San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Oh my.... This site is fun, in a sick kind of way...

Maybe this one posting accounts for how quiet it is on piggington today... everyone off looking up their friends and neighbors tax bill?

Hrmm, link not working for me. I wonder if someone discovered something not supposed to be public?

And to think there are a lot of Americans who think our government is being invasive when they ask the phone companies for lists of phone calls made for the (alleged) purpose of chasing terrorists. Now the average joe can look right into his neighors' personal lives to see if they're doing what he thinks they should be doing.

The entire County website is down. Have to check back later I guess. I'm curious to see how my neighbors are doing these days.

It is working again now.

Let's keep this one going....before I go out to see any house, I want to know how far (if at all) the owner is on taxes.

Look up your street name...I found some very interesting stuff out with this site.

Thanks PS.

Does anybody know how often they update this site? I checked my street and my next door neighbor who just bought his house last year has overdue taxes between 2 properties amounting to about $11,000. He's a mortgage loan broker of some sort. I hope he's doing OK financially. He bought his house for almost a million.

-peace

Bugs, I agree with you on a certain level about the privacy factor, but I think that certain things being made public are justified. I am partial to making home pricing/purchasing information more public. I don't like the dark clouds around home pricing activities that obfuscate the setting of prices. I think this is part of the reason for the rapid price markup we've seen in the past 5 years. If you complain about this, you must also complain about the publicly available information concerning home improvements, which to me are more invasive. You basically have to tell the city (and the public) every little thing that you want to do to your house, even if it doesn't affect them.

rankandfile - you also have to publish your intent to file for bankruptcy. That is invasive too.

I see Bugs and sdr's views, because their professions require the safeguarding of this info. But we don't have that same oath. We can print the address, but not the name. We don't want to cause more humiliation to certain individuals. We can make a point without printing the name.

peace - updated daily? I checked a neighbor who was overdue last week, and this week it shows she has paid.

Rankandfile
Why dont we just make salary information public also? It would help erase inequities between sexes and races in earnings. I think the privacy of salaries has led to massive inequities and nepotism.

To address your points:

The local governments have building codes to enforce that are intended to develop and maintain health and safety issues as well as other aspects of construction that have an impact on the community. If you think building codes are too restrictive you might go take a look at unregulated areas, like some of the neighborhoods in Tijuana, and see what happens when the comunities don't enforce standards.

There's a distinct difference between looking up a sale of a neighboring property to use that information to make a decision or perform an analysis, and looking over our neighbor's fence to watch them sunbathing in the nude for our personal gratification. Although our society apparently revels in invading the privacy of celebrities and seeing photos of their cellulite and bulging bellies in the tabloids, most civil people will draw the line at openly scrutinizing the contents of the shopper's basket while standing in line with them at the supermarket. A Japanese family of 4 can live in a 400 SqFt apartment by scrupulously observing personal boundaries. Obviously, we all have our boundaries.

Here's a rhetorical question: would you approach your neighbor and ask the same question that you're trying to answer off this database? In the case of sales prices or property attributes, maybe so - I do it all the time when I'm working. In the case of paying their taxes, probably not. If you wouldn't feel comfortable doing it to their face then how much more socially acceptable should it be when you're doing it behind their back?

All of this ties back to the purpose of gathering and using the information. If you're using the information constructively then that's one thing, if you're using the information for entertainment purposes then that's something else.

Just my opinion. Other people can and do disagree.

I agree in protecting people's privacy. I do snoop on realtytrac and the assessor database to gauge the market. When I post this stuff, I don't use the indivdual's names. I've written about Poway homes bought in the 1980's, where they refied out the equity and are now in foreclosure, and that one neighbor is late on taxes. It was not necessary to give the names of those families to make the points I was making. Once, I posted the address and name, so people could see if someone they actually knew was in foreclosure, and I was told this was a bad idea, and I can see that now.

So we have to learn how we can make a point about the market turning without humiliating. Remember the book The Scarlet Letter? In Hawthorne's book, adulteresses had to wear a sewn-on scarlet large letter (Capital A?) on their clothes, so everybody would know they committed adultery. Nobody should have to wear a scarlet letter.

the records don't tell the whole story: it appears that the status of the property taxes are not necessairly listed on the street where the property's located.
For example - my stepfather's property tax status on a rental he has in Encinitas is listed for his street of residence (mailing address) in Carlsbad.
So if landlord/investor/speculator/flipper owns a house on your street and doesn't have their tax bill delivered to that house, the tax status is not listed on that street in the tax records it's listed on the street where the tax bill is sent.

If your mailing address differs from the physical address, you are listed in a separate category titled Unsecured, but on the mailing address street.

Powayseller, don't know what you mean, but I'll tell you what I found:
Looked up my mom's street and noticed that there was a separate listing for her husband. He is not listed on her title. The only hint that there is something different is that all the Parcel No's on the street start with the same three numbers, whereas his listing starts with a different three numbers.
Then I went to his property's street and he is not listed there.
Don't see any category titled Unsecured, he's just listed right along with all the other's on my mom's street.
The point is that it may not be quite so obvious what the property tax status is on streets when the properties are not owner occupied.

Ok SDR, you first! Its not a hypothetical question. I try to live my life exactly that way. I have VERY few secrets. A fact my girlfriend does not always like. It has its repercussions.

The way we view others is determined at least as much by what we don't know as what we do.

