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I’m worried that the US is going to end up like Latin America. When I travel down there the thing I notice the most is that no one has any faith in their government, at any level. They don’t trust the police, they don’t trust the army, they don’t trust the schools, they don’t trust the congress, the president, the courts, nothing. “La justicia es solo para los ricos” is something I hear often down there. Corruption thrives when this is a commonly held belief, and I am noticing more and more of the same attitude here in the US. The government is viewed as an external agent, an other, something that none of us can control. People don’t trust the government, they put their kids in private schools, they move into gated communities, they try to get every tax dodge they possibly can. Screw everyone else, I’m just out for myself and my family. This attitude seems equally prevalent among conservatives and liberals alike.

I hope someday that people start to remember that it’s our government and our country, and that if we have a problem with it it’s up to us to fix it by holding our elected representatives accountable and firing them if they don’t do the job right. We get the government that we deserve.

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The person “Stacy” I signed with comes from a valid Real estate company. She claimed to be running the property mangement for all of the owner’s “Linda” properties.

If your lease is with a management company, you shouldn’t be talking to the property owner at all. The management company is the intermediary in this relationship. The next time Linda shows up, tell her she needs to talk with them, not you. She is obviously an idiot and probably in big financial trouble as well. Protect yourself and LET HER ROT. We need to bring back debtor’s prisons.

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Aren’t you generally paying more by renting from a management company.

I don’t think so, although some weak hand landlords might try to pass off the management fee to their tenants. The rent will be whatever the market will bear. I know it’s certainly not true in my case — I rent from a management company and it’s definitely less than some of the prices I see on craigslist. I stop by their office sometimes and chat with them and they always tell me that they have to educate the wannabee landlords as to the actual market rent value of their property. It is almost always less than they think it is. The last time I stopped in they said they were getting flooded with requests to rent out properties. Heh heh heh.

Renting from a good management company has many advantages. They will usually fix things that are broken and bill the owner, etc…

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In the current environment, don’t even consider renting a home or condo unless it is from a respectable property management company. The weak hand neg-am/IO holders don’t want to use management companies because they can’t afford to pay the management fee. Good landlords (usually folks with actual wealth, not these California Trump wannabees) don’t have time to mess with maintaining their properties and turn them over to experienced property managers. They understand that the fee is just the cost of doing business. I have never, and will never rent from an individual. Just my $0.02. Let these weak hand neg-am/IO holders rot. If you rent from them you’re enabling them to keep up the charade that much longer, thus prolonging all of our misery.

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I wouldnt be shocked if prices held or crept up a bit this year due to constrained inventory.

Isn’t inventory triple what it was a few years ago? Around 15000 properties as opposed to 5000? Maybe I don’t have my numbers right, but if my memory is correct that doesn’t sound very constrained, especially since our (legal) population is decreasing.

This bubble won’t deflate until the weak hands are flushed from the market, and that won’t happen until traditional lending standards (loan types/DTI ratios, etc…) return. Prices have been artificially inflated due to a flood of buyers that, in normal times, would be denied entry to the market.

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The poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America can’t afford to consume, but Americans consume themselves into poverty. That includes overpaying for real estate.

Have you spent much time in Latin America? The favelas in Rio are full of CD players, TVs, Air Jordan sneakers, etc… Go to any mall in Brazil and look at the price of shoes. There are always TWO prices — the whole price and the weekly price. Yes, that’s right, people in Brazil buy their sneakers on the installment plan.

The only difference in my experience is a matter of degree. Here in America we are more wealthy so our poor people have more stuff. But poor people in other countries consume too much too.

In Peru last year I noticed that none of the farms I saw had tractors. Everywhere I looked people where plowing the earth BY HAND. The “rich” farmers had a couple of oxen or cows rigged to a plow. When I told my guide that our family but their first tractor in 1937, he was astounded. He laughed and said that the Peruvian government had instituted a low-cost loan program for farmers to purchase capital equipment. It was hugely successful, many many farmers signed up. “Then where are the tractors?” I asked; my guide laughed and said that most of the people just bought TVs and cars with the money.

