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CoronitaParticipant[quote=kev374]ok, here are the specifics… the area is Costa Mesa on 19th st. but in the rougher area near the DMV, it is sort of a Mexican hood but a bit better than Santa Ana, the city together with investors have been trying like crazy to pursue gentrification due to it’s proximity to Newport beach but as it stands it’s still a somewhat rougher area compared to South Orange County.
when I moved in Sep ’11 rent was below market for the area at $1025/mo. The complex is rather old and dilapidated but I was ok with it due to the cheap rent. The unit is tiny as well, 520 sqft and has only a carport but it is gated which is a plus.
The place was owned by a private person and she mentioned that she was keeping rents quite a bit below market since she didn’t want turnover and had much higher criteria for tenant quality (credit, income stability etc.). Then she sold the place to another investor 4 months after I moved in, I was on a 6 month lease but after that expired the rent jumped to $1045/mo., then $1085/mo. in 2 more months. Fair enough I still paid without complaints as it was a good deal.
This investors sold again to someone else now and fast forward to today the rent is now $1145 which is reasonable for the size of the unit and the area. The new notice increases this to $1270/mo. I also have 2 motorcycles and pay $150/mo. for a 10×10 storage unit to store them about a half mile away. So my total outflows with this increase would be $1270+150 = $1420 which is ridiculous for the area and the fact that I have no garage.
A friend of mine has just rented a 2 bd, 1100 sqft w/2 car garage just a few blocks away for $1500 and in that same complex was a 850 sqft 1bd with 2 car garage (a bit unusual for a 1bd) for $1290 so the new increase is a very bad deal for me.
I had a talk with the mgr and showed actual listings in the area of places with garages for under $1300/mo. She argues that new tenants are paying $1400 base rent YIKES!! and her offer of $1270/mo to me represents a “discount”. I told her how can it be a discount when I am showing her actual listings on craigslist of LARGER places in a somewhat better area WITH a garage onsite for LESS.
It’s not like I am pulling facts out of my behind, I have no problems paying what the market bears but my research shows that there are other much more competitively priced units. But they are refusing to budge on the new rent.
It seems to me that there are two distinct markets, some complexes where landlords have acquired properties a long time ago for a lot less can keep rents lower to hang on to good tenants, but the more recent investors need to jack up the rents in order to get return on their inflated investments. As a renter I could care less about an investor’s situation of trying to recoup their investment, I care only about the bottom line and who is offering me the best deal.
They did give me a 60 day notice since by law they have to for anything over a 10% increase, so I will be moving, it’s a pain but I can do better and it’s much more convenient for me to have a garage onsite.
But I am in AWE of people paying $1400/mo for a tiny, crappy apt in a halfway crappy area! LOL! But if the landlord can find such suckers more power to them.
Sorry for such a long winded reply but now you have a much better view of my situation :)[/quote]
Ok, so IF what the landlord says is true (current market price is $1400/month), and you’re rent is $1270/month.. well then, you are getting a discount since it is below market. I would double check to see if the landlord being truthful. Worst comes to worst, you find a nicer place at the same price (though I tend to believe your landlord that current rent is $1400/month for a 1/1)
You might not like the fact that your rent is $225/month more from the first rent you had back in 2011… But if the market really does support $1400/month for a 1-1, then the burden is on you to find another place that is cheaper than $1270/month.
Since it’s only a 1/1, it’s *not* that much of an effort to move if you are able to find something better or cheaper.If a landlord really is trying to charge above market prices, well it should be pretty easy to find another place, and pay maybe like $30 for a uhaul rental on 1/2 day’s worth of moving out of a 1/1….
Your landlord isn’t going to do anything until you tell them you are moving out, and then if it comes to that, you better make good on your words.
CoronitaParticipantReally, your kid?
Come on……..Scardey. Your a parent damnit.
CoronitaParticipant[quote=6packscaredy]I’m reading a book (out loud with my wife at bedtime) called the watchmakers daughter. It’s a truly laugh out loud comical memoir about growing up with 2 holocaust survivor parents.
The dad was a watchmaker who survived the death camps repairing Nazi watches while other Jewish lawyers and doctors were gassed.Good point there; true unique skills can carry you a long way. I think I should learn something. BButwhat?[/quote]
Well as a lawyer you can safely practice all the way until you start needing to wear Depends garments…
Mobile enginerds will probably get brain tumors by the time we’re that age…
CoronitaParticipant[quote=joec]Out of curiosity, does anyone know if CS/programing/coding/IT jobs pay a lot more than some of the hard (as in more physical) engineering disciplines such as Mechanical/EE/Materials?
