patrick.net

I have to say I am completely disgusted by the Santa Monica listings.

In the Bay Area, when you pay about $1.3M or above, you may get yourself an updated house on a decent lot 7K or above, in a good school district with neighbors who are just like yourself.

In Santa Monica, which is a very eclectic neighborhood (read: high crime, lots of poor people, slum next to mansion), with $1.3M gets you nothing but a royal piece of crap, and better still, the crap is only 1000 sft on a 5K lot. More likely than not, you get neighbors who are either on crack or operate a meth lab.

Waterfront properties? Yeah, just right for a tsunami. If tsunami doesn't get you, don't worry, global warming will make your property a man-made part of the great barrier reef.

You do make a good point contrasting San Diego, because we are not as cramped for space, and our housing was clearly more speculative driven than the sheer competition for space at any price that seems to be the theme up there. Hell, I heard you guys all of sudden don't like homeless people anymore up there.

Don't get me wrong, I like Santa Monica. Every time I go down to Socal I always stop by Santa Monica to get a drink, piss and pee, break a few glasses, scream a little at 3AM, and get the hell outta there.

OO, tell me about it. My girlfriend's parents house is easily worth 1 mil (damned baby boomers) and they have hookers and condoms in their front yard. That waterfront area is so scarce that the redevelopment and demand really is growing, and it is an up and coming area in my opinion. That's not to say I have shifted because my trigger for the burst has always been credit standards tightening, but there are tons of people with money who like me would find it easier to just pay cash for something mid range, say 500K because it is literally not worth putting in savings any more, and here in San Diego like I said 100K a year is prety damn hard to consistently earn working for someone.

DAQU / TOS / MP / FR

We'll post links letting you know where we live/lived/will live as soon as you out yourself. Post a link of your own house, what ya say? I won't hold my breath.

Crappy locations? So that $2.6m home I was looking at 2 weeks ago that got pulled by the owner because he's already dropped from $2.9m, and is getting nothing but "way below" offers is in a crappy location?

You ever hear of Ross? You're a fucking tool.

I looked at 7 houses in MV, CM, Larkspur yesterday. 2 were new listings, the other 5 were *all* reduced.

I'm sure you'll inform us all how Southern Marin is "crappy" now eh? Oh wait! Marin is the most expensive rental county in the entire US, and has the highest MEDIAN (your beloved median) home price in all of CA.

Oops. Go put some more superlatives in your MLS listing entries now, you Tool.

I think the reason for the lack of motivation for realtors is because the current crop of listings are still from owners who can afford to hold for their ask-for-the-sky price.

Desperation has yet to set in. Sure, there are increasing number of listings, but except a few, most owners either have the ability to hold for their targets, or are still disillusioned. Therefore, they must have made it pretty clear that they would only sell at their dream price. They may also be testing water.

Realtors know the market better than these unreasonable owners. They know the market is turning but owners don't know that yet (because we are in the very special Kalifornia!) So they know the buyers will lowball while the owners will not move an inch.

Realtors will only become motivated when the owners are becoming more realistic about price, which they are not right now.

They aren't on the waterside, they are basically on one house off of Lincoln near the SM airport runway. Just for perspective.

I'm just not the real urban kind. I could settle to live in Pacific Beach or Ocean beach where there might be 2 miles of cramped quarters but the LA area is a human prison. I felt the same about SF, nice to walk around and look at but the water is cold, the beach is too rough to even walk up to the water's edge, and I can't compete for space. I'd eventually have a meltdown.

Thanks for an interesting chat.

Daqu, Curl up with your cats. They still love you at least. Don't worry, the real estate market will come back eventually. You can always temp until then.

DAiryQUeen Says:

> Doesn’t matter if lower end homes in crappy locations
> are weak. Why? B/c people with money would never live
> there in the first place. And people who can afford that
> place, can’t afford 94123, District 7 anyway.

Did you notice that YoY sales volume is down by 33% with a YoY median price drop of 15%. Good thing 94123 is not a crappy location

> Randy - And yet u still can’t produce one link. How sad.
> Denial isn’t a river in Africa

Below is a link to a home that has not sold in over three years (that Randy might have looked at). In Early 2004 a couple flippers bought 11 Monte Cimas for $650K and fixed it up hoping to double their money. It was listed for all of 2004, 2005 and 2006 (with the price slowly dropping) and according to tax records it still has not sold.

http://www.psrodgers.com/listings/sb1edht75b.shtml

P.S. Randy let us know if you get any response to an offer of $550K…

Either I'm getting soft or just feeling hungry. DAiryQUeen's posts should really annoy me, but all I can think of when I read them is this.

Thanks OO! I was sure tons of flippers were doing the multiple "primary" residences thing, but a little real-world confirmation is always satisfying.

We have a house in escrow, selling price was 23% less than asking. All closing costs were paid by seller, all items fixed or refunded.

This thread is useless without pics!

"Is queenie very azrobish?? or is it just me?"

