Tech is BACK!….Housing downfall might be limited in San Diego afterall.

[forsale_2007]

Well, the good news. Preliminary earnings report from many of the tech companies have been great. And the ones that haven’t, investors really aren’t paying attention to shortfalls (IE JNPR)….

Apple, Intel, Amazon, Google. Tech is BACK!
Great news for geeks.

Another thing. Qualcomm just announced earnings, and they raised forecast again. What does this have to do with the housing market? Considering that Qualcomm is probably the largest employer here in SD, and fortunes are made with stock options,etc…. The housing downturn might not occur so soon after all for well paid owners in relatively ok areas…

Comments?

[The-Shoveler]

Nor_LA-Temcu-SD-Guy

I would love for this to be true (Tech is Back!!) (and hope it is), But I think it has more to do with selling in euro’s products made here and abroad (in cheap labor area’s).

Riddle of the day — If your sales to Europe are flat, but you manufacture in China … Do your earnings go up ????

Europe’s and China’s economy is not completely disconnected from ours I believe so I think it is just a matter of time before the chickens come home.

[Anonymous]

Are you pulling this out of your rear? A tech rebound will have no affect on the local housing crash. Also, Qualcomm is not the largest employer in SD. I’ll guarantee there are fewer highly paid tech jobs in SD today than in 2000, yet housing prices doubled or tripled since then. That proves there is absolutely no relationship between local tech jobs and the housing boom.

[forsale_2007]

Yes I am pulling this out of the rear. But you take say 8000 jobs at qualcomm and cut them by 30% because of a bad quarter or future prospects, and I guarantee you that housing will be affected.

But that will have to wait. Until the prospects of companies like QC crumble drastically, there are plenty of millionaires roaming these streets.

[Cow_tipping]

Are you pulling this out of
Submitted by deadzone on April 25, 2007 – 11:18pm.
Are you pulling this out of your rear? A tech rebound will have no affect on the local housing crash. Also, Qualcomm is not the largest employer in SD. I’ll guarantee there are fewer highly paid tech jobs in SD today than in 2000, yet housing prices doubled or tripled since then. That proves there is absolutely no relationship between local tech jobs and the housing boom.

Correct, and it includes me. OK make it 2001 and I am like so in. Of course I am the minority, I just went across the country. Most of the other jobs like mine went clear across the pacific.
Cool.
Cow_tipping.

[masayako]

forsale_2007,

It doesn’t matter. QCOM’s earning will make NO DIFFERENCE to housing rebound.

For low-life QCOM engineers (I was one of them): They don’t make enough to buy entry level home at this price range. Stock options make no difference. You talk about $10k-20K stock options max. for them.

For mid-life QCOM engineers/managers: They are smart enough to know NOT TO buy in at this dropping market. Second, they are “move-up”pers. They can’t buy unless they can sell, which we believe, they can’t.

For high-flying QCOM geeks/directors: These are limited characters. There are only a few of them out there, so it won’t affect the massive housing in the broad way.

Always remember, not all QCOM employees are millionaires. They are not stock brokers from Morgan Stanley. Many of them are new college grads with not much savings. They make $60k to start their career. Not even enough for a 2/2 condo near the office. They are just looking at the housing bubble and hoping to buy an affordable home someday. They don’t have the MONEY to pull the trigger at this point unless the price drop way down. By the way, they are good at math too, so they know when the numbers work for them — NOT NOW. 😉

Masayako

[forsale_2007]

I didn’t say housing was going to rebound. But a amagadon housing slump would have been nicely accelerated if you had an employer(s) like QC dump. It hasn’t, and will probably take some time for this to happen.

[capeman]

Yeah but as a Blue Chip style company QC doesn’t give squat for options anymore and if they did they won’t be seeing the 4000% growth they did in ’98-99. This housing party is over and nothing short of a HUGE war will soften the crash. Sentiment will turn at some point in the next year and then free-fall. The lending spigot has been shut off for this price range so it is just a matter of when everyone realizes their house is only worth 40-70% of what they thought then it will play out.

[Anonymous]

Considering that Qualcomm is probably the largest employer here in SD

not even close:

Federal Government 39,100
State of California 37,100
UC, San Diego 24,790
City of San Diego 20,700
County of San Diego 18,900
Sharp HealthCare 13,872
USPS 11,611
Scripps Health 10,313
Kaiser Permanente 7,386
Qualcomm Inc. 6,000

http://sourcebook.sddt.com/2004/Listings_ListCompanies.cfm?BusinessCategory_ID=140

[sdrealtor]

Ther you have it – Largest private employer in SD after goverment and non-profits.

[anxvariety]

deadzone, please post more. thank you.

[Bugs]

I imagine the number of 6-figure jobs being added in tech is but a drop in the bucket compared to the jobs being dumped in the RE business. There is no way is tech making up for the lost RE jobs.

[anxvariety]

I know an engineer at Qualcomm.. worked there pratically in the Link-A-Bit days…

The person cashed out a cool mil.. paid cash for a $300k house in North County.. sold it 5 years later for $1+ mil, and moved up to Northwest and bought 100+ acres cash and are sitting on alot of money from Qualcomm and everything else related to how perfectly their timing was(admittedly accidental; wasn’t trying to time the market or anything).

Like others said.. imagine what the hierarchy looks like with 7000 employees(does that include sub/contractors?) How hard it would be to break through not only to a level where you’d get enough options, but also how far the stock would have to breakout for it to be that significant.. now compare that to the average employee, how many people does the winner have working for him/her.

Back when I was making 80k/year, gas was $1 and single family homes were like $180k in Elsinore.. my salary hasn’t quadrupled like gas, and it hasn’t tripled like homes in Elsinore, I need to get outta here!

[The-Shoveler]

Nor_LA-Temcu-SD-Guy

Yea I was just talking to an engineering colleague yesterday who bought a house in 2002 about the same time I did, he paid 400K I paid about 300K, we both agreed that (even though we could not even buy a condo for that now) it seemed so expensive at the time (Maybe it was).

[4plexowner]

I am an engineer at another large company here in San Diego – 4000 employees

Stock options at this company used to be pretty much automatic – each time an employee bought stock through the company’s program he would receive 2 or 3 options

Now there are NO options awarded automatically with stock purchases

Also, stock options used to be given out as performance awards and that no longer happens (that I am aware of)

My point – engineers here in San Diego, in my experience, aren’t pulling down the kind of bucks that some people seem to think they are

And even with a six-figure income, these engineers aren’t going to prop up San Diego’s real estate market – perhaps I am the only one who has noticed, but a six-figure income in San Diego is just a comfortable living wage – it isn’t like $100K/year means you have money falling out of all your pockets and that you can afford an $800K POS tract home in North County

And we haven’t even talked about engineers, in general, being intelligent, parsimonious people who are less likely to be sucked into the tail end of this massive real estate bubble

Anyone who thinks tech is going to save San Diego’s real estate market is fooling themselves

[Author]

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