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ctr70
ParticipantLike I said before we should be “occupying” city halls and state capitols as well for reduction in pensions to government retirees. We are bankrupting our cities and states just to make a few retirees rich in retirement. I know a guy who retired early from the Fed Government getting $8,000 a month for life off the sweat of the taxpayer. So we should cut our schools, city services, libraries, etc.. down to nothing just so we can pay a few retirees their fat pensions?
Do you know how much cash say a small business owner or private sector worker would have to save to throw off $8k a month for life? Let’s just say they were in a really conservative investment with little risk to the principle that got say 4% return…they would need close to $2.5+million capital in the bank to throw off the eight grand a month! And the tax payer is paying out these $8k/month for life pensions by the thousands for Gov worker retirees!
Why can’t they just save for their own retirements like the private sector has to? Who votes and approves this stuff???
ParticipantThe key is that Jim said the market is “abuzz”. But he ALSO said prices are NOT going up. A market can be abuzz with prices still falling, which they are, by every data set you look at.
I’m waiting to hear Bearishgurl say she could fix the $30k rehab job condo herself for $1,800:)~
ParticipantInstead they should be marching on the state capitols against the ridiculous pensions and health care benefits paid to Government worker retirees that is bankrupting the state and cities. That is where the real rape & pillage of the tax payer is happening.
October 6, 2011 at 10:14 AM in reply to: CA demographic shifts in the coming years will favor cities over suburbia #730164Participant[quote=sdrealtor]Head back to those places in a couple months and trudge through 6 inches of slush for a week or two and then tell me how much you love it. Better yet go right before a major snowstorm when the cities shut down for a week or 2 and you are stuck in your house trying to find something to eat.[/quote]
Ahhh the old snow response…this is true. No one will argue SD has great weather, the architecture just sucks and it’s mostly dumpy or cookie cutter. Like I have always said, SD has the best weather in the world and super cool landscape (ocean, mnts, desert), but the city, culture, and surrounding area is a C- in terms the attractiveness of the housing developments and shopping centers. Generic or dumpy, not a lot in between. Mission Hills being one of the few exceptions
To UC Gal…Philly does have some really pretty suburbs that I can’t think of any thing in San Diego that matches. I have a aunt that lives in Devon PA, super nice & NOT cookie cutter. But Philly would not be my top area for stately suburban neighborhoods anyway. Philly in general is for the most is not a great city IMO, esp the city of Philly itself. It would be very low on my choices of places to live. I think Boston blows it’s doors off in terms of the East Coast. No comparison.
ParticipantThe problem is the people making the laws also get those bloated pensions so they are going to try to protect the status quo. I guess the idea is that let’s bankrupt all the cities of CA and state itself, just so the retired workers can get their over paid bloated pensions on the backs of the tax payers.
ParticipantThat was an awesome article.
We need some SERIOUS pension and health care benefit reform for state Government workers. Why can’t they just all have standard IRA’s and 401k’s that they just contribute out of their own salary just like people in the private sector ? And that’s all the retirement they get, what they contribute, just like the private sector. Why should they get these fat retirement pensions and health care for life on the backs of the tax payers when the majority of the population in the private sector doesn’t get that? People should be marching in the streets of Sacramento for pension reform!
Interesting how Arnold tried but could not get the state legislators to pass Gov. worker pension reform…classic American politics, instead of making the hard decisions to fix things, they do what they have to do to get re-elected. One of the things Arnold tried to do was limit the campaign donations of some state union organization, which he failed to do. Lot’s of crooked activity protecting the status quo of the state employees.
I love that comment from the mayor where San Jose needs to literally go down to ONE city worker managing the whole city just so they can pay the bloated retirement pensions of retired city workers.
Did you see the state prison psychiatrist is making $850,000 a year???
September 30, 2011 at 9:32 AM in reply to: A Chronological Listing of News Headlines from the Last Housing Bubble #729908Participant[quote=temeculaguy][quote=Rich Toscano][quote=ctr70]1991-1996 was another time people though California real estate was finished and would never come back. I think 1996 was more like the bottom. But it was still really cheap in San Diego even up to 2000. If we say 2008 was year 1 of crash, that puts us at about late 1994 right now.[/quote]
If memory serves, 1996 was the nominal bottom and 1997 was the bottom in real terms. That’s in aggregate, of course it could differ by area.
Home prices peaked in late 05/early 06, so I don’t think it’s correct to use 2008 as year 1 of the crash. The 1990 market peaked in spring, so I’d say 2006 is equivalent to 1990. That puts us equivalent to 1995, for what it’s worth.[/quote]
I think rich is correct, but ctr’s observation of 2000 being still cheap, some areas had already began a steady climb by then. I remember 1998 in particular up here as being a banner year. I put money down in early 1998 or late 1997 and by the time the home was built in the summer of 1998, I could have sold it at a sizable profit (maybe 20-30%). I remember thinking I wouldn’t have been able to afford that house had I not locked in the price 8 months or so earlier, it was going up 5-10% per phase back then for new construction and the phases seemed to be every 2 months.
I also remember my house before that which I bought about 1992 and was underwater until about 1997, sold it to buy the bigger house mentioned above and pretty much broke even. Only to watch that house triple or quadruple in value over the next decade, which I still kick myself for selling it since it was rent nuetral even at it’s lowpoint, but i feared it would still go down (there was barely an internet then so I can only blame newspaper articles for my fear). But even today, as bad as things are, that old place is worth between double and triple what I sold it for in 1997 and it rents for more than double what the mortgage was (which would only have 11 years left on it today). God dammit!!!! I freaking hate this memory lane stuff, this is worse than my high school reuinion where the girls i blew off in high school turned out to be the hottest mid forties gals on the planet, with good jobs to boot. I’m going to bed.[/quote]
You are right Rich we peaked this time late 2005, but the market didn’t start the free fall until 2008. 2006 and 2007 prices were still holding up somewhat. Even in early 2007 there was still a some euphoria left. So we had kind of a holding pattern for 2 yrs after the peak this time. I think by the 2nd half of 1990 there was no euphoria left. So there may be some adjustments to year counting to see where we would theoretically be at in the 1990’s.