Josh

Oh myyy.....you seem to take some kind of morose pleasure in snooping around other peoples information. If you wouldnt ask somebody outright and to their face the questions you have regarding their TAX situation, then you should NOT be spying on them on line.

They used to do something similar to this is the former Soviet Russia and in Iran. You being admittingly of Iranian descent,(in one of your previous posts) you of all people should be ashamed of these domestic spying techniques your using here.

سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور

This is NOT indicative of real estate health in San Diego, this closely resembles perverted activity.

Rich, please moderate this topic and DO NOT allow this type of thing to be the downfall of an otherwise good site.

Poway Seller...Shame on you for making this thread.

Josh
Quite simply, it is none of your business and frankly I could care less how much you make as it was a rhetorical question. It's not about secrets, its about what someone wants to share. If you like to share thats fine. Many others do not feel the same way and its neither right nor wrong, its just their personal preferences to which they are entitled. I don't care how much my neighbor makes or whether they paid their taxes on time. I care whether they are nice, friendly and decent people. That is my sole criteria for associating with people. You could be a one eyed, one eared flying purple people eater and I'd welcome you into my home as long as you were a good person and not interested in the demise of others.

Ahh, come on.

The reason most of us participate in these forums is to expand our understanding of our world. By expressing our different opinions we influence each other and in turn are influenced by what we take in from each other. I know that I have been influenced by the opinions expressed by everyone here, including those with whom I may disagree.

I don't see anything wrong with raising a question or issue as long as we're willing to discuss it in civil terms. It's when we push the boundaries of civil behavior that the conversations veer off into unreasonable tangents. I think if we applied the "shopping cart" rule to our comments we'd never have some of the emotional dustups that seem to crop up here.

I highly doubt that PS saw her line of reasoning in the light that I cast it in my comments. For all I know she still may not see it that way. That's okay because this here's America. What I do know is that my opinion on the subject has been influenced by our discussion just as I hope has happened for others. To that extent I'm glad she brought the subject up. I'd even say that if it wasn't her, it would have eventually been someone else.

This exchange reminds me of "the rat smells the cheese"
PS happened to find this PUBLIC record online and shared it with us; of note is that her discovery resulted in a compassionate response wondering if one of her neighbors was under duress.
I happen to have two old ladies (both in mid-eighties) who live two houses down who really have no business living on their own, but who am I to challenge them? We help them as much as we can without getting into their business.
Recently I brought up the subject of reverse mortgages to see if they would be interested, mainly to see if they are living so meagerly due to real money issues or if they were just tight - you never know with old people.
Turned out they were very interested in reverse mortgages and I sent off for information that I will go over with them.
But to the point - I was very relieved to see that they are not behind on their property taxes, so I can assume their financial status is not in critical condition. And that information will affect the way I "help" them decide about their best option when reviewing the reverse mortgages.
Another way I intend to use that PUBLIC information will be to check the tax status of the houses that surround any house I would be interested in buying, I think it is important to know that potential neighbors are not in financial straits.
Just like a lot of people were against Megan's Law and that information being available on the internet - any public information should be available to the masses, not just a few to their own advantage. I'll be checking the sexual predators website before I buy too.
The point being that just because you see this PUBLIC information as a way to infringe on other peoples' privacy doesn't mean that's the way most people use it.

People proably figure their debt delinquincies are semi-private, and in the past they could just re-fi if they couldn't afford to pay off their debt.. at some point people are going have to swallow pride and file for bankruptcy... or cut their losses and move somewhere they can afford..surely people won't take the pride swallowing in stride, so what is going to be the scapegoat? What is going to be the trendy thing to blame here? If everyone starts blaming the same things, it will seem like they are victims of an outside force rather than victims of irresponsibility and greed...

Thank you for sharing your views on this topic. I wonder why the County Assessor makes this available for us to see?

Anyway, I find the County Assessor tax payment site a useful gauge for the real estate downturn, just as my subscription to foreclosure.com. I find this data and stories (even suicide stories) helpful in assessing the economy and housing market.

Peace,
You put forth many good uses of this data which no one could argue with. However, this is different from individuals satisfying guilty pleasures with this data with no use other than personal enjoyment at others distress.

Speaking of personal enjoyment...time to jump in the pool out back!

Peace,

Your comments are duly noted and I agree with what you're saying. Again, I'd like to point out that my intent here was to discourage the voyeur factor, which was already acknowledged by one participant in this thread. I'm in no way advocating we not watch out for our neighbors' interests even when we're in a position to do so.

It's just like when we were throwing names and complete addresses up in a couple of the previous threads and people were making comments about the individuals. I doubt that anyone had a malicious intent in that, they probably just hadn't thought it all the way through. The discussion that followed that was intended to get people to consider that line of discussion in a different light. It may not seem this way, but I was just offering additional input, not trying to exercise the jackboot of censorship.

Bugs and sdr, it comes back to this: why does the County Assessor publish this information online, making it so easy for all to see? Anything recorded with the County Assessor is free for all to see: tax payments, tax liens, purchase price of house, % downpayment, type of mortgage. If this is bothersome, write a letter to the County Assessor, outlining your privacy concerns, instead of telling us not to look at it.

The fact that you can do something doesnt mean its justified.

We have to agree to disagree.

agreed ;)

I hope this doesn't resurrect a sore subject, but I want to take another look in my area and see how things look now. Does anybody have an updated link where you can see who is delinquent on property taxes.

Stan

Found it...not much fun in my area until late December when they are due again.

https://www.sdctreastax.com/ebpp3/

Stan