[quote=bearishgurl][quote=earlyretirement]…But I have no respect for someone that calls a bubble, sees prices crash tremendously and then try to say prices will fall forever and end up being a life long perpetual renter.

That just doesn’t make sense to me.[/quote]

I’ve seen a couple of handfuls of posters on this board that fall into this category, ER. Here, a few actually believed that SD County properties in prime coastal zip codes would eventually be “half off” if they just waited long enough, lol.

If you try to knock some sense into them, you are accused of being a “permabull,” a “pollyanna,” a “realtard,” or worse, a “NAR lackey.”

What these wishful-would-be buyers never took into account was that:

-the most desirable properties in the most desirable “coastal enclaves” in CA are frequently held by “the best hands;”

-those “best hands” will only sell when it suits them (and no family member has shown an interest in owning it), not a day sooner, and, maybe never;

-there wasn’t that much of a “run-up” in prices in these areas during the millenium boom as their were in other, lesser-expensive areas because a much higher “price floor” was in existence there BEFORE the millenium boom began;

-the “best hands” who owned properties in these prime areas had no need to “cash out” repeatedly in order to travel, buy vehicles and bling and pay their monthly bills, thus they were never “underwater”;

-there is a high incidence of free-and-clear property owners in these areas;

-there is a low incidence of “underwater property owners” in these areas, and, in any case, a lender would likely have foreclosed on a defaulted property in these locations early on before allowing the trustors to squat too long. (After all, they’re not completely stupid) :=0

-and, a “best hands” owner can afford to list just to “test the market.”

A few Piggs seemed “shocked” when what they thought was a “great offer” they submitted was turned down flat without a counter offer :=0

We haven’t heard from some of these Piggs in awhile who were waiting for bargain-basement prices on the coast. It’s very possible that some decided to suspend their search or ended up moving away.[/quote]
This would be a pretty narrow spectrum of the market. Yes, many wealthy home owners were unscathed, but then so were many less wealthy home owners. But to say the high end was immune is simply not true. There were many +$1m homes that went into foreclosure, and my guess is that very few so-called bears were waiting out in hope of snapping up a McMansion. I’ve been reading and posting here for quite a few years, and generally, posts have been quite informative. The elections were the turning point.

If I had a criticism, is might be that the forum tended to be a little cliquey. My first post was met with “he must be out of town”. Another might be that, like all RE forums it ends up being a face-off between protectors of their livelihood, and …the rest.

Facebook has also seen a drop in numbers. So maybe people are waking up to getting a life. That said, I’m out of here.