Not a chance! azrob is in Thailand for 3 months living off the opulent luxury having 3 PAID OFF rentals affords! With his uncanny ability to be insulting at the drop of a hat (even if he agrees w/ 95% of what you've said) I just know he'll be "making friends" left and right! :)

DAQU Said,

Don’t worry Randy, it’s ok to lose 100% of your after tax money on rent every month. Your rent is producing an equal amount of return on your graduate degree education

One of the little things which was reinforced in graduate school (actually something most of us learned in undergrad) was the notion and application of opportunity cost.

In this light, DAQU's statement is even that much more entertaining.

@FAB

The picture on that link is broken, but I'm pretty sure that's the infamous listing featured on Marin POS blog a while back. As a general rule of thumb, however, I don't bother to look at anhything over $1m that has 2 bedrooms, lol. Actually, my household fills 4 bedrooms. There was another idle listing in MV that had 5 bedrooms and only a 3/4 bath (toilet & shower, no tub). That was a flipper job. They cheaped it themselves and didn't know how to plumb, so they took a 2BR 1BA and did all the faux McMansion crap, ending up with some kind of pergantile funhouse.

Also, I emailed your gmail address over the weekend. You can email me from my blog if you're willing to answer a question (and don't use that gmail).

"some sort of social experiment"

Like any of us are truly pulling our hair out determining the origins of these hastily fabricated posts/posters? This sort of antagonism can only exist in blogshphere. In any other social setting we would have been able to excuse ourselves by now.

Randy H uses an aggregator to read blogsand I'm getting to the point where I want to try that out too. I gave up reading the comments section for many "liberal" blogs because there was so much troll activity and the commentor ID is often at the bottom.

Overall, patrick.net makes it pretty easy to mentally filter out comments because the layout is uncluttered and the commentor ID is at the top.

If only justapeon had realized that! His/her tragedy of reading my inane comments could have been adverted.

Hehe

DinOR,

I almost have to believe this DQ/MP/too many aliases to keep track of is some sort of tester bot. There might be some human involvement along the way but no out-of-work realtor could troll for so long with such good humor. I've noticed little refinements along the way.

@astrid,

I'm sure I don't know what an "aggregator" is but if it makes using blogs more effective I'm all for it. The revolving door and constant "cast of characters" looks almost randomly generated? As are the many of the comments and entry points into otherwise rational conversations.

The question is, if I had the ability to create a robot, why would I make him such a putz?

DinOR,

My guess is that that they're testing to see how long MP can be viral until the trollishness becomes obvious.

(I giggled at your azrob comment...he means well, but he suffers from the keyboard version of foot in mouth disease.)

@astrid,

I suppose the most accessible "human" trait to mimic would be the simple ability to refute. No real thought process involved, just say whatever is opposite? It's also the exchange most likely to elicit an emotional response.

See! My robot is doing my bidding! He's managed to p1ss you off!

Well stoplights torque me off too but that doesn't mean they're intelligent (just on a timer to produce yet another binary response) On/Off, Stop/Go.

You say the BA is down YoY? I say the median is up 6.6%!

I rest my case. :)

DAiryQUeen Says:

Randy H - I could blah blah blah

Why do you guys tolerate this guy/gal/thing? Not that my opinion counts for anything, but let's just ban and move on. I'm here for intelligent discussions, and this troll is getting out of hand.

*relurks*

Randy - And yet u still can’t produce one link. How sad.

Not quite as sad as trolling blogs because you are so very desperate for attention. Wouldn't craigslist provide you with all the attention you so desperately crave? I don't think if I were sitting is Squaw Valley I would be posting realtwhore troll comments online.

Just had a thought.. despite the facts showing prices going up, many on this board are still in denial.

Hmmm, very very odd, lets see, I have a house in escrow that was bought for 585K in 2005, was listed for 610K, was sold for 445K, plus selling paid all closing, plus fixing a bunch of stuff.

Some kind of funny math? Only goes up? Oh, that's right midtown ventura is "undesirable", get bent.

MtViewRenter,

Not that mine counts for anything more but FWIW I 2nd.

It's like this "auto-refute mode" playground 'I know you are but what am I' is starting to get to me. The "Denial isn't a river in Egypt" was a thread we did like a 6 mos. or more back and certainly before DAQU showed up. Since he/it only reads select posts and responds as if in a vacuum how is it possible to have made the same reference/connection if not somehow related?

Apparently DAQU is unable to navigate greathomes.org.

Just pick Marin, limit it to whatever you consider "prime", and search in say the $1.5-$2.1m range. About a quarter of those will openly advertise *reduced*. Since I've been actually going to see these places for the past 2 years, I can tell you that more like 60-70% of them are reduced, even though the agents have relisted them over and over to hide that fact.

Some MLS numbers for you, sweetheart:

20714378 -- On the market less than a month, 3.5BA, 4BR + Au Pair. I liked this home, despite the hillside precariousness. Uh oh! Price REDUCED! He started closer to $1.8m

20707317 -- Listed $1.595m. Well, this is near enough to me that I know the people who sold it and the other neighbors. Wha? They didn't get $1.595???? Say it ain' so. Word on the street is they accepted closer to $1.3m. Well, shit.

