[earlyretirement]

Things don’t move in straight lines forever. I give the market no more than 12 months then we will probably move into recession. I’m not sure of your timing.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=flu][quote=AN][quote=ocrenter][quote=flu-redux][quote=The-Shoveler][quote=flu]

Carlsbad now.[/quote]
Wow, close to my end of town.

Living or just working?

Carlsbad has grownup a lot in the last 10 years, kind of spilling over into the surrounds as well.[/quote]

Working, though the thought of getting a second home has crossed my mind.[/quote]

well at least you are going against traffic.

gonna be difficult to arrange a lunch get-together then…[/quote]There’s always Carmel Valley as a place in the middle.[/quote]

True. On one day each week, we’re required to take a 3 hour “recess” after lunch. I usually take that time to run on the beach. But I don’t mind driving a little bit to meet for lunch. Getting to RB though was tough. Last time I dropped my car off for a recall, it took me like 1hr 30 minutes one way.[/quote]

Hey flu! You’re still on my list of have to meet posters. I’ve met several posters from Piggington and all were really grounded, intelligent people. Definitely we’ll have to meet up. Let me know if you and ocrenter meet up for lunch and I’d love to meet you as well.

I haven’t read the forum in a long time but ocrenter told me about his post so I had to check it out. I had lunch with Rich a few months ago and was great catching up. Miss reading this board.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=kev374]check this listing out LMAO!

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1020-E-75th-St_Los-Angeles_CA_90001_M12384-35149%5B/quote%5D

Now that is funny! Wow, talk about a fixer upper.

[earlyretirement]

Definitely it makes sense to go for replacement cost vs. actual cost. You don’t want to be underinsured.

Also, make sure you shop around. When buying my home in Santaluz I found there was a HUGE spread between various companies. Even different offices within the same company in different neighborhoods would have shockingly different values.

I found a GREAT insurance company that was much lower than all the other companies that I got quotes from.

[earlyretirement]

I long suspected back in 2011 that there were serious issues with the PUSD internal workings. One of the big reasons why I paid off my Mello Roos back in 2011.

I’m not surprised to read this. I wish these types of cases would end up with criminal action but it almost never does.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=flu]

I just wish I picked up SFH’s when prices were still cheap. I’m currently priced out out Mira Mesa SFH. Lol.

Home prices in MM can’t possibly be worse than it is right now in Carmel Valley. I’m seeing 3/3 condos that at peak were in the $600’s now well above peak trying to push into the high $6, low $7s..[/quote]

Totally agree flu. My biggest mistake is not picking up another SFH for an investment property back when I bought my primary residence in mid 2011. There were so many deals back then. I did make some offers but never pulled the trigger on any. I almost bought a 2nd place in Carmel Valley but didn’t and totally regret it. Prices are at peak levels again. Totally crazy.

It will be interesting to see what this place goes for.

[earlyretirement]

I wouldn’t look at a paid off Mello Roos as a negative when selling. I’d actually look at it as a huge positive in an up market like this. I actually met a few people that also paid off their MR and they were able to use it as a big selling point when selling as the buyers could roll up the extra cost into a mortgage vs. shelling out cash out of their pockets each year.

If it’s taking you forever to rent then it’s either priced too high or it’s not as appealing as others. Ideally you’ll want to paint rooms neutral colors, have clean carpet, etc.

Always better to lower prices and keep it rented. I own a ton of rental properties and a philosophy I had from long ago is a rental day is much like life. Once it goes by you can never recover it again.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=ocrenter]https://youtu.be/nGHmk4UeK_w

starting at 10:30, footage of fraudulent loans using fake documentations and inflated sales price reminiscent of our own bubble from 10 years ago.[/quote]

Thanks for sharing ocrenter! That video brought back memories from our own housing mess. There will also be a day of reckoning for China and unfortunately we’ll probably feel it here in the USA as well.

Great seeing you today at lunch. We have to do that more often!

