I am one of the knife catchers – Many thanks to SD realtor for his great help.

My comments below may be only relevant to potential CV house hunters:

I have been looking at CV properties for the last two years. The one I am buying is 130K less than the last year’s purchase price and ~200K less than our budget. I have submitted ~ 20 offers this year including ~ 10 offers in the last couple months. Every time, I was competing with several other potential buyers. One time, I offered 50K above the bank’s asking price and still lost the bidding game. This time, we won because we offered within 2 hr of MLS listing with a shorter closing term. The situation is very similar to 1998 yr when I bought my current home. There is still so much money around for houses in good areas and in good shapes. Most of my friends have >500K cash in saving counts set aside to purchase houses at the so call invisible “bottom”. I am wondering where the momey come from. May be the good money made in the house booming/tech firm IPO time and may be explain why stocks rose many times in light of all the bad news. My 2 cent conclusion is that there is a lot of free money in this country, they need to be rest somewhere- whether it is the bottom of the house market or the bottom of stocks. To me, the scenario of rent covering mortgage payment is hardly achievable for houses in good locations at near future, since everyone with purchase power like to get into this investment opportunity (positive/minor negative flow with low risk)- which will drive price up based on supply/demand fundamentals, unless we see drastic changes in salaries and employment in next two years.

Another reason or the main reason I buy right now is for my son to start a better school (moving from poway to CV). I can never link his education to the bottom of something. A primary home has more meaning than a purchase price. As far as one can afford housing for 30 yr, one cares less about being a knife catcher. In terms of best investment – if purchasing a home is not the one, there are many chances in life to make best investments elsewhere.

By the way, SD realtor did not encourage me to buy at this time. I respected his advice but still decided to become a knife catcher at the time when house market is already down for two years.