interest people.

Shmend Rick, I do know a boomer who is on I/O ARM. One thing is that because the divorce rate is so high here, harded earned money may not be retained by these boomers. What does the money go when bitter spouses try to inflict harm on each other?

You seem to be an odd duck too. Why do you blame China and India so? So what if they become the next super power, what’s that to you? What if America spends itself into bankruptcy, were you hoping for an inheritance?

astrid, SR appears to be blaming everything because everything looks bad. I was in a phase like that too...

Here's a topic I haven't yet seen here, but would like to: Appraisal fraud.

Specifically, the intense pressure being brought to bear on honest appraisers to inflate their estimates by greedy, reckless lenders and Realtors, who just want to close the deal --and damn the consequences. Is this just another inevitable consequence of the overall credit and greed-driven bubble, or one of its root causes? Can anything be done, especially after the bubble (thanks to politics, reforms rarely happen during a bubble) which might prevent this in the future?

Here's a good article on the problem:
"Home Insecurity - How Widespread Appraisal Fraud Puts Homeowners At Risk": tinyurl.com/7ru64

Key Findings:

" Up to half of all appraisers have reported feeling pressures from lenders or brokers to overstate property values. Many appraisers go along with these pressures out of fear of losing future work. Appraisers who have not complied with such pressures report not being paid for work and being blacklisted by lenders and brokers.

Quite a few appraisers appear to agree with this assessment and are petitioning the federal government to step in and do something about it:

"Appraisers Petition - Concerned Real Estate Appraisers from across America": appraiserspetition.com