patrick.net

You got that right allah!

I dont see the point even discussing financing using $1M when these prices will decline downward by more than 50%.

TOS wants you to buy her $1M $hitboxes.

"TOS wants you to buy her $1M $hitboxes. "

BAHAHAHAHAHAH !!!

Watching CNBC midday... topic...

Why are more expensive employees being fired for cheaper new hires.
All about Circuit City. First off Best Buy was paying less than CC. No news there like Google is overpaying for its employees. one day they will pay the price like SGI did with overspending.

"Hey its cheaper!" Was what one analyst said.

It will take a very long time for salaries to even come close to support todays prices...

New thread: Refinance = Debt Forgiveness

It will take a very long time for salaries to even come close to support todays prices…

Today's prices will come down to be supported by those salaries.

On the other hand trying to time the bottom is hopeless...

Riiight. So exactly how much do you need for those "investment" properties you're trying to unload?

As I said before…buying now is crazy !!! The cost of waiting 3-5 years is very small…On the other hand trying to time the bottom is hopeless…

Timing the bottom is alot easier than timing the top. When the bottom is hit, it will stay there a while, the hard part is figuring out for sure when it will go back up again.

You don't need to time the bottom to get a decent deal. Just 'not insane' is all you need to hit if you're really buying a house and not an investment.

Also... it depends on how you define tops and bottoms. (Ooooh, a straight line for anybody from SF!) If you mean the exact absolute peak and the deepest part of the trough, then yes. Impossible. However, you could argue that we've been at the 'peak' now for about a year and a half to two years, depending on which market you look at.

SFBB nailed it.

You don't need to time the EXACT bottom, just be able to recognize when the monthly net cost of borrowing is roughly in line with the net cost of renting for an equivalent unit. Which should not to be too hard, even for the severely math challenged.

@theotherside

As I said before…buying now is crazy !!! The cost of waiting 3-5 years is very small…On the other hand trying to time the bottom is hopeless…

And as I said before, many times before, even specifically to you:

* No one will be able to time the bottom purposefully. Some will accidentally (and delude themselves they were smart and shrewd instead of lucky).

* I personally will buy before the bottom, and probably ahead of most of the people who frequent here, because I have a high utility value to owning.

* Your earlier arguments specifically showed that selling/buying-again right now would be superior financially to waiting a bit. So I'm confused now about your argument. It's crazy to buy now, but it's superior to buy now?? I'm not an investment banker, so please eludicate me.

@theotherside

I count only property taxes pre federal tax deduction. All others are post deduction. That's the way it works. You don't get to deduct your taxes from your taxes in that particular case. Quite soon you probably won't be able to deduct any state taxes from federal taxes at all, or so I hear.

I just need to watch for 4 things before I buy.

1) The ownership rate drops back down to 65% or 66% from 70%.
2) Easy money is nowhere to be found.
3) Inventories drop down to 7 months supply.
4) Foreclosures stabilize.

Until all of these things happen, I won't even start looking.

Because 25% of $1,000,000 is $250,000. Or, as we used to say back in Uhiuh, "a quarter million bucks".

Hmm, a loan for a quarter million more, or a quarter million less? Hmmm. Let me think real hard for a moment. Hmmm. What will the extra interest cost me on a quarter million again, even forgetting all that mysterious financial present value math and stuff?

Oh wait, only 15%. Hmmm. Back where I came from we'd call that "uh hundret an fiftee grand".

By the way, 25% improves affordability by "uh quarter".*

*Actually, 25% decline in nominal prices results in more like 38% improvement in affordability because of the way all that evil math with exponents in the equations works.

So now GC can tell the future?

I am "one". I will buy a house that is around .5 larger, splitting the savings rewards with the improved house rewards.

"Future is still uncertain, as far as I am concerned."

That is why we use tools like financial trends, rations and other matrix.
It is the reason we have financial analysts in major corporations
looking forward looking at various scenerios in their markets.

"You don’t need to time the EXACT bottom"

Pull up the S&P from 1993-4 to 2002 and slap a straigth ruler and line up the trends from 1992 to the bottom at 2002 after the fall in the market.

Or using simple math.. .start with S&P in 1993 add 7% YoY increase gets you to the fabled bottom of the market after 2000. The 7% comes from Peter Lynch long term index returns he spoke widely about. Second matrix is PE and major trigger when stocks hit net book values.

I'm going to Roswell NM tomorrow, this is a perfect thread. I can't wait to read it.

If the mean is 50%, the exact bottom will probably be 55%; So we really don't care too much about the exact bottom.

"it didn't require any discipline to attain it"

Uh... BOO-YAH!

The article posted yesterday from the OC Register regarding the sale of Warren Buffets Laguna "manse" illumintes this quite clearly. Had he sold at the peak (article dated 10 May 2005) or the "crater" isn't going to make a rounding error on WB's net worth. It's the principle of the thing DAMN'IT!!! :)

Hey Robert!

Robert Cote' you are my favorite amongst dystopians.