[ctr70]

I would love to see the home mortgage interest deduction completely taken away. And the only reason it hasn’t been yet is due to the powerful Realtor lobby in congress protecting their commissions. It just subsidizes a few homeowners in wealthy areas and does not do much good. The vast majority of the country can’t use it. It also helps to artificially inflate home prices on the coast (as does low rates and prop 13 in CA).

[ctr70]

In addition to the electoral college and giving each state two senate seats (regardless of that states population), another related thing I’m in huge favor of is giving states more power to shape their own rules and policy vs. centralizing power in DC.

I love the freedom you have in this country to move to another state if you don’t like the politics, taxes, etc… in one state. I moved from Kalifornistan to WA State partially to escape the oppressive state income in CA (WA has NO state income tax). I LOVE that I have the freedom to do that. This allows people to “vote with their feet”. It would suck bad if Wash D.C. controlled individual states more then they do.

I don’t think you have this freedom in a lot of other countries, to move to other areas to lower you tax burden or get a political environment more to your liking. Socialists and a lot of Dem’s would love to take this freedom away and centralize power in DC.

[ctr70]

I’m very thankful the folks that wrote the U.S. constitution had the brilliant foresight to create the electoral college & senate. So now a few high population cities/states on the coasts can’t control policy for this entire vast nation. Those guys were VERY smart.

I for one certainly do not want policy for the entire U.S to be controlled by the socialists and big Gov’t unions in CA and NY.

[ctr70]

[quote=mixxalot]The real estate prices do not pencil out to average incomes. It is foreign buyers, low inventory and institutional wall street firms jacking up prices.[/quote]

And mortgage rates the last few years being the lowest they have ever been in the 240 year history of the United States.

Super low rates especially juice the prices in expensive coastal areas. 3.5% vs. say 6.5% on a $700k mortgage in CA has a much bigger impact than 3.5% vs. 6.5% on a $100k mortgage in Nebraska.

[ctr70]

[quote=FlyerInHi]What makes you think that today’s rates are artificially low? What is artificial and real?

Money is just a human created means of exchange in commerce. There’s should be no reason for money to automatically make money on money, such as when rates are high.

Maybe we are just smarter in managing the money supply?[/quote]

Rates are artificially low because they are 100% driven by the Fed and not the free market. 95% of all mortgages originated today are Gov’t backed. This is far higher % than this has been in most of U.S. history. Do you really think if the mortgage market were more balanced with private investors that these private investors would take the risk for 3.5% return on a 30 yr fixed mortgage? The only reason rates are at 3.5% is because the Fed (aka tax payers) is guaranteeing 95% of all mortgages, and billions in Mortgage Backed Securities were purchased with Gov’t printed QE money helping to keep rates down.

It doesn’t seem healthy to me that the world economy is driven more and more by central Fed planning, rate manipulation, money printing, and more & more debt vs. true fundamentals, rising incomes, and good jobs.

I’m not smart enough to know how this all works out. Maybe it all works out and fixes itself. But there is no doubt we are in uncharted waters with this global monetary policy experiment that has been going on the past 8 years.

[ctr70]

If house prices are to keep going up or even stay flat, rates must stay in a very low and tight range for a very long time.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, probably at least 50% of all the housing price recovery since 2011 has been due to one thing, artificially low mortgage rates manipulated by Fed. Not due to fundamentals in the economy like good jobs and rising incomes. The 50 year average of 30 yr fixed mortgage interest rates is 7-8%, that is where they should be. If they had not been pushed to ridiculously artificially low levels (30 yr fixed in the 3% range are you kidding me?), there is no way prices would be where they are today. Where do you think prices would be in SD if the 30 yr fixed was 7%? So this is all the proof you need this is a Fed engineered housing recovery, not a housing recovery based on real fundamentals.

With that said, rates could still fall further if we get bad economic news or stocks fall. 30 yr fixed rates could fall to 3.00% or in the 2% range, and housing may be stimulated once again. But ask yourself is all this healthy? Is it healthy for economies around the world to get addicted to low rates and QE vs. real growth? Is it healthy for the Fed to keep inflating assets? I mean we are in the 7th year since the end of the recession and rates are basically still at zero! There is something not quite right with that picture.

[ctr70]

My prediction: Hillary. My wish: Bloomberg.

[ctr70]

I actually found San Diego’s weather really boring. I lived in SD for 7 years and now live somewhere with seasons and much prefer it. All that sun also makes it so brown and dead looking so much of the year, with so few native trees and no real rivers or natural lakes. I prefer a more green landscape, green grass, with nice freshwater lakes, rivers, etc… Snow can be very pretty too.

[ctr70]

I live in Seattle now but I always regretted looking back to my time in SoCal that I didn’t live in LA vs. SD. LA is a lot more cosmopolitan, there is more to do, way better sports (Lakers, Dodgers, Clippers, Kings, UCLA, USC, etc..). Most people who don’t like LA just drive though on the freeways or have pre-conceived notions. There are some very cool hip neighborhoods (like Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Echo Park for example).