I ask because when I graduated and the tech boom happened, everyone I knew in tech (SV) was paid a ton more than “regular” engineers. Maybe I didn’t know that many of the other engineers actually since a lot of the companies were more software based/web…
Oh well, just wondering since I wonder if everyone would just learn to code in the future vs. the less (maybe?) lucrative fields of EE/Mech/Materials/etc…
From all the salary surveys I see though, it seems petroleum engineers make the most out of school so maybe my circle just wasn’t the EE crowd.[/quote]
It depends on what specifically in each field…
Petroleum enginerds probably do pretty well. EE crowd does well if in the correct specialization…CS crowd does well if in the right crowd and you’re relatively good. There’s a difference between being just a coder (know how to program), and being able to design. There’s a creativity component as well…
I think people should just consider “coding/programming” as a tool. The real bucks are finding solutions to problems or creating a product and using those tools.
Tools get smarter. Problems you solve get harder….Compensation varies. Besides salaries, a good portion ends up being employee stock grants (RSUs) and/or cash bonus, which varies depending on performance.
CoronitaParticipant[quote=Blogstar]I am glad you got me thinking about this. Turns out my kid did everything in the flowol 30 day free package, not to say that it is very hard, but he’s interested.
He is 10 and with January and Feb. enrollment periods coming up it might be good to think of finding a better match of school for him. At the least we should try to keep him close to computer science technology via some club and some of these things we can do at home.
I’ll be honest, I have thought on occasion that he is my most Asian looking kid, Round head, broad nose, big teeth, there is even a slant to his eyes! The other two are full on redheads… so there’s no competition.[/quote]
Lol.. Actually, a lot of the elite tech geeks, in case you haven’t noticed, are white….
Of you go to any geekfest (like Google I/O), it will be an eye opener because it’s pretty equal opportunity thing…
The only reason maybe why you don’t see much about it, is the education system isn’t really pushing that much into STEMS in most schools…yet…..
It doesn’t help we still have people clamouring about the threat of outsourcing, india, china, (insert your favorite low cost labor country here) discouraging participation either.
CoronitaParticipant[quote=spdrun]
Heh, it’s all in the fine print. Now I need to figure out which insurer works with a provider that I might need once I get sick.
And how is this different from what we had pre-ACA? If anything, this is a strong argument for public insurance that’s accepted by 90+% of hospitals and doctors.[/quote]
HUGE difference for people that had an employer sponsored plan.. See that’s the problem. A good percentage of people with employer sponsored plan had nowhere near any sort of provider restrictions (as long as it was a PPO plan)… Furthermore, because most employer plans were group plans, they didn’t discriminate against employees with pre-existing conditions either.
This is the point most people who were self- insured don’t understand because your health plans where crappy to begin with. That part hasn’t changed (maybe gotten a little worse for some),
The biggest red herring will be all the people employed by larger corporations who might eventually lose their employer sponsored health plan when employers starting dropping coverage throwing folks onto the exchanges, with insurance plans on the exchanges excluding some of the hospitals needed by people with pre-existing conditions… Something that wasn’t the case when you belonged to a larger/pooled employer defined plan…People with pre-existing conditions that are employees have a LOT to lose in this arrangement…
Currently, a lot of the big employers self-insure (Qualcomm being one of them…They only hire United Healthcare to administer their plans)…Other such companies the same way….So the impact probably won’t be immediate.. But leave things as is, everything will move this way eventually…
CoronitaParticipant[quote=flu][quote=all][quote=no_such_reality]Sadly, one plow through coveredca debased me of any fantasy of retiring when I saw what happens to my health premiums heading into my 50s with a family.[/quote]
Do you know why there is big difference in premium between plans in the same tier? I am looking at HMO 90 – Molina is 20% more than HealthNet and Anthem BlueCross is another 15% more expensive than Molina.[/quote]
Double check which provider is accepted where. I’m not saying that’s the reason, but I think certain providers are dropping the top medical facilities..
