[4plexowner]

temeculaguy – I love the wife years – LOL!

[4plexowner]

I don’t think he’s a shill – I think he’s trying to talk himself into buying a house and wants us to support his decision – good luck with that

From a psychological perspective it is rather sad to see a seemingly intelligent human being trying to brain-wash themselves into believing that buying real estate in San Diego makes sense right now

[4plexowner]

Go to http://www.stockcharts.com and chart $HGX:$GOLD – change ‘Periods’ to ‘Weekly’ and hit ‘Update’

This shows how one measure of the housing industry has performed vs gold over the last year

The chart is even more dramatic when plotted back to 1999

Basically, your investment money would have been better off in precious metals than in housing since 1999/2000

[4plexowner]

And continue to drive the 10 year old car, etc – we engineers are a practical lot …

[4plexowner]

Any other engineers care to chime in about stock options?

Is your company still granting them? Has the volume of options being granted changed?

Have your co-worker’s attitude about the company’s compensation plan changed? (my co-workers are feeling pretty well f’d over these days – management is receiving stock and options as bonuses and the line-level troops are lucky to get a 3% raise each year)

The original poster of this thread is saying that options being granted to engineers are a significant source of income here in San Diego – I don’t see that and I’m curious if anyone else does

[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

[4plexowner]

Cow_tipping – I’m guessing that condos in San Diego’s downtown market will go thru several rounds of foreclosure before reaching their ultimate bottom at rental value

There’s room for several FBs to lose their asses as these condos go from $700K to about $200K

[4plexowner]

Excellent advice from PerryChase on becoming familiar with the areas you are interested in

When I was shopping for property I had driven the streets so many times that when I was sitting at my computer and received a new listing on Fulton (for example), I didn’t have to drive by it because I already knew that Fulton was a narrow street with cars lining both sides

Developing this level of familiarity with your areas of interest will also help you develop a gut feel for prices/values – you will be able to tell whether something is really a deal or just a pig-with-lipstick parading as a deal

[4plexowner]

I found a few links via Google

Here’s a chronology from http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=ivKVLcMVIsG&b=476131:

Jan 18, 1943 Second wave of deportations. Beginning of armed resistance
Apr 19, 1943 Final liquidation of Ghetto begins. Beginning of Ghetto uprising
May 16, 1943 Jrgen Stroop declares:
“The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is no more!” Resistance actually continues sporadically.

This site, http://www.ujc.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=22880 , says

On April 18, 1943, as the German army marched in to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto, a few hundred Jewish Resistance fighters, armed with pistols, rifles and homemade Molotov cocktails, confronted the Nazi soldiers and held them at bay for almost a month.

~

Looks like I should have said one month instead of four

[4plexowner]

I only saw one vague reference to a citizen militia in this thread so I am throwing my two cents in

As I understand the intent of our founding fathers, the citizens are given the right to bear arms primarily to protect themselves from the government

This means a military type rifle and not a $50 handgun

~

Less than 400 Jews with a handful of weapons held off the German army for 4 months when the Germans were trying to clean out the Warsaw ghetto

~

If California allowed concealed-carry I would be toting a semi-auto .45 everyday – I’m a “shoot evil people first, ask them why they were doing it second” kind of guy

[4plexowner]

You are buying a rental property and will be a long-distance landlord?

Bad idea in my opinion – owning/managing rentals is challenging enough when they are local

Another poster, I believe ‘surveyor’, will tell you otherwise – evidently he is having luck getting cashflow from distant properties although he is doing multi-unit stuff not single-family

I question whether the market is really ‘fairly active’ if the house was available at $265K but didn’t sell

Any offer would have to be below $265K IMO

[4plexowner]

I agree with you Bugs, but …

Since we long ago left financial-reality-land here in the US why can’t the Fed just monetize the portion of the mortgage that the people can’t pay

Let’s take the working farm couple that makes $30K per year and has a $700K mortgage as an example (unfortunately, this couple actually exists and actually has the mortgage)

Let’s use very round numbers and say the couple is capable of servicing a $100K mortgage using traditional financing

The Fed writes a $600K check to the mortgage holder and creates a lien against the property for $600K

The F’d buyer now services the remaining $100K on his mortgage and ignores the lien

After 5 years or so we distract the sheeple with another war or 9/11 event and then pass a ‘home lien forgiveness’ bill while they aren’t looking

[4plexowner]

At least one poster in the other thread pointed out that the value of the house is currently $380K not $440K or the $430K from the last comp

[4plexowner]

And when you assume $600-700/mo tax savings are you taking into account that you will LOSE the $10,000 standard deduction that you and your wife currently get (unless you already itemize)

That’s $833/month that YOU HAVE LOST in tax benefits

Again, I believe you are fooling yourself about the true cost of owning this house

[4plexowner]

I agree with PerryChase although I am hoping for 1998 prices as prices overshoot the mean

I currently like the idea of prices bottoming in 2011 and staying mostly flat for 2 or 3 years before they start rising noticeably

~

To the original poster: I get the impression that you are trying to talk yourself into buying this house – that’s OK and it’s your decision – it could easily be the biggest financial mistake of your life but we all have to learn our own lessons – you should be thinking worst case scenario: the house being worth $230K until 2015 or so – I also get the impression that you are fooling yourself about your ability to afford this property – to ignore $700+/month in expenses in order to “focus on the rent vs buy decision” is less than intelligent – if I am understanding correctly you aren’t counting HOA dues, taxes, insurance, maintenance, trips to Home Depot, etc – and to do this using 100% financing! – grasshopper, what are you thinking – have you been ignoring your lessons again?

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