patrick.net

East California Says:

"I have met conservatives who are against religion; there is much poison in this country and even those who know what ’side’ they are on are not always immune."

Ayn Rand was pretty conservative, but anti-religious. I see your point, but that's not me. I'm for traditional religious belief.

"Either way, I only read the post I replied to, not the previous."

Yes; however, I'm not wholly sure you understood it. Christianity is very concerned with our material world, yet places eternal things above them.

"I want to expand on my previous post regarding commie-libs and their bubble-cult of individuality."

Please do! I don't have any use for lib-commies myself.

"We all recognize that people need to save money; those fools (and especially whole societies) which they can spend every penny ruin themselves, and society as a whole."

It's friggen next to impossible to save money in the Bay Area if you are a common working man with a family. Thank G-d I'm in Phoenix for a while cooling out, and am single still. However, a true capitalist reinvests profits, even at the individual level.

The problem with savings is, B of A is only giving you a few paltry percentage points interest on any residual money you may have been fortunate enough to scrounge after paying off all your Silicon Valley living expenses, etc.

"So it is with anti-religious communists. Folks like Surfer-X believe all life-opportunities should be spent. There should be no ’savings’ based on the orders of a fairy-tale book and some guy named ‘Jeebus.’ Surfer-X is wrong."

Well, I don't know how long you've been lurking before posting, but
Surfer-X is anything but a communist, if that's what you're implying. I've never heard him say party hearty & spend it all. If anything, he's been one of the voices of sanity--notwithstanding his anti-religious rant which I can easily dismiss--against the god-aweful excesses of the hippy-ass Bommer, "Me" generation.

Plus, he's very educated & could possibly hand you your cognitive ass on a platter if he got ruffled up enough to care about making an intellectual statement.

But I want to examine something you said, briefly, if I may:

"...There should be no ’savings’ based on the orders of a fairy-tale book and some guy named ‘Jeebus'..."

What in the fvck are you talking about, dude?

Anyway, back to your other statements.

"The restrained opportunities caused by religion are all ordered to benefit society. The individual restrains himself in the belief of a future pay off. That pay off, of course, may not come. But the benefits to society are there. It is a cosmic game of Pay It Forward. And without it, moral & social decay sets and everyone actually lives a worse life than if they had just ’saved’ a bit."

Ahh...I think it's called "delaying gratification" in psychological parlance.
You put off now for the benefit of the future. Problem is, you've got to have something to "put off." I think putting off buying a house is a matter that's pretty much imposing itself on many people these days.

Whether or not moral and social decay precede, succeed, or transpire concurrent is academic. If you're thrown out on your economic ass and lose your house, your precious savings is going to be eaten up pretty quick.

"It is no different than the greedy boomers who want to Spend the Inheritence rather than let the kids get their hands on it. It leads to bankruptcy, whether financial or cultural."

Ahh...let me ponder those words of wisdom a bit...OK I'm done pondering.

Whatever dude...

does God have a moustache? Personally i think he's (she's?) more of a "soul patch" kind of being, jeebus on the otherhand has got to be a goatee dude.

Mr. Holiday, if you're ever in Santa Barbara, give me a jingle and I'll buy you a cup of your fav Holy Water.

:)

surfer-x Says:

"Mr. Holiday, if you’re ever in Santa Barbara, give me a jingle and I’ll buy you a cup of your fav Holy Water."

:)

Sounds good...mmmake it a Dos Equis.

Amber or the green bottle lager? I like both, mmmmm XX. Must be the beaner in me*

*(Surfer-X is actually half Mexican)**

**Not investment advice.

Ha, ha...

both.

It’s amazing how financial frustration leads some people so quickly to attacking their favorite scapegoats based on race, religion, or ideology.

Huh? I thought it was the boredom of certainty. :)

Face Reality, just because people bring up race, religion, ethics, whatever, doesn't mean they are attacking.

It's called the dialectical process or Platonic Dialog: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, from which the truth about a topic emerges.

I like spirited debate and getting it all out. Filibuster style. Hate my religion? Fine...let's argue. Don't like my European origins? Fine, fire away. Don't like my military service? Great, kiss my ass. Don't like my politics? Call me whatever you like, just as long as you get my name right. Just don't call me late for lunch.

If people blew off more steam, then maybe there'd be less freakouts.

It’s amazing how financial frustration leads some people so quickly to attacking their favorite scapegoats based on race, religion, or ideology. It’s

Either that or they got tired of Facing Reality,

Suck it long,
Suck it hard.

I guess I'm just a MALcontent (mexican-atheist-liberal). Oh well, back to reality. Wait a minute, FR, what the current reality again?

no house for you

Are you a house nazi? :)

I don’t know if it’s worth mentioning as the tangents are taking over, but the house down the street from me lowered the price again. It started at $520K and it’s now at $475K. This is just the beginning of the new reality.

New housing reality indeed.