Fine if you don’t need to go there. Sucks if you do…
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/21/business/la-fi-hospital-costs-20120921
Cedars-Sinai and UCLA cut from Los Angeles health plan
About 2,200 city workers and family will lose their doctors as Anthem Blue Cross pares pricey providers.Also,
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Kicks Cleveland Clinic Out of Network (The Biggest Obamacare Side Effect in Ohio)A couple weeks ago I attended a mandatory, in person training for Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield at their office in Youngstown, Ohio. The purpose of this training was to teach their independent agents the ins and outs of their new health insurance plans and make sure we understood the scope of all their changes.
Boy there were there some big ones.
It seems like forever, but I have been saying things like “it’s going to get crazy” or “it’s going to be nutty” half joking, half serious. Mostly I was trying to convey the fact you would be buying your health insurance in a completely new way starting today. Those differences, mainly created by Ohio’s Health Insurance Marketplace, where what was going to create the “craziness.”
However, I completely underestimated how far these changes would go, to the point Anthem would, in a sense, throw away one of their biggest competitive advantages.
[NOTE: I was required by Anthem to sit on this information after the meeting, they had not yet gone public with it and requested brokers not say anything]
One of the biggest shockers of this “network shake up,” as I’m calling it, is that Anthem decided to hitch it’s post healthcare reform wagon to University Hospital system in northeast Ohio and exclude The Cleveland Clinic, the largest hospital system in the state, from it’s network.
Let that sink in for a second.
I’ll repeat that one more time. The Cleveland Clinic is no longer in Anthem’s primary network of hospitals under the Affordable Care Act.
I think the irony to this is people actually believed that providers would just allow people with pre-existing conditions to get more healthcare and pay less. Sure, you’ll pay the same premium as everyone else…. But you won’t be able to go use the facilities you count on because those facilities won’t be in the network anymore 🙂
I think a lot of us smelled a rat… SD Realtor was one of them I believe… Looks like we were right….
Things will be even more fun once employers start cutting/paring down their employer provided health plans, especially for folks with pre-existing conditions… Interesting times we live in….[/quote]
It get’s better if you have children…. Need specialized children’s healthcare? Good luck there….
http://pnhp.org/blog/2013/10/08/seattle-childrens-hospital-excluded-from-most-exchange-plans/
Seattle Children’s Hospital excluded from most exchange plans…Majority of Washington’s Health Benefit Exchange Insurance Plans Fail to Cover Care at Seattle Children’s; Hospital Sues Seeking Adequate Network Coverage for Children and Families
Patient advocates say the exclusion of one of Missouri’s top hospital systems from policies offered by the region’s biggest insurer under the Affordable Care Act could hinder treatment for some patients and force others to switch doctors.
The network for the Anthem BlueCross BlueShield plans, which will be sold through Missouri’s “Obamacare” marketplace, does not include BJC HealthCare and its 13 hospitals — among them Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the area’s premier academic medical center, and St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. (Photo by Matt Hurst via Flickr).
“That is a major concern for a lot of reasons,” said Andrea Routh, executive director of the Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance. “Children’s Hospital, which in my mind is an essential community provider, is part of that network. If they’re not including the Children’s Hospital, care for children could really be compromised.”Anthem confirmed Wednesday that policies sold through Missouri’s online insurance marketplace, scheduled to open for enrollment Oct. 1, will not include BJC.
CoronitaParticipant[quote=all][quote=no_such_reality]Sadly, one plow through coveredca debased me of any fantasy of retiring when I saw what happens to my health premiums heading into my 50s with a family.[/quote]
Do you know why there is big difference in premium between plans in the same tier? I am looking at HMO 90 – Molina is 20% more than HealthNet and Anthem BlueCross is another 15% more expensive than Molina.[/quote]
Double check which provider is accepted where. I’m not saying that’s the reason, but I think certain providers are dropping the top medical facilities..
Fine if you don’t need to go there. Sucks if you do…
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/21/business/la-fi-hospital-costs-20120921
Cedars-Sinai and UCLA cut from Los Angeles health plan
About 2,200 city workers and family will lose their doctors as Anthem Blue Cross pares pricey providers.Also,
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Kicks Cleveland Clinic Out of Network (The Biggest Obamacare Side Effect in Ohio)A couple weeks ago I attended a mandatory, in person training for Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield at their office in Youngstown, Ohio. The purpose of this training was to teach their independent agents the ins and outs of their new health insurance plans and make sure we understood the scope of all their changes.
Boy there were there some big ones.