20703659 -- On the market forever, despite relisting after relisting.

20703925 -- Wow. I thought that sold twice already this year. lol. Guess no one can get it to appraise. Here we go again. I can't find my notes on it from last year, but I'm pretty sure it started around $1.95m. Now a "new" listing at $1.699m, and showing yet another sale. Let's hope this one sticks.

20716108 -- One of my favorites. $1.995m. You'd better budget in an extra $100K to refit all the double-pane with quadruple-pane because of highway noise. It has a nice legal rental pulling $2500/mo, but the main house looks like something Dr. Suess woulda designed while on depression meds. Oh, this started $300K higher. It is marked SOLD too. LMAO. Someone oughtta tell the realtor and owner that.

20701561 -- Was cloesr to $2.5m last summer.

And that's just Mill Valley. A VC friend of mine in Strawberry's neighbor just went kaboom and sold his 4ksqft McMansion for nearly a half-million below asking, $2.9m from $3.4m.

Jeez, all this mayhem and even with excellet school districts, prime neighborhoods, coveted locations, rich neighbors, and lots of attitude. I sure hate to think what's happening in subprime areas like the Marina.

DAQU,

I just checked in with Casey & Nigel: the offer to cuddle is still open. Better act quick, they're not making any more Uzbekistani-jerkwad manwiches.

Quick off topic question, because I figure some of you probably know - I did try some of the other forums, but it doesn't look like they are fequented very often -

Here is an example - you have 100,000 shares in a start up, the company wants to do a 5 - 1 reverse split before they go IPO - they argue that the shares will go on at a higher price - even though you have less shares - so you don't loose out at all.

Does anyone have any experience, opinions on this? I think we are more likely to end up with less with the reverse split.

Cote' hits the big time

tinyurl.com/yozqm7

I don't really care about DAQU - houses going up, blah blah, still can't afford them without a kamikaze loan which will screw us royally for the rest of our lives, so I'll pass, thanks very much!

Why yes Claire, now that you mention it, that is a "little" OT?

Randy is much more familiar with start-ups than most of us here but basically that is accurate. Even the mighty AT&T had to do a reverse split. Depending on the share price this may be done to put the shares within range of being "marginable" in the hopes of attracting institutional interest down the road.

Ever since 9 of the NASDQ 100 became penny stocks people have been a little sensitive of being in the non-marginable security bargin bin.

Try Ben's Blog - they really think house prices are on the up and up - not!

I don’t really care about DAQU - houses going up, blah blah, still can’t afford them without a kamikaze loan which will screw us royally for the rest of our lives, so I’ll pass, thanks very much!

Soon you'll need to take a kamikaze loan to get groceries as well:

http://www.burbed.com/2007/05/22/how-to-save-17-on-your-bbq-groceries-this-memorial-day/

Groceries in the Bay Area for a Memorial Day BBQ will be 17% more expensive than in Seattle, and about 11% more expensive than Washington DC.

Of course, Seattle and Washington DC aren't as special, nor do they have good schools or jobs.

Gosh, that's funny b/c at the OC foreclosed auction people seemed to be placing an emphasis on PRICE, PRICE, PRICE!

Or P X 3 we like to say!

eburbed - tell me about it! I keep telling my hubby to ask for another pay rise, but he won't do it - he's too English!

Then there's the gas prices - everyone reporting a couple of months ago about how gas is above $3 a gallon - hello? We've been way over that for ages in the BA!

I just had another thought. Do you guys realize why this board has not grown, and is still populated by the same 20 posters? It’s b/c the topics are so biased, and out of touch with reality, that nobody new can take this place seriously.

Actually, the traffic here is a bit heavier than 20 (see graph on bottom of main page: http://patrick.net/housing/crash.html), although we are a relatively small forum vs. Ben Jones' thehousingbubbleblog.com. With the MSM now accepting as fact what we had been arguing for ~2 years, I can see how interest might eventually wane.

Perhaps we should change the blog name to "Rich Renters Investment Forum and Preparing to Bottom Feed in 2011-2015", or some such.

Even if it always or continue to appreciate crowd is correct, I seriously doubt that would it would change anyone's buy vs rent or stocks vs real estate. Even if property values will continue to appreciate, most don't make the $300-400k annually that it takes to carry a mortgage on a $1.5m house. I'm really not interested in the crap sells for $800k and that would be still to big a mortgage for me to carry. Negative amortization loans are outside my risk tolerance.

On the investment front, it's a pretty wild claim that San Francisco Bay Area is the best or even a good market in the US to buy investment property in. At minimum, I'm sure there are markets where a purchases today will have far less negative cash flow. For investment property REITs or better yet a fund that invests in REIT and equities in the real estate oreinted companies (like Fidelities) is more diversified and more liquid than owning properties oneself so it is less risky. If I buy a fund that invests in real estate, I get professional management and have zero work to do myself.

Your risk tolerance and preferences might be different. However, there are not enough of these mythical investors where Bay Area real estate is an attractive investment to create a decent rental stock.

MiC