Oh, and I’m not the evil creator of this reality, nor do I like it in particular…

Perhaps Face Reality will like this new reality better. :)

Just for the record, California was part of Mexico for a total of 22 years.
People often talk about it like it had always been Mexico before the US bought it for $10 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_California

Bring on the housing bust. I love a good wreck. We need some harsh economic realities to hit us. I spend way too much of my time working to make those dollars. My parents were always unemployed during the numerous ressesions. I think my dad was lucky to keep his family together, food on the table, roof over our heads and be out of work for 9 months at a time. I'm not sure spending my life working in front of a computer is so great. What good are all the toys if you dont have time to enjoy them.

I think we are definitely out of the denial stage of the housing bust and firmly into the anger stage. ...What stage comes next?

BARGAINING

"Ok, if you'll take this $hitbox off my hands, I'll throw in the 50" plasma & H2 for free. Fuck, if I can get out from under this IO mortgage with my ass intact, I'll even throw in the wife."

Please don't feed the trolls. Somehow the warmongering, Bush loving, liberal true American value hating sort have found us, but there is no need to encourage them.

San Francisco RENTER, I bought three years ago, after a decade of living like a college student with no car in a communal houshold. At the time, my wife and I both had high five digit salaries.

We got a duplex in Noe Valley and our tenants downstairs pay half the mortgage payments, the boarder upstairs (and old friend) pays another 1/4 of it.

So I know it can be done here, since I have done it.

I am sure we are going to be saving less, probably nothing at all, after the baby comes and my friend moves out.

I was scared the market was at its top 3 years ago but I took the plunge.

Buying almost always beats renting over the long run, which you can prove to yourself with a bit of working with one of the various rent vs. buy calculators on the Net.

But at this point it will probably take a decade or more for buying to make sense, so you better be willing to plop yourself down in the The Mission or The Excelsior for a decade if you are going to buy anything remotely affordable in this city. Bernal or Sunnyside would probably be safer and quieter, if you can afford it.

SQT,

I think it's called "the dead cat bounce". You can throw a dead cat out of a window and when it hits the ground IT WILL BOUNCE, but that doesn't mean it's not dead (crude analogy, I know). Sometimes referred to as a "suckers rally". We'd seen a number of them on the NASDAQ in 2000. Seeing RealtorsTM doing a mad scramble in the 11th hour to me is reassuring. Like Peter P said, the boredom of certainty. The sheer conclusiveness of the articles linked today was pretty convincing even for the most skeptical among us.

A friend of mine in Perris, CA just wanted out, (have you BEEN there?) Originally he wanted to price below the market just to be able to move on, 3bd/2ba nothing special. Comps @ 360K, he wanted 300K for fast sale in the fall. After a "sale fail" the RealtorTM offered to buy it from him for the 300K figuring he could turn it quick. Now the REALTORTM has backed out and is offering to list/sell the home. My guess is that the Realtor was either over extended himself or thought the commission would be higher than the profit he could make flipping it. Just a guess. Que the Silent Spring theme music!

Many listings also claim a “reasonable price,” but those are usually the more overpriced one’s.

Yes. If the prices are reasonable, they do not need to mentioned them specifically.

Usually when a restaurant says "Authentic X Cuisine", I walk away.

Broadway is one of the worst streets to live on in the Sacto area, basically located in the “hood” and sellers are calling the area “desireable.” Who are they kidding?

It is in the middle of the "action", hence desirable.

I know I mentioned my husbands friend who sold his tiny house for $450K last summer, and now that same house would be hard to sell at $370K judging by the listings.

We need to spread news like this to instill more fear. :twisted:

I love fear.

What stage comes next?

Active humiliation of the realtors? Driving by the open houses with Mr. Up's bullhorn laughing your ass off? The perp walk by Fannie/Freddie Execs?

Usually when a restaurant says “Authentic X Cuisine”, I walk away

WTF? Are you a Surfer-Xist? :)

WTF? Are you a Surfer-Xist?

LOL :lol:

I heard a rumor that at the end of the dot.bomb party there were repo-men circling Cisco like vultures, taking all the Acuras, BMW and Mercedes out of the parking lot. Might this be a good money making venture for the next few years? Ahhh the thought of repo'n John and Jill McDebtor's 50" plasma and the H2 just fills my heart with joy.

Mr. UP, may your candor and honesty serve as a shining light to your kind. May your Mercedes SUV always find a good parking spot at Giuseppe's and/or Bueno Tavola.

They firmly believe that the only TRUE path to wealth is through RESIDENTIAL real estate.

Pathetic. If that is their only path, I truly feel sorry for them. How many on Forbes 400 made the bulk of their wealth through RESIDENTIAL real estate?

I don’t want another “homeowner” lecturing me or anybody else on this board about being an investor again!

I will humor them. Entertainment. I always smile when they do that.