It seems like forever, but I have been saying things like “it’s going to get crazy” or “it’s going to be nutty” half joking, half serious. Mostly I was trying to convey the fact you would be buying your health insurance in a completely new way starting today. Those differences, mainly created by Ohio’s Health Insurance Marketplace, where what was going to create the “craziness.”
However, I completely underestimated how far these changes would go, to the point Anthem would, in a sense, throw away one of their biggest competitive advantages.
[NOTE: I was required by Anthem to sit on this information after the meeting, they had not yet gone public with it and requested brokers not say anything]
One of the biggest shockers of this “network shake up,” as I’m calling it, is that Anthem decided to hitch it’s post healthcare reform wagon to University Hospital system in northeast Ohio and exclude The Cleveland Clinic, the largest hospital system in the state, from it’s network.
Let that sink in for a second.
I’ll repeat that one more time. The Cleveland Clinic is no longer in Anthem’s primary network of hospitals under the Affordable Care Act.
I think the irony to this is people actually believed that providers would just allow people with pre-existing conditions to get more healthcare and pay less. Sure, you’ll pay the same premium as everyone else…. But you won’t be able to go use the facilities you count on because those facilities won’t be in the network anymore 🙂
I think a lot of us smelled a rat… SD Realtor was one of them I believe… Looks like we were right….
Things will be even more fun once employers start cutting/paring down their employer provided health plans, especially for folks with pre-existing conditions… Interesting times we live in….
CoronitaParticipant[quote=no_such_reality]Sadly, one plow through coveredca debased me of any fantasy of retiring when I saw what happens to my health premiums heading into my 50s with a family.[/quote]
Lol… Don’t go there……Just be lucky you have no pre-existing condition. I’m wondering if specialized hospitals will make good on their statements that they will opt out…..
CoronitaParticipant[quote=no_such_reality]I’m in favor of cash flow producing investments as people age. Rentals, partnerships in small businesses, etc. The stock market by and large has really degenerated into a ‘growth’ stock ponzi scheme.
Any portfolio of stocks/bonds/CDs and most financial instruments (sans annuities) can’t support an inflation adjusted 4% withdrawal rate over the long term (30+ years) without a relatively high failure rate (compared to impact) for an individual investor.
Annuities have potential, but I haven’t seen many annuities for sale that will index inflation, which means even though a long term annuity will start with an over 5% payout, within ten years your buying power is diminished to 4% and continues to fall.
At least on Pigg, people don’t think you’re a kook for reading geeky stuff like this http://wpfau.blogspot.com/2012/10/efficient-frontiers-inflation.html%5B/quote%5D
That makes for an interesting read NSR…Thanks!
CoronitaParticipant[quote=Blogstar][quote=flu][quote=Blogstar]He likes that …doesn’t own one, but we have gotten him in an after school class.
What do you think about this?http://www.flowol.com[/quote%5D
don’t know… My kid’s still too young for it…Will check it out….[/quote]
I just saw that the flowol stuff has Spanish options , which is cool for my family. Why the hell not a Chinese option ?
Just kidding.[/quote]lol
CoronitaParticipantSo side question.
If people are anti-investing (which a lot of that seems to be the case even on piggington), what’s the alternative for people like this who depend on back-breaking self-employed labor and now are older and probably can’t do the samething anymore?
Some people, if they are wiped out with the savings/investings have the option of going back to work and rebuilding even if they are older…
In this particular situation, this person counted on his job as a contractor, didn’t save/invest. Can he reasonably “go back to work” in what he is doing, given his current age and physical condition? What options does he have?CoronitaParticipant[quote=Blogstar]He likes that …doesn’t own one, but we have gotten him in an after school class.
What do you think about this?http://www.flowol.com[/quote%5D
don’t know… My kid’s still too young for it…Will check it out….
CoronitaParticipant[quote=Blogstar][quote=flu][quote=Blogstar]Interesting. One of my nerds may fit in well with something like this.Maybe the one who aces the state exams. Options are good.[/quote]
It’s actually not a bad deal.. Computers are pretty cheap now. Knowledge is pretty much out there, and plenty of tutorials/self taught materials are out there in the open, along with code…
Maybe tedious for a lot of people though.[/quote]
This kids OCD favors tedium. Time to get him off legos and mine craft anyway.
Thanks, You want to sponsor/ mentor him? LOL[/quote]Legos aren’t bad… You just need the right ones…
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