patrick.net

JasonM says: "... housing cost too much..."

It's not the cost. The problem is that idiots pay too much. This is why prices rise.

Agents,sellers,banks want full price. Who represents the buyer's interest since he is not stupid,merely foolish?

Overpaying for anything is brilliant,personal financial theology,because The American Dream.

jazz music says

What do you mean "permabulls start to dominate" .. how can they do anything since they refuse to buy???

I get that the top is coming, but how does anything permabulls do set up the next top? --they've been standing on the sidelines while Chinese buy and fund managers form REITs.

The Chinese and fund managers are bulls. You think it's the housing bears that buy homes?
Folks, this is what you get when you learn Econ 101 from Fidel Castro.

I do not know you, but I actually thought about your previous thread.

Why is this guy being so hard on himself? I thought.

As I have said several times on this board; Yes, I was wrong about the housing market, prices going up, all of it.

However, I still do not redact any of my statements. Certainly not going into detail, that is what I thought at the time.
I made a financial miscalculation (Nothing was lost) and lost out on a potential hundred grand.

Also, I have more of 'bear' tendencies. That is simply a part of who I am.

Additionally, I gained something. If I ever do buy property again in California,
I will just accept the risk and the price within budget, that the value can fluctuate some.

You can't think the economy into doing what you want, it doesn't cooperate.

You can't predict the future, and anybody who says they can, is a con artist. If you think you can predict the future, you are conning yourself.

You shouldn't buy a home because you want to speculate on it's value. You should buy a home in your prudent price range because you want to own a home, will feel good about owning it, want to live in it and plan to stay in it for at least seven years. If you can afford the payments, market cycles should be irrelevant.

If you thought you could time markets, then you are a speculator and got burned. Welcome to the wonderful world of speculative investing. Getting burned is what happens to a lot of speculators, so boo hoo hoo.

Don't gamble if you are not prepared for losses.

A lost opportunity is not a loss, it is a fantasy of entitlement based on the past, which is unchangeable. Get back into the real world instead of feeling sorry for yourself over something you can't change.

BAO says:"Affordability (which means I always bought way below what I qualified for) prudent pricing, decent location, something I could maintain myself with little outside help and the freedom more or less to do with it as I pleased. Staying well under what I "qualified for" allowed me to have a life outside of the physical structure I lived in."
WTF!

True Americans buy more shit than they need & overpay for it. You need to get with the program.lol

I will go to garage sales for entertainment. I've been counting all coffee mugs. When I see three more the count will be one trillion & one. I haven't had time to count all the other duplicate crap.

Call it Crazy says

anonymous says

Staying well under what I "qualified for" allowed me to have a life outside of the physical structure I lived in.

That's so un-American of you. Didn't you listen to your realtor and qualify and borrow at the maximum amount that the bank would give you? If you're not at 50% DTI on your house, you're not doing your part in this housing recovery!!

You should be very ashamed!

It's people like BayArea that cause recessions. Makes me sick.

I really dont worry about the "lost opportunities" & appreciation. I really mostly worry about paying rent until I am 85. As of next year, it will cost me more than paying off a house (at the 2009 prices when I said "no thanks" & rented). How much more will rent cost me for the next 50 years???

JasonM says

I made my housing decisions not based on logic, but emotion.

JasonM says

I really mostly worry about paying rent until I am 85.

Sounds as if you are still too emotional.

Venting is good, but if you are wringing your hands and gnashing your teeth too often, you are governed by your emotions. Your comments display a classic case of "I'm going to be priced out forever" syndrome which drove the insanity in 2006. It's the investing equivalent of Scientology: you should laugh derisively, spit, and walk away fast from such thoughts.

Other points:

- Buyers are never "priced out" of an asset: if no one can buy, the market grinds to a halt until the price drops
- Renting is indeed more expensive than buying in some places, but it's rarely much more expensive. If you're trying to get ahead of your peers in financial security, buy only shitty cars with cash, cancel your cable, and spend money only on experiences rather than physical goods - i.e., eschew expensive toys for travel, concert tickets, oboe lessons, and so on.
- If you can't buy real estate - an illiquid asset with maintenance costs and headaches - you are missing out on only one asset class, and one of the most randomly valued ones, and you can then plow that down-payment money into other ventures. Given that employers hate employees now, starting your own business or finding investment opportunities should take precedence over buying a house, because work is now for losers. I am coming around to the idea that the only people who should buy real estate are those who have already made their fortune elsewhere, and can pay cash
- Most important, life is not a business. And if nothing you do pans out, you'll still have lived your life pretty much the same as any real estate baron, because success and owning lots of real estate does not buy happiness

Make a list of the worst things which could happen to you. Here's mine:

1) Complete social ostracism
2) Death of my loved ones
3) Becoming homeless
4) Being set on fire and not dying
5) Being beheaded by ISIS
6) Repeated bone-marrow transplants
7) Ass/bladder cancer requiring external bags and pouches
8) Quadriplegia

Really think about these, or any other of your top fears. They're actually pretty mundane - I know two guys suffering from 7, and both did quite well emotionally - shitting and pissing in a bag becomes just another daily hassle after a few months. Some quadriplegics say they're about as happy as they were before. (As for being set on fire and spending months in agonizing pain in a burn ward, or repeated bone marrow transplants? Sorry - I got nothing.)

