[an]

PerryChase, true, sometimes, older homes have better location, charm, uniqueness, but a lot of times, older homes are cookie cutters too, just one from the past.

[an]

Well, I know that the best deal I get in life is when I put sellers against each other. Example is price match. I would get a price from Best Buy, bring it to Circuit City and say can you beat the price, they usually do beat it by a few percent. Same with my internet bill, I call up, tell my cable company I’m considering switching to DSL because of the price, but I like the Cable’s speed and service. I ask them if they can beat it, they did, and I end up paying less than I would have w/ DSL for fast speed. I can go on with more examples, but you get my point.

sdrealtor, your job analogy is not really what would happen in real life. However, in real life, company would tell you they narrow it down to 2-4 people and you’re one of them. You can then either tell them why you think they should pick you or move on. On the reverse of that, you can go out and have 2-4 interviews and 2-4 offers. Then you pick one that you like the best, tell them you would really like to work for them but you have a better offer, and ask them if they can do something about the salary. That usually work and they either match the salary or give you more stock option or bonus.

Bottom line is, I don’t see why you have to settle for just one offer when you have so many choices. When you say pick what I like best, well, like I said, what if those 3 are exact same floor plan w/ the exact same upgrades from the builder. What do you do then?

[an]

I think new construction might be a better gage on how much price has fallen than resale price since builder are much more realistic in term of what price they can get right now. While resale price, seller might be stubborn and not sell it to the best current offer, holding out and hoping a better one will come in the future. Also, a lot of the new houses/condo tend to be much more uniform in term of content than resale, so it reduce some of the effect of upgrades in resale.

[an]

sdrealtor, I have a question for you in regards to multiple offers. What if there are 2-3 houses in the same complex with the same floor plan. So I love them all the same. How would you go about getting a buyer like myself the best price for one of the 3 houses? If you just submit to one and a price is agreed upon, what if one of the other 2 seller might have gone lower? Wouldn’t in that case, it would be wise to submit lowball offers to all 3 and see which one is willing to work on the price more?

[an]

I would say it’s more like 5-20%. One example to the extreme is Airoso townhouses. Last year, they were listing @ 560-580ish for plan 2&3. This year, I know someone who bought plan 2 for $465k with $30k in upgrade and $5k in closing cost. That brings it down to more like $430k. Even if it was $560k last year, that’s still 23% drop. If it’s 580k, which I’m sure it was after the upgrades, it is more like 26% drop. Mira Mesa drops about 10-15%.

[an]

I don’t why buyers who low ball or give multiple offers to similar houses be labeled as a-hole. If they are labeled that way, then sellers who accepted multiple offers and sell it for higher than list price should also be labeled as a-hole too. I’m here to get my money’s worth, I’m not here to make friends. So if I need to be an a-hole to get the best deal, well, so be it. I got what the seller need, which is my $, and they have what I want, which is their house. It all comes down to who need it more. I’m pretty sure at this point in time, they need my $ more than I need their house. I know I can wait for many years and readjust my buy/rent calculation dynamically. Can all sellers wait indefinitely?

[an]

That’s exactly what I’m doing too. I keep track of houses I would like to buy and seller saying they’re motivated, I ask my realtor to put in a verbal offer for the price I want to pay, regardless of the listing price. So far, no bite, but as things get desperate, maybe I’ll catch a good deal and not have to wait so long.

[an]

sdr, I agree with you. At this point, if you still don’t get it, then, good luck to yah. I don’t need to be a professional to see that everywhere is less than last year. It also seem that the rate of decline is accelerating, not decelerating. We’re only 3 months away to truly know if we’ll see a double digit y-o-y decline or not. At this point & pace, y-o-y will get there. I hoping that 350k will come sooner rather than later, but I can wait. $350k sounds about right to me. That’s another 25-30% more to drop from current level.

[an]

Sorrento Valley right now have 11 listings for SFH, @ 1 sale/month, that’s 11 months of inventory. Very nice :-).

[an]

So let say everybody went job hunting and found jobs. Then you’re told Nokia will be hiring you back, would you stay back or would you still leave? I definitely wouldn’t be sticking around.
In regards to to the 401k’s, that does suck.

[an]

No one is saying that there’s an excellent case for a recession. We’re just saying that’s it’s impossible to make any prediction about anything in life to a 100% certainty. It’s very similar to the perma-bull saying RE price can’t fall until it start falling, then they revise it to soft landing, then temporary drop and will go back to positive soon. In 2004, they were 100% certain that this time is different and all the data shows that they’re right. Does that make them right?

[an]

I did read that book and it’s a quick read. There’s a possibility that it might happen. If you just look at what happened in 2001 in RE, I think a lot of people cashed out of the the NASDAQ and put the $ in RE. So now, it might happen the reverse, people will take the $ out of RE and put it back in the market. We’ll never know for sure until it happen, but that’s a possibility.

[an]

Will they rehire 500-550 people that they just lay off or is there a chance that they’ll rehire 500-550 new people? It seems kind of strange to me that they’re laying off then rehire.

[an]

Here’s my attempt at answering all of house questions.
1. I think it’s not as prevalent now as it was 1-2 years ago. Now, there’s even talk about reverting the conversion back to apartment.

2. I was leasing last year when the complex told everyone they’re converting. They usually do it in phases. We had about 6-8 months left on our contracts and they told us that we can finish our lease. After that, we can stay on month to month. So until they find buyers for your unit, they would not be converting it and kicking you out. That would be too costly for them to have units stay empty.

3. I don’t know exactly what’s the differences but at least condos supposed to have much better insulation and walls supposed to be a certain thickness between residences.

[an]

I don’t think falling RE price will prevent me from buying when monthly mortgage is = rent. That’s my buying point for my primary resident. Even if it keep falling for another 15 years, by then, I’ll have a house, free and clear, and hopefully enough money to start considering retiring, or at least semi-retire. Personally, it would not be very wise to time for the bottom, because at a certain point before the bottom, rent will be more expensive than buying. At that time if you rent, you’ll be waisting money and time. So if it takes 15 years to hit the bottom and turn back up, you might have lost many years to pay off your house at a rate that’s cheaper than rent.

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