[earlyretirement]

[quote=moneymaker]Didn’t mean to ding your integrity ER, I guess if that’s what is covered then by all means go for it. Did you hear about the Chinese guy that bought a small tea bowl with a chicken on it for $36 million and used his Black Amex to pay for it.[/quote]

Funny moneymaker! I thought you were kidding until I googled it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-18/chinese-gets-422-million-amex-points-with-36-million-cup.html

Oh no worries. You didn’t ding my integrity at all. I just think many people are clueless to the really rich benefits that they offer. Even people that don’t spend tons of money traveling typically buy stuff and I can tell you after being an AMEX cardholder for 20+ years. LOTS of stuff breaks 90 days into owning it. And most stores won’t take it back.

Or just stuff that gets lost or stolen. I think even the vast majority of AMEX cardholders don’t know all the benefits which is what AMEX is counting on. But certainly they definitely will reimburse you for any of these things that occur. And they don’t drop you as a cardmember even if you take advantage of it. Really amazing benefits at the Platinum level.

[earlyretirement]

Huh? See that’s what I mean. Many people don’t understand the benefits. It’s NOT entitlement or fraud! It’s simply the purchase protection benefit.

“Purchases made with the Platinum Card in the event they are accidentally damaged, stolen, or lost for up to 90 days from the date of purchase are covered”.

You have 3 months of coverage no matter if you accidentally damaged or lost or stolen. I’ve had many friends that bought expensive Armani shirts and then had ink stain it and AMEX bought them a new one.

It’s just one of those benefits. This has nothing to do with entitlement issues. This has everything to do with paying $450 a year annual fee to get a certain set of benefits including this amazing feature.

If you got fire insurance for your house and then it burned within 2 months and the insurance company covered it, I doubt you would expect people to say you have “entitlement issues”. You’d simply be taking advantage of your coverage.

[earlyretirement]

Some one asked me to respond to this thread via PM so I am. I’ve been so crazy busy I haven’t had time to read the boards the past several months but happy to post about a topic I know well.

I’d have to strongly DISAGREE with those that say it’s a “status symbol” thingy. People often say that but don’t really understand all the benefits. Does it make sense for everyone? Nope it sure doesn’t. But for those that travel often or buy a lot of electronics it DOES make sense and the benefits are better than anything I’ve ever seen and I’ve had several cards over the years.

AMEX has moved to allowing to make minimum payments. Or they call it “pay over time” feature. I’m not sure what the interest rate is as I’ve always just paid all my credit cards in full every month.

For those that travel often (or even a few times a year) Platinum AMEX gives you a $200 rebate on almost every airline. You don’t even need to travel. You can even buy gift certificates and they will credit $200 per year. For example, I choose American Airlines and get $200 credited each and every year for purchases. So that takes the true cost down to $250 a year.

They give you a free membership to Priority Club for Airport VIP lounges. No foreign transaction fees for those of us that travel abroad frequently. They reimburse you the $100 TSA fee for Global Entry or SENTRI.

The extended warranty and Return Protection programs are AMAZING! Purchase protection as well is amazing! I can’t tell you how much I’ve saved over the years with those programs. Much more than the $450 annual fee. AMEX is simply the best. ( https://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/card-benefits/ )

I not only have the USA AMEX Platinum card but I also pay $550 a year to have the Platinum UK card. The benefits are mind blowing. (Again NOT for everyone but if you travel there are some amazing benefits).

http://www.americanexpress.com/lacidc/iccsite/pdf/Platinum_Card_Summary_of_Travel_Insurance_Benefits.pdf

Check out some of those benefits. And they are amazingly great about it when you need it. I travel quite frequently for both work and also with my family and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken advantage of these amazing benefits from the declining ALL coverage on insurance and getting covered worldwide, to having luggage get lost or delayed and getting to spend $500, to even getting stuck in a blizzard and having AMEX pay for my hotel, rental car and all meals even when it was weather related.

Read some of the medical benefits when traveling. I’ve also had to take advantage of that benefit when on one vacation I had an incident where both of my kids had to be taken in ambulance to the emergency room. They covered everything. Thousands of dollars in expenses from the ambulance, to the ER doctor, to the hospital, etc. (Amazing to see how many separate entities bill you when there is a visit to the hospital in ambulance).

