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Totally agree Andy, I was in the same boat as you. I was watching it since the original crash that brought it to $3. That’s some serious profit in only a month.

Rustico, once again, near top/bottom is not top/bottom. Let me put it this way, you win. OK? I’m just an average Joe who can only determine trend but can’t call top/bottom for the life of me. Obviously, you’re much smarter than I. Please make a post with the title “Today is the bottom, buy now” when you think it is that day and I’ll be greatly appreciated. You’ll have my eternal gratitude.

“When the time comes your target will probably be in your sights for more than a year and the Piggs will be screaming “now, now, now – take the shot”.”
Bugs, I truly hope you’re right. Which would make this a V shape recovery. An L shape recovery I’d think would be much harder to call. Since I’m looking to retire before 65 and this is my first house, I’d really hope it’s a V shape recovery. This is my ticket to retirement :-).

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cyphire, I agree with your assessment. It’s really quite disgusting how the gap between the rich and the poor are at or near all time high. I’m glad you broke out of the middle class, congrats to you. I’m trying my hardest to get there some day.

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Talking about Country Fried, did you also catch the bottom when it hit 13-ish and bounced back hard to 20+ before pulling back to 18+ now? How about LEND when it bottomed out around 3 pop to 13+, bottom again @ 4 and now back to 10+? Man, if only my crystal ball was working at the time, I’d be buying my island by now :-D.

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Sorry to say but near the top is not equal the top. I’ve been a bear in RE market since 2002 too. I’ve been saying it can’t go on much longer for many years before it actually stop. Since you’re one of those geniuses who can actually call top and bottom, you must be a billionaire by now since we’ve gone through 2 HUGE bubble in the last 10 years. All you need is $10k in 1997 to be a billionaire by now. Shouldn’t you be @ some beach sipping maitai now instead of being on piggington like us average folks who can’t seem to call tops & bottoms for the life of us?

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All I was saying is I agree with Bug in that calling top/bottom is a fool’s game. Show me anyone who can do that with consistency and I’ll concede. Sorry, but powayseller is not one of them. Those who sold in 2004-2006 are not either. They might be lucky unless they also bought in 1996, sold in 1989, etc. No back pedaling here.

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At any given point in time, there are bulls and there are bears. Bears will always call the top and bulls will always call the bottom. When you call top often enough, you’ll hit it once in awhile. Just look at powayseller’s other call. I’m still waiting for S&P 500 hitting 500. Just like the bulls calling these plateau on the down side as bottom. Eventually, they’ll be right. While the bear’s pessimism will probably miss the bottom just like the bulls who missed the top due to their optimism. I remember people start calling top since 2002. Of course, more and more people join in as we get to 2005. Just like people are calling bottom now. We’re here because we’re bearish on the RE market. It’s been a proven fact that no one can call top or bottom in any market with any consistency. We all can be bull/bears and identify the trend but calling top/bottom is a fool’s game. Just because the top is well defined this time doesn’t mean the bottom will be as well defined. What IF we have a huge drop off next year @ 30% and stay flat for 10 years. Where would that bottom be?

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“Pretty sure that it was Nov 05 and it was identified by at least January 06.”

Please provide the post of those who called it 3 months later? I’ve been around since the beginning and I don’t remember anyone that confident about it being the top at the time. Some people think it’s the top but they didn’t call it w/ any certainty.

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LostCat, I totally agree with you. New data come out all the time which may or may not change the direction of the expected path/speed of decline. Many of the topics on here have been discussed before. If duplicated gets weed out, this site would be dead. I also stick to the motto of, if I have nothing nice to say, I’ll say nothing at all.

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If you’re here, you foresaw the bubble and the downturn. But I don’t think anyone called the 2005 peak, at least not with any certainty at the time. Which is why I don’t think anyone can call the bottom with any certainty until it’s 1-2 years too late. Even then, top for NCC is very different than East County.

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Bugs, I totally agree with you. Trying to time any market is a fool’s game. For all we know, this could deteriorates very quickly and hit bottom in 2008 or very slowly and hit bottom in 2020. There are infinite variables, so we’ll never know until we’re well past the bottom.

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I guess you call peak volume too soon. Look at it again, it’s still trending up and now surpass last year in a y-o-y #.

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“The point is, anything can happen. Doesn’t change the fact that, in general, now would be a bad time to buy (with the distinct potential of being a *really* bad time).”

I agree. Which is why we’re here dissecting updated data. Again, as I mentioned in another thread, I only brought this up as an example to why it is not the end of the world if they bought, can manage the payment very comfortably, have a decently stable job, and live in it forever.

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sdcellar, I don’t feel comfortable divulging much more financial detail than what I have. The ones that I mentioned not paying it off is because they feel they can invest that money and get better return than paying off the house. Then there are others who, although can’t pay off their loan at the time due to needing the cash to do other things, have mortgage payment in the 800/month range. That’s the kind of payment you’d be happy with in a 1 bedroom apartment, not a house.

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“I’d rather wait it out to see what happens.”

I think most of us here rather wait as well, me included. But long term RE holding is still a viable option. When I say long term, I mean really long term, not 5-10 years. Even with the depression of 1929, RE price still recover…eventually.

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sdcellar, my parents are not the only one that bought around that time. I know many who can easily pay it off at any moment if they wanted to since they bought it for mid 100k 18 years ago.

I agree dentist might get squeeze, especially since most don’t even take advantage of dental insurance even when they have them. But some how, I think optometrist still have clients even if they don’t have insurance. As a glasses wearer, my prescription periodically change and I NEED to go in and get new one. It’s quite unsafe to drive when your vision is blurry. Kids prescription tend to change much more rapidly as well which make it hard not to bring them in every year for a new prescription. For all those contacts wearer, they can’t buy anymore contacts after a year since it expire after that and they’d have to go in and get a new one.

JWM, I agree with your last post. They will be affected IF those company are financially affected. I think if it gets to that point, then we might see houses penny on the dollar since we all would be worrying about food instead of shelter. We can live w/out shelter but we can’t live w/out food. I do acknowledge that there’s a possibility for a recession but I’m still skeptical about a depression or worse. Only time will tell.

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