[Doofrat]

Depends on where you work. My wife and I used to live in Carlsbad where rents would be about $1800 /mo right now I’d guess. We had to pay trash, water, and sewer there and then drive for almost an hour each way to and from work.
Now we’re in Carmel Valley and rent for just over $2000 (3 br, 2.5 bath, 2 car attached) (a larger and nicer neighbors place is renting for $2300 so I’d guess the rent’s fair for the area), but we don’t pay Water/Trash/Sewer (HOA pays this), so that saves us $80. Also, we figured that we save about $200 a month in gas because we’re so close to work (12 minutes with traffic, 10 mins without), so you get what you pay for as far as location goes. I know $2000 sounds like alot more, but when you count in gas, and commute time, that can make the difference up quickly.

[Doofrat]

From a prior post by me:

From what I understand, you can’t just walk away from the primary loan either. Say you owe $600,000 on the loan and you walk away. The bank forecloses and auctions your previous home for $480,000. The bank cannot come after you for the $120,000, but I believe they are required to send the IRS a 1099-C for the $120,000 of cancelled debt which is considered a gain to you.

See requirements for 1099-A and 1099-C in regards to property abandonment and debt cancellation:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099ac.pdf

[Doofrat]

You’ve gotta ask yourself why, with all the E-Z credit flowing around the US like a flood of molasses, would any of these people need to go to an alternate source like that website for credit.

Just reading some of the requests really makes you wonder.

Like the guy who claims to have $1000 per month left (3000 income – 2000 expenses)with which to pay back a $5000 “debt consolidation” loan, why not just pay it back in 5 months?

Or the guy in the red shirt who wants money to pay back taxes? From the wording of his request, it sounds like he is asking for a gift, not a loan. Think about it, you’re giving money to somebody who can’t even pay their taxes?!?

This site is funny to browse though though, thanks for sharing!

[Doofrat]

Think of all the possibilities before you decide to buy.

Say housing busts after you buy and they haven’t finished the conversion on the entire complex yet, what will you be left with? You’ll have an apartment that you “own” and you’ll be paying a bunch more than rent to your new landlord, the bank. It might be hard to sell a house if housing busts, but nobody is going to touch a conversion in a down market. On top of that, how will you feel if they have to revert the remaining units back to apartments, or roll back the prices for the rest of the units? You think you’ll sue? What if the original company goes bust with the housing market?

[Doofrat]

You don’t need to include your phone # to register, I did not include my # or address, just an e-mail and the other info.

[Doofrat]

I just heard that all fixed rate loans are going to reset to 14.3% January 2007, all of them!

This is from an inside source!

Discuss!

[Doofrat]

Go to Catalina on those catamarans that leave out of LA. Bring your snorkeling gear, Catalina water peaks in temperature around this very weekend every year.
Snorkel around La Jolla, or rent a kayak and kayak around the caves and check out the seals and other marine life.

Go rollerblading around Mission Beach and PB.

Go to the Paradise Point hotel and feed the ducks there while you’re in PB. Usually that’s better in the winter when there are more of them, but if you bring some bread, you’ll get mobbed like a rock star.

If it’s low tide, and you have mountain bikes, ride them on the beach.

[Doofrat]

Is there any resource that shows heloc activity on homes?

[Doofrat]

I assumed wages stayed the same and stated so. I’ll calculate the last downturn tonight or tomorrow and use the actual figures and see if it’s any different, but the last peak and bottom were also not as extreme as this one, so there would be alot more influence from factors such as wages.

[Doofrat]

Oh crap, I didn’t realize what I said until I posted it! Please, if there are any developers reading this (probably not) I was just joking about the dorm room conversions! Pretend I didn’t say it, it was only a joke, do not take that comment seriously, the college students need a place to stay too!

[Doofrat]

I love those commercials for one of the V (Villa Vicenze, or Verano, or Venetian, or Vileno, o.k. I made that last one up)developments in UTC. I think they used midgets as actors to make the places look bigger. They couldn’t get a shot of the place without getting three walls in the frame they’re so small.

That place will be great for UCSD students. If they like to party, the stainless steel fridge will match with the stainless steel keg.

In my opinion, in the future, people will look back and realize that some people overpaid for their houses, but the most amazing thing will be how somebody paid $379,000 for a little unit that used to be rented out to college students. At least the house will be able to be sold, in a down market, who’s going to touch one of these units? What’s next? Dorm room conversions?

[Doofrat]

Former San Diegan,

I calculated the figures I got by getting the income figure by dividing the median price by the income to price ratio. I then figured out how much that median priced house would have to drop to get the ratio back to the figures on the graph. I did’t use the percent decrease of the ratios themselves.

[Doofrat]

On the one hand, you do kind of feel some pity for some of the people who get involved in this because they are just so naive. You really have to seek out a business/economics education in the US. High Schools don’t even teach the basics of business, they just teach math, english, PE, and some computers now. Sure there are some home economics classes, but come on.
Alot of people have no idea what they are getting into when they get into these half million dollar 20 and 30 year term business deals. They lack the critical thinking and math skills to analyze even basic mortgage and interest calculations.
On the other hand, you get kind of sick of hearing some of these people just parrot that same old things they’ve heard before: Can’t lose money on real estate, you get to write off the interest, need to build equity, paying rent is throwing away money, everybody wants to live here.

[Doofrat]

I believe there are two kinds of flipping. One kind is when you take a dilapidated residence and get a great deal because it doesn’t show well or is uninhabitable. You then fix it up by making actual changes to the house to make it presentable and liveable such as fixing that giant hole in the bathroom floor.
The other kind of “flipping” is really post 2000 day trading. Buffy and Skip quit their job and buy a place that is fine to live in, but has a popcorn ceiling. They fix it up by hiring a contractor to remove the popcorn. They have the contractor also install a granite countertop, new appliances, and carpet. The escrow when they bought the place takes one to two months and the ‘fix up’ takes a couple of months. In that time period, the market is so hot that the value of the place has risen and they make a profit when they sell it. Buffy and Skip think they are geniuses, when all they really did was hold a rapidly appreciating asset for a few months in a hot market.
Eventually, the market will take care of amateur flippers the same way it took care of daytraders. No need for laws or regulations.
I wonder what the next get rich scheme will be? Maybe commodities will come back into fashion, but I doubt it. The difference between housing and commodities (or stock) is that you actually have to have money to enter that market, not like housing. Maybe the next get rich scheme won’t be about getting rich, but be about getting food.

[Doofrat]

Carmel Valley. I just signed up for ZipRealty, so I’ll have to start using it instead of flyers. Gotta love Zillow too.

[Author]

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