Most Americans are terrified of becoming socially isolated, because, first of all, it is scary, and also they know that all these BMWs and houses, acquired to impress others with our worthiness, didn't really impress anyone because people just don't care about your BMW, and, if anything, the activities necessary to acquire these trophies reduce the energy we would otherwise use to work on our human connections.

In sum, my take is that you shouldn't waste your energy. Owning, financial security, and freedom from being set on fire will not make you happy. It will produce a few hours to a few weeks of satisfaction, at which point your brain centers will get bored of it all, and start chanting for more stuff, more wealth, more achievement to feed that need for the various endocrine stimulations it craves, but can't get in a state of stasis, no matter how successful that stasis is. Work on saying no to the lies your grasping brain is telling you. Nothing wrong with success - I don't want to discourage anyone from pursuing wealth - but the actual engines of happiness are found in managing your life and your brain, and the tools for doing so are available to the non-wealthy as well as the wealthy.

JasonM says

I really dont worry about the "lost opportunities" & appreciation. I really mostly worry about paying rent until I am 85. As of next year, it will cost me more than paying off a house (at the 2009 prices when I said "no thanks" & rented). How much more will rent cost me for the next 50 years???

Life is too short and unpredictable. You can always move to other areas-if you don't have a house, you have a lot of freedom. Where I am in, there has actually been good appreciation-well for this area. I am kind a thinking should I move, should I stay-lucky for me it won't make a difference. My monthly payment for my 4 bedroom, slightly less than one acre property that is 15-20 min from work is less than what I would pay for rent in an upscale studio in the peninsula. I hear east bay rentals are high too. I have paid down a big chunk of the mortgage, will be done in about 4-5 years and then still have savings. Even in my area, if I rent my house , I will make about 200-300 over the monthly payment and I am in a 15 yr mortgage-granted I put a substantial amount for downpayment.I do take vacations and do enjoy life.

There are other options-of course you will have to give and take-you are not going to be living in California-but then maybe that is a good thing. Who knows in a few years, CA may face a massive collapse in real estate-or it may just stay at a plateau for the next 20 years. Just look at all options and don't be chained to only option. I myself am thinking may want to move, but won't unless I get something really good and worth it to move.

lostand confused says

There are other options-of course you will have to give and take-you are not going to be living in California-but then maybe that is a good thing. Who knows in a few years, CA may face a massive collapse in real estate-or it may just stay at a plateau for the next 20 years.

I am aware of only one major metropolitan area which has sustained a completely insane full-generation property bubble beyond all reason, and it's Vancouver.

Dinghy, single family stucco houses with little yard range between $1.4 million and $2 million. Major funds are shorting Vancouver hard right now, and it looks as if sales are dropping.

Such property bubbles are rare. Vancouver is the only one of its kind, as far as I know.

JasonM says

I really dont worry about the "lost opportunities" & appreciation. I really mostly worry about paying rent until I am 85. As of next year, it will cost me more than paying off a house (at the 2009 prices when I said "no thanks" & rented). How much more will rent cost me for the next 50 years???

A lot more than you think. Buy something cheap, small and affordable. Prices are about to go through the roof.

HydroCabron says

starting your own business or finding investment opportunities should take precedence over buying a house, because work is now for losers.

Love this line of thinking. That's what Li Ka-Shing told the audience when he was speaking (can't remember the event) in Hong Kong.

Strategist says

Prices are about to go through the roof.

What make you think so? Mass exodus from China or from Greece?

hanera says

Strategist says

Prices are about to go through the roof.

What make you think so? Mass exodus from China or from Greece?

More and more people are convinced the worst of the housing is over. When they started regretting not having purchased earlier, as can be soon on this site, they will rush to buy. When they can't find their home given the acute shortage, they will panic.

Strategist says

More and more people are convinced the worst of the housing is over. When they started regretting not having purchased earlier, as can be soon on this site, they will rush to buy. When they can't find their home given the acute shortage, they will panic.

RE is not stock market. No money means no money. If you're right that they will panic, then is the cities outside the core (SF, SV, Peninsula) that would be appreciating, which I thought is already happening. Recall reading somewhere that East PA, South SJ, Morgan Hill, etc are booming; while the prices in core area is plateauing.