To temeculaguy…yes you are right prices were moving up in 2000, but I think SD was still super cheap in 2000 (esp. compared to OC/coastal LA/Bay Area). A friend of mine bought his 3,000sf house in Encinitas for around $400k in 2000…even with post crash prices that house has still well over doubled in 10 yrs. That was a really good price for that size and location then, still very cheap IMO. In 2002 prices really started going vertical.
September 28, 2011 at 5:44 PM in reply to: A Chronological Listing of News Headlines from the Last Housing Bubble #729863Participant1991-1996 was another time people though California real estate was finished and would never come back. I think 1996 was more like the bottom. But it was still really cheap in San Diego even up to 2000. If we say 2008 was year 1 of crash, that puts us at about late 1994 right now.
September 28, 2011 at 1:29 PM in reply to: CA demographic shifts in the coming years will favor cities over suburbia #729858ParticipantNot every suburb is a “stucco box” either. the suburbs of Boston like Brookline MA are gorgeous tree lined, quaint, with character, every home different. And I’m sure NYC (Westchester Co.), Chicago (Evanston) and DC too. Much of Seattle too.
Southern Cal, the southwest, and much of the sunbelt (TX, FL, etc…) the suburbs are just so hard on the eyes and senses. Just oceans of tan stucco boxes, fast food chains and boxy strip centers. SUV car culture and you never see people waking on the sidewalks, etc… Totally generic. No uniqueness, no character.
I was driving up the 15 to Corona yesterday and I think Riverside Co. is THE poster child for GENERIC! You could be anywhere, Dallas, Phoenix, Vegas…it all looks the same! Bland!
ParticipantGreat post from Ren!
What are you asking for rent? Did you try posting it on Cragislist yourself and speaking to the tenants yourself? I do think time of the year matters a lot, early summer is the best time to rent to families. I have had property for rent in Jan and Feb and literally got ZERO calls…and then spring rolled around the calls poured in.
I think borrowers with recent prior short sales or foreclosures are great tenants. They may have a 580 credit score, but if the ONLY mark on their credit is a foreclosure from a underwater property they walked from, I think they are a great risk. I rented a house of mine to a couple that were coming off a BK and moving out of a house that foreclosed and they have been awesome tenants. Other landlords overlooked them b/c of their credit score and didn’t read between the lines that it was an isolated event. I also like former HOMEOWNERS b/c they are more used to fixing small things themselves and keeping up the lawn since they have OWNED A SFR BEFORE. And…they are usually used to making a much higher PITI payment then your rent (even though they may have been on the free rent gravy train for 2-3 years prior to getting booted from their house).
This is a great example how rental property investors have to be really careful researching rents, neighborhoods, demand before buying. You never truly know what it’s going to be like to rent it until YOU HAVE TO TRY YOURSELF.
ParticipantI just got back from Seattle and Vermont & Maine myself. Wow, I forgot how much I miss green trees and beautiful quaint, tree lined, historic leafy neighborhoods!
It makes me realize that the old moniker for San Diego as “America’s Finest City” was totally wrong and was never the case. What it is is “America’s Finest Weather”, definitely not even close to finest city. 90% of the reason I am in San Diego is the weather, much of SD county and the housing stock is dumpy and overpriced OR cookie cutter, car culture, character-less, big box, fast food chain suburbia AND overpriced.
September 18, 2011 at 8:44 AM in reply to: CA demographic shifts in the coming years will favor cities over suburbia #729343ParticipantI hope things do shift and people favor more urban living, this means less eye sore cookie cutter, car culture sprawl.
I don’t think NYC is the only “real” city in the U.S. Seattle, Portland, SF, Chicago and Boston are are true walk-able real cities (unlike SD). And even some smaller cities like Boulder CO., Burlington VT, Asheville NC, Madison WI, Charlottesville VA are very compact, walkable cities. I think places like all the above are so much more human, liveable, attractive places to be. They also value restoring their historical architectural heritage vs. bulldozing it.
On the other hand…I think the suburban cities that sprawl forever into generic, cookie cutter, car culture, bland anywhere America are nasty places. I would put most of SoCal, Riverside Co., San Bern Co., Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Sacramento, and many smaller places throughout America on this list. It is very troubling for me see so much of America lose it’s uniqueness and turn in one giant ocean of tan stucco cookie cutter houses with the local neighborhood full of fast food chains, big box stores where nobody walks or interacts with anyone.
September 5, 2011 at 8:22 PM in reply to: Banks Can’t Hold Back Highend Mortgage Foreclosures For Long #728436ParticipantFannie Mae does not require 30% down. You can get a Fannie Mae loan with mortgage insurance with 5% down. But yes, FHA has much more lenient guidelines with respect to debt-to-income ratios and credit scores. And yes, without FHA’s leniency we would be seeing more price declines.
ParticipantI would also argue that 92106 is not the most highly coveted area of SD. Certainly a very nice area no doubt about it. But it is wedged between much of lower OB which is dumpy, and much of Point Loma around Midway, Rosencrans and Sports Arena is really an eye sore of nasty strip centers and ugly architecture. I was down on Newport Street in OB by the beach the other day and it was just so dirty, nasty and disgusting I didn’t even have a good time. And I like funky neighborhoods! You also can get a lot of jet noise throughout that whole area.
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