Jeebus H. Christ, first and foremost very very very, vanishingly small numbers of McDebtors "own" their home. They rent, they just rent from a bank. Sure, some have equity but I hazard a guess that most do not.

Own=you have the title.
Not-own=bank has title.

Suck it long,
Suck it hard.

unless you like messing w/wookies

Didn't work for Jabba the hut, and I personally wouldn't recommend it.

:)

What do you guys think about this about my seeing almost no for sale signs?

Your prior comment answers your question.

I was in Santa Cruz county for the holidays- especially in the mountains-

I was in SC also, but in town and there are a bizzilion for sale signs.

test

Update from the best place on earth: I was in Santa Cruz county for the holidays- especially in the mountains- VERY FEW ALMOST NO for sale signs anywhere.

Holiday. No traffic.

I talked to people there- most things sell VERY QUICKLY when they go for a sale.

As of when? How quickly? Most people still remember only the summer peak.

From what i’ve heard from local people that have been there for years, some parts will see a 15% price correction, but when prices go up 50, 100 grand a year, a 15% reduction won’t help people much. -meaning it won’t help young people who want to get in there someday.

Wishful thinking.

Santa Cruz is not even served by a single interstate. I am not sure why it is considered so nice.

Surely the number of interstates a place has doesn't determine its quality of life.

If that were so, LA would be the best place on earth!

@seattledude,

What you saw is an artifact of: 1) A robust booming economy where real wages continue to grow and grow and grow, 2) the fact that Santa Cruz has ample jobs locally to support the average 800K $hitbox, 3) people have Faced Reality and just plain knuckled down, 4) the marijuana trade is up, have you seen the price of a good sack nowadays? (Jack?), 5) the RE market in $anta Cash mirrors what's going on in the rest of Ca, clear market fundamentals at work here. Supply Vs. Demand. period. I think those of bitter, jealous, moronic renters on the sidelines should either buy in now or stay BJM renters forever.

Surely the number of interstates a place has doesn’t determine its quality of life.

If that were so, LA would be the best place on earth!

No. But it would be nice to have at least one freeway that connects to the interstate system. Hwy 17 is not stress-free to drive on, you know. :)

I have to say that San Diego has the best freeway system I have seen though. NoCal has too many design flaws. Just count the number of four-leaf clovers we have here. Many do not have collector-distributor roads and were designed for 55 mph traffic in the 60's.

Maybe I’ll just go pitch a tent somewhere and live there and skip the whole kids, wife, mortgage part

Or as it's know down here, might as well trip out by the beach and drink beer. I lived in Portland for about a year, man I didn't think it was possible to be so depressed. Lovely weather, freaking drizzle all the time, not rain mind you, or sun, just slate gray skys with drizzle. Do I put the umbrella up or down? Screw that place, must be a booming market for prozac though. Cute chicks, good beer, couldn't wait to leave. Never even registered my car there.

seattledude, have you considered living closer to where you work, so that you don't have to commute? I took a 1/3 pay cut in the mid 90s to get a job in San Francisco and give up the 2 hr each way commute to San Jose. It was the best choice I ever made.

I could have moved to San Jose, but then I'd have had to live in San Jose.

I had to pare my lifestyle back quite a bit, sell the car and buy a motorcycle instead, move in with two other people in a big house, but all in all I am glad I did it.

Peter P, yeah I live in San Diego for about a year and half after my stint in the Army. I was just back down there for New Year's. I forgot how great the freeways are there. Wide, new, uncongested.. it was kind of amazing. I am sure the 8 is still crowded at rush hour, but other than that, I didn't see any congestion at all.

Hey, what's up with all the recent Portland & Seattle bashing?

Apparently, some of us here are *still* unaware (despite my best efforts to educate) that the Pacific NW coast is Shangri-La/Xanadu/El Dorado all rolled into one. A true fern-n-redwood utopia where the unicorns roam free between rivers of milk and honey. Jobs grow abundantly there among the many exotic varieties of mushrooms, magic or otherwise. There's no traffic, pollution, social problems or overpriced $hitboxes. Sure, it rains more than most areas, but only at night or when you're indoors.

I've never actually lived there, but I'm sure my unsubstantiated wish-projections are all 100% true.

Mr. UP, good to see you here. Hopefully the UP family BMW/Mercedes/Range Rover fleet made it through the last storms unscathed. :)

Olympia is pretty cool and housing is relatively cheap comparitively.

Ollllll leeeeee beeeeeer.

I know a dude that moved from Ca to Seattle and loves it, but then again he has declared the sun his mortal enemy. Have you considered becoming a Vampire?

@SQT,

Check out Mr. Up's link to Santa Cruz data. It shows inventory rising & sales falling pretty consistently since this summer. Regardless of how many signs are up on any given weekend, there's no question that we're just at the beginning of a long and painful correction and credit tightening cycle. If it follows the pattern of past bear markets, the list-pull-relist game will play out slo-mo over several years. I wouldn't sweat the small stuff.