Bottom line is — many many many (not all!) poor people are poor because they don’t understand money or business.

But I will agree that our country needs to do something to ensure that our poverty doesn’t reach the level of those countries. Education, health care, and birth control are really important to achieve that goal in my opinion. A huge uneducated and poor population is extremely dangerous to any free society…

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MSNBC report about the Bush budget.

When you say “3 trillion dollars”, make sure to hold your pinky finger up to your mouth and enunciate the syllables very slowly…

Threeeeee triiiiiiilllyyyyyyon doooolllllaaaaars! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

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Here’s a link to the article mentioned above…

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Of course, but what got this whole thing started was this nonsense:

Over the next 5 years, San Diego is going to see about 12-billion dollars invested in local and regional infrastructure. This includes, new highways, transit projects, street improvements, etc. This is the first time that San Diego will ever experience such a large amount of Govt funding to the region. This huge load of money, per Transnet II and Prop 1B and Prob 2B. This will offset any job loss in the housing industry and will likely float SD’s economy for another few year. How does San Diego factor this in to the fact that we will see a significant up swing in construction related jobs over the next two years?

I just don’t buy this idea that government construction jobs are going to keep our housing market afloat and prices from falling, that’s all.

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Yes but that teacher and correctional officer probably have been in the area for a decade or more and likely has quite a bit of equity that can burn off the $250,000 house they bought in 1997 with 20% down.

Do you really think they’d buy a new $700K house in this case? Holy cow, that’s a huge increase in property tax, and their 1997 house, if it’s in La Costa, is probably already worth $700K. So let’s see, honey, should we take a little HELOC and add that extra bedroom, or should we sell, pay huge $$$ in commisions, and triple our property tax payment? Oh wait a minute, these are government employees we’re talking about. Yep, you’re right, they probably would do that 🙂

In all seriousness, the original post said that the big increase in government money was going to bring lots of new homeowners into SD, enough to purchase our excess inventory. So that theory relies on new people moving in from out of town, not folks that have been here for ten years.

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A government worker family of a teacher and correctional officer will have a family incomee above $133,000 and possibly over $168,000.

Still probably not enough for a $700K home using traditional financing, once you throw in property taxes, maintenance, HOAs, mello roos, what have you. Also, that’s a $140K down payment. Very few new buyers have that kind of green. And $140K pays you at least $500/mo simply invested in CDs. Also, when we return to traditional financing, I’m guessing it will be unlikely that banks will want to take OT pay into account when calculating DTI.

I do agree that many government employees earn good salaries, I just think they’re more in line for $400K homes using traditional financing and DTI ratios.

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Since the city can’t raise taxes on existing homeowners they have more incentive to build new strip malls and new subdivisions. Can you say “Urban Sprawl?”

Texas has no prop 13 and Texas counties frequently re-asses residential properties. In Texas, you pay taxes on what the county says your property is worth today, no matter if you bought it twenty years ago or not. And Texas is NOTHING BUT suburban sprawl. San Diego, for all its problems, is a masterwork of urban planning compared to places like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, or even North Austin. If anything, prop 13 keeps people planted in their houses because they can’t afford to sell, thus reducing churn from old houses to new ones and limiting suburban sprawl.

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Over the next 5 years, San Diego is going to see about 12-billion dollars invested in local and regional infrastructure. This includes, new highways, transit projects, street improvements, etc.

Yes, and all of those government-paid highway workers will be buying $700K houses in La Costa.

BWAAAAAAAHAAAAHAAAHAHAHA!

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It depends on what you mean by “pick up”. If by “pick up”, you mean an increase in home inventory, alcoholism, suicide, divorce, and the growing of vegetables on condo balconies, then you might be right. If you mean an increase in home sales, then I’m guessing you’ll be proven wrong.

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Iran apparently is beginning to trade oil in Euros.

And remember what happened after the last time a certain oil-rich middle eastern country began doing that…

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