The traffic does suck and it is crowded and has more crime than SD. But crime has fallen a lot over the last 25 yrs from what I hear. You can get more of that LA fakeness and superficialness up there too. So there are major downsides of course.

Also you can get to Santa Barbara way faster, Kings Canyon/Sequoia faster, LAX has way more non-stop flights EVERYWHERE. You have major mountain ranges just east.

SD is a solid place for a lot of folks and has a lot going for it. I just personally found SD kind of bland and boring. Kind of a bit of a backwater almost. Just a big surfing military town mostly. It is nice about SD though being able to access the beaches and mountains faster with less traffic.

[ctr70]

I rent up in Seattle and rents have gone way, way up here, especially in the city of Seattle proper. My landlord raised my rent about 7% last year. I’ve been renting up here as I moved up here less than 2 years ago and still deciding if I want to buy & where I want to buy.

I own condo rental properties I bought in San Diego from 2009-2011 and vacancy rates are very low. I like to keep my rents a little below market so tenants feel they are getting a good deal and don’t bug you & stay for a long time to pay off your property for you. I have had zero vacancies and not one missed rent payment.

Also, as a reminder to make money investing, often you have to go against the crowds. I remember people right here on this forum arguing with me about buying condos in SD back from 2009-2011, thinking I was crazy. Bearishgirl telling me they would “depreciate” and that condos were bad investments. Those condos have all been AMAZING investments. I was buying 2 bed condos in good rental areas of SD for $130k-$150k like North Park, Rancho P., etc..(that now go for $300k+ and get $1,500/mo in rent). My mortgage payments on some of my condos aren’t much more then car payments. And back then in 2009 NOBODY WANTED THEM. Everyone was scared. Like Warren Buffet says, buy when others are fearful and sell when they are euphoric.

You have to be really careful who you listen to on these forums. There are a lot of big time long winded BS-ers that don’t know s**t. Try to get investing advice from someone who has a higher net worth than you. Not some flunkies on forums who may be flat broke yet handing out advice.

[ctr70]

I think real estate prices in CA are pretty stable. Maybe we could have a small correction say 5%, but I doubt it. Here are a few reasons:

-a huge % of buyers the last 7 years were all cash (far more then ever in modern history), you can’t default on your mortgage if you paid all cash
-in addition to the huge % of cash buyers, many buyers the last 7 years had very large down payments, they won’t ever default either
-the remaining buyers the last 7 years (fha and va) have really low rate 30 yr fixed fully amortizing mortgages, meaning they are paying down big chunks of loan principle every month creating forced equity
-builders have built virtually nothing the last 7 years, inventory will stay pretty low

What caused the last crash in 2008 was the sudden wave of defaults from all the crazy loans. The lending this time is NOT EVEN IN THE SAME UNIVERSE. 2002-2007 like 60%+ of the mortgages were STATED income, zero down, bad credit. You know the taxi cab drivers and housekeepers buying $600k houses with zero down stated income. We do not have anything remotely like that this time. So I just do not see where all the distressed inventory would come from to cause a large price decline in real estate in the near future.

I know I read all the same perma-bear doom and gloomers that have been saying the last 6-7 years how all hell will break loose any moment, we have so much debt, the whole recovery is fake based on central bank stimulus, income’s aren’t rising, the job numbers are fake, hyper inflation is right around the corner, buy gold, yada, yada, yada. They have been saying the same stuff for 6 years and they will say it every year. That is why they are called PERMA-bears.

[ctr70]

The other thing is that many, many famous people, business owners, black, white, hispanic, asian whatever…if someone were to tape what they say in the privacy of their own homes & blast it on the Internet, I’m sure many people would be shocked at what they said. There are a lot of hypocrites out there that will publicly rebuke Sterling for what he said, but likely talk a lot of trash in private and would be ruined if what they said was blasted on the Internet. This guy just was unlucky.

[ctr70]

Obviously the guy is a jack a** for saying what he said and it’s deplorable and I don’t support it at all.

But I think you get into a slippery slope when you FORCE an owner to divest of a $700 million asset (Clippers Franchise) because of something he said in the privacy of his own home. These were comments made off the record in private. If the owner of Qualcomm said something in private that people didn’t like could he be forced to sell Qualcomm? If the owner of Coca Cola, Fed Ex, Disney, etc… be forced to sell their business if they said something people didn’t like?

You get into some serious issues with legal issues of ownership and the rights of freedom of speech in America.

With that said, I think Sterling would be toast anyway because the NBA is a black league and no one would play for him if he kept the Clippers, so it’s kind of a moot point. The value of his franchise would plummet as no players would want to play for him and no fans would go to the games. But that should be his choice.

[ctr70]

I have read a lot of articles of how first time buyer activity is extremely below normal. Not sure about the repeat buyers.

[ctr70]

I find it amazing that a lot of conservatives get their panties all in a bunch about a gay reference in a textbook, yet they fight against new laws for gun buyers to get basic background checks before being able to buy a weapon they can kill people with. What a freaking joke. There are just so many mental midgets on the far right it is scary. Backward, brain dead schmucks. No wonder they keep getting crushed in presidential elections. And I’m saying this as a guy who leans to right on many fiscal issues.

[Author]

Posts