Read that link I posted above and especially read the Travel inconvenience section. Just amazing.

I’ve also had situations where just everyday stuff that I bought was lost, damaged, stolen and they covered it. Or the time I was in Bora Bora on vacation jetskiing and my wife’s $400 Prada sunglasses that she bought 2 months before fell off not to be recovered. No questions asked, they simply reimbursed us.

Again, not for everyone but I think it’s incorrect to say that it’s just for status because it certainly is not. I’d say the AMEX Black card would be more for status. I’ve been offered that card but it’s obscenely expensive and most of the benefits are covered by the Platinum card for a fraction of the cost.

I’d go so far to say that anyone that travels a few times a year would definitely get great benefit from the AMEX Platinum as well as people that buy a lot of stuff.

Also, I just wanted to point out that although I travel quite a bit I NEVER in 20+ years having an AMEX have I used any of the hotel booking, or travel booking services or events. I do all that myself so that isn’t a reason to get the card.

The main benefits are what I pointed out above. I have other cards including Black Mastercard along with several others and most of them are VERY painful to actually get them to cover a loss, warranty, etc. Tons of paperwork and hassles. AMEX is only an online website where you fill out the details and they have just credited back the full amount. Most times I never even have to talk to an agent.

If you buy something and the store won’t take it back because it’s past the 30 day return policy or whatever, AMEX will take care of it. I’ve had friends that have bought VERY expensive designer Italian shoes and they fell apart within like 40 days. The store wouldn’t take them back. She just called AMEX while she was at the store. And they told her to just leave them at the store and walk out. They credited her the entire cost.

Again, even if you aren’t a big spender most of us buy electronics, clothes, stuff and sh*t happens and they are a breeze to deal with on that stuff.

[earlyretirement]

I haven’t had the chance to read the board in a while. Just glanced at this. I’ve owned over 1,000 domain names in the past 20+ years. Many I’ve sold, some I’ve used. Many I still pay the annual fees on. The short answer on the value just depends what they are willing to pay.

I wouldn’t say this is one of those super valuable domain names that tons of people would want. The best strategy is throw out some super high offer and see what they counter back with as a best offer.

I’ve also purchased a few domain names from other people. Some very reasonable for $1,500 for what I thought were desirable domain names. All the way up to $15,000 for other really desirable domain names.

Just make sure you use an escrow service if you do sell so you are both protected.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=bearishgurl]Thanks so much, ER, especially for the advice on keeping the “Member Since (2009)” date. I have already been told by their CSR this morning that they were pretty sure I could keep my same card number for the Blue card if I chose to later downgrade. If this happens, it is likely that no change at all will appear on my AMEX account on my credit reports, except, possibly a new “credit limit.”

It seems like a new “credit limit” will only serve to help my credit score, not hinder it.

Well, I guess I better check out Amazon and spend whatever remaining points I have pretty soon ….[/quote]

I’m not sure about keeping the same credit card #. I would doubt it if you are changing types of cards but maybe they changed that. IIRC, when I was changing between gold to platinum I couldn’t keep the same # but that was a long time ago.

But I wouldn’t get too stressed at all thinking about this. Your FICO is really high and even if you closed this card I doubt it would cause your score to go down too much and certainly nothing to worry about.

Realistically when you are this high I’ve been told by my friend at FICO it’s all the same really. But I’ve been guilty of also being worried about these sorts of things.

Because it’s been so long ago that I had a mortgage on a house or a car loan that these things dropped off my credit report and I pay off my credit cards each month. So rather than paying cash for my last new car I just got a 1.9% loan so I’d get the account mix back up and sure enough once I got the car loan added my FICO went up higher.

It’s funny how FICO works. And how they have gotten some of us consumers to really focus on that score.

[earlyretirement]

Hey BG,

Just my opinion so please take it with a grain of salt. I’ve had an AMEX card since I was a teenager (I had a job in high school and they gave me one while I was still in high school). I’ve had it all these years.

I agree with some of the other posts. I wouldn’t worry in the least about this. Your score won’t go down much at all.

One of my clients works at FICO and he told me a while back it’s this formula for your FICO score:

35% Payment History
30% Debt Usage
15% Credit Age (Average age of all your credit accounts)
10% Credit Inquires
10% Account Mix

Also, something important to note with American Express is they will allow you to get a new card and KEEP your “member since” date. So even if you downgrade to the Blue card, request that they change your member since date to when you got your Gold card and they will do it! And it should reflect as such on your FICO report.

For example, I started out as a teenager as a Green card member. Then in college I upgraded to Gold then when I graduated from college I got the Platinum. A few years ago I got the SPG AMEX card they sent out a new card and it had member since 2011 and it reflected as such on my credit report. Then I asked them to change it to match my other cards. They did and immediately fed ex’ed me out a new card a few days later. The next FICO report the following month it was already reflecting back to the original member since date. They don’t automatically do that when you downgrade cards but they WILL do that if you request. (I learned this trick many years ago from an AMEX executive client of mine).

So I’d recommend that you call AMEX and cancel your gold card. They will try to get you to keep it. That’s when you can tell them you’d be willing to downgrade to the Blue card but request they keep your “member since” date as when you first got the gold card.

I’ve ALWAYS done that for the various AMEX cards that I have and they have done it and it reflects as such on my credit report. Keep in mind if you have additional members they will NOT backdate their member since dates. Just yours as the primary card owner.

Even if you didn’t do this as you can see above from the breakdown on the FICO score, you wouldn’t lose many points at all. Realistically anything over probably 775 is probably all the same. I’m also over 800 but never really noticed anything different at all.

But if it’s that big of a concern for you, which I don’t blame you for wondering is make sure you request once you convert over to the Blue card to keep your member since date the same as Gold and it WILL reflect as such on FICO report.

I hope that helps.

[earlyretirement]

[quote=HenryPP]The other homes in the neighborhood are very similar. Same square footage for the houses, with minor variation in land area. All were built at the same time, all look very similar. Basically a neighborhood of cookie-cutter mid-sized family homes.

As for prices cooling, why would only my house be cooling, according to Zillow? Zillow doesn’t have the prices on any of the others dropping. And a 30% drop in a few months is not “cooling” – it’s a crash.

And Trulia shows all the houses, including mine, rising.

Maybe it’s as livinincali says. Maybe Zillow just doesn’t like me. 😀

I’m treating it all as a bit of a joke. Except I have this nagging feeling that someone is manipulating the price for this particular home, and I don’t know why.[/quote]

HenryPP,

I wouldn’t worry about it. You might just want to click on the “Edit” button and there is a section called “Report Problem with Listing”. My house was actually listed twice on Zillow. And the values were $200,000 difference on the SAME house. I reported it and Zillow didn’t do anything for over 18 months but finally they did delete the 2nd one that I reported as there were two listings.

So, you might want to report it and see if it does any good. I agree with the others that it really is a moot point what Zillow gives as a Zestimate. It’s all kind of gimmicky that actually drives traffic to their site from people checking their zestimates all the time.

But if it makes you feel better you can actually put a note in the “Owner Estimate” section. I actually have friends that do that. Some put in notes stating how it’s off or why they believe it’s off.

I wouldn’t worry about some conspiracy theory. It’s just that there can be many factors for mistakes including human error entering it, etc.

I actually met Stan Humphries from Zillow the co-creator of the Zestimate earlier this year at a real estate conference. I chatted with him for about 45 minutes. He’s a really nice guy. It was funny as there were probably over 100 people in the audience in a seminar he was giving and they were all bitching about the Zestimates. Zillow really doesn’t care if they are off or on.

Actually in my area they aren’t far off but I know other areas that are wildly off. I don’t think it matters either way more than owner ego. I’d focus on comps of other similar properties in the